Ring of the Beautiful Princess
At that moment, Shirō suddenly turned his head toward the edge of the valley.
"Hm? Triggered already? Looks like they prepared in advance."
The magic circuits Shirō had laid down possessed two activation methods. One was passive—automatically triggering when someone entered their effective range. The other was active, controlled directly by Shirō himself, since he still retained partial authority over the circuits he had deployed.
It wasn't that he couldn't keep them running continuously. He simply felt it was unnecessary.
After all, he was still a very kind person.
Judging from the timing alone, Shirō easily concluded that the shinobi of Hoshigakure had triggered the circuits themselves.
Because he maintained a faint connection to the array, its activation inevitably drew a portion of his attention.
At the same time, the Star ninja noticed the anomaly as well.
Almost in unison, they manipulated their chakra into tail-like constructs, lashing out toward Shirō!
Faced with the incoming assault, Shirō merely glanced at them coldly. He raised his right hand slightly, revealing the ring on his finger.
The Ring of the Beautiful Princess.
A soft green radiance pierced through the outer shell of his Projection, blooming outward like ripples across water.
"Angelica Catay."
In an instant, the chakra tails rushing toward him dissipated in midair.
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Ring of the Beautiful Princess
Rank: C
Type: Anti-Personnel Noble Phantasm / Boundary Noble Phantasm
Range: 1–10
Maximum Capture: Up to 30 targets
Angelica Catay.
This Noble Phantasm once belonged to Angelica, the beautiful foreign princess who caused Roland of the Twelve Paladins—and his brother Renaud—to fall for her charms. It carried the authority to nullify magical systems.
Later, Bradamante wielded the ring during her battle against the sorcerer Atlantes, using it to rescue her beloved Ruggiero.
Upon release, the Noble Phantasm temporarily elevates Anti-Magic from Rank C to Rank A and grants the auxiliary ability Magic Dispel.
However, since Shirō himself did not possess the Anti-Magic skill, he could only activate the secondary effect.
Magic Dispel.
Using the ability granted by the ring's release, Shirō erased the Star ninja's Peacock Method across a wide area.
That was precisely why he hadn't chosen to use Rule Breaker.
Rule Breaker could achieve a similar effect—and more thoroughly—but it was a single-target Noble Phantasm, and moreover took the form of a dagger. With so many enemies present, it would be far too easy for something to go wrong.
The Ring of the Beautiful Princess was different.
Its wide-area Magic Dispel made it perfectly suited for this battlefield.
And next…
…would come to the slaughter.
A technique that dominates everything becomes a fatal weakness once countered.
The Star ninja were living proof.
With their Peacock Method forcibly dispelled, most of them fell into confusion. Shirō immediately seized the opening, bursting forward toward Star Shadow.
Regardless of how exaggerated the title sounded, the villagers acknowledged him as their leader. That made him the backbone of Hoshigakure.
As long as Star Shadow fell, everything afterward would become much easier.
Naturally, someone who could sit in that position was no ordinary shinobi. His earlier decisions might have been short-sighted, but that was a matter of perspective—not combat ability.
The moment Shirō locked onto him, Star Shadow began retreating rapidly, his hands already forming seals as he attempted to re-cast the Peacock Method.
The others reacted as well.
Yet none of them dared to step forward directly. Instead, they hastily formed seals, gathering chakra to throw out improvised attacks in Shirō's path.
But the Peacock Method cast in such haste posed no threat to Shirō at all. Its speed was sluggish.
Shirō didn't even bother dispelling it. With a few simple leaps, he avoided every strike.
Then, almost like a relay, just as he cleared the attacks of the ordinary Star ninja, the three elders launched their own techniques.
Their chakra was noticeably stronger.
"Tch. Annoying. Dispel."
Shirō stopped dodging and activated Magic Dispel once more, wiping away their attacks and continuing his charge toward Star Shadow.
"Can he use it again?!"
Star Shadow's pupils shrank.
He had assumed it was either a one-time effect or an extremely costly technique.
Who would have thought it could be activated twice so casually?
His hand seals shifted at once, abandoning his original plan to use Sparrow Feather Beast Transformation—a move that consumed enormous chakra. If that were dispelled as well, he would be left nearly empty.
Changing tactics, he quickly condensed a massive chakra tail.
Just as Shirō prepared to dispel again, something unexpected happened.
The chakra tail didn't lash out at him.
Instead, it plunged into the ground in front of Star Shadow, violently tearing upward—
—and sent a massive boulder hurtling toward Shirō.
"What the hell? He can do that too?!"
Shirō dodged swiftly.
But before he could press forward, he realized the surrounding Star ninja had begun copying the maneuver, ripping chunks of stone from the earth and hurling them at him in succession.
"Damn it!"
He couldn't afford another full-area dispel.
The chakra cost was manageable, but the mental strain was significant. He couldn't repeat it indefinitely.
Left with no choice, Shirō weaved between flying rocks while searching for a counter.
He had miscalculated.
His understanding of the Peacock Method was limited to its more conventional applications. He hadn't anticipated this crude but effective adaptation.
This was the price of incomplete preparation.
After dodging for a while, Shirō gritted his teeth and nearly decided to use that move.
The burden would be severe—but better than failure.
Having come this far, how could he retreat now?
Yet just as he was about to act, another boulder forced him aside, the interruption cooling his head.
He immediately abandoned the idea.
His original plan had been to simultaneously release the Dragon Girl's Blood Demon Woman and Astolfo's Magic Flute, overwhelming them in one decisive strike.
But the drawbacks were obvious.
The Blood Demon Woman, being only E-rank, was manageable. Though it consumed a fair amount of chakra, the strain on his magic circuits was still within tolerable limits.
Astolfo's C-rank Magic Flute was another matter entirely.
He had just released a C-rank Noble Phantasm.
Stacking another on top of that would push his body far past its limits.
At best, he would temporarily lose all combat capability.
At worst, his magic circuits could collapse entirely—leaving him crippled.
Even if the latter was unlikely, the former alone was unacceptable.
Even if he wiped out every Star ninja here, what then?
With no allies to protect him, losing combat ability would mean placing his life entirely in the hands of fate.
That was not an option.
Still…
The thought reminded him of a tactic he hadn't used in a very long time.
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