The Composite Magic Vector Perception Field did not fade.
Lencar allowed it to expand—not outward in power, but inward in clarity. The lattice of mana lines stabilized around him, invisible yet absolute, translating the capital into layered geometry. Streets became pathways of residual energy. Ruins marked impact points of collapsed spells. Every remaining enchantment hummed at a precise frequency, catalogued the instant it entered his awareness.
And then—
At the farthest edge of perception—
Something brushed against the field.
Clean.
Ordered.
Disciplined.
Lencar's focus snapped toward it.
The lattice stretched, compressed, reconfigured. Distance ceased to be an obstacle and became a variable instead.
There they were.
Far beyond the capital's inner districts, cutting through the air in tight formations, were multiple clusters of high-density mana signatures. Not chaotic like the Eye. Not distorted like necromancy.
These were trained.
Refined.
Captains.
Elite Magic Knights.
They were returning.
Lencar refined the scan, filtering out noise, isolating vectors of movement. Wind-assisted propulsion spells layered over raw flight magic. Spatial relays primed for short-range jumps. Support formations rotating mana buffers to reduce fatigue mid-flight.
They were moving fast.
But not fast enough.
He calculated automatically.
Velocity.
Distance.
Mana expenditure curves.
Fifty kilometers.
Even at maximum output, with relay support, their arrival time was—
"Twenty minutes," Lencar murmured.
Too slow.
He overlaid that calculation with the live combat data at the capital's center. The Eye of the Midnight Sun were no longer pressing aggressively. Their spell vectors had changed orientation—angled not toward dominance, but withdrawal.
Extraction patterns.
Escape geometry.
They were preparing to disengage.
And at the center of their formation—
Asta.
Lencar tracked him instantly. The boy's anti-magic registered as voids in the perception field—empty spaces where mana should have existed, distorting every surrounding vector. The Eye had adjusted their movements around those voids.
Not attacking him directly.
Containing him.
Preparing to take him.
"If they leave with him," Lencar said quietly, "the damage compounds."
The Eye did not need to win.
They only needed to retreat successfully.
Lencar dismissed the Fire Mirror with a controlled thought. The stabilized flames folded inward, collapsing into nothing without heat or sound. His attention shifted fully to the approaching force.
Intervention was no longer optional.
He stepped sideways.
Space folded.
The capital vanished.
The world inverted and compressed, distance collapsing into a single, meaningless point.
Lencar reappeared atop a fractured ridge two kilometers ahead of the returning knights. The land here bore scars of ancient testing grounds—mana burns fused into stone, warped terrain still humming faintly with long-dead enchantments.
The air was clean.
For now.
Below him, the return force advanced in disciplined formation.
Lencar counted without effort.
Multiple captains—each a dense, stable core of mana.
Vice-captains forming secondary nodes.
Elite squads rotating defensive patterns.
Dedicated spatial escorts.
Support mages layered deep, reinforcing stamina and cohesion.
They were alert.
Cautious.
Still carrying the memory of forced displacement earlier in the invasion.
Good.
That meant they would resist.
Lencar raised his hand.
Space magic unfurled—not violently, not explosively, but with surgical intent. He did not form a portal. He shaped a region.
A volume of space bent inward.
Then he layered it.
Shadow magic threaded through the spatial construct, suppressing visibility, distorting depth perception, severing reliable horizons. Concealment magic followed, damping mana signatures, scrambling directional awareness, dulling the instinctive sense of "here" and "there."
The three magics did not interfere.
They synchronized.
A Composite Spatial Vortex began to form.
From the knights' perspective, reality twisted.
The ground appeared to slope at impossible angles. The sky folded inward, stars smearing into elongated arcs. Mana readings spiked and collapsed as spatial reference points destabilized.
Instantly, the captains reacted.
Orders were shouted.
Barrier spells erupted in overlapping layers.
Counter-space constructs flared violently.
Anchoring magic slammed into the earth, locking positions with brute force.
They fought it.
As Lencar expected.
Their instincts screamed trap.
Their memories remembered separation—being torn from the capital while it burned.
They would not allow it again.
Resistance surged.
The vortex trembled.
Space buckled under opposing forces.
Lencar watched calmly.
"Correct response," he noted.
Then he increased pressure.
Mana flooded the construct—not recklessly, not explosively—but in overwhelming, controlled volume. His Replica core supplied the output effortlessly, hundreds of absorbed spells stabilizing the flow, distributing strain across layers of borrowed theory.
Spatial anchors cracked.
Barriers fractured.
Shadow threads slipped through defensive formations, not breaking spells but sliding between them, unraveling cohesion. Concealment magic shaved reaction times by fractions of seconds—enough.
The captains realized the truth too late.
This was not displacement.
This was forced convergence.
Lencar clenched his fist.
Space collapsed.
The entire formation—captains, elites, escorts, support units—was torn free from its trajectory. Distance folded inward violently, compressing kilometers into nothing.
The world inverted.
Mana screamed.
Then—
They were gone.
The ridge fell silent.
Lencar released the construct and turned his attention back toward the capital. The Composite Magic Vector Perception Field remained active, expanding automatically to accommodate the sudden spatial shift.
He felt the mass arrival before it completed.
At the capital's center—
Mana detonated outward.
Dozens of elite signatures slammed into the battlefield simultaneously, their sudden presence shattering escape vectors, collapsing extraction geometries, destabilizing every contingency the Eye had prepared.
The cultists froze.
Their retreat failed.
Spatial anchors misfired.
Routes vanished.
Their advantage—gone.
Lencar observed from the shadows between space itself.
He did not smile.
He did not speak.
He simply watched the battlefield tilt decisively toward order.
And somewhere below—
Asta looked up.
Not at the captains.
Not at the Eye.
But at the sudden absence of escape.
The capital no longer screamed.
And now—
It would not let its enemies leave.