The moment Rin saw the Old Magician Aozaki, she knew that there could be no peaceful resolution between them.
Whether from Rin's own perspective, or everything the Old Magician Aozaki had done to Touko and Aoko, or the Old Magician Aozaki's intentions for Rin, when they met, one side had to be annihilated!
During the Old Magician Aozaki's excited speech, and to avoid being detected, Rin mobilized all her Magic Power within her body and simultaneously sealed it.
At the opportune moment, she released all her Magic Power at once!
She instantly converted all the Great Source life force in the air into End Magic!
Rin's 473 Magic Circuits glowed brightly the moment the Magic Power erupted.
The Magic Power flowing through the circuits manifested outside her body along with the Magic Power in the air, imprinted on the ground, walls, and in the air!
At this moment, the entire misaki leyline became one with Rin.
The misaki leyline, centered on the dragon source, was Rin's Magic Circuits!
"Numerology - Great Heavenly Cycle - Direct Current Convergence - 108 Spell Cycles!"
Centered on Rin's feet, large and small numerological Magic arrays overlapped, twisted, and collided, with 108 Magic arrays finally forming a new, massive Magic array covering the entire dragon vein core area!
"Unimaginable, unimaginable! To be on par with the origin, what a powerful force this is! As long as I can possess this power, I will be a true god!"
The stronger Rin's talent appeared at this moment, the more fanatical the Old Magician Aozaki became.
In this space completely filled with End Magic, the Old Magician Aozaki felt a pressure he had never experienced in his life, a pressure from a lower-ranked mystery facing a higher-ranked mystery.
"Then you shall be annihilated by this power! Numerology - Heaven's Nest!"
Endless lightning intertwined in the dragon source hall, dense lightning threads weaving into a thunderous nest from the nine heavens, striking towards the Old Magician Aozaki!
Facing the endless lightning, the Old Magus, standing before the dragon source, remained calm.
A black and white domain, clearly defined, unfolded around him.
A blurry, illusory axis appeared behind him, without beginning or end, a giant axis rooted in the past and future – the axis of time!
Manipulating the threads of time with the Fifth Magic, the old man's spiritual body instantly vanished, then reappeared.
No, what appeared was no longer a spiritual body, but a living, breathing, middle-aged man of flesh and blood—
The Old Magician Aozaki had actually used the power of the Fifth Magic to pull his peak state self from the past into the present, restoring him to his full power!
The black and white domain disappeared, and ten thousand bolts of lightning passed through the Old Magician Aozaki's body as if striking thin air.
But Rin knew that this was also an application of the Fifth Magic; it wasn't "as if," those lightning bolts truly struck thin air, because the Magus Aozaki wasn't there at all.
He was time-traveling in increments of seconds, and he was in the next second of the normal timeline.
Current attacks, of course, could not hit a future target.
The lightning nest dissipated, and two giant hundred-meter-tall tornadoes suddenly formed around the Magus Aozaki.
With a wave of his hand, the two tornadoes, like fierce dragons breaking through the sea, clawed and thrashed towards Rin.
Along with them, a recondite and incomprehensible chant sounded in the air.
Chanting spells in the future, and manifesting the completed Magic in the present.
The powerful Magic of reversing the time axis was revealed in its true form in the hands of a true wielder of the Fifth Magic!
At this moment, Rin, who was connected to the leyline and had almost infinite Magic Power, faced this normally almost despair-inducing Greater Magic with unusual calm.
The Magic Circuits glowing on her skin were like totem tattoos covering her entire body, adding a layer of eerie mystery to Rin.
Rin now manipulated the Magic Power in the leyline as freely as she manipulated the Magic Power within her own body.
A magical light flashed in her emerald-like eyes, and two massive compressed Magic Power spheres instantly appeared in front of the tornadoes.
The enormous impact of their explosive detonation instantly disrupted the swirling circulation of the hurricanes, turning them into harmless strong winds.
The dragon source is the origin of Great Source life force, and also the origin of all Magic Power.
Any Magic Power that touches it will only be instantly reversed into life force, so neither Rin nor the Magus Aozaki had any qualms.
"Since you can run to the future, then I will freeze you in the present so you can't go anywhere! Numerology - Zero Freezing!"
A massive and dazzling pure white freezing aura appeared out of thin air, centered on the Magus Aozaki.
The middle-aged man standing within was instantly engulfed, and the freezing aura froze everything around it.
The absolutely deep cold aura spread, an absolute ice that froze even the flow of time, which Rin manifested through imagination, relying on infinite Greater Magic Power.
Even time had nowhere to escape.
"As expected of an existence on par with the origin, not simple at all! This old man hasn't fought in so long, I'm almost rusty..."
A chanting sound, distinctly different from modern incantations, emanated from within the ice block. Subsequently, a violent gust of wind swept through, and the solid ice block split open in the middle like cheese, revealing the figure of Magus Aozaki.
"Child, are you truly unwilling to cooperate with me? You should know that continuing to fight like this, with both of us gaining and losing, is utterly meaningless," Magus Aozaki said. "You are also a mystic explorer pursuing truth. Although you possess the supreme origin, you lack sufficient understanding and knowledge of the mystic. The only way to not waste this unique capital and time is to cooperate with me. We will become unique, absolutely supreme gods!"
In response, Rin's lips curled upwards into a disdainful smile as she looked at Magus Aozaki and said, "Heh heh, what happened to all that arrogance just now? Weren't you just saying that you could become a true god? Why are we suddenly 'cooperating'? You know, old ghost, your words are like telling someone who inherited a massive fortune, 'You have too much money, give it to me, and I'll spend it.' Equally ridiculous!"
Magus Aozaki trembled and shook, thoroughly enraged. As a Magus wielding the Fifth Magic, he had never suffered such an insult. However, for the sake of that supreme origin, he endured it. "But what's the point of this endless consumption if neither of us can defeat the other?! I am already a spirit body and don't need sleep or rest. But no matter how special your body is, you will still get tired and sleepy. Your body operating continuously like this will eventually collapse!" Magus Aozaki said, as if fearing Rin's body would break down.
"Ah ha ha ha!..." Rin covered her stomach and pounded the ground, laughing as if she had heard the funniest joke, tears streaming from her eyes. "You're going to make me die of laughter, old ghost! I admit everything you said is true."
Indeed, in the current situation, Magus Aozaki was relying on the misaki leyline, using his pure spirit body to rapidly convert it into his Magic Power. However, the Magic Power he could convert was only a minuscule fraction compared to the misaki leyline, but relatively speaking, it meant he could use Magic Power infinitely.
The vast majority of the remaining misaki leyline would overflow into the air, being converted and assimilated by Rin's End Magic. Although the misaki leyline at this time was equivalent to Rin's Magic Circuits, the leyline ultimately had to flow. Rin could only control the Magic Power that filled the leyline; whatever was not used and consumed would overflow into the real world and be converted back into life force.
Therefore, at this point, the two could only gain and lose against each other. With equally infinite Magic Power, Magus Aozaki possessed the incredibly powerful Fifth Magic, while Rin could mobilize Magic Power thousands of times greater than his, making them perfectly matched.
But... "But with my physical and mental endurance, I can maintain this state for three days and three nights. However, your planned Mahoutsukai no Yoru will conclude tomorrow night. By then, Aoko will have awakened the Fifth Magic through her engraving, and following the singularity of magic mastery, you will be forcibly stripped of the Fifth Magic and utterly finished. Moreover..." Rin's smile grew colder and colder, looking at the once dominant, highest-level existence in the mystic world as if he were a dead man (he was already dead, just a soul).
"And you won't even last until tomorrow night. Or rather, in your current state, your time is already running out."
Indeed, magic is the pinnacle of mystery, a shore that Maguss, no matter how close, can never reach. It is the truth of the world, a hole drilled open to peek into the Root, a miracle that humanity can absolutely never achieve no matter how hard they try, an act of violence inflicted by humans upon the world. But adhering to the basic principle of equivalent exchange, to activate magic, to inflict violence upon the world, one must inevitably face the world's rejection! Magic is a miracle that distorts phenomena and twists causality, so it will inevitably be corrected by the counter force!
"Magus Aozaki, your time is running out!!!"
---------------------------------
I hope you're enjoying the fanfiction so far! If the story has you hooked and you can't wait to see what happens next, you can unlock 30 chapters in advance over on my Patreon: patreon.com/TLHimejima1
Every bit of support means the world to me so if you're loving the ride, don't forget to drop a Power Stone and let me know.