The silence that followed the transformation was more suffocating than the cold. Jay stood motionless, his hazel eyes fixed on the girl who had been his ally only moments ago.
Lavinia's body stood tall, but the posture was wrong. The grace was replaced by a rigid, haughty stance that belonged to a different person. When she looked up, the sapphire eyes were clouded by a swirling, oily darkness, and the smile that spread across her face was a jagged ugly thing that marred her delicate features.
"Do you see, boy?" Augusta's voice, now a haunting, layered resonance of her own rasp and Lavinia's melodic tone, echoed through the chamber.
"This is the true peak of the arcane."
Jay didn't respond immediately. His mind was a whirlwind of tactical analysis, but for the first time since he had arrived in this world, he felt the cold bite of genuine limitation.
'A possession magic, huh... Now this is complicated' He thought. He had seen it in of the magic books in the realms of Darkness Magic. It was one of the Forbidden ones, said to condemned even in the magical world.
He reached into his mental library, tracing the patterns of every spell he had mastered, every technique he had absorbed and every magic he had learnt during his time in Glenda's library.
He searched for extraction spells, for soul-binding reversals, for non-lethal stasis fields. But as the seconds ticked by, a grim realization settled in his gut.
Everything he owned was a weapon of destruction in some kind. Rupture was designed to delete existence from its current plane. And his other Spatial Magic such as Voidwalker, Teleportation, and Domain of his Own is all mobility type. Incinerate Anthem was designed to burn, simple as that.
' True Cross... ' He thought about it, but even he not sure if that can do.
"Possession magic is forbidden even in the Oz," Jay finally said, his voice dropping to a dangerous octave.
"Hoo~, so you are from the Emerald City after all. Where are you from boy, let me guess... The south?" Augusta asked, nailed it. Meanwhile Jay just ignored her.
" I suppose the Witch of the East has been hiding more than just a few experiments. So this is the Darkness magic that Glenda traded for her Sacred Gears research?" Jay asked. He didn't know what Glenda intending by mastering this kind of abomination but it must be connected to on why she researching about Independent Avatar-type Sacred Gears in the first place.
"So you know her, ah~... I see it now, so that is the reason you interrupting my fight with the princess. Now it all makes sense. " Augusta nodded before anger engulfed her.
" But for that bitch to send you here, is she not care about the consequences of breaching the contract? I know that rat would betray me... " Augusta grunting.
" You misunderstand something Augusta, Glenda never sent me here, nor she betray you... After all you said it yourself that Magician only cares about themselves. Or is that not true anymore? " Jay taunting her.
Which Augusta just laughed and the sound was like glass breaking in a cathedral.
"Kukuku, You are right... But since you know so much about magic, then you must be wondering right now how to kill me, right boy?~" She then continued, hands on her or Lavinia chest.
"You face a dilemma now, you little thief. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy this precious vessel. You must reach through her heart to get to mine. Can you do it? Can you kill the girl?"
"Another lie," Jay countered, though the conviction in his voice felt thin even to his own ears.
"Kukuku, you are in denial," Augusta mocked, using Lavinia's hand to brush a stray lock of blonde hair behind her ear. It was a gesture of such casual intimacy that it made Jay's skin crawl. "You know nothing of Soul Magic. This is such delicate arcane that brutes like you couldn't comprehend no matter how much time you spent on magic."
She continued. "But I am the architect of this body now. Every nerve, every drop of mana, belongs to me. You cannot separate us!"
Augusta didn't wait for his conflict to resolve. She raised Lavinia's wand, and the Absolute Demise, the four-armed Ice Doll surged forward. The doll had changed along with its master.
Its crystalline surface was now veined with the same oily black mana that filled Lavinia's eyes, and its movements were twice as fast, twice as violent.
The doll swung a massive ice sword at Jay's head. He didn't move. He didn't even raise a hand to parry. Instead, his body began to glow with a faint, shimmering violet hue.
Phantasmagoria.
The ice blade passed through Jay's neck as if he were made of smoke. The doll's momentum carried it past him, its sword buried deep into the reinforced concrete of the back wall.
Augusta narrowed her eyes, her brow furrowing in concentration. She had seen many defensive spells, but the sheer lack of physical interaction was baffling. She watched as Jay turned toward her, his form flickering like a dying violet embers.
In a heartbeat, Jay used Voidwalker to blink. He reappeared directly behind Augusta, his hand reaching out for the back of Lavinia's neck. He intended to use an enchantment to put the body into a deep sleep, hoping it would weaken the possession.
But Augusta was a master of sensory magic and combining with Lavinia very high affinity to Mana. She didn't need to see him as she felt the displacement of the air.
Grinning, she didn't even turn around. She stomped her wand and a massive burst wave of jagged ice erupted in every direction. It was a 360-degree defense, a wave of frozen spears intended to catch Jay off guard before he could touch her.
Jay reacted by flaring his Incinerate Anthem. The purple flames acted as an active barrier blazing in his body, melting the ice into steam the moment it came within inches of his skin.
But as he lunged forward, Augusta's control over the Ice Doll proved superior. Before his hand could reach her, the doll appeared between them and its four arms swinging four separate blades of black-tinted ice with incredible speed.
Jay had no choice.
Phantasmagoria.
The blades whistled through his torso, his head, and his limbs.
In this state, Jay was invincible as there is no physical or magical attack in the world could touch him.
He moved straight through the Ice Doll simultaneously stepping toward Augusta like a ghost passing through a wall. But as his hand passed through Augusta's shoulder, his hand just goes through her. He couldn't touch her either.
His hand simply slid through her physical form.
"Tsk," Jay hissed, sliding several feet away and deactivating the intangibility.
"Kukuku! So that's how it is!" Augusta cackled, pointing her wand at him. "A perfect defense, but a useless offense!"
Jay ignored the taunt, his mind already adjusting. He couldn't stay intangible and win, but he could use it to bait her.
The Ice Doll rushed him again. This time, Jay engaged in a high-speed dance of spatial tears and violet embers. Every time the doll swung, Jay would flicker into intangibility for a microsecond, just long enough for the blade to pass before solidifying and sending a Rupture toward the doll's joints.
The battle became a blur of violet and black.
The doll was a whirlwind of blades, its four arms creating a zone of death that no ordinary magician could survive. Jay was a ghost in the machine, dodging through gaps that didn't exist as his Rupture cracks appearing and disappearing like lightning.
"You're too slow!" Augusta screamed, her mana flaring as she pushed the doll to its absolute limit. "The girl's mana is infinite compared to my body! I can do this for an eternity!" She taunting, trying to intimidate Jay.
After minutes of the exhausting exchange, Jay saw his opening.
The Ice Doll lunged for a massive overhead strike with all four swords. It was a move designed to crush him, but it left the doll's center of gravity exposed.
Jay didn't blink away. He stood his ground and activated three Ruptures simultaneously.
The first two deleted nothing but air, but the third caught the doll's left leg just above the knee. The space jagged and the limb was simply gone. The massive construct suddenly unbalanced then tilted forward.
Augusta's eyes widened in shock. "Impossible!"
She reacted with a desperate flurry, activating thirty magic circles in a grand arc. Projectiles of fire, earth, lightning and wind rained down on Jay, while the Absolute Demise unleashed a wave burst of ice traveling hundreds of miles per hour, a literal tsunami of frost rushing toward him.
Jay didn't flinch. He planted his feet and raised both hands.
"Incinerate," he commanded.
A wave of blazing purple fire erupted from his palms, matching the scale of Augusta's ice. It wasn't just a flame, it was a wall of absolute heat that consumed everything in its path.
The ice turned to steam while the stone projectiles melted into slag, and the room was filled with the deafening roar of warring elements.
Augusta staggered back, shielding her face from the radiant heat. 'How?' she thought, her mind reeling. 'How is he already this advanced? It hasn't even been four months since the Anthem was stolen! His control... his output... it shouldn't be possible for a human!'
Jay didn't give her time to analyze him. He reached into his pocket dimension and pulled out a long, platinum blade.
Sister Andrea's sword.
The moment the steel touched the air, Jay engulfed it in his purple flames. The sword didn't melt. Instead, the fire clung to the blade like a second skin, extending its reach and sharpening its edge to a molecular level.
Jay blinked.
He appeared in front of the staggered Ice Doll. With a single, fluid sweep, he cut through all four of the construct's arms. It was like a hot knife through butter. The black-tinted ice offered no resistance to the purified purple flames.
The doll let out a silent, crystalline scream as its prowess was stripped away. Jay didn't stop. He plunged the flaming sword directly into the doll's chest, where the core was located.
"Incinerate," Jay whispered again.
An enormous explosion of purple fire erupted from the point of impact.
The doll didn't just break, it disintegrated. It was consumed from the inside out, turning into ice particles, snow, water, and finally a thick white steam that filled the entire room, obscuring everything in a ghostly fog.
Jay emerged from the steam, his sword still blazing with violet light. His chest heaved slightly, the exertion of the fight finally starting to show.
He looked toward the spot where Augusta stood, his mind already calculating the next move.
'The doll is gone,' Jay thought. 'The strain on Lavinia's mana must be immense. If I can catch her now, I can knock her out. Then I'll find a way to get that parasite out of her.'
But his thoughts were interrupted by a sound that made his blood run cold.
It was laughter.
"Kukukuku... hahahaha!" Augusta's voice rose from the fog, laden with a manic, cornered desperation.
The steam cleared, revealing Augusta in Lavinia's body, leaning against her wand. She looked exhausted, her breath coming in ragged gasps, but the look in her eyes was one of pure, unadulterated madness.
"I never thought I would be cornered like this by a mere child," she said, her voice trembling with rage. "You are a monster, boy. A freak of nature. But if it has already come to this, then I have no choice. It was your fault! Do you hear me? Your fault that it comes to this!"
Jay prepared to teleport, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword. "It's over, Augusta. Give up the body."
Suddenly, Jay's eyes widened. The very fabric of the air around him began to shake.
He felt his own domain, the spatial stability he maintained through his mana being torn to pieces. It wasn't a physical attack, it was another spatial magic overriding the coordinates of the bunker.
'What? She's hijacking the space?'
A massive magic activation circle, larger than any he had ever seen activated by Augusta blossomed across the entire floor of the room. It glowed with a blinding, sickly white light that drowned out the purple embers.
"What are you planning to do?" Jay demanded, trying to find a tether in the shifting space.
Augusta looked at him, her face twisted into a grin that was terrifying to behold on Lavinia's face. "You care so much about human lives, don't you? Well then, let's test that resolve on a larger scale!!"
Jay widened his eyes.
"Don't tell me—"
"TELEPORT!" Augusta shrieked.
The world vanished in a flash of white.
When Jay's vision cleared, the cold was different. It wasn't the artificial, enclosed cold of the bunker. It was the biting, expansive chill of the open air.
He looked around and realized he was standing on the jagged peak of a mountain. The wind howled around him, whipping his hair into his eyes.
Below him, stretching out like a sea of lights against the dark horizon, was a city. A massive, sprawling metropolis, unaware of the two beings standing on the heights above it.
Jay looked at Augusta. She stood a few dozen meters away, her arms outstretched, her head thrown back as the blizzard began to pick up speed around her.
"If I can't kill you," Augusta screamed over the roar of the wind, "then let's die together with every soul in that city! I will turn this entire region into a blizzard of the Ice World! I will freeze their hearts, their blood, and their very memories until there is nothing left but a monument of frost!"
"Du-te dracu," Jay cursed in Romanian, the word lost in the gale.
Purple blazing flames erupted from his back like wings, his mana flaring to its absolute limit. His mind raced at a speed that felt like it was breaking.
He had never constructed a magic circle on the go but he needed something to contain this mess. He had to stop her or the city below would become a frozen mass grave.
He saw Augusta beginning to chant, her hands weaving a complex forbidden pattern in the air. The mana she was drawing wasn't just hers, she was burning through Lavinia's life force to fuel the spell.
"Balance Breaker..." She whispered.
Across from him, Augusta's voice reached a fever pitch as her mana turning the snow around her into shards of lethal glass.
"Spatial Magic..." Jay continued, his hands beginning to glow with a void-like darkness.
But Augusta was faster. She slammed her wand onto the frozen ground, and the world turned white.
"Assolute Argento Mondo!"
The world turned white.