[338] Waves of Law (3)
"Why don't you get a grip on the situation? Don't you know what's going on? You might be the top at school, but do you really think your name carries any weight here?"
Shirone didn't hear Jokre.
If he held back now, people would die. But if that outcome was unavoidable, there was a much simpler solution.
Shirone narrowed his focus like a sniper. The Ice Queen's face snapped into sharp view.
'I have to finish this in one strike.'
He would eliminate the Ice Queen in the shortest possible time.
If he succeeded, the strange power dominating this space would vanish.
As Shirone kept his poker face, Jokre felt the pressure closing in.
It was like watching a man who definitely held a royal flush go all-in with the whole pot.
'What kind of fools are they?'
Even with hundreds of lives on the line, they dared to bluff. It was incomprehensible to him.
They were underestimating him. That thought sent uncontrollable rage surging up.
"How dare you look down on me!"
The instant Jokre shouted, Shirone's Armand slid from its sheath and streaked forward like a flash.
Armand's target was not Jokre but the Ice Queen.
The Ice Queen activated a Law and moved away at once. Still, when she began to lose the speed race she took to the sky.
'Law of Destruction.'
The Ice Queen's Law struck Armand. The magic blade trembled, but it did not shatter.
'Why?'
It was an unfamiliar result for the Ice Queen.
'An avatar body?'
An object that formed a perfect trinity could not be transformed by Law; in Heaven such things were called avatar bodies.
The Ice Queen activated the Law of Freezing. Frost formed on Armand's blade and began to clot into ice.
As its speed slowed, the Ice Queen regained composure. But suddenly, as if struck by something, a shock hit her back.
'What was that?'
With no time to answer, she amplified the Law of Freezing. Armand, trapped inside a massive block of ice, couldn't bear the weight and plummeted to the ground.
The Ice Queen immediately turned and cast a Wave of the Law at the point of impact. With a boom, a translucent, dome-shaped barrier expanded along the sky.
'Something is sealing this space.'
Jokre stared, stunned. Dante, who'd been setting sealing wards all night, spoke with a triumphant grin.
"How do you like my surprise present? This area is already sealed. I planted totems all night and laid down a forbidding ward. The Ice Queen can never leave this place."
Jokre slowly turned to look at Dante. The Ice Queen was trapped. It was the worst-case scenario they could imagine.
"You dare hitch yourself to a monster and think you'll rule the world? Do you think the place you live in is that easy to take? The army will be sent soon. Even if we die here, the Ice Queen will be destroyed. End this peacefully now and you might get some leniency."
Jokre's jaw trembled. His breathing grew rough. If the army arrived, the Ice Queen would be destroyed. Of course he and his friends would pay a heavy price for their crimes.
"You've sealed me in."
The Ice Queen landed. The chill she brought crawled across the ground, numbing people to their bones.
Shirone did not flinch from her murderous gaze. He met it, as if daring her to strike, and snatched the hilt of the returning Armand. The gem embedded in the crossguard flared an intense red. He knew the opponent he'd traded blows with was no pushover.
"Your Majesty, are you all right?"
The Ice Queen looked back at the worried Jokre and gave him a gentle, smiling pat on the head.
But when she turned to Shirone, her eyes were completely different. The cold look pierced him like an ice spear.
"Why are you interfering with me?"
"Don't you see what you did? Aren't you the one who treated others' lives as if they meant nothing?"
"How foolish. The strong rule. Isn't that the law of the world you live in? I simply intend to reign over you as the new ruler."
A chill rose above the Ice Queen's head.
"Frost Mist."
Cold spread rapidly outward from her. Shirone's coat stiffened and cracked with a dry sound. The cooling was so fast that if even a few seconds passed, the people nearby would have their hearts frozen.
"Danger!"
Liria cast a local binding seal at the Ice Queen's feet. A circular sigil shimmered into being, and a reddish pillar of light shot high.
"Guh!"
The Ice Queen's face contorted. It felt as if something essential to her existence was being pulled downward.
As the Ice Queen drew her Law up and soared into the sky, Liria looked up with a helpless expression.
"No. Her activity is too strong for a local binding seal. We have to bind her somehow."
The expression on the Ice Queen's face, which could not be restrained, was grotesque. The binding seal's power was that tremendous. Even when her mind burned, she had never felt such a fear of annihilation.
"I will not forgive you!"
When the Ice Queen cast a Wave of the Law, the Laws hanging around people's necks dissolved and new Laws were born.
"KRAAAAA!"
People's mouths stretched into doglike maws and their teeth sharpened. Muscles bulged, tearing clothes; nails lengthened into wolfish claws. Hardened skin protruded like armor.
"I'm evolving them into combat-ready forms!"
"Finish this before they can join forces. Concentrate fire and we can win. Liria, focus on defending the Laws," Dante shouted.
Just as Shirone's group was about to fly at the Ice Queen, Vivian planted both hands on the ground and murmured.
"Spirit Radius."
Vivian's body turned to stone and the earth trembled. Concentric barriers rose in sequence from her, forming a spreading ring.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Walls radiated outward every ten paces; the gap between walls was ten meters. That entire radius was woven from her mind.
"Damn! What is this!"
Shirone's group hurriedly retreated, but before they had taken many steps another wall sprang up behind them. It was a thirty-meter-high barrier.
As they panicked, the front wall softened like melting wax and a relief of Vivian's face protruded. Her upper body emerged while her lower half stretched long like a snake and connected with the wall.
"Heh heh. How do you like my ability—Spirit Radius?"
Vivian raised her hands and Jokre and Rudvance leapt down to perch on her palms like cranes.
"Haha! Serves you right. All that boasting and this is all you can do?"
The Spirit Radius erects walls that share the caster's mind, building ten meters per second. But the larger the radius, the thinner the mental density becomes; if the walls stretch too far, their responsiveness drops to the level of inanimate objects. Still, Vivian was pleased—she liked being the center of attention, and the Ice Queen had embodied that perfectly.
"This place is a perfect maze. If you capture the center—me—the Spirit Radius collapses. But can you find the path?"
"You don't need to run around like a mouse."
Dante teleported. A thirty-meter wall was nothing to vault over. Dozens of Vivians sprang from the top and swung petrified hands down.
"Cheh! Tricky."
A straight-line teleport colliding with a petrified Vivian would be fatal. As Dante landed with an annoyed look, Shirone set Armand vertically and raised it.
"I'll take the Ice Queen."
Everyone turned to Shirone as he murmured,
"Vajra Armament."
The blade split and a thin, insectlike framework wrapped around Shirone's face. In an instant he became a mage with his hood drawn deep; Jokre's party's faces hardened.
"That's Vajra Armament? What are you planning?" Dante asked.
"Armand withstood the Laws. With Vajra Armament I might be able to resist the Ice Queen's Laws."
Liria nodded. "It's possible. It's the same principle as a totem. But the Ice Queen is in the sky. We need a way out first."
Shirone lifted his hooded face. The Spirit Radius, which produced clones at the speed of thought, was a tough obstacle. But escape wasn't impossible.
'Function comes from form.'
Shirone maximized his photon-sculpting. Light flared from his body and a vast pair of luminous wings unfolded.
He sculpted light into form.
The mages were astonished. Shaping a tangible form from emissive light required tremendous photon compression.
Jokre's group swallowed dryly. Because Shirone had crafted a form dedicated solely to flight, they all understood his intent.
"Hold this place."
Photon Sculpting — Radiant Wings.
Shirone bent his legs and swung the wings downward, blasting upward at incredible speed. Though not a teleport, it shot like a flare.
'You thought you could lose me!'
Vivian reacted. Dozens of her clones burst from the walls and bit at Shirone like teeth.
'Got him!'
The impact landed. But moments later Vivian narrowed her brow in confusion. Vajra Armament's tendrils were intercepting the petrified replicas' attacks at point-blank range.
"What the—!"
Vivian poured everything into it. From where Shirone stood came the scraping sound of stone wearing away. The brute force born of stone's durability was tremendous, but the tendrils of the indestructible Vajra were strong enough to shatter even rock.
- External pressure: 1.7 tons. Maximum sustained muscle force reached.
Shirone gritted his teeth and pushed the tendrils downward. The tendrils slipped into a narrow gap and flicked Shirone upward; Vivian's clones collided with one another and shattered.
'I will eliminate the Ice Queen.'
The speed Radiant Wings generated was terrifying. Shirone chased the Ice Queen at near-sound velocity. As his vision narrowed, Armand recalibrated his bodily functions.
- Target recognition impossible. Increase visual cells. Enhance macular function.
When his vision snapped wide open, the Ice Queen came into clear view. The artificial brain adjusted his flight balance. As the distance closed, the Ice Queen turned and cast her Law.
"Freezing Blizzard."
Snowflakes as sharp as razor blades whipped around; Shirone covered his face. His cloak hardened to a metallic quality, and thousands of glasslike ice shards scraped and scorched its surface.
"Guh!"
The Ice Queen's Law, while not as narrowly focused as some magics, was titanic in scale. Her rules exceeded the rules of this space. That was the difference in scale.
Shirone reverted his hardened cloak to organic form and fixed his aim forward. The air had frozen into massive ice veins that spread like a complex nervous system. He felt as if he had become a microorganism.
'It means extreme low temperature.'
He didn't feel cold because Armand was regulating his nervous system. But when he inhaled, the cold air immediately threatened to freeze his lungs.
"Hup!"
Shirone snapped his mouth shut.
- Respiration blocked detected. Artificial oxygen substitution. Remaining oxygen supply time: 1:27. 2:32. 4:49.
Armand began storing air and injecting oxygen directly into Shirone's blood vessels. Regaining his combat strength, Shirone flew between the ice veins and engaged the Ice Queen in aerial combat.
Like a hawk closing in, Shirone folded the Radiant Wings and plunged, gripping his wrist and firing a photon cannon from the mana crystal set in his gauntlet at 180 rounds per minute.