After healing the immobile Luna and Oliver with magic and covering them with a barrier of magic power, Titania closed and opened her hands, checking the sensation.
"Ruu-ko, the last thing I can give you is the sensation of this fairy manifestation right now. It will definitely become your power in the future. So do not forget the sensation of me manifesting now. Even if today's memories disappear."
The divine Titania told Luna this, then glared at Belia.
"...I had planned to prepare properly before manifesting you. Well, it is fine. If I think of it as saving a lot of effort to kill you, it is not a bad thing."
Any normal human would tremble in fear at Titania's majesty.
However, Belia, who had seen her form in the past, spoke to her without any particular tension.
"You are underestimating me too much. I am the Fairy Queen. From this moment on, the strongest in this world is not you, but me."
"Hahaha! Then prove it——!?"
As Belia was making light remarks, a shockwave suddenly assaulted him.
He was blown backward with great force.
While keeping the blown-away Belia in her field of vision, Titania raised her hand above her head.
Then, over a hundred swords of pure white appeared in the sky above.
When Titania casually swung down the hand she had raised, the white swords rained down on Belia all at once as if responding to her movement.
"...Tch!"
Belia clicked his tongue but extended his hand toward the swords.
When he used his unique ability, the air around him vibrated, and the white swords stopped in mid-air.
As if she had anticipated this, Titania showed no agitation and made her next move.
"White Dragon."
The ground where Belia was standing suddenly split open.
Belia was about to fall into the crevice.
He used his unique ability to avoid the fall, but a dragon made of white magic power leaped out from the cracked ground.
The white dragon approached Belia.
It opened its large mouth and sank its fangs into Belia's body.
"So it cannot pierce after all."
Titania muttered emotionlessly.
Normally he should have suffered a fatal wound from the white dragon's fangs piercing his body, but Belia took no damage thanks to his unique ability.
"Endflame Laevateinn."
Belia, still unharmed while being held in the white dragon's mouth, activated magic, and a sword of hellfire appeared in his right hand.
The hellfire sword was hot enough to burn even the one who held it, but Belia was an exception.
He swung it at the white dragon, and the white dragon was literally burned to nothing.
Freed from the white dragon's restraint, Belia landed on the ground.
"Is this the end?"
Belia provoked Titania.
"As if."
Titania showed a fearless smile.
Immediately afterward, magic power gathered at the tips of the white swords still floating in the sky, and thin lines connected the magic power at one tip to another.
A single line or two looked meaningless.
However, as more and more lines were drawn, something meaningful gradually began to take shape.
"No way!?"
Belia, who understood what it was, showed an expression of panic for the first time.
He immediately kicked off the ground to escape from the spot.
"It is already too late. White Spirit Radiance Amaterasu."
From the magic circle drawn in the sky, a concentrated white light of extreme heat poured down, swallowing Belia and the entire surrounding area.
The light easily melted and pierced even the earth.
When the light piercing from the sky disappeared, the place it had passed through had become a massive crater.
"Amazing..."
Even Luna, who had been in the field of battle as an explorer for over ten years, could only stare in pure amazement at an attack of a power she had never seen before.
As Titania stared intently at the crater, Belia teleported above her head.
He then swung his sword down.
Titania easily blocked it with a sword of white magic power.
"Tch!"
Belia, whose surprise attack had been blocked, changed his expression to one of displeasure and clicked his tongue.
Although Belia had taken a direct hit from the concentrated white light of extreme heat, he showed no wounds and appeared to have taken no damage, but his movements were slightly slower.
"You seem to have been soaking in lukewarm water for quite a while. You managed to become a Transcendent, but with hundreds of years that are far too long for a human, you are still that color...?"
Titania looked at the magic power wrapped around the sword Belia was swinging and let out a sigh-like, fed-up voice.
"Do not compare me to you or that guy."
Upon receiving Titania's words, Belia spat out poison while creating distance from her.
"It would indeed be unfair to compare you to my master. But you had time. It is truly regrettable that you wasted it. Really, regrettable."
There was a hint of sorrow in Titania's words, and a sense of emptiness could be seen in her expression.
Magic power was normally an invisible energy, but by concentrating it at a single point and making it high-density, it could be made visible.
At that time, the magic power took on the color of its owner.
That color varied, but there was something common to all.
When one mastered the handling of magic power, that color gradually approached "black" or "white," and ultimately became pure black or pure white without any impurities.
Belia's magic power was not completely dyed black but was closer to red.
"...I do not care about your feelings. In the first place, I do not think I can come to an understanding with fairies. That is why I will erase every last fairy from this world."
"I see. It is regrettable, but right now I am the top of the fairies. So in order to protect the fairies, I will neutralize you."
While Titania was speaking, Belia closed the distance again and swung his sword.
Titania blocked it head-on with her white magic sword.
When the two swords clashed, countless slashes scattered, and everything around them was finely sliced as if shredded to pieces.
Luna and the others, protected by Pixie, were unharmed, but even the entrance of the great southern labyrinth and the crystals installed for teleportation behind them had lost their original forms.
Even so, neither stopped their swordplay.
Magic gradually began to intermingle, causing cataclysmic events that turned the entire area into flat land, as the two fought in a domain on the verge of the world's collapse.
◇
The fierce battle between Titania and Belia continued even after that.
The place where they were fighting was already quite far from both the great southern labyrinth and Tsutrail.
While literally reducing everything along the way to ashes.
"...You are still as tough as ever."
Titania muttered while delivering relentless attacks on Belia with two magic swords.
With Belia missing his left arm and Titania holding a sword in each hand, the density of attacks was different.
The battle had been proceeding with Titania in a dominant position the entire time.
However, the only damage Belia seemed to have taken was the direct hit from the concentrated white light she had released at the beginning.
When their swords clashed head-on, the impact created a crater at the spot.
They were both blown backward, and the distance between the two increased.
"Hah... It seems time is up. As expected, with only my own power I could not kill you."
Belia, who had once again realized the difference in strength with Titania, muttered with an expression as if he had made up his mind.
"...?"
Titania strengthened her wariness at the sudden change in Belia's atmosphere.
"I really wanted to surpass you with only my own power. But time is running out. Let us end the games here."
Black magic power leaked from the shoulder area where Belia had lost his left arm.
It was like a viscous, sticky liquid and was completely different from Belia's magic power.
"No way... You..."
For the first time, an expression of panic appeared on Titania's face as she saw it.
"Yes. Right after I had the Hero conquer the western great labyrinth last year... during the instant before the spell formula automatically rewrote itself, I obtained a portion of an evil god's magic power!"
Belia raised his voice in exaltation.
The sticky, jet-black magic power gradually began to take the shape of multiple skeletal arms.
It evoked the image of vengeful spirits with lingering attachments to this world and exuded an eerie and ominous atmosphere.
"...You are forcibly keeping it inside yourself with your unique ability."
Titania guessed the method that was making the impossible situation before her eyes possible.
Upon hearing her guess, Belia showed a twisted smile.
"Correct. Still, as expected of the monster that nearly drove humanity to extinction. The amount I took in is less than ten percent of the evil god's total, yet even with my unique ability it was all I could do to keep it contained. Well, more than a year has passed since then, and my body has gradually adapted."
He grew multiple skeletal arms made of ink-like substance from where his left arm had been, and wrapped the same jet-black magic power around the blade of the sword in his right hand.
"I will corrupt your magic power with this!"
With heightened emotions, Belia closed in on Titania once again.
"...Kuh!"
In contrast, the composure Titania had shown earlier was gone.
She maintained distance to avoid close combat and fired magic bullets.
Belia knocked down the white magic bullets approaching him with his sword while extending the skeletal arms from his left side toward Titania.
Titania escaped the black skeletal hands, but there was no limit to the length of the arms made of magic power.
Like a pack of wolves surrounding their prey, multiple skeletal hands gradually narrowed the encirclement around Titania.
Having lost her escape route, Titania teleported and moved to a place where she could just barely keep Belia in her field of vision.
"Welcome."
The moment she relaxed after escaping Belia's demonic hands, an unfamiliar girl's voice reached Titania's ears from behind.
At the same time, a large hand-like shape of scorching flames pierced through Titania from her back to her chest.
"...Gah!?"
While grimacing in pain, Titania turned her head to look behind her. There stood a girl with burning red hair and an adorable appearance — the Incinerator, Ruari Welt — with her arm extended.
Ruari's arm from the elbow onward had turned into scorching flames, piercing Titania.
Ruari was not the only one present.
Along with her, the Guide Philly Carpenter and the Thunder Emperor Gunnar Stern stood surrounding Titania.
"When... did you..."
Titania let out a voice while still pierced by the hand of flames.
The cult executives from the first to third seats had all gathered in this place while Titania was focused on her battle with Belia.
"Do not make such an unpleasant sound, traitor..."
Ruari spoke to Titania in a voice that was chillingly cold in contrast to her adorable appearance.
"Traitor...? Guh!?"
"Cannot you understand words? Be silent."
Ruari raised the temperature of the flames even higher.
As this happened, white magic power began rising like smoke from the wound in Titania's chest where a hole had been opened.
That smoke-like magic power moved toward a certain place.
The place the white magic power headed to was inside the huge magic stone that Philly held.
"It seems you did not expect that person's magic power to be inside you."
The Thunder Emperor Gunnar Stern spoke to Belia, who had moved beside Titania at some point.
"...Yeah, that is right. It worked out well. I am glad."
While pushing the evil god's magic power back into his own body once again, Belia affirmed Gunnar's words.
"So your goal was my magic power."
Titania, still pierced by the hand of flames, spoke while grimacing in pain.
"No, the goal was always your elimination. The magic power that became a fairy is valuable, so we are simply retrieving it. Well, rest assured. I will make effective use of the magic power that was you."
Philly, showing a dark smile, denied Titania's words.
Titania was a transcendental existence, so she originally had no concept of lifespan or death.
Fairies could freely exercise their power without going through humans by manifesting in this world, but in exchange, their physical death and their own death became linked.
In other words, the life of Titania, whose chest had been pierced, would not last much longer.
"Thank you for manifesting in this world. It seems Orun Dura's elimination will also be finished soon, so you should hurry up and die too."
As soon as Philly said that, a huge pitch-black pillar stretching into the sky became visible even from far away in Tsutrail.
Cracks appeared in various places in space, and the collapse of the world was about to begin.
"The Rakshasa guy must have stimulated Orun too much. The world's collapse was supposed to be later."
"That should be fine. It is proof that they have driven Orun Dura to the point where he wishes for the world's destruction. Before the world's collapse begins, the Rakshasa should kill him and prevent the collapse."
"...That is true."
When Philly denied Belia's concern, Belia readily believed her words.
"Hahaha..."
Seeing the cult executives, including Belia, in a victorious mood, Titania could not hold back her laughter.
"...What is so funny?"
Belia frowned unpleasantly at Titania, who suddenly started laughing.
"No, nothing. Seeing you all dancing so smoothly on his palm... I just could not hold back my laughter."
"...His palm?"
The others also showed puzzled expressions.
"For now, let me have my magic power back. Its use has already been decided."
As if responding to Titania's voice, the magic stone containing her magic power suddenly began to shake.
"...!"
Philly quickly released the magic stone and jumped backward.
The magic stone shattered into pieces before it even hit the ground, and white magic power leaked out around it.
"I was claiming to be a bystander until a little while ago, so let me act like one for my final moments as well."
Everyone strengthened their wariness at Titania's meaningful attitude, but Titania did not do anything in particular and simply shouted loudly.
"The winner of this battle is — Cavadel Evans!"
This concludes the Tsutrail episodes without Orun.
After inserting Lucila's episode, we will return to Orun's perspective.