The pain in Minato’s skull alleviated once she had established enough distance. But the Varda-Vaos’s black light currently covered a range of around ten meters, and it was only growing more powerful. The Valiants, moreover, had established a defensive perimeter around their master.
“Perhaps you came in small numbers hoping to avoid detection…? You should have at least brought the wielder of the Ser Veresta. Though if I wanted, I could contain even one of your Four Colored Runeswords.”
The Varda-Vaos’s boast was plainspoken, but it was probably true. Sylvia doubted that this one-of-a-kind Orga Lux, with its own ego and the power to usurp its user’s body, would see any meaning in elevating itself or denigrating others. As far as the Varda-Vaos was concerned, what she had just said was mere fact.
Still…
“Hah! Ha-ha-ha…!” Sylvia’s brow furrowed in response to the pounding inside her head, but even so, she let out a dauntless laugh.
“…Is something amusing?” the Varda-Vaos asked, her voice carrying a hint of suspicion, though her countenance remained unchanged.
“No, it’s just… I’m the Sigrdrífa, and well, it sounds like you’ve got a pretty low opinion of me…!” Sylvia responded in challenge. “Sure…us Stregas might be no match for an Orga Lux… But you know… There was once a Strega strong enough to upend all of Asterisk…! Even you have to know that…! I mean, she was Madiath Mesa’s—Lamina Mortis’s—own tag partner…!”
“…What…?”
Sylvia herself had only recently learned about her, when Helga had provided her with data on the Festa as they searched for clues on the Golden Bough Alliance.
She was referring to the Strega Akari Yachigusa, who alongside Madiath Mesa had once triumphed in the Phoenix.
But while she had won the Festa, it was Madiath who had confronted their opponents in every match, so there was little record of her achievements in battle. Yet while they had fought together in the Festa only once, her abilities as a Strega were plain to see.
In short, her overall strength was so shocking that even though she had never before entered the rankings, those who witnessed her performance in the Festa granted her an unofficial title— the Witch of Magnificent Ice, Fimbulvetr.
“And you know what my ability is, right…? The power to evoke all kinds of phenomena through music…?”
“…No…!”
Sylvia took a deep breath and burst into song, her voice bombastic and sonorous.
“Come ye, O three winters, freeze ye the forest of all that dwells betwixt heaven and earth.”
At that moment, the movement of mana around her began to slow.
Fimbulvetr’s extraordinary ability was the power to completely halt the flow of mana within its effective area, negating not only the powers of Dantes and Stregas, but also all Luxes and Orga Luxes that relied on the conversion of mana to function. Naturally, without an energy source, those devices would simply stop functioning.
Though Sylvia’s ability was remarkably versatile, the amount of prana it required depended on the difficulty of the task at hand. If she tried to imitate Fimbulvetr’s powers in full, she would exhaust her prana reserves in a matter of seconds. Not only that, since the effects of her songs grew in potency the longer she sang, the field would likewise cease expanding when she stopped. In short, the area would be too narrow, the duration too short.
“O winter of wind summon ye time; O winter of the sword call ye action; O winter of the wolf invite ye slumber.”
Given the limits of her abilities, Sylvia focused not on freezing the mana around her but on slowing its movements to a crawl.
“No…!”
For the first time, the Varda-Vaos’s expression was one of dismay.
Sylvia’s plan was working.
The black light on the verge of consuming the aerial garden drew back at the edges, the conversion of mana unable to keep up. This wasn’t the kind of problem that could be resolved by increasing one’s power output.
“Dull, rust, grow ye stagnant, and silence all life, O winters three!”
At last, the movement of mana around them had been reduced to around one-tenth its usual level.
“Sylvia, leave the Valiants to us,” Claudia declared.
“Go, Sylvia!” Minato yelled.
With that, her two companions headed off in separate directions and made for the Valiants surrounding the Varda-Vaos. The autonomous puppets were unusually lethargic as they moved to intercept—little surprise seeing as they were powered by manadite. There was bound to be a drop in energy under these circumstances.
Claudia’s Pan-Dora and Minato’s Járngreipr would likewise be largely inoperable, but given their respective skill levels, they ought to be able to prevail against the Valiants even outnumbered.
With the Valiants under control, the only one left was—
“…Stop, Sylvia Lyyneheym!”
In stark contrast to her previous attitude, the Varda-Vaos lunged toward Sylvia in a sideward swipe, her eyes blazing.
Nonetheless, the battle-ax in her right hand had now shrunk to less than half its original size, and although the blow was a hard one, it no longer overwhelmed her immediately. It seemed the Varda-Vaos’s own power output had similarly fallen.
“You’re showing some pretty human emotions there…!” Sylvia, having finished her song, quipped as she pushed forward.
The Varda-Vaos clicked her tongue and fell back. “Inadvertently, yes. Surrounded by human emotions for so long, I suppose it was inevitable.”
“Oh? So you’re letting people influence you?”
Sylvia stepped to one side, feinted, then lashed out with an attack directed to the right side of her foe’s body—which the Varda-Vaos promptly caught with a new jet-black ax emanating from her left hand. Her opponent was now wielding two weapons, but as she couldn’t draw on a large amount of power, that required diverting resources from elsewhere.
“Adaptation, not influence. And as I said, inadvertent!”
Sylvia stood her ground as she parried fresh blows from every possible angle.
Her foe was faster than she remembered, but her overall technique remained familiar.
She parried the ax barreling toward her right side with her sword, then stepped in toward the blow aimed at her left, closing in and using her elbow to hold back the Varda-Vaos’s arm. The blade of black light grazed against her shoulder, but she paid that no mind as she slammed her knee into the Varda-Vaos’s gut with all her might.
“Gah…!”
Having thrown her foe backward, Sylvia launched into a fresh pursuit, but the Varda-Vaos adjusted her fighting posture and threw both axes forward to keep her opponent in check. Of course, Sylvia could easily repel those weapons, and with her foe now unarmed, she had just been handed an easy opportunity to—
“…!”
As she waited for the right timing, she was suddenly hit by two counterblows—sharp jabs from the sides of her foe’s hands. The strikes dug into her cheeks and side, but thankfully, the wounds weren’t too deep.
Once more, she fell back to establish some distance between herself and the Varda-Vaos.
“Right, right. Ursula had a first-class physique… It wasn’t like I’d forgotten, but it didn’t occur to me that you’d use it for yourself.”
“Good grief…” The Varda-Vaos manifested a fresh black ax in her hands, albeit at an unusually slow speed. “It’s like fighting without being able to breathe. You’re a shrewd one, I’ll give you that.”
“If you had bothered to watch my quarterfinal fight with Orphelia, you’d have seen I’m pretty good at countering people’s abilities. Especially when it comes to enemies who’ve already beaten me once before.”
Slowing down the movement of the surrounding mana looked to be even more effective than she had hoped.
However, the song’s effect wouldn’t last much longer.
Of course, she could try singing it again, but there would inevitably be a lag, and something told her the Varda-Vaos wouldn’t hesitate to capitalize on that.
“Hmm… And this from someone who failed abysmally at stopping Orphelia?”
“Ha, can’t say that doesn’t sting…!”
Her only choice here was to follow through quickly and decide this bout while she still had the advantage.
And so, holding her sword down low, she closed the gap with her opponent and slashed upward with all her strength.
“Tch…!”
The Varda-Vaos crossed her two axes to block the attack, but Sylvia instead launched a sharp thrust to her abdomen where she had lowered her guard. Her foe at once brought her right hand back to block it with only moments to spare, and Sylvia followed with an uninterrupted and exquisitely precise chain of strikes.
Overall, Sylvia’s close-combat abilities were clearly the superior of the two. At this rate, she should be able to push through.
“…You attack with determination…!” the Varda-Vaos growled, now on the defensive. “But I wonder… Does this human body not belong to someone precious to you?”
“Huh…?”
The moment that she heard those words, Sylvia felt something snap inside her.
“Uggggghhhhh!”
The Varda-Vaos managed to block Sylvia’s full-powered swipe, but the impact sent her flying backward before rolling across the floor into a flower bed.
“You’re going to try taking her hostage now?” Sylvia, suppressing her rage, slowly closed the distance between them. “Don’t you dare insult me. Do you think my resolve is that weak, after all this time? I won’t hesitate again. I’ll even cut off one or two of your limbs if I have to. Fortunately, there are some good healers in this city, so we’ll be able to reconnect them if necessary.”
The Varda-Vaos rose unsteadily to her feet, readying her axes.
“If Ursula ends up hating or resenting me, I can live with that. I’ll do my best to apologize and make amends, but I’m fine if she doesn’t forgive me. I just want her back. That’s all.”
“…I see. I suppose I still don’t understand you humans!” With that, the Varda-Vaos suddenly launched an attack.
Sylvia easily dodged the strike, slipping through her foe’s guard and cutting at her legs.
“…!”
As the Varda-Vaos fell to the ground without so much as a grunt, Sylvia plunged her blade of light toward her.
Even if the Orga Lux itself was undamaged, it relied on the human body it had usurped to move, so escape would prove impossible if it couldn’t physically move that body’s legs. What’s more, the Varda-Vaos still had only limited access to her own abilities.
Now, at long last—
“…You’ve let down your guard, haven’t you?”
“…?!”
At that moment, the Varda-Vaos’s urm-manadite began to glow with jet-black light.
The light, much weaker than before, was still enough to cause a strong headache—but at the same time, it offered Sylvia the smallest of openings.
However—
“I only needed a moment. At this distance, in this position, even the briefest window of opportunity is enough for me to do this…”
The next second, the Varda-Vaos’s own body—that oversized mechanical necklace, disproportionately large around Ursula’s neck—wriggled as if it was alive, extending a tentacle-like cord to entangle Sylvia.
Then, as the urm-manadite in its center glowed ominously, her consciousness was abruptly cut off.