What on earth is this...?!
Astor Filon, one of the mages belonging to Star's Holy Thunder, momentarily forgot he was on a battlefield and stood there, dumbfounded.
Neither the spirits he'd never encountered even in the forests of his homeland, nor the image of a human mage launching an attack at one without the slightest hesitation—even on orders from their leader—made any sense to anyone in Star's Holy Thunder.
Spirits were nature itself. Lower-ranked spirits could be commanded, but when a spirit of this caliber appeared, resisting it was tantamount to standing against the full fury of nature.
Moreover, their opponent had completely lost its rational mind. A spirit devoid of reason was a mass of power that could swallow everything whole. Lucia Roje, one of the foremost mages in the Imperial Capital and someone who herself commanded spirits, could not possibly be unaware of the danger.
The teasing had already been blown from their minds entirely. No matter how outstanding a mage one might be, at the end of the day they were human—there was no way they could stand against a top-tier spirit that had lost its sanity.
One of Astor's companions, equally stunned by the situation, came to his senses and rushed toward Thousand Transformations.
"Stop this, Thousand Transformations! You can't possibly fail to understand the rank of that spirit!"
Lucia Roje was a mage worthy of respect. Hunters operated at their own risk, but Astor and the others weren't cold-blooded enough to stand by and watch an acquaintance attempt suicide.
Thousand Transformations, with his characteristically unremarkable features, didn't so much as flinch even when suddenly grabbed.
He simply wore a nihilistic smile and spoke.
"Heh... Do you really think I'd stop at this point?"
Spells became power, and power became a vortex. The advanced magic Lucia unleashed—Hailstorm—collided with the brilliantly shining spirit, and the resulting shockwave became a storm that tore through the surroundings.
The only one still standing calmly in its wake was a single man.
Astor and the others had instinctively activated defensive magic to resist, and even the unshakable Immovable One had to move to endure it—yet this man stood there with a smile, as if nothing had happened at all.
They could not comprehend in the slightest what this man intended to do.
The only thing they knew was that Thousand Transformations had used some kind of power to interfere with the Divine Tree Circuit's mechanism, bringing about this situation.
"W-w-wait, weakling! There's gotta be some way to fix this, right!?"
Clyus, the only member of Star's Holy Thunder besides their leader Lapis who had previously interacted with the man, gave voice to what Astor and the others were thinking.
Even though he hadn't taken a direct hit, his hair was a disheveled mess and the color had drained from his face. That was the normal reaction.
At Clyus's confrontation, Thousand Transformations opened his eyes wide.
"...Huh?"
Wait—'huh'?! What do you mean 'huh'?! Don't tell me he actually dragged this spirit here with that ridiculous idea about the Thousand Trials or whatever!
The members of Star's Holy Thunder—who could be called spirit experts, having lived alongside spirits since birth—had all piled in together and were still helpless against a spirit of this caliber?
They'd heard that the Thousand Trials were a mess, and Astor and the others had experienced it several times themselves, but they never expected anything like this.
Once this was all over—he might have to throw a punch, which went against the Spiritfolk's code of always maintaining elegance—but that was fine. He was absolutely going to smash that face.
The Hailstorm, which should have persisted for some time, had already completely vanished. The magic power composing the phenomenon and the magic power wreathing the spirit had clashed and annihilated each other.
Yet even after taking an advanced spell head-on, the spirit showed no change whatsoever. Its power seemed somewhat diminished, but that was all.
The spirit flickered, and the earth trembled.
An invisible force was acting upon the ground. It was, truly, a power approaching that of a god.
Spirits, after all, were not the sort of thing that could be easily defeated even if one's opponent was of a lower rank.
Before an existence so overwhelmingly powerful that Astor and his companions, who had lived with spirits since childhood and could be called experts, had almost no experience dealing with—what could humans possibly do?
The crimson eye glowing atop its head fixed its glare on Thousand Transformations, who stood alone and defiant.
In response, Thousand Transformations's action was simple. He looked up at the eye and uttered a single word: "Everyone."
It was a scene so abnormal it could only be called extraordinary.
As far as Astor could tell, they hadn't held any strategy meeting. Yet upon hearing Thousand Transformations's whispered word, nearly all of them moved simultaneously.
With a roar, Anthem charged toward the spirit. Lucia cast spells as if using him as a shield, Citry hurled something, and Liliz sprinted at speeds that defied the eye.
"Impossible...! After that last attack, you must realize—! A frontal assault is suicide!"
Spirits were not invincible, but the being before them was in an entirely different class. It was not an opponent one could face without preparation.
From the great sword—proportionate to the massive body wielding it—came slash after slash, along with a continuous barrage of water lances fired in rapid succession. Against this relentless onslaught, the spirit glowed faintly.
A single strike was deflected without a sound, and Anthem's movement halted for an instant. The magic power cloaking his body was so intense it had become a barrier unto itself.
Anthem and Lucia pressed on regardless, unleashing attack after attack, but the barrier merely groaned and warped—it was nowhere near being pierced.
No, if they kept at it, breaking through the barrier didn't seem impossible, but the spirit was not about to sit idly and wait for attacks to come.
The spirit's radiance flared with dramatically increased intensity. It was about to unleash some kind of technique.
A spell from a spirit of this class could easily turn the entire surrounding area into scorched earth.
"...This is exactly why I hate humans!"
Even if one had specialized in durability through the power of Mana Materials, the sheer force would be more than any human could endure.
The very notion of trying to do something about a spirit—the embodiment of nature itself—was nothing short of arrogance.
Defensive magic deployed. The other companions had moved at the same instant as Astor.
This deployment speed was only possible because they were Spiritfolk, who used magic as part of their daily lives. Through the combined magic of multiple casters, an intricate barrier materialized in the blink of an eye.
It was a miracle-like combination made possible only because they adventured together day in and day out.
That said, even the barriers Astor and his group could erect, no matter how many of them worked together, could not block an attack from a spirit of this class.
Astor had not been a hunter for this long for nothing. He was confident in his ability to read a situation.
The barrier they erected this time was not meant to block. It was meant to deflect.
The instant the barrier deployed, the power that had gathered in the spirit exploded and was released. The massive beam of concentrated energy struck Astor's barrier deployed before Anthem, bent sharply, and swallowed the indistinct figure of Thousand Transformations standing a few meters away.
"!"
In that instant, the residual shockwave of the beam seared their skin with terrible heat. But such pain hardly registered.
Eyes wide, they gasped at the unexpected turn of events.
This had absolutely not been intentional. Astor didn't particularly like that man, but he didn't hate him enough to want him dead.
In truth, the barrier deployment had been reflexive—Astor hadn't even known where Thousand Transformations was standing.
But no matter how many excuses he made, the fact remained that the beam deflected by Astor's barrier had swallowed Thousand Transformations whole. Even their leader Lapis had gone pale.
The magic that had been unleashed was extremely primitive. A spell that simply burned the enemy with sheer, overwhelming energy. But precisely because it was simple, there were limited ways to counter it.
Thousand Transformations, until the very moment the attack struck, surely never imagined that magic would be aimed at him. After all, if Astor and the others hadn't erected their barrier, the attack would never have gone in his direction.
His body went rigid, and useless thoughts spiraled through his mind. Then Clyus crashed into him, clinging tight.
Grabbing fistfuls of his clothes, Clyus shook Astor back and forth.
"Hey, get it together, Astor! The weakling is—safe, alright!?"
"!?"
"That was too close...!"
Thousand Transformations stood there exactly as he had been before the attack, completely unchanged. There was urgency in his words, but he showed no particular fear of the spirit.
That attack was absolutely not something a human should have been able to take. Even if some defensive tool like a Barrier Ring could make it possible, one should have felt at least a twinge of anxiety, a touch of fear.
But what about this man? Contrary to his words, he regarded the spirit that had attacked him with the same relaxed, tension-free expression as always.
Astor had heard that no attack could reach Thousand Transformations, but seeing it confirmed right before his eyes still beggared belief.
Perhaps the spirit, having lost its reason, still retained a wariness of the opponent who had blocked its attack—the spirit's focus of consciousness shifted from Anthem to Thousand Transformations.
The power emanating from the spirit intertwined with the power composing the Divine Tree Circuit, creating an indescribable atmosphere.
Standing unfazed after taking that blow was impressive, but merely blocking attacks wouldn't defeat the spirit.
The great spell had clearly cost them some energy, but the spirit before them remained a being of overwhelming power. Deflecting the initial attack had been nothing short of a miracle.
Timing and intensity—continuously maintaining a barrier of that caliber in sync with the attacks was beyond even Star's Holy Thunder.
How would they overcome this crisis?
A fierce wind swirled, and in an instant, power gathered before the spirit far surpassing anything before it. And just as that power was about to be unleashed— "I'm coming to save you, Klye-chan!"
"!!"
They turned toward the voice. Peerless Shadow had somehow gotten behind the spirit and was dragging out a fellow spiritfolk who had been consumed within it.
The spirit's spherical body had been split wide open by a staff in her right hand, and from the wound, magic power crackled and sparked.
Whether from the backlash of magic power or not, her complexion was poor, but her movements were steady, and her expression held neither hesitation nor fear.
Normally, it should have been impossible to cleave open a spirit's body composed of dense magic power—could the staff hold some secret?
"It's a rod of anti-magic steel that penetrates magical defenses. Since we were heading toward Yggdrasil, I thought there might be opportunities to fight spirits. Bringing it was the right call," Citry said from a short distance away. It seemed the item Thousand Transformations had spoken of and thrown was this very thing.
It was nearly impossible to believe. It meant that with a single word from Thousand Transformations, every member had instantly grasped the entire strategy up to that point.
Anthem and Lucia drew the spirit's attention away, Citry supplied the item, and Liliz—the fastest on her feet—rescued the captive.
It sounded simple when put into words, but considering they were facing an unknown spirit and the captive's status between life and death was uncertain, executing this plan was no ordinary feat.
Moreover, this time Thousand Transformations had not uttered a single concrete instruction.
Even Star's Holy Thunder had their battle formations, but moving with this level of wordless understanding was simply impossible.
Was this—the true strength of the Mourning Specter, the party widely regarded as the strongest young generation party in the Imperial Capital?
Citry tossed a potion bottle to Liliz. Almost simultaneously, Thousand Transformations pointed a finger at the spirit standing dazed in the distance and gave his first verbal command: "Attack!"
"!?"
Not flee—but attack?!
Impossible—they couldn't possibly win. If it were a living creature, splitting its belly would be fatal, but their opponent was a spirit with no physical body.
Contrary to Astor's shock, Lucia and Anthem moved immediately—as if utterly convinced the command was correct.
That was when Lapis, who had been watching the situation's progression with sharp eyes all this while, called out: "Hmm... That was quite the spectacle. We can't just stand by and watch, can we? We attack as well!"
"! Right!"
If that was how it was, then fine—let's do this. Lucia Roje was indeed a peerless mage, but Astor and his companions were no slouches in magical combat either.
With a somewhat desperate resolve, he began chanting spells. Against a spirit of this caliber, they were fundamentally outmatched. There was no point even considering weaknesses.
From every direction, various offensive spells pelted the spirit. Against an ordinary monster, this would have been overkill, but against their current opponent, it didn't feel like they were doing anything at all.
As they continued firing spells one after another, Astor gradually grew short of breath. A throbbing pain shot through his head, and weariness enveloped his entire body. It was a state of mana depletion, but he couldn't stop now.
Was the spirit bewildered by the onslaught? It didn't move. But in Astor's eyes, the vast power the spirit possessed was clearly, bit by bit, diminishing.
But the gap in power was obvious. If they could whittle away enough of the magic composing its body, they could defeat it—but by any reasonable estimate, their own reserves would run dry long before the spirit's did.
Clyus and Lapis had already gone pale. Even Lucia, who boasted mana far exceeding the norm, could never hope to deplete this spirit's power entirely.
He cast spells in a frenzy. It was the most desperate battle any of them had ever experienced in their lives.
A single second felt like minutes, even tens of minutes. The final strike, wrung from the last dregs of his mana, pierced through the spirit—and finally, strength fled from his feet, from his entire body, and he collapsed to the ground.
He felt no pain. Only an overwhelming sense of emptiness, as though he might sink into the earth itself. He couldn't so much as move a finger.
The sounds of battle reaching his ears had grown sparse. While every one of them was completely drained, the spirit's power had been reduced by only about thirty percent.
But perhaps they should take pride in having chipped away even thirty percent—considering that when the spirit first appeared, the only thought had been to flee...
At last, even the sounds of impacts ceased entirely. An eerie silence claimed the battlefield.
...What on earth was happening?
He urged his body, forcibly twisted himself into a different position, and managed to secure a view of the scene.
What Astor's eyes beheld was Thousand Transformations, facing the spirit from the center of where everyone lay collapsed.
But he wasn't fighting. It was almost as though they were having a conversation.
"Could it be... the spirit's reason... is coming back?"