Finn cracked his neck once, eyes narrowing and face breaking into a wild smile. Yellow light flashed across his throat as he activated [Command Howl].
"Loki Familia! Don't target him, aim for his surroundings. And don't hold back!" His voice echoed in an expanding domain that engulfed the whole battlefield, passing through a street three districts away, the tiles there trembling in its wake.
Gareth swiped his war-axe in a horizontal cleave, and the air pressure alone flattened a row of buildings behind him in a widening crescent, debris erupting backward in an enormous curtain.
Its shockwave slammed into the building Bell was hanging on, and it wrenched up from its foundation, exploding backward through rain.
Ais was already airborne in a horizontal drive, body launching at him, Snowflake's edge levelled at his wheel. A trail stretched behind her, raindrops curving around the path she had traced.
Atop her shoulder blades stood Finn, his spear-arm loaded all the way back. Veins rose along his neck and arms, the sheer force bleeding from his stance warping rain behind his elbow into a circular vortex meters wide.
His aim was locked dead on the pale hands gripping Bell's ankles.
Below, Tione seized Tiona's ankles and swung her in a full-circle windup, hurling her toward the building.
"Hahaha!" Tiona blasted skyward, both fists clenched and leading, her body an ascending arrow. Bricks split in two widening curtains of debris as she tore straight through the mid-air structure, her trajectory bisecting the building beneath his abyss.
At the same moment, from further behind, two chanting voices declared.
"Arcs Ray!" "Wynn Fimbulvetr!"
A hail of intersecting magic howled toward his surroundings, golden beams that vaporized rain into steam, and a sweeping frost that froze that same steam into ice crystals, crashing toward the terrain around him.
Those pale fingers on his ankles tightened.
The abyss beneath his heels retracted, stone materializing back in a crawl, black shrinking inward until it was no longer a gaping maw but a ring bordering those dainty wrists.
Bell's chin lifted, irises moving one by one.
Gareth, standing on a wobbling building, droplets sliding down from his war-axe's edge.
Tiona, still rising through the wreckage of the building she was tearing through.
Tione below, arms still extended from her throw.
Ais mid-air, still charging toward him, Snowflake's tip aimed at his wheel, not him.
Finn atop her shoulders, spear trained on the hands gripping his ankles, not him.
Riveria and Lefiya behind, twenty magic circles still burning gold and white, their spells screaming for the terrain around him, not him.
None of them were targeting him.
Bell's eyes rose up last.
Above his crown, the wheel hung motionless, not a single spoke trembling.
It had nothing to adapt to.
Bell chuckled. In the middle of rain, ruin and every eye locked on his frame, that laugh buried beneath the patter of raindrops hitting ground.
"Good."
He bent his knees, legs tensing, body coiling—
Gone.
Rumbling clouds above ripped apart in a straight line, clear sky visible beyond them for a moment, throwing sunlight down.
Riveria's eyes constricted as a white line slammed itself into their magics, punching through Arcs Ray and Wynn Fimbulvetr, light erupting sideways off it in dozens of sheets.
She wrenched her Magna Alfs forward, knuckles white across its shaft, voice rising for a new incantation when—
Bell was already ahead of her, sunlight from above illuminating his wet hair, flaming sword held overhead, frost and gold from their spells still peeling away from his chest.
The wheel above his head was trembling now.
Gareth's war-axe exploded through a building left of them, its whole architecture collapsing as the dwarf's shoulder followed through it, rubble scattering mid-air when his boots hit their rooftop, already chaining his momentum into a rend, sharp air pressure barreling toward Bell.
Ais hit their right at the same breath, Snowflake redirecting into a thrust at the rooftop beneath his feet, a late blast chasing behind her.
Finn dropped between Bell and Riveria, trousers billowing from his descent, Fortia's tip aimed forward at the flaming sword, his landing cratering the rooftop in a wide circle.
Bell's sword remained overhead.
Its tip was resting at a point in the sky where the rip in those clouds halted. A seam of clear blue ran from there in a straight line, cutting across the entire battlefield, past shattered rooftops, flattened buildings and rain, all the way back to where he had first hung.
Sunlight fell through that seam in a column.
It touched only him and his path.
Golden light ran down his white hair, across his shoulders, along the edge of his sword. Rain parted around the sunlight's edges, droplets evaporating into thin mist before touching him.
Beyond that light, the world was dark.
Gareth moved in rain so heavy it ran off his beard in streams.
Ais' hair clung to her neck, water sliding along Snowflake's edge.
Finn's spear dripped.
Riveria's circles revolved dim behind a falling curtain of blue.
Lefiya's chants came through clenched teeth, cold mist slipping from her mouth.
All of them in downpour.
And Bell stood in a shaft of sunlight, sword tip pointed at the place where he had torn the sky open to reach here.
...
..
.
[Author's Thoughts]
This is it.
We've finally run out of all the stocked chapters. I guess this is goodbye for now. See you all over at the new one when it releases.