It’s not just humans who can cast magic.
They don’t have mana like humans do, but instead, they possess a substance called magic energy.
Intelligent demons can use magic freely, while ordinary monsters without intelligence generally cannot.
It’s not that monsters can’t use magic; they simply lack the intelligence to wield such complex spells.
However, there are different types of monsters, and they vary in intelligence.
Among those types, the dire wolf has a higher intelligence than the others.
Not only was it already intelligent, but swallowing the Seed of the Demon King increased its intelligence even more.
How much are we talking about? Well, let’s just say a monster could independently use magic now.
When the purple horn on its forehead shines, something magical unfolds.
What kind of magic?
Of course, I have no clue. How could I understand a monster’s thoughts?
Crackle! Crackle!!
Once the black mist cleared, black lightning fell from the sky once more.
The overwhelming power of magic unleashed from enormous magical energy far exceeds human imagination. If you don’t have a solid resistance, you’ll drop dead just from grazing it.
If you don’t want to die, you had better run when the purple horn glows.
Ariel and Sera, who were hit directly by the black mist, staggered back and took their stances.
The black mist is the residue of condensed magical energy. While Ariel could purify it with starlight within her body, Sera could not.
Blood flows from both of Sera’s eyes. She was spitting out black blood, indicating a rather critical state.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine…!”
It’s bound to be painful.
The magical energy absorbed by the body destroys it and inflicts excruciating pain.
Despite that, Sera showed no signs of weakness. Her brow furrowed slightly, but she didn’t stop casting her spell.
Seeing that, Ariel’s expression darkened even more.
“That’s enough. Step back, Sera.”
Ariel pushed Sera back and repositioned her sword in hand.
Then she steadied her breath.
Ariel wasn’t yet accustomed to wielding stars and hadn’t even made a proper opening.
There was no one around to teach her. The ability to wield stars is only granted to the lineage of heroes.
No human could teach her how to wield stars, so she had to learn alone.
“…”
Ariel recalled a moment from the past not too long ago.
Though it hadn’t been deliberate, and more like an accident, she had once succeeded in the secondary opening of starlight.
It was when she was dueling with Iria at the Swordsmanship Training Ground.
Ariel closed her eyes, trying to recreate the sensations she felt back then.
It was the feeling of the starlight exploding from within her body at the moment she sensed a threat.
If only she could control that.
“I will go.”
Ariel gripped her sword and concentrated on the sensation.
With eyes shut, she took steps toward the monster. Her body became enveloped in a platinum glow. The afterimage of starlight.
However, this concentration wasn’t enough. To pull it up to a higher output, Ariel recalled the feelings from the past.
Just as Ariel focused her consciousness, the wolf monster prepared a fireball in its mouth.
Just like before, its intention was to engulf Ariel in flames.
Even in front of the impending flames, Ariel wasn’t scared.
If she failed to open this time, dying would be the same anyway.
There was no way to escape from the massive wolf. If she couldn’t defeat it, she would just die.
So, Ariel boldly placed her life on the scales.
Failure meant death, success meant growth.
Just as the monster was about to breathe fire, Ariel swung her sword.
But in that final moment, her center twisted, pulled back by a woman behind her.
It was the same composition as before.
Before the flames could consume the two, Sera smiled at Ariel.
“I’m sorry, Ariel. But you need to live more than I do.”
“…Sera?”
“You’re the hero. I can’t allow you to die here.”
Wounded, Sera stood up and leaped forward.
Her body shouldn’t have been able to stand on its legs, but she held on through sheer will.
Fwoosh! Flames erupted in front of her.
Soon, a massive firestorm poured towards her, as if to swallow everything whole.
Ugh…!
“Sera!!”
Sera took the flames spewed out by the monster head-on, compressing them into a single point.
Ariel’s voice calling her name echoed loudly, but Sera couldn’t hear it.
Just like before, she absorbed the flames into her body and shifted their direction. Burning all her mana, she channelled it into a single strike.
“Take this!!”
This was the strongest firepower she could unleash.
Fwoosh!!!
The huge flames engulfed the wolf monster.
Graaahhh!!!
Sera’s flames, filled with everything she had, inflicted significant damage on the monster.
The sound of the wolf monster howling echoed through the inferno, as if it would shatter eardrums.
The once beautiful garden had become almost unrecognizable, now a burning pit. Amidst all the devastation, Sera spat out blood.
Far worse than the previous times.
Guhhh! Cough! Cough…!
The once fierce Sera crawled on the ground in pain.
She was paying the price for unleashing flames her body couldn’t contain.
In an agony that twisted her entire being, she expelled everything from her stomach. The blood she coughed up was black—after suffering from the effects of magical energy up until now.
The fact that she had held on this long was commendable. In her current state, it wouldn’t be surprising if she died at any moment.
All of it was because of Ariel.
Sera had taken the blows in place of Ariel.
“…”
As Ariel watched the scene from start to finish, something shattered within her.
In that instant, starlight flooded the garden.
*
Starlight flooded the garden.
It wasn’t a level of control she could manage. An absurd amount surged forth, engulfing the surrounding area.
The second opening of starlight.
Unlike her first ability, which only allowed boosting her physical body, this was the stage where she could materialize the starlight in form.
The platinum starlight erupted and stretched out into a gigantic sword.
At that moment, Ariel discarded her dull sword and took hold of the sword forged from starlight.
Ariel’s blue eyes glittered amidst the starlight.
While Ariel fundamentally had a gentle nature—
“Starlight Ignition.”
This time, she couldn’t forgive them.
With the platinum starlight blazing, Ariel leaped.
Borrowing the power of the stars, Ariel entered a state on the verge of superhuman.
In this stage, everything but herself seemed to slow down. Ariel stepped into a world perceived only by a select few who exceeded human reflexes.
In her vision, even the falling raindrops appeared slow.
Now a part of the superhuman ranks, Ariel burned the stars and accelerated, then accelerated again.
Crackle! Crackle!!
From the sky, black lightning rained down. However, those were far too slow to hit Ariel.
Dodging all the falling lightning, Ariel jumped high.
This was a leap aimed at the head of the giant monster.
As she leaped into the air, the monster, engulfed in flames, prepared to unleash its breath.
Did it think Ariel wouldn’t be able to respond if it blasted it point-blank? No matter how intelligent it was, it was still a monster.
With a swish, the flame ball in the monster’s mouth was sliced away.
Not only the fireball was cut. Ariel, now on top of the monster’s body, wielded the starlight sword and slashed it apart.
The starlight sword pierced through the monster’s skin, inscribing the starlight—a potent poison—within its bones.
Graaahhhhh!!!
The monster howled more fiercely than when hit by Sera’s flames. It writhed in pain. The hero’s starlight was that painful.
The black blood of the monster erupted into the air.
But…
‘Not yet.’
It wasn’t enough to end it.
Thinking to herself that it was still not enough, Ariel accelerated once more. Now even the wolf monster couldn’t possibly keep up with her speed.
Ariel changed the angle of her sword, trying for a single heavy strike rather than just fast slashes.
As she landed on the ground, Ariel swung her sword four times, slicing off all the monster’s legs.
The prepared strong strike followed. With all its legs severed, the fallen monster lay before Ariel.
And then.
Gathering all the starlight within her body, she inscribed it onto her blade and swung.
Swish!
The sword inscribed with stars produced a massive sword strike. The thick platinum- colored afterimage trailed behind it.
With that one swing, the purple horn that symbolized the monster was cleanly severed.
That horn, which was the source of its power—the dire wolf’s power. With that one strike, it brought the monster’s life to a halt.
In the garden, now enveloped in flames and starlight, a life extinguished.
After defeating the last Seed of the Demon King, Ariel immediately walked toward Sera.
Staggering, she headed towards Sera. Until everything ended, Sera continued to crawl on the ground.
It seemed the backlash from receiving fire twice was greater than anyone had imagined.
Surprisingly, she was not in danger of losing her life.
That was because Sera had a unique constitution of mana-blood. Besides being able to convert her blood into mana, she could also temporarily self-heal her wounds using mana.
Of course, this was merely a form of emergency treatment.
Sera expelled all the black blood that had accumulated in her body and struggled to rise to her upper body, leaning against a nearby tree.
Ariel, equally exhausted, sat next to Sera, resting her body against her.
After confirming Sera was safe, a wave of relief washed over her, and all her strength drained away.
Between the two who contributed most significantly to defeating the Seed of the Demon King, there was a period of silence with no conversation.
They were panting heavily. Just breathing felt exhausting.
The sight of the main characters of this story sitting side by side was like a beautiful painting.
It was a scene that fit perfectly, akin to an illustration from a story.
And there was a being who had watched this from beginning to end.
A girl with silver hair fluttered as she gazed at the main characters on stage.
‘So this is how it turns out.’
This must be how things played out in the original story.
If it hadn’t been for that, the sight of the two sitting together wouldn’t have felt so familiar.
Somehow, she had gotten involved to some extent in the main episode, but it seemed things hadn’t shifted as much as she thought.
Iria couldn’t take her eyes off the two for a while.
This was the development she had expected. Eventually, Ariel would overcome the wall and defeat the monster.
But for some reason…
“…”
Watching the ones who had truly become the protagonists of this world, she felt oddly strange.
It was as if she had been cast away in a single world.
A situation where a monster that couldn’t become a protagonist was envious of the two protagonists.
I don’t know…
Today, Iria couldn’t understand those feelings she was experiencing.
Now that the academy attack incident was over, she thought it was time to gather the Fragments of the Demon King.
