As the guards in the palace hastily activated their defence protocol, Reginsleif and Laevia reunited with their daughters in the other room.
According to the guard earlier, the city of Czech was currently undergoing a series of explosions for the past 15 minutes or so in a random manner. While there hadn't been reports flowing in yet, the guardtowers were able to capture the bright explosions under the night sky.
"I'm so sorry for this," Ethan apologised profusely to the royal family of Aravel as he and his wife made their way out of the hall. "Please, stay in this room with your dragonkin guards. Once the situation has been further clarified, only then it would be safer to leave."
"Lunatea-nee, do you think Lunaria-nee will be fine?" Lunaea asked Lunatea, watched the King and Queen leaving them heavily guarded.
"I don't know," Lunatea shook her head. "I just hope Lunaria wasn't the cause of the explosions."
"It is unlikely. The explosions don't seem to be caused by magic, but instead rigged," Laevia tilted her head as she used her magic perception to try to get a feel of the situation outside. "It is hard to tell what is going on from here though. All the explosions seem to have occurred a distance away from the palace."
"Whatever the case, we will have to rely on Sir Ethan's hospitality now," Reginsleif simply announced, looking around the room they were isolated in with their guards. "Shiina, Sakuya, continue to remain in charge for now."
"Yes, Your Majesty," the two dragonkins got on one knee and bowed, obeying the Emperor's commands.
Even if there was a chance that this attack was meant to be an ambush on the palace itself, it would be dumb for the attackers since the royal family of Aravel was here with their personal guard escorts. No matter how strong or well-planned the attack, it was pointless going up against a group of highly trained dragonkins. It equated to suicide, if anything.
"Do you think Lunaria-nee is going to be okay?" Luniel asked her mother with a worried look on her face.
"I hope so," Laevia sighed. "We can't head out to check on her… can we?"
With a terrifying glance, her four daughters all shuddered in fear at their mother's sharp gaze. It was obvious that either one of them planned to sneak out to check on their sister, knowing she had a knack for getting into unwanted trouble. The situation wasn't in their favour, since Laevia already suspected they were going to try something like that.
"… Well, I will allow Lucentia out," Laevia relaxed into a smile. "Be quick, alright?"
"Y-Yes, mother!" Lucentia widened her eyes in surprise and nodded.
With a swift cast, Laevia made Lucentia invisible to the naked eye. This allowed her to slip out of the room undetected, especially when it was a spell generated by someone like Laevia. In truth, she was also worried about her eldest daughter as a mother, thus why she entrusted the job to someone more capable like Lucentia.
Lucentia quickly left the grounds of the palace, the guards unaware of her presence due to her being invisible. She took extra precaution by completely erasing her magic signature in case there was someone else skilled enough to detect her presence even without their eyes. They were in the palace after all, so anything was possible.
"Hm!" Lucentia spread her wings and took to the sky once she was out of the palace's vicinity.
With her pinkish white wings spreading out wide, Lucentia quickly arrived at a height where she was able to judge the overall situation of the city itself.
Unfortunately, she did not possess the incredible magic detection that Lunaria and Laevia had. It was something that relied more on innate talent than training to acquire it. As such, she had to fly around a lot closer to the ground while making sure to look for any signs of Lunaria.
She was quickly able to pick up signs of chaos and aftermaths of the explosions that took place. It seemed like the overall exploding attacks had stopped, with more mess to clean up. Along with that were a bunch of bandits who came out of nowhere, showing that they were the ones who planned the explosions and were attacking innocent people.
"Tch, no sign of Lunaria-nee," Lucentia gritted her teeth in frustration as she left from one explosion centre to another.
Just then, she spotted a familiar magical signature close to where Lunaria's school was. There happened to be an explosion a few blocks down the road, which lead her right to the signature itself.
Kaze happened to be battling one of the bandits who were the cause of the explosion. Unlike normal people, they were coordinated and had experience with fighting, so it was tougher than expected for Kaze to defeat them.
"Hmph!" Kaze jumped right at the last enemy and beat down the bandit.
With a fist strike right at his chest, the bandit got launched into the air and crashed in the building debris behind. The area around Kaze contained the defeated bandits along with some of the civilians who happened to be present. It was lucky that Kaze managed to get there in time before anyone was severely injured by the bandits.
"Is everyone alright? Can you stand?"
"Y-Yes… thank you,"
"Good. Don't stay here, it's not safe. Go with the others and wait until the guards have arrived."
Kaze helped a collapsed man to his feet and passed him on to one of the bystanders to escape. He didn't know how many type of attacks there was going to be, but it definitely was going to take a while for the guards to mobilize all over the city since there were so many attacks at the same time.
Turning around when he heard a swooping sound, Lucentia suddenly appeared in front of him without a notice.
"L-Lucentia?!" Kaze jumped back and sighed. "Jeez, you gave me a scare. Why are you here?"
"I sneaked out," she blatantly admitted and grabbed him by the collar. "Where is Lunaria-nee?"
"I don't know?" Kaze shook his head, noting the frustration in Lucentia's eyes despite her expressionless face. "Aren't you able to find her yourself?"
"… No," Lucentia let go of him and sighed. "My magic sense isn't as good as Lunaria-nee. I have to hurry… she could be in trouble."
Her words made Kaze doubt himself. Was it possible that there was an enemy or a situation that Lunaria would struggle with? She seemed so strong that even struggling felt impossible to Kaze. However, if Lucentia was this worried, then it must mean her words could be true.
"So, need some help?" Kaze asked, glancing behind him to see some of the dispatched guards arriving. "We can split up."
"Where are the others?" Lucentia asked, referring to his friends. "We need their help."
"Back at school, I believe. The teachers there must have taken precaution and issued those who hadn't left the hall to stay there until the situation was clear," Kaze guessed. "We can't do anything about it."
"Kaze~"
Just as he said that to Lucentia, he heard a familiar voice calling out for him. Right after, Frey skipped over while holding onto her scythe. She was still in her party outfit, but it didn't seem to be able to stop her from moving so agile. Yu Quan followed up right behind her, holding onto his broom too.
"Oh, Frey," Kaze widened his eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"The school has allowed the necessary forces to be deployed to help the nearby explosion sites," Yu Quan explained, looking at the fallen bandits. "Also, to dispose of any attackers. I see you have already done that for this area though."
"That's because the top 10 are normally capable enough to fend for themselves, so we are considered to be enough help for the city too," Frey made a small pout and stomped her foot. "Mou! I was having so much fun at the party too."
"Kenridge and the others have been deployed to the other sites too, we must move," Yu Quan told Frey and faced Kaze. "Why are you here? I believe that all students were asked not to leave."
"I wasn't there when the explanation was given," Kaze shook his head and gestured to Lucentia, who stood silently next to him. "This is Lucentia's sister. She is looking for Lunaria, so I deided to help her."
"I see," Yu Quan simply nodded. "While I have several questions as to why Lunaria's sister, supposedly a princess, would be out when the situation is dangerous, I have to trust you on that."
"Alright then, see you~" Frey waved at Kaze, running off to another site. "The guards are already here, so we can leave the rest to them."
"Kaze, let's go," Lucentia tugged on his sleeve, prompting him to separate from Frey and Yu Quan.
If what Yu Quan said was true, then that meant Sera and the others were also unable to move around freely. Kaze regretted asking them to inform the others of their previous situation now, knowing that having the extra helping hand to look for Lunaria would have helped a lot right now. For Sera and Rena, who had excellent eyesight, it was basically essential.
"Tch, we don't have a choice," Kaze grunted and ran off into the streets with Lucentia.
"… Wait," Lucentia stopped once they rounded a corner. "This is going to take too much time. Kaze, if possible, I want you to-"
A loud roar broke Lucentia's sentence. The roar caused the ground to tremble so much that it echoed through the entire city of Tristania itself, making its presence known.
Unlike the previous explosives, this one was more destructive and had a lot of mana residues leaking from it. The sound of screeching in the roar itself morphed the terrifying sound into something that sent shivers down every human's spine who heard the roar itself. It didn't matter how far or near they were from the source of the sound because they instinctively knew that it was something that shouldn't be messed with.
Much like everyone else, Kaze hadn't heard such a sound coming from anything before. Yet he instinctively knew there was only one being that was capable of producing something that would emit that sound.
Realizing that his entire body was shaking in fear from the roar and the trembling of the earth, Kaze glanced at Lucentia to gauge her reaction.
"Lunaria… nee?" Lucentia muttered, shivering from the fear that welled up in her heart. "… Kaze, we must go. I know where she is."
Grabbing him around his arms, she spread her wings and took him with her to the sky.
- - - - -
A few minutes before Lucentia found Kaze.
Lunaria destroyed the entire church with a single blast of fire magic.
There was now a crater where the church originally was, filled with burnt wood and broken pieces of objects that had scattered all around from the blast itself. Lunaria floated right above all of it, unharmed by her own blast.
"Oho, that was dangerous."
The man in the suit, also safe from the blast, appeared with his suit still clean from all the dust and smoke. In his hand was the strange orb thing that Lunaria had seen, proving once again that it was something important.
Lunaria immediately flew out of the crater and stood aside, getting ready for an attack of sort from him. The man simply smiled at this and looked at one of the building rubbles. From underneath, the huge man with the battle axe emerged unscathed as well, apparently being able to shield himself from the blast itself in time to not cause any damage to himself.
The rest of the men with red veins were not so lucky. Each of them emerged from the rubbles as well, with a few missing limbs or even partially scorched bodies. It was clear that they were no longer conscious of themselves, only to be controlled and used till their death. What was stranger was that they seemed happy they hadn't died, as if they were going to be immortal.
Gurgling laughter and ear-shrilling cries came from the bodies, each one of them laughing at the fact they managed to 'survive' Lunaria's blast. It was a rather creepy sight, even for Lunaria. It felt like necromancing on a different level.
"You monster… what did you do to them!?"
"I didn't do anything. They volunteered to become stronger, so I did what I must."
Lunaria gripped her fists tightly once more as the man in the suit played off her words coolly. Her anger was rising for the bandits, knowing she would have to kill them once more to put them out of their current suffering of being halfway between alive and dead.
"Don't you think I'm going to allow you to cast that barrier again," Lunaria growled, shooting magic at him as soon as she spotted him casting. "Who are you?"
"Oh my? Did you already figure out I was related to the barrier incident?" The man smirked, dispelling Lunaria's attacks before it could reach him. "I am impressed, even though I was rather careful~"
"That doesn't change anything," Lunaria stopped attacking and being casting an advanced spell. "Surrender now."
"I will leave that decision up to you, whether you can make me surrender," he suggested, flicking his finger.
All of the men came charging right at Lunaria in that instance. She stood still and waited patiently for them to arrive. Once they got within one meter of her range, their bodies suddenly melted or become frozen in ice. It was like there was an invisible barrier around her that was protecting Lunaria from being approached by any one of the men.
It was quite the gruesome sight to see some of the men have their bodies melted from the high level fire magic that was casted and ended in an instance. The magic combusted their body at such a high temperature that they didn't even know what happened the moment they died. As for the ice magic, Lunaria simply froze them to the spot and waited for all of them to target her before moving.
"… Fools," Lunaria muttered, the ice that encased the few bodies shattering into thousands of pieces before falling to the floor.
Despite the rather impressive defence displayed by Lunaria, the man in the suit barely reacted. It was almost like he expected this, for the huge man began moving as soon as the other small fries were taken care of.
Lunaria could tell that he was on another level than the rest. Simply tricks like what she just did to settle them wouldn't work on him, not when he was radiating an even stronger red aura than before. She was going to have to take him seriously.
She raised one arm to the sky and brought it down on the man who was approaching her. Lightning bolts came crashing down without a warning, raining repeatedly on him. His body took each hit of lightning with ease, as if not affecting him in any way even though the ground was already scorch in its path from the dense lightning attacks that Lunaria had conjured. No normal person should even be able to stand after taking 5 direct hits.
Lunaria was a mage before she was a swordswoman. Even though she could take it to close combat with her sword, she chose not to because she was more comfortable with magic. It would be a risky move to try to fight when there was the suit man behind the huge guy, who was able to drain mana from the area around them as evidenced by the centipede fight.
However, in the case where she wasn't sure if fighting with the sword could even scratch the burly man before her, Lunaria wasn't going to risk it. Magic had always been the right approach for her.
Lunaria prepared spell after spell after spell in rapid succession while figuring out a way to beat the suit man. The ground around them trembled violently at the number of spells that was being casted simultaneously while being activated at the same time as well. Again, the suit man barely reacted.
Countless magic circles appeared all around the area around them. With the skies suddenly filled with magic circles of different colour and enchantments floating behind her, Lunaria's eyes glowed red from her concentrating on the casting. If her experience had taught her anything, then it was to not underestimate anyone, no matter the case.
From the circles came magic elements of different kind. Ranging from fire to wind magic, Lunaria had chanted advanced copies of 3 of the 4 common magic elements at the huge man along with even more versions of the same spell together. To make the matter even more impressive, each one of them would have exhausted a normal person immediately if they tried to cast 3 of them at the same time.
The huge man swung his battle axe in response, either deflecting or chopping down her attacks one by one. It wasn't just the result of his body being strengthened but also due to his own prowess. The man was likely someone who was already very skilled on his own before receiving the buff, making him someone even more formidable.
For Lunaria, she only had to act calm. With even more spells being released, Lunaria prepared one that would potentially destroy the graveyard they were in depending on the scale of the battle itself. She hadn't even gotten to the suit man yet, but it was better than fighting against two of them at the same time since she didn't know the extent of the suit man's power yet. All that she knew for now was to find a way to settle her fight with the huge man wielding his axe.
The man seemed to have noticed what she was doing when Lunaria's attack intensity slowed down a little as she needed to concentrate on another attack. He instantly charged at her after applying strength into his legs, suddenly leaping forward from where he originally was. Lunaria widened her eyes in surprise at the agility that was demonstrated by him, something that was a little unexpected considering his build.
Axe swings came down on Lunaria all over the place. With Lunaria being two heads shorter than the man, it made it quite an agitating scene of her being able to barely dodge all of the attacks while she dispelled some of the magic. In reality, Lunaria was just choosing the most effortless dodges that she could afford without wasting too much energy on fighting physically.
Jumping up into the air, she swung her leg a full circle and blasted it right into the man's chest. While it ordinarily would have left a hole there by now, he only accepted it and got thrown backwards a little. That still wasn't enough to slow him down, seeing that he got back up like nothing happened.
Lunaria clicked her tongue in frustration when she had to go serious on him. Using earth and water magic to complement each other, she tried to seal his movements so she could continue focusing on the spell itself.
The man's legs started to get bound by the earth that was further reinforced with water, making his movements sluggish and difficult to move. Even so, he forced his way through what looked to be a moat that acted just like a quicksand at the same time, making it a combo magic move that Lunaria had developed from combining two different magic elements together.
Lunaria then clapped her hands together and slowly spread them apart. From between the middle of both her palms grew a light stick that extended in length along with her spreading her arms open. Once she had fully extended both arms, the stick of light formed to become a javelin containing very dense light magic. It was an impressive feat to be able to conjure light magic with such high density when they were at night, since light magic was easier to gather when it was day and vice versa for dark magic.
The reason for her choice of magic was because Lunaria figured that the thing strengthening the man was something related to dark magic. It was no secret that dark magic had a lot of uses, just like how Frey used it to conjure the dark magic armour around her which boosted her attack speed and strength. It could have been a different application that was not known to Lunaria, somehow enabling him to become so powerful.
"Haa!" Lunaria thrusted the light javelin into the sky.
The javelin curved downwards once it reached a certain height. Right then, it suddenly split into dozens of thinner light javelins that came raining down on him. None of them hit the axe man, instead surrounding him and forming what looked to be a scattered circle. While it might have looked like Lunaria missed completely, in truth this was what the technique she wanted to do was for.
From the sky came a huge magic circle, its power being amplified even more than ever due to it being the night when Lunaria casted it. It kept gathering mana from around it, becoming so dense that even the mana that was supposedly naked to the eye could be seen flowing into the magic circle. The circle happened to be right above of both the axe man and the suit man, both looking at the scale of the magic that Lunaria was about to cast.
"Master-class magic.. Elemental Collision," Lunaria declared, sweat dripping from her brow at how hard she was concentrating.
Instantly, the entire area glowed; the sky becoming purple while the land flared a blinding white light. The magic circle came pouring down on the man while the light javelins formed a huge beam shooting upwards.
Both collided with each other, rocking the very air itself. The vibrations that could be felt from both contrasting elements pushing against each other was surreal, so much so that the land around them began crashing down from the vibration itself.
Light magic and dark magic were supposed to cancel each other out when being used against one another. Instead, this spell seemed to amplify their effects and caused a new effect to take place. They combined to form something even stronger, creating a huge gathering of mana and power that should never have happened.
With the axe man in the middle of the light javelins, he was essentially standing in the middle of the magic that took place. His entire body finally felt pain after all the attacks that took place, causing him to cry out in both rage and anger as he fell to his knees. Whatever magic that was used on him was obviously too strong for his body to handle, even with the enhancements he received.
The shockwave from the magic collision rang out instantly. Lunaria's body shook along with the ground as she focused to make the spell a success. As expected, casting something as powerful as this when she wasn't used to bending light and dark magic was difficult. Even so, she didn't want to risk underestimating her enemy and decided to defeat him without wasting time.
Once the magic managed to take form, it shot through the magic circle that was in the sky and came circling back around her.
"W-What?" The axe man felt confused, looking down at his body to find that he wasn't destroyed. "Wasn't that magic…?"
When he looked back at Lunaria, he widened his eyes in fear and surprise.
"This is bound to be interesting," the suit man, on the other hand, looked excited for what's to come.
A huge dragon had formed behind Lunaria. It was made of the light and dark magic that had been melded together from the Elemental Collision spell. Lunaria took it a step further and gave it the form it possessed right now, the very essence of a dragon itself. It was even more impressive that the water dragon that Kenridge made, in terms of size and strength.
It could be said this was Lunaria's way of declaring her power to the two of them. She managed to conjure up her very own dragon, making it much closer to the real thing that she was.
"I think I'm going to need to step in now," the suit man stepped forward at last, heading up to the stunned axe man. "I will be lending a hand… things are starting to get out of control."
His previous playful atmosphere started to disappear. Removing his top hat, the suit man sighed and healed the axe man back to 100% instantly.
"W-What?!"
Lunaria's lips quivered as soon as the man removed his hat. What that was previously concealed under it came into view, further emphasized from the moonlight overhead. It was clear that, even without him revealing his true form, Lunaria already knew what he was.
It was something she was all too familiar with, something she hoped to have never seen again.
Unconditionally, Lunaria's bloodlust rose from her body as she focused it entirely on the man himself. Her pupils became narrower, showing off her dragonic features as a result of her unstable emotions. The fears of her past had returned once again, ready to haunt her.
"Ho? You don't seem very surprised," the suit man merely smirked when faced with such an overbearing killing aura from her along with the aggressive look on her face. "You look… terrified."
Taking a shaky breath, Lunaria unleash the light-dark magic dragon behind her right at the man.
The man in the suit's true nature… was a devil.