Chapter 605: Lily vs. Blade Master (1)

“Haaaah!”

“Hah!”

Kai and Falkius took the front, while Seris and Rudra began circling from either side, waiting for an opening.

Given the skill of all four, they could have delivered a flawless simultaneous strike in under three seconds.

But Lily had already seen that once.

The Queen was not so idle as to allow the same trick twice.

“Lux Sagitta.”

With nothing more than a flutter of the butterfly wings growing from her back, countless sparks of light burst into being. They transformed into brilliant white arrows and rained down in every direction like a meteor shower, blanketing everything within a fifty-meter radius around Lily. There was no gap to slip through. It was a merciless storm of light.

The sheer density of that barrage was exactly like the test Chrono had once forced them to imagine.

No, the real Lily’s Lux Sagitta was far more vicious than any barrage Chrono had ever unleashed.

And yet, none of the four were fragile enough to falter over something like that.

“You think this is enough to stop me?!”

Without even trying to evade, Kai charged straight ahead. Naturally, arrow after arrow of light pierced his body, yet the blue aura blazing around him allowed not a single wound to take hold.

The blessing of The Immortal Gladiator Svardias was simple, and for that very reason, absolute. It enhanced physical ability to the utmost. Strength of arm, strength of leg, and the toughness of the body itself.

Inside the Divine Ruin Avalon, even that blessing should have been suppressed like all the others.

Yet within Lily’s Destiny Land, now transformed into a temple of the Fairy Queen, the nullification of blessings no longer applied. The sanctuary existed to empower Lily herself, but as Fiona’s battle had already proven, it also had the drawback of restoring power to those favored by other gods.

That was why Kai’s body now shone with the vivid blue aura of the immortal champion’s blessing, granting him a defense so overwhelming that dull blades bounced off him and low-tier offensive magic felt no worse than raindrops.

Since it would not harm him, there was no reason to dodge or defend.

It was neither carelessness nor arrogance.

In a battle decided in fractions of a second, it was simply the optimal choice.

“Heh. Don’t you think those spotlights are a little too bright?”

Running a hair behind Kai, Falkius advanced without losing a step. The secret behind his ability to push through the rain of light lay in the shield he held.

Like his sword, it gleamed with a golden radiance. Its surface was polished to a flawless mirror sheen. Its name was Mirage Buckler, Principal Model. Just as the name suggested, it was a custom piece made for the lead gladiator of Starlight Spada.

Its beautiful shine made its ability obvious at a glance.

Reflect.

And more than that, it was especially well suited to light-element attacks.

A mirror shield against light magic sounded like something out of a fairy tale, but it was proving its worth right now, beyond any doubt.

What was more, Falkius was not simply carrying it because the matchup happened to be favorable.

He knew exactly how to use it.

Every reflected Lux Sagitta was sent hurtling back at Lily.

Of course, Lily would not be harmed by her own reflected arrows. The white arrows shattered and vanished the instant they touched her crimson Oracle Field.

Still, they served perfectly well as a momentary distraction.

“Take this!!”

Kai had already raised his greatsword overhead, while Falkius was poised for a sharp thrust. Both were right in front of her.

“Overdrive of the Flame Queen.”

Lily met them head-on and overpowered them outright.

She caught both blades with her twin Star Swords, then surged forward in a single explosive burst.

“Whoa!?”

“Gh, this strength is…!”

Locked in a clash of weapons, the two men were forced backward by Lily’s charge, driven clear through the garden and into the main street lined with giant attractions before she finally flung them away.

The moment they landed, the muzzles of Meteor Striker and Star Destroyer were already trained on them.

“Spread Shot, Burst Fire.”

Lily arched backward and fired behind her instead.

Her true target was not Kai or Falkius, but the pair swiftly closing in from the rear, Seris and Rudra. If she had chosen to finish off the first two, the latter pair would have been upon her back in an instant.

“Hmph.”

“Tch.”

The light bullets from the silver-white muzzle carried a magical density utterly incomparable to Lux Sagitta, and yet they were scattered in such numbers that they formed a curtain no one could safely cut through with a blade.

Seris and Rudra twisted aside and escaped the storm, only for crimson beams from the black muzzle to scythe after them.

Boom. Boom.

The shells and rays slammed into the attractions with deafening force, blasting suspended gondolas from their cables and shattering model white horses into splinters.

Dust and debris billowed into the air, and the two vanished into it, slipping from Lily’s line of sight.

“We’re not done yet!”

“We’re ending this in one go!”

“Hah!”

Using their honed swordsmanship and bodies to the fullest, the three swordsmen closed in on Lily again.

She had given up on standing in place to meet them. Instead, she darted between the attractions with fairy-like mobility, slipping beyond the range of their blades. She moved with terrifying speed, gliding over the ground so smoothly that catching her was no simple matter.

And all the while, she continued unleashing a relentless torrent of light magic. Against an ordinary infantry force, it would have been enough to annihilate them outright. The beautifully illuminated buildings of Destiny Land were caught in the crossfire and reduced to ruins before their eyes.

But the three swordsmen each possessed enough speed to keep pace. Strengthening their movement with martial arts, they tore through the rubble like the wind, vaulted broken structures, and closed the distance on Lily’s storm of light.

“Raaah! Break Impact!”

The direct hit of Kai’s greatsword was avoided, but the shockwave of that downward strike, powerful enough to gouge a crater into the ground, blasted Lily’s tiny frame away.

“Shield Bash.”

Waiting at the end of that path was Falkius.

Though her posture had not broken even while carried by the shockwave, Lily fired at him with cold precision. Yet Falkius’s powerful shield rush shoved through even the twin beams of light.

If that shield bash connected cleanly, even her Oracle Field would shudder.

And if that happened, even a plain physical strike without martial force behind it might reach her body.

Choosing evasion, Lily reversed direction with a motion that seemed to ignore inertia itself.

“Scarlet Heavenflash.”

There, directly in her path, stood Rudra, as if he had risen from the shadow itself, utterly devoid of presence, his blade poised in a draw stance.

The crimson blade flashed from the scabbard like a fired bullet. If it connected, it could cut even a fully deployed Oracle Field clean in half. That was the sheer power of Rudra’s ultimate technique.

She had no choice but to dodge.

But if she moved forward again, Falkius’s shield would crush her.

To the left or right—

No, either way, Kai had already recovered his stance and would be on her in the next heartbeat.

Against three master swordsmen, there was no path out.

At least, not for a human.

Lily was a fairy.

Her ominous butterfly wings beat once, and she rose into the sky.

“I’m sorry. I held back from flying because I thought that would make the fight too unfair.”

As expected of the comrades Chrono had chosen. They had pushed her all the way to the point where she had to take to the air.

Escaping the desperate blades aimed at her, Lily floated lightly into the air and looked down at the three swordsmen below with a smile of faint satisfaction.

“You are strong. Truly splendid swordsmen. I’ll admit that much. You are dangerous enough that I can’t keep treating this like a game anymore… so I’ve decided to get a little serious.”

She raised Meteor Striker and aimed it toward the earth below.

From the muzzle spread a white magic circle, widening in proportion to the spell’s power.

No one could interfere with the casting of a grand spell now.

Because she was in the sky.

Only a few dozen meters above the ground, perhaps, but already far beyond the reach of any blade held in hand.

“Don’t call it unfair. This is my power. The power of a fairy. Meteor Strike.”

She was just about to fire.

Then suddenly Lily’s balance collapsed.

“!? This is…”

Her body swayed unsteadily, as though the platform beneath her feet had crumbled away.

Such a thing should have been impossible for a fairy. Unless she were drunk, her flight would never become unstable like this.

Yet it was happening.

The perfect control and immense magic that supported her flight were wavering. Not because she had miscast the spell.

No.

It was because an external force, tremendous and merciless, was dragging her down.

The force that could haul a fairy princess from the heavens and slam her back to earth—

Gravity.

“Gravity Field, full power… Phase: Earth, Heavy Plus.”

A sinister pillar of dark violet light erupted from the ground.

It looked like a force with a will of its own, one that would never permit anything to remain aloft. Within that pillar, the Gravity Field that trapped Lily, the pull downward was overwhelming.

Her body trembled, and her altitude steadily, mercilessly dropped.

“So… this is your blessing’s power…”

Her emerald and black eyes flashed with fury as she glared across the distance at Seris, standing atop the great Ferris wheel.

“The earth is shaken, towers sink, the skies are overturned and the moon falls. Heaven-Origin Dragon, Gramhyde.”

The blessing residing within Seris Anne Arclight was that of Heaven-Origin Dragon Gramhyde, a violent and overwhelming dragon god whose legend told of a great city sunk into the earth by its wrath.

Why such a catastrophic dragon god’s blessing had chosen Seris, no one knew.

As a noble in service to the Elroad royal family and as a knight, she had once trained hoping for a more fitting blessing, perhaps Dark Knight Freesia or Azure Thunder Knight Altena.

And yet one day, without warning, Gramhyde’s power manifested within her.

According to the temple, their compatibility had simply been extraordinarily high. In other words, Seris possessed a talent that matched the dragon god’s dominion.

And indeed, she soon awakened magic over gravity itself.

With her existing talent for gravity magic amplified by Gramhyde’s savage blessing, its force became absurdly powerful.

Even at thirteen, as a first-year in the imperial academy, her Gravity Field could crush even the thick-shelled turtle monsters of the field within seconds.

Far too much power for a child.

Seris possessed beauty, intellect, talent with the blade, and now this blessing as well. In her generation, only Nero, first prince of Avalon, could truly be said to stand beside her.

It was only natural that her future was expected to shine.

And yet Seris almost never used this divine power.

Or rather, she could not.

“Gh… ah…”

At last Lily’s feet touched the ground.

Her body, small and far lighter than it appeared, landed, and the instant her feet met the earth, the beautifully tiled pavement shattered. Cracks raced outward with a deafening roar. It was as if something impossibly heavy had slammed down from above.

It was not Lily who was heavy.

It was the gravity acting upon her.

“I’m sorry, but once this begins, even I can’t stop it.”

Seris had never fully mastered Gramhyde’s power.

Once invoked, it would continue until her own magic ran dry, crushing, breaking, and sinking the earth beneath it without regard for her will.

She had trained herself nearly to the point of bleeding.

It had changed nothing.

As though mocking the notion that a human could ever rein in a dragon god, the power simply burst forth, heedless of the one through whom it flowed.

A blessing that existed for no purpose but to spread pure, crushing violence was never something she could use lightly.

It had no place in academy duels.

It could not be used against swift and powerful foes in confined spaces like Chaotic Rim.

But now she had comrades strong enough to buy her the time to unleash it.

And that changed everything.

“Fairy Lily. Against you, I have no hesitation in using this power!”

As if answering her will, the blessing within Seris swelled at an accelerating pace.

Her beautiful emerald eyes, so like Lily’s in color, shifted into an eerie dark violet to match the aura now spilling from her body. Her pupils thinned into the slit shape of a dragon’s.

The blessing’s purple aura bled into her white armor, staining it black-violet, turning it into something sinister.

Nor did the change end there.

From the sides of Seris’s head, horns began to emerge.

Two twisted, blade-like horns, sharp and dark-violet, glimmered with an ominous brilliance. The more the dragon god’s gravity poured through her, the more those horns deepened in color and intensity.

The silver-haired beauty in white armor no longer resembled a holy knight of light.

She had become something like the incarnation of an evil dragon.

And yet her heart remained pure.

“This dragon’s power is cursed. But if I can use it to save Princess Nell and protect you, Chrono, then I—”

At the center of the Gravity Field, where the force was greatest, Lily had dropped to all fours. It looked as though even the fairy’s beautiful radiance would be pressed into the earth itself.

“Gh… kh… hehe… What an unusual experience. To feel gravity magic for myself.”

And still Lily smiled.

Even while trapped within a torrent of gravity powerful enough to turn her into a lump of ruined flesh the instant her Oracle Field so much as cracked, she smiled as she always did.

“Grant wishes to the stars, water to the thirsty, flowers to the wasteland. Let them bloom. Great Fairy Barrier, Fairy Garden.”

Green light burst outward.

And in the next instant, flowers bloomed.

Just as the incantation declared, flowers bloomed even in a land as harsh and ruined as this, as though embodying the hope that life could spring forth anywhere. The emerald light erased the black-violet pillar of gravity, and a field of brilliant flowers spread across the battlefield.

“Whew… It’s heavy, all right. Taking even one step is hard.”

And Lily stood.

As if she had merely stumbled and then risen again, she rose lightly to her feet.

So naturally it almost seemed absurd.

Seris’s unleashed power caused the earth to crack and cave, but Lily had simply gotten back up.

That alone said more than enough.