Ermes assumes a ready stance and thinks.
—In short, this is
a show match.
That's all.
The Northern Alliance had fallen. Everything crumbled the moment its twisted leader, the Archbishop, was defeated. Sarah had already administered the bare minimum of treatment and confined him within a barrier, so that much was set in stone.
And with the high-ranking captain who had been brainwashed by the Archbishop now restored to his senses, the Northern Alliance no longer had any reason to fight.
……But that was only true for the people who had been brainwashed.
For the vast majority of ordinary soldiers who had been of sound mind, it was a different story. How many people could you expect to simply accept being told, "Sorry, the ones giving orders were apparently being manipulated. So it's over—you lose"? Especially in a culture that placed such heavy emphasis on strength and merit.
That was exactly why this match was necessary.
The goal was to demonstrate that they had fought properly—to show enough of their strength that the other side could accept the outcome. In that sense, winning wasn't even necessary.
Naturally, winning would be ideal. But with Ermes's abilities, demonstrating them to their fullest would leave the other side with no choice but to accept it. There was no need to settle a decisive victor—they could even call it off at some reasonable point. Fight normally, and the objective would be more than fulfilled.
And so, the conclusion:
—There was no need to push through his injuries and force his way to a victory over Lucius.
However.
(…What is this, I wonder.)
Having fully grasped that, Ermes thinks.
—Until now, every opponent he had faced had been something he needed to defeat.
Whether it was an enemy whose ideology he had to reject, or one he despised, or a being that was fundamentally incompatible with him on a biological level—he had only ever fought opponents where there was no hesitation about taking them down.
But Lucius was not like that.
They could communicate. Ideologically, they could probably empathize with each other. On an emotional level, he even felt a measure of respect.
And yet, for some reason.
For some reason, more powerfully than he had ever felt before.
Ermes—this was what he thought.
(To take this man down—
I want to fight him
)
"!"
Whether Ermes sensed the shift in his fighting spirit, the change in his presence.
Lucius dropped into his stance. A grin of exhilaration he himself had never witnessed before crept across his lips.
"Shall we?"
"Anytime."
A brief exchange of words—
And the Northern Rebellion's final clash erupted into motion.
A stride that cracked the earth.
Converting every ounce of force generated from that single step into propulsion, Lucius's god-speed charge bore down upon him.
"—"
Ermes began his counterattack while retreating.
First came the enhanced universal magic—no chant required. Simple spells, though even those alone were enough to effortlessly surpass any ordinary mage, came hurtling forth.
However—his opponent was Lucius.
"Ha-ha!"
He carried the momentum of his charge forward.
Impeccably precise swordwork, down to the finest detail. And on top of that—his unique, exclusive ability: "cutting magic."
With that, he slashed through every lethal spell that came hurtling at him, one after another, breaking straight through. Ermes's magic served only to slow him down slightly, and naturally, it was nowhere near enough to halt his advance.
…Naturally, Ermes knew that much.
The young man before him was a monster who had broken through even Katia.
By a principle that even he himself could not comprehend, anything that could be classified as magic—
anything at all—
could be cut. A genuine—
heretic.
He would do well to recognize him as a monster possessing that kind of absolute "rule."
And so—
having taken all of that into account, he had come this far with his countermeasures in place.
…Come to think of it, ever since the Royal Capital—
the coup—
he had been on nothing but a losing streak in direct magical confrontations. When he'd faced an army of mages in the Royal Capital, when he'd faced the Archbishop for the first time, and above all… in his first battle against this Lucius.
And then—
having experienced those defeats and recognized his own shortcomings—
the idea that he "hadn't evolved at all" was simply impossible. Not for him.
"…Formula Replay."
Carrying with it the weight of certain results, accumulated steps, and hard-won pride.
Using every last scrap of time that Enhanced universal magic had bought him, holding nothing back.
Ermes — unleashed his trump card.
◆
(— Here it comes.)
Through the movement and surge of magic power, Lucius intuited it — Ermes's greatest strike was about to come.
After all, this battle had begun with both sides already depleted.
Granted, Ermes had received some treatment from Sara, but he had been gravely wounded just before — and Lucius had broken through that Katia, so his magic power and stamina had been consumed in kind.
With neither side having the leisure to feel each other out... a quick decisive battle was something both desired.
(Come on, what is it!?)
With the premonition of a devastating attack, Lucius made no effort to hide his excitement. Gripping his sword even tighter, he braced himself to counter whatever came —
Ermes announced his spell.
"Formula Replay — '
Magic Bullet Archer
'"
(............ What?)
He was bewildered.
Because what Ermes had declared — despite clearly having built up the stance and magic power for a devastating attack —
Magic Bullet Archer.
The technique Ermes was most familiar with — but conversely, an utterly unremarkable, ordinary Bloodline Magic.
For it to be launched from that stance, it was far too ordinary.
In front of Lucius, who furrowed his brow in confusion, Ermes took an even more surprising action, in a sense.
The magic bullets — the ones scattered behind him — he converged them all.
Having compressed them into a single massive magic bullet, he fired it all at once, straight at Lucius.
—What... is that?
Lucius was bewildered.
What Ermes had done wasn't special in itself. There were times when unleashing one devastating blow at once was more effective than firing off countless useless attacks.
But — at least when facing Lucius — it was the worst possible move. Because...
This is nothing more than asking me to cut it, isn't it?
That's right — Lucius could cut through magic.
Which meant Ermes's current attack was essentially making the target bigger. For Lucius, it couldn't have been more convenient.
Of course, the condensed power was immense, and its speed was nothing to scoff at. It would require a certain level of concentration to cut — but that was all, really.
And once he cut through this, Ermes would be left wide open. Having poured every last magic bullet into this single shot, generating the next one, chanting another technique — it would all take time, and Lucius would not let that opening slip by.
Did he think that if the magic was powerful enough, I wouldn't be able to cut it? ...That's going a bit too far in underestimating me.
The one, supremely powerful magic bullet bore down on him. But both experience and instinct told him there was no problem at all.
Yielding to that, Lucius took his stance. Pouring his concentration into it, he prepared to cleave the magic apart and bring a decisive blow crashing down on the defenseless Ermes beyond, raising his sword—
In that very instant.
Ermes pointed a finger at him. Then — opened his mouth.
——[
Fall.
"]
Impossible — she performed a Chant.
The one about to strike Lucius—
the Magic Bullet Archer
—
And—
—
at exactly the same time
—
—
the Meteor Throne
rained down upon Lucius.
"What the—!?"
Even Lucius was slow to react to this.
In a flash, he shifted his aim to the more threatening—
Meteor Throne
—and changed targets. He succeeded in slashing it apart, but couldn't handle the original—
Magic Bullet Archer
—and tried to block it with a General-purpose Magic barrier, but...
"—!"
The opponent wielded Bloodline Magic — and moreover, one that had been concentrated into a single point, boosting its penetrating power.
There was no way to adequately block it — a direct hit. Like a diseased leaf torn from its branch, it sent Lucius flying.
(Im...possible...)
Even so, Lucius was a battle-hardened hero.
In the fraction of a second before impact, he deployed every tool at his disposal — body movement, magic power manipulation — all of it, to minimize the damage as much as possible right then and there.
He still took a devastating blow... yet even so, he rose to his feet, and for the first time, showed an expression of utter astonishment.
The reason was, naturally, what had just occurred — the phenomenon Ermes had caused.
In it lay the reason Lucius had been unable to cope, a critical mismatch in information. Specifically,
(He — Ermes, wasn't he unable to perform simultaneous activation of Bloodline Magic!?)
That was what his prior intelligence had indicated.
If so, had he gained that ability during this northern rebellion? No — if that were the case, he should have put up a far better fight against that Archbishop.
Then it had to be some other factor. Something other than simultaneous activation of Bloodline Magic. Trusting the instinct that told him so, Lucius drew on his magic power perception, his analysis of the phenomenon that had just unfolded, and the baffling Chant Ermes had uttered... and arrived at the answer.
"...No way."
Even having figured it out, Lucius himself could hardly believe it.
As if to demonstrate just that, his expression of shock did not waver — and Lucius declared:
"A
pre-set
Chant
for
Bloodline Magic"
,
with a time delay
released it
Was that...? No, no, is that even possible—?"
◆
"...As expected. That's correct."
Ermes murmurs, acknowledging Lucius who had arrived at the correct answer instantly.
──
Delayed Chant
.
A technique that, if one were to dare give it a name, would be called that — and it is what Ermes had newly acquired upon coming here.
The content is exactly as Lucius had just said. You complete the Chant for Bloodline Magic in advance, and then
sustain it
. A technique that simply involves releasing it with a few words when the time comes.
But... what makes this technique outstanding, its very essence, is that
other
Bloodline Magic
activating
in the midst of
even while
Held
could be
— that was where things stood.
That was the current phenomenon. The result of
the Magic Bullet Archer's
impact landing at the same time as the
Meteor Throne's
attack being brought to bear simultaneously.
To begin with, Ermes's weakness — as had been said — was his inability to activate Bloodline Magic at the same time. Derived from that was the problem that he had to re-chant every single time he wanted to switch spells.
And so, the moment he switched spells had become his opening.
……Until now, that hadn't mattered.
The only opponents he'd faced were ones he could handle regardless, and more than anything, his essence lay in the pursuit of magic — in "reproducing magic in a better form."
As such, the costs that pursuit required, the "effort" of chanting included, had all been somewhat underestimated by him.
However, he could no longer afford that.
His existence had come to the kingdom's attention, and those capable of deploying effective countermeasures had appeared. With his weakness left unaddressed, opponents had emerged whom he could not defeat.
— Then he would not hesitate to evolve.
And so, he arrived at this answer.
Grasping his own flaws, analyzing them… and furthermore, through magic developed on the basis of this northern rebellion and Liliana's ideas, he had found the key to "simplifying magic" — a direction that had never existed for him before. A technique born as a byproduct of that discovery.
Delayed Chanting.
It was the second blade he had held in reserve as a contingency — meant to take down the Archbishop should the operation centered on Niina fail. But in truth, it was his trump card, developed as a countermeasure against Lucius.
Because — Ermes pondered, then spoke toward Lucius, who had risen to his feet once more and taken up his sword stance.
"...Honestly, I'd planned to take you down on the first try, so I'm a little stung that you actually managed to counter it. But if that's the case, all I have to do is repeat the process."
He was absolutely certain that would be enough — that even if his cards were laid bare, it wouldn't matter.
...Lucius was the very embodiment of absurdity.
He was the living manifestation of an absolute rule: that anything magic could be cut down. Try to contest him head-on on those terms, and you'd simply be trampled by that absurdity.
—Then, the answer was straightforward: do the same thing back.
Impose upon Lucius an absurdity so overwhelming that even his power couldn't handle it. Overwhelm him with an absolute rule — an impossibility.
Under that line of reasoning, this was the answer he had arrived at.
"...No matter how extraordinary your physical abilities are, and no matter that you possess the supernatural gift to cut through magic — you only have one sword for cutting magic. So that's no problem."
And that was:
"Because no matter how strong you are —
your right
and your left
at the exact same time —
you can't cut
them both,
can you?"
"—"
That was the method for defeating Lucius — supremely simple, and therefore impossible to counter.
In other words — "Simultaneously smash two Bloodline Magic attacks at him from different directions at the exact same timing."
He would steer Lucius's movements to a degree, create an inescapable situation, and force his will upon him — the absolute certainty that one of his two overwhelmingly powerful spells would land.
At his current level, Ermes could do that. Or rather... he had acquired this technique precisely for that purpose.
His magic. The crystallization of his convictions. The one achievement he had reached by staking his entire life on it.
He would not permit it to be casually slashed apart — that was his pride, plain and simple.
"........."
And Lucius, having been told a strategy so outrageous it bordered on absurdity, was naturally left speechless for a moment.
"—Ha ha ha."
He laughed, as if it had escaped involuntarily.
There was no intent to mock, no desire to ridicule.
Simply and purely — the voice of someone who had just witnessed something supremely delightful.
"...I'm the type who gets called a brute all the time, you know. Everyone around me used to say it constantly — or rather, my sister probably said it the most."
He continued without pause.
"But that's completely unfair, isn't it? Because even someone as obviously cerebral as you ended up doing the exact same thing!"
"That's what I'd call unfair. I arrived at this conclusion after the most rigorous logical analysis possible."
Ermes's reply came with a tone that was half-serious — but the other half carried an unusual lightness for him, almost like a jest.
Katya and the others behind them showed surprise at this exchange... but even Ermes was not in a state to notice it right now.
Both sides recognized the moment had come to end their conversation and resume the fight.
As they reset their stances, Lucius spoke once more.
"...Just one last thing. It probably won't make sense to you, and you might be shocked to hear it out of the blue, but—"
This, too, was different from anything he had said before.
With a voice that was somehow soft... carrying the weight of a thousand emotions, she spoke a single line.
"Just this once, let me say it. — I've been waiting for a magic user like you."
"...Yes, I'm honored."
Certainly, she hadn't fully understood the meaning behind those words... but she had been able to recognize, clearly, that they were born from his own struggles and the culmination of his journey.
Ermes replied with that same sincerity in her heart. Lucius's smile deepened even further — now carrying an even greater, fearless fighting spirit than before.
Once more, they both kicked off the ground.
Already, every person present was captivated — a clash so fierce and brilliant it was blinding resumed once more.
Next time, Lucius's turn.
The Northern Rebellion arc has only a few chapters left — it would be my pleasure if you would stay with us until the very end.