A corner of the Royal Capital.
There, a certain noble house lord was witnessing something unbelievable.
An irrational catastrophe that had struck the Royal Capital without warning.
Countless vengeful spirits, resurrected from every era, attacking the living indiscriminate—this was no work of human hands. It could only be described as a genuine natural disaster.
Confronted with this, the action the noble lord took was—resignation.
Because what else could anyone do?
It was obvious at a glance. This was beyond anything humans could handle. It was the kind of thing that would be more aptly called divine punishment.
Before that—there was nothing a mere human could do.
It didn't matter that he possessed Bloodline Magic, the nation's protective power. Before a force that far exceeded even the domain of Bloodline Magic, such things were meaningless.
...That was how the nobles of this kingdom, the values of this kingdom, worked.
A kingdom where everything was decided from birth by what God had granted. If that was the case, then one used that power to its fullest, and when something appeared beyond one's ability, one accepted it and moved on quickly.
That was only natural—not just for him, but surely similar in other noble households. Yielding to whatever came, following that ingrained way of being, he promptly relaxed his resistance.
—That was precisely why he couldn't believe it.
His own son—face pale, body trembling—was stepping forward to face the horde of vengeful spirits.
"...What are you doing?"
The words left his mouth involuntarily.
"As you can see, Father. ...I have to defeat those vengeful spirits."
"Don't be ridiculous. You know that as well as I do. That's no longer the kind of calamity humans can deal with. There's nothing to do but accept it."
He lectured his son with what should have been obvious logic.
Having heard this, the son lowered his head for a moment.
"...You're right. That is the correct response. The me from a little while ago would have done exactly as you did. ...But then—"
And so, the son—
—who had once belonged to Class B of the Royal Magic Academy—
raised his face, eyes burning with a resolve his father had never seen before.
"I have to stand and fight. That's... what it feels like."
No matter how slim the chances, no matter how overwhelming the enemy. There were times when one must not break—moments when one had to resist until the very end.
"And—right now is that time. I can't help it. That's just... how I feel."
The son's trembling hadn't subsided. You could see him fighting desperately against the temptation to yield to fear, just as his father had.
But even so—not once did he fall to his knees.
"You can call me a fool if you like. —I'm going. I absolutely will not allow something like that to trample us."
And with that, he launched a spell far more powerful than anything his father had seen before—at the vengeful spirits, who were far more formidable still.
He charged forward, undaunted.
"..."
And the father, watching this, found that—reasons unknown—
"...Ah. That's right."
—he felt as though he'd rediscovered something he'd lost long ago at the academy.
Beyond reason, beyond conviction, he simply followed something in his heart.
Naturally, he fell in alongside his son, and together they began fighting the vengeful spirits they had no chance of defeating.
Across every corner of the Royal Capital, similar scenes were playing out.
While most noble families had given up, pockets of resistance began to spring up—individuals who refused to surrender. These gradually drew in other families, swelling into a force to defend the Royal Capital that could no longer be ignored.
...Of course, the situation was nowhere near so simple as to say that was enough.
The spirit-summoning magic, amplified to nearly infinite power by the Sixth Creation Magic, could not be stopped by resistance of that caliber. In fact, those acts of defiance were swept aside in an instant, and within no time at all, they were being driven to the brink of total annihilation.
But that meant—
—that they had bought a measure of time.
And as a result—*'that'* arrived in time.
"—'Primal Privilege: Omnipresent Domain'!"
The Third Princess's secret technique—Creation Magic that sublimated the surrounding soldiers into powerful Bloodline Magic users.
Its overwhelming offensive began pushing the vengeful spirits back.
As a result, the brief time they had bought proved instrumental in bringing about the best possible outcome.
"..."
They were pushing back.
The scene of utter despair that had been unleashed with full force—the one that should have been more than enough to deliver the ultimate destruction—
had been transformed, by the faint resistance and the overwhelming offensive it inspired, into something approaching hope.
At least—there seemed to be perhaps a one-in-a-hundred-thousand chance of survival.
"...My, my."
Laplace, watching from afar, recognized what had happened.
Every act of resistance—the noble youths confronting the vengeful spirits at various locations—all of them had attended the Magic Academy. More specifically, they were all people who had been strongly influenced by a certain student there.
At the same time, the Third Princess's magic—its origin was clearly traceable from the flow of magic power to the jade disc in her hand. And Laplace knew perfectly well who had given it to her.
In other words, to sum it all up—
Everything that had caused this situation—all of it—was the doing of—
"—It's you again, isn't it, Ermes?"
Laplace's face settled into an expression of unmistakable, genuine irritation.
...Which was precisely why, for just a brief instant, he was slow to notice.
That a terrifyingly powerful magic user, accompanied by several others, was heading at unnatural speed toward Laplace's location—and beyond that, toward the underground, where key members and magic of their organization had gathered.