The rapid sound of muscle fibers being torn apart echoed, and the heads and limbs of many corpses went flying. The cacophony spread in the blink of an eye throughout the surrounding area, littering the ground with body parts.
Object manipulation was the most basic skill for a mage. It was the first thing apprentice mages learned, and it was used to move small objects around during everyday life. It tended to be underestimated, in both the past and the present. However, when a mage of the Hadal layer took notice of how easy it was to activate and mastered it, it could become a deadly weapon.
I’m not done yet! Kahn, reduced to only a head, beamed his thoughts to Lara’s corpse to command her to self-destruct—a mage’s final trump card.
Self-destruction magic made the user’s mana go berserk and detonate, and it was something many full-fledged mages could achieve. If Lara were to use it, it would probably wipe out the entire area around the Boiling Mountain. Moreover, Lara’s corpse could self-destruct before the encroaching aurora reached her—but only if that red light hadn’t arrived.
“Do you really think so little of me?” One finger on the elderly Lara’s left hand glowed even brighter, and a red light, far thinner and far faster than the aurora, shot out from it and sliced through her younger self’s corpse. It was a single-target severing spell Lara had created that prioritized speed to kill the enemy before they had the time to do anything. As was its intended purpose, it cut Lara’s corpse into tiny pieces before she could activate her self-destruction magic.
At the same time, Reynaud tore Kahn into a thousand pieces with his magic, and the necromancer finally disappeared in a swirl of flames. Then, the aurora struck the army of undead and wiped them out, avoiding Reynaud in the process.
“You really are slow.” Lara landed next to Reynaud, criticizing him.
“How bizarre... The Lara I knew was always calling me a geezer, yet here she is as an old woman.” Reynaud thought he’d failed to retrieve his apprentice’s corpse, but he became puzzled when he realized the old woman next to him was actually Lara.
“Well, it has been seventy years for me. I’m your senior currently.”
“Seventy years? Is this the result of some space-time disturbance? Or has history been altered and you’ve come to restore it? Is this perhaps not the real world?” Reynaud managed to deduce the correct answer simply from Lara’s appearance and words; he was truly worthy of being called a great mage.
“Correct. In reality, we were victorious. This is a simulation inside of an artifact, which is trying to forcibly impose a world where the demon army won onto reality. It seems it’s gone out of control, though.”
“Aha. So the survivors of the demon army persist to this day?”
“Listen and be amazed: There are practically no remnants of the demon army anymore. The last time any of them were spotted was at least fifty years ago. This has nothing to do with the outcome of the great war; it’s all the fault of some bigheaded, foolish human.”
“My goodness...there are people like that in every era, huh?” Reynaud looked downhearted and shook his head. “Well, there was once a mage who threw his apprentice out without giving him a proper education, leading to disaster at the academy’s entrance exams. I suppose people don’t change that easily even after a hundred years.”
“I was actually going to ask you about that. Do you know anything more?”
“Let me see... This is only thirdhand information, but that apprentice decided to go to the academy because he wanted friends or something... I didn’t really interact with them, so I don’t know more than that.”
“I see. One more thing. I remember that you told me that mentor was trying to transfer his soul to achieve immortality. Do I have that right?”
“Yes. My, did I mention that to you? I suppose it seems like something that I would do, given the circumstances. Whoops, the world is collapsing. It seems that this is it.” Reynaud was being asked question after question when he actually had some questions of his own, but he noticed that the world was starting to shatter around them. “It was a pleasure to talk to you again. However, you’re here to correct history, aren’t you? You must have a way to deal with that being, right?”
The “being” Reynaud was referring to was what had caused his and Lara’s simulated deaths. He was the natural enemy of not just Lara but every mage in the world, because of his preposterous authority that made it impossible for anyone around him to emit magic outside their body. Faced with such an ability, Lara had been unable to even escape in this simulation and had to activate her magic inside her. In other words, she’d had no choice but to self-destruct and take her enemy down with her.
“My husband should be able to deal with him.”
“Your...husband? You mean you got married?!” Reynaud was interrupted as time ran out and the world collapsed first, saving him from the response to the words he’d been about to carelessly speak: “You?! Really?! How?!”
“Good grief. That was just like talking to the real thing.” Although this world had been but an imitation, Lara was reminded of her past and shrugged as she returned to the space with floating mirrors. She missed the mentor who’d actually let those last words slip when she’d told her about her wedding in the real world.
“Now then, let’s move on to the next one,” Lara prompted.
“Okay,” Sazaki replied listlessly.
The next mirror displayed a certain sanctuary. While its existence was normally unknown to mortals, someone had used his ability to nullify magic in order to break through the barrier and attempt to tamper with the dragons sleeping within... It was also the location where that someone had once fought a fierce battle against two boys who’d happened to be there, and had been defeated by them.
“Hic. There’s not much left.” Sazaki lamented the meager amount of alcohol remaining in his bottle. An ominous clacking sound was coming from the katana at his waist, but his comrades, who knew what it meant, didn’t say anything—the sword was angry.
Is that the extent of their defenses? Muu Gi, a humanoid dragon with dull-white scales, quietly moved from shadow to shadow as he observed the barrier of the sanctuary where many dragons slumbered.
During the great war, the dragon named Muu Gi had possessed the authority to stop magic from being released to the outside of one’s body, but the side of the mortals had been completely unaware of his existence. Just like his older brother—the dragon with the authority to reflect magic, who’d tormented Lara early on in the war—Muu Gi had been born in a form similar to Max’s dragon-man transformation, despite being a pure dragon. This had caused his dragon parents to abandon him, and so he’d dwelled in darkness. Then, the Great Demon King who’d risen to kill all mortal-kind reached out to them. As a result, mortals, including the churches that were well-versed in myths and legends, had gone into the great war without knowing about the dragons who held absolute authority over magic.
In this virtual world, Muu Gi had entered the dragons’ sanctuary, messing with the sleeping dragons to put them into even deeper sleep to make it impossible for them to join the war. Furthermore, he’d killed many mages until Lara was able to take him down with her. However, this was currently a simulation of a timeline before any of that had happened. The dragons’ sanctuary was safe, and Lara hadn’t lost her life.
O Great Demon King, your humble servant Muu Gi shall plunge these foolish dragons into an even deeper slumber. Muu Gi’s red eyes sparkled with obligation and ambition.
Muu Gi’s brother, who stayed by the Great Demon King’s side, was physically strong and skilled in combat, but Muu Gi himself was quite feeble for a dragon, and his stature was about the same as a human’s, so he was more suited to scheming and operating behind the scenes. However, there were always people who acted in ways that didn’t suit their abilities. This was all the more true for someone who’d been abandoned by his parents, which gave him a strong desire for recognition and the need to seek great military achievements, wanting to prove that the Great Demon King had been correct to pick him and his brother up.