#516

Curtain Call (2)

Kiiing...!!

A long-range sniper shot infused with inertial bias twists through the darkness, emitting a chilling aura that makes Lennok’s neck prickle with unease even from a single shot. Yet, the shot flashes three times over, slicing through the senses and racing through the void.

Three arrows, charged to the limit with the concept of inertial bias, carve a faint trajectory through space, altering direction as if transcending it entirely.

Kwagwagwagwa!!

Each arrow is a perfect hit, close to a missile in its destructive power and speed, leaving no escape as it shifts course with each evasion. Any attempt to dodge it with teleportation is nullified, as each arrow converges to eliminate all options, covering different spaces simultaneously.

The skill is refined to such an extent that it effectively nullifies any escape route unless one fully comprehends the range, casting speed, and layering of Lennok's teleportation technique. A mere graze would be enough to shred his body into pieces, just like a train carriage obliterated by an explosion.

Yet, fully aware of this, Lennok brings his magic closer to the arrows pressing in on him. With his magic detection filling his vision with a blackish-green gleam, he triggers the Compassion of Archangel at the last possible second, narrowly avoiding impact.

Kagagagak!!!

A strange, grating sound, as if space itself were being consumed, echoes around him. A rotating force field erupts around Lennok, emitting a blinding light, forcibly deflecting the incoming arrows through spatial distortion, veering them off-course. The arrows, deflected from Lennok and Logia’s vicinity, crash into and destroy high-rise buildings in the satellite city.

Kaboom!!!

Thanks to his battle experience with Amrita, Lennok has heightened his spatial manipulation ability, casting teleportation. By treating the Compassion of Archangel—a skill effective only on inanimate objects—as his own, he manages to forcefully teleport the arrows as well.

However, Lennok begins to use this ability only once he's created some distance. This is because the intent embedded in Evelyn’s arrows might interfere with his spatial teleportation. The image of a microcosm loaded into the arrows could potentially suppress the teleportation itself.

With greater distance, the influence of this intent weakens, reducing the chance of interference. Lennok anticipated this from the start, focusing on distorting the arrows’ trajectory around his body with pinpoint spatial teleportation.

Dududududu!!!!

Through the swirling dust and sand, Lennok’s silhouette races forward, his magical energy pulsing steadily. Knowing that he’s only got two chances, he pushes on despite his dulled senses.

At the moment he swiftly rounds the high-rise district and reaches the outskirts of the city near the terminal, a black column suddenly descends vertically from above, compressing into a massive sphere.

Kwoooooooosh!!!

A gigantic sphere formed from dark magic engulfs the surrounding space, rotating and pulling in everything around it with an immense gravitational force that sends chills down Lennok’s spine.

Lennok, realizing how Evelyn was using her powers, hardened his expression behind his mask.

"I can't believe it. She’s converting inertia into gravitational force...!"

It wasn't just about gathering a non-existent gravitational force as a means of attack. Instead, Evelyn was accumulating the reactive forces of attraction and repulsion from drawing her bow and releasing her arrows. She then bundled the inertial force generated between them, embedding it into her arrows, and fired them with extreme amplification.

The released power of inertial bias exploded with such intensity that it concentrated Evelyn’s chosen force into something akin to a tactical weapon.

Kwagwagwa!!!

A relentless gravitational storm seemed to press down on Lennok and Logia, as if trying to crush their bodies entirely. If she could amplify a specific force through inertial bias, the potential strength would be even greater. Choosing gravitational force to pin them down suggested that Evelyn intended to capture them alive.

If that was the case, there was still hope. With that thought, Lennok used his remaining teleportation spells in rapid succession. Inside the gravitational sphere's crushing force, he pinpointed the counteracting force within and slipped through it. Using the power of his Mystic eye, he located a faint connection point inside Evelyn’s restrictive sphere and forced his way out.

Kwaak!!

Lennok’s body stumbled and tumbled forward as he successfully escaped the black sphere. Debris and objects, caught in the gravitational pull, floated helplessly in the air around him. Broken signs that once clung to buildings, smashed car frames, pieces of signs, and traffic lights swirled violently, shattering in all directions.

As he prepared to drag Logia’s unconscious body, frothing at the mouth, out of the city, a voice interrupted him.

“Got you.”

"...!!"

Evelyn landed beside him and swung her hand, waiting for this moment.

Whoosh…!!

A single pitch-black arrow was held in reverse grip in her hand. Sensing the powerful force of the microcosm emanating from it, Lennok immediately summoned all his magic and leaned back.

As the two figures passed by each other, a massive shockwave exploded from the center of their clash.

Paaang!!

Evelyn’s eyes gleamed strangely as she held down her billowing hair with one hand.

“You blocked that?”

"..."

In the air, an arrow aimed directly at Lennok’s forehead was caught, held in place by countless strands of magical energy, woven like threads around it.

Creak…!!

Using extreme tensile strength and counter-rotation, Lennok was barely able to withstand Evelyn’s force and speed with near-miraculous control. Suppressing the inertial bias force contained in the arrow from nearly every direction, Lennok had unconsciously performed a remarkable feat.

"The technique you're using is quite unique. So, you really are a dual-attribute mage, huh?" Evelyn laughed as she steadily pressed the arrowhead against Lennok’s mask.

“Out of all the talents I’ve seen lately, yours is the most unusual. I guess you're not just all talk after all.”

“Huff, huff...!!”

Creak...!!!

The magical energy coiled around the arrow trembled, taut to the point of snapping. The force bound within the arrow shaft pushed against the tension of the magical strands, inching closer to his face. Lennok was at a critical juncture, but what made things even worse was the fact that the painkiller he took to keep moving was rapidly wearing off. 

With his sense of balance returning and his body protesting from the strain, nausea surged, and dizziness clouded his mind. Despite this, he maintained his hold on the magical strands, though his body was on the verge of collapse.

Evelyn seemed to sense Lennok’s deteriorating state and shook her head.

“Just give up. You knew this was hopeless from the start, didn’t you?”

“Ugh...!!”

“In a situation where you have no chance of winning on your own, you thought you’d escape with extra baggage?”

Creaaak!!

Evelyn tilted the arrowhead until it touched Lennok’s mask, smiling coldly.

"Knowing who I am, you still tried this gamble. Quite ambitious for a member of Pandemonium.”

The obsidian mask that Fame had given Lennok was sturdy, but it wouldn’t be enough to protect him from an attack by someone as powerful as Evelyn. A direct hit would surely shatter the mask, exposing his face. Should he quickly cast a disguise spell in anticipation of that?

As he thought it over, Lennok forced himself to laugh, suppressing his nausea.

“It’s not over... until it’s over…”

“And you’re still saying that after seeing this?”

There was no need for further explanation. It was painfully clear that Lennok had effectively lost in the chase between them. Although he had used his knowledge of Evelyn’s abilities and the Compassion of Archangel to spatially displace her attacks and maintain some distance, Evelyn quickly adapted her tactics, taking control of the fight in an instant.

The moment she realized that her long-range attacks using inertial bias weren’t working, Evelyn shifted to a precise single-point attack, pushing her microcosmic abilities to their extreme. She then unleashed a gravitational sphere to momentarily stall him, closing the gap for close combat. And in the blink of an eye, she had perfectly cornered Lennok with a single, precise strike as he emerged from the sphere.

If Lennok had decided to confront Evelyn head-on, things might not have turned out this way. But Evelyn’s skill was such that she could corner someone who was trying to avoid direct conflict.

Yet, even feeling the weight of the cold arrow pressing against his mask, Lennok feigned confidence and replied with forced calmness.

“You might want to watch your back... and your head.”

“Hah, that’s the best you could come up with? Such a pathetic—”

Just as Evelyn sneered and jerked her head to the side, a license plate and signboard flew in from behind her, crashing into each other.

Boom!

In that split second, as she lifted her head and tried to press the arrow into Lennok’s mask with renewed force—

“…?!”

Her eyes widened in surprise, and her movements stalled momentarily. Lennok seized the opportunity, using teleportation to make his escape.

Flash!

“Damn…!”

Furious, Evelyn sharpened her senses to track Lennok immediately.

Kiiing!

The instincts of an archer and a hunter—their heightened sixth sense transcended foresight, allowing her to pinpoint her opponent’s moves and intentions almost preternaturally.

“There…!”

Evelyn disappeared in a streak of black light, leaping through the debris-strewn street as if anticipating Lennok’s every move, and grabbed hold of a shadow.

Grab!

The faintly fluttering black glove at the end of a robe, specially crafted by Black Palace Workshop and no longer available—an item she had noted as one of the few clues about her target from the beginning.

With a swift yank, Evelyn pulled the hand inside the shadowy robe, gripping a vital point of her opponent. The archer’s body twisted sharply, snapping the joints concealed within the robe.

Crunch!

A sickening noise of bones cracking and breaking filled the air as the figure in the robe spun in a wide arc and crashed into the ground, shattering the asphalt and sending tremors through the area.

Kwooooom!

It was an instinctive strike, fueled by pure senses and combat intuition. Yet, Evelyn’s expression faintly twisted into a frown as soon as she landed the blow.

“Wait a second. For a direct hit to land like this…”

She threw back the robe to check the face underneath, only to reveal not the masked mage, but the face of a werewolf, bound entirely by magic threads and lying motionless.

“Heh, hehe…”

Drooling and grinning with crossed eyes, there was no sign of intelligence left in the creature’s gaze. Evelyn’s green eyes turned cold.

‘My senses weren’t wrong. I definitely caught him, so how…?’

“No way…!!”

Realizing something, Evelyn quickly checked Logia’s right hand. Her eyes locked onto a pencil broken in half and lodged in his wrist.

The “Five Fingers of Enakphil,” a device used for emergency teleportation of its user.

In the moment Evelyn had grabbed him, Lennok had triggered a spatial transfer—not to move himself, but to transfer the “Five Fingers” to Logia, switching places with him.

It was executed so perfectly that even Evelyn was briefly fooled, leading her to mistakenly capture Logia instead.

‘Wait, these items…!’

The Black Palace Workshop gloves. The Five Fingers of Enakphil.

An extraordinarily strange and unique fighting style. 

A series of seemingly coincidental maneuvers mixed with calculated information triggered the image of a certain mage in Evelyn’s mind. For a split second, she paused mid-step, but it was already too late.

Baaaang!

At that exact moment, the bright lights of a passing transcontinental train brushed past overhead. Realizing what had happened, Evelyn tried to leap onto the train but soon laughed in frustration, brushing back her hair.

"...Was this your plan all along?"

She now understood why he had held his ground. He’d been waiting for the brief moment when the transcontinental train would pass by the city’s outskirts. After losing track of him for even a second, Evelyn couldn’t be sure if he’d boarded the train or not. If he had boarded, and she pursued only to find he hadn’t, her chase would end there. The opposite held true as well. Either way, Evelyn realized it would now be nearly impossible to track them.

With so many civilians onboard, destroying the train wasn’t an option. He must have been buying time all along, keeping his distance and diverting her attention while waiting for this very moment.

"Should I call this my mistake or just his lucky break…?"

Evelyn’s gaze fell on a glove lying at her feet. Her opponent had abandoned Logia without hesitation to make his escape, but from the werewolf's expression, Evelyn sensed the operation had already failed. He could barely form coherent words, mumbling nonsensically. His mind had clearly been wiped clean, his memories stripped away and erased.

The valuable information once stored in Logia’s mind had undoubtedly been retrieved by that masked mage and taken away. How they managed to manipulate and overclock the mental and physical endurance of a saint-tier werewolf remained a mystery, but Evelyn had been thoroughly outplayed. The confrontation might have only been a ploy to buy enough time to extract Logia’s memories.

After staring at the glove she’d taken from Logia’s hand with a strange expression, Evelyn finally tucked it into her coat and turned away.

“…It couldn’t be, could it?”

The artifacts she’d seen briefly reminded her of someone she knew. Yet, she also knew that the odds of that being true were incredibly slim. The lightning mage she knew was not one to enjoy direct combat or chase scenes like this. Her friend, who had gone into seclusion after suffering severe injuries, was hardly likely to get involved in something like this.

While uncommon, these artifacts weren’t exactly unheard of. For a mage of high rank, owning a few such items wasn’t out of the ordinary. Rather than suspicion or doubt, she felt more of a mix of coincidence and mild bewilderment. Evelyn almost laughed at herself for hesitating over such a fleeting thought.

Smiling faintly, she shook her head to dismiss it and pulled out her phone.

“Pallad? I failed. I’ll be heading back.”

Ignoring the loud response coming through the phone, Evelyn replied indifferently.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not even part of the agency anymore, so what’s the point? If you want to complain, you can reinstate me first.”

“#%@!! Can’t really hear what you’re saying~ Oh dear, it seems like the connection is bad, so I’m hanging up now!”

Bang!

Evelyn ended the call mid-sentence, glancing at a white pillar of light rising on the other side of Byrutz with a smirk. Although she’d joined this operation as an external ally, she had no attachment to the ancient warrior with an obsession for battling Maya Renslit. No need to concern herself with him.

Without a trace of regret, Evelyn turned her back and slowly disappeared.

***

“…Is she gone?”

[It seems so.]

Clank, clank!

At the rear end of the transcontinental train, Lennok lay slumped against the doorframe, breathing quietly. Through the window, he caught a glimpse of the warm, inviting interior of the passenger compartment, but he had no strength to get up and step inside.

“Sigh… my head is throbbing too much.”

With a heavy sigh, Lennok leaned back, clutching his spinning head in pain. Davi popped out from his coat, coiling up on his chest, and spoke.

[It’ll take at least a night for the side effects to wear off. This was a new drug processed from the side effects of an antibiotic meant for severe patients, so it’s a bit unstable.]

“So I’m stuck like this until we reach Vulcan…”

Still, no other drug could match its effectiveness at dulling his awful sense of balance and forcing his body to keep moving, despite his nausea. Lennok fumbled for a cigarette, lighting it with a trembling hand, and muttered to himself.

“At least my last trick worked. Otherwise, I might’ve been stuck there for another hour in a standoff.”

In that final moment, just before Evelyn caught him, Lennok had gambled by sacrificing Logia as bait to shake off her pursuit, and it barely succeeded.

[Trying to finalize a detailed adjustment while running away was reckless. If not for that, you wouldn’t have been driven into such a corner.]

“But if I hadn’t done it, it would have taken much longer to escape.”

He’d finished organizing Logia’s memories and preserved them in a crystal orb, then meticulously erased all residual memories from Logia’s mind—all while escaping from Evelyn. Once that complex process was done, he used Logia as bait to slip away.

The only reason he managed to deceive Evelyn, even for a moment, was because he’d thrown in his Black Palace Workshop glove and the Five Fingers of Enakphil as bait.

After putting the glove on Logia’s now-mindless hand, Lennok activated the Five Fingers of Enakphil, transferring both himself and the item to swap positions with Logia. Evelyn, noticing the Black Palace glove, quickly realized something was off, but Lennok only needed that brief instant of breathing room.

The Five Fingers of Enakphil operated on principles entirely different from the teleportation techniques Lennok had used up to this point. Lennok had saved the Five Fingers until the very end, intending to exploit the gap in its function for his final escape. His gamble, timed precisely with the arrival of the transcontinental train heading to Vulcan, had paid off, allowing him to elude Evelyn’s pursuit unscathed.

While he couldn’t be sure why Evelyn had given up so quickly, escaping such a dire situation with just a single glove and a few consumable artifacts was pure luck. Lennok was well aware of how difficult it was to avoid detection and escape from someone like Evelyn without exposing his true identity.

Reflecting briefly on the recent battle, Lennok steadied his shaky hand and moved.

“My head hurts a bit, but I should start right away while I have the chance.”

[...Already diving into the memories?]

“I had to rush the detailed adjustments, so the stability isn’t great.”

With those words, Lennok retrieved the obsidian-glowing crystal orb from his coat, gripping it with both hands.

“If I want to retrieve Logia’s memories intact, I need to examine them as soon as possible.”

Fwaaash!!

As Lennok infused magic into the crystal orb, he felt his consciousness gradually sink into it. The view of the shaking train around him began to shift into something entirely different, and Lennok murmured to himself.

“The most intense and critical memory that remains within Logia… this is the only chance I’ll have to view it fully.”

[Sigh…]

Before Davi’s sigh even finished, Logia’s memories unfolded before Lennok’s eyes.

Whoosh!!

A city, utterly devastated, lay like a wasteland after a war. Only faint traces remained of a once-great civilization, now mostly buried deep underground as ruins. Logia was lying flat, carefully observing something from a distance.

“...”

Was this really how Logia’s most intense memory began? Lennok, slightly taken aback, replayed the scene.

At the edge of Logia’s gaze, the remnants of the ruins came into view.

[…]

It was a scene of utter desolation, as though one was staring into the end of the world. The ground disappeared, leading into an endless sky veiled with dense fog, like an abyss.

At the edge of that void, two figures stood facing each other.

One was a young man with black hair, bearing a seemingly ordinary appearance. The other, an indistinct figure veiled in noise.

“This…”

Lennok momentarily forgot he was observing Logia’s memories and held his breath. These two were beings known as monsters beyond any ordinary scale.

Commander and Fame stood facing each other.