Charles's stance made everything plain to Conrad.
Charles knew he couldn't talk Conrad around; Conrad knew there was no recruiting Charles.
Both understood there was only one option left—fight.
With a sweep of Conrad's hand, a dozen-odd archways of glowing sigils appeared out of thin air.
Just then, Julius's voice sounded in Charles's mind. Conrad's attendant, Marx, had arrived and used Memory Magic to transmit intel.
Conrad's magic was Key Magic—able to open or close anything. Because that power seemed less than honorable, the noble-born Conrad had long been shunned and despised.
But Conrad had pushed that magic to its limits, using magic keys to open a magic space, seize other people's spells, and store them within. He himself could freely wield any magic stored in that space.
Conrad had earned the Wizard King's mantle on merit; the magi he'd defeated—their magics were all part of his collection, and even his comrades had entrusted their magics to him.
No one could say how many types and attributes of magic Conrad could use, nor predict his endlessly flexible fighting style.
That was the weight of a Wizard King—enough to make even Charles's blood stir.
Keys slid into light-gates, and attacks of the four basic attributes came flooding out first.
Charles twisted past a wind column and a stone spike, swept a hand to shatter a water blade, and finished by swallowing the incoming fireball whole.
Interest flickered in Conrad's eyes as he glanced at the grimoire at Charles's hip.
Magic script flowed across his pupils—Conrad was reading the spells inscribed in Charles's grimoire.
Halfway through, the script glitched into indecipherable gibberish.
He could parse part of Charles's magic, but the rest remained opaque.
Fire Dragonslayer Magic was one thing; World Magic was an out-of-spec power even a god from another world couldn't decode. It would've been strange if he could see through it.
That only intrigued Conrad more—this was a first.
"Interesting. A truly rare, one-of-a-kind magic."
More light-gates irised open as he spoke, unleashing a barrage at the now-closing Charles.
Ice, lightning, poison, light, darkness—even the rare space attribute—surged at him all at once.
Charles planted his feet and punched like loosing an arrow.
"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
A tidal blaze erupted with the strike, smashing the converging spells in one sweep.
Suddenly, weight crashed down on him. He looked up to see a magic light-gate yawning overhead.
Gravity Magic—paired with Shadow Magic writhing at his feet to snare him—made for a brutal bind.
Charles snorted, lifted a foot, and crushed the shadow twining his legs. As his foot came down, flame roared skyward from him, blasting apart the gravity pressing from above.
Trying to bind him with tricks like these was insulting.
Before Charles could close in, Conrad did—rushing forward himself.
Light-gates opened at his sides, and he reached in to seize two knight swords that thrust out, slashing straight for Charles.
Conrad could use all kinds of magic—and his swordsmanship was no slouch, either. This Wizard King was a surprisingly all-around fighter.
But in the way of the blade, Charles had faced opponents far beyond him; Conrad wasn't about to suppress him there.
Charles's palm met Conrad's edges again and again, locking his offense down cleanly.
After only a few exchanges, Conrad realized he'd get nowhere in close combat. He broke off at once and hurled the swords—one after the other—at Charles.
Charles leaned back to let the first whistle past, then caught the second in his hand and crushed it to shards with a clench of his fingers.
"Fire Dragon's Brilliant Flame!"
Melding fire in both hands into a single mass, Charles hurled a gigantic fireball at the retreating Conrad.
Conrad's pupils shrank. A rank of light-gates tiled open before him in quick succession.
Walls of hard ice and stone; a gate of darkness that devoured magic; a space barrier that blocked all; defensive arrays—all unfolded, a bulwark of iron.
Against a sunfall of flame, they didn't last long; they shattered one by one.
By the time it punched through everything, the Brilliant Flame had been whittled down to almost nothing—split in two by a lightsword thrust from a final gate.
Conrad hadn't even exhaled in relief when danger prickled his skin, and he dodged on instinct.
Charles came down from above, one leg like a battle-axe, chopping hard enough to make the entire arena quake. Even the barrier sheathing the stadium rippled.
The silver-haired youth slipped past a few Magic Knights and pulled a comically exaggerated face. "Hey, hey! Nobody told me the Magic Knights had a guy like that!
Conrad, hurry up and finish him, or that barrier won't hold!"
"Spare me the reminders," Conrad said with a frown.
Layer upon layer of light-gates flowered behind him—dozens—each taking a key.
"Okay, that's a bit much," even Charles admitted, surprised by Conrad's might.
To freely wield all manner of magic and weave them into composites was undeniably powerful.
But Conrad shouldn't have been able to sling that many high-intensity spells at once. Alone, he was matching the firepower of an entire squad—on the level of the Golden Dawn.
Forget the casting burden—his mana should have bottomed out already.
Charles's gaze slid to the Imperial Sword Elsdocia hanging at Conrad's waist.
If he wasn't wrong, the siphoning array draining everyone in the arena was pumping mana into the four of them—and the core of that array was the sword.
A once-in-ten-years festival brings most of the Magic Knights here, plus crowds of civilians—no wonder their mana seemed endless.
Conrad swept an arm down, and nearly a hundred disparate spells roared toward Charles.
Wreathed in flame, Charles launched skyward, scrawling a burning line through the air and leaving one detonation after another in his wake.
Under Conrad's indiscriminate bombardment, though, even he had few clean options.
Conrad didn't care if civilians died—he could fire at will. Charles couldn't answer with wide-area counterstrikes that might take innocents with them.
The uproar drew everyone's eyes to Charles's duel with Conrad; Asta and the others lit up with delight.
Seeing Charles here, now—that was the best morale boost they could ask for.
If they hadn't been in the thick of it, they'd have rushed over to ask where he'd been these past months.
And the girl holding off the legion-caster plainly had something to do with Charles—huge help.
Even so, with Stella tying up the uniformed commander, the overall situation was grim.
The old man's ice-wedge magic and the silver-haired man's barrier magic were honed to terrifying heights, and with near-limitless mana behind them, they were suppressing the field.
Their airtight strength was one issue; another was that not everyone was like Asta—mana-less and immune to siphoning—or like Yuno and Noelle, whose deep reserves could bear it. Most were being drained out of the fight.
Just then, the arena wall exploded inward and a group stormed in.
"A super-strong big sis is here to help!"
At their head, a cute girl in a witch's hat flashed a V-sign and a wink.
Dorothy Unsworth, captain of the Coral Peacock from the Witches' Forest—rarely seen awake—made a grand entrance as reinforcements.
Beside her stood a portly uncle with a handlebar mustache—Kaiser Granvorka, the new captain of the Purple Orca.
Elsewhere, a boy with a paintbrush planted himself at Yuno's side.
"What ominous mana. I could paint something great from this."
Rill Boismortier, captain of the Aqua Deer, was set to fight.
Silver and crimson flared; the remaining steel soldiers were either perforated or incinerated as two rival captains arrived together.
"We can't allow you to run wild any longer!" ×2
Fuegoleon and Nozel spoke in unison.
Conrad abruptly stopped casting and slipped back. A heartbeat later, several blades of darkness slammed down.
"I go to take a dump and it all goes to hell!"
Yami Sukehiro dropped heavily to the ground, katana slung over his shoulder, and said it just like that.
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter
For every 50 Power Stones, one extra chapter will be released on Saturday.