The air fractured like broken glass.
The spatial distortion closed with a hollow snap—
a ripple of mana collapsing in on itself
and then silence.
Fuegoleon was gone.
Asta stared at the fading shimmer, breath sharp, chest rising and falling with raw disbelief.
"No… no, no—Captain Fuegoleon!!"
Leopold stumbled forward, half-tripping over the broken stone.
"Brother! BROTHER!!"
Noelle couldn't speak. Her throat had locked, her breath shallow.
She could still feel the aftertaste of that spatial break—cold, polished, completely foreign.
Too controlled.
"That wasn't… normal magic," she whispered.
Then—
a panicked voice broke the paralysis.
Rades Spirito was backing away, shaking violently.
"No… no no no no—this wasn't the deal! I didn't agree to fight YOU brats alone!"
Asta turned, rage surging.
"You're not going anywhere!"
Rades spun and bolted.
Asta roared and sprinted after him.
Leopold followed, flames bursting like frantic heartbeats.
"Noelle! Cut him off!"
"I'm here!" she answered, already moving.
The chase began.
Behind them, the battlefield simmered, empty and cracked.
But the shadows were not empty.
A masked figure stepped into the drifting smoke—
black suit, black gloves, black mask,
face completely hidden,
mana completely suppressed.
Lencar.
Unrecognizable.
Untraceable.
He watched the chase with stillness that did not belong in the chaos of war.
"…He's already breaking," he murmured.
Then he moved—quiet as a thought, fast as a shadow.
Rades ran like a man seeing death step on his heels.
Every breath scraped his lungs raw.
His legs felt like failing bones wrapped in shaking meat.
"Why… why does EVERYTHING go wrong today?!"
He turned down a broken street—
—and almost smashed into Noelle's Tide Shield blocking the path.
"Don't test me," she said, voice trembling with anger.
Rades yelped, pivoted, and ran the other way—
Straight into Leopold's flames.
"You're not escaping," Leopold snarled.
Rades' heart nearly stopped.
"No! No no NO! Someone else—go chase someone else!"
He ran again—
just in time to see Asta vault over a collapsed roof and land in front of him.
"You're done running!"
Rades skidded, slipping on dust, falling onto his hands and knees.
"N–No… no—WAIT!! WAIT!! LISTEN, LIST—"
He never finished.
Rades skidded to a stop, panting, just as a ripple passed behind him—soft, almost like air bending around something it shouldn't.
A figure stepped out of that distortion.
Black mask.
Black suit.
No obvious mana.
No presence.
But this time, when he appeared, there was something quietly human behind the mask—a faint shift of breath, a subtle exhale. Not emotionless. Just controlled.
Rades froze.
"Wh–Who are you…?"
The masked man didn't answer.
His head tilted only slightly, as if evaluating Rades' condition, measuring the chaos around them, choosing the most efficient path—not because he didn't feel anything, but because he didn't need words here.
Asta, Noelle, and Leopold arrived behind Rdes, all confused, all startled, all unable to sense him.
The masked figure took one small step.
The world folded.
No sound.
No warning.
No words.
Just movement.
Rades hit the stone ground hard, coughing.
Wind howled violently. Mana tore sideways through the air like sharpened wires.
The masked man appeared through the gusts, coat rustling slightly in the storm.
Rades dragged himself backward.
"P–Please—listen—whoever you are, I don't want to die, okay?! Just—just wait, I can give you something—!"
The masked man remained silent.
His breathing was steady—not cold, just steady.
Focused.
He didn't look angry.
He didn't look cruel.
It was more like he was… sighing internally at the situation.
He stopped a few feet from Rades.
Rades' voice cracked.
"I—I can help—"
One short, quiet word escaped the masked figure:
"…No."
Not harsh.
Not threatening.
Just final.
Rades' eyes widened—
—and then the masked man moved.
A clean step.
A precise shift of weight.
A punch tightened by discipline, not rage.
The strike hit Rades square in the gut—
a sound like compressed air bursting from his lungs as he folded and flew into the wall.
He dropped unconscious instantly.
The masked man shook out his hand softly, not in frustration, but simply because punches carried impact.
"…Should've stayed down," he murmured—quiet, as if the wind might steal the sound.
Not emotionless.
Just tired of unnecessary struggle.
Lencar knelt calmly beside the limp man.
Rades's grimoire lay open, pages fluttering from the violent winds.
The masked man rested two fingers on the cover.
A quiet inhale.
Not excitement.
Not malice.
Just recognition of what he was about to do.
His grimoire drifted up behind him, pages turning with slow, steady rhythm—mirroring his breath.
He spoke softly:
"Absolute Replication."
The effect wasn't dramatic this time.
No roaring vortex.
No burst of power.
Instead, the extraction was clean—silent strands of mana unweaving the original grimoire's structure.
Lencar's heartbeat steadied as he absorbed the necromantic libraries inside.
His expression behind the mask softened for half a second. Not pleasure. More like… completion.
The Demon-Dweller's stored structure clicked into alignment in his mind, filling in missing seams.
"…Good," he whispered.
A rare whisper of satisfaction.
Brief and honest.
The last page dissolved.
Rades' grimoire vanished completely.
The masked figure exhaled gently, letting the storm wind pass through him.
Then he extended one hand.
"Reverse Replication."
Mana threads reversed direction—quiet, controlled, smooth—assembling the destroyed grimoire back into being.
He formed it exactly right down to the scratches, stains, and torn paper edges… so investigators would never notice the replacement.
He set the restored book beside Rades carefully.
Not cruel.
Almost respectful.
"…This keeps attention away from me," he murmured.
A practical truth.
Not heartlessness.
He stood, brushing dust from his coat, and glanced once more at the unconscious necromancer.
No pity.
But no malice either.
Just necessity.
The storm swirled violently as he stepped into a spatial ripple he quietly traced with his gloved fingers.
No flashy exit.
No power flex.
Just a small, efficient movement.
He returned to the capital two streets away from Asta, slipping into the ruined alley's shadows.
In the distance, Asta's voice echoed:
"I don't care who he was—we need to save Fuegoleon!"
The masked figure listened silently.
Not emotionless.
His chest lifted once, subtly, in what could have been a quiet sigh—or something like sympathy.
Then he stepped backward, cloak brushing the wall.
And disappeared into the darkness with a whisper of movement.