The battle against insanity continued while Olivia lay cold.
“…” Keleanos kept his eyes fixed on the Devourer, never flinching even once.
His fingers, bloodied from repeatedly striking the gauntlet, twitched after every hit.
The maids watched anxiously as drops of blood stained the fractured asphalt beneath them.
“This is becoming harder to maintain…” he muttered without meaning to.
Gritting his teeth, he continued producing the counter-vibration.
The Devourer’s gaze remained locked on Keleanos, as though challenging his resolve.
Its red core, glowing at the center of its chest, burned brighter with every passing minute.
With each surge, the pressure increased, forcing him to strike the gauntlet more frequently.
Not even five minutes had passed, and Keleanos was already struggling to keep his expression steady.
I promised Olivia ten minutes… He grimaced.
His hand trembled, and for the first time his eyes dropped, dragged down by the pain.
Then, his finger missed the gauntlet.
This was the moment Yivern had been waiting for.
Its core flared, the echo of lunacy swelling in intensity. The air grew heavier, distorted by the strong tremors.
The vibration slipped past his own counter-signal, gnawing at his mind and creeping toward the maids behind him.
“Kh!” He clenched his teeth and struck the gauntlet again.
But his arm fell limp at his side, unable to continue.
Why am I so weak…?
His thoughts drifted to Kelsea and Chelsea, somewhere out in the world, fighting their own battles.
How can I protect them if I can’t even protect myself?
His eyes slid shut, the sound of his vibration fading away.
DING
He snapped his eyes open as the vibration returned.
“What?!”
He stared in disbelief as the gauntlet resonated on its own. It synchronized with his earlier rhythm, though no one was striking it.
As he struggled to understand, a hand pressed gently against his shoulder.
Leaning over his opposite side, a ghostly figure appeared, another hand flicking the metallic weapon once more.
Keleanos gasped, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.
The spirit of Rakia turned toward him. A warm smile, one he had longed to see just once more, filled his vision.
Then Rakia shifted her gaze toward Yivern, her expression hardening into something fierce.
That look was his wake-up call.
Rakia vanished, leaving Keleanos standing alone.
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“This is all I can do for you.”
Footsteps scraping against the asphalt reached his ears.
“As a way to honor her choice, I did everything I could to give her a moment with you.”
Olivia stopped beside him, arms crossed, a faint smile resting on her face.
Keleanos looked at her.
“This wasn’t an illusion. Using her would have been an insult.”
“I know.” He nodded slowly. “For a moment, she was real.”
His eyes closed.
“Real enough for me to move on.” He clenched his aching fingers, then opened his eyes, hesitation giving way to resolve.
The pain felt distant now. He struck the gauntlet again, blood splashing across its surface.
Lifting his head, he reached to his side, where a book hung from a long chain.
He unhooked it and pulled it forward.
“I am Keleanos, son of Valkyrie Rakia!” The book opened on its own, pages flipping rapidly.
“My unmaking will not be brought by you!”
The pages stopped on an entry detailing medicinal plants.
He gave it a brief glance and nodded, then closed his eyes as a golden aura wrapped around him.
A sigil flared within his pupils as he opened them again.
From the cracks in the asphalt, budding plants surged upward. They matured in seconds before dissolving into green motes.
The particles gathered into a small mass of green paste, which Keleanos applied to his wounded fingers.
His magic over the concept of agriculture allowed him to grow plants instantly.
For such a small amount of biomass, the cost was negligible.
“…”
The lingering pain vanished entirely, freeing his mind from its grip.
Without wasting another second, he resumed countering Yivern’s vibration.
The Devourer glared at him in fury.
It had expected this matter to end swiftly. Instead, Keleanos had become more dangerous.
But it could not focus on him.
Somehow, Olivia’s bright soul kept drawing its attention.
A pure, unstained soul.
The perfect meal Yivern sought endlessly.
It wanted to devour her.
And it would.
Lifting its arms, it tilted its head toward the sky.
Its wings spread wide, and with the next pulse of its red core, thousands of feathers rained down.
They struck the ground all around the group, embedding themselves like anchors and relays, spreading the insanity-inducing vibration outward.
The maids exchanged glances. Before Olivia could issue a single order, they were already moving.
They split with practiced precision.
The void maids warped toward the furthest feathers. The demon maids surged for those in between. The angel maids handled the closest ones.
They worked quickly, retreating to Keleanos whenever their minds began to strain. The rhythm was clean, efficient, flawless.
Olivia watched, impressed.
This was exactly what she wanted.
She did not even need to look at them.
While Keleanos shifted between healing and countering, she needed something else.
Orion… what would you do?
Her gaze drifted back to Yivern.
Keleanos strained as the feathers amplified the pressure, but with every one the maids destroyed, the weight eased.
A plan took shape in Olivia’s mind, one bordering on the same madness Orion would embrace.
“Haha~” She laughed softly, her fangs fully visible.
She dragged a finger across her lips.
“How could I forget? This is going to be fun.”
She glanced at Keleanos.
“Well. For us, anyway.”
Olivia clapped her hands once.
The maids immediately converged behind her.
She forced their retreat before the last feathers could be destroyed, drawing a confused look from Keleanos.
“What are you—”
“Just watch.” She cut him off and pointed directly at the red core.
“Open wide.”
Her words appeared directed at Yivern as she smirked.
She snapped her fingers.
A portal, black as a starless void, tore open and expanded to a grotesque size.
From within it surged a massive beam of compressed darkness, crushing the vibration itself as it advanced toward the core.
The air parted around it, unable to resist, folding away as though displaced rather than torn.
Yivern failed to prepare any meaningful defense, raising its arms on instinct alone.
It was massive. Such a small attack should never have been enough.
At the last moment, Olivia snapped her fingers again.
The maids opened their eyes in awe at their Master, their hair fluttering from the heavy pressure.
Just before the beam met its guard, another portal opened. Then another, positioned behind its arms.
CRACK
Space ruptured behind Yivern’s defenses as red shards tore free and fell, each large enough to crush entire structures.
“How do you like that?” Olivia said, closing her hand with a smug grin.
For a brief instant, Keleanos and the maids glimpsed the phantom overlap of Orion behind her, as though she were borrowing a fragment of his method.
“This improved Mirroring Phantasm. How do you like it?”
She snapped her fingers again, escalating the chaos.
Beneath Yivern, within the gaping pit from which it had emerged, water began to flood upward.
“We’re talking about giant creatures, right?” As her water magic surged, she lifted her face, a dark veil shadowing her eyes.
“Go on, my friend. Eat.”
From the depths, something answered. The illusion of a terrible creature, very much real for everyone else.
A familiar ally of Olivia’s rose from the water, jaws wide.
Before Yivern could recover from the spatial wound to its core, the apex predator breached and clamped down on its appendages.
Water surged violently as Yivern was dragged downward, swallowed into the depths.
Only the broken red hue of its core fragment continued to pulse, their master nowhere to be seen.
