“…Wait…please, not yet…,” I could only murmur to myself… After that, I couldn’t breathe as I watched the sky of despair start to come down on us like an avalanche. I felt helpless in a way I’d never felt before as I almost fell over.
There wasn’t anything we could do anymore.
No hero or heroine could come to save us.
And I realized that a lot of people were probably going to die. People of all ages huddled in the shelters, the good people carrying their elderly parents on their backs as they ran, even the thieves who were probably taking advantage of the situation, and the good guards who had kept their posts until the very end—my boss and Ilecia, who had always been there for me, and we, the summoners, who were supposed to have powers beyond human understanding… We were all going to be swallowed by the Angel-Eater of Silver and die.
The sky slowly fell on us.
I wouldn’t have felt satisfied unless I saw the scene through to the end, so I willed myself to keep my eyes open.
That was how I saw the warm light near me.
“Sasha?”
At the same time I saw Sasha engulfed in a glow in front of me, a beautiful six-winged archangel like a goddess stood up in the spacious road. She was easily tall enough to stand higher than the buildings around her. Her long platinum hair fluttered in the strong wind that had been stirred by the Angel-Eater’s giant movements.
I looked up at the archangel’s face from her feet.
“…Wait, Sasha…you’re not gonna—”
I watched her gracefully remove her mask with a hand several times larger than a person.
It was Sasha Shidoh Zultania’s beautiful face that appeared beneath. It wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say it was the most beautiful face in not just the Academy but all of Shidoh.
A Volte-face—when a summoner becomes one with their summon.
Right now, I was sure Sasha could have brought down an evil god on her own. She was the strongest summoner in the Academy and Raddermark’s last hope.
“Feil Fonaf.” Her amethyst eyes looked down at me; her lips said my name. “I’m truly glad you were the one to summon Pandora.”
Even though we were probably just ten seconds from total destruction in this god-awful situation, her gentle eyes and out-of-place dreadfully calm voice ousted the fear from my heart.
“Wait, Sasha. Not yet. We’re not done yet. There has to be somethin’ we can do, so don’t go—”
But in its place, anger took root in me.
Finally, Sasha flapped her glowing six wings and floated into the air. Even then, the beautiful girl was looking at tiny me.
“I’m leaving the rest to you,” she said. Finally—at the very end—she said with a small smile, “Please protect the town and our world.”
In the next moment, she flew straight into the sky like a meteor and opened a hole in the Angel-Eater of Silver’s massive form.
“You damn nitwit!!”
She’d gone so fast that I knew my yelling would never reach her.
I could see the actual sky through the giant hole in the Angel- Eater.
At its center, Sasha had spread her six wings and was brandishing a flaming sword as she fought off the many silver feelers coming at her from around the outside of the hole.
Whenever Sasha waved her sword, two or three of the feelers would be obliterated, but the Angel-Eater was able to cover practically the entire sky of Raddermark. Whenever her sword burned away one feeler, a new one would form on the body and doggedly pursue her.
She struck down five, and ten wriggled back out.
When she struck down ten, fifty leaped at her.
When she struck down a hundred of them, three hundred didn’t stop pursuing her.
The archangel it’d been waiting for all this time was right there for the taking. The Angel-Eater of Silver was probably feeling frenzied.
And soon, it was clear there was too much of a difference in how much of the Angel-Eater there was.
“STOP IT!!” I yelled again in vain as Sasha was taken by surprise and a feeler caught her.
All four of her limbs were restrained, and even more of the feelers relentlessly swarmed her. Like a powerless butterfly caught in a giant spider’s web, she couldn’t even put up a struggle as it swallowed her.
And in that moment…
“Please protect the town and our world.”
…Sasha’s voice rang again in my ears. “Fine! That’s exactly what I’ll do!!” I pulled my Summoner Incantations out of my robes. I sped through the pages, then as Cyril placed a hand on my shoulder and Myfila latched onto my side, I firmly started to chant the Legendary Beast of the Last Realm Pandora’s summoning verses.
“Arise, O beast that thwarts despair! Over darkened sea, your wings claim the air!”
All three of us glared at the sky with everything we could muster.
“An ending world entrusts a prayer to the beast from its fate to spare! As the ice of morn echoes the grief to bear!”
At that point, the “night” brought on by the Angel-Eater of Silver broke, and the wide swath of silver began to collect into one spot. It moved faster than the wind. It immediately started to form into a humanoid shape where it had swallowed Sasha—right at the center of where the six-winged archangel had been.
“Cry not for the morrows through loss ye acquire! Rejoice for the flower that blooms from the fire!”
There, it formed into a nude angel that must have been three hundred mejals tall—that was probably the best way to describe the Angel-Eater as she changed form and descended from the overcast sky.
“The lonesome beast offers a hymn come night! To the plunging stars upon their plight!”
But to me, as I summoned the god-killing beast, she was just the divine form of a being I wanted to beat to death.
“Anon! A far journey awaits thee! One of deep mercy, to alight! With the prayer-granting beast when thee unite!!”