Chapter 964: The Prohibition (19)
The Blood Elder and Maiya Lonsdale, summoned to Anathema’s temple by Ermont’s black magic.
It was undoubtedly an 8-level extreme magic, capable of manipulating space as an outcome.
What curse did Ermont feed the Curse-Eating Ghoul to wield black magic at such a level? He hadn’t even grasped what the Curse-Eating Ghoul, that toad, was capable of in the first place.
Nonetheless, Lennok found himself unable to tear his gaze away from the Enforcer who had descended before him.
Maiya Lonsdale. The greatest Enforcer of the Machine City, who had transcended hierarchy to reach 8-level.
A master who had maintained her peak prowess even now, decades after the failure of the Ascension Gate project.
Limited to the field of one-on-one combat, she was one of the few experts among the strong individuals Lennok knew.
Even Pandemonium respected her insights into combat, so there was no need to explain her standing.
An elite beyond compare, whose position had never once wavered in the countless operations carried out within Pandemonium.
It was true that he hadn’t expected her to be here.
“I didn’t realize a former Enforcer would be interested in breaking into a noble’s vault.”
Lennok tilted his head, stroking his chin.
“Have you suddenly taken up thievery as a hobby?”
“My reason for being here is not that.”
Maiya quietly rose to her feet.
A quiet momentum, without a single sound or trace of her movement.
It was as if he faced not a person, but a living shadow.
Maiya, her expressionless gaze fixed on Lennok, spoke.
“And you, as I understand it, finished with Anathema just a few days ago.”
“It seems you’ve roughly heard what happened at the summit.”
Lennok stroked his chin.
“I’d like to tell you the full story, but I made a promise. If you were curious about Anathema’s end, why didn’t you participate?”
“If Slain Onyx arranged the summit, it must have been a preliminary step to induce cooperation from extreme ability users.”
Maiya replied quietly.
“Only after leaving the Enforcer agency did I realize such things were meaningless.”
“The Enforcer agency, you say…”
Lennok muttered, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.
“You said that being remembered, even with resentment, hatred, and animosity, was enough.”
“……”
“Are you still working for the Machine City?”
“That’s…”
Maiya’s eyebrows twitched as she realized Lennok was referring to their previous conversation.
“You remembered.”
“…I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not to that extent yet.”
Lennok shook his head with a bitter smile.
“You look at me like I’m some kind of lunatic. Do you think I’ve already forgotten what I did in Machina?”
“Who knows.”
Maiya replied, her hand moving to her waist.
Clutching a short sword with multiple small sockets drilled into its blade in a reverse grip, she gazed intently at Lennok.
“At least, among the archwizards I know, seekers like you were rare.”
“……”
“I’ve seen how difficult and arduous it is to find the next path for this world. I also remember the cost when it fails.”
Maiya, her gaze cold, asked Lennok.
“Isn’t it plausible that while you’re searching for the path, you’ve already lost the way back?”
“Well… you seem to be overestimating me.”
Lennok chuckled.
“Do you think I’ve already reached the same level as the Ascension Gate?”
Maiya was one of the very few insiders who had witnessed how agonizing the failure of the Ascension Gate had been.
Even now, she was a person with a blind faith and obsession, having dedicated herself to Pandemonium to rectify that failure.
If such a person believed Lennok to be beyond recovery, it could only mean she already considered him an entity comparable to the Ascension Gate.
But Maiya merely stared at the nonchalantly smiling Lennok, not immediately replying.
She only closed her eyes for a moment as if in thought, then slowly lifted them and spoke.
“We had a similar conversation once, at the train station.”
Click!
Maiya murmured, inserting a luminous purple orb into a socket on the blade.
“I told you that the Director’s method was closer to the answer, and asked you to join Pandemonium… but it was meaningless from the start.”
Maiya’s eyes gleamed as she looked at Lennok.
“You are the same kind of person as the Director. You can never be satisfied with others’ methods, and you ultimately trust no one but yourself. You are arrogant, selfish, and dogmatic.”
“……”
“The moment you heard my offer back then, you already knew. You must have thought such a thing could never happen.”
The instant she took a step forward, gripping the short sword, Maiya’s body blurred.
A sense of unbalance, as if she had deeply lowered her stance despite her standing posture barely changing.
By merely twisting her joints and slightly lowering her center of gravity, she forced a reaction from her opponent.
Beyond her blurred presence, Maiya whispered.
“I am only now looking back to understand what those who seek the world’s path truly think.”
“There are no absolutes in this world, Maiya Lonsdale.”
Lennok gave a bitter smile.
“There’s no reason to assign meaning to every single answer you seek. Ultimately, aren’t we both just doing what we want to do?”
“……”
“I don’t think it’s even worth mentioning… but yes. I do owe you one from the Machine City.”
Lennok muttered, exhaling smoke with his arms crossed.
“Considering that, I’ll give you one last chance.”
“……”
“Withdraw with the black wizard and the prince. Then I promise I won’t lay a hand on any of you in this place.”
After defeating Hermes Orokhnier, the Ascendant of the Old World.
Lennok, who had been imprisoned as the culprit for half-destroying the Machine City, was able to be released because Maiya had made a deal with the Supreme Council to reduce his sentence.
Even without her help, he wouldn’t have been confined in Machina for long, but it was clear that she had helped him several times.
Considering the various gains he had acquired in the Machine City, overlooking Maiya’s actions this once was not difficult.
“How kind of you. To think a wizard like you still remembers and cares about that incident.”
Maiya chuckled at his words.
“But I’m sorry. From the moment I agreed with the Director’s methods, I cannot follow another seeker’s words.”
“……”
“I know what the Director wants. Whatever means he takes, the outcome will be of a kind I can accept. But…”
Maiya glanced back at the Forbidden Armament stored in the center of the temple and said.
“Since I don’t know what answer you seek, I don’t think I can hand over that artifact.”
“Is that so.”
Indeed, Maiya wasn’t here to steal the Forbidden Armament or to gain a share. From her perspective, having met both Lennok and the Director, she had already decided which side to stand with and was acting accordingly.
This was likely because that Forbidden Armament, created in Ars Nova, was somehow connected to Maiya’s own goals.
An answer that only someone who had experienced the failure of an ascension ritual, yet still hadn’t given up, could reach.
It was a pity that she couldn’t be persuaded to turn back, but in a way, it was understandable for that very reason.
Lennok nodded, taking a step forward as he asked.
“Anything else you want to say?”
“Nothing. It’s been too long since I’ve faced a seeker like you, so I was ill-prepared.”
Maiya said, pointing her short sword diagonally at Lennok.
“I wonder if I can reach the Director if I beat you. That I am curious about.”
“Alright.”
Lennok chuckled, channeling his magic power.
“I’ll tell you that myself.”
There were no more words.
The moment Maiya’s body explosively accelerated, her gaze fixed, a magic circle rotated behind Lennok, deploying a Halo.
Time around them slowed to a crawl, and the wizard’s cognitive abilities expanded to their limit.
An Archwizard’s technique, endlessly dividing consciousness to stretch out perceived time.
At its climax, Lennok confirmed Maiya’s speed as she twisted her short sword into his neck and rapidly cast his spell.
Ice-attribute unique magic.
[Frost-Piercing Water Hand]
CRACK!
A colossal hand of ice shot up from beneath Maiya’s feet, twisting the direction of her short sword and forcibly deflecting it.
But the instant the short sword struck the ice hand, the purple orb embedded in the sword’s socket glowed.
Intense gravity waves enveloped the blade, crushing and shattering the ice hand.
CRASH!
Through the rain of ice shards, Maiya swiftly slipped into Lennok’s gap at ultra-high speed.
Too fast for the naked eye to follow, she blurred the boundaries, flickering back and forth between the edges of his vision, and plunged the short sword’s blade into Lennok’s shield.
SKRRRT!
Maiya’s form overlapped dozens of times in the blink of an eye, and a graceful sword light flashed through the air.
A single exchange was fragmented into dozens of movements, each breath a one-sided attack.
CRUNCH!
The blade dug in, distorting the shield, which was spread in dozens of layers to compensate for reduced efficiency.
Lennok’s eyes gleamed as he saw the rippling gravity waves on the surface relentlessly tearing open the barrier.
“I don’t sense any artifact aura from it. An unusual item. Is it an essence processed from a Gravity Stone?”
“It’s an artifact that conceals its power by synchronizing its attributes with the environment.”
CRACK!
Maiya twisted the short sword, tearing the shield apart, and realizing her ability had been instantly deciphered, she replied.
“It seems like equipment that could pose a threat to you.”
“I don’t know. Shall we find out?”
As Lennok said that and raised his hand, the same ice hand from before surged up again.
[Frost-Piercing Water Hand]
CRACK!
Repeating a spell that had just been countered, without any adjustments.
It was a judgment to be avoided in high-level wizard combat, but Maiya retreated without hesitation.
Despite having nearly broken through Lennok’s shield just moments before, she showed no regret.
Immediately after, another ice hand shot up from the opposite side and slammed down from above.
THUD!
Silent casting, so subtle that even an 8-level Enforcer couldn’t notice the prelude.
She accelerated merely by changing the direction of her feet, evading the ice palm descending from behind her.
Even while accelerating faster than sound, she perfectly controlled her speed by adjusting her stride.
“Good caution.”
But Lennok smiled, watching Maiya easily dodge the ice hand.
“But simply dodging won’t be enough.”
CRACK!
At that moment, the two ice hands that had helplessly fallen transformed into electricity in mid-air.
The art of a colossal chunk of ice instantly transforming into shapeless lightning.
“Property Transformation…!”
The moment Maiya’s face hardened at Lennok’s unrealistic divine skill, which applied Property Transformation to an already completed spell.
Lightning hands, flashing with tingling electricity, clashed in mid-air as if clapping.
[Thunderous Radiance Manifestation]
BOOM!
A high-level spell that summons colossal lightning hands and clashes them to maximize the power of electrical magic.
The omnidirectional brilliance of lightning, erupting without regard for direction, exploded in the middle of the temple, piercing the underground cavity diagonally.
CRASH!
As the temple’s pillars and walls trembled, slowly cracking, and the ground shook as if from an earthquake.
In the epicenter of the lightning explosion, a pale flash gleamed with the illusion of space distorting.
“Summoning spell.”
Lennok, who had completed his hand seals, immediately summoned the Apostle’s Carapace Shield.
WHOOSH!
Simultaneously, Maiya’s body shot vertically downward, striking the carapace shield like a flash of light.
CRACKLE…!
It pierced.
The Apostle’s Carapace Shield, which had resisted most physical attacks in a single blow, was pierced, revealing Maiya’s blade.
The blade, grazing Lennok’s cheek, instantly impaled dozens of temple pillars lined up behind him.
SLASH!
A chilling sword light, so striking that even Peshia and the Blood Elder fighting along the outer wall of the temple, and even Soryu, who was assisting the battle, turned their gazes.
“Incredibly sharp.”
Lennok wiped the blood flowing down his cheek with one hand and chuckled.
“You’re the third person to pierce this shield.”
“…You.”
Even after directly piercing the carapace shield and injuring Lennok, Maiya’s expression remained unchanged.
“You know what kind of inner world I use.”
Maiya Lonsdale, the Machine City’s greatest Enforcer, possessed the Miniature Universe ability called [Penetration].
It was the ultimate secret, maximizing power through repulsion and resonance by sharpening mana in three different directions.
Her Miniature Universe, only completed upon reaching 8-level, was a fatal assassination technique capable of even piercing and interfering with space.
But Lennok had begun his incantation even before Maiya used her Miniature Universe, conjuring his defensive measure precisely at the moment of collision.
It was proof that Lennok had prepared for Maiya’s Miniature Universe from the beginning.
“Don’t you think it’s natural to be wary of your abilities, which are specialized for one-on-one combat?”
Lennok said, gazing at the pierced shield.
“Moving at such speed, and hitting the tiny crack in the shield with such precision, that’s even more astonishing.”
“……”
The spot where Maiya’s blade had penetrated was precisely the crack Croken Asylus had lightly punched into it.
The moment Maiya accelerated, preparing her Miniature Universe amidst the Thunderous Radiance Manifestation, she instinctively found the shield’s weakest point and pierced it.
It was proof that Maiya was perfectly controlling her body even while deploying her Miniature Universe at full power.
“My turn.”
WHOOSH!
The moment Lennok grabbed the shield with one hand, Maiya pulled out her blade, pushing the shield away as if to flick it.
The massive shield crashed down with a roar, but neither of them paid any attention to the carapace shield.
[Flying Azure]
CRACKLE!
Lennok, who gathered a mass of lightning as if grasping the Thunder God’s hair, and Maiya, who swung her blade, folded three times, exchanged steps.
In the fleeting moment that the wizard’s form, hovering a magic circle, and the Enforcer’s shadow, gripping the short sword in a prayer-like reverse grip, distorted in the air.
Lightning and sword light crossed dozens of times, unleashing thunder and lightning in all directions.
[Lightning Well]
[Spiral Quake Kill]
RUMBLE!
Lennok’s form flickered, accelerating by the second, and Maiya relentlessly followed him.
Blade and lightning intertwined and twisted, scattering their power without restraint in all directions.
CRACKLE!
She plunged her body into the continuously rotating lightning, leaving no room to step, then swung her short sword.
She stitched together streams of lightning, blooming like flowers in the air, with her blade.
She instinctively received and cut down all the lightning exploding at supersonic speeds from her fingertips.
From beyond his consciousness, accelerating to a dizzying degree, Lennok, whose blue eyes glinted, was seen smiling.
“Interesting. You’re going to react?”
FLASH!
A transcendent sense of speed, as if his vision was burning.
The moment he realized Maiya had no intention of “calculating” the fight, he increased the speed of their exchange by dozens of times.
Without taking the form of offense or defense, he alone accelerated endlessly, unleashing incantations at a speed of a different dimension than others.
Death, in the form of lightning, poured down endlessly and limitlessly from the fingertips of a single wizard.
[Thunderous Quake Hammer]
He cupped his fingertips, creating and exploding a spherical orb of lightning.
[Shattered Thunder Stab Person]
Broken fragments of electricity sharply rose and spun, tearing space apart.
[Shifting Color Flying Lightning]
Fragments of lightning, scattered in various colors, changed their properties dozens of times in the air, radiating and accelerating.
Repeating decomposition and convergence, thousands of scattered lightning rays gracefully spiraled and converged into a single point.
[Fang Thunder]
The lightning fangs impaled Maiya’s side without delay.
BOOM!
Dozens of spells and hundreds of Property Transformations poured out with a single gesture.
It was impossible for human senses to perceive or grasp such compression and speed.
Even after reacting to the very end, she was pushed back to the outer wall of the temple before she could even feel pain.
“…!!!”
As her vision cleared, an intense pain coursed through her entire body. She staggered, her vision blurring.
A burning sensation as if her whole body was incinerating and shattering, and a chilling cold as if all her senses were being gnawed away, assaulted her simultaneously.
But she could still move.
“…Hmph.”
Maiya sighed softly, wiping her face with a stiff hand as she stood up.
Lennok, watching her, couldn’t hide his surprise and muttered.
“Astonishing. Did you really react to everything but the very last one?”
“……”
Perhaps because she judged that there was no chance in a battle of wits, Maiya abandoned all calculation the moment she engaged Lennok.
Instead of moving after calculating the opponent’s moves and hands, she threw herself in and reacted relying on instinct and reflexes.
Yet Maiya was still alive, calmly confronting Lennok like this.
“To be capable of such a fight by completely eliminating psychological warfare, that truly is a blessed talent.”
The wizard, whose eyes gleamed with an azure glow, slowly walked forward, cracking his neck.
Every time he moved, his body seemed to breathe, exhaling a tingling breath of lightning.
“It’s truly been a long time since I’ve faced an opponent so technically perfect.”
What Maiya Lonsdale had just shown was truly remarkable: she had endured Lennok’s onslaught with only her Miniature Universe.
It was as if she had barely used any of the killing techniques honed as an Enforcer, or the inner world techniques wielded based on her Miniature Universe.
Even after such an intense exchange, he still wore a sharp smile, as if the excitement hadn’t faded.
“Let’s go again. You haven’t given your all yet, have you?”
“…No. If I keep fighting like this, it will undoubtedly be my defeat.”
Maiya slowly kneaded her wrist, a bitter smile on her face.
“I knew from the beginning that I had no chance of winning without preparation to break the Enforcer’s oath.”
She knew what Lennok had fought and won against at the peak of the Machine City.
The Ascendant of the Old World. A wizard who had returned alive after battling a war proxy, even if his power wasn’t complete.
A monster rumored to have become infinitely scalable, mad with combat itself.
Maiya was only evenly matched in her specialized field; if they seriously entered a full-power showdown, this battlefield wouldn’t even hold.
“I’m not staying here to win against you.”
Maiya said, stumbling as she stood.
“The important thing is that there’s something I need to take from this temple.”
The opponent was a madman who unleashed lightning, more dangerous than the fires of hell, and discarded it for a fleeting battle.
Maiya, too, should not assign meaning to every attack and defense in this fight.
If she truly wanted Lennok’s life, she would have to thoroughly choose the battlefield and timing, control the environment and conditions, and force a desperate brawl to even calculate a chance of winning.
Having said that, Maiya slowly stroked the short sword in her hand.
“My objective is achieved. All that’s left is confirmation.”
“Objective, you say. Your objective in the first place was—”
Lennok’s words trailed off slightly at that point.
Maiya’s short sword had fallen to the ground. The purple orb that should have been embedded in its blade was missing.
Instead, the short sword’s socket held a luminous, iridescent orb.
“…No way.”
Lennok’s expression vanished as he realized it was the Inner Core he had obtained after killing the spider above his residence.
“If I hadn’t swapped it with an essence of similar aura… a wizard like you would have noticed immediately.”
Maiya said, clutching the spider’s Inner Core.
“If it hadn’t been such an intense battle, occupying your full attention, you wouldn’t have fallen for it either.”
“You went through all that trouble just to get that Inner Core from the start?”
The Inner Core Maiya had swapped with the gravity essence was an object containing such strong energy that it could make even a spider, not a Spiritual Beast, produce magic scribes.
And that energy was none other than the power of the Forbidden Armament itself, which had ascended above Anathema’s residence.
The fact that Maiya risked her life to seize it during her battle with Lennok meant—
WHOOSH!
Maiya and Lennok’s forms vanished almost simultaneously in mid-air.
Maiya sprinted towards the center of the temple at incredible speed, followed by Lennok, who ceaselessly flickered to keep pace.
But the expression on Lennok’s face, chasing after Maiya, was faintly clouded with annoyance.
‘Space is…’
The random spatial transfers and collapses caused by the Forbidden Armament’s rampage.
Because of that phenomenon, which Soryu had explained earlier, his spatial coordinate calculations had been off for a while.
Maiya glanced back, a bitter smile on her face.
“You’re a monster. Still teleporting in a temple where space is this warped…!”
“You intended to use the Inner Core’s power to avoid the Forbidden Armament’s spatial transfer and collapse, and approach it.”
The short sword Maiya was using was an item that synchronized with its surroundings by inserting a specific essence.
She had been using the Gravity Stone’s essence until now to hide the short sword’s presence in a temple made of Gravity Stone.
But if so, she could have also inserted the Inner Core into the socket to synchronize with the power emanating from the Forbidden Armament, thereby avoiding spatial transfer.
Lennok’s eyes grew cold.
“I won’t allow that.”
“…No. It’s too late.”
CRACK!
Maiya, narrowly dodging a lightning bolt descending from behind her, pulled the Inner Core out of the socket.
“Now that I’ve come this far, according to The Doctor’s theory—!”
“The Doctor?”
SWISH!
At that moment, something faint and pale shot up from the center of the temple with a sharp cutting sound.
A faint strand of thread grasped Maiya’s hand, which held the Inner Core, pulling her at tremendous speed.
The moment Maiya, accelerating as if sucked into the temple’s center, smashed the crystal containing the Sutu.
CRASH!
Along with the sound of shattering crystal, a glass-colored gauntlet floated up into the air.
Maiya reached out her hand, still holding the Inner Core, towards the luminous, glass-colored glove.
The Sutu seamlessly slipped onto her left hand, fitting perfectly as if it were meant to be there.
CLUNK!
The glass-colored gauntlet wrapped around Maiya’s forearm, intensely gleaming.
Just as Lennok frowned at the sight.
“Perhaps because it’s an illicit method that bypasses seals… it doesn’t seem to recognize me as its owner.”
Maiya, looking at the Sutu on her hand, clutched her fist, sweating coldly.
“But for now, this is enough.”
CRACKLE!
Maiya clutched her fist and punched the air, causing it to crack as if an invisible glass pane had shattered.
The space in the center of the temple splintered, and Maiya plummeted towards Lennok.