Cytortia glanced up and admired the clear blue sky.

Her journey felt like an eternity, walking on the road of the Milky Way, stretched by the vast expanse of space. All ending at a pearly tree that promised an answer.

At the end of her journey, upon entering the shade of the cosmic tree, she found herself under this wide blue sky and garden full of flowers.

A black-haired woman waited for her at the table with a basket of confectioneries.

The Avatar of True, Symphony herself, gestured for her to come closer.

“I am waiting for you, dear,” Symphony said. "Oh, come closer; I won’t bite.”

Cytortia gingerly obeyed the request. Symphony took this opportunity to scan the girl up and down with her eyes. Then the most powerful being in the Astral Sea stood from her white plastic chair and squinted at Cytortia—clearly unamused for the opposite reason Cytortia feared.

“My dear,” Symphony said, and she began playing with the girl’s cheek. “You need to eat more. You are so frail that a wind might blow you away. Hmm,” Symphony grunted with disapproval. “I see, lack of sleep has done quite a number. You really need to take better care of yourself.”

Cytortia didn’t know why this motherly figure was fussing about her sleeping schedule, but she was too confused about why this strange lady was having problems sleeping late.

It wasn’t like there wasn’t anything wrong with three all-nighters a week. After all, those tonics weren’t going to decant themselves.

…

The ring of black water now covered the sky. With an ethereal rumble, Tezca descended back to the city of Four Seasons Court. In a flash of crimson, the monster crashed back to the earth below, leaving creators of broken rocks with his descent.

Cracking his neck, Tezca scrolled through the mental checklist of his mission. Tragically, most of those bullet points failed. Now the only thing he could do to make this worthwhile is to kill Nova, cutting the planet’s life-support and ending this entire realm in an planetary implosion.

It was a shame. Rampant destruction served no one. Malrort might be an incarnation of evil, but even it accepted that fact. Sadly, they were stuck with no choice.

The creation of True, as cringe-worthy as it may be, ruined all the plans in the works. It was a lose-and-lose situation. The only thing Malrort could do was ensure Allphort lost more.

“Now, time to kill that bitch,” Tezca said to no one, pumping himself for the final stretch of the battle.

The stretch crashed onto him when the ground turned into sea with a bottomless depth.

Coral Dynasty’s [Majestic Sea], Tezca immediately identified the magecraft. It must be that conniving bitch's handiwork.

Considered the premier water-base magecraft, [Majestic Sea] was one of the two signature calling cards of the hegemon of the Astral Sea’s Atsui Region—the Coral Dynasty. It was an inherited technique exclusive to the royal family themselves. By sheer might and versatility, this technique alone solidified the dynasty’s iron grip for more than a millennium.

There were several secrets behind such an awe-inspiring history. The first was simple: zone-control. Fighting mage inside their territory was hard given the amount of leverage they have. [Majestic Sea] primary power turned the very area being fought on into a bottomless, mystical ocean.

The moment it got erected, most opponents were plopped into the water and swept beneath the current. Several records of rebellion were put out just by having the [Majestic Sea] user drown an entire army. The sea itself also behaved like a pseudo-time-pace magecraft, preserving whatever object was entombed by the wave for the user’s convenience. It was such a convenience that there were brands of luxury watertight cabinet makers catering to the Coral Dynasty’s princesses for centuries. Lin herself stored her water-sensitive goods inside a bejewel cabinet she kept inside her [Majestic Sea] at all times.

To resist a giant's drowning depth, Tezca’s [Resonance] went to work dismantling the technique, forming a pot of dry land amidst the magically simulated sea.

Tezca knew the struggle was far from over. The [Majestic Sea] still has another secret weapon. Impressive as it was, both zone-control and built-in storage weren’t enough to ensure the millennium of hegemonic rule. A prince whacking people with an oversized sword he pulled from the sea was a sight to behold, but he wouldn’t cut it against an invading divinity. What did the job was the second aspect of [Majestic Sea]—familiar magecraft.

Swarms of fish swam in the sea around Tezca, forming intricate patterns that swiftly flickered with golden light in the water.

[Majestic Sea: Array-paving Fishes]

A specialty of each child of the Coral Dynasty could be directly inferred from the familiar they contracted with the sacred aquarium—the Coral Heart—at the age of twelve. As the legacy of the first divine emperor who ventured into the Astral Sea and delicately selected the incalculable number of sea life, none of the selections used by the members of Atsui’s royalty were weak.

Unlike her clansmen, who used a multi-headed sea dragon or swarm of sharks, Lin’s familiarity was subtle in its power. Her [Array-paving Fishes] were a spirit-base, water-born species capable of often traveling in groups of hive-minds with the ability to arrange themselves into an array.

Tezca didn’t recognize the array that surrounded him. He was annoyed. Sure, he knew an invincible monster that could endure the dimension being divided had no right to complain about Hax, but his grievances were understandable.

The craft of arraying was complicated. It was a ritualistic amplification of magecraft like voice commands and hand signs. However, unlike those amplifiers, the array stressed careful calculation and placement of altars, drawing a foundation to unleash a highly ceremonial magic that wouldn’t be viable to a layman. Array installation had such a stringent requirement that even a master needed hours to set it up.

Lin Nova and her fish were an exception to that rule. With one wave of her hand, two hours of arrays could be created in a second.

Lin summoned a pebble from her [Majestic Sea] and crushed it in her hand. As a priestess of the ceremony, she threw the sand toward the array and clapped, shouting atop her lungs.

On top of those magnification routines, she also added in a voice command.

“[Executioning Wrath Deliverance]”

The sand transformed into wraths, heading right at Tezca. In the regular world, those wraths would have extracted the target soul from the body regardless of defense and toughness, then ripped it into pieces. Alas, this wasn’t a regular case.

Tezca lifted his fist and ripped apart the wrath army and the array in a single punch. He didn’t forget to trash talk the utterly gobsmacked Lin.

“Nice job opening with an instant-death curse, girly. I like that, but it is a shame your teacher never taught you how to fight on my level.”

Tezca would have launched another tirade of ridicule if not for sensing another presence with his [Resonance].

It appeared that the killing curse was just a distraction.

[Demon Art #8: Conflagration]

Here comes the phoenix-brat, Tezca thought as a swirl of fire engulfed him. He felt disappointed. For all the boasting, what up with such a low-level [Demon Art].

To list all the magecraft existing in the Astral Sea would take an entire book, but among them, [Demon Art] was the most simple yet long.

Invented when the demons and mythical beasts first understood magecraft, the [Demon Art] referenced the list of spells developed by the demonkinds in an ascending order of invention. The very first spell, summoning a ball of light, was given the designation of [Demon Art #1: Light]. Innovating on #1 by amplifying the light into a flashbang would thus be dubbed [Demon Art #2: Blind].

Simple as it was, this classification did create problems. Because any inventor could dubbed their own spell, soon several egotistical innovators began arguing over the order of their invention. Verbal arguments quickly degraded into a brawl and then an all-out magical crusade where spells and murder plots were being flung all over the place. The absurdity had accrued to the point where there were records of at least five kings who met ingloriously bombastic deaths after misquoting [Demon Art]. One particularly ridiculous case among the five included a nuclear spell packed into a pink squirrel.

It took the united force of demonkind coming out to create the Mystic Art Association (MAA) to quell the chaos. After three years of debate and many butthurt inventors, the canon and laws regarding the [Demon Art] were thankfully codified for the sake of the Astral Sea’s collective sanity.

That little bit of history flashed through Chandra’s mind as she engulfed Tezca in a wrapping of white hot fires.

It wouldn’t work, and everyone knew it.

That was fine Chandra wasn’t counting on the fires to finish the job.

The conflagration soon faded, leaving Tezca unharmed, but the sole dry ground below him scorched into a pattern.

Two word flashed through Tezca’s mind

Uh oh…

[Demon Art #44: Rebound]

The pattern bellowed Tezca glowed bright as Chandra came in with a kick.

[Flame Descent]

Chandra’s body erupted in fire. Her very cellular structure overclocked itself to maximize the fiery martialcraft’s output.

Simultaneously, Lin didn’t waste an opportunity. She ordered her fishes to arrange another pattern.

[Damage Amplification]

Together, Chandra’s [Phoenix Descent], her [Demon Art] and Lin’s array formed a perfect synergy. Phoenix flame descended and dealt the damage from the top. [Demon Art #44] fed the aftershock back at Tezca from below, and [Damage Amplification] increased Chandra’s attack potential for all it was worth.

The moment Chandra’s kick landed, two explosive forces ignited and were squeezed by the newly created array. A light of incredible intensity blinds the entire area and buildings around the small battlefield quakes from the portion of power that leaked through Lin's array.

The array caster herself was nearly toppled back by the blast of wind generated by the unlikely cooperation between the two.

Her mind raced with one question:

Did they succeed?

The familiar crimson girl flying past her with the speed of a cannonball dispelled that illusion.

The fire dispersed, revealing Tezca, smoking but unharmed.

“Damn, the intel suggests you two couldn’t work together,” Tezca said, cracking his neck. “Heh, not the first time they were wrong.”

As if waiting for that exact moment, three copies of Tai Nova appeared in the air.

Three different swords were swung at the monster.