I just updated another chapter earlier too!
'
Meteor Throne
'.
A hereditary Bloodline Magic of the royal family, and one that boasted the greatest complexity among all Bloodline Magic. In truth, even Ermes had yet to draw out this spell's full potential, nor could he incorporate it as a component in his composite Bloodline Magic.
Therefore.
——There was no way someone who shouldn't have been royalty could use it so effortlessly.
"Ngh...!"
He lets out a groan.
A rain of light that fell with pinpoint precision on the very spot where Ermes and the others stood.
He reacted in an instant. '
Spirit Veil
'—he should have been able to block it by devoting all his magic power to maintaining the barrier.
——But.
(...I can't... believe it)
Staggering, Ermes murmured to himself.
(This spell——'
Meteor Throne
of
was not its power
...!)
Yes — it was far, far too strong.
Stronger than the one he wielded... no, far stronger than the one Rose used.
The beam he had just received carried greater power than either.
That was precisely why he couldn't block it perfectly. Part of the beam had slipped through. Fortunately, everyone had reacted in time and nothing catastrophic had happened, but every one of them besides Ermes had sustained considerable injuries.
(This spell isn't...
the Meteor Throne
...it's something else entirely.)
Ermes came to that conclusion.
Something far more powerful and far more vicious than any beam magic he knew of.
Yes — something that could only be what the Archbishop had just called "divine punishment." No... could such a thing truly exist? How on earth had it been...
Just as Ermes was grinding his teeth over the overwhelming number of unanswered questions, before him —
"—Truly impressive, Your Eminence."
"This is nothing. When it comes to making fools understand, this approach is always the most efficient."
"..."
Lucius offered his praise, and Johann answered as though it were only natural. And then there was Nina, silent.
The three who had backed Ermes into a corner were now walking toward him, intent on finishing him off once and for all.
"—W-what... is..."
Lucius, who wielded power beyond Ermes's own and forcibly nullified every spell through sheer force.
Nina, his natural enemy, who possessed magic devastatingly effective against Ermes.
Johann, who commanded magic more powerful than anything Ermes had ever known, its very principles unfathomable.
—This was the Northern Alliance's main force. The Church's true strength.
Ermes's judgment was swift.
"...Your Grace, we must retreat."
"The chance"
"of victory"
"is nil."
Ermes addressed Yurugen, who stood nearby, his tone perfectly composed.
Everyone else was startled, but they all recognized that this judgment was only natural.
Yurugen nodded in agreement.
"...There's nothing else for it. Understood—I'll rally the remaining soldiers and pull back. I don't know much about the north, but if soldiers fled before we arrived, then there must be somewhere they ran to. We'll commandeer that."
Having swiftly settled the details of their plan, Yurugen narrowed his eyes.
"But the real question is whether they'll let us."
He was right.
The answer was plain to see in the formation that had materialized before Ermes and the others.
They had already locked onto their movements with perfect precision—and were leveraging that to concentrate their maximum combat power, intent on cornering them right here and now.
Before they could even join the northern rebellion. A maximally efficient strategy, designed to end everything from the very first move.
And so, naturally, there was no way they would simply let them slip away... but.
"I'll be fine."
Even so, calmly, Ermes declared. He continued without pause.
"I'll buy us some time on my own at the keep. In the meantime—"
"—!"
Everyone was shocked anew, and Katia raised her voice.
"El! Are you out of your mind? No matter how strong you are, you can't face them alone—!"
"Katia."
He answered her concern simply by calling her name.
There was no time to explain in detail—but built upon the trust they had accumulated over time, Katia understood. He was of sound mind, and he had absolutely no intention of sacrificing himself here.
Once she grasped that, she hesitated just slightly. Yet, with steadfast resolve, she spoke.
"You'd better come back in one piece. If you don't, I will never physically let you out of my sight again for the rest of your life."
"...Understood."
That only made him realize he needed to steel himself even further, and he redoubled his determination.
They began walking in opposite directions. Ermes toward the enemy; Katia and the rest, guiding the soldiers in a retreat.
And so, standing before Ermes—who now faced the Northern Alliance alone—
"How foolish. What can you possibly accomplish on your own?"
"Even I have to agree with Your Excellency the Archbishop on that. A man of your caliber should know perfectly well that you don't just lack any chance of winning—you can't even so much as delay us."
Archbishop Johann and Lucius spoke those words to him.
Ermes attempted to buy time by answering—but of course, they would not permit even that.
"Go. Eliminate this one immediately... and above all else, make absolutely certain you capture the princess."
The Archbishop's instruction had caught his attention, but he had no time to dwell on it.
Lucius and the silent Niina lunged at him.
—He didn't last even a minute.
He had to deflect Lucius's charge while keeping Niina at bay, all without leaving his position.
Archbishop Johann had apparently held back from joining the pursuit—for some reason—but the gap in combat strength was so vast it offered no comfort. If anything, lasting a full minute was the miracle.
But of course, the price was steep. Having exhausted every last bit of magic power in that brief time, Ermes gasped for breath.
Unable to produce a single spell, he fixed his gaze on Lucius and Niina.
Another step and Niina would enter spell range. Once that happened, it would be all over.
—But. That was enough.
Enough
,
distance
.
From the start, what Ermes had been trying to buy was not time for the soldiers to escape.
It was time for them—and for Katia and the rest—to reach a position far enough away that they wouldn't be dragged into what came next.
Having confirmed this through magic power sensing, Ermes spoke the spell he had already finished chanting—
"Formula Replay—Ashen World Tree."
Lucius and Niina braced themselves. The surge in magic power must have told them a powerful technique was coming.
But... the Archbishop didn't so much as twitch a brow. He likely already knew about this spell.
...And that even with it, nothing would change.
──But of course.
Ermes was well aware of that — and for that very reason.
He announced "one more."
"
Technique Composite
— "
Fire Heaven Judgment
"
"—What?"
For the first time, the Archbishop's brow twitched.
Naturally — there was no way anyone could have known about this.
After all, this was a composite Bloodline Magic being unveiled for the very first time.
"
Ashen World Tree
" and "
Fire Heaven Judgment
".
In principle, combining these two was impossible.
For starters, part of the former's magic already incorporated the latter, and it was itself essentially a composite magic that combined numerous Bloodline Magics.
Forcing them together while ignoring that was beyond Ermes's current skill. Push too hard and the technique would naturally fall apart.
But—
In the first place—
as magic—
to make it work—
there was never
any intention
to do so
?
Combine magics. Layer fire onto the great flame sword.
And at the same time, the collapse begins. And that—
he deliberately
left it be.
Only delaying and suppressing the critical, fatal collapses with magic, ratcheting up the pressure of the immense firepower contained within.
Finally, the instant it reaches critical mass.
He jumps backward while simultaneously hurling the flame sword in front of him.
...There were all sorts of justifications, but what he was doing was simple.
Ermes summed up the entirety of those actions in a single phrase.
"—
self-destruction
, you know."
"YOU—!"
Before the Northern Alliance could intervene — no, before they even had a choice but to halt, sensing what was about to happen.
A deep crimson explosion scorched their eyes, lighting up the entire surroundings.
◆
When the roar finally subsided.
Lucius spoke, his five senses still seared by the sound and light at such close range.
"...They got us."
Spread before Lucius was the road ahead — the very mountain pass they had been traversing.
It was buried under soil and rock from the explosion.
In short — Ermes had *filled it in*. Using that explosive spell, he had single-handedly carried out a civil engineering project instead of an attack.
The scale was incomparable. Only someone wielding magic of such extraordinary power could have conceived of it.
"...Lucius. Can we pursue?"
A bitter voice addressed the still-impressed Lucius.
To Archbishop Johann's question, Lucius raised his shoulders.
"I doubt it. If it were just Niina and me, we could make it over this fill... but the rest of our soldiers cannot."
"And furthermore... Ermes, who unleashed that spell, is most likely still alive. I saw him disengage just before the explosion. At this magnitude, he certainly hasn't come out unscathed himself — but that makes him a wounded beast all the more. Pursuing while our forces are exposed in this situation carries too great a risk."
An objective, composed explanation — free of any personal bias.
For a moment, Archbishop Johann listened with frustration simmering on his face —
"...Hmph. Very well."
But only for a moment. He quickly restored the thin smile from his mask-like expression and turned away.
"If they've gotten away, that's a blessing in disguise — a different use presents itself. ...Perhaps we'll see something even better that way.
Either way, they have no path of retreat. We shall take our time and let them learn of God's divine glory."
"Yes. Then let us return to the captured base. All forces, about-face!"
At Lucius's command, following Johann's lead, the soldiers turned in unison.
They marched back to the base in perfect, undisturbed formation — and at the very rear of that column...
"...El."
Nina murmured in a complicated tone after gazing at the filled-in ground behind them.
She, too, turned around and headed back to where she belonged — the place she was part of now.
◆
"El—!!" "Master!"
Ermes had managed to successfully hold them off, and now stumbled as he rejoined the others.
His haggard form was met by Katia and Liliana's panicked voices the moment they spotted him. Without hesitation, the two caught him from either side, clutching him as though to keep him from falling.
"I told you I'd come back properly...!"
"...I am, at the very least, still in one piece, so if you could forgive me..."
"S-Sen—"
"Master..."
"There's so much blood... someone—"
"Ermes, I'll heal you right away...!"
...That said, it was hardly unreasonable for them to be panicking.
After all, Ermes at this moment was covered in blood — and that was no figure of speech.
Just as Lucius had assessed. Ermes had been caught squarely in the aftershock of the magic unleashed at the very end.
The spell lost all control the farther it traveled from its caster — an unavoidable flaw. That catastrophic weakness was the price of its overwhelming power, and it was precisely that trade-off that made it a "self-destruct" technique.
The healing magic —
Star corolla
— washed over Ermes as they spoke.
"Sarah, thank you so much. ...And Lily, too."
"M-me?"
"Your magic was what gave us the opening to escape that situation."
Indeed, that self-destruct spell had actually been born during the trip here — sparked by a conversation with Liliana in the middle of a lesson.
"What's the most powerful spell you can use, Master?" — a disarmingly straightforward question, almost childlike in its innocence. But Ermes, who had never really thought it through in detail before, gave it fresh consideration. On a whim, deciding to give it a try, Ermes attempted to create a spell that discarded every other element and focused solely on destructive power. The experimental result of that effort was the self-destruct spell.
Naturally, Ermes had figured it was practically useless. Sure, the power was immense, but it took forever to cast and would leave the caster critically injured in the process. Never in a million years had they expected it would actually come in handy in a situation like that.
All the same, they had managed to shake off their pursuers.
"...Duke. Are we heading to the soldiers' outpost in this territory next?"
"Yes. The lord appears to be there as well. The order of things didn't go quite as planned, but we can explain the situation properly once we arrive."
Having heard Yurugen's plans for the way forward, he considered this a reasonable stopping point for now.
And then, inevitably, his thoughts turned to the battle they had just fought.
To put it bluntly, his analysis came down to this:
"...It was a complete rout, wasn't it?"
"El..."
There was simply no other way to put it.
Every one of our movements had been read perfectly, and the enemy had been waiting with their full fighting force in place.
A power broker of the Church who surpassed even my own abilities, wielding an enigmatic magic that was our very bane. We had been mercilessly crushed by a formation that far exceeded anything we had anticipated.
This journey to reclaim the Throne—it had shown us in vivid detail just how perilous that road would be, just how deep this country's roots truly ran.
—But.
"We still managed to escape."
"!"
That's right. Despite everything, we had survived. From an enemy who had fully intended to wipe us out right there, every last one of us had succeeded in getting away without a single casualty.
That, at least, was something we could be proud of. One could even call it a victory.
Besides, honestly speaking, as long as we survived, the rest was ours to take.
That battle may have been a defeat, but it had given Ermes an enormous amount of invaluable intelligence.
—More than enough for him to learn from, analyze, and formulate countermeasures against.
We now knew the enemy's strength. We had seen their magic with our own eyes. Several useful analyses had been made. And above all else,
"…Lady Nina."
I had met that girl once more.
We had been pressed relentlessly, unable to lay a single hand on the enemy or mount any defense whatsoever.
And yet, in that final instant—just before the explosion carried us away—her face had flashed across my field of vision for the briefest of moments.
It was the same expression she had worn back at the academy, when she had made that promise to ask for help.
…If that was the case, then it was enough.
There was still room to help her. Still an opening we could exploit.
Weighing all of this together, Ermes—in a state of utter devastation, yet with an unwavering resolve still burning within—murmured softly.
"——From here, we fight back."
With this, the prologue of the Northern Rebellion arc comes to a close.
The first battle ended up being a pretty crushing defeat, but we still managed to secure all the information we need to turn the tables.
I hope you'll look forward to seeing how we pull off the reversal from here on out...!