Jay retreated.
He felt the cold spray of the water against his face and realized that if he was caught in those jaws, the sheer pressure would crush his bones before he could even attempt to drown.
He leaped backward, putting nearly a hundred feet of distance between himself and the dragons, but they followed him with a relentless, guided intelligence.
The basement was rapidly filling with water, turning the battlefield into an aquatic deathtrap. Jay saw that the water was already up to his knees.
He looked at the five dragons, then at Glenda, who was hovering a few feet above the rising tide with a smug expression.
Jay didn't panic. He raised his right hand, his palm open. Ten magic circles, not blue or red but a deep, bruised purplish-black, manifested in a vertical line before him.
"Rupture," Jay whispered.
He didn't fire a projectile. He didn't throw a beam of light. He simply closed his fist.
The space in front of him did not just crack, it tore.
It was as if a giant, invisible blade had been dragged across the fabric of the universe. Ten jagged fractures in reality opened simultaneously, expanding with a violent, screeching sound.
The five water dragons hit the fractures and were not merely blocked: they were deleted. The space they occupied ceased to exist for a microsecond, causing the thousands of gallons of magically reinforced water to collapse into nothingness.
The massive tsunami that had been threatening to drown the room was reduced to a few weak, splashing streams that rained down onto the floor, which was now a giant shallow pool.
Glenda landed on the water's surface, her eyes wide with genuine shock.
She had seen him use Rupture before, but never on this scale. To fracture space in ten different locations with such precision required a cognitive processing speed that was bordering on the inhuman.
"You really are a monster," Glenda muttered, her voice carrying a mix of awe and annoyance. "I spent years perfecting the runic stability of this basement spatial mounting just so I could maintain a pocket dimension this large. And you just... you just tore it like it was nothing."
She straightened her robes, her aura suddenly shifting. The playful irritation was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp intensity that made Jay's skin crawl.
This was the aura of a woman who had stand in the pinnacle of the magic world.
"Fine then," she said, her voice dropping an octave. "If you can handle that, let's see how you deal with the real weight of a master."
Jay's heart hammered in his chest. He saw it before it fully manifested: a swarm of magic circles, so numerous that they began to overlap and blur into a singular wall of light.
He quickly counted, his mind racing to keep up.
'Fifty.' He thought quickly.
There were fifty magic circles, each one representing a different elemental discipline. Fire, ice, lightning, wind, and earth were all represented in a terrifyingly complex geometric tapestry.
"You still need a hundred years before you can stand on my level, kid!" Glenda screamed.
The barrage began. It was not a sequence of attacks, it was a continuous, unrelenting wall of energy. Fireballs the size of carriages, spears of jagged ice, and bolts of white-hot lightning converged on Jay's position. The sheer volume of the attack was enough to vaporize a small mountain.
Jay stood his ground. He didn't teleport. He didn't create a shield. He didn't even move. He simply muttered a single word.
"Phantasmagoria"
The projectiles hit. The fire roared, the ice shattered, and the lightning struck with the force of a falling star.
Glenda smiled as the explosion obscured Jay from view, a cloud of steam and debris rising from the impact site.
But her smile faded when the smoke cleared.
Jay was standing exactly where he had been. He looked translucent, his body shimmering with a faint, purplish light.
A fireball passed directly through his chest as if he were made of mist. A bolt of lightning struck his head and simply vanished into the air behind him.
He wasn't dodging the attacks, they were simply failing to find any matter to interact with.
"So this was the project that made you obsess over Thaumaturgy for the last month," Glenda said, her voice filled with a strange kind of pride. "You've combined Spatial Magic with the runes you've been tattooing onto your skin. Hence making yourself intangible."
Jay nodded slowly. He unzipped the collar of his jacket, revealing a complex web of glowing purple symbols and ancient runes that stretched from his collarbone down toward his chest.
"Well no, i didn't plan to use Thaumaturgy just for this," Jay explained, his voice sounding hollow and distant, as if he were speaking from another room. "But it is just one application that happened to be effective. This spell, Phantasmagoria uses the runes on my body as an automated sensory array. They detect the ripples in space caused by incoming matter and mana, and then they instantaneously transfer the corresponding parts of my body into an overlapping, adjacent dimension. I am still here, but I am not 'occupying' the same space as your spells." He explained.
"It is the final evolution of my Domain."
"It's clever," Glenda admitted, her eyes scanning the runes. "But it's not perfect. If a spell is large enough or fast enough to overwhelm the processing speed of your runes, you'll still get hit. And the mana drain must be astronomical."
"It is," Jay admitted, the shimmering purple light around him flickering as he deactivated the spell. "I can only hold it for about thirty seconds in total before my circuits start to overheat."
Glenda sighed, her hands falling to her sides. "You've never used an offensive attack during our spars, Jay. Not once. You've only ever countered, parried, or evaded. It's time to end this. Treat this as my parting gift to you. Even Lavinia has never made me use this, so be proud of the fact that you've forced my hand."
Jay watched as a magic circle of a size he had never seen before began to form beneath Glenda's feet. It wasn't made of lines of mana, it was made of light itself, glowing with a soft ethereal blue that felt both beautiful and terrifying.
"Spirit Magic..." Glenda whispered.
Jay widened his eyes. Never in his dreams that he thought Glenda would be the first person to show him Spirit Magic.
Spirit Magic was the art of making a contract with the primordial personifications of the elements and laws of this world. It was a magic that bypassed the need for complex calculations because the spirits themselves performed the miracles.
As Merlin said to be the only TrueMagic.
"O Spirits of Water," Glenda chanted, her voice sounding ancient and melodic. "Drown the World."
A brilliant light erupted from Glenda's chest, forming the shape of a tiny, shimmering fairy that blinded Jay for a moment.
Before he could even think of a counter-measure, a literal tsunami of water erupted from the circle. It wasn't just water, it was heavy consecrated fluid that felt like it carried the weight of the entire ocean.
Jay realized that even Phantom wouldn't save him from this. The spell was too vast. He couldn't dodge it and he couldn't hide from it.
'Incinerate Anthem,' Jay thought.
A pillar of dark purple flame erupted from his body, swirling around him in a violent vortex. He didn't form a cross or an avatar as he simply unleashed the raw power of the Incinerate Anthem into a singular outward burst.
And then-
BOOM
The two forces collided in the center of the basement. The whitish-blue light of the spirit-tsunami met the dark purple abyss of the black flames.
The sound was not an explosion but a deafening hiss as thousands of gallons of water were instantly evaporated into super-heated steam.
The resulting pressure wave was so immense that it shattered the remaining runic dampeners in the walls.
A heat explosion followed, a blinding dome of white light that threw both Jay and Glenda in opposite directions.
When Jay opened his eyes, he was lying on his back.
The basement was no longer a stadium: it was a steaming, ruined cavern. The floor was covered in an inch of warm water, and the air was so thick with fog that he could barely see his own hands.
His mana was nearly gone, and his body felt like it had been put through a meat grinder, but he felt a strange sense of satisfaction.
He could have teleported away from Glenda's final attack. His Teleportation would have allowed him to teleport to the safety somewhere not in this basement before the water ever reached him. But he hadn't. He had chosen to meet her gift with his own.
He wasn't an ungrateful bastard, he knew that Glenda had pushed him for his own sake.
"I didn't know you could use Spirit Magic," Jay said, his voice reinforced by a final, tiny bit of enchantment so it could carry through the fog.
Hundreds of feet away, he heard a wet cough, followed by a groan. "I mean, can't you see how it drained every drop of my mana? It's not something I can just throw around. And don't ask me to teach you... Spirit Magic requires a contract, and spirits don't like a gloomy brat like you."
That last part was a good ol Glenda's joke. Plain and not funny.
Jay managed to sit up, wincing as his sore muscles protested. "That attack would have killed me if I didn't have my Sacred Gears."
"If it could have killed you, then I would have made a mistake in judging your potential," her voice came back, sounding slightly closer as she began to wade through the shallow water.
They eventually found each other in the mist. Both looked like a mess. Glenda's robes were torn and soaked, and Jay's jacket was scorched and frayed.
Glenda was busy trying to tidy her hair, though it was a losing battle.
"How do you even make a contract with a spirit anyway?" Jay asked, curious despite his exhaustion.
Glenda stopped her tidying and looked at him with a smug, weary grin. "A magician never reveals her secrets, kid."
"Tsk," Jay muttered, though there was no real heat in it.
With a final flick of her finger, Glenda used a lingering bit of stored mana in the room's runes to teleport them both back to the library upstairs.
As they landed on the dry carpet, Glenda snapped her fingers again, using a simple cleaning spell to dry her clothes instantly.
Meanwhile Jay simply let a small, controlled pulse of the Incinerate Anthem warm his skin, evaporating the moisture in a cloud of light steam.
The library felt different now. The books that had been his companions for four months looked like strangers. The bags he had packed were sitting by the door.
"So," Jay began, looking at the floor. "Can I meet you again?"
"Hell no," Glenda refused instantly, her voice sharp. "You don't have any use to me anymore, brat. Our contract is finished. Done. Finito. I've taught you what I can, and you've provided enough data for my research on Sacred Gears to keep me busy for years. I'm going back to my wine and my silence."
Jay remained silent. He knew her well enough by now to know that this was her way of saying goodbye.
Their relationship had never been one of warmth or affection. She was a woman who lived for her research and her pride, and he was a boy who lived for his revenge.
They were two broken pieces of a larger puzzle that happened to fit together for a few months. But despite her words, Jay knew he owed her everything.
Without her, he would have been a mindless engine of destruction, burning himself out before he ever found his targets.
"I see," Jay said softly. "Then I would like to say thank you for your help, Glenda."
"No need," she replied, turning her back to him to browse a shelf. "I told you, I was just using you. I'm a selfish woman, Jay. Don't go making me out to be some kind of saint in your head."
Jay stared at her back. He realized that if he ever told anyone that one of the strongest magicians in the world was actually a massive tsundere, no one would believe him.
"But listen to me," Glenda said, her voice becoming serious again without her turning around. "I will never forgive you if you lose to Augusta. "
"I don't plan on losing to anyone," Jay said plainly. "Not until I kill every single devil that thinks they can rule this world."
Glenda finally turned, her expression complicated.
She had learned about Jay's past and goal over the last few weeks, the slaughter of his family and the death of Sister Andrea. It had changed her perspective on him.
He was no longer just a brooding prodigy gifted with magic anymore, not in her eyes. He was a survivor, carrying the quiet resolve to set aflame a world that had already abandoned him.
"I'm warning you, Jay. At your current level, you are still just a medium-sized fry in a very big, very deep pond. I believe you can take down a low or mid-tier Ultimate-class devil if you prepared. But the Super Devils? The likes of Sirzechs Lucifer and Ajuka Beelzebub? They are on a level that defies logic."
She stepped closer to him, her eyes intense. "Especially Ajuka. As a magician, he is your worst nightmare. His Kankara Formula allows him to manipulate the very phenomena of the world by filling in the calculations of natural laws with his own demonic power. He can rewrite your spells before they even manifest. If you ever face him, never use magic."
Glenda didn't knew anything about True Cross, but Jay just nodded. He had no intention of facing the kings of the Underworld yet, but he committed the name to memory.
If the Kankara Formula was about the math of the world, then Jay would just have to find a way to change the variables. Even right now, he is not sure if True Cross can actually help him to fight against the likes of them yet.
Jay changed into a new set of clothes that Glenda had provided. His old rags were beyond repair, and Glenda had mocked him for looking "impoverished" before tossing him sets of clothes.
He packed his few belongings, his journals, Sister Andrea's chrome pendant, and the two books Glenda had allowed him to take. One was a deep dive into Thaumaturgy, and the other was an introductory text on Spirit Magic, though she warned him again that he lacked the temperament for it.
"Ready?" Glenda asked.
"Yes."
Because Jay had never been to Japan, he couldn't simply teleport there on his own. Spatial magic required a degree of familiarity with the destination, or at least a very precise set of coordinates. And since she had been to Japan a couple of times, Glenda helped him.
They appeared in a flash of light in the middle of a dense, lush forest. The air was suddenly changed into humid, smelling of damp earth and pine needles. The sounds of the Italian countryside were replaced by the shrill, rhythmic buzzing of cicadas.
Glenda looked around, checking their position. "We're on the outskirts of the Kantō region. Not far from where the activity has been reported. This is as far as I go."
She prepared to teleport away, her form already beginning to shimmer with blue mana.
"Are you sure you don't want to stay and find Lavinia?" Jay asked. "You could explain things to her."
Glenda paused, her expression falling into a rare moment of melancholy.
She shook her head. "No. It would be unfair to her. She's a good girl, Jay. Too good. If she knew I was just using her research, using her life for my own ends... even if she forgave me, the guilt would never leave me. It's better this way."
Jay looked at her and realized that she had changed. The woman who had first met him in Romania wouldn't have cared about guilt. She had grown a conscience, even if she refused to admit it.
"I see," Jay said. "Very well then."
Before Glenda could vanish, Jay stepped forward and did something that surprised even himself. He wrapped his arms around her in a brief, firm hug.
Glenda froze. Her mana signature flickered and died as she stood there, completely speechless.
"W-what... get off me, you brat!" she finally stammered, her face turning a bright shade of red. She pushed him away, her hands trembling as she straightened her cloak. "What the hell was that?"
"Thank you once again," Jay said, his voice quiet but sincere. "For the last four months. You gave me a future I didn't think I had."
Glenda turned away quickly, her shoulders hunched. "I-I told you not to worry about it. It was a transaction. Nothing more."
Jay nodded, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "See you then, Glenda."
He turned and began to walk toward the edge of the forest, his boots crunching on the fallen leaves.
He expected to hear the sound of her teleporting away, but instead, her voice caught him one last time.
"Happy birthday, Jay."
Jay stopped in his tracks. He turned around, but the forest clearing was empty. Only a few fading blue sparks remained where she had been standing.
He stood there for a long moment, stunned. He hadn't told her when his birthday was. He hadn't even thought about it himself.
But she had known. She had looked into his records, or perhaps she had just paid more attention than she let on.
For the first time since the night his village burned to the ground, a genuine, warm smile spread across Jay's face. He reached up and touched the pendant beneath his shirt.
"Happy birthday to me," he whispered.
He turned back toward the path and began to walk.
He was no longer the boy who had left Maramureș four months ago.
And so, a new journey began.