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Why isn’t it working? Minoru thought.
But he quickly realized his mistake. Katsuto’s magic shield was constructed in a curved shape that is four meters in diameter and two meters tall. In other words, it was an all-encompassing wall that rendered Minoru’s Qimen Dunjia useless.
Suddenly, the wall began to close in from above. The ceiling of the cylindrical cage descended, pressing down on the entire enclosed space.
Minoru countered with his own physical shield. He poured all his strength into a fifty-centimeter circular shield to ward off the four-meter-wide wall.
Minoru’s and Katsuto’s barriers shattered simultaneously. Without a moment to waste, Minoru cast a teleportation spell to escape from Katsuto’s cage and fell to one knee as he landed.
Minoru had just clashed with the strongest barrier spell of a family known as the Iron Wall. Both spells ultimately canceled each other out, since Katsuto had spread his magic widely and Minoru’s was concentrated over a smaller area.
This contest of strength naturally left Minoru exhausted. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the luxury to rest and wait for his strength to recover. Katsuto was not the type to grant a reprieve. Before the older boy could launch a counterattack, Minoru unleashed his own spell: Cloudless Thunder.
This powerful offensive magic was among Minoru’s specialties and proved particularly effective in close combat. Given his current exhaustion, it was by no means an easy spell to cast. But he knew anything half-hearted would be meaningless against Katsuto.
A mass of air molecules transformed into plasma, shooting a torrent of electrons. But the attack did not hit Minoru’s opponent. The delayed swarm of positively charged psions that followed were similarly thwarted by Katsuto’s magic barrier.
Luckily, Minoru had anticipated this. He had never expected Cloudless Thunder to land a solid hit on Katsuto. The spell’s main purpose was to disrupt Katsuto’s attacks and shift the momentum of the battle in Minoru’s favor.
Try this on for size! Minoru yelled internally.
He pulled a glistening black talisman from his pocket and infused it with intent. Suddenly, a four-legged ebony beast leaped from his waist and charged at Katsuto.
This was Hellhound, an offensive spell adapted from old Western magic that Gongjin Zhou had renamed Shadow Beast. In modern magic terms, it could be classified as exotyped magic that created the illusion of an attack by fangs and claws.
Exotyped magic reverses causality from the astral side, Minoru reasoned. That means a physical shield shouldn’t be able to block it!
The ebony Shadow Beast ran at Katsuto but vanished upon hitting his magic barrier. Minoru was confused but refused to let himself be thrown off. He calmly analyzed Katsuto’s magic based on what he saw.
Does Juumonji family reflection magic block its target while maintaining the natural attributes of other spatial elements? he wondered.
Katsuto was using the Juumonji family reflection spell, Phalanx. For Minoru, the real issue wasn’t just the defense itself but the fact that it also had Area Interference properties.
This was area-of-effect magic that did not permit alterations to spatial phenomena beyond the defined blocking functions. Both illusions and physical constructs were projected into space. Unless Minoru’s power could exceed Katsuto’s Phalanx, all his attacks would be nullified by the barrier.
Minoru had obtained techniques from Gongjin Zhou and used his parasite to increase his speed, but his strength remained the same. While he may have had higher phenomenon interference than most mages, he unfortunately lacked what it took to break through Katsuto’s barrier.
Minoru cast an array of illusions of himself and quickly darted between their shadows. He had avoided full-fledged projections to conserve his strength. As Katsuto was distracted by these decoys, he unleashed a flurry of his usual spells: Spark, Grand Thunder, Plasma Bullet, and Heatwave Blade.
Then he included some less familiar ones, such as Nitrogen Storm and Dry Blizzard, which were more the Saegusa sisters’ specialty. The trick was to catch Katsuto off guard with the sheer variety.
However, Katsuto successfully countered each one. Seizing his chance, he used his Phalanx barrier to launch an attack in a scattershot pattern. One of these attacks hit Minoru directly.
Phalanx Attack was a spell that destroyed an opponent’s defenses by repeatedly slamming solid, impenetrable barriers into them, which ultimately crushed their body. A single barrier was basically equivalent to a standard weighting-type spell.
Luckily for Minoru, he managed to counter Katsuto’s barrier with his own physical shield. But by doing so, he effectively exposed his position in the process. The Phalanx Attack was relentless. There was not even time to cast Qimen Dunjia.
Minoru simultaneously deactivated his shield and cast acceleration-type magic. But he wasn’t quick enough. Katsuto’s barriers hurled Minoru’s body into the distance.
In the midst of excruciating pain and fading consciousness, Minoru desperately maintained his focus. He tried shifting his trajectory upward at a higher momentum. Despite several broken bones and deep internal injuries, he then cast anti-gravity magic on himself.
Minoru’s body ascended into the darkness. Nursing his wounds, he broke through the low-hanging clouds and made his escape.