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Dorothy, Yami, and Fuegoleon immediately got up from their seats.
However, before they could do anything—
"Remain in the capital," they heard the voice of their leader before he disappeared.
"Well, I hope the kid breaks his limits," Yami said, taking a puff from his cigarette.
Everyone looked at him.
"Wait, how strong is a middle-class devil?" Yami suddenly asked.
"Well, generally, it takes multiple Grand Magic Knight-level individuals to seal a middle-class devil," Marx said.
Yami's cigarette dropped.
"Wait, what? Where are they located?" Yami asked.
A man who was working in the tower suddenly got startled as he saw a man appear in front of him.
His eyes widened as he saw the freaking Wizard King of all people in front of him.
He started forming a salute, but before he could even lift his finger, the man spoke up.
"Can you please make a portal to this area?" he asked, showing a map.
The man instinctively looked at the map and created the closest portal to that area he could.
In the next instant, the Wizard King disappeared.
Julius appeared on the scene just as he saw the boy stumbling downward and the red robe on him disappearing.
'At least I'm not late,' Julius sighed in relief.
"I was going to torture everybody you hold dear in front of you. Though I can feel your lifespan deteriorating, it should be enough to at least torture those Vermillion-haired brats in front of you," he heard this from the devil's mouth.
He was impressed that even at death's door, the boy didn't show any facial expression and was finding ways to kill the being.
Julius was a few meters away from the scene and was using an advanced time-related technique to prevent being sensed.
Julius was surprised when Akeru's eyes met his.
'Is this due to my Ki giving me away? It seems Yami's technique can indeed be learned by others,' Julius thought while appearing behind the devil.
"We can't have you torturing kids here now, though I am curious how much you can resist torture," the devil got kicked from behind and was hurled like a ragdoll.
"Well, aren't you roughed up?" Julius asked the boy.
"I will live," Akeru said with a grin.
"Indeed, you will. Now rest," Julius said, sending a blue sphere at him.
'Chrono Stasis.'
Just before Akeru got engulfed by the blue sphere, he activated his focus spell.
'Still Spectator.'
The blue sphere enlarged and started floating in the air while containing Akeru.
Julius sensed a lot of mana present in nature going toward Akeru through his spell.
Though if Julius desired, he could stop the mana from entering his spell, he didn't do that.
'Is this his spell? From what I have observed, his focus seems to be increasing. Though he isn't really focusing on the outside, so is the mana of nature going to him a side-effect of his spell, or is it the mana method of the Heart Kingdom?' Julius thought about Akeru's actions.
He tracked the movement of mana inside the sphere, and his eyes widened as he chuckled.
'He is analyzing my spell? Ridiculous. I was expecting to give him a view of the battle that was going to happen. Oh well, this is a desirable outcome too.'
Akeru's whole body, except for his mind, was in stasis and in a loop of the current moment inside that sphere.
It was the perfect environment to analyze the spell without worrying about anything else.
'There was a delegation of some royals going to the Heart Kingdom in the form of an exchange program. Maybe he was part of that. Though that does confirm my theory of this boy being the same one Fuegoleon and Yami were talking about at different instances,' Julius quickly connected the dots.
Suddenly, a storm of green fire came at Julius.
If Akeru had focused on the outside, he would have been shocked to the core, as the fire's temperature was more than 10 times the peak temperature he had observed.
'Mana Zone: Chrono Stasis Hesychia.'
A very big blue sphere materialized around Julius, containing him.
The green fire stopped as if somebody had paused a video.
"Aren't you fiery? Though I wonder how much lifespan a devil has?" Julius asked with a calm smile.
However, to the devil, it may as well have been the smile of a devil.
He was reminded of his time in the underworld.
Fear could be felt through the devil's entire body.
However, another emotion coursed through him:
ANGER.
Lots of anger.
"I will kill you," the devil said, materializing various elemental spells and sending them at Julius with blinding speed.
'Hmm? In the future, I see, my mana zone would collapse. It's like it was turned into an illusion,' Julius noticed this, and in the next instant, he disappeared from his position along with Akeru.
Time started moving in that area, and the green fire was joined with other elemental spells. However, they met nothing.
'There.' The devil tracked Julius's position and started hurling destructive spells in all directions while focusing on disabling Julius's mana zone.
'This is troublesome. I don't have any proper counter for that spell, which could disable my mana zone. My spell would be disabled in one second. Also, though it doesn't seem obvious, half of those spells are aimed at the boy behind me,' Julius analyzed in practically no time.
Unlike Akeru, who could increase his focus to boost his thinking speed, Julius could directly decelerate time to think freely without any real-time passing.
'Chrono Stasis Grigora.'
Several blue spheres with Roman numerals revolving around them appeared, replacing the big sphere.
Julius made the same deduction Akeru made about the devil's ability to disable spells.
Though, unlike the previous scenario, no part of any elemental spell reached Julius, as he started closing the distance between them.
"Not so fast," the devil said, backing away while various types of spells started materializing.
From elemental spells of various colours to materials like diamond, steel, and coal—even space-distorting magic.
This would alarm any of the captains to the highest degree.
Unfortunately for the devil, he was not facing a captain.
Julius could predict the movement of mana in his mana zone and thus could literally see the future.
He easily manoeuvred around the spells while the blue sphere carrying Akeru remained behind him.
He rapidly closed the distance until Julius's hand met the devil.
'Chrono Stasis.'
Seeing the use of time magic reminded the devil of something.
'Could he be—' This was the last thought the devil had before he entered a loop reliving the entire fight.
However, that loop changes as Julius starts stealing time from him.
PAIN.
He felt lots of pain again and again.
For Julius, it was a few seconds before the devil became dust.
But for the devil, it may as well have been an eternity, quite literally, due to the nature of the spell.
'I think his spell was something related to messing with reality, quite similar to Rill's, though this one was able to mess with other spells too,' Julius thought while looking at the remains of the middle-rank devil.
Being considerably knowledgeable about mana, he decided to quickly look through the area where the ritual happened to see how this devil was summoned.
He entered the bunker, and his face hardened.
He looked around the area and found a register.
He flipped through the pages.
Though his expression didn't change outwardly, things were very different inside him.
He exited the bunker and took a deep breath.
He disappeared from his position.
"Are the kids alright?" Julius's sudden appearance startled the Vermillion siblings.
"Yes!" Kirsch said quickly and was about to bow.
"It's fine," Julius said before he could move his body.
"About the devil—"
"It's dead."
Though Julius said only two words, it shocked Kirsch.
It hadn't even been 5 minutes since Akeru kicked him out of the battle.
Not only had Julius arrived on the scene, but he had also taken care of the devil.
Kirsch's shock would be even greater if he realized that it took Julius 3 minutes out of those 5 to go through that bunker and reach them.
Mimosa gasped as she saw the contents of the blue sphere floating in the air behind Julius.
***
A/n- How do you guys like this fight? I went all the way and even researched the name that would fit Julius's other mana zone(Chrono Stasis Hesychia.) Though we haven't seen the man in battle that much, and when we did, he was always protecting people, like here too, but to be honest, I would say that a middle-rank devil isn't really a problem to the 29th Wizard King. Even if we don't consider his arcane stage classification, the title of Wizard King is generally enough to defeat a middle-rank devil, what do you think?
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