The Royal Capital was a graveyard of magic.
The undead were gone.
The screams had faded.
The spatial distortions had stopped.
But mana still lingered—thick, chaotic, almost metallic in the air. Every broken street held echoes of recent violence. Every scorched wall hummed with leftover spells.
For most mages, it would feel overwhelming.
For Lencar, walking through it felt like moving through a memory.
Because this was not the first battlefield he had crossed alone.
And it would not be the last.
The mist trailed behind him in thin ribbons as he stepped out of a collapsed archway and into one of the capital's wide main avenues. What used to be white stone roads were now cracked and charred, almost unrecognizable.
A squadron of Magic Knights lay scattered here—ten of them.
Unconscious.
Exhausted.
Alive.
Barely.
Lencar's footsteps made no sound as he approached the nearest one.
A man with lightning magic, judging by the faint residual sparks across his arms.
His grimoire lay open beside him, its pages twitching and humming weakly, trying to remain active even as its wielder lay unconscious.
Lencar knelt.
His shadow fell over the knight, the faint glow of remaining lightning reflecting off the white mask.
He extended his hand.
The grimoire reacted instantly—flaring, sensing danger—
But Absolute Replication didn't give it time to resist.
A gentle pulse of Replica mana circled his palm like a ring, expanding outward until it wrapped around the book. There was no force. No violence. No tearing sound.
Just a quiet, soft—
"…"
Fwoom.
The grimoire vanished.
Lightning spells crackled faintly across Lencar's fingers as they absorbed into his system:
• bolt spheres
• paralyzer shocks
• electric armor
• chain lightning
• thunder-step accelerated movement
• and a rare technique: "Static Field Cage," a prison of conductive mana
The spells settled into neat rows within his Replica core, aligning themselves with the wind, earth, water, and fire techniques he had already taken.
He exhaled once, long and slow.
Then rebuilt the grimoire in a flash of quiet Reverse Replication.
He placed it beside the knight exactly as it had been.
No one watching would have noticed a thing.
If anyone ever woke up and saw him—they would only see a masked figure kneeling beside them.
But no one ever woke during the process.
Not a single mage.
Not a single guard.
Not a single noble.
Fear didn't wake them.
Pain didn't wake them.
His mana never disturbed them.
Lencar worked like a surgeon operating in utter silence.
Outside the noble district, closer to the commoner region, the damage was even worse.
What had once been wide commercial streets were now field hospitals without healers. Half the buildings were smashed. Market stalls torn apart. Rubble everywhere.
And in the middle of it—
Dozens of mages and guards had collapsed in a single defensive line, their grimoires scattered.
Lencar took in the sight silently.
No emotion.
No judgment.
Just understanding.
If he didn't act now, these grimoires would be stolen, broken, or corrupted.
He stepped forward.
And the harvest began again.
---
Fire mages
He absorbed:
• rapid-burst flame shots
• magma infusion
• flame armor
• heatwave concussion blasts
Returned.
---
Ice mages
He absorbed:
• ice binders
• cryo-haze stealth
• freezing pressure fields
• frost-shard lances
Returned.
---
Beast magic users
He absorbed:
• spirit claw constructs
• temporary physical buffs
• tracking-enhancement spells
• primal fear illusions
Returned.
---
Barrier mages
He absorbed:
• solid mana domes
• reflect shields
• dispersion walls
• compression barriers
Returned.
---
A rare gravity mage
He absorbed:
• local gravity increases
• mana-weight fields
• force push
• inertial damping
Returned.
---
A spatial-artifacts mage
He absorbed:
• pocket storage spells
• limited space-fold techniques
• short-range blink-step formulae
Returned.
---
The spells stacked inside him like an expanding library of combat theory.
At the final open plaza, he found the largest single cluster yet—forty mages lying across cracked tiles.
Their grimoires were still open from the battle.
Asta had fought here.
Noelle had fought here.
Leopold had fought here.
Lencar recognized their mana residue instantly.
He stood at the edge of the plaza.
Mist curled around his feet in a slow, spiraling ring—as if his mana was responding to the sheer amount of magical energy in the air.
He walked forward.
And one by one…
He devoured every grimoire.
Extracted every spell.
Recreated every book.
Returned each one without leaving a single mark.
Even for forty grimoires, he worked with absolute calm and control.
Two seconds per mage.
One second to devour.
One second to recreate.
Forty grimoires.
Eighty seconds.
His Replica core expanded again.
And again.
And again.
Until finally—
He stood at the center of the plaza.
Silent.
Still.
His mana quiet but impossibly dense.
The night wind shifted.
Time passed.
He lifted his head.
"…Almost done."
Then turned toward the final sector he had yet to inspect—the ruins closer to the castle district.
And walked forward.
The capital was not quiet.
But it no longer screamed.
Lencar intended to keep it that way.