Just as the Loki Familia group sped up in response to Ais's sudden dash, nearly reaching the cavern where the clash and the wyrmling's roars were echoing—
A clear, icy chant with a strange, rhythmic cadence cut through the noise like a spike of frost, piercing the dim tunnel and reaching their ears with unsettling clarity.
"The root of blessed hate. The loathing of birth. Devouring my other half, this is my original sin."
Riveria Ljos Alf, at the very front, stopped dead.
The elf royal who was hailed as "Orario's First Mage" went rigid the instant she heard that opening line.
It wasn't the pressure of the magic itself.
It was the words. And more than that, the familiar intonation, the chant-pattern that felt carved into her soul.
In Riveria's usually calm, brilliant green eyes, something rare flashed through—disbelief, shock, and a momentary daze.
As Orario's recognized authority on magecraft, Riveria knew better than anyone why the "First Mage" crown sat on her head.
Not because she truly surpassed all who came before, but because the real monster who had once stood at the apex of magic… was already gone.
Riveria had simply inherited an empty title.
And now, this chant—
"Unable to cleanse. Unable to purify. Unable to redeem. I gaze upon the voice of divine punishment as my sin."
The second line hit, even clearer and even harsher.
Riveria's body trembled despite her.
Not fear. Something else—an instinctive shiver born of overwhelming impact, memories surging up, and the body's refusal to accept a "taboo" returning to the world.
She couldn't forget.
She couldn't forget this magic.
And she couldn't forget the one who had once spoken it.
Alfia.
Once of the now-disbanded Hera Familia, bearing the epithet "Silent," a genius the gods themselves called a "monster of talent."
A legend who had reached a ridiculous level in both magic and martial skill.
Someone who had stepped into the heights of LV.7 at fifteen or sixteen.
Her talent and growth rate were unrivaled in Orario's history.
Her most famous feat was joining the expedition to slay one of the Three Great Quests, the "Tyrant of the Sea," Leviathan—and, with her unique, overwhelming spell, killing that monstrous supermassive sea beast in a single strike.
Worse still, Alfia had never been a pure mage.
She possessed an ability that bordered on cheating—an almost unfair "insight." No matter how refined the technique or how complex the spell, once she saw it, she could understand it instantly, master it, and even improve it.
So she often fought on the front line like a warrior, an aberration whose blade and mana were equally terrifying.
And the chant ringing through the tunnel now was her signature—one of her most feared spells.
"The trumpets of the gods. The harp of the elves. The melody of light. This is the brand of sin, the fate loved by the man-made heavens—"
"Be shattered into ash. I hate you beyond measure. The price is here. With the proof of sin, I will annihilate all."
The continuation sounded like a declaration from fate itself, each line hammering into Riveria's chest.
Behind her, Tione, Tiona, and Lefiya—along with Ais, who had already reached the edge of the cavern and burst into view—stopped as well, seized by the chant's immeasurable mana and the deep, despairing weight inside it.
They didn't understand its origins the way Riveria did, but the words themselves—"original sin," "hatred," "annihilate all"—and the rapidly converging, soul-crushing mana told them one thing with absolute certainty:
This was not ordinary magic.
"Cry out, Holy Bell Tower!"
With the final, frozen true name, the chant ended.
And in the next instant—
"Vmmm—!!!"
In the center of the cavern ahead, directly beneath where Genichi hovered in midair, three sights appeared—vast, uncanny, and impossible to describe cleanly.
Mana surged together, condensed, and took form.
Not as glittering light, but as something heavier. More solemn. And far more ominous.
A colossal bell tower phantom, built from pure magic, manifested out of nothing—so huge it felt like it could crush the cavern by mere presence.
It looked as though it had been carved from obsidian and bone.
Ancient. Worn. Webbed with cracks and crawling with strange runes. At its peak hung a massive bell formed of mana as well, etched in patterns that screamed of sin.
This was one of Alfia's spells—
Genos Angelus
A wide-area annihilation magic that manifests a gigantic "Bell of Sound" and releases an overwhelmingly destructive attack.
What Genichi cast now, of course, was not Alfia's original, world-ruining completed form of the Holy Bell Tower.
Even with his extreme mana at SSS 1499, the amplification from the Demon skill, and the magecraft from Ascension to Godhood, what he could reproduce was only a "newborn" version.
But even so, its presence eclipsed anything he had cast before.
In the distance, the moment Riveria saw that familiar bell tower—the symbol of sin and punishment—her whole body jolted, a gasp nearly tearing out of her throat.
It really was Alfia's magic.
The scale and refinement were nowhere near even a fraction of what "Silent" had once produced, but it was the same spell. There was no mistaking it.
Who?
Who in the world was using a magic that should have been buried with Alfia?
"CLANG—!!"
No one had time to think further.
The enormous bell of condensed mana was struck by an invisible force.
A heavy, resonant toll exploded outward—an infernal funeral bell carrying endless sorrow, hatred, and an unyielding will to destroy.
Visible to the naked eye, dark-gray ripples like water waves expanded in a perfect sphere from the bell tower, rushing out in every direction.
The air wailed under the strain. Fine dust and small stones were instantly ground into powder.
Even the space itself seemed to warp.
And the one hit first—
Was the black mutated wyrmling, freshly healed and about to launch again.
For the first time, fear surfaced in those dark-gold slit pupils.
It tried to beat its wings and evade. Tried to spew dragonfire to resist.
Too late.
The ripples expanded faster than its body could even react.
"Pff… shhk—shhk—shhk—!!"
The dark-gray wave swept across its massive frame.
There was no earth-shaking explosion. No gore-splattered spectacle.
But after the toll passed—
The dragon's body froze.
And then, under everyone's unbelieving gaze, from the point of contact onward—head, neck, wings, torso, tail—
The hard, shadow-scaled body collapsed into fragments, and in less than a heartbeat it became a sky of blood mist.
It never even managed a final cry.
Only a magic stone far larger and deeper than any they had seen before dropped to the ground with a dull thud, rolled a few times, and lay still—proof that the terrifying mutated monster had truly existed.
One hit.
Just one.
The black mutated wyrmling that had pushed Genichi into a losing fight, that had possessed hyper-speed regeneration and seemed impossible to kill, was erased to ash and blood mist beneath this simplified Genocide Proclamation Prayer.
The cavern fell into deathly silence.
Only the faint hum of the bell tower phantom dispersing remained, and Genichi's slightly roughened breathing.
He hovered in midair, the demon wings at his back slowly fanning to keep him steady.
Staring at the rapidly fading remains and that jet-black magic stone, even he looked momentarily surprised.
He knew Genos Angelus was strong.
But he hadn't expected the combination of anti-dragon effects and this spell's destructive force to be this absurd.
It had shattered the black wyrmling into a storm of blood in an instant.
(End of Chapter)
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