[91] Master and Servant Reversed (2)
Canis, dodging the blinding flashes of the rampaging photon cannon, had never felt so thrown off. Why wouldn't it tire? It was as if the limit of his mental endurance had been severed.
- Harvi! At this rate we'll lose!
No reply came from Harvist. That was ominous—there had never been silence like this before. And there was no reason for it. Canis knew better than anyone that a magical creature wouldn't go mute in the middle of a fight just because it was in a foul mood.
- Harvist! Answer me!
A photon cannon brushed past Canis as he strained his mental channel. He twisted his waist hastily, but it was clearly a late reaction. He hadn't dodged it—he'd failed to hit it.
"What the—?"
About ten flashes burst from Shirone. Yet even this time the aim wasn't precise. Canis finally understood: the countless flashes were eradicating every patch of darkness Dark Port could use to move.
'This insane—!'
If he couldn't hit it, the plan was to pin it down and beat it. Reasonable, but crude. Shirone had already fired over two hundred photon cannons—magic that chews through mental strength. And yet instead of tiring, the number of flashes kept increasing.
'How huge is that mental strength?'
A chill ran down his spine. When dozens of photon cannons filled Canis's vision, despair rose in him. The clusters of flashes were sealing off every route Dark Port could take.
'This is unavoidable. It's over.'
Anger and bitterness boiled up. More than death, he feared that his teacher would see him fall to a mage.
- Annoying. Viltor Arkein.
- Harvist?
For the first time since the aerial battle began, the mental channel opened. Harvist put itself between them and took the photon cannon into its body. The continuous shockwaves made the magical creature's whole form tremble and emit grotesque groans.
Judging surface absorption insufficient, Harvist opened itself wide and swallowed the photon cannon whole. Its frame convulsed, the once-slim waist ballooning like a beast's. It activated full internal absorption and began digesting the photons. Slowly its body contracted and returned to its original shape.
"Ugh…!"
Canis bent over, stunned. Harvist had been able to absorb the photon cannon because it drew on his mental power. But siphoning power without consent—borrowing strength arbitrarily—was impossible under the master-servant contract.
- Harvist?
- Get a hold of yourself and prepare!
Having drained Canis's mental reserves dry, Harvist leapt at Shirone and slashed with its claws. Unaccustomed to close combat, Shirone was driven into a corner. Harvist's speed was so keen it matched Shirone's teleportation dodges. How was this possible? It even seemed far stronger than Canis.
Etella, who had the same thought as Shirone, glanced at Viltor Arkein. The cold, emotionless way he watched the fight revealed the whole truth.
'Viltor Arkein. You really are a cruel man.'
The reason Arkein had attached the supreme magical creature to Canis wasn't love for his disciple. To a man burned by revenge, a disciple was merely expendable—a tool to realize his will. Canis had been fuel to maximize Harvist's might. That was Canis's raison d'être.
The faster Shirone chained his teleports, the more agile Harvist became. Canis's face went corpse-pale. With his mental energy thoroughly bled, he couldn't even think. Only echoes of betrayal and loss rang in his head.
- Harvist. Why?
Only silence answered. The light left Canis's eyes as he realized who his true master had been. Memories flashed past like a lantern show and tears welled up.
Shirone made for the ground. Blood ran from a wound as if cut by a blade.
'Photon cannons won't work. There's hardly any time left before the Immortal Function fully opens.'
Canis, carried down with Harvist, put his hands on the ground. His pupils were unfocused. Harvist paid him no mind and charged Shirone. Shirone had to finish the fight before Canis's mental reserves hit zero.
Dodging razor-sharp claw strikes, Shirone thought: only moments ago he had the upper hand—now everything had been overturned.
The reversal of master and servant.
Harvist, once only Canis's support, had stepped to the forefront and changed the fight. A magical creature without the fear of death—what could be trickier on a battlefield? It was a war machine that fed on the life in the fuel tank called Canis.
'A war machine...?'
Shirone snapped to a realization he had missed under Harvist's cunning intelligence. The master-servant reversal meant something simple: the enemy had shifted from a living being to a non-living one. Then naturally the magic used against it must change too.
Shirone scrapped the photon cannon and cast Photon Output. The danger of the photon cannon lay in its destructive physical impact on living bodies. But physical force was irrelevant to the lifeless Harvist. If it specialized in absorbing energy, Shirone only had to overwhelm it with energy beyond its limits.
Photon Output was pure magic with no mass, freer to wield than a photon cannon. Moreover, the Immortal Function was still active. Shirone channeled one hundred percent efficiency through the school's three hundred holographic projectors, concentrating his power into a single point. A beam large enough to engulf a person fired forth.
"Kaaaargh!"
Harvist was driven back as if buried in light. Though immune to light, its dark-matter body smoked and seethed. The photon's properties couldn't harm it—only the energy carried by the photons could eat away at it.
'I need stronger energy.'
Shirone remembered the emblematic formula of photonization theory: energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light. The god particle is the cell that grants mass. If so, reversing the formula to convert mass into energy might be possible.
He reconfigured Photon Output's battery around mass. Combined with the Immortal Function's omnipotence, mass began converting to energy in real time. The thrill when theory and reality meshed perfectly was unmatched; stepping into an unknown realm, Shirone shivered.
"W-what is that?"
Everyone watching the fight widened their eyes. Photon Output thinned and glowed a blood-red. Whatever this magic was, its color alone felt threatening.
Iruki recalled a story his father—the head of the mine fleet—had told him about a certain light phenomenon.
"Is that… a laser?"
"A laser? What's that?"
"It's light energy amplified to an extreme. The ultimate evolution of flash-type magic. But how is that possible?"
A laser isn't about talent or effort—it's brute force. You needed at least ten years of mental rebound to gain the raw power to amplify photons into a laser.
But if you bypass that mathematically, things change. Shirone had reconstructed photonization theory around the god particle; instead of brute force, he amplified energy via mass conversion. His battery had opened a new route.
"Kraaaahhh!"
Harvist writhed in agony. The laser was far thinner than Photon Output, but the concentrated energy was beyond imagination. Color wasn't the issue; the true danger lay in the invisible infrared heat beyond the red wavelength. The single-wavelength laser vibrated molecules and generated immense heat.
"Harvist!"
Canis clutched his aching head and screamed. The massive impact on his brain meant that in barely two seconds Harvist had absorbed more energy than it could handle. It was the power of Shirone's new magic—the Laser Pulse Cannon.
Harvist tried desperately to digest the energy, but the molecular vibration was too fast. Absorption hit saturation; its bulk swelled, then ballooned like an overinflated bladder.
Etella watched Viltor Arkein for any reaction. Even as the battle took a dark turn, Arkein's face didn't change—and that made Etella uneasy.
"Canis! Stop! Give up!"
What would happen to the massively swollen Harvist next? It could simply be annihilated—or it could end in something far worse.
"Shut up! I'm going to fight!"
"You're being deceived by Arkein. Harvist isn't your subservient. You were Harvist's subordinate. Arkein only used you."
Canis didn't answer. It would be a lie to say he felt nothing. From the moment he'd heard that the supreme mage's ultimate creation—the magical creature—would become his, a part of him had suspected this could be true. He'd lacked the courage to face reality. Admitting it meant he had nothing left.
"I'll win! I'm not afraid to die! I will never kneel before the likes of you!"
When he came to his senses, he thought of Radum—the world's hell. To Arkein he had been expendable. To the creature he called a friend, he had been mere fuel. Now none of it mattered. Only hatred for the world remained.
'Canis….'
Arin clapped her hands over her mouth and sobbed. Canis had always been that kind of child: a pitiful boy who could only harm himself for the sake of those he loved.
"Teacher! Please save Canis! Please!"
She didn't think of him as a teacher anymore. Still, she swallowed her pride and begged to save Canis. Arkein issued a cold command to Harvist.
"End it here. Harvist."
Saturated with energy, Harvist couldn't reply. To make a sound would detonate it. And that was Arkein's intended result.
- Canis. Listen carefully.
- Harvist.
- Arkein plans to blow me to pieces. Probably everyone here will be caught in the blast. Then it's over for you and me.
Arin released the students from mental control and, sobbing, ran at Arkein.
"Save Canis! Or I won't forgive you!"
"Arin!"
Canis pushed himself up and spoke.
"What are you doing to my teacher? Stop this at once."
"Canis! This man—he—!"
"Yes. The teacher saved us from hell. He got us out of Radum. That's enough. I'll fight until the end."
Were Canis's words sincere? It no longer mattered. His rage burned so fiercely it made even death seem like relief.
"All right! We'll all die together!"
Canis shouted to the sky. Hot tears ran down his cheeks. It had been a filthy life. If this was his fate, he'd meet a disgusting end to the last.
"Kruuuuuuuh!"
Molecular boiling made huge blisters bubble across Harvist's body. Anyone could see now: Arkein intended to blow up the entire school.
"Shirone! Stop! Harvist is going to explode!"
Snapping out of his frenzy, Shirone cut the output at Etella's shout. But Harvist was already undergoing a detonation reaction. The grotesque way its angles twisted promised secondary and tertiary blasts.
"Hahaha! Farewell! Dying with trash like me will feel disgusting, I'm sure! This ends everything!"
- Canis. I'm sorry.
Canis's face went rigid.
- I will sever the master-servant contract.
Harvist drained the last of Canis's mental power and then dissolved the contract. Canis felt the wrenching emptiness as if his soul had been pulled out; he collapsed to the ground in shock.
"W-why… Harvi…."
Harvist rose into the sky. How many seconds until the explosion? Three? Two? As he careened toward the last moments of his existence, memories seeped back in as vibrations. Harvi. Harvi. Harvi. The voice that had called incessantly—now he would never hear it again, and that made him ache.
'Heh heh heh. Canis. That's your problem. You put on strength you don't have.'
There had been no life in him from the start, so death wasn't frightening. What worried him had been the betrayal felt through the mental channel—he still felt it as if they were one body. But there was nothing left to send, so Harvist simply hoped.
He hoped Canis wouldn't be too hurt.
Two kilometers above the ground, where no voice could reach, the shadowed face's mouth split into a grotesque grin.
"But it was fun, wasn't it, Canis."
Poooooom!
A massive blast that destroyed the world's darkness erupted.
(End of Volume 4)