The air on the eastern wing of the Great Plains trembled violently, distorted by two opposing poles of power clashing against one another. On one side, a dark emerald-green pillar of hurricane wind swirled around the elf sisters of the Barbatos Familia, radiating a terror that rivaled Zald's absolute Level 9 power. On the other side, Bell Cranel, Ais Wallenstein, Ryuu Lion, and Lefiya Viridis emitted a golden glow from the Uchide no Kozuchi magic, breaking past their level limits thanks to Sanjouno Haruhime in the rearguard.
This decisive battle no longer had any room for hesitation.
"Lefiya, Ryuu-san! Pin Vena down in the air!" Bell Cranel shouted, issuing an absolute command. His ruby-red eyes blazed sharply thanks to Initiative, reading the air currents around them. "Ais-san, we'll crush Dina's defense on the ground!"
"Understood!" Ryuu and Lefiya answered in unison.
Lefiya Viridis was the first to move. The elf mage of the Loki Familia grounded her stance. The golden light pushing her to Level 5 made the Mind capacity within her body overflow. She immediately activated her unique skill, Double Canon.
Lefiya chanted her first spell at lightning speed, completing it in a mere matter of seconds, then held the magic circle in the form of a glowing ring of light on her left arm. Without wasting a single millisecond, she raised her Twin-Stick Fairy Dust staff and chanted her second spell.
"Arcs Ray!"
Three homing magic rays shot out, curving through the daytime air, targeting Vena's position.
In the sky, Vena snorted coldly. Using the Anemo Calyx, she treated the empty air as footholds and darted upward, activating Caelum Dominus. Her Agility and Dexterity parameters skyrocketed. Vena twirled her sword with an elegant yet deadly grace, firing a barrage of Ignis Gladius projectile wind blades that directly sliced through Lefiya's three Arcs Ray beams, causing them to explode mid-air.
However, Lefiya smiled.
That was merely a diversionary spell. The ring of light on her left arm shattered into pieces.
"Shatter! Fusillade Fallarica!"
A massive-scale pillar of fire explosion swept across the entire sky above the eastern wing. Thanks to the passive skill Fairy Canon, the destructive power of that fire magic was multiplied, turning the daytime sky into a sea of lava ready to swallow Vena whole.
Facing that fiery apocalypse, Vena did not retreat in the slightest. The Dis Resonance connected to Dina pumped her magic casting speed to an absurd level. She spread her arms, unleashing Ventus Ruina, focusing the Anemo Calyx storm wind into microscopic drill-bit vortexes. Vena fired the vortexes relentlessly into the epicenter of the sea of fire.
Supported by her Magic Resistance ability, Vena broke through the Fusillade Fallarica, leaving only minor burns on the edges of her clothes. The remaining Ventus Ruina vortexes plummeted sharply downward thanks to the Chain Attack effect, tearing up the ground around Lefiya and forcing the mage to jump away in panic.
"Not done yet!"
A green silhouette shot out, cleaving through the remnants of fire in the air. Ryuu Lion had leaped up into the sky in pursuit, her cloak fluttering against the storm winds.
The wooden sword Alvs Iustitia in Ryuu's grip radiated a blinding light. Ryuu had activated Mind Load and Aero Mana simultaneously, boosting her physical strength to rival the absolute upper limit of a Level 7 adventurer. However, what made Vena narrow her eyes was not Ryuu's speed, but the anomalous magic slipping from the blonde elf's lips.
"Agaris Alvesynth!"
Pure red fire—not Ryuu's signature starlight element—exploded, coating the blade of Alvs Iustitia. Through the ultimate skill Astraea Record, Ryuu borrowed the explosive fire power of her late captain, Alise Lovell.
Ryuu slashed her flaming sword from point-blank range. Vena was forced to use the Anemo Calyx as an air-compression shield and parry it with her dual swords. The mid-air collision created an ear-piercing thermal shockwave, burning the oxygen around them.
Without giving a moment to breathe, Ryuu spun her body in the air and fired glowing stardust from her left hand. "Luminous Wind!"
The stars of green light exploded right in front of Vena's face. The Dark Elf was blown backwards mid-air for a dozen meters, her aerial formation faltering. Ryuu Lion proved her quality as a veteran of the Dark Age; she fought wielding the combat styles of all the members of the Astraea Familia at once.
On the ground, Dina saw her sister being pushed back. Her Dis Resonance instincts forcefully took over her motor reflexes. She raised her hand to cast a Phantasma Ventus illusion towards Ryuu in the air.
However, Bell Cranel and Ais Wallenstein would never leave that opening exposed.
"Your opponents are us!" Bell roared, his voice overcoming the roar of the storm.
The white-haired youth and the Sword Princess charged simultaneously. Ais with her Ariel magic howling deafeningly at Level 7, and Bell with the speed of white light at Level 8.
The impact of Desperate and the Hestia Knife—coated in Afterglow—struck Dina's absolute wind dome, Ventus Canticum, in unison.
BAMMMM!!
The absolute wind dome vibrated violently, creating ripples in the air. Dina was forced to cancel her illusion and focus her Mind on her Shield skill to maintain the dome, while Spirit Healing worked incredibly hard to recover her suddenly drained stamina.
Realizing the deadly danger of the two close-quarters combatants in front of her, Dina used her curse magic without uttering a single word.
Curse of Attraction.
A sound frequency that tortured the nerves and a visual spatial distortion immediately struck Bell and Ais's brains. Ais stumbled slightly, her vision splitting in two; even though her Abnormal Resistance worked quickly, the curse managed to dull her sword instincts for a fraction of a second, causing her slash to lose its piercing power.
However, the effect that occurred on Bell Cranel was completely outside Dina's calculations.
As the charm curse tried to possess Bell's mind, a holy light exploded from the depths of his soul. It was Vanadis Tevere, the absolute blessing of protection from the Virgin Goddess, Hestia. Dina's curse was unilaterally identified as an illusionary charm violating a god's boundaries, triggering the instant activation of the skill.
Not only did it neutralize the Curse of Attraction leaving not a single trace behind, Vanadis Tevere instantly granted a massive buff to all of Bell's parameters, healed the slash wound on his arm, and forcefully recovered his stamina. Bell's red eyes burned brighter.
"Charm magic will never pierce my mind!" yelled Bell. He spun his body, utilizing his Chain Attack skill, continuously building up destructive momentum as his barrage of slashes rained down upon Dina's dome relentlessly.
The battle dragged on into an incredibly brutal and desperate war of endurance.
In the air, Ryuu and Lefiya continued to bombard Vena endlessly. Lefiya once again forced her mind to work beyond reason using Double Canon, this time calling upon her signature summoning magic, Elf Ring.
"Grant my request, grand magic of the forest that freezes the apocalypse! Wynn Fimbulvetr!"
Riveria Ljos Alf's giant blizzard was fired by Lefiya, freezing the moisture in the air and encasing Vena's movements in a glacial cage. Vena was forced to use a barrage of Ventus Ruina blindly to shatter the approaching ice, while Ryuu kept charging with Alvs Iustitia, whose movements now imitated Kaguya's swordsmanship technique (Iai no Tachi "Gokou").
On the ground, Dina continued to strengthen Ventus Canticum while occasionally releasing Phantasma Ventus to create double shadows that deceived Bell and Ais's line of sight. The Dis Resonance synergy between Dina and Vena proved to be truly terrifying; even though they were separated by a distance of tens of meters between the air and the ground, the rhythm of their souls beat in unison. Every time Vena was almost hit by Ryuu's deadly slash, Dina would create a mirage illusion that made Ryuu miss her target. Conversely, every time Dina's dome was almost shattered by Bell's kick, Vena would fire an Ignis Gladius projectile into Bell's blind spot to force him back.
The breathing of the four Orario fighters began to grow heavy. Lefiya's lungs felt like they were burning due to the constant use of Mind. Sweat drenched Ryuu and Ais's foreheads. Haruhime's golden buff had a time limit. If they kept forcing an endurance battle against Dina's Spirit Healing and this Level 9 defense, they would lose.
Bell dodged three of Vena's wind projectiles with his Evasion maneuver, rolling on the muddy ground. His brain, cooled by Initiative, calculated all the pieces of the formation happening before his eyes.
That line of sight again, Bell thought sharply. Dina always looks up toward Vena in the air before she creates an illusion. Vena always glances down before firing support magic. Their soul resonance is an invisible thread that relies entirely on visual confirmation.
"Now's the time!" Bell shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice booming through the roar of the storm so it could be caught by the sharp hearing of the elves on his team.
He had formulated a tactical gamble in a fraction of a second, relying on absolute trust in the coordination of this makeshift team, even though the enemy might be able to hear his shout.
"Ryuu-san, scatter Luminous Wind between the two of them, but don't detonate it until I give the signal! Lefiya, prepare your strongest ice magic right below Vena's position!"
Lefiya, who was nearly out of breath due to the threatening Mind Zero, bit her lip until it bled to maintain consciousness. She forced her Double Canon ring to glow again. "Elf Ring! Wynn Fimbulvetr!"
A giant pillar of ice erupted from within the ground, towering tens of meters into the sky, freezing right in the middle of the elf sisters' formation, standing as a transparent wall between them.
Dina and Vena, possessing Level 9 instincts, immediately realized something was wrong.
"Sister, they're trying to block our vision!" yelled Vena from the air. She immediately compressed the wind on her sword, intending to cast a full-power Ventus Ruina to destroy the ice pillar so she could see her younger sister again.
However, Bell had predicted that with absolute precision.
The youth closed his eyes, focusing the white light particles in his right hand. A clear bell chimed within his soul, its sound echoing above the roar of the storm. Heroic Wish: Argonaut.
Bell did not charge it for a lethal attack. He only held it for four seconds—the exact time before Vena's magic shattered the ice.
"Ryuu-san! Now!" roared Bell.
"Explode, star of justice!" commanded Ryuu loudly.
Hundreds of Luminous Wind stars located right in front of Dina's face and below Vena detonated simultaneously. Instead of using it as destructive area-of-effect magic, Ryuu manipulated the explosion into an absolute burst of light. The explosion acted as a giant-scale flashbang. The blindingly bright green light totally blinded Dina and Vena's vision for two full seconds.
Right at that moment of visual blindness, Bell stretched out his left hand, aiming the rest of his Argonaut charge not at the elf sisters, but directly at Lefiya's giant ice pillar.
"Firebolt!"
The red firebolt, its temperature multiplied by Argonaut, slammed into the ice pillar that possessed the absolute minus temperature of Wynn Fimbulvetr.
The laws of thermodynamics reacted violently. The instant collision between the extreme heat of the Argonaut fire and the eternal ice created a massive-scale explosion of super-dense water vapor. In the blink of an eye, the entire combat area of the Great Plains' eastern wing was swallowed by a thick, rolling white fog, impenetrable by light, wind, or high-level vision.
The visual blindness from Ryuu's light, coupled with the absolute smoke screen from Lefiya and Bell's steam explosion, created a perfect sensory deprivation zone.
Dina on the ground couldn't see anything around her. Vena in the air lost her spatial and visual orientation.
The line of sight between them was absolutely severed.
At that exact second, a sound like a snapping steel wire echoed from within the elf sisters' soul circuit. The thread of the Dis Resonance skill, forced to work beyond its limits (overload) to reach the realm of Level 9, was finally forcibly severed.
The terrifying Zald-equivalent aura pressure that had been choking the entire battlefield suddenly shattered. However, the battle was not over at all.
The loss of Dis Resonance indeed collapsed their Level 9 power, but the Anemo Calyx embedded in the sisters' bodies still shone brightly. The absolute magical power of the wind element still supported them. Dina and Vena's physical and magical parameters only dropped one level, anchoring firmly at the strength equivalent to a Level 8 adventurer.
"Don't let your guard down!" roared Bell, piercing through the thick veil of steam. "Their power is in the realm of Level 8! Attack with all your might!"
Vena in the air felt the loss of her soul connection with her older sister. For a moment, her body swayed, but her sharp combat instincts immediately stabilized her position. Using the Anemo Calyx, Vena created a giant wind foothold in the air, maintaining Caelum Dominus. Her eyes narrowed in anger.
"A cunning tactic, White Rabbit!" growled Vena. She cast Ignis Gladius blindly in all directions, trying to destroy the steam fog blocking her vision.
However, Bell, possessing pure Level 8 speed (thanks to Haruhime's buff), had dashed through the veil of steam like a ghost. Guided by Initiative, Bell cleaved through Vena's random wind slashes and appeared right above the Dark Elf's head.
Vena was surprised, but her Level 8 reflexes responded. She raised her wind sword to parry.
Bell didn't waste his momentum. While floating down through the fog, he drew the Hestia Knife and swung it in a horizontal trajectory with full-speed compression.
Afterglow (Zankou).
A white light projectile slash cleaved the water vapor, exploding and slamming squarely into Vena's crossed sword defense from point-blank range. The kinetic impact from the compression of fellow Level 8 slashes detonated violently in the air. Because Vena no longer had Dis Resonance to share and absorb the massive kinetic impact, her defense broke. Vena's body was blown away, plummeting downward like a meteor, smashing into the grassy plains and creating a deep crater.
At the same time, on the ground, Dina felt a momentary weakness due to the severed resonance. Her Ventus Canticum wind dome thinned and lost its absolute deflective gleam.
"Ais, Ryuu-san!" shouted Lefiya from afar, guiding their direction using her elven hearing.
The Sword Princess and the Gale Wind needed no second command. With Hunter and Swordsman instincts, Ais Wallenstein found the silhouette of the weakened wind dome in the fog. She compressed all her Ariel magic to the tip of Desperate's blade. Beside her, Ryuu focused her remaining Mind into Alvs Iustitia, calling upon Aero Mana until the blade vibrated, emitting starlight.
"Pierce through!!" yelled Ais and Ryuu simultaneously.
The two slashed with extraordinary synchronization from opposite directions. Desperate cloaked in a green storm and Alvs Iustitia glowing with starlight slammed into the outer side of Ventus Canticum.
This time, without Dis Resonance multiplying Dina's Shield to the degree of Level 9, the wind dome finally reached its physical tension limit. Ventus Canticum exploded into sharp air fragments like thin glass shattered with a sledgehammer.
Dina was blown backwards by the shockwave, but her Level 8 agility from the Anemo Calyx allowed her to land safely. Dina compressed the storms in both her palms to form a pair of incredibly sharp wind swords to counterattack Ais.
A true close combat battle now broke out. Bell, landing from the sky, was immediately attacked by Vena, who rose from the crater with burning anger. Bell spun the Hestia Knife, parrying Vena's barrage of wind sword slashes. The clangs of magical and physical clashes collided at high speed. Bell had to use all his body's flexibility and Initiative predictions to match Vena's agility.
On the other side, Ais and Ryuu surrounded Dina. The two launched a barrage of combination slashes that forced Dina to keep retreating. Despite fighting alone, Dina's Swordsman ability combined with her wind swords allowed her to parry Ais and Ryuu's slashes simultaneously. Dina created small remnants of Phantasma Ventus illusions from the tips of her air currents to distort Ais's depth perception, then kicked Ryuu in the stomach, forcing her a step back.
"They're still this strong without resonance?!" grumbled Ryuu while clutching her stomach.
"Don't give them room to breathe!" Ais retorted, lunging forward again with an increasingly feral Ariel.
The battle of Level 8s against these two Level 7s turned the remnants of the muddy land into a scorched, barren wasteland. Lefiya could no longer unleash large-scale magic for fear of hitting her friends who were moving too fast, so she only occasionally fired Arcs Ray.
The stamina of both sides had reached its absolute limit. Their breaths were ragged. Slashing wounds and bruises adorned the bodies of Bell, Ais, Ryuu, as well as Dina and Vena. Haruhime's golden buff on the bodies of the four Orario adventurers began to flicker unstably, indicating the time limit of that miracle was less than a minute.
"We end this now, Bell Cranel!" yelled Vena, the wind sword in her hand glowing deep green. She channeled all her remaining Anemo Calyx into one giant Ventus Ruina vortex in the palm of her hand.
Dina nodded in agreement with her younger sister, twirling both her wind swords to gather a storm that would shred the area.
"Everyone, attack at once!" ordered Bell, his voice hoarse.
The four fighters risked everything. Lefiya squeezed out her very last drop of Mind to cast a small-scale Fusillade Fallarica toward Dina. Ryuu Lion compressed the Luminous Wind stardust directly onto the blade of Alvs Iustitia. Ais Wallenstein beforehand chanted her wind magic, Ariel, to envelop her entire body and sword with a fierce wind vortex, preparing her ultimate move, Lil Rafaga.
And Bell Cranel, with blazing eyes and a battered body, activated Argonaut for the last time. He coated the Hestia Knife with white particles and red fire simultaneously, creating a fusion of Argo Vesta with the Afterglow slash technique.
"Argo Vesta: Ignis Zankou!"
"Lil Rafaga!"
Six pillars of power collided at the exact same epicenter. An explosion of white light, red fire, emerald storm, and green stars swallowed the entire eastern wing. The sound of the explosion was heard all the way to the Tower of Babel, shaking the foundation of the earth. The collision of pure energy created a giant crater tens of meters in diameter.
When the explosion finally subsided and the dust of battle began to be swept away by the daytime wind, a dramatic scene was presented at the bottom of the crater.
Lefiya Viridis fell face-down, fainting instantly due to Mind Zero. Ryuu Lion knelt on one knee, her sword Alvs Iustitia planted in the ground to support her body. Ais Wallenstein canceled her remaining Ariel, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
And Bell Cranel stood with trembling legs. Blood dripped from his forehead and arm. The golden light of Uchide no Kozuchi on their bodies slowly faded then disappeared completely, leaving a bone-paralyzing exhaustion.
In front of Bell and Ais, Dina and Vena's bodies lay on the scorched earth. Their clothes were mostly torn. The wind swords in Dina's grasp had faded and dissolved back into empty air, as had Vena's. The Level 8 aura from the Anemo Calyx on their bodies finally went out. Both fainted due to physical and Mind exhaustion, but their breathing was still steady.
The impossible battle was over.
Bell let out a long sigh, intending to let himself drop to the ground. However, before his consciousness also faded, Bell's red eyes caught one small detail on the face of the unconscious Dina.
Behind her dust-covered face, the corners of Dina's lips curled up slightly. A proud, peaceful, and sincere smile was faintly etched on the elf's face. She smiled realizing that the heroes of Orario in this future timeline—especially that white-haired youth—truly possessed the strength and strategy worthy of protecting this world.
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