"Waaaaaahhhh!"
The normally quiet female monk couldn't help but shriek. Linie had grabbed that plump backside, hoisted her up, and gone sprinting the whole way, a trail of dust kicking up behind them—impossible to miss.
As if the sound and the two human figures appearing in his line of sight had tripped some automatic defense mechanism, Böse slowly raised his arm, the metal-plated gauntlet aimed at the enemies not far off.
And in that very same instant, a streak of pure white Killing Magic cut across the sky. In the distance an even more dazzling golden-yellow radiance blazed to life, surging like a carp leaping the Dragon Gate, arching through the air like a heavenly bridge splitting the void. Countless streams of light converged as one and, in the blink of an eye, reached Böse.
"KA-BOOOOOOM!"
It thundered on and on like a bolt out of the blue over flat ground, the beam of light swallowing the city wall and Böse both, until the last of it finally dwindled away.
The entire ground underfoot trembled without pause.
Himmel and Nanoda caught up to Linie as well. As the vanguard, all of them charged straight toward the flickering, roaring spot ahead.
"Did it work?"
Linie asked the female monk on her shoulder—a woman several sizes larger than her own frame.
Strands of hair fluttering in the wind, the monk kept her eyes shut and answered with a slight tremor in her voice: "No. He's still standing there."
"So even that much wasn't enough after all?"
Himmel, a man in his sixties, ran even faster than Linie, leaving afterimages trailing behind him as he swung his sword and plunged straight into the smoke left behind by the bombardment.
The moment he glimpsed that blurred, towering silhouette, he swung his blade with all his strength, without a shred of hesitation.
In an instant, the sword qi swept away everything—the drifting dust, the thick smoke all scattered at once—driving straight at Böse where he stood upon the ruins.
And yet, the barrier had already been raised.
An invisible wall blocked the sword qi, and that unmatched momentum collapsed in that very moment.
Not even a breath of wind reached Böse.
Like a tomato smashed against glass, the shattered gust blew off to either side, in the opposite direction.
Without a single word, Böse's outstretched, waiting palm snapped shut in an instant.
By the time the slacking-off-minded Nanoda and Linie—still carrying the monk on her back—arrived, an invisible barrier had already enveloped all four of them: a faintly visible, cube-shaped, semi-transparent prison!
"Hey, Himmel."
Looking at the now-halted Himmel, Nanoda called out to him.
"I'm fine. But things are going to get a little troublesome from here on."
Himmel ran his hand over the smooth, semi-transparent barrier, a trace of difficulty crossing his face.
"Just as I thought—this really is Böse's barrier magic."
"Ngh—cough!"
The female monk on Linie's back suddenly furrowed her brow, her expression twisting in agony.
Everyone realized it at once: no oxygen could enter this barrier, and what little remained was being rapidly consumed, the suffocating sensation setting in.
"Magic," Linie reminded her aloud.
The Scripture gave off a gentle, pale-golden glow as the monk cast that spell.
The air, once gone murky, was purified back to freshness, and the oxygen supply was restored.
"Sturdy thing, isn't it?"
A sudden violent crash rang out, and the whole barrier shuddered once—but it quickly returned to its original state.
Nanoda drew back the hand she'd pressed against the barrier.
Even a point-blank, fully charged Severance Magic had done nothing; she couldn't even tell how this barrier had been constructed.
The "Motion and Stillness" paradox couldn't pass through a barrier that was already set in place—even with everything around it frozen, she still couldn't break this magic.
The "Tortoise" paradox had its glaring uselessness too, emphasizing being untouchable, being uncatchable—but this barrier simply draped itself over them from the outside, which, in a sense, was something that very paradox couldn't circumvent.
"Um, Acting Bishop, my lady, it seems I can only hold out for a few days…"
While Nanoda was weighing her options, she heard a piece of bad news.
"Didn't you say this magic could sustain us for two or three months?"
She pressed Himmel on it, only for him to smack his forehead as though suddenly remembering.
"Oh, look at my memory. The one who used this spell back then was Heiter—his mana capacity was nothing an ordinary person could match."
Fine. Nanoda took back what she'd said about Himmel not having aged a day.
It was said that, in the middle-to-late stages of their journey, Frieren—who suppressed her mana to disguise herself as a seasoned mage—had only one-fifth of what Heiter's mana displayed.
Even if in truth she fell short of Frieren, Heiter's mana level had surely surpassed that of a high-ranking priest, ranking among the very best.
After setting the monk down, Linie didn't idle either. She conjured all manner of weapons to strike at that semi-transparent wall—but to her great disappointment, the barrier didn't budge in the slightest.
"Hah… hah…" By the time she felt worn out, Linie hadn't left so much as a single scratch on it.
"Hyaaah!"
Himmel too swung his sword again and again—yet aside from the barrier trembling now and then, there was no effect at all.
Nanoda, meanwhile, stared blankly at the wall, still debating whether to try her trump card.
With the Hero right here, though, it didn't seem all that convenient.
The female monk knelt on the ground, both hands clasped tightly around the cross pendant she'd taken from around her neck, and prayed in silence.
"Everyone, keep your spirits up—there's definitely a way to break this!"
Himmel remained unshaken, still optimistic. "Do you have any ideas? Mage."
"Sorry, but I'm a member of the Demon Race."
Faced with the question thrown her way, Nanoda shook her head.
"Still—this lineup really is a lot like the time we defeated Böse, isn't it? A warrior, a monk, and a mage."
"I'm not a mage…"
She knew Himmel was trying to ease the somewhat tense atmosphere, to get everyone to calm down.
"Um… if it's a prison cell, could we dig through the ground to get out?"
The female monk offered up her own suggestion.
"Not a bad idea—but unfortunately, by the end of our first month trapped in the barrier, Eisen and I already tried it. The same barrier exists underground too."
"I guess we really do have to try an all-out attack. Himmel, just imagine it—Frieren dying right in front of you on the other side of this barrier. What would you do?"
"Isn't that a rather vicious hypothetical? I trust my companions, and I also—"
For once, Himmel left his words unfinished, shifting instead to: "What kind of attack should we use?"
"Companions, huh~"
Nanoda nodded, sensing that she really had made Himmel just a touch angry a moment ago.
"You and Linie hit the barrier with your fastest, strongest attacks, one after another, to make it waver. I'll try to break it with my own method."
"Alright, I'll do my best."
"Linie, mission guaranteed complete."
"I'll help too!"
"You—focus on maintaining the purification magic. Your attack power is useless here."
Feeling that had come out a bit harsh, Nanoda switched to a more tactful way of consoling her.
"Ah, sorry—what I mean is, maintaining this purification magic is what guarantees our survival. It's extremely important. Don't get distracted; leave the rest to us."
Seeing the female monk nod like a chick pecking at rice, Nanoda turned to look at her other two companions.
Perhaps her words had spurred him on—Himmel's aura had shifted again, more serious than before, more resolute, more powerful.
Linie swapped the hammer in her grip for a two-handed battleaxe taller than her own body, taking up the stance of the mightiest martial art she'd ever mimicked.
For a fleeting instant, Himmel could have sworn Eisen was standing right beside him.
"Is everyone ready?"
Nanoda placed her hand on the barrier.
She didn't have Frieren's talent for magical analysis—there were even some basic spell formulas she sometimes couldn't identify. Reverse-engineering and cracking a barrier magic this exquisite was flat-out impossible.
But she had a technique Frieren didn't: the special constitution of a Great Demon from the Mythical Era.
"When you get right down to it, a barrier like this is, in essence, nothing more than a mass of exquisitely crafted Mana."
____
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