When Kaze and Lucentia arrived at the area of the graveyard, they were shocked to see the damage that had been done to the surroundings.
Even from afar, they could see the brilliant flashes of light from the battle that took place that lit up the night. It wasn't until they got closer that they were able to observe the destroyed landscape of the graveyard itself. What that really took their breath away was the fighting that was going on in front of them.
A dragon of black and white was seen chomping and stomping all over the place, facing off against two people. The area had been demolished by the dragon and any previous records of the fight that they weren't even sure where they were at now, with the land so destroyed that it became deformed.
"L-Lucentia, what is going on?" Kaze asked her as the two hid behind a fallen tree log.
"I don't know, but that is definitely Lunaria-nee's magic," Lucentia shook her head. "We can't approach them carelessly, especially since Lunaria might not be able to distinguish us at the moment…"
It was just as Lucentia had said. With the dragon raging while Lunaria was in control, it was probably best not to get involved just yet. If Lunaria had to fight with such intensity, then her opponent must not have been someone whom she can take lightly. Not even Lucentia herself dared to get near them while in the middle of the fight.
For now, the both of them could only watch on and wait for the right moment to intervene. Just like Kaze, Lucentia used the sword.
Lunaria let out a loud cry as she commanded the dragon at the devil once again.
The suit man, whose real appearance was partially exposed by the curled horns on his head, received the attacks with ease. All that happened was the dragon hitting an invisible barrier around him, causing no harm to his actual self.
Meanwhile, the axe man had been further strengthened by the devil and was now able to fend for himself. It looked as though he was close to exploding from the overloading of magical power, his entire body bulging with muscles that looked like they were alive from the way they flared up. He repeatedly attacked the dragon's body with his axe over and over again, only to be constantly ignored by Lunaria.
The axe man, who simply went by 'M', felt conflicted with the current fight.
M was grateful in a weird way that he wasn't duped by the devil when he was granted power, but at the same time felt pained watching all his group members getting destroyed one after another until all that was left was him.
That pain helped his body to grow stronger unintentionally, as if whatever that was already coursing through his veins ran on rage and anger as fuel. At the same time, M also knew that the reason why his group got destroyed so easily when they had gotten stronger simply meant that the dragonkin girl before him was just that strong in the first place.
As much as he wanted to succumb to his feelings that were being manipulated, M had to destroy the magic dragon in front of him from attacking the devil. All of the negative emotions inside of him swirled out of control the more he relied on the strength acquired from the devil. It wasn't like a deal was made, it was simply forced onto him and his group.
Until now, M didn't know who the devil was and why he wanted to kidnap such a powerful person who could put up such a fight before the two of them. It felt like suicide.
However, when looking at the devil, M couldn't help but shudder at how easily he took the hits from the dragon. If anything, it seemed to enrage Lunaria even further that she could do no damage to him. One simple reason for that was… her panicking.
Lunaria's thoughts were a mess. Her previously calm demeanour had turned upside down into the frazzled state she was in. With her breathing increasing as time passed, Lunaria felt the urge to vomit time and time again while facing against the devil himself.
Devils were a race of beings that lived off the far end of the continent where they had a nation of sort by themselves. While not much was known of them due to their hostile nature towards others, it was clear that the devil Lunaria was facing was someone who was far more capable than any ordinary person. To begin with, managing to tank the Master-class magic she had chanted by himself until now was difficult.
The bigger concern here for Lunaria wasn't a stronger-than-expected opponent, it was more about who her opponent was.
It was difficult for one to proclaim the man in front to be a devil from appearance alone. Since he looked like a human without any devil-like features, it was easy to mistake him for any random person. Lunaria knew, however, that the reveal of his face without his top hat was a clear giveaway based on a very distinct feature that was easily missed, that differentiated a human from a devil.
Two sharp horns that barely protruded from his sleek black hair.
Lunaria, with her sharp eyesight, caught that tiny detail from a simple reveal and went into full panic mode. It resulted in her carelessly unleashing the dragon on the two men in front of her as she crumbled on all fours on the ground, wheezing and panting. Her view of the ground started to swirl, a symptom of her feeling nauseous. A strong sensation hit the back of Lunaria's throat, causing her to gag. She felt her stomach acid rising from within as she held back the urge to throw up.
It was a sign of her trauma returning, after so many years.
'W-Why now…' Lunaria cursed herself, trying to regain control of her body. 'Move!'
The fear that was embedded inside of her was too deep. It easily took control the moment it surfaced again, putting all of her efforts to bury it to waste. Eventually, Lunaria couldn't hold back anymore and puked. Even if her stomach was empty, she vomited as the nausea took over. Her entire body lost its strength, causing her to collapse entirely.
With that, the control on her magic dragon came to a halt. Without anything to hold it back, the dragon raged out of control and continued its rampage on the two.
"Lunaria-nee!" Lucentia widened her eyes at the sudden collapse of her sister and charged out from behind the cover.
Similarly, Kaze no longer felt the need to keep on watching when it was clear something went wrong. He followed right after Lucentia, him dashing along the ground while Lucentia took to the sky.
Their actions quickly attracted the attention of the two who were battling against the dragon.
"Don't go near the dragon!!" Lucentia shouted, enchanting her sword with a spell. "I will take on the suit guy!"
"What do you expect me to do?! I can't even get close!" Kaze gritted his teeth. "The dragon is…!"
Just as he said so, the dragon itself disappeared all of a sudden. With a smirk on his face, the devil swiftly blocked the sword attack from Lucentia. Her sword glowed a faint pink, a hint that it was enchanted with some form of magic that increased her attack power dramatically. The devil was propelled away from the ground the moment he made contact with the sword, both of them blasting away from the main area of the fight zone.
As for Kaze, he knew that his only option was either to face the burly man glowing red or rush to Lunaria's side. It didn't help that the dragon was gone, meaning there was no other distraction.
With a low growl, M turned around and faced Kaze. The glare that he shot Kaze with was enough to tell that he was going to be targeted.
"Shoot…" Kaze grimaced, tightening the grip on his sword. "Alright then."
Meanwhile, a super high-speed swordfight was occurring in the sky. Lucentia threw in a few more powerful swings right after she took the devil away with her. With a loud cry, a huge burst of magic came forth and further knocked the devil backwards.
Still, he managed to catch himself mid-air and stood slightly above where Lucentia was now. Lucentia could only hold herself back from charging in recklessly, knowing she lost the element of surprise. Both of them were currently standing in the air, making it quite the sight for anyone who would be watching if they were present.
"Phew, another dragonkin?" The devil dusted his suit and smiled at Lucentia, giving her a bow. "Pleased to meet you… princess?"
"Who are you? Why are you targeting Lunaria-nee?" Lucentia raised her sword at him. "How do you know of our identities?"
"Ah, correction: I speculated based off your magical signature and strength, but I do not know about the boy," the devil shook his finger, narrowing his eyes. "I have to say, something about him feels strangely familiar…"
"You can forget about him," Lucentia declared. "Your opponent is me. For messing with the Rentaria family, you will pay."
Black spears generated around Lucentia, all targeting the devil. Instead of being afraid, he looked impressed instead.
"Ohh, spatial magic? I have to be careful with that," the devil clapped. "I would never expect someone to be able to use spatial magic so well, especially when you are obviously more well-versed with the sword."
Lucentia did not seem surprised that a simple reveal of her magic showed off what it was in nature. There was honestly not much to be said when talking about spatial magic, especially with the purple trails that fell from the spears. If her opponent was someone who could withstand Lunaria's Elemental Collision, he should be able to figure out her technique.
"It doesn't matter whether you know what it is if you don't know how to counter it," Lucentia answered, her sword glowing pink yet again. "Last chance: surrender and I will be merciful."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, not when we are so close already," the devil shook his head and threw the orb into the sky.
Lucentia's eyes followed it upwards. In an instant, a hole opened in the sky and the orb fell right through it. It was then that Lucentia realized she had been tricked: there were two of them. He had been contacting with his friend whom he had tossed the orb to and was going to go back to where Lunaria was.
"You…!" Lucentia shouted, rushing right at him without reserve.
The spears that surrounded Lucentia flew right at the devil at once. He moved out of the way of the spears and received Lucentia's sword attack with his bare arms.
Lucentia felt like she was striking iron whenever her sword struck his skin. The devil must have some sort of enchantment around his arms that enabled him to fight without minding his limbs being severed. However, she knew this was only the beginning.
Their fight took place further and further away from the graveyard, now dancing in the sky above the edge of the city itself. It no longer mattered it they were exposed, for this was a concern of a national security already.
The spears which missed turned around at once, flying back to where Lucentia was and targeting the devil again. No matter how many times they flew away or missed, it would always come back as though it wouldn't disperse unless it managed to hit the devil.
He knew that those spears were not something to look down upon. Unlike the dragon earlier made from combining light and dark magic, the spears now were made of spatial magic. The likely effect of being hit by one of those could result in him losing an arm instantly, depending on the amount of damage he could negate. Of course, he wasn't going to risk losing the fight to experiment with the magic itself.
Not only was her control of spatial magic impressive, Lucentia's sword skills were also on par with Lunaria.
As fellow practitioner of the sword itself, Lucentia often trained with Lunatea when they could. They weren't like Lunaria, who was a genius capable of mastering both the sword and magic in such a short period of time. Like Lunatea, Lucentia started out with the sword first before focusing on magic. The only difference between them was that Lucentia didn't create a new sword style from learning how to fight, but she did train on irregular magic that normal people wouldn't think of training from scratch: spatial magic.
The spatial magic here applied a different concept than the ones normally used. Spatial magic could be used to create an infinite invisible storage to keep things in, depending on the user's capability over the manipulation of magic itself, and also to expand space, just like Lunaria did with her room.
For Lucentia, she used spatial magic on the offensive site. Because magic wasn't limited to one application, she managed to incorporate it into her own attack style, resulting in the weird spears that could be seen emitting the purple trails. It took a lot of time to give it shape and use due to the very nature of spatial magic, being something that was 'used on' instead of 'to be used'.
It was quite the accomplishment, to say the least. Not even Lunaria would have thought of that.
Even if it didn't look like the fight was progressing in her favour, Lucentia was actually gaining steady grounds on the devil.
Lucentia confidently swung her sword around, keeping the fight close to her to ensure he didn't try to run away. Based on the skill he had earlier, she speculated the chance of him escaping from creating a portal hole like he did with the orb. Then again, it could have been a fake that was meant to make Lucentia panic, but she wasn't going to risk it.
Right now, she was going to have to trust Kaze to keep Lunaria safe.
Transitioning back to the main area of concern, Kaze could be seen trying to fend off against M. It might not look like it, but he was actually trying his hardest to keep the fight away from Lunaria.
"Damn it. Lunaria!" Kaze shouted, narrowly dodging another axe cleave. "Are you alright?!"
Lunaria's ears only continued to ring, his voice not reaching her. Oblivious to her surroundings, she felt as though she was on the edge of blacking out. Everything was starting to fade away, her trauma taking over her gradually.
All of a sudden, she was back at that horrible place. The screaming and cries that bounced off the stone walls of the isolated room echoed in her mind once again. Flashes of black and white went by her, along with the sight of blood pooling out.
Even more flashes past, mixed with the sight and sound of fire crackling. Metal cuffs could be heard clinking at the back of her mind, causing her body to physically tremble. Shaking her head to try to snap out of it, Lunaria smashed herself onto the ground repeatedly. It only seemed to have rattled up her mind even more, her past memories not clearing up.
Vomiting yet again, she clutched her stomach and weakly lifted her head. Everything looked like it was proceeding in slow motion, with each swing of M being processed in frames. The sight of Kaze fighting him wasn't even recognisable in Lunaria's vision for her entire world spun as soon as she tried to focus on the present, bringing her back to her torturous past.
Kaze didn't know why Lunaria was reacting like that since she hadn't told him the full story of the 'little girl' just yet. If she did, then Kaze would understand Lunaria's response to the devil. Heck, he didn't even know what a devil looked like, neither did Lucentia.
"Tch!" Kaze gritted as he got blown away by the axe, barely able to block the attack itself.
Being launched right next to Lunaria, Kaze wrapped her around his arms and immediately retreated.
As of now, it was dumb for him to try to defeat an unknown enemy when he could escape with her. It was clearly shown the enemy was looking for Lunaria and not them, meaning they should take Lunaria away while they could. Lucentia even did the job of distracting the suit man away from Kaze.
While Kaze raced out of the graveyard area, he glanced at Lunaria by his side. Even as he ran, he could feel her limp body trembling, reminding him of the only time she showed fear. His uneasiness rose even more, for he didn't know why Lunaria would react this way to enemies she hadn't seen before. If anything, it felt like she had the upper hand until she collapsed.
"!!"
Kaze stopped when another unknown person suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his path of retreat. Much like the suit man earlier, Kaze was unable to sense any aura or magic emitting from him. Instead of a suit, he simply had black cloth wrapped around his body with a mask on his face to conceal his identity.
The man stepped forward in a composed manner, showing no signs of caution for Kaze. In his right hand was the orb that Kaze had seen earlier, something that, unlike the man himself, radiated a strong aura that was even more prominent now that he was closer to it.
Kaze didn't know what to do other than get ready to face him. Clutching Lunaria even tighter to himself, he aimed his sword at the man with one hand. It was probably suicide, but there was nothing else he could do. The axe man was behind Kaze and his exit path had been cut off.
He could only watch the man closely, waiting for any signs of sudden movement.
Before Kaze could move, his entire body dropped dead to the ground.
'W-Wha?!' Kaze thought to himself, feeling stunned that he was unable to move without anything being done to him yet. 'What is…?'
"Fool," the man commented, walking right in front of Kaze's face.
Kaze could only stare right at the shoe as he laid on the dirt. Unable to even move a muscle, Kaze watched helplessly while the man picked Lunaria from his side and slumped her over his shoulder.
"What… did you… do to me?" Kaze forced himself to speak, glaring hatefully at the man.
"I simply paralysed you," the man replied. "Don't worry, I will take good care of her… for our sake."
With a swift kick, the man slammed his foot right into Kaze's face and sent his body flying.
'Ah… I wasn't able to do anything again…' Kaze's last thoughts floated before he blacked out.
'Luna… ria…'
Carrying Lunaria on his shoulder, the man made a portal and left the area.