Magical Power churned through the air as violent spells tore across it, each one cracking with sonic booms before slamming into the ground and blasting out huge craters.
"Whoosh!"
A figure appeared behind Aži Dahāka as if teleporting, soundless and instantaneous, and drove the silver Spear in her hand straight forward.
"Clang!"
A dragon wing suddenly unfolded behind Aži Dahāka and blocked the strike.
"Boom!"
At the same time, several Magic Circles appeared behind Dahaka, releasing elemental attacks of lightning, light, fire, and more as they blasted toward the figure.
But before any of them could hit, the figure vanished from where she stood, leaving several more massive craters in the ground.
No dust rose at all, because the moment those attacks hit, everything inside the craters was annihilated.
Clearly, Dahaka still had no intention of revealing his true form, so he had compressed the attacks to keep the building from collapsing.
"You crafty little rat, play with me a while longer. Don't let it end so quickly."
"The power of time is quite interesting. What a waste that it ended up in the hands of a rat like you. Why not give it to me instead? I'm far more suited to it."
"Hahahaha... Kill her. Crush her."
The three heads above wore mocking smiles as they babbled to themselves, predicting where the figure would appear next. Several Magical Power arrays formed out of thin air, firing an unbroken barrage of magic projectiles.
The projectiles flew faster than the figure could evade them. On top of that, she had just finished using her ability, so caught off guard, she could only twist her body as hard as she could to avoid taking the full hit and being killed on the spot.
"Guh!"
Spitting out a mouthful of blood, she crawled up from the deep pit, used Spiritual Energy to stop the bleeding, and forcibly reattached her severed arm. Koyomi Shizuka raised her head and met the gaze of the three faces full of malice and ridicule.
Feeling the immense pressure weighing down on her, growing heavier by the second, and sensing how the earlier magical attack had sharply increased the density of Magical Power in the area, Koyomi Shizuka's face went completely blank.
Kuraki Shirona, you fossil.
Wasn't I told the only enemy here was someone from the Black Death Emperor Front? Then what the hell is this half-dragon supposed to be?
I can sneak up on him from behind, sure, but if I can't even break through his defense, how the hell am I supposed to fight him?!
Damn it. That was just a casual attack, and it already stirred up the Magical Power in the area this much. This monster could probably go toe-to-toe with a Primogenitor.
"Not attacking?"
"Then I'll come to you."
"Don't die too soon, little mouse."
After a few seconds of staring her down and seeing no sign that Koyomi Shizuka intended to attack, Dahaka bared his fangs in a vicious grin. With a casual call, even more Magic Circles appeared than before.
Faced with a barrage of magic projectiles so dense it filled her entire field of vision, Koyomi Shizuka had no time left to complain. She immediately activated Paper Noise and slipped through a gap in the world of stopped time.
As time began to flow again, Koyomi Shizuka felt a powerful shockwave roaring toward her from behind, followed by a deafening explosion.
This time, Dahaka was serious. He was still restraining his output, but only in terms of the attack's scale.
The magical assault obliterated everything in its path, leaving behind a bottomless hole.
No good. I have to run!
Staring at the horrifying scene before her, Koyomi Shizuka swallowed hard and decided to flee. If she stayed any longer, she really would die here.
A safety net for the plan?
With that monster standing in front of her, what could a mere Saint like her possibly do as a fallback? Even if the entire Lion King Organization came at once, lasting half a day would be a miracle.
Let the Fourth Primogenitor go berserk and deal with this half-dragon?
Don't make her laugh. Right now, Kojou Akatsuki could overwhelm weaker opponents through sheer brute force thanks to his absurd base stats, but against someone like this, he would be nothing but a punching bag.
He might not even qualify as that, because Kojou Akatsuki's Fourth Primogenitor bloodline was incomplete. The Primogenitor's greatest strength, its immortality, couldn't even be fully brought out.
She had to get out of here, get the information out, and call in reinforcements to deal with him. As for Kojou Akatsuki... all she could do was pray his immortality would hold until help arrived.
She activated Paper Noise again, dragged her battered body toward the passage leading outside, and ran. Going by Dahaka's earlier performance, Paper Noise had worked on him.
"Oh my, the little mouse wants to run."
"What a pity. You chose the wrong road."
"It would've been so nice if you'd just let us analyze your ability. Time-based powers are quite rare."
Inside the world of stopped time, three voices rang out where no voices should have existed, followed by several magical attacks.
"You can move!"
Barely dodging the attacks, Koyomi Shizuka twisted around to stare at Dahaka, disbelief written all over her face.
If Dahaka had been able to move in the stopped world from the very beginning, then why had he acted earlier like he didn't care about time stop at all?
"It's a little difficult, but yes, we can."
"You should know, we are dragons. Our magic resistance is maxed out."
"And I am the [Forbidden Dragon of Demonic Origin], Aži Dahāka, the one who commands a thousand forms of magic. A mere time technique is nothing."
His body moved with some difficulty as Dahaka bragged excitedly.
"Gah!"
The instant Dahaka started moving, Koyomi Shizuka felt Spiritual Energy draining rapidly from her body, and a strange pressure welled up from the inside out.
The Spiritual Energy she had used to stop the bleeding broke apart at once, and blood began pouring from her wounds again. She coughed up another mouthful of black blood. Paper Noise had backfired on her.
A Magic Bullet grazed Koyomi Shizuka's cheek and slammed into the wall behind her, blasting out a huge crater.
When Dahaka saw that she had barely managed to avoid even that, his expression darkened.
"Hmm... can't hold on anymore?"
"I'm already close to finishing the analysis. At least use it one more time, you worthless trash."
"If you can't, then die!"
A Magic Circle appeared in front of Dahaka, and Magical Power slowly gathered within it. It was obvious that Dahaka intended to force Koyomi Shizuka to use Paper Noise one more time so he could finish analyzing the technique.
The light of the Magic Bullet grew brighter and brighter, but Koyomi Shizuka could not summon even a shred of strength. This was the first time Paper Noise had ever been countered, and the backlash struck her soul directly.
Second by second, time passed. Still seeing no sign that Koyomi Shizuka intended, or was able, to use Paper Noise again, disappointment showed on Dahaka's face as he prepared to fire.
"Rumble!"
At that critical moment, the entire building suddenly shook violently, and a powerful Magical Power fluctuation spread up from somewhere below.
Thrown off by the tremor, the Magic Bullet in Dahaka's hand fired off course and once again grazed past Koyomi Shizuka's cheek.
Dahaka paid no attention to that minor detail. He turned to face behind him, sensed the Magical Power fluctuation, then closed his eyes and twitched his nose slightly.
"It's the aura of the Divine Flame. Looks like the ritual has already begun. That clown Priest is actually pretty capable."
"Should we head back now and have that useless Beastman help us figure out exactly where the flaw in the deification ritual is?"
"Of course. Isn't that why we came to help in the first place, to see where the flaw in the deification ritual lies? Let's deal with this woman first, then go over."
After that brief exchange, Dahaka turned to finish off Koyomi Shizuka, only to see several large craters. Koyomi Shizuka herself was gone.
"Huh!?"
Startled, Dahaka frowned and checked the surrounding area.
He might have looked careless just now, but he had actually been monitoring the flow of time around him the whole time, all so he could analyze Koyomi Shizuka's Paper Noise the moment she used it.
He was certain he had not sensed any temporal fluctuation at all, so how had Koyomi Shizuka escaped?
After looking around for a moment, Dahaka's eyes lit up.
"What a haul. Spatial fluctuations."
"As if one temporal Magical Art wasn't enough, they even threw in a spatial Magical Art as a bonus. I'm seriously touched."
"Grendel should already be back at the ritual site. With that Priest there too, the ritual should be all but guaranteed. Let's put the experiment on hold for now. We'll take the gifts these two kindhearted people left us, then head over."
Although Aži Dahāka bore the titles [Forbidden Dragon of Demonic Origin] and [Master of a Thousand Magic Arts], even he had only mastered a small number of rare, top-tier spatiotemporal Magical Arts.
So when it came to this spatiotemporal magic from World No. 2, carrying traits distinct from World No. 1, there was no way he could resist it.
"Found them!"
"Let's kill them now and take their magic."
"..."
Having located the spatial trace and just about to track down Koyomi Shizuka along it, Dahaka suddenly stopped.
The other two heads turned to look at the one that had remained silent and met its gaze.
For Aži Dahāka, although his three heads each had their own thoughts, they were essentially one being. Normally, they never said everything at once. Instead, each head would speak one line, like they were asking and answering themselves.
So a situation like this, where two heads had spoken while the third said nothing at all, was extremely rare.
"I don't think we can take their magic anymore."
The third head quietly said those words, leaving the other two even more confused. Was there really anything they couldn't take by force?
It gave no answer. Instead, the third head projected an image in front of them with Magical Power.
In the image, Petos was lying on the ground as Zeta continuously bombarded him, grinding away at his immortal body.
At the center of the ritual, Gardos had already been decapitated. The ritual, which had been ready to activate, sensed the death of its caster, and the Magical Power and faith it had gathered were already beginning to dissipate.
"???"
"!!!"
"..."
Silence fell.
"That Priest is trash, isn't he? The ritual was practically complete, and he still let it get stopped!"
"Where's Grendel? When we get back, kill that useless Grendel on the spot. A worthless piece of trash that only disgraces the Evil Dragons. He couldn't even handle something this small."
Dahaka was about to explode from rage. Even with a Heavenly Dragon-class Evil Dragon like him here, the plan still failed. Just how useless were his teammates?
Petos was garbage too. He had an immortal body, yet he still couldn't hold off Zeta and a bunch of little girls. He might as well just die and stop wasting food.
Gardos was a clown as well. The deification ritual had already reached the final step. He only needed to recite the last part of the incantation and he would have become a God, yet he still got his head cut off. If he wasn't a clown, who was?
And Grendel. What the hell is he even doing? What the hell is he even doing? And what the hell is he even doing?
Is he dead and fighting some resurrection match or something? Otherwise, why wouldn't he come back and check after his crystal got smashed?
Nothing but dead weight dragging down his teammates. Once they got back, they would kill him as a sacrifice and save themselves from getting screwed over again next time.
"So what now?"
After the other two heads had calmed down a little, the third head asked.
The moment those words were spoken, the other two heads fell into thought.
Now they had to choose whether to try to salvage the situation and complete the deification ritual, or make one last move, seize the spatiotemporal Magical Art, and run.
As one of the people who had set up the deification ritual, Dahaka had naturally modified it so that he could remotely activate it even without the deification incantation.
As long as the deification ritual started, Gardos could revive by sharing immortality with the Fourth Primogenitor, but...
"I'm not even sure whether the modification will work. What if the deification ritual fails?"
"Why don't we just grab the spatiotemporal magic and run? As long as we get that, we won't be leaving empty-handed."
"If it fails, it fails. We came here to experiment anyway."
"Oh, right!"
After discussing it for a bit, Dahaka decided to do both. If the ritual failed, they would just rob them and leave.
"Begin. Deification Ritual!"
…
"Whoosh!"
Carrying immense Magical Power, the Golden Wheel sliced through the wall in front of Sayaka Kirasaka, instantly putting Yukina Himeragi on guard. She leveled the silver Spear in her hand at Zeta, ready to attack at any moment.
"Don't move. Stay there and wait for me."
After that cold warning, Zeta caught the Golden Wheel with one hand while blasting away half of Petos' body with Magical Power from the other, even as he begged for mercy.
Once Zeta removed the pain-suppressing item from Petos, he had started pleading from the agony, but Zeta ignored him completely and continued wearing down his immortality.
"Let us leave..."
With their greatswords aimed at Zeta, Sayaka Kirasaka and the others were ready to fight.
Zeta's Magical Power aura had already subsided, so she probably could not maintain that state for long.
"Stay there. I'll let you leave, on the condition that your memories are erased."
"We don't want to stay here, and we don't want you erasing our memories either."
Zeta stopped tormenting Petos. Magical Power flared from her body once again as she looked toward Yukina Himeragi.
"This is for your own good."
Standing in front of Yukina Himeragi, she gave no reply, but the atmosphere on the scene became visibly tenser.
Just as the two sides were about to clash, the glowing magical patterns on the ground lit up again, breaking the tension.
The deification ritual, which had already stopped, restarted once more. Gardos' headless body stood back up, and the head on the ground floated into the air on its own.
The Nalakuvera Mother Machine, having absorbed Kojou Akatsuki, moved forward and fused with Gardos. Flesh began to grow over the machine's exterior, while the power of faith flowed into it and started shaping a divine core.
Above the remaining Nalakuvera Sub-Machines, a cluster of glass tubes appeared out of nowhere. They were the same artificial lifeforms Cid and the others had seen earlier.
Those artificial lifeforms fused with the Nalakuvera Sub-Machines, serving as a way to share the burden of bearing the divine core and circulate the power of faith.
"Ahaha... I didn't lose, I didn't lose..."
Seeing this, Petos, who had nearly been broken by Zeta's torture, burst into laughter. He stood back up and, in a rather ridiculous manner, gave Zeta a gentlemanly bow.
"Zeta-san, it seems I'm the winner after all. Now that the Beast God has been born, even if Shadow himself arrives, you are still doomed."
Zeta silently watched as Gardos swung a beast claw at Petos, then gave a small nod.