Isori, half-doubting, stared at his restored body. Kanon, snapping back to reality, clung to him, sobbing. Beyond them, Kirihara tested his healed leg with jumps, Sayaka and Tomoe watching through tearful smiles. Further back, Chikara wailed, clutching Koharu, who fought tears as she held her sister.
Miyuki turned at a light thud. Erika, Orochimaru in hand, leapt from the heli.
"Nice work. That magic was unreal," Erika said.
"Before Onii-sama, even Death yields," Miyuki replied. "But that magic…"
"Not Tatsuya's—yours," Erika clarified. "Targeting only enemies like that? Insane. Classic Miyuki."
Erika's genuine praise held no fear. Miyuki's soft smile returned, her usual tone restored. "Thank you."
On the north hill of the Magic Association branch, the invasion force, repelled, rerouted south for a final assault. Hostage-taking abandoned, their dwindling numbers couldn't sustain occupation. Determined to steal magical tech data and kill mages to weaken the nation, they pressed on.
Their armored vehicles and upright tanks, unopposed, suggested the defenders lacked mobility—a correct assumption, the commander thought. Then a soldier, peering from a hatch, looked up at a black shadow overhead. Before identifying it, a bullet pierced his skull.
Frantic radio chatter erupted as machine guns aimed skyward. The Independent Magic-Equipped Battalion's fliers descended from rooftops, unleashing a barrage. The invaders retaliated, blasting buildings into rubble and shredding walls with heavy guns. Yet the black-clad unit's fire never wavered, intensifying from the ruins.
The invaders, gripped by fear of immortal monsters, soon saw the truth. A flier fell, machine-gun fire riddling him. Bulletproof gear spared instant death, but the wound was fatal—until a black-clad figure with twin silver CADs landed. His left hand erased the soldier's wounds; his right turned a three-and-a-half-meter tank to dust.
"Maheshvara!" a scream echoed over the radio.
Panic shattered the invaders' ranks, fear-fueled chaos ending in their annihilation.
In the invasion force's command bridge, a grim air hung heavy.
"The detachment… wiped out?" the commander growled.
The trembling staff officer nodded. "Per reports, an aerial assault by flight-magic troops overwhelmed them."
Silence.
"And… unconfirmed," the officer added, "but Maheshvara was mentioned in their comms."
"Maheshvara?!" Half the bridge's crew gasped.
"Some in the detachment fought three years ago," the officer said.
Three years prior, an unknown demon in Okinawa crushed them. Returned prisoners whispered Maheshvara, a name the Great Asian Alliance's brass denied and banned. A buried nightmare now bared its fangs.
The commander and those aware of Maheshvara wished it a myth, but deep down knew better. Total annihilation without a single survivor's report otherwise made no sense. The drone swarm's destruction and the locust caster's vanishing also pointed to him.
"Confirm Maheshvara's presence immediately," the commander ordered. "Top priority."
The staff officer bolted from the bridge.
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