He pulled the Ultra Magic Hardened Blade from his hip. The thruster nozzles inside his cloak lifted him up. A horrific quantity of eyes stared down at him from the disc above. He took a breath.
“Let’s go, Pleiades Wind!”
The disc Jave fired several hundred light bullets, and Kuon vanished.
As the invisible bullets slid off the Nürburg’s field and slammed into the ground, Kuon appeared diagonally above where he’d been. He hung there for a moment and then kicked off the air, leaping again. Cloak fluttering, he shot upwards towards the enemy looming far above.
Pleiades Wind was a hell of a thing Tooka had created for the Gate extermination operation. It kept the Shichisei Kenbu’s Nine-count Strike intact but took the bulky, cumbersome additional boosters, minimized them, and lined his cloak with them. The cloak itself was a cooling system for the thruster nozzles.
It also had one more feature.
“This is perfect, Tooka,” Kuon grinned, having stair-jumped all the way above the disc Jave. The cloaks thrusters were capable of momentary bursts of power, enabling large jumps but not the continuous output of your average DM. Division 1 power simply wasn’t suited for aerial combat.
But this gave Kuon the means to overcome that weakness.
He paused again in mid-air. At his feet was a round space approximately three meters wide. In that one place, the color of the sky and the flow of the clouds changed. Light reflected off of it like a round mirror.
Kuon was standing on a transparent, glass-like disc. The blue of the sky and the flow of the clouds and the light of the sun were all reflected off this virtual image. This was the Pleiades Wind’s secondary function, the Hortensie Felt—a function that generated an invisible foothold in mid-air.
The principle was simple: a portion of the Witch Bubble that normally surrounded him was instead solidified at his feet. This had been a common function in the first-generation DMs, but as time went on, the focus shifted to aerial combat using high-level magic. Since generating the foothold minimized the energy directed to the Witch Bubble and left the Cavalleria nearly defenseless, the technology was soon deprecated and eventually forgotten entirely. Tooka had happened across it in a German museum, displayed like a relic of ancient times. But for someone with magic as low as Kuon’s, a foothold was huge help.
The Witch Bubble was a magical weapon from the previous century, allowing operation in outer space or the ocean depths alike. It was an invincible shield of magic impenetrable by any physical attack, whether it be a nuclear missile or an orbital strike. Kuon was moving faster than the speed of sound, but the impact of his landing would never shatter it, which was ideal.
It was a Witch Wall that could not be harmed except by Jave attacks, since both their flesh and bullets were made of magic.
Countless eyes on the top of the disc Jave turned towards him. By then, a hail of light bullets had already shattered his foothold. The remains of it reverted to invisible particles, pulled after Kuon—who had leapt away a few moments ago—like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
Kuon made a foothold directly above it. He landed on it upside down and spread his cloak.
Shichisei Kenbu.
Bam! An ear-splitting crack echoed as the Cavalleria easily broke through the sound barrier, lunging towards the disc Jave. With the Jave’s aim thrown off, Kuon didn’t even need to dodge its bullets; they passed harmlessly by. It gathered several hundred tentacles in an attempt to block his path, but…
Chijin.
He was suddenly somewhere else—at the edge of the disc. This art combined his shukuchi with the thruster’s output. His left arm thrust forward, heedless of his master’s warnings.
Ultimate Art: Mumyo Tosen.
The Blade in Kuon’s hand shot forward. It struck the light of life he saw within the disc Jave, generating Magical Dispersal.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
As the disc Jave fired bullets in Kuon’s direction, more tentacles burned away the area Kuon had stabbed. The disc was cutting a portion of its own flesh away, like amputating a gangrened limb.
“…Tch.”
Kuon frowned as he leapt wildly through the air, struggling to calm his ragged heartbeat. Was this why he’d seen several lights of life? Was this thing not a single Jave but several fused together? He couldn’t see a brain or any sort of command center. He supposed that meant he’d just have to kill all of them.
“Nine-count Strike.”
As Kuon bounded around, nine arms fanned out from the outside of the cloak on his back. With this halo backing him, Kuon swung his Blade sideways, focusing his magic.
“Shijin—Reppakuzan!”
A massive, seemingly infinite red light flew towards the disc Jave. It threw up hundreds of glowing tentacles, blocking Kuon’s red sword with a crackle that shook the air. Two seconds later, the Reppakuzan’s power weakened and the sword dispersed, the particles scattering through the air. One side of the disc had melted a little, but he’d been unable to significantly damage the disc Jave.
“Damn it…!”
Nine-count Strike allowed him to boost his magic to Division 5 for a mere nine seconds. He’d used six of those seconds and barely scratched it. While back on his foothold, he tried to catch his breath and accept that fact.
The disc Jave fired bullets in Kuon’s direction. He used Tensetsu to predict the future, searching for evasion routes, and saw a surprising attack line. There weren’t just lines in front of him but also an insane number of them coming from below. Retreating, he dodged them all, and then he spied the source.
A few dozen Queens were gathering on the surface.
“…Tch.”
The click of his tongue was inaudible over the roar of the enemy attacks, even to him. Light bullets fired at him in such huge quantities that it was barely even a metaphor for rain anymore. He dodged with a bound, knocking them aside with his twin Blades, but he couldn’t keep that up forever. Even using shukuchi to rapidly move around, even using Tensetsu to predict the future, there was nothing he could do if there was nowhere to dodge to. He fled higher and higher, and the enemy followed. Kuon spied a swarm of mantas through the bullets and quickly swung a Blade, but he never saw the other group coming from his blind spot. With time frozen by Tensetsu, he saw gnashing teeth behind and below him, realizing there was no way to dodge.
Don’t screw this up, he told himself. If you make the wrong move, you’re dead. Kuon spent what felt like fifteen full seconds staring at the inevitable future a second ahead. Before Tensetsu ran out, he made his choice.
Not to die, though. This wasn’t the time for that.
No, he’d made up his mind to leave one of them behind.
A manta whooshed by on his right. Kuon threw himself left, avoiding instant death. A burning heat ran through his right arm. The Witch Bubble quickly stopped the bleeding, covering his arm in bubble-like light.
Everything below his right elbow had been eaten.
“Shit! That really hurt, asshole…!”
The pain and shock left him dizzy, but he didn’t have time to cry about it. Watching the manta fly off as it chewed his arm, Kuon turned and braced himself. The rain of bullets had died down, but the Queens had started producing a flood of mantas. Kuon laughed out loud. Alone like this, they were giving him a real run for his money.
All I need is one arm, Kuon thought. I can still use my ultimate art. He was going to die here anyway, so no point worrying about the consequences. Let it chip his life away.
As he’d run, he’d been climbing; now he was at 20,000 meters. The former Hero glared down, letting hatred burn within.
“Come at me.”
His eyes no longer saw the present. He was seeing distant memories, monsters swarming over towns that had burned just like this one. There was someone he loved, but he’d forgotten who.
He couldn’t afford to remember.