"Unforgivable!"
Seeing her most important brother injured by the fleshy tentacle, Shizuku Kurogane channeled all her burning rage into magical power.
She hurled jagged ice crystal spears in rapid succession, launching a fierce assault on the massive writhing monster.
The kinetic force carried by the heavy ice spears was enough to effortlessly pierce armored vehicles.
Any carbon-based life form would be completely unable to defend against this attack unscathed.
"Repent, you filthy monster!"
Shizuku's ice spikes struck simultaneously under her precise magical control.
However, the strange sensation upon impact turned the girl's furious expression into pure shock.
She felt her magical attacks simply vanish without a trace the exact moment they hit the "monster."
"What?!"
'The attacks disappeared?! What's going on...?!'
Ikki, who had just been dragged out of the monster's reach by Nagi Arisuin, suddenly had a very bad premonition upon seeing this.
He urgently shouted, "Shizuku! Get out of the way!"
'Huh?'
The monster emitted a strange, vibrating humming sound.
Was it mocking her?
The next moment, numerous jagged holes suddenly opened all over the monster's fleshy body.
No, those weren't holes.
Looking closely, they were actually huge, tooth-filled mouths!
Each mouth contained highly compressed, powerful magic power—ice attribute magic power.
Sensing a highly familiar aura from that charging magic, Shizuku widened her eyes in horror.
'No way.'
'Could it be?!'
Whoosh!
A massive barrage of ice spikes shot back out from the monster's mouths, their speed and power completely identical to the ones Shizuku had just fired.
She desperately wanted to activate her defensive Noble Art, Suiren.
But facing attacks returning with the exact same speed as her own, her casting speed was just a fraction of a second too slow.
"..."
"SHIZUKU!!!"
Ignoring his own bleeding injuries, Ikki decisively activated his trump card once again.
"ITTOU SHURA!"
With a roar, Ikki's glowing blue figure instantly passed through the dense barrage of ice spikes, simultaneously scooping up Shizuku, who was at the epicenter of the attack and carrying her to safety.
"Bro... brother."
Looking up at Ikki, who was panting heavily after using Ittou Shura twice in one day, Shizuku felt her heart racing incredibly fast.
'As expected of my brother. So strong! So cool!'
Ikki set his sister down safely and asked with deep concern, "Are you okay, Shizuku? Be careful and stand to the side. I will end this quickly."
Before the confident Ikki, Shizuku obediently nodded her head before stepping far away.
Ikki then raised his black sword, pointing it directly at the roaring monster before him.
"With my absolute weakest, I shall defeat your madness."
"Here I go!"
The boy's figure turned into a blue afterimage, disappearing entirely from everyone's sight.
All the spiked tentacles on the monster's body erupted at once—over a dozen fleshy whips chasing the boy's blindingly fast figure with constant twists and turns.
Ikki jumped and ducked several times.
Under his exquisite, superhuman footwork, the monster's flailing tentacles all tangled into a massive, bleeding knot, unable to untangle themselves.
Deprived of its main means of physical attack, the monster could only rage helplessly, continuously emitting eerie, gurgling cries.
'Hooked,' Ikki thought to himself.
'As expected, this monster's intelligence isn't that high!'
He leaped high into the air before the monster, gripping Intetsu tightly with both hands, preparing to deliver the fatal blow to its head.
But at that exact moment, the monster suddenly opened its massive, central mouth wide.
"Woooo——!!!"
A disorienting, concussive sonic wave spread out violently.
Ikki, being extremely close in mid-air, bore the brunt of it.
His mind instantly went blank, his eardrums rupturing, and he naturally forgot to swing his sword.
"Ikki!"
"Brother!!"
Whoosh!
Just as the stunned Ikki was about to be swallowed whole by the monster's gaping maw, a figure moving too fast for the naked eye flashed through the air, grab Ikki by the collar and pull him safely away from the beast.
Then, a massive gust of wind that had been delayed for a moment howled past.
"Ahhhh!"
Shizuku was blown backward by the sheer wind pressure, unable to open her eyes.
She could only shield her face with her arms, barely maintaining her stance while letting out a scream.
BOOM!
The heavy shopping mall wall was smashed into a huge crater by Noah's sudden landing.
He shook his head, checked the bleeding Ikki in his hand and sighed in relief upon finding his eardrums hadn't been permanently damaged by the sonic attack.
"That was dangerous... As expected, I shouldn't casually use movement techniques I just come up with on a whim."
If he didn't concentrated his magic power to offset the kinetic impact force, he would have been flattened into a bloody pancake against the wall just now.
That's right, Flattened.
Just now, he had used Weaver to change all gravity within a five-meter radius to point completely horizontally, turning all his "forward" momentum into "downward."
Thus, he "fell" forward.
With wind resistance magically eliminated, gravity's pull made him reach supersonic speed in an instant.
According to his physics theory, if he didn't stop using the ability, he would keep "falling" infinitely in whatever direction he chose.
Through this bizarre method, he achieved something physically akin to true "flight."
However, compared to true flight, his method was much more complex and carried extremely high, lethal risks.
Since it wasn't true flight but continuous falling, he couldn't cleanly change direction during movement.
For example, if there was a sharp turn ahead, a true flier could simply fly around it.
But Noah would need to complete at least six complex steps: "weightlessness," "calibration," "falling," "weightlessness," "recalibration," and "falling" again just to pass a simple corner.
'Ugh. Damn it, feeling a bit dizzy.'
Noah landed with Ikki on his shoulder, pushed him a few times and successfully brought the swordsman back to full consciousness.
"My head... hurts. Huh? Noah? How did you... no, is it me...? Did I lose consciousness?"
"Calm down, Kurogane. The enemy isn't dealt with yet!"
Ikki widened his eyes, instantly scrambling up, but this sudden movement tugged at the bleeding puncture wound on his abdomen, making him grimace in agony.
Seeing this, Noah directly applied a soothing ice pack to his stomach.
The pain eased considerably.
Though still sweating profusely from the agony, Ikki expressed his gratitude.
"Thank you, Noah."
Noah turned around, looking sharply at a strange shadow on the damaged wall.
Then, he saw two people walk out from the shadows.
One was Shizuku.
The other...
"This is Nagi Arisuin, my roommate," Ikki said, intending to formally introduce both sides.
But Alice interrupted him with a polite smile. "No need, Ikki. The name Calamity is known to all freshmen right now. Right, Noah?"
Despite the terrifying situation, this "soft and cute" boy could still maintain a perfectly calm, smiling expression.
'This guy.'
Noah silently used Truth Seeker on him.
Simultaneously, he also mentally labeled this Nagi Arisuin as highly dangerous.
[Nagi Arisuin] (Alice)
Blazer Rank: A
Device: Dark Stalker
Affiliation: Rebellion
'An A-Rank Blazer! And his affiliation... this guy is actually an active member of Rebellion?!'
'Infiltrated into Hagun Academy under a false identity? Working from the inside? No, no... for just this simple bank-robbing plan, sending a highly valuable A-Rank Blazer as a spy is too outrageous no matter how you look at it.'
'Judging by his protective actions toward Ikki, he doesn't seem like he wants to expose his identity to the terrorists.'
'So he has another purpose for being here? Is this incident just a coincidence for him?'
"Ah, Noah's strength is very reliable! With the few of us together, there is definitely no problem!" Ikki seemed to want to boost morale.
Noah noticed Alice observing him and didn't mind adding fuel to the fire.
He explained, "Well, that is not entirely accurate, because I am not actually alone either. But she really objected to the nauseating movement method I came up with on a whim, so I came ahead to save you first."
"You mean... Could it be Princess Stella is here too?! That's really reassuring!"
Alice also agreed with a smile, "With an A-Rank knight arriving in this situation, the tactical circumstances are completely different."
'This guy... even though he himself is A-Rank.'
'His acting skills is really good, like an Oscar-worthy actor.'
Only Shizuku seemed highly gossipy.
In such a critical, life-or-death situation, she actually asked, "Why are you two at the shopping mall together on a weekend? Are you two dating?!"
'The fuck.'
Noah really didn't know what was going on in this sister's head.
...
The monster had also had enough of being completely ignored by the chatting students.
Its entire body's muscles writhed grotesquely as it pressed toward the group, with massive, sharp bone barbs growing on both its arms.
"Scatter!"
Everyone dodged rapidly in different directions.
During the movement, Ikki shouted, "Noah, be careful! This monster actively absorbs magic attacks and releases them back! Don't attack it recklessly with magic!"
This information surprised Noah somewhat.
Because he didn't expect that with its soul twisted into this horrific state, the Blazer could still unconsciously use their Device's Ability.
Through the Truth Seeker's appraisal effect, he learned that Bisho's Device was named Judgement Ring, existing as a left-right pair of metal rings.
The left ring's Ability was to completely absorb the opponent's kinetic and magical damage.
The right ring's Ability was to violently release the absorbed damage back at the attacker.
Actually, it wasn't just magic attacks; even blunt physical attacks could be absorbed through the left ring's power. A
ccording to Ikki, even after turning into a minor mental pollution and losing all self-awareness, "Bisho" could still use his Device's Ability.
'How interesting.'
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