They stared daggers down at each other. Despite possessing no eyes, the monster didn’t allow a single breath from Saya to pass without the overwhelming amount of authority it carried within the strange land.
For Saya, her body moved on its own, reacting and executing actions without the permission required from the brain, acting solely from the heart. Her Soul Sight’s brilliance shone across the city, slicing the ever so yellow skies asunder.
The world’s most intimidating staring contest, that was what the little mage had gotten herself into.
Everything about the beast was out of the ordinary. It had no essential body parts, such as a nose or eyes. It lacked any sensible amount of limbs, and when Saya looked within it using her Soul Sight, she saw nothing at all.
Even if someone like herself possessed no Birthmark, she at least had a soul. This was the case for nearly every living being on this planet, a common rule that was never broken. But before her was a creature that defied her knowledge of reality, making her head spin.
In place of magical gears, a Birthmark, and a soul, the monster was encased completely in darkness from the inside. There was no speck of light, not even a glimmer of a soul that once was. Complete, pure, and utter darkness.
She should be scared, in fact, she was terrified of way less only a few minutes ago. But for some reason, she found herself standing up to the monstrosity with ferocious stamina. There was no more oxygen coursing throughout her lungs and bloodstream, and yet she felt extremely renewed.
The magical energy that so faintly pulsed was now in full swing, as if the curse surrounding the city had never existed in the first place. Saya wondered for a fleeting moment if this was the weakness that everyone in Atrila felt back when it was attacked.
From the monster’s perspective, it was the complete opposite. Rather than a single, armless girl covered in blood, radiant light deterred it from getting any closer to the being. Truthfully, the monster had every intention and desire of crushing the feeble human before it, but no matter what it tried to do, its body refused to even move.
Perhaps it was fear of one another that left them at a stalemate, but with Saya needing biological intake to survive, at this rate she would be the first to fall. No matter how strong her magical energy was, she was still human to the core, which meant she had to follow the rules of the world.
A distant sight gave Saya the wake-up call that she needed, as she saw the body of a young boy laid horizontally on the stairs of the pyramid. At first, he seemed extremely fitting for the world around her, but a click triggered within Saya’s mind.
Whenever the dragon-kin man disappeared, so did everyone else in the city. So unless her mind was hallucinating, the presence of another human was in fact something extremely out of the ordinary.
Gritting her teeth, she kept glancing back and forth between the unconscious boy and the monster. She feared that if she distracted herself even for a second, then the creature would not hesitate to strike first. Besides, her lower body was still somewhat laid on the ground, any hopes of leaping up and running as quickly as she could was absolutely out of the question.
If I can distract it for one second, I could…
Before finishing her thoughts, her peripheral vision caught the glimpse of her spellbook, which had fallen out of her belt ever since she started rolling on the ground in pain. Working off the copious amounts of adrenaline coursing through her body, Saya recalled the time when the book flew to her aid when she used her Gravefire Cataclysm.
It moved on its own, shed paper on its own, and even cast spells on its own. Clearly, if the spellbook had no free will or sentience, then there must have been some kind of trigger that allowed it to act the way it did.
Back when I was casting Gravefire, I was scared, anxious.
No further memory searching was needed, as she found her answer.
The amount of magical energy she had been pooling during the attack on Atrila gave her a sense of crippling anxiety before finally throwing her punch. With the amount of flashing effects, sensory overload, and mental gymnastics she had to perform, the sense of dread she felt was unlike anything she had experienced before.
Losing her arm was a major blow for her, yes, but at the time she was far more scared of blowing herself up completely. That was the precise moment when she heard a loud crash, with the book flying towards her the very next moment, casting a spell to help nullify and contain her magical energy to the best of its ability.
Saya didn’t understand why it did what it did, but right now was not the time to question the trivial. Of course, the theory had yet to be tested, but with her mind starting to spin from the lack of oxygen, she had no other choice but to try.
Clearing her mind to the best of her ability, she let out a sharp exhale, focusing all thoughts and remaining mental energy into one desire. It couldn’t be something simple as “I want to live”, or “I want to save the boy.”
Magic required precision. From the most basic of spells to the world’s most complicated, without precise mental imagery of what you wanted to cast, you might as well give up on trying to use magic at all. That was the lesson drilled into her head non-stop, yet she had never truly needed to follow it.
Thinking about it, Gravefire was literally just a dump of energy. It wasn’t even a cast.
Sliding her right leg forward, she slowly started to achieve a crouched position, her eyes staring at the monster in the meantime. The sting of pebbles scraping the very skin off her knees gave her a jolting reaction, but wasn’t nearly enough to force her to abort her plans.
Blood circulation slowly but surely returned, her body starting to feel normal again. With that, the stage was finally set for her to execute her move. Deep down, Saya didn’t know if it was her nerves that halted her breathing, or if it was the sheer amount of magical energy coursing through her body.
Regardless of which it was, she had approximately thirty seconds before her mind would collapse from exhaustion.
What do I desire?
A distraction was necessary, but looking at the monster, there was no way a simple blast of magic would be enough to divert its full attention away from Saya. It would be like tossing a beetle at a preying lion.
Pure impact was out of the question, so then what else could she ask for?
Another option was restraining the beast, but with its large, muscular legs, it would not even take a slight nudge to break apart any ice or earth structure stuck to its limbs. However, she knew she was on the right track.
She hadn’t gotten a chance to look through the book ever since starting her travels, but every single page she had turned revealed a distinct marking at the bottom right corner. The identity of the mage who had written this spellbook wasn’t a secret to her, but her exploits were.
Tales of her pink ribbons capable of subjugation were popular in books and even mentioned in some courses, though most people had never actually seen her magic to confirm whether those stories were true.
Visualize. Visualize.
Pink ribbons binding the monster together, each strip of fabric wrapping around its gray skin. In a way, it would be like painting over a colorless outline. She quickly realized that imagining the monster completely mummified was too ambitious, so she settled on binding its arms and legs instead.
Next was the source. The ribbons could not come out of nowhere, but the answer to that was extremely simple. If ribbons shot out of the book itself, then it could act as a physical anchor to weigh the beast down. No, that would not work. If that happened, the book would simply be flung away, as it barely had any weight to begin with.
Was it doomed after all? If pages were flung into the air, then the spell would have no resistance to pull the beast back. But if she used the book itself, the low weight of the object would completely nullify the purpose of the wrappings. No matter how she approached the situation, there was no scenario where the beast would be distracted long enough to give her an opening.
Her left arm started to glow. Out of options, she decided that as a last ditch effort, she would try to cast a smaller version of Gravefire Cataclysm. Completely abandoning the thought of the ribbons, she started envisioning the number of plates in front of her instead.
However, she made one grave mistake. Instead of treating this confrontation like a battle, she had been approaching it like a meticulous game of chess. Her opponent had not made a single move, so she naively assumed it would continue to maintain that status. But the beast had other plans.
Raising its head into the skies, the monster roared as loud as it could, the soundwaves cracking the very stone structures of the buildings surrounding them, with some even collapsing into the ground without warning.
Its plan was to intimidate Saya into making a move, and it succeeded.
Now!
Magical energy rushed throughout her body like a flash of light, awakening all of her nerves and organs while blazing her adrenaline with a fire to survive. Standing upright as quickly as she could, she kicked back her feet and leapt backwards as far as she possibly could. Imbued with Physical Strengthening, her body flew away much faster and farther than she had expected.
Another crack followed as she immediately saw the monster match her speed, its face now closer to hers than ever before. Her eyes widened as the specter of death loomed just behind her. The first breath she took was one of shock, as her field of view was filled with the monster’s gray face and teeth.
It gave her sudden flashbacks of the battle at the academy, and the way Rias had so delightfully lunged his teeth at her stomach.
But as long as the mage was in its presence, the book would not allow her to perish.
The book cracked open, the sound breaking around it. Then it started to flip through its contents at a breakneck speed, searching for the spell its master had visualized only moments ago. With each flip, the butterfly mark at the bottom right of each page glowed pink before fading away.
Suddenly, ten long pink ribbons burst forth from the book, flying at the monster faster than sound. Their bright, neon glow overpowered everything else in the world, even making the yellow skies feel muted in comparison.
A shockwave of magical energy shook the foundation of the city, its ring slicing through stone like air through holes. The boy’s body lay just barely under the ring’s height threshold, but the pyramid was not spared.
Eventually, the shock surpassed even the ribbons, impacting the monster first and then slamming against the air, revealing a black dome surrounding all of Yucu Saa. Strangely, the shockwave simply phased through Saya, not harming her in the slightest compared to everything else in the world.
At last, the monster turned its head toward the source, greeted by the ten ribbons wrapping all over its body. They tightly restrained its legs, hands, and neck, the sheer weight of the spell completely halting its flight path toward Saya.
In the end, her theories were proven wrong. She assumed the book was also bound by the rules of the world, but this once belonged to the Butterfly Mage, the only person in the world who had reached the famed Mage Tower. Internally, Saya couldn’t help but feel a little peeved that she was the only one bound by rules.
Saya’s back slammed against something hard, forcing her to a sudden stop before she dropped to her knees. Looking over her shoulder, she froze in shock. The city’s walls were still far away from where she had landed, yet nothing physical stood behind her that could have stopped her momentum.
Darkness seemed to emerge from nowhere, black particles flying into the air like steam fuming out of a kettle full of holes.
It has to be the barrier
Twice in the span of one month she had to deal with a barrier, but now, being experienced with handling them, her eyes scanned the skies for any potential sources of power. A pulse rippled from her point of impact to the rest of the barrier.
Cringing at the sight, Saya saw the barrier trapping her turn into a dome of pure black. This was far different from what she had encountered before, and it was the second time she had to deal with something that had no magical circuits.
Before her, the monster bound in ribbons quickly started to rip apart the fabric, inching its way closer to its target. Realizing she had no time to think about the barrier, Saya stood back up as quickly as she could, dashing around the monster at extraordinary speeds.
It didn’t break the sound barrier, but it was fast enough to be comparable to Hana’s wind dash technique.
Thank goodness she taught me how to use this.
Her eyes were set on one target, the unconscious boy lying on top of the pyramid steps. However, with the sudden shockwave slicing through parts of the pyramid, large chunks of stone debris started to rain down on top of him.
Without a shred of hesitation, she swung her left arm back, visualizing five plates breaking in front of her. Then she let loose, firing a beam of pure magical energy and vaporizing the rocks into nothingness.
Something about the light provoked the monster even further, drawing from it a roar far more ferocious than the last. It planted its legs deep into the ground, the stone street fracturing beneath its weight as jagged cracks spread in every direction.
Chunks of pavement burst upward while dust and gravel sprayed into the air, the creature forcing its footing deeper into the soil as if anchoring itself against the world.
Darkness started to crawl along the ribbons binding him, slowly disintegrating the magic and rotting the fabric away. To save itself from further corruption, the book closed, snapping all the ribbons away from it. Satisfied with the results, the monster sprang forward, launching towards Saya once more.
Its speed did not match its body mass. It was far too inhuman for Saya to properly calculate its movements and intentions. Besides, she had made yet another grave mistake. Caught up in the heat of battle, she had forgotten a crucial detail, one that prevented her from carrying the boy away.
She was missing an arm.
Unease quickly spread throughout her body, her legs trembling at the realization of her blunder. In a matter of a single second, she would be pulverized by the beast, which raised its arm to do so. There was no more staring contest. This would truly mark her end.
Her choices were simple: leave the boy and try to survive, or stay with the boy and die a quick, possibly painless death. Neither one was acceptable to her, but in that moment, a list of priorities presented itself in her mind.
She was there to save Albo, not the boy.
But at the same time.
Would he ever be able to forgive me if I let a kid die for his sake?
Mist formed around her feet. It gave off the scent of a sweet perfume resembling a mixture of fruits, light and airy as it drifted through the air. The fragrance carried hints of ripened berries and citrus peel, bright and refreshing, with a soft floral note hidden beneath it.
Each slow curl of mist rolled over the floor like a gentle tide, brushing against ankles and hems of clothing as it spread outward.
The air grew cool where it passed, a faint chill clinging to the skin as the vapor coiled and thinned. It moved with quiet intent, swirling in delicate ribbons that caught the light before dissolving again, leaving that same sugary scent lingering in its wake.
Not only that, it also formed around the boy. With the monster descending its fist rapidly, Saya couldn’t help but squeeze her eyes shut as hard as possible. Locked onto its target, the monster finally slammed its fist into the ground with all its might, cracking the air and creating a crater in the street.
But to the monster’s surprise, there was no sensation of wet blood on its fist, nor the faint light of a soul dissolving into the Manastream. Curiously turning its head back, it was met with Saya standing in the distance, confused and looking over her body to check that she was indeed still alive and not just dreaming.
What snapped the beast back into focus was the boy now lying in front of Saya. Furiously slamming its fist against the ground, the creature triggered an earthquake from sheer force that nearly knocked Saya down, leaving her barely able to maintain her balance out of sheer luck.
“Wrap his arm around you, and don’t let go.”
Suddenly, as if she had appeared out of thin air, a heavily dressed demi-human with nine tails stood in front of her, holding long, rectangular pieces of paper with strange markings engraved onto their surface.