Although it was just ordinary rainwater, under the compression and propulsion of the Elemental Giants, it shot out with a force comparable to heavy ballista bolts used for siege warfare. Two streams were aimed at Asa, while the other two were directed at Talice's body in his arms.
Asa rolled to the ground while holding Talice, narrowly dodging the four water jets. The streams passed just above their bodies, and even the wind and splashing rain they brought along caused a stinging pain. Two jets struck the ground with a resounding crash, sending debris flying, while the other two hit the opposing water elementals. With a loud splash, the two struck Elemental Giants nearly dissolved entirely. Although their humanoid forms reconstituted quickly with the gathering of magical energy, their bodies rippled and became noticeably smaller. Ordinary weapons were useless against water elementals due to their fluid nature, yet ironically, their own attacks dealt the greatest damage to them.
However, in evading the attack, Asa was forced to let go of Talice. At this moment, the laughing expression of the mage Seiya suddenly shifted. He shouted at Oren, "That girl is still alive. Finish her off first!"
Oren, who had moved alongside the four water elementals, acted immediately. His body, cloaked in pale yellow fight spirit, charged toward Asa like a ghost in the rainy night. However, upon hearing Seiya's shout, his ghostly figure pivoted sharply without hesitation and darted toward the motionless temple knight on the ground.
His rune-covered magic sword was about to strike Talice's slender neck when he was forced to pull back. A figure moving even faster intercepted him from the side, with a fist roaring like thunder and glowing with white fight spirit like lightning. If Oren had continued to strike, he would have been torn apart by this electrifying blow. Thus, he had no choice but to retract his sword, turn, and counter the incoming attack.
With a loud boom, every raindrop within several meters was repelled by the shockwave centered around the two combatants. In the blink of an eye, fist and sword clashed, slashed, blocked, and collided a dozen times. White and pale yellow battle energies intertwined and crashed alongside magical runes. Oren grew increasingly alarmed. Though he held the upper hand in both swordsmanship and fight spirit, he found himself on the defensive. His opponent fought with a feral intensity, as if ready to trade blows at any cost. Each attack carried a reckless determination, like battling a crazed beast rather than a man.
Yet even as alarmed as he was, Oren remained somewhat reassured. This level of wild and relentless assault couldn't be sustained for long, especially not in the rain. Moreover, he had Seiya, a grand mage, as backup. What puzzled him was how the temple knight turned out to still be alive—and how Seiya, only now, noticed and warned him.
When fighting alongside a grand mage with magic eye, observing the battlefield was naturally left to the mage. No human eye, no matter how sharp, could match the precision of such an advanced spell. Confident in Seiya's abilities, Oren had entrusted all situational awareness to him. Yet somehow, such a critical oversight still occurred.
From Seiya's perspective, however, this was unavoidable. Only when Asa briefly loosened his grip on Talice did the magic eye reveal a faint sign of life in the temple knight's body. Until then, the spell had detected no trace of life from her.
Seiya was confident in his mastery of magic eye, and rightfully so. Not every mage could use this spell; only those who specialized in it could wield it effectively, and Seiya was unmatched in his expertise. To him, the absence of life signals in magic eye meant only two possibilities: either the person was truly dead, or their life force was so faint—like that of a mouse, frog, or bird—that it was barely distinguishable.
What complicated matters was Asa's continuous, faint transmission of magical energy into Talice. The subtle fluctuations were too indistinct, even for Seiya's master-level sight, to determine whether it was healing magic preserving her life or necromantic magic preparing her body as a deadly trap.
Over time, however, Seiya noticed that Asa's magical power and fight spirit were steadily recovering, albeit not as quickly as when he had been resting earlier. Realizing that Asa was stalling to regain strength before attempting an escape, Seiya made the call to attack. Even if Talice's body was a necromantic trap, it was better to trigger it while Asa was only partially recovered rather than fully recharged. And if Talice was alive, that made striking her down even more urgent.
Yet when the two separated, the magic eye abruptly registered Talice's life force. It was then that Seiya understood the truth: magic eye could also be deceived if life force was suppressed by necromantic magic to the point of nullification. Asa had evidently used this knowledge to create the illusion of Talice's death.
Now the situation was clear, and Seiya no longer needed to hold back. With Oren already locked in combat with Asa, Seiya's target became the severely injured temple knight. At his command, the four water elementals trembled and rippled. Their water-formed arms raised, and another volley of water bolts was about to be unleashed.
Asa knew he temporarily held the upper hand and sensed Oren's unease. But he also understood the dire nature of his situation, especially seeing the four water elementals trembling like massive blobs of gelatin, readying their attack. The danger was undeniable.
Initially, Asa had intended to push Oren back with sheer ferocity. Yet despite his relentless onslaught, Oren stood his ground, unyielding. His magic sword, adorned with at least three curses, wasn't just deadly—it was nearly impossible to counter without immense effort. Asa's overwhelming fight spirit was the only thing keeping the curses at bay. Otherwise, he would have fallen long ago.
Still, Oren wasn't the most challenging opponent. That title belonged to the man himself, Alrasia's first swordsman. Asa was certain that even in a direct duel, Talice wouldn't have been Oren's match. If not for Oren holding back, his intention merely to stall, Asa wouldn't have been able to gain even a fleeting advantage. Oren's swordsmanship was not as overwhelming as that of Lancelote or Grutt, but it was precise, unyielding, and razor-sharp—a web of blades impossible to breach or escape.
Yet Asa had no choice but to break through this web. He needed to protect the fallen temple knight—not only because she was a valuable political tool to divide Alrasia and Celeste but also because she was crucial to his escape plan.
With a roar, Asa drove his fist into the web of blades, forcing apart countless intertwining sword arcs. His arm bore at least a dozen new wounds, and chunks of flesh were ripped from his shoulder, nearly taking the entire limb with them. Only the infusion of fight spirit kept his arm intact. At the same time, Asa had to fend off the slowing, weakening, and armor-piercing curses on the blade. Despite the immense difficulty, Asa's fist broke through and struck Oren.
The punch, however, didn't deal significant damage. Oren's armor, infused with protective magical runes, absorbed much of the impact. What should have been a blow to shatter stone merely caused Oren to stagger back.
But even this small retreat was enough for Asa. Seizing the opportunity, he leapt toward Talice. Yet in that instant, four water jets, more powerful than before, shot forth from the water elementals.
The water streams, each as thick as an arm, roared with the sound of waterfalls and crashing waves. The force they generated displaced the surrounding air and rain, creating a vacuum-like pressure. Even the elementals' bodies shrank after releasing such an attack, their full strength poured into the assault. No armor, not even the Glory Armor, could withstand the combined might of these jets. Two of them were aimed directly at the temple knight's head, and even an elephant's skull would have shattered into fragments under such force.
Though Asa reached Talice's side, there wasn't enough time to lift her and dodge together. The four water streams were perfectly coordinated, leaving no room for escape.
Mage Seiya was first surprised—shocked that Asa managed to push back Oren—and then unexpectedly delighted to see him diving toward Talice. When he realized the knight was still alive, Seiya immediately understood that her life was now the priority. Since Asa had gone to great lengths to conceal her vitality, it was clear she was critical to his plans. Killing her would nullify any advantage Asa might hold, even to the point where dealing with the assassin himself could be ignored.
But what Seiya didn't expect was Asa abandoning an escape opportunity to leap toward Talice. This was a perfect turn of events—two birds with one stone. Seiya had full confidence in his water elementals' all-out attacks. Even if Asa's fight spirit offered some defense, bare hands alone could never withstand such force.
Sure enough, four ferocious water jets—powerful and sharp, hardly resembling liquid—converged on their target. The impact reverberated like a battering ram slamming into a castle gate, with splashing water striking the nearby walls like flying daggers, leaving countless tiny pockmarks. Even Oren, standing relatively close, had to step back and dodge.
Yet when the spray cleared, the two figures at the center were not splattered into pulp as Seiya had anticipated. They were unharmed, completely intact. A milky white light shield disintegrated into radiant specks along with the water spray, vanishing around them.
"A Saint Guard Shield?" Seiya and Oren exclaimed in unison, utterly dumbfounded. What astonished them wasn't the spell itself but the fact that this sacred defensive magic, unique to Temple Knights, had been activated not by Talice but by Asa.
Asa exhaled deeply. While holding Talice earlier, he had used the heightened sensitivity of meditation to study the magical structure of her Glory Armor. Yet he hadn't been entirely sure he could trigger the protective magic, which was intended only for the wearer.
The Temple Knights' formidable combat strength wasn't just their personal prowess—it stemmed largely from their unimaginably powerful magical gear. From the very start, Asa's goal in grabbing Talice had been to treat her as a "weapon." If her body had been turned into an undead and paired with the Glory Armor, its combat potential, even if brief, would have been comparable to that of a Behemoth.
However, the corpse reanimation spell had failed, revealing that Talice wasn't truly dead. Still, Asa had no intention of killing her for such purposes. A living knight, capable of driving a wedge between Alrasia and the Church, was far more valuable than a dead one.
As for how he would escape, Asa wasn't too concerned. Though the option of using Talice's undead form was gone, there had to be other means. When he picked her up, a quick search confirmed his suspicions—one such means was the Saint Guard Shield.
"The Saint Guard Shield can only be used once," Oren growled. Seiya snapped out of his daze, immediately conjuring a spell. Brilliant frosty light began to gather at his fingertips, while the four water elementals began to stir once more.
But just as Seiya and Oren were preparing their next moves, a blinding light erupted from the darkness. In Asa's palm, a small triangular crystal emitted a radiance so intense it seemed tangible. The light refracted through the countless raindrops, scattering in all directions and enveloping Asa and Talice entirely. This corner of the royal city suddenly resembled a miniature sun, illuminating the pitch-black rainy night as though it were noon under a blazing sky.
Seiya instinctively shielded his eyes. He recognized it as a magical artifact storing the advanced White Magic spell Prismatic Light. Normally, this spell was meant for enclosed spaces, using searing brightness to scorch enemies at close range. In these conditions, the spell couldn't burn anyone, but the sudden flash in the darkness was enough to temporarily blind anyone who looked at it directly, even for a split second.
Though Seiya's eyes were useless, he remained calm. While the light might obscure ordinary sight, it couldn't deceive his magic eye. The large eyeball above his head continued tracking Asa and Talice, whose forms were now obscured in the radiant glow.
In the blink of an eye after the light flashed, Seiya "saw" an immense surge of magical power erupt in Asa's hands, rapidly coalescing and gathering energy. To Seiya, it was as though a volcano had formed in Asa's palm, its chaotic, scorching magma on the verge of eruption.
Even without relying on magic eye, Seiya could sense the overwhelming fire-elemental energy radiating from Asa's hand. In this torrential rain, where the air was saturated with water elements, generating such intense fire magic was unmistakable proof of its nature.
"Oren, move!" the court mage bellowed. He finally realized that the purpose of the Prismatic Light wasn't to blind him but to blind Oren.
Though Seiya's warning came quickly, his realization, reaction, and shout combined took only the time of two blinks. But in a life-or-death situation, two blinks were often enough for someone to die twenty times over.
If the earlier flash of light had resembled a sun, the fireball that now appeared truly embodied the sun itself. Not only was it blindingly bright, but it radiated an unmatched, searing heat.
A brilliant orb of light shot out from the glow of the Prismatic Light, accompanied by an overwhelming roar as if ten thousand warhorses charged forth. This wasn't the holy radiance of White Magic. Its brilliance and intensity came solely from its extreme heat.
The temperature was so intense that it instantly vaporized all rain and moisture within a ten-meter radius, creating an explosive shockwave that roared forward. The deafening blast surged toward Oren's faint yellow figure, which now seemed pathetically small in the face of this unstoppable onslaught.