Yurugen von Trackia — defeated.
The impact was incomparable to the defeat of Ortesia before it.
First, the horde of undead that had been blanketing the entirety of the Royal Capital — they vanished, as if they had never existed.
To those who had been attacked, and to those who had been fighting back alike, it was nothing short of an impossible sight.
The undead dissolved into the air. As though they had never been there at all. As though everything until now had been nothing more than a bad dream.
Because the sight had been so impossibly, unrealistically surreal before vanishing, many people were first struck with confusion.
But... a select few — those who had been privy to the "operation" within the Third Princess's faction — were certain.
That Katia had pulled it off.
...And at the same time.
"...What?"
A corner of the Royal Capital.
The gray man who had been stationed in the central district — Laplace.
Let out a voice of bewilderment from the very depths of his soul.
He had believed it to be utterly impossible.
No — in all likelihood, it genuinely was impossible. Yurugen, who commanded undead amplified far beyond normal parameters through Creation Magic. Even if he had been denied divine blessing, there was no conceivable way he could lose in direct combat.
If so... there was only one possibility.
"...Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey."
Yurugen had voluntarily dispelled the magic.
As Laplace grasped this truth alongside his correct deduction, something thick and murky welled up from within him.
"Hah? Hey, even Laplace-san couldn't have predicted that, Trackia.
...Are you looking down on me?"
Black emotions. The only emotions he could truly resonate with.
Overflowing, filled with fury toward Yurugen.
"Was your hatred really that flimsy? So flimsy that you'd dispel it yourself just because some girl talked you into it? ...Ha! So you brought this Royal Capital to hell with something that flimsy? The magic of the underworld must have gotten really cheap!"
Truly, truly rare — he felt anger.
"Fine, understood. I'll kill him later. I'll kill him with every last ounce of bad taste I can muster."
That said, he would not let it consume him.
In this moment, the situation had become catastrophically worse. ...That said, it was not the worst case — they had a proper backup plan in place. Their decades of planning were worth more than that.
So what now? Using his natural brilliance, he began constructing within his own mind a new means to bring the Royal Capital to ruin —
— in that one moment, he had forgotten.
They were serious about stopping them.
If so, then they had a strategy not only to stop Yurugen... and at the same time, a plan for after the stopping was something they would have prepared as well.
Laplace's senses caught the approach of a tremendous surge of magic power.
...At the same time, he understood.
"...Ah, right. That's how it is, huh."
Yes.
Having broken the march of the dead meant... the personnel who had been tied up dealing with the undead were now free.
If so, then coming for Laplace to annihilate them entirely was a particularly fitting enemy — one bound by deep entanglement, suited to face him both in spirit and in ability.
Approaching with tremendous speed, drawing close enough to be visible.
A white-haired boy descending from the sky gazed down upon Laplace.
He drew a breath, and sang.
"— Attend and incline your ears; henceforth I speak of the Twelve Mysteries."
Hearing this, Laplace immediately understood.
"...Ha."
So that's his plan. He could tell what the boy intended. And yes, it would be effective against him.
At the same time, his mind raced as he confirmed his own strategic positioning.
He grasped that it did not contradict what he himself wanted to do right now.
If so, there was no need to hesitate.
"It is truth and not falsehood, certainty and genuineness — under the name of Tabula Smaragdina."
He was unquestionably a threat.
Therefore, he could not be allowed to reach the boss, Chrono. He was not a force that could be left alone. Someone had to stop him.
And that someone could only be himself.
"...Fine."
Having reconfirmed this, Laplace grinned ferociously, letting all his surging emotions flow free.
"You picked the perfect time — I was pissed off enough to die.
So come keep me company while I blow off some steam — Ermes!!"
He drew a breath, harmonized, and sang.
"The sun is the father, the moon is the mother, the wind is the swan, the earth is the nurse."
"Beguile and deceive — the void of the manifold! The sea of beginning has no sovereign, the pit of ending has no verse!"
Their first confrontation had been at the Royal Magic Academy.
Ermes had detected Laplace as the mastermind behind the major incident that struck the academy, and the two had fought their first battle there. The result was a draw.
"On this side is claimed the glory of all creation; on that side, all ignorance is swept away — let us celebrate the cycles of transmigration and recurrence!"
"The curtain of a foreign land is a door of madness; a tower of mud beneath a blackened rainbow!"
Their second confrontation had been in the Royal Capital during the coup d'état.
Amid the flames engulfing the capital, Ermes and Laplace clashed before Ermes's escape. The result was a draw — broken off after Ermes landed a single retaliatory blow.
"Born is a power surpassing all, a thing that triumphs over every subtlety, a thing that shatters all fortitude!"
"Shatter, pierce through the throne of phantom dreams; balance the stars, the deep moon, and the wish — the ring of blessing rests in the hidden world!"
Their third confrontation had been in the church's hidden sanctum.
Before Ermes, who had inadvertently activated Laplace's magic through an overwhelmingly powerful negative emotion, Laplace appeared and clashed using the same spell. The result was Laplace's overwhelming victory.
"Contemplation, separation, integration, adaptation — at the end of illusion, recognize perfection, and thus remain the multitude of wishes!"
"Thus shall all idols perish; the vessel of brass is opened — let us forge a kingdom of deception!"
Ermes had never faced the same opponent this many times before.
Nor had Laplace ever failed to defeat the same enemy so many times.
They had clashed and opposed and confronted each other again and again.
And now — they had played every last card, so there was no longer any holding back from the very start. There was nothing to do but unleash their ultimate techniques from the very first moment.
"Thus was the world created; the infallible truth is recorded here — throughout all heaven and earth without distinction, it is for the sake of the sole miracle."
"The light of heaven falls to the beyond; the flowers of the earth are crushed to drift — benevolence is absent, the crown is severed — a lightless world built only to be destroyed!"
And so, both of their incantations activated at the exact same moment.
What had begun as nothing but despair — a nightmare made manifest through Creation Magic. A kingdom of the dead.
They had shattered it by striking at its greatest weakness. The blessing of the original magic was gone. Only two enemies remained, but those two were supreme adversaries.
One of them was the organization's highest-ranking official, Laplace.
A prodigy who wielded fearsome magical talent and Bloodline Magic — had he served as a proper noble of the kingdom, he would undoubtedly have left his name in history.
Now, he and a boy on the verge of making his own mark upon the kingdom faced each other in deadly earnest.
As the signal for their commencement — both, simultaneously.
"'Primal Inscription' — Magic Inscription Liberation."
"'Veil of the Evil God' — Magic Inscription Liberation!"
A clash between two Magic Inscription Liberations — an extraordinary confrontation beyond all norms.
The greatest clash of their entangled fate had now begun.