Chapter 103 - The Ruins of Malaka (3)

The reason the mages could not use magic inside the Ruins of Malaka was that their mana dispersed.

Drawing mana out of the body and arranging it was the foundation of manifesting magic. But in this space, the moment they drew it out to cast a spell, their mana scattered into the air, making it impossible to arrange.

That meant even Theon, who had brought about this situation, was magically incapacitated.

There was only one reason Alon was the exception.

'Use the phrase Fixation to hold the mana arrangement in place.'

He could use phrases that imposed the laws of magic regardless of the circumstances.

'... Without the hint on the wall, I might have ended up helplessly becoming bug food while I tried to find a solution... Not that I'm out of danger now.'

He could not afford to relax. Even if he could cast spells, the forced dispersal of mana put Alon—no, any mage—at an enormous disadvantage.

'No matter how much mana I pour into it, arranging it still takes time, so the spells are inefficient. I can't use the nail guard or the bracelet, either. That means three spells is my absolute limit.'

Alon coolly assessed the situation and looked around.

Mutants resembling mosquitoes as large as people flew through the air, emitting the threatening buzz characteristic of insects.

And they were not only in the air. On the moss-covered stones. On the walls of the ruins. On the floor. Behind him.

The entire ruin was covered in hideously grotesque insects.

"Impossible—!"

As Alon surveyed his surroundings, Theon's horrified voice rang out ahead of him.

"You shouldn't be able to use magic...!"

Theon stood gaping in shock. Despite his agitated reaction, Alon continued to devote all his attention to calmly assessing the situation.

'I have to deal with them all at once.'

Countless area-of-effect spells that could resolve the crisis flashed through his mind. He had plenty at his disposal, but unfortunately, he could not use them now.

If he cast an area-of-effect spell here, Evan and the mages might be caught in it—no, they were practically certain to be caught in it.

Yet he had nowhere near enough casts left to kill the insects one at a time. As he pondered what to do...

'... Wait. If the mana disperses...?'

An idea suddenly came to him, and he spoke.

"Decomposition."

He abruptly dismantled the faint spell that had been gathered before him just moments earlier. In an instant, it broke down into tiny particles and scattered in every direction.

Sighs rose to the lips of the mages who had been clinging to that small glimmer of hope.

"J-just as I thought! Of course—!"

Regaining his confidence, Theon swung his inky-black staff. The moment the insects drifting through the air turned hostile, Alon calmly thought behind his expressionless face:

'Just as I thought. Dispersing doesn't mean the mana disappears.'

He looked around. Even as the malformed insects rushed at him to take his life, he did not despair.

He could see it: the mana he had decomposed had naturally spread throughout the chamber because of its properties.

And when he realized that, since he had yet to release his hand seal, he could still control the mana spread through the chamber just as he intended, he let out a soft breath.

"Whew..."

Keeping the seal formed with his left hand, Alon formed the Fist of Wisdom seal with his right.

"Clear Light."

CRACKLE!

Once again, a sphere of lightning formed above Alon's hand, radiating a brilliant light distinctly different from before.

"Acceleration."

The lightning devoured the surrounding air, bathing everything in dazzling blue light.

And just as the mutants' thornlike mouths and legs were about to touch his body...

"Designation."

A flash shot forth.

KRRRRAK!

Without warning, the sphere of lightning Alon had created began mercilessly piercing the flying insects.

It shot upward through the head of an insect descending from above. It moved straight sideways through the torso of another trying to crush his hand. It curved through the body of one baring its beak at his heart.

Tracing a blue trajectory, it pierced only the insects, as though guided.

Having swept away every insect in barely any time at all, the flash struck one final target.

CRUNCH!

It pierced Theon's heart as he hurried to swing his staff again, then vanished.

"..."

"..."

Soon, the mutants began raining onto the floor of the ruins. Their limbs flopped limply, and green bodily fluids fell onto the mages' heads.

Yet not a single person dodged the insect carcasses.

Even Riyan, her head drenched in green fluid, made no attempt to wipe it away. She simply stared in one direction—at Marquis Pallatio.

"Ah..."

A quiet exclamation escaped her lips. Even she could not identify the emotions mingled in that low, lingering sound.

Meanwhile, Alon, who stood at the center of everyone's attention, was thinking:

'Ah, aaah... I'm dying...'

He had invested a little too much mana, bringing on mana depletion after just two spells. Behind his expressionless face, he was ready to cry.

####

Immediately afterward, Alon hurriedly tipped a potion into his mouth. Once he had finished that emergency treatment, he realized that mana had returned to normal the moment Theon died.

"... My lord."

"What is it?"

"What in the world was that? I've seen something similar when you practice, but never a spell like that."

"You probably won't see it again, either."

'Because I'm never using it again.'

Clutching his dizzy head, Alon made that vow.

The magic he had just used combined two phrase-based spells.

First, he had exploited the chamber's ability to disperse mana by deliberately decomposing his mana and scattering it everywhere.

Then, using the scattered mana he could still control, he had arranged only the mana clinging to the insects and Theon into a particular pattern.

With that done, he had woven a phrase into the other spell to guide it toward the specific mana arrangement he had designated.

That was how he had completed the spell.

But as he had just said, he would probably never use it again.

For one thing, this method was only possible when mana dispersed in every direction. Controlling it that way was also far too inefficient.

The headache that still refused to fade was proof enough.

"... Really? It looked impressive."

"Magic isn't meant to look impressive."

"Well, I mean... It was just a comment."

Some time into his conversation with Evan, Riyan approached to address Alon.

"My lord, I'm sorry. And thank you so very much."

"There's no need to bow like that."

"Of course there is. Without you, I would already be dead. Thank you, truly."

As she bent at the waist in a ninety-degree bow, Alon assured her once more that it was all right.

"With that in mind, might I—"

Only then did Riyan lift her head, but just as she was about to say something...

RUMBLE!

The ruins suddenly began to shake.

The mages, who had been gathering their tools so they could leave, tensed once more. But contrary to their expectations...

"Stairs...?"

As soon as the violent shaking stopped, they saw a staircase in the central arena, where nothing had stood moments before.

It led underground, and every mage realized that it led to the place holding the object Theon had spoken of earlier.

But a moment later, Riyan spoke.

"Please take the object for yourself, my lord."

"... Are you sure?"

"Of course. Everyone else has agreed as well."

At her words, Alon turned to find the other mages bowing their heads to him.

"I've never seen a whole group of mages bow before," Evan whispered at the sight.

"... Then I won't refuse."

Having accepted the object, Alon promptly headed down the stairs without hesitation.

Soon, he found a door and an inscription before it. As before, the strange ancient language was written in characters he could read.

The inscription on the door read:

'To the Magus who escaped in the end and did not forget the phrases, Unification leaves its final wishes.'

"..."

After staring at the inscription, Alon opened the door.

The door opened with an eerie creak. Contrary to his expectation that it would be dark inside, the room was bright enough to see clearly.

Within it, Alon saw two things.

One was an egg: a pitch-black egg resting on an altar, looking as though it might swallow all the light in the world.

The other was writing. More specifically...

"... Unification of Shadows?"

Writing that appeared to be the key to Manifestation of One's True Nature.

After examining the sentence on the wall behind the inky-black egg, Alon approached to inspect the egg more closely—

"Hm?"

—and discovered sentences written in the same ancient language on an old piece of parchment beside it.

1. Until the Shadow Dragon is born, feed it absolutely nothing but mana.

2. If the Shadow Dragon has consumed a certain amount of a mage's blood or more, the egg must be broken. If it is not broken, the Shadow Dragon will become a Death Shadow Dragon and run amok.

There were two precautions in total.

After reading them, Alon had little difficulty understanding what Theon had been trying to do.

'... Was he trying to turn the Shadow Dragon into a Death Shadow Dragon...?'

He did not know why, but that much seemed clear enough.

'Someone deliberately drove a mage into a frenzy to turn this creature called a Shadow Dragon into a Death Shadow Dragon...'

He briefly considered who might be behind Theon, then tilted his head at another question that came to mind.

This one concerned Siyan Critenia, the monarch of Astenia.

'Theon explained the attack himself, so she probably had nothing to do with that... But if she sent me here, she clearly knew something...'

Of course, rumors that Alon used primordial magic had spread to some extent among mages. Even so, there was something he could not understand.

["Well, once you get there, you'll understand why I told you to visit the Ruins of Malaka."]

She had definitely said that to him.

And the true value of the Ruins of Malaka could only be understood by someone who could read the ancient language.

In other words—Critenia Siyan knew full well that Alon could read the ancient language, and that what lay here would help him.

'... What's going on?'

Alon's expression grew even more puzzled, but only briefly.

'... Let's head back up first.'

Setting his questions aside, he picked up the inky-black egg and began climbing toward the surface.

... The egg was extremely heavy.

At that same moment...

"He should be arriving about now."

Siyan was returning to Teria in a carriage large enough to be called a room. At her remark, the secretary who had remained silent until then spoke.

"Your Majesty takes a great interest in Marquis Pallatio."

An interest. An interest, indeed.

Siyan settled more deeply against the backrest.

"Does it seem that way?"

"Forgive my presumption, but yes."

"Well, I do."

"Forgive me, but may I ask what it is about him that draws your interest?"

"What it is about him..."

She considered the secretary's question for a moment, then smiled softly.

"Who knows..."

Instead, she looked at the secretary and asked a question of her own.

"What do you think it might be?"

"..."

The secretary did not dare answer.

Yet, perhaps it was only a trick of the eyes, but Siyan's Golden History Eye seemed to shine a little brighter than usual.