The momentum of the silhouette flying out in front of her had the force of explosive firepower.
Even to Lucnoca, having flown from Igania to Aureatia in less than a day, that's what the speed felt like to her.
"Fantastic."
This was not amazement at the speed on display. It was an emotionally charged reaction to the fighting spirit fearlessly coming her way.
Completely isolated by her excessive power, Lucnoca could no longer read how strong or weak her opponents were. In the past, the ones who looked weak were weak, and the ones who believed themselves strong had all been weak, too. Therefore, though she hadn't noticed herself...she had been waiting for someone to stand in front of her. She grew to only believe in the surest truths of all—the bravery to challenge an absolutely powerful opponent and the
recklessness.
Lucnoca the Winter strongly believed that such a heart was far more beautiful than anything else in the world.
"…Now then, Alus. What exactly will you show me, then?"
However, the wyvern, approaching in a straight-lined collision course into
Lucnoca's flight path, suddenly changed his trajectory. Arcing up above him, he quickly turned to the south.
Those watching closely couldn't help following him with their eyes.
They ended up looking into the midday sun. He had lured their gazes.
Lucnoca folded her wings and suddenly dropped her speed.
The second she lost sight of Alus in the backlight of the sun, her eyes also missed a flash of light. The bullet fired from the musket's maximum firing range flew and hit Lucnoca's cheek.
"Uh-hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo!"
Feeling the sensation of the gunshot, Lucnoca laughed.
Flying out from the pillar of light, this time she tracked the silhouette diving low inside one of the fissures in the earth. After dilating her pupils and by having her look directly at the sun, now he attempted to contract them again in the darkness.
Lucnoca was aware of the sensation that crawled across her shot cheek. It was branching plant roots, sprouting from the bullet, eating away and corroding everything it touched.
It was known as the Torture Oak's Seed. It was a magic bullet that used the musket's gunpowder heat to germinate a tree that caused immediate organic death.
…But Lucnoca lightly rubbed the cheek being covered with roots with her claw.
"What an interesting little arrow."
That was the extent of the lethal magic bullet, simply peeled off with her dragon scales and falling to the ground, rendered meaningless.
The reason behind the invincibility of dragon scale was not only their hardness. It lay in their insulating abilities.
Alus's previous shot had clearly been aimed at Lucnoca's eye. The eye not covered with dragon scales.
However, Lucnoca knew very well that each and every one of the champions who challenged dragons aimed for the same spot. The dodge she just made with her sudden deceleration was, to Lucnoca, nothing more than a conventional and expected back-and-forth that she didn't even have to think about.
From the bottom of the fissure's abyss, another bullet flew her way. Her claw cut in and repelled it.
Lucnoca the Winter hadn't been aware this "gun" weapon existed, but as long as she possessed physical abilities and reflexes that far surpassed the bullets
they fired, any knowledge of it was bound to become meaningless eventually.
It was clear this was another type of magic bullet that would bring death, but the surface layer of the dragon's claws, with its high degree of crystallization, was at no risk of poisoning, and it was impossible for the roots to eat into it.
"Uh-hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo!"
She looked down into the abyss running across the land, where Alus had hidden himself. If she launched her breath right there, that would probably have been the end of the battle.
But that wouldn't have been any fun.
How was this speedy little champion going to fight from here on out?
What kind of tricks was he thinking up as he stood before the world's strongest dragon?
What would this Alus the Star Runner, the strongest in this land, do for her?
...Ah, that's not it.
Her eyes, twinkling with curiosity and excitement, narrowed slightly.
If he hid himself in the ground fissures, he had no way to escape her breath. That was something that Alus the Star Runner should have been aware of more than anyone else. In that case—the situation was already different.
"Got you..."
By the time she heard the voice, the whip had already been sent off behind her. It traced an angular zigzag, unbefitting a whip at all, across the sky, and grabbed the base of the ancient dragon's right wing.
"Kio's Hand."
The caught section twisted and distorted strangely and began emitting a clicking sound.
Kio's Hand, the magic whip that moved freely of its own accord, had another function to it as well. It would twist anything it wrapped itself around, regardless of the target's strength, and sever it.
As long as he was utilizing supernatural magic items, there were methods he could use to ignore their durability and break through her dragon scales.
"Uh-hoo, hoo, hoo! Uh-hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo! Aaah… How much fun! You truly are fast, Alus! Perhaps it's a sign of my old age, but my eyes can't keep up with you at all!"
"...…Really, now... You're weak, then."
Kio's Hand was still nothing more than a foothold for his next move. While Alus kept one of his three arms pulling on the whip, another arm produced a new weapon. The strongest enchanted sword of all.
It was at that moment the clear voice rang out.
"Co chwelne." (To Kouto winds.)
To those with some knowledge of Word Arts, they understood this was meaningless resistance.
In order to use Thermal Arts for destruction, it was necessary to give them a direction. It was impossible to use them offensively in a direction that would involve oneself in the blast. Alus was now behind Lucnoca, and he locked down her right wing to prevent her from turning her neck around back at him.
Much like a certain visitor had done in a Labyrinth City of the past, even the heat's wake wouldn't reach a person positioned directly behind the practitioner.
Nevertheless, the motion of the dragon's breath attack began and ended with a single breath.
"Cyulcascarz." (Wither and fall at the edge of light.)
At the end of Lucnoca's field of view, there was a gently sloping valley and a waterfront.
There was the red horizon of the wasteland, and beautifully contrasting with it was a blue sky of sparsely scattered clouds.
It was the past several hundred years of the Mari Wastes' changing landscape.
All of it disappeared.
It was as though the five senses held by all life had stopped. Silence.
Darkness.
Even the spectators viewing from far off in the distance immediately felt the cataclysmic change to the world.
Lucnoca's soundless breath brought the landscape in front of her to a standstill. All that existed there was blinded by white.
—No. It hadn't been brought to an exact standstill. Though Thermal Arts were unaccompanied by any wind or impacting force, the cracked terrain had indeed changed within the raging stillness.
Even the drastic transformation, dyeing the world white by freezing air molecules, was over in an instant. It was chilled, as if the bottom of the world itself had fallen out, yet even more so. The rocky earth had completely contorted black, rippling out as if on the surface of an open sea. Chilled to the absolute limit, below it may not have been solid matter at all.
The construction of the earth, condensed under the terrifying force, flowed like one singular molecule.
"Aaah, Harghent. You said my breath wouldn't work, didn't you?" The ruler of the truly silent world muttered to herself.
"Perhaps, in your world, that may have been true. But." It was horribly quiet.
But. Even with this, the conclusion was yet to come.
After a brief pause, it happened.
An explosion like lightning shaking heaven and earth.
The boundless, thunderous rumble devastated the world of silence.
The air, pelting like a raging torrent, surged into the world present before Lucnoca's eyes, and even Alus the Star Runner was swept away by the raging billows, having moored himself to her with his magic whip.
Any and all matter had fallen in front of Lucnoca.
The eyes of the wyvern, completely off-balance, and the eyes of the dragon waiting for him to do so mingled together for one moment.
"...!"
"My breath works."
With a downward swipe of her transcendent claws, Alus fell in a straight line down to dead earth.
The lightweight wyvern smashed through the rocky ground just from the speed of his descent.
The champion-slaying legend brushed away the magic whip, torn off from its grip around her right wing, like picking off a piece of seaweed.
She was unharmed.
All the champions who challenged the dragon had tried the same thing.
Lucnoca's breath, shutting the world away in winter, was known even among the children who didn't grow up to become warriors through children's songs.
There were those who came with defenses against low temperatures laid out around them. There were those who carried a magic item that blocked any and all forms of destruction. Yet others were like this Alus before her, using their mobility and tactical skills to try escaping from the vicinity.
Historically, all of them had died.
The absolute and ultimate Ice Arts breath. All air particles within range were made solid.
In which case, the destruction didn't end there. Continued afterward was the explosion of tumultuous tempest winds that tried to flow in and fill the hole the lost world left behind. Even an exceptional creature of the age, Alus the Star Runner, couldn't fight against this reality before him.
…However.
"Uh-hoo, hoo, hoo! Uh-hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo!"
However, Lucnoca laughed. There was only one possible meaning behind it. "Oh, how funny…!"
She hadn't seen anything yet.
What sort of fighting style did he have left?
Just what kind of tricks did he retain to fight the strongest of all dragons before him?
What would the strongest of this land, Alus the Star Runner, show her next? "...You're toying with me...aren't you...?"
It was the same quiet, gloomy, and weak voice as usual.
Nevertheless, if someone well acquainted with the wyvern had heard it, they would've been able to guess the singular strong emotion within it, tinged with the slightest degree of anger…
The emotion of "irritation." "Greatshield of the Dead."
Once guarding him from Vikeon the Smoldering's breath, it was his ultimate form of protection, capable of defending against the strongest dragon claws in the world, as long as the proper compensation was paid.
"…You're bragging. Even...to the guy who's about to kill you."
Alus the Star Runner brandished his next weapon. Kicking the ground, he took off.
…But he couldn't.
The world around them was chilled to the core. The air was heavy. The ground that had once been all rocks was now some sort of black crystal, twisted into a strange pattern by some effect of physics.
"Uh-hoo, hoo, hoo! You can't go standing in a place like that, you know." Lucnoca looked down from far up above Alus's head. Much the same way
Alus had to all of the legends he had encountered before now.
Alus tried again to take to the skies. He coughed up blood. The cells in his lungs were being gnawed from the inside. He began to be drastically robbed of his body heat. The landscape after her breath had passed through, as well as the air, the earth, and everything else, was far colder than any ice…than anything he
had ever known.
"…Perhaps your back legs have gotten themselves stuck to the ice, hmm?" The strongest race in the land. The strongest individual among them.
There was no escaping from Lucnoca the Winter's breath.
"Co chwelne. Cyulcascarz." (To Kouto winds. Wither and fall at the edge of light.)
"Y-you…you've got to be kidding…!"
On top of a faraway plateau, Hidow gasped, the color draining from his face. He had witnessed Lucnoca the Winter's dragon breath with his own eyes.
The embodiment of demise itself, completely eclipsing all imagination.
The sight should've been far off in the distance, but he definitely wasn't that removed from it at all. If the area of effect had veered to the west? What if that spot where Lucnoca and Alus had clashed had been even half as close to where he was?
It was cold. The extremely frigid winds, prickling his skin far worse than any snowfield he had visited before, terrified Hidow. The spot showered by the ice breath was so far away from his position. This was still supposed to be the Mari Wastes. However, the current temperature indicated it was no longer.
And it was likely...that it would stay that way from now on.
That fool. Did Harghent know about this?
He couldn't have possibly known. Supposing he had witnessed the attack at Igania Ice Lake, he clearly wouldn't have returned to Aureatia alive. He may have been Wing Clipper Harghent, but Hidow wanted to believe he wasn't foolish enough to know about this and still bring Lucnoca the Winter to compete.
He immediately shouldered the bare minimum of his belongings and called out to the soldier on standby behind him.
"Get the car!" "H-huh?!"
"Didn't hear me? Steam's running, right? Get the car. We're heading to the caravan."
Hidow turned his attention to the caravan, visible in another direction. The
citizens gathered together like locusts. They must have been wildly excited about the shocking scene and the tremendous being that the people of the current era were witnessing for the first time.
"But, sir, toward the caravan?"
"Where else? If Winter's breath is pointed in this direction, it'll kill us all! Me, you, all of them, it's all up to her whims! We don't have any choice but to evacuate! Get moving!"
"But if you leave the area, the Sixth General will be the only one observing the match! If that happens, Lord Hidow—"
"Get. Moving."
Hidow grabbed the soldier by the collar and intimidated him.
The soldier wasn't using his head. No sense of urgency. All of them were like this. He wouldn't stand for it.
Gnashing his teeth, the Twentieth Minister looked over his shoulder to the battle behind him.
Why am I the one who has to think about this stuff?
Hidow was different from men like Harghent. He could think through the results and benefits that went with the choices he made. Even if it may have been so in the moment…he hadn't simply agreed to the fight with Lucnoca the Winter simply out of pride and animosity.
The legend-slaying champion Alus and the champion-slaying legend Lucnoca. Among the participants in the Sixways Exhibition, the only ones that posed a threat to either of them were each other.
They were both out of anyone's reach, beings there was no hope of ever defeating. In order for the minia to put down these two wicked dragons, they needed to make them kill each other and exhaust whichever one was left standing.
Therefore, Hidow had been able to face the first match after completely setting aside the sabotage against Alus he had planned to utilize during the first round. Currently, the Star Runner had control of all the equipment at his disposal. The battlefield didn't impose any limits on his range of flight, and he hadn't been poisoned beforehand, either.
To face off against the strongest of all dragons, he needed to be at his full power.
A purely rational judgment, completely unrelated to Hidow's pride whatsoever.
…He really is the only one who can beat her after all, ain't he?
Lucnoca the Winter's strength went beyond the reach of the minian race's powers of imagination.
You better win here, Alus.
Slipping into the passenger seat of the steam-powered automobile, he spoke into the radzio installed within.
A female liaison responded to his call. It was someone who knew about their operation.
"It's Hidow the Clamp. Get Rosclay on!"
"Forget it. I'll leave a message. You tell him, 'Lucnoca is stronger than we anticipated. If Lucnoca wins here, we won't be able to use that process we discussed.' Got that? This might be the last time I'll be able to report in."
"Not important. You got my whole message, right? Tell him all of it now.
Rosclay should be able to think of something."
On the horizon, the giant white dragon's silhouette was in motion.
The sight was distorted, almost as if he was looking through a water tank.
It was the temperature difference. Hidow could understand that. The extremely drastic gradient of cold air even changed the speed of light itself.
Was this some other world? A far distant shore, where people were unable to live or trespass. It was as if a frozen-over hellscape had been extracted from the passages of a story and emerged in that strip of wasteland.
"…You think I can die…?!" he warned, speaking to no one in particular.
He'd force all the spectators to evacuate. Think about future steps against this calamity going forward. He would make sure the Sixways Exhibition ended without any mishaps. There was still a mountain of work to get to. He wasn't going to get buried in that worthless work and die like this.
"I can't die now…!"
Together with a puff of steam, the car departed.