There was no incantation to that magic.
It was the same as the magic he had once created. An incantation is a string of words of power, optimized to invoke a spell as swiftly as possible, and there had been far too little time to refine hers to that point.
But it was no problem.
Even without an incantation, a spell can be invoked, so long as one has the time.
And Liliana's magic was the kind that took its time without any trouble, the kind worth taking time over.
"---"
The magic he had once created had taken the shape of a sword.
That was because, when he made his magic, what he sought was 'power,' and as its symbol, flame and a great sword had taken form, which was how it had come to be.
Then what shape would Liliana's magic take?
After the answer to that had surfaced in his mind, at the very limit of concentration.
She had wished, and her master had created. To make her magic manifest, she drew a breath.
And she declared the name of the spell.
"Reenact the formula---'
Primordial Prerogative: Omnipresent Domain
'!"
So it was proclaimed... the oath of a spell far too solemn to fall from the lips of a lovely young girl.
At that eerie resonance, the knights of the Northern Coalition, who had been on the very verge of falling upon Harvist's soldiers, faltered for an instant... but of course that could not be, and they resumed their charge.
The knights closed in, their magic readied. Yet Liliana, unhurried, continued.
"Omnipresent Domain, unfold."
The moment she spoke the words, the intricate magic circle that had risen above the '
Primordial Inscription
' she held spread outward all at once.
And so it settled directly into the earth, so wide and vast that it could cover the entire ground where Harvist's soldiers stood.
"Inheritance rite, activate."
At the girl's next declaration... a change came over the people around her.
In the hands of every last Harvist soldier, a jade dial appeared.
Its glow was somewhat faint and its form simplified, yet there was no mistaking it: it was a '
Primordial Inscription
'.
By rights, it was magic that anyone should be able to use. And yet on its own it held no meaning; to master it demanded an unfathomable amount of study.
But Liliana had placed it into the soldiers' hands. And she spoke the next words.
"Bestowed formula, select."
What appeared next was white light. Rising as if surfacing from the '
Primordial Inscription
' she held, she lifted it high toward the heavens---
And she cried out the final words in a ringing voice.
"
Formula Inheritance
---'
Apocrypha: The Marksman of the Magic Bullet
'!"
In that instant, the light above her head... burst apart.
And it rained down in equal measure upon everyone inside the magic circle she had deployed.
At the same moment, the charging Northern Coalition knights at last began to enter the range of the magic.
Though the knights felt a slight wariness at the strange sight before them, they grew all the more arrogant, certain of their overwhelming advantage in strength and sure that whatever happened they could simply crush it underfoot, and they moved to hammer their magic home---
And in that instant.
The hundred-odd Harvist soldiers around Liliana raised their hands as one.
Every one of them
, the '
Marksman of the Magic Bullet
',
fired off
.
"------?!"
It was too utterly absurd.
Anyone who knew magic would doubt their own eyes; an impossible sight that would be easier to believe if one were told it was some illusion suddenly unfolded right before them.
But the magic bullets bearing down on them, the overwhelming volume and the skin-scorching heat, could by any reckoning only be something that truly existed in reality.
Reflexively the Northern Coalition knights deployed general-purpose defensive magic... but what was assailing them now was Bloodline Magic, and of course there was no warding it off completely---
Impact.
In that same instant a tremendous roar rang out, and the knights at the head of the charge were, quite literally, 'blown away.'
The roar died down, and a thick cloud of dust and sand hung heavy in the air. And the moment it cleared... a dignified voice rang across the battlefield.
"You had best prepare yourselves."
Before the eyes of the Northern Coalition knights, who had halted and stared in stunned silence, a young girl with vivid red hair streaming behind her, bearing a dignity and a host of followers ill-suited to her small frame, gazed down imperiously upon the battlefield.
"These people are no longer... the same as the soldiers you have scattered until now.
Have you the mettle, truly, to face an 'army of mages'?"
In a single turn, the young princess reigned as the ruler of this place.
With overweening arrogance, yet backing it with magic certain enough to justify it, she posed her question.
The magic Ermes had once created had taken the shape of a sword.
That was because, when he created his power---his power as a single individual---that was what he sought. Because that was the
sigil
of his wish.
Then what shape would Liliana's magic take?
She was one who stood above others and led them. One who existed as royalty, protecting the place where the people lived and where her subjects entrusted their hearts.
In other
words.
The shape of her magic could be nothing other than the thing she was meant to protect: 'territory.'
And so her magic was born. '
Primordial Prerogative: Omnipresent Domain
'.
Its effect was to grant a
specific spell
to every person holding a '
Primordial
Inscription
' within a certain range. It was a spell that created such a domain.
There were two ideas at its foundation.
First was the 'inheritance' ability originally built into the '
Primordial Inscription
'. To embody 'magic anyone can use,' this magic had from the start possessed a function allowing its caster to temporarily let someone else use it.
In that case, thought Ermes when he heard Liliana's concept for the magic.
---
Could the same
thing not be done
with other
magic too
? he wondered.
That is, the 'inheritance' of magic other than the '
Primordial Inscription
'.
The second was the '
Crown of Starflowers
'
spell-name release
that Sara had shown during the academy incident long ago.
That had given a 'seed' to people she had once healed through her ordinary ability. Using it as a medium, others, by their own will, would offer up magic power that she could then recover.
In that case, in reverse: could one not, rather than receive something, 'give' something instead?
The 'seed' function could be supplemented by the '
Primordial Inscription
'. And through the connection thus formed, could magic not be passed down by inheritance?
Built upon those two ideas at its core, taking up Liliana's wishes and carrying out the development himself, Ermes completed this magic.
A spell that creates a domain, forms a magical connection within it using the '
Primordial Inscription
' as a medium, and traces that connection to pass magic down through inheritance.
Its effect was immense.
First and foremost, every last ally chosen as a target of inheritance within the domain.
Just as had been done a moment ago---
became able
to wield
Bloodline Magic
.
On top of that, the magic power consumed in wielding that Bloodline Magic was borne by the one who had inherited it.
In other words, even the impossible dream that could never be achieved by a single mage, by a single person's magic power---the 'crushing barrage of mass-fired Bloodline Magic'---became possible. This too, as had just been shown.
In conclusion, this magic was a rule-breaking existence that made 'magic wielded only by the chosen' a thing of the past---
---or so it might sound, wrapping it up in grand pronouncements.
In truth, it was not quite so outrageous a thing as that at face value. Naturally, several rather heavy restrictions existed.
First was the matter of which magic could be 'inherited.'
As you can likely guess from the fact that Liliana just now said 'Apocrypha:
The Marksman of the Magic Bullet
', the magic that could be wielded was, strictly speaking, not Bloodline Magic itself.
Far from it: in fact it had been remodeled to a degree that made it practically a different thing altogether. No, if one spoke solely of performance, it had even been degraded.
The reason it had been done that way---that it had to be done that way---was, after all, the singular nature of Bloodline Magic. The extraordinary feat of making magic, meant to be passed down only through blood, inheritable without condition. As the price of forcing that through, a rather crude
generalization
had been unavoidable.
Compared to the original---the '
Marksman of the Magic Bullet
' as Ermes wielded it---in raw power alone it could perhaps manage about a tenth, somewhere around there.
What is more, that
generalization
was itself no simple matter. Even Ermes had said as much:
"The single type '
Marksman of the Magic Bullet
' is my limit. This is the best I can do with the magic I know most intimately, so to make other magic usable would probably take a considerable amount of time... or rather, I cannot even picture a way to do it as things stand."
Such was the difficulty it boasted. If anything, on this point one could only say it was strange that Ermes had managed to fulfill even a single type of Liliana's frankly near-impossible demand.
And there was one more thing. An even more fatal flaw... and it was, at this very moment, showing itself in the cold sweat Liliana was desperately enduring as she glared at the Northern Coalition.
(...This is absolutely brutal...!!)
Outwardly, she gazed down upon the Coalition knights with an air of overflowing dignity. Inwardly, breaking out even in a greasy sweat, she was desperately fighting the urge to collapse.
...Yes. The flaw of this magic, simple and for that very reason fatal.
---
Its magic-power
consumption was
impossibly high
.
(How much is this magic going to take?! It's like having my blood drawn straight out... well, I've never had it drawn, but I'm absolutely certain it must feel exactly like this!)
Even she, born of royalty and blessed with rare talent, possessing a magic-power capacity far beyond the ordinary, was reduced to whimpering inwardly at the consumption. And it was drained at this pace, constantly, the whole time the domain was maintained. At a guess... she would last a few minutes at most.
And the problem of magic-power consumption did not stop with Liliana alone.
...Yes, it extended to the soldiers standing behind her as well. The 'Apocrypha:
The Marksman of the Magic Bullet
' just fired was, for all its flaws, Bloodline Magic. On top of that, despite its power being not even a tenth of the original, its magic-power consumption was scarcely different from the original---an outright rip-off. With the capacity of the soldiers, already vastly inferior to that of Bloodline mages... most of them would run dry before even ten more shots.
For that reason, in truth there was not nearly enough leeway on their side to stand about so serenely. To put it bluntly, a fair amount of bluffing was in play as well. But even so...
(Even so! This is the path I walk...!)
That alone would never waver. Liliana declared it.
That's right. As she had just admitted, the flaws were far too many. On top of that, all she herself had done was provide the original concept and leave every difficult part entirely to her master; even now she was merely using the magic exactly as her master had instructed, and she could never---not if her mouth were torn open---claim to understand it as her master did.
Of course. Liliana had set foot into magic barely less than a month ago. This path was not sweet enough to let one conveniently wield some outrageous magic in so short a span.
But---even so.
Even if the consumption was great, even if it was flawed, to make it so that anyone could use Bloodline Magic. This sight, now truly realized, was the first step toward her dream.
As for the consumption, she would work to reduce it further from here on. She would keep training so she could handle the parts she now left to her master herself. Even the generalization at the heart of this magic, she would one day make herself able to do.
And, she thought, kindling her feelings further still.
...Once, she had defined Ermes as a 'pioneer.'
He was one who could carve out a road where there was none, who could press on into the true depths of magic that no one had ever seen. Because that was his way of being.
...Then what of herself?
She would pave the road he had carved out. She would make it a road not only for him but for everyone to walk. She would give the things he had carved open and discovered a form that could be shared with many people. This magic, the generalization of Bloodline Magic, was the very greatest of those.
And so, someday.
For now she could only do it by casting a domain and granting it, but someday everyone would be able to walk the road of magical training on their own two feet. Everyone would be able to chase after him.
That would build a bountiful nation, and once everyone could fully receive the blessings of his footsteps... at their head, she wanted to cry out.
My master is amazing, isn't he? she wanted to say.
(That's the first step! I can't afford to stumble over it now...!)
Once more, powerfully, she made the declaration in her heart.
And she raised her face. Heedless of the magic power being ground away, of the strength being drained. As a back that would rouse her allies, as a beautiful figure to strike fear into her foes.
"Come, burn it into your eyes! The figure of this nation's mages of the future, as shown by Liliana Josef von Justia!"
At words powerful beyond what one would expect from a girl of eleven years, Harvist's soldiers were roused, while most of the Northern Coalition knights had already gone weak in the knees.
Watching that situation without lowering her guard... Liliana thought.
(Just as planned. I have done my part.)
With this, at the very least the Northern Coalition's rank-and-file soldiers could be pinned down here. She had succeeded in holding back, with a mere handful of forces, a violence of numbers threatening to reach several times her own.
...So all that remained. While she bought these few minutes of time and held them here. The peerless ones surely beyond even that, those of a strength to face a thousand, the Bloodline mages she still could not catch up to.
(I leave them to you. Master, everyone---!)
She would trust her splendid subjects, fellow Bloodline mages, and leave it to them.
The other side was no easy opponent either. The natural enemy of Ermes and the others, a wielder of a great sword the likes of which had never been seen, and likewise the archbishop of unfathomable, extraordinary power.
...Even so, if it was Master and the others, she thought.
With eyes of trust surely nurtured over the journey to this point, she quietly watched the backs of Ermes and the others as they rushed out.
Next time, Ermes's side. A tale of a battle between Bloodline mages.
Lily's magic took quite a lot of explaining, but how was it...?
I'd be delighted if you thought it was amazing!
I'll keep raising the excitement more and more, through the coming decisive battle and beyond,
so please continue to support 'The Recreator of Creation Magic' this year as well!