CHAPTER 6
Even if the Moon Were to Crumble
The scene could nearly be described as fantastical. Under the pale moonlight, the black-haired girl seemed to float vaguely.
She seemed endearing and fragile.
However…from the many thorns surrounding her, Iska knew she secretly carried a heinous power that did not match her appearance.
“A war?”
“I’m an astral mage, and you’re an Imperial soldier. When we meet, we fight, don’t we?”
“…”
“But please rest assured.” Kissing, the thorn purebred type, stared at him with her glimmering eyes. “I haven’t hurt a single Imperial soldier while coming here. Though I have taken down some buildings.”
“Huh?!”
He doubted his own ears. He hadn’t expected a purebred type from the Sovereignty to ever say anything like that.
“Even if you’re trying to throw me off, I’ll figure out right away if that’s true or not.”
“I wouldn’t lie. My uncle has taught me it isn’t good to lie.”
“Then why?”
“Because I’m only after you.”
Was it for revenge? Because of their fight at Mudor to secure the vortex? Was she after Iska in retaliation?
……No, that doesn’t explain it.
……She wouldn’t keep away from the other soldiers if her only goal was me.
He didn’t understand. The most troubling thing of all was how Kissing behaved. She wasn’t like Alice or Rin. When the girl fought, she was practically emotionless. He couldn’t read her.
“Then what’s your goal…?”
“Ability release.”
Thousands of thorns gathered in the air, and converged into one from which something appeared.
“Re-form.”
“Huh?!”
It was her secret move.
She could re-create the last things she destroyed. At Mudor, she had re-created a short-distance Imperial forces missile and caused a large explosion.
“Did you disassemble something ahead of time?!”
Without any hesitation, Iska leaped back as far as he could. This was an Imperial base. All kinds of explosive components were stored here. If she’d stolen one of those ahead of time…
He watched for an explosion, for flames, but instead, what appeared in front of Iska’s eyes rolled along the ground. They were fist-size objects designed to be lobbed, but they weren’t bombs.
“Stun grenades?!”
She had gotten him.
Iska had been staring at them, expecting them to explode, but the moment he realized what they were, the ten re-created grenades all went off at once. He saw them flash.
His eyes were flooded with white light at point-blank range.
He couldn’t believe it—a powerful astral mage had resorted to a sneak attack in order to blind him.
“You can dodge fire and explosions, so I thought about it for a long time—I thought about what Uncle On would do in order to stop you.”
“……Guh!”
He reevaluated his opinion of Kissing. She wasn’t anything like Alice or the Founder. This girl was a purebred type who used Thorn—and she could strategize just like Lord Mask.
“Astral-power expansion.”
The condensed thorns burst. Several thousand thorns split into ten thousand and filled the sky above the indoor maneuvering ground.
“Become ‘Stars.’”
In the span of one second, the thorns in midair fell to the ground. It was like a meteor shower. Falling at perilous speeds, they pierced everything on the ground one after another. When the thorns hit a gigantic boulder, it was obliterated. And when they hit the walls, they became riddled with holes. They created craters in the ground.
She destroyed everything around them. However, only the astral swords that could cut through astral power itself couldn’t be disintegrated by the thorns.
“Hah!”
Iska stepped forward toward the shower of thorns. He swiveled around on the spot. He dashed and weaved through the rain of thorns that fell at a diagonal, narrowly avoiding being hit. He couldn’t stop even for a moment.
He sliced through the thorns falling in front of him in a single stroke.
Then he knocked away the ones coming at him from above in his blind spot without so much as looking at them.
“No…”
The black-haired girl backed away. She looked overwhelmed, as though she’d seen something unbelievable.
“You can still see?”
“I can finally see now.”
“Huh?!”
“If I had seen these thorns from the beginning, they would have gotten me.”
He had lost his vision because of the stun grenades, and it was only now coming back.
The countless thorns falling could be compared to being targeted by several machine guns. Kissing was the only one controlling them, however, so all he had to do was run. Since she was controlling the thorn “bullets,” he simply ran faster than she could aim them.
That was why she always missed.
The moment Kissing aimed at Iska, he would already be farther ahead.
“Don’t come near me!” Kissing’s voice was stiff. She thrust both her hands in front of her and tried her hardest to squeeze out the words. “March of thorns—the Whole of Creation…”
“Stop.”
“Ugh!”
She shuddered.
She felt something hard against her neck. Right before she could attack him again, he had leaped close enough to thrust his black sword at her, but there were still thorns floating in the air.
“Cease using your astral power.”
“I have a question for you,” Kissing said.
“I get to make the demands here,” he reminded her, but she asked him regardless.
“Can you win against Elletear?”
“…What did you just say?”
“I will surrender.”
In front of Iska’s eyes as he held his blade at her, the thorns revolving overhead gently fell to the ground. Instead of disappearing, they lined up once they fell.
“I wanted to test your abilities. I apologize for having been rude.”
It was proof of her surrender. Like a soldier putting down their gun, she had laid down her weapons to show she wouldn’t resist.
“Iska, I would like to offer you a trade.”
The girl crouched down.
She was on her knees and bowed.
“Please fight the witch Elletear alongside me. I will give you all my thorns.”
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