Drake broke through the clouds alone, seeing that aerial fortress.
At Drake's persuasion, Asta would temporarily not participate in the battle, and would instead wait for his devil synchronization time to refresh. Before that, Drake would be responsible for the battle alone.
Before separating, Drake had said to Asta, "If you're too slow, I'll just resolve the battle directly, and who knows when you'll be able to catch up to Yuno then."
After the expedition ended, because of Asta and Drake's activity, the two had been promoted to First Senior Magic Knights. In the merit system of the Magic Knight Squad, they were in the rank that was second only to Great Magic Knights.
But Yuno had already been promoted to Great Magic Knight before this, and had already begun to prepare to succeed the captain of the Golden Dawn.
Asta had fallen behind quite a bit, and this was his chance to catch up in one go.
Drake naturally knew that Asta would catch up soon even without using this kind of provocation, but seeing his fighting spirit increase twofold all of a sudden, Drake also felt that there was nothing wrong with it.
Pulling his thoughts back, Drake's gaze met Lucius's, who was sitting high on the throne.
"Putting on an act!"
Drake said this disdainfully, and then flapped his wings, flying over.
Looking at Drake, who had come before him, Lucius rested his chin on his hand, saying, "You've come!"
Lucius hadn't transformed into a Holy Knight like the clones, but was instead sitting on the throne in his human form.
Even so, sitting upright in the aerial fortress, he also had a feeling of being the center of the world.
But the tone in which he spoke was as gentle as Julius's, as if the one before him wasn't an enemy who was about to fight to the death, but a friend who had come to visit with gifts!
Drake mocked, "Weren't you already preparing a boring welcoming ceremony? Why are you putting on an act and greeting me now?"
Lucius smiled, saying, "Don't misunderstand, that wasn't originally prepared for you, but was instead to prevent those unimportant people from disturbing us."
Drake raised an eyebrow, saying, "So should I feel honored by your attention!"
Lucius stood up from the throne, saying, "You're different from them, all of them are unimportant existences to the new world. Only you, you're a cornerstone of the new world!"
Drake had only then understood, it turned out that Lucius's target was actually himself.
"So we don't need to say anything else, now, it's only you or me who will live!"
"Self-evident!"
The two's calm conversation had ended here, and in the next moment, the two had collided together.
That simple and dignified cross throne couldn't withstand the impact produced by the collision, and had shattered with a bang, and a part of the aerial fortress had also been leveled.
The two had also retreated separately, and Drake had unceremoniously sent a fire dragon's roar.
Lucius had disappeared as if he had teleported, and the flames had only destroyed a corner of the aerial fortress.
Drake's pupils shrank, Lucius's main body was completely different from the clones, the clones couldn't accelerate to this extent with time magic.
Drake had stopped the output of the fire dragon's roar, turning around, raising his hand to block Lucius's hand that had attacked over.
Judging from the time magic, the strength of Lucius's soul magic was probably not low either. Although Drake had confidence in his own soul will and the preparations that he had made in advance, he wouldn't recklessly experience Lucius's soul magic.
Having failed to land a hit, Lucius didn't have a disappointed look, but had instead continued to launch a pursuit at Drake.
And Drake's response was to counter every move, steadily blocking all of Lucius's attacks.
He had to say, Lucius had indeed become stronger after his transformation. Both his speed and his power were completely different from before, and even his body strength had soared to the point where he could engage in close combat with Drake, this Dragon Slayer Mage who had trained to the point of dragonification.
Plus that bizarre soul magic, it had really given Drake no small amount of pressure. But that pressure had quickly transformed into even stronger fighting spirit.
So Lucius had been surprised to discover that Drake had actually become stronger the more he fought. It had originally been Drake blocking his attacks, but now he had actually had to dodge Drake's attacks from time to time.
Lucius had originally been quite confident, and although he hadn't been able to obtain the perfect power that he had planned, he had also believed that it was enough to suppress Drake.
But the result was that Drake had shown strength that was enough to fight him head-on.
You had to know that it had only been a month since they had last met, and he had become stronger this month by relying on absorbing the magic of three blood relatives and Lucifero's magic power, and Drake's speed of becoming stronger was actually no slower than his.
That's right, because he lacked information about Drake, Lucius still thought that Drake had been able to match Lucifero back then because of that dragonification ability.
But he didn't know that the more fundamental reason was that Drake had leveled up.
Every level up was a transformation of the essence of life, it was a climb up a step from being human to being a god.
It could be said that the strengthening that Drake's level up had brought wasn't any worse than Lucius, who had gone to great lengths to obtain a large number of powers.
Especially in this month, Drake hadn't relaxed his training either, making full use of the experience bonus period after leveling up with God's Grace.
And Lucius didn't know any of this, in the end, it was the power of another world, and was beyond his understanding.
But he understood one thing at this time, if things continued like this, he would be the one who would suffer.
So he had taken Drake's punch with his chest, retreating, and had transformed into Holy Knight form at the same time.
That grimoire that was opposed to the Spade Kingdom had flipped open, and an invisible fluctuation had spread out.
That was time magic, it was the terrifying power to accelerate the flow of time of all objects. All of the objects that had been swept by the fluctuation had begun to weather as if they had experienced thousands upon thousands of years of time erosion.
This was the original way to use time magic, it was originally an unsolvable power that was used to steal time.
But when that fluctuation had swept over Drake's body, Drake hadn't changed at all. Lucius had also revealed a confused expression for a moment.
Lucius had indeed not thought that he could resolve Drake with this magic, but in his expectations, Drake would also need to expend a large amount of magic power to offset this magic.
But very clearly, Drake hadn't done anything just now. It was more like time magic had malfunctioned on Drake's body.
Drake smiled, taking out the grimoire in his side bag.
In Drake's view, the grimoire, which was related to a mage's source of magic power, was actually also one of their weaknesses, so he wasn't used to exposing it before his enemies.
So even Lucius was one of the few who had seen Drake's grimoire.
And at this time, on the cover of Drake's grimoire, that large tree of silver and black colors was emitting a mysterious light.
"Even if you can manipulate the time of the entire world, my time is outside the world!"
That's right, Drake had been preparing for this battle all along this month. And Lucius's soul magic and time magic were the problems that he had to think of a way to resolve.
He could prepare defensive magic tools and techniques in advance for soul magic, and add a resilient will as the final defense to deal with it.
But time magic was different, apart from using magic power to resist head-on, Drake didn't have any countermeasures in his hands.
So Drake had taken stock of the cards in his hand, and had suddenly noticed the power that he had always been neglecting, which was world magic.
As a non-standard power that even gods couldn't analyze, Drake had discovered that he had always underestimated the power of this magic. Apart from traveling through worlds and adding training buffs, this magic should have more uses.
After all, after traveling through multiple worlds, this magic had already evolved the ability to adjust the flow of time.
And after Drake had realized this, a new page had appeared for the first time in the world magic section of the grimoire.
"World's Protection," it could be said to be a magic that had been created specifically to deal with time magic, and could make Drake immune to attacks on the world rule level.
Drake had put away his grimoire, opening his mouth, saying, "Just like I said from the start, you still have to use genuine magic power to fight me!"
His reliance on magic having malfunctioned, Lucius had instead revealed an excited expression.
"That's the power that transcends the world? As long as I obtain it, I can evolve into a higher existence!"
The words had already been said, and now, all that was left was battle... no, it was a never-ending fight to the death!
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