"Hah!"
With a breath, she unleashed her magic.
Enhanced General-purpose Magic. Through the application of the
Primal Inscription,
its effects had been refined, elevating it to a level approaching Bloodline Magic.
As such, even a soldier with robust defenses should have been rendered combat-inactive from a direct hit—but.
"There..."
Just before it struck the soldier, a cage of light materialized alongside her cry. It perfectly blocked his magic. Not even the faintest breeze of aftershock reached the soldier, and the light cage itself bore not a single scratch.
Bloodline Magic—
Spirit Veil.
.
A formidable barrier capable of blocking even a strike from a Monster of near-Dragon species class.
This was one of the reasons that, since the battle began, not a single soldier had yet been taken down.
And there was another.
Even she couldn't block all of Ermes's magic—some of it would graze past the soldiers, dealing steady damage.
"...Here. You should be able to move now."
"Ah, thank you..."
"I'd stay on my guard if I were you. Ermes is... strong, you know."
"U-Understood...!"
At Sara's words, the soldier stood up with a frustrated expression and returned to the front line.
There wasn't a single wound on his body. The leg he'd injured from her magic earlier had healed completely clean.
Bloodline Magic —
Star Corolla.
.
He'd known it could heal wounds, but... judging by what he'd seen, it apparently restored fatigue to some degree as well.
It had been the same pattern ever since.
His magic was deflected, and even the rare hit that managed to wound her was healed in an instant — there was no hope of accumulating damage.
While he was mulling this over, the soldiers' sword strikes and magic rained down on Ermes one-sidedly. He was deflecting everything now, but there were simply too many. It was only a matter of time before something got through.
This was Sara von Hartmann.
The people around her seemed to worship her as some kind of saint or holy woman... but Ermes' impression of her was nothing so simple.
That girl, in battle, transformed every single ally into an extraordinarily troublesome existence blessed with ironclad durability and infinite regenerative power.
As long as magic power held out, she could embody the ideal of "an inexhaustible wellspring of troops" — a
god of creation
of the battlefield.
(As expected of someone with Dual Aptitude. This is... tougher than I anticipated.)
It felt exactly like fighting an immortal army.
Either way, nothing would move forward unless he reduced their numbers. But that was extraordinarily difficult.
Ordinary magic against
the Spirit Veil...
'can block everything. To penetrate that barrier and defeat his target in a single blow so they couldn't recover, he would need magic with enough raw power—but naturally, spells of that magnitude were limited to Bloodline Magic, requiring a charge-up that included chanting. The soldiers certainly wouldn't grant him that kind of opening.
If you isolated just that situation, it looked like a plain dead end—but.
(……)
He had already found the breakthrough.
And not just one. He already had several ideas for spells that might crack this situation open.
So what he was weighing now was which of them to use.
One that could guarantee a kill. One that was fast. One that didn't drain his magic power. One that let him win without revealing his hand.
Those options—Ermes discarded them all in an instant.
"...Alright."
What he chose instead was the most uncertain, most unstable option. It would likely burn through a fair amount of his magic power, and there was a high chance of failure.
Yet the reason he chose it was—
"Because she told me, 'I want to see what kind of feelings you put into your magic.'"
He remembered Sara's words from before the battle began.
Anyone's feelings—feelings he found beautiful—he made it his principle to answer them as best he could. This magic, and what he was about to do, was the perfect way to show exactly that.
So first, he carved out an opening with Enhanced universal magic.
He pulled back, then began his chant.
(Here it comes...!)
Sensing the telltale buildup of a major spell from Ermes's movements, Sara focused all her attention on her own Bloodline Magic and his actions.
And amid it all, what he recited was—
"Six are the sacred bows, one is the magic bullet, that—
the trigger
upon the false god's
arm!
'
(! That chant is — '
Magic Bullet Archer
'?)
It was a well-known Bloodline Magic. After all, it was the one Chris—Aster's subordinate—used to show off all the time.
It was certainly a powerful mid-range Bloodline Magic, but against her own 'Spirit
Veil,'
there was no way it couldn't be stopped.
If anything, she was a bit let down—it was a spell she could have predicted, given that she'd been bracing for it.
Still, without letting her guard down, she tried to read the magic's output and prepare a barrier to defend against it—when, at the edge of her vision,
Ermes produced a magic bullet and absorbed it into his own leg.
"!?"
Before she could even be surprised by the unexpected move,
A tremendous explosion rang out as Ermes suddenly accelerated, charging into one of the soldiers—his momentum sending several others flying effortlessly.
"What—!?"
The soldiers cried out in shock.
Sara quickly checked on the soldiers who had been blown away—thankfully, they hadn't fainted. If that was the case, then the '
Star Corolla
If treated with the Star Corolla, returning to the front lines would be possible. But...
"What the—?! What was that?!"
"An enhancement-type spell!? No, even so, that's too fast! There's no way we could handle something like—"
The soldiers who had witnessed the attack firsthand were losing their composure.
It was understandable. This was a completely unforeseen situation.
Ermes was known for being skilled not only in magic but also in hand-to-hand combat.
So they had anticipated that he would switch to close combat after determining he couldn't break through Sara's Spirit Veil.
That much had been expected.
However, the magic he would use in that case was thought to be almost certainly "Messenger of the Faceless," a pure enhancement-type Bloodline Magic.
These soldiers had experienced it once in the Prison, and because they had experienced it, they had believed they could respond to its speed and physical strength—but—
"Guaaah!"
"I-I can't even see him!? How are we supposed to deal with this?!"
His current speed and the power it generated far exceeded all expectations.
With things this dire, a sense of despair began to settle in—when that moment came.
"...P-Please calm down!"
Sara shouted in a voice so loud it startled those around her.
"Y-Yes, that was powerful just now.
But—there's definitely some kind of constraint!
Right now, he's only charging straight ahead!"
Using that information to deduce... the phenomenon just now was [
Magic Bullet Archer
]—the Magic Bullet Archer. That much was certain. If so, then perhaps... it was reasonable to conclude that she was converting the magic bullet's propulsion into her own charging force through some method.
She had no idea how it was being done, but the guess itself was close to the mark.
And once the phenomenon was understood, countermeasures naturally suggested themselves.
"If her attacks are limited to straight lines, we can handle it by calmly reading the trajectory! Her openings should be wide, so aim for those! And—she's probably not accustomed to her current attack method!"
Otherwise, there was no way she would fail to take down even a single person with her most predictable opening strike.
Drawing on a certain kind of trust, she stated her conclusion.
"Brace yourselves and prioritize staying alive! As long as it's not a one-hit kill, I can heal you! That way, an opportunity will definitely come!"
"—I'm impressed."
The first to respond to her words wasn't the soldiers, but Ermes—who should have been fighting.
With the utmost respect accompanying his surprise, he fixed his gaze upon her.
"I'll just come out and say it—your deductions,
they're all dead on.
Where did you pick up that kind of observational skill and analytical ability?"
"I-I'm self-taught... and I learned a little from Lady Katia."
"And you reached this level? That's incredible... You might be more talented than I am."
"!"
What had escaped his lips were unmistakable words of praise.
To have someone this powerful acknowledge what she had done of her own volition—the sheer elation of that realization nearly made her forget she was in the middle of a battle.
Whether to sever that sentiment, or simply because Ermes was wide open at that moment—several soldiers charged at him with drawn blades.
He dodged it with a deft flick of movement, and the battle resumed once more.
But the soldiers had begun changing their tactics, following Sara's advice. The results were nothing short of spectacular—their earlier wavering was gone, and they steadily zeroed in on Ermes's openings with growing precision.
Given that Ermes's offensive power had also risen, it was inevitable that some would be unlucky and start falling out of the fight. Yet at the same time, his attacks aimed at the gaps left by charges or disrupted control were gradually finding their mark, and the battle was settling into one of attrition.
The exchange was even.
Which meant the side with an effective means of recovery held the advantage. If they simply pressed forward steadily from here, they would win—
—that prediction would have been spot-on, had he been anyone else.
"No way..."
She could hardly believe her eyes.
Gradually. Gradually, but unmistakably.
The exchange that should have been dead even was tilting in Ermes's favor.
Were the soldiers slowing down? No, that wasn't it. Their morale was high, and fatigue wasn't a factor as long as Sara still had magic power to spare.
So the cause was the opposite.
Ermes's movements were growing more refined by the second.
And it wasn't simply a matter of getting used to the rhythm.
Movements that had been simple became complex; movements that had been linear became multi-dimensional.
Mid-charge, he would generate new magic bullets and slam opposing thrust into them to halt on a dime. By housing magic bullets in multiple locations, he achieved multi-vector propulsion—and by tuning the output of just one point mid-flight, he could carve curved trajectories through the air. On top of all that, his control had risen to a level where he could execute these intricate maneuvers flawlessly.
The weaknesses Sara had pointed out early on—his movements being "too simple," his "lack of familiarity"—had long since been overcome in the heat of battle.
The movements that resulted were precise yet utterly unpredictable. The soldiers could do nothing but be tossed about by Ermes's onslaught, and their numbers dwindled with alarming speed.
(...Ah, I see.)
Sara understood. This was his magic.
Grasping his own shortcomings, devising countermeasures and putting them into practice. Incorporating new techniques and ideas, honing himself in the heat of battle.
Never satisfied with what he'd been given, he tested everything and reached ever higher.
Learning and evolution.
That element—which no one content with Bloodline Magic, predetermined from birth and capped from the start, could ever possess—was the very essence of him. It was, perhaps, one shape his heart had taken.
That was why evaluations meant for ordinary mages simply didn't apply to him. Any judgment was only valid at this single moment; it was useless to tomorrow's him, to the him after the battle, to the him in the very next instant.
If she had failed to read that, then that was indeed her reason for defeat.
(He's incredible, isn't he...)
She felt envy.
Watching him wield magic so joyfully, so freely.
Those of them blessed with Bloodline Magic—something everyone coveted—began to feel, by comparison, like shackled and constrained beings.
While those thoughts turned over in her mind, he finally cornered the last soldier into incapacitation.
"...Well then."
He caught his breath and walked over to Sara, and said:
"This is my magic. How was it?"
"...Yes. You're unbeatable, aren't you?"
She said it with pure, genuine conviction.
Not because of raw ability. It had to be something far greater than that.
She was left with the unshakable impression that no one could defeat him.
And yet—how wonderful it would be, she thought, if she too could become like him.
In that moment, her heart tilted in a single direction. And that, in turn, became the signal that the match was decided.
First, one matter is settled. Ermes still has plenty of opportunities to shine.
Next time, Aster vs. Katia.