"Hehehehe... You blasphemous heretic. That really hurt. Have you already given it everything you've got? Are you wondering why your attacks are completely useless against me?"
Crash—
Shaking the dust clinging to his body loose, Terra of the Left dug his withered, sharp fingers into his swollen, bleeding face without caring about the pain. His deeply sunken hawk-like eyes were bloodshot as a crazed, hoarse laugh escaped his throat.
"This power is the grace of the Lord! Academy City, your very existence is blasphemy against Him!"
"You're out of tricks, aren't you? Which means it's my turn, heretic! To become a departed soul claimed by my Execution of Light spell, hahahaha—that is the greatest honor you could ever receive! Perhaps because of this sacrifice, you might even ascend to Heaven after death. Rejoice! Cheer! Give thanks!"
"You sure talk a lot."
Arisa had only allowed a trace of confusion to show on her face, yet she hadn't expected this ugly green-clad bastard in front of her to immediately seize on it and get carried away.
Who the hell are you? Your God, your Lord... What godforsaken hole did you crawl out of?
Do the your god need you shouting on their behalf? Forget everything else. Looking like that, if you didn't get plastic surgery first, even the Empire's Servitor Army cannon-fodder regiments wouldn't take you. You'd drag down the image of the colony world...
"Come on."
With undisguised disdain on her face, Arisa extended her right hand, raised two fingers, and crooked them toward Terra of the Left, whose expression had become even more hideous after his impromptu speech was so rudely interrupted. A spark of electricity flashed between her fingertips.
"You irreverent, insolent wretch! You sinful creature without a shred of devotion! I'll tear you limb from limb!"
"Priority!" Terra of the Left shouted. "Human body below, flour above!"
Bang! The air trembled as a white, fan-shaped "blade of light" more than ten meters long formed out of thin air before Terra of the Left. Then, in a movement resembling instantaneous teleportation, it swept viciously toward Arisa.
Clang!
Suddenly, a metallic resonance like the humming of swords rang out. The "blade of light" shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow and expanded instantly, slicing through the walls of the commercial buildings on both sides as though they were butter.
Bzzzt—boom!
Her long gray hair whipped wildly amid the lightning as her sky-blue vertical pupils stared solemnly at the incoming "blade of light." Faint draconic traits began emerging across Arisa's body. Her ten fingers transformed into sharp claws fading toward violet, and as she raised her arm, lightning shone out from beneath her fair skin, making it look as though a brilliant translucent blue-violet membrane had covered her.
Queen Selene's approach to combat was simple. When facing an enemy, you could appear careless, arrogant, or contemptuous on the outside, but inwardly, you had to remain vigilant and call upon far more power than you believed necessary as insurance.
Crackle—boom!
Even if this isn't my true body, I'm still going to beat you to death!
Lightning exploded as Arisa moved. Vwoom—
A strange sound rang out. The thunderbolt slammed into the "blade of light," and the collision of enormous forces instantly cracked the ground like a spiderweb. Deafening explosions erupted one after another, yet the "blade of light" remained intact even after more than a dozen successive detonations.
But in the next instant, while Arisa was still in midair, streams of blue-violet lightning as thick as thumbs suddenly spilled from across her entire body. As they flashed, the air exploded!
Crack!
The "blade of light" shattered apart, instantly bursting into a sky full of white powder.
"A combination of physical strength and electrical attacks?!" The curve that had only just begun forming at the corner of Terra of the Left's mouth froze instantly.
Seeing his opponent withstand the "blade of light" head-on and forcibly break through the attack of his Execution of Light spell, Terra of the Left couldn't help being stunned. But he immediately reacted, his heart sinking. Something was wrong. This "playmate" accompanying the Habsburg brat was far more troublesome than expected.
There was a very high chance that the weakness of his spell had already been seen through.
"Damn it! How can some little girl possess this much physical strength? Could she have the constitution of a Saint as well?"
Arisa had continuously dodged his attacks earlier, giving him the false impression that she had no way to deal with them.
True, she had taken advantage of a momentary lapse and smashed him hard in the face before he could properly adjust his Execution of Light spell, but throughout their chase inside the arcade, once he became serious, she had failed to inflict any effective damage on him again. Even that plasma cannon had left him completely unharmed once his Execution of Light spell was adjusted in time.
As everyone knew, regardless of how high an Academy City esper's development level was or how many derivative applications they developed, tracing everything back to its source always revealed a single ability. That was precisely why Terra of the Left had been confident enough to swagger around Academy City and attack first without waiting for the other members of God's Right Seat to arrive.
Against an enemy with only one type of ability, Terra of the Left was never afraid, no matter how troublesome they were.
But she had broken through his attack head-on. She hadn't dodged it. She hadn't used the rumored Imagine Breaker. She had simply smashed straight through it!
That instantly jolted Terra of the Left awake.
His arrogant, conceited mentality rapidly receded. If even some little girl acting as a "playmate" was this powerful—the Roman Catholic Church's intelligence network had contained absolutely no records about Arisa beforehand, so Terra of the Left had regarded her as a nobody and assumed snatching one little brat would be effortless—then just how powerful was Selene, the strongest esper in Academy City according to their intelligence?
The very first step of what was supposed to be a guaranteed operation had already gone wrong. He had alerted the enemy, and there was no chance of taking Arisa down in a short time.
In an instant, Terra of the Left became solemn.
Whether traced back to the fundamental nature of Selene's ability or simply judged by what she was best at, hers was spatial in nature. Once she learned that he had targeted her younger brother...
Thanks to Tokiwadai Middle School's recruitment advertisements, which had been filmed with Selene as the centerpiece, information about her highest-ranked spatial ability and the effects of its various derivative composite applications had spread over time. Even the Roman Catholic Church had heard about them.
From the Roman Catholic Church's perspective, Academy City's claim that Selene's "lightning," "flames," "repulsion and attraction," and other phenomena were merely derivative effects of a spatial ability was complete nonsense. That was clearly the result of some special "Saint" constitution!
But that did not prevent them from reaching a consensus on one thing. Selene was extremely powerful!
I have to retreat first!
Composite enemies with multiple attributes were precisely the kind Terra of the Left found most unpleasant to deal with!
Why was he ranked last among God's Right Seat? For no other reason than because the strengths and weaknesses of his Execution of Light spell were equally extreme. Against weaklings, he was immovable as a mountain. But against genuinely tough opponents, he was the weakest of them all.
"Human body below, flour above!"
"Human body below, flour above!!" ×N
After consecutively launching dozens of guillotine-like "blades of light" to delay Arisa's movements, Terra of the Left immediately began adjusting his spell, with absolutely no intention of pressing the attack.
"Priority! Lightning below, physical body above!"
Under the current circumstances, retreat is the best strategy! I can settle the score after everyone else arrives!
Terra of the Left might have been a fanatic, but he wasn't stupid in this regard. This wasn't Italy. This was the headquarters of the Science Side—Academy City.
Rumble—!
A lightning bolt as thick as a barrel crashed down head-on. The tremendous thunder seemed capable of shattering eardrums, and the surrounding shops were instantly blasted apart as flashing electrical arcs swallowed Terra of the Left whole.
Tap, tap!
Electrical arcs bounced off his skin. Completely unharmed, Terra of the Left nevertheless had no intention of continuing the fight. His hands formed the gestures for a transfer spell as his body rapidly sank downward.
Boom!
The instant he dropped into the city's underground drainage system buried ten meters beneath the ground, Terra of the Left no longer cared about the rumbling thunder above. "Priority! Human body above, soil below. Transf—"
"I told you already... You're really weak!"
Before he could make another move, Arisa proved even faster, giving Terra of the Left no chance to finish his spell. Amid violent tremors that shook the earth, lightning bored straight through the ten-meter-thick reinforced-concrete ceiling, and the transfer spell that was only two-thirds complete was instantly blasted apart by a barrel-thick bolt of lightning.
Crack, crack, crack—
"Priority! Building below, physical body above!"
"This again? Hmph! I've figured out your ability!"
Bang!
A streak of lightning flashed through the falling chunks of reinforced concrete. Five sharp fingers fading into violet and crackling with electricity landed on Terra of the Left's skull and pressed downward!
Boom—!
Terra of the Left's gaunt, sunken face rippled like water struck by a stone before slowly deforming. Under the tremendous force, his body was still suspended in midair, yet his head was already being smashed violently downward toward the city's underground drainage channel, which was broad enough for boats to pass through.
Bzzzt!
The electrified claws drove his gaunt body into the ground. Sewage was blasted aside by the shockwave as Terra of the Left was instantly embedded deep underground with a deafening roar. Gravel sprayed outward in every direction like rain, leaving behind a massive crater dozens of meters across.
"Pfft..."
Amid a spray of blood, Terra of the Left's vision went completely black. His brain had suffered severe damage, and he spat out a mouthful of bloody foam mixed with broken teeth as his consciousness rapidly faded.
I had to account for several tons of falling reinforced concrete, her monstrous physical strength, and her terrifying command of lightning... So she really did discover the flaw in my spell.
I was careless. One wrong move led to another... You *** bastards in intelligence, this is what you called a group of ordinary bodyguards and servants?!
Objectively speaking, was Terra of the Left weak?
That depended on who you compared him to. Among God's Right Seat, the other three members were unquestionably far stronger than him. But if one broadened the scope to the entire magical world, Terra of the Left was equally unquestionably among the tiny handful of top-tier individuals.
The spells of God's Right Seat, the darkest division of the Roman Catholic Church, were not something just any magician could endure. Those capable of withstanding such spells were exceedingly rare. Even the Roman Catholic Church, which claimed two billion followers, could not guarantee that every generation would produce believers with such talent.
As a devout and extreme Christian, Terra of the Left wielded the Execution of Light spell, which could adjust the priority of all things.
The spell had been constructed from the legend of "the Son of God being killed upon the cross." An "ordinary human" should not have been capable of killing the "Son of God," so to allow humans to kill the Son of God, the priority order had been altered.
Once a medium was established, Terra of the Left could select two things at a time and place one above the other. The superior possessed absolute "priority" over the inferior.
When facing multiple types of attacks, he needed to reset the priority order. Because of that, Terra of the Left was extremely wary of composite, multi-layered attacks. Conversely, against a single type of attack, no matter how powerful it was, he could defend against it using "priority."
That was also why Terra of the Left could individually withstand Arisa's tremendous strength or her lightning, yet became helpless the moment she combined them. An existence like Arisa, who could both take and deliver punishment, possessed a powerful body, and wielded elemental attacks, was a natural counter to Terra of the Left.
Through the effects of the magical spiritual items on his body and rune-based physical reinforcement, Terra of the Left had also compensated for many of his weaknesses.
The overwhelming majority of magicians specialized deeply in a single direction. Only after reaching a certain level would they choose another field to compensate for their deficiencies, but those secondary techniques were generally still inferior to the spells they originally specialized in and possessed limited power. Against such opponents, Terra of the Left utterly dominated, often defeating them rapidly without taking a scratch. In that regard, he was certainly worthy of the name God's Right Seat.
"Hmph. That trick of yours can only negate one kind of attack effect at a time, can't it?"
Slowly standing upright, Arisa looked down at the gaunt man whose skull had been deformed so badly it seemed as though even his brains had been beaten out. She glanced at her right hand, where a faint white mark remained after she dismissed the manifested armor, and snorted coldly.
She had already found it strange earlier. His body could take a direct plasma cannon without suffering the slightest injury, yet sharp pieces of rubble from the collapsing arcade had been able to cut him. Claiming his body itself was durable simply contradicted the evidence.
The same applied to the "blades of light" formed from that flour-like substance. When she resisted them using pure physical strength, they remained completely unmoved. Yet the instant she added lightning reinforcement to her attack, the blades shattered on contact.
Oh, so that's the effect of a magical spell.
Arisa had wandered all over the Empire and encountered all kinds of people from every walk of life. Her experience and combat instincts were anything but lacking, and she immediately identified the cause.
"So you specifically targeted me, huh? You bastard who judges people by appearances! Go meet your Lord!"
As far as Arisa was concerned, she had no intention of keeping him alive for torture or interrogation.
She was very unhappy!
You don't attack when Queen Selene is around. You don't attack when Sebas is protecting him. But the moment I'm the one taking Ferdinand out for a walk, you attack? So you bastards think I'm easy to bully?! Just how little respect do you have for Supreme Commander Arisa, supreme commander of the Sisters of Battle and Valkyrie forces?!
Vwoom—boom!
Lightning illuminated the darkness. In the next instant, Arisa kicked the head of this member of the Roman Catholic Church's darkest division with lightning speed.
Bang!
An incomparably heavy impact rang out. The broad underground drainage channel shattered, spraying mud and stone everywhere.
Before the rampaging lightning, Terra of the Left's body tore apart in an instant. Flesh and pale ribs exploded outward as chunks of meat shot away like artillery shells. Continuous booms echoed through the drainage tunnel, carving out a crimson trail.
Pat, pat!
After making sure he was dead, Arisa dusted off her hands, bent her knees, and jumped back to the surface. Looking around at the devastated arcade street, she muttered, "Uh... Not my fault. This was all because of that ugly terrorist."
"I wonder... Is there another arcade street in School District 7?"
While sensing Ferdinand's location, Arisa stretched lazily and glanced back toward the nearby district. "They're not with the same group... Are those security forces?"
"Eh, forget it..." She withdrew her gaze, shook her head, and walked away while muttering, "Fight's over, job done. Mm, I should let Big Sis know what happened.