A Journey Unwanted

[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Heart Kingdom]

[Outskirts]

Mikoto watched his handiwork; for several moments, he said nothing. There was not much to say; the forest that had once stretched for miles in every direction was gone.

Where there had once been dense trees, hills, and countless layers of vegetation, there was now an immense crater carved into the land. Its edges extended so far that the destruction almost seemed difficult to comprehend from where Mikoto hovered above it. Trees had been uprooted, shattered, or simply erased beneath the force of the spell. Soil and stone had been thrown outward in enormous ridges, leaving the surrounding landscape scarred and uneven.

The crater itself continued for an immense distance, and dust still drifted through the air. Small pieces of debris occasionally rolled down the newly formed slopes, the sound almost insignificant compared to the scale of what had just happened.

It had been another force amplification spell, nothing particularly elaborate. Nothing that Mikoto considered impressive. He had not needed to construct a complicated sequence of magical formulas or manipulate some rare branch of magic. He had simply concentrated his mana, refined it, amplified the force he wanted to produce, and directed it toward the ground.

That was all.

There had been no difficulty in casting it; it had not even consumed much of his mana. Mikoto’s body remained suspended high above the devastation, completely still despite the air moving around him. His red eyes slowly travelled across the barren landscape below.

Sabre hung loosely in one hand while his expression remained unchanged.

The Royal Guard had been caught directly in the attack.

Yet Mikoto had not expected something as simple as that to be enough to finish him. His gaze moved across the crater; there was nothing, only dust.

Then his eyes shifted farther, still nothing.

Mikoto’s gaze narrowed slightly.

"There."

A tiny speck of color stood out in the ruined landscape. His eyes had found something that ordinary sight might have missed entirely.

Mikoto began descending.

The speck gradually became clearer; it was green, a radiating green.

Something resembling wings had been wrapped around a humanoid figure, though Mikoto could not immediately make sense of their exact structure. They were not quite physical wings, nor did they resemble any conventional spell he had encountered.

They formed a protective cocoon around the Royal Guard as Mikoto’s descent continued. The closer he came, the more clearly he could see the strange energy surrounding Trismegistus. His sabatons eventually touched the barren ground; he landed only a few paces away.

Mikoto remained still as he watched.

The green wings began to move; one section loosened, then another. The strange wing-like structures gradually unraveled around Trismegistus before breaking apart into countless small specks of green light.

They drifted away, and the cocoon disappeared.

Trismegistus stood revealed; his clothing was dusty. There were signs that the attack had reached him, but he was otherwise fine. There were no obvious wounds, broken bones, or any visible damage that suggested he had been caught beneath the full force of the spell.

Mikoto’s red eyes settled on him, while the Royal Guard looked around at the devastation.

He seemed genuinely interested rather than frightened.

"To think Kinetomancy could produce destruction on this scale," Trismegistus mused, his voice carrying easily through the open wasteland. The lenses of his golden mask narrowed slightly as his attention returned to Mikoto. "The result is certainly impressive in terms of raw force, but I admit it isn’t what I expected from an Angel. Such crude, destructive magic seems almost disappointingly straightforward for something of your supposed nature."

Mikoto’s beautiful features remained the same as he shifted Sabre slightly in his hand.

"What?" he scoffed. "Were you expecting me to put on some fancy light show for you?" His tone carried no real irritation. "Is that what you thought an Angel had to look like? Something elegant and complicated every second?"

His eyes remained fixed on the Royal Guard.

Internally, however, his attention remained on the strange protection Trismegistus had used.

("Those wings certainly weren’t like any spell I’ve seen.") Mikoto’s gaze lingered on the last few green motes disappearing into the air. ("There was mana in the mix, definitely. But there was something else in it too.")

His expression became thoughtful.

("That weird Spiritual Energy crap Shuten used.") The observation remained with him; he had no intention of forgetting it.

Trismegistus seemed to notice the direction of his attention, though he did not comment on it.

"I suppose I had certain expectations," the Royal Guard admitted. His voice remained calm. "I have only heard second-hand accounts, after all. What I know of Angels comes from records passed between people who have encountered beings such as yourself."

He paused for a brief moment.

"There are sources that describe Angels as possessing the ability to employ magic on the Resonantia tier. There are even accounts claiming that Angels possess access to unique branches of the Arbor Astrigaudium, branches unavailable to ordinary practitioners."

Mikoto listened without interrupting as Trismegistus continued.

"Of course, whether those accounts are accurate is another matter entirely. Much of what is written about beings beyond the ordinary planes is either incomplete or exaggerated."

"Suppose I do," Mikoto replied.

He hefted Sabre; the red blade rose before he casually rested it across his armored shoulder.

"Suppose I really can use those things. Why would I waste trump cards on you?" His red eyes remained steady. "There’d be no point. If I can put you down without them, then using something more troublesome would just be wasteful."

Trismegistus was quiet for a moment before he nodded.

"I suppose my showing has been paltry." One gloved hand rose toward his mask, his fingers lightly cupping the chin as though he were genuinely considering his own performance. "Being cautious is rarely a mistake. In fact, it is usually the safer choice when confronting an unknown opponent. But I may have taken that caution too far."

Mikoto’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"So what?" His voice remained flat. "You’ve got a trump card?"

The question carried no apprehension; if anything, it sounded mildly curious.

Trismegistus straightened.

"Of course." There was no hesitation in his answer. "One does not become a Royal Guard simply by being competent with magic."

His hand lowered from his mask as his posture subtly changed.

"I underestimated the threat you pose." The Royal Guard’s voice remained composed. "But no more."

The ground beneath Mikoto’s sabatons gave a groan.

The sound was insignificant at first, little more than the settling of broken earth beneath his weight. Then another crack appeared; it started between his feet. A thin line split through the barren ground, ran beneath one sabaton, and continued several paces behind him. Mikoto lowered his eyes for half a second, watching the fracture widen.

Another followed, then another; the earth around him was beginning to give way. Mikoto’s eyes narrowed.

He could feel something was moving beneath him.

The sensation was almost buried underneath the residual energy saturating the crater, but it was becoming stronger by the second.

His stance changed, and the earth exploded.

Mikoto’s knees bent at precisely the same instant the ground beneath him erupted upward.

A gigantic hand of fire tore through the crater floor; the fingers came first. They were enormous, each one formed from layers of burning material packed around something denser beneath. The palm followed, forcing itself out of the earth with enough strength to send broken slabs of stone flying in every direction.

Mikoto was already gone; his sabatons left the ground a fraction of a second before the hand reached him. The fiery fingers snapped shut around empty air; Mikoto shot upward through the gap between two of them.

Heat rushed over his armor.

The force of the eruption threw him higher, his body rotating once as he cleared the hand. Below him, the enormous limb continued rising, dragging a column of shattered earth and flame with it.

Mikoto looked down; the hand was not ordinary fire. His eyes tracked the shape as it moved; the burning surface was too structured. The flames did not behave like flames; they clung to a definite physical shape, forming something closer to flesh than a spell construct. Beneath the fiery exterior, Mikoto could make out layers of compressed energy.

A spirit.

But not one existing purely as an incorporeal entity; it had a shell. A physical shell, his eyes narrowed, and at the same time, the enormous hand turned. The wrist twisted, the palm opened and the fingers spread wide.

It seemed to be tracking him.

Mikoto’s expression hardened as a red aura suddenly burst around his body. It exploded outward, tightly surrounding him. Mana surged through his body, reinforcing his muscles, joints, bones, and senses simultaneously.

He accelerated, driving one leg backwards through the air and shooting forward. The fiery hand came after him, its fingers closed, but Mikoto twisted sideways. One enormous finger swept past his back close enough that the heat rolled across his armor.

He did not look at it as Sabre moved; the blade came down in a diagonal arc. It struck the fiery arm; for an instant, there was resistance, just enough for Mikoto to feel the distinction between the spirit’s outer shell and the energy sustaining it.

His wrist adjusted, and Sabre slipped through; the enormous arm separated. A clean line appeared through the fire. Then the entire limb came apart in segments; the severed sections broke into chunks of burning material that remained suspended for a brief moment before losing their shape. Fire peeled away from the pieces. The denser energy beneath them dispersed into the air.

The hand vanished, and Mikoto continued forward. He twisted his body and cleared the remaining fragments as they dissolved behind him.

Small embers passed his shoulders as he landed lightly against the side of a broken slab of stone jutting from the crater wall, used it as a foothold for barely an instant, and launched himself away again.

His red aura remained tightly wrapped around him as he turned his head.

Trismegistus was still standing below; Mikoto’s eyes met the lenses of the golden mask.

For a brief moment, neither moved.

But then the air changed with no warning.

The wind struck him; it hit with such force that Mikoto’s body was thrown sideways before he could properly brace. The air seemed to become solid; his body snapped backwards as his sabatons left the stone.

The crater floor below erupted.

A tremendous wave of wind tore across the barren landscape, lifting enormous slabs of earth and hurling them away. Dust and fragments of stone were swept into the air, forming a rapidly expanding cloud that rolled outward from Trismegistus.

Mikoto’s red aura flared violently around him as he crossed his arms in front of his body.

The first impact drove him backwards, and the second sent him spinning. He corrected himself halfway through the rotation, extending one arm and angling Sabre downward to stabilize his body.

It barely helped as the wind caught him again; Mikoto was thrown farther. His body crossed the crater at impossible speed; below him, the landscape was being torn apart in his wake.

Chunks of rock were ripped from the ground and carried through the air. Dust streamed horizontally. Deep grooves appeared across the crater floor where the pressure alone had stripped away layers of earth.

Mikoto’s eyes remained open as he watched.

("So spirits, huh?")

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