Ep 73. Who Are You? (3)

 

Iris’ eyes remained fixed on the empty night sky. The falling meteor had disappeared without a trace outside her window, but the enforcer remained blankly staring into the distant darkness.

Even from within her office, she could hear numerous voices within the association building. Many were mages that had erected layers upon layers of protective barriers in hopes of surviving the meteor’s impact – even though realistically, they knew their chances of survival were abysmal from a spell of that scale.

Indeed, it didn’t matter if they were within or outside the building. Everyone was staring outside, towards the same empty space in the air where the meteor had disappeared.

A star-filled night sky. A pillar of light that didn’t belong to light magic. Numerous voices of relief and celebration to their averted disaster.

In their unexpected survival, people began to praise the divine for their miracle. Just like they always had for occasions they could not explain.

Felicis, deity of mana. A friend of mankind and the epitome of magic.

Numerous mages were speaking Iris’ true name. They were celebrating the cowardly deity who’d invited the disaster here in the first place, thanking her for a deed that she took no part in. To them, the disappearance of the meteor had seemed like divine protection cast by the deity of mana herself.

 But Iris herself knew who exactly who was responsible for this miracle.

“…She’s here.”

The enforcer burst out the office door, rushing towards where the pillar of light had been cast. She could hear a few voices calling her name in surprise, but she ignored them all to exit the building and run forward.

She didn’t have a plan in mind; she didn’t even care if Felicir was there or not. In fact, she didn’t have much of a thought at all.

She simply ran – as fast as she could, towards where her faith now lied.

 

✧   ✧   ✧

 

The darkness began to fade, the darkened sky soon reverting back to its original blue color. The glimmering stars were drowned away in the glowing sunlight.

Serenis sighed in relief, only to feel a sharp pain from her missing arm tearing her breathing apart. She winced in agony, shutting her eyes to hold back another scream.

But this time, she could grin and bear it in the end. This time, there wouldn’t be any reason to regret her decision.

‘…I’m alive, aren’t I?’

That’s all that mattered.

She wasn’t too happy about her missing arm, but she’d suffered far worse before death. Compared to then, this was hardly anything noteworthy – especially considering what she’d achieved.

And unfortunately, she didn’t have time to relish in relief anyhow. Her mana sensory screamed in oncoming danger, making Serenis throw herself back a few steps.

Streaks of black lightning struck at where she’d been standing, breaking the brick floors into pieces. When the dragonlord followed their tracks, a familiar headmaster was standing in the distance, his cane sizzling from the spell that had been cast just now.

“…Gio?”

“…”

The headmaster’s gaze remained fixed on Serenis in silence.

Gio didn’t know who this dragon was, nor did he know how she knew his name. But he had a faint idea.

This strange dragon shared a striking resemblance to the peculiar student that had enrolled this year at the institute, both in appearance and the strangeness of the magic they used. And, thinking back, he hadn’t seen this particular student during his onslaught; Karas had taken said student away on a workshop few days prior.

‘You…’

He wanted to open his mouth. He wanted to ask who she was, and confirm whether his suspicions were true. If they were, he wanted to ask why they’d returned.

But above all that was an intrusive thought that was muddling his thoughts.

‘…You could stop me.’

If this dragon really was the student in his mind, they could stop him. If anyone could, it’d be them.

The archmage struggled against the divinity that bound his will. His entire body shook and trembled in resistance, honoring the Reaper’s will to kill everything in sight all along.

Naturally, even with all his willpower, Gio could not stop himself from attempting to kill the dragonlord head-on. His body absolutely refused to stop its onslaught.

“…Kill…”

But he did manage to speak – just two words. A short phrase that explained his heart better than any other phrase.

“…Me.”

Immediately after, Gio swung his cane once more. Another series of black lightning shot forth towards Serenis, bouncing off harmlessly before an invisible barrier.

The dragonlord stared in confusion at first. Then, the scenery behind Gio came to sight.

The meteor hadn’t struck, and yet, numerous buildings remained crumbled behind the archmage. In fact, she’d lost her own right arm to one of them.

And spread throughout their midst were countless bodies. Many were headless; some were eviscerated or burnt beyond recognition. Only the pooling blood and mounds of flesh sprawled across the rubbles spoke of what they once were.

‘…He did this?’

Serenis hadn’t known the headmaster for long. But at the very least, she knew that he wasn’t an individual who’d suddenly commit himself to facilitating a massacre; he was a proud mage who constantly sought to better himself and his students. He may have been prideful, and even arrogant at times, but he was far from murderous.

At first, the dragonlord expected a malicious spell to be controlling the headmaster. But she sensed no magic ailing the archmage.

And yet, here he was, wielding unruly amounts of violence towards every living being he could find.

“…”

Serenis could see a glimpse of herself in his eyes.

Even though the man couldn’t speak, the guilt weighing his mind was all too plain to see: a crushing guilt that threatened to annihilate his conscious at the slightest opportunity.

‘…Very well.’

The dragonlord began to approach Gio in slow steps. A flurry of spells continued to be fired at her in succession, but none managed to reach behind the invisible barrier surrounding the dragonlord.

A prismatic sphere of mana materialized into Serenis’ palm.

She didn’t know how or why this had happened. It didn’t matter in deciding what to do – not when the facilitator’s guilt was pressuring him into wishing for a death penalty.

When their distance closed too much, the tip of Gio’s cane glowed in an eerie black light. He plunged it into Serenis’ barrier, the cane’s darkness attempting to spread over the protective layer that covered the dragon before him.

But instead, the barrier shimmered like a prism, resisting the archmage’s spreading magic. Its prismatic glow began to swallow Gio’s cane in reverse, rendering the cane useless as a medium of magic.

The dragonlord’s empty gaze fell upon her headmaster’s desperate eyes.

“…You’ve changed.”

“…”

This wasn’t their first duel.

Knowing the archmage, he was wont to disallow any approach whatsoever. This was especially true when he’d already seen what Serenis was capable of in their last mock duel.

If he was truly in his right mind, Gio should’ve been maintaining his distance like any proficient mage would to attack their opponent without being attacked back.

If he was truly in his right mind, Gio would’ve taken the fight much more carefully. He wouldn’t have even exposed himself in plain sight to begin with.

‘In other words…’

He wasn’t in his right mind.

Serenis then released the prismatic sphere from her hand, letting it hover towards the archmage.

The ball exploded in a brilliant flash of light before his eyes, drowning his figure whole.

“…”

When the light dissipated, Gio laid motionless on the ground. Only his chest continued to rise and fall from calm, shallow breaths.

Serenis stared down at the archmage at her feet with a bitter expression.

She’d allowed Gio to live on purpose. She’d purposefully allowed a tiny fragment of her mana to sink into the man’s system.

It was a miniscule amount, insufficient to cause any monstrous transformations like it had with Eisenhoff’s experiments. However, it would be enough to jam his systems from synthesizing mana, at least for a while. This way, he wouldn’t be able to use magic to cause any further harm on anyone for the time being.

“…Sinners like us do not deserve death.”

‘Not until we make amends for our wrongs.’

Serenis turned her head away from the headmaster to then face the person approaching from behind. When Gio awoke, hopefully he’d be better suited to talk.

Much like the winged figure that was approaching her with a mocking grin on their face.