The air in the subterranean bunker had been a stagnant tomb of frozen moisture and the metallic tang of blood, but as Jay stepped forward the atmosphere ignited. Literally.
Purple embers blazing underneath his feet, manifested like heliotropes in a garden of ice, deep violet petals of flame that followed no sun but the intensity of Jay's own soul.
Where his feet touched the floor, the absolute zero frost of Lavinia's domain did not just melt, it vanished and turned instantly into a ghostly vapor in the air and seeping on the white concrete.
For the first time in decades, Augusta felt the cold touch of a mystery she could not solve.
Her gaze was fixed on the shifting violet light dancing across Jay's casual attire.
For four months, she had been a hollowed queen, her crown is gone, stolen from her by god knows who.
The loss of Incinerate Anthem had been more than a loss of power for her. After all, wielding one of the thirteen Longinus gain you such a special status and standing in the supernatural world.
And other than that, it's also illogical and bends the common knowledge that she had about Sacred Gears.
Sacred Gears in general were fused to the soul of the wielder. It's common knowledge that if a Sacred Gear was forcibly removed, the host would perish as their spiritual circuitry collapsed.
Yet, she was alive. And the flames she had spent a lifetime nurturing were now flickering around the fingers of a boy who looked as though he had just walked out of a grocery store. The boy who Augusta aren't even sure have hit puberty yet.
The keywords "stolen" or "taken" did not even begin to cover the impossibility of the situation.
There were no records in the history of the Wizard of Oz, nor the Three Factions of a Sacred Gear jumping hosts with such surgical cleanliness.
"Oshi-sama... that's... is no that," Walburga's voice was a jagged ruin. She was hunched over, her left hand white-knuckled as she gripped the stump where her right hand had been.
Even through the haze of agony, she recognized the resonance. The heat was unmistakable. It was the heat that had nurtured her, the heat that had scorched her enemies by her oshi-sama.
Augusta's face twisted, the lines of her age deepening as a tidal wave of killing intent surged from her body.
"Incinerate Anthem. My... Incinerate Anthem."
The words were a raspy prayer of hatred. She had tried to move on, tried to convince herself that her mastery of elemental magic is sufficient enough for her, she took pride of her arcane in mystic of magic.
But seeing it now, seeing the purple fire respond to someone else's will, broke the last dam of her composure.
"It's mine now," Jay said. His voice was flat, devoid of the theatricality Augusta used as a weapon. It was the voice of a man stating a fundamental law of gravity.
Beside him, Lavinia finally began to stir. The revelation of Glenda's betrayal had left her a ghost in her own skin, her mind trapped in a loop of shattered memories. But the sudden change in temperature, the sheer presence of the heat forced her eyes upward.
Her sapphire gaze, clouded with shock, met the deep hazel eyes of the young man standing before her.
For a heartbeat, the chaos of the room fell away. Lavinia saw a stillness in Jay that she had not seen in any of the magicians of the Grauzauberer.
Jay gave her a brief, silent nod of acknowledgment before his attention snapped back to the Witch of the East.
Augusta let out a sudden, bark-like laugh that echoed off the reinforced walls.
"Kukuku! I searched the world for a ghost, only for the thief to walk right into my parlor. How the fate of the world delights in its own irony." She laughed, and then continued. " But I must give you props for your bravery, boy. To stand before the rightful owner of what you stole... you either have a death wish or an ego that dwarfs even the Great Red."
Augusta did not wait for a response. Around her, twenty magic circles manifested in a synchronized rotation, humming like high-performance turbines.
From the centers of these circles, dozens of giant flaming spears with each of them being the size of a ballista bolt, lunged toward Jay. They moved with the speed of sound, a barrage designed to incinerate anything in their path.
Jay did not move. He did not even flinch. He simply enclasped his hand.
With a soft flicker of purple embers, the air in front of him groaned. The space itself seemed to tear, a jagged rift of darkness appearing for a microsecond. The flaming spears did not hit parried or hit a barrier magic, they were simply deleted.
They vanished into the fold of the space, ceasing to exist before they could even singe a thread of his clothing.
Augusta's eyes widened before it became serious. 'So that is indeed Spatial Magic. The same spell that severed Walburga's hand. But where are the circles? Where is the incantation?'
Even for a master magician, the concept of performing high-tier spatial manipulation like that without a single magic activation circle was unthinkable. It defied the logic of the arcane.
It suggested a level of internal calculation that was beyond human capability. 'Or is he not human?' the thought flickered through her mind, but she had no time to process it.
Jay was gone.
The purple embers at his feet swirled, and in a blink, he activate Voidwalker to bypass the distance between them and reappeared directly behind Augusta.
The old witch reacted with the honed instincts of a veteran, her body dissolving into a gust of wind to dodge his reaching hand.
But Jay was never aiming for her.
His hand shot out, grabbing Walburga by the neck before she could even register his movement. The girl, already weakened by the loss of her hand, let out a strangled yelp.
She tried to teleport, tried to summon her broom, but Jay's fingers were infused with enchantment magic locking her in place making her efforts resulted to nothing. He hoisted her small body into the air and suspending her in the air by the throat.
Augusta, now floating several meters away now attacking in fury. She opened dozens of magical seals, firing beams of concentrated mana at Jay. He did not let go of Walburga. Instead, he simply adjusted his stance, the space around him tearing repeatedly as Rupture deleted every incoming attack.
"Oshi-sama! Help me! Please!" Walburga clawed at Jay's wrist with her remaining hand, her face turning a bruised shade of violet. Her earlier sadism and playful mannerisms had vanished, replaced by a raw pathetic terror. "I don't want to die! Not like this! Stop it! You're hurting me! Please, let me go!"
Jay stared back at her, his hazel eyes cold. There was no pleasure in his gaze, only a heavy, weary judgment. "You laughed while you watched these people turned into monsters. You found it adorable."
"It was just joking! I was just following orders!" Walburga shrieked, her voice cracking as the pressure on her windpipe increased. Tears of pure fear streamed down her face, mixing with the blood from her missing hand. "I'll do anything! I'll tell you everything! Please, don't burn me! I'm scared of the dark! Oshi-sama, save me! SAVE ME!"
Augusta looked at her student for a brief moment, but she did not stop her barrage. If anything, she used Walburga as a stationary target to better aim her spells. To Augusta, the girl was already a lost asset.
"She won't save you," Jay said, his voice a low vibration that seemed to rumble through Walburga's very bones. "She doesn't even see you as human."
"NO! NO, PLEASE! KYUN KYUN! I'LL BE A GOOD GIRL! I PROMISE! ARGH—"
Her plea was cut short as Jay's palm began to glow with a deep incandescent violet.
"This is for the families you helped destroy," Jay whispered.
A blazing surge of purple flame erupted. It was not a slow burn, it was an instantaneous conversion of matter into energy.
Walburga's scream became a high-pitched, soul-shredding sound that filled the entire bunker, a final testament to her cruelty. Her body arched, her skin turning translucent before it crumbled like burnt paper. The purple flames roared, consuming her flesh, bones, and her very soul.
In less than three seconds, all that remained of the girl who had terrorized countless of people with her magic was a handful of gray ash that scattered across the frozen floor, melting the ice where it landed.
The room fell into a stunned silence. Even Augusta was momentarily paralyzed, watching the ashes of her protégé settle. Lavinia looked on with wide eyes, the brutal efficiency of Jay's execution shocking her back into reality.
Jay looked at Augusta, his gaze steady.
"You... What do you think about human life?"
Augusta did not answer. There was no sadness in her eyes, no grief for the girl she had mentored. There was only a cold and calculating rage.
That was all Jay needed to see. The woman in front of him doesn't care at all about human connection, or even human in general.
"Tsk," Augusta spat, her mana flaring to a new, dangerous peak. "You talk of human life as if it has intrinsic value beyond its use as a vessel for power!"
The battle reignited with a violent intensity. Augusta lunged, her mastery of the elements allowing her to move with the fluid grace of water in the air using wind magic.
"Aeolian Razors!" Augusta shouted, her voice carrying a distorted resonance. Hundreds of invisible wind blades of compressed air filled the room, moving in a chaotic unpredictable pattern.
They were designed to bypass physical armor, cutting through any barriers that trying to stop it of the target.
Jay reacted instantly, he activate Rupture as it tearing the space in a semi-circle around him. The air blades hit the spatial rift and vanished, but Augusta was already moving.
"Lithic Spikes of the Third Circle!"
From the concrete floor beneath Jay, massive pillars of jagged rock erupted. These were not mere stone, they were infused with gravity magic that made them as dense as neutron stars. Jay used Voidwalker to blink thirty feet into the air, but Augusta was waiting for him.
"Solar Flare, Coronal Discharge!"
She raised her hand, and a miniature sun manifested between them. It was not the purple flame of the Anthem, but a white-hot elemental fire that blinded the senses. The heat was so intense that the walls of the bunker began to sag.
But Jay just swing his hand in the air and Rupture consumed the sun without it even completely manifested.
"Is that the only spell you got!?" Augusta taunted, her robes billowing as she hovered in the center of the inferno. "You possess one the most powerful Sacred Gears in existence, yet you wield it like a torch-bearer! You are a child playing with a god's weapon! "
Jay get in Augusta's nerves as even though he have Incinerate Anthem, he doesn't even use it frequently.
Jay blinked behind her, sending a concentrated Rupture toward her spine. Augusta sensed the distortion and pivoted, her hand glowing with a dull amber light.
"Heavenfalls!"
She slapped the air, and suddenly, the gravity around Jay increased a hundredfold. His feet slammed into the floor, the reinforced concrete shattering under the sudden weight.
He struggled to lift his hand as his muscles screaming under the pressure.
"I have mastered the world beneath our feet and the sky above our heads!" Augusta screamed, her face a mask of megalomania. "You are nothing but an ant in front of me boy!"
Jay breathed heavily, his hazel eyes glowing with a defiant intensity. He focused his mana as the purple embers around him spinning faster and faster until they formed a protective shell that began to push back against the gravitational anchor making Augusta widened his eyes.
"You talk too much," Jay said, his voice strained but steady.
Augusta, realizing that Jay was breaking her spell changed tactics. She waved her hand toward the back of the room, where the failed Utsusemi stood.
"Go! Kill him! Tear him apart! Show him the beauty of my research!" she commanded.
Dozens of the giant abominations, the twisted chimeras of human flesh and bone roared in a cacophony of disjointed voices. They lunged toward Jay, their massive, lumpy bodies moving with a surprising, predatory speed.
Jay hesitated. His mind raced as the monsters closed in.
If Augusta's words were true, then these were not just a mindless monsters. They were innocent people, their souls imprisoned within a nightmare of twisted biology of Sacred Gears experiement. He could not simply incinerate them as he had Walburga.
In that moment of hesitation, Jay turned his back to Augusta and looked at Lavinia.
"Can you please freeze and immobilize them?" Jay said with a cold tone, but there is hesitation and cautiousness behind it.
The request acted as a jolt to Lavinia's system. She looked at the approaching abominations, then at Jay. She did not know who he was or how he had Incinerate Anthem, but the plea to protect the innocent resonated with the core of her being.
She nodded, her hands still trembling as she raised her wand.
The Absolute Demise regained the light in its six eyes. With a sweep of its four arms, a frozen field erupted from the floor, snaking around the legs of the monsters.
The ice climbed their torsos, anchoring them to the ground without piercing their vital organs. It was a delicate, precise use of magic that required immense focus.
"Thank you!" Jay called out.
But the reprieve was short-lived. One of the larger abominations, a mass of muscle with multiple dog-like heads spat a projectile of molten lava. It was a concentrated blast that hissed through the air.
Jay did not dodge, he stood his ground as a wall of purple embers rising to meet the lava. The heat of the Incinerate Anthem was so intense that it turned the lava back into harmless steam in a split second.
Using the distraction, Jay blinked. He appeared beside Augusta and sent a heavy, enchantment-boosted kick toward her side. Augusta parried with a shimmering translucent barrier, the impact sending a shockwave that shattered the surrounding ice into a cloud of sparkling dust.
They traded blows in the air, a blur of violet sparks and amber light. Jay was a brilliant star of violet light as his body glowing faintly appearing and disappearing, while Augusta was a fortress of defensive spells, barely holding her ground but refusing to break.
As they fought, Augusta's mind was racing. 'He has not activated it yet. The physical manifestation of the Longinus... the Balance Breaker. He is fighting me with the Incinerate Anthem base mode and spatial tricks, yet I am being pushed back. Is he still holding back? Are you kidding me?'
Her pride, already wounded, began to fester into a blind desperate rage. She saw an opening as Jay landed from a blink.
She did not aim for him. She aimed for the girl who was currently distracted by the monsters.
"Shit!" Jay hissed, realizing Augusta's eyes had shifted toward Lavinia.
Lavinia was focused on maintaining the ice prison for the abominations, her back turned to the old witch. She sensed the danger too late.
Augusta let loose a dangerous, black magic circle from her hand. It was not elemental.
It was an ominous, swirling pattern that felt like an open grave.
Darkness magic.
"You have lost! Now!" Augusta screamed.
In an instant, the enormous black circle developed beneath Lavinia's feet. Bizarre, oily magical power overflowed from the rift climbing her legs and covering her body like a shroud of ink. Lavinia had no time to resist, the mental shock she had suffered earlier had left her spiritual defenses paper-thin.
As Lavinia was enveloped by the deep black magic, a horrifying change befell Augusta. The old witch's body began to glow, her physical form dissolving into a brilliant concentrated orb of light.
The orb of light then shot and colliding with the black shroud surrounding Lavinia. The light went inside the girl, vanishing into the darkness of the ink-like mana.
The black circle vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The ink-like energy died out, and Lavinia collapsed to the ground as her blonde hair fanning out across the white floor.
Jay stopped, his heart hammering against his ribs. "What just happened!?"
A long, heavy moment of silence passed. Then, Lavinia's body began to move. She pushed herself up from the floor, but her movements were different.
It was sharper, more deliberate. Her head remained lowered, her face hidden by her bangs.
Then, a laugh broke the silence.
"Ahahah! Ahahahah!"
It was a loud, boisterous laugh, filled with a coarse triumphant energy that was entirely unthinkable for the quiet composed Lavinia Reni.
Lavinia, or what occupied her body then turned her face toward Jay. Her sapphire eyes now filled with unfamiliar piercing hostility and predatory gleam stared at Jay.
She stood up, brushing the dust from her dress with Augusta's characteristic arrogance.
"Too bad for you, boy," the voice coming from Lavinia's lips was a distorted blend of the girl's soft tones and Augusta's raspy edge. "I have taken this miss's body for myself. A much more suitable vessel for a Witch of the East, don't you think?"
She smiled, a wide ugly expression that did not fit Lavinia's delicate features.
"Now then," Augusta-in-Lavinia stated, her hand reaching out to summon the Ice Doll, which now glowed with a sickly black tint.
"How should we do this? "
Jay felt the temperature in the room drop, and when he thought that things couldn't get any more complicated.