You said saints don't harm each other! Is that what you call not harming? If Shea were an ordinary, fragile saint, she would already be dead!
Perhaps Shea is just the type to get bullied. While I was genuinely worrying, Lankart observed the situation with complete nonchalance.
"Huey. That is the materialization of light. It is a power only the Master of the White Tower, who possesses an Inherent Magic Path, can use, and the reason she rose to the position of White Tower Master. The materialization of light has been the White Tower's long-cherished desire. Fortunately, materialized light is not as fast as real light, and like other substances, it has various constraints, so it should be easy to deal with."
"And how exactly am I supposed to deal with that? Only someone with an Inherent Magic Path like you could deal with it!"
"Stop whining. You can do it even without an Inherent Magic Path, can't you? Just do that... Huh?"
The moment he finished speaking, a pillar of light crashed down. Fortunately, it was aimed at Lankart, not me. Detaching from the Genesis magic circle, the pure white pillar of light crushing Lankart entirely was so surreal that it looked exactly like a luminous structure. To feel a sense of mass from light. How much did she amplify it? There won't even be a corpse left.
No time to mourn. I dashed away from the crushed Lankart before the pillar of light could aim for me too.
"Ugh! It feels like I'm swimming in light...!"
I can move, but my steps are heavy. The light of the amplified artificial sun pouring down from above feels exactly like gravity magic pressing down on my body. I can somehow endure this much with my strengthened powers, but the problem is that this isn't even an actual attack. I'm struggling merely inside light that has simply been amplified.
Just then, a sinister thought was read. The seven crystals Rue had created. The prisms that had gathered the light of the Genesis magic circle all targeted me at once. Seven strands of condensed light became spears of light, hurtling toward me.
"Refracting Mirror."
A mirror that gathers and bends light. Now that the materialization of light has been achieved, taking that hit means death. Just as Kuram died, my body will be pierced by the light.
Then I must dodge before all seven converge. A step faster, I lowered my stance, twisted my shoulders, and slipped through the gaps between the rays. Four remained. No matter what I did, I would have to take at least one hit. I crossed both arms over my face and leaped over the light.
A burning pain seared through me. Long lacerations and burns scored the body grazed by the rays of light. Blood streamed down the crimson wounds, and my regeneration was slower than usual.
Light is the natural enemy of vampires. Even though I had become a Demon God, light possessing the attributes of alteration and purification hindered my regeneration. I approached Rue, soaking the earth with my blood.
Still, taking one hit was bearable! The problem was!
"...Was the quantity insufficient? Then. How about seven times that?"
It was beyond that!
Beyond the seven prisms, another seven prisms manifested for each of them. The number was forty-nine. Taking them one by one was one thing, but if even a single one overlapped, it wouldn't end with just lacerations and burns. They'll probably struggle to figure out how to write the cause of death when looking at my corpse, sliced to death by light.
Forty-nine rays of light intersecting from all directions. Could I really manage to take each of them exactly once with my body? Tch, I wasn't confident about that.
However, I was not alone.
"Hey. Master of the White Tower. You're ignoring me way too much. Are you seriously trying to defeat the world with mere light?"
The pillar of light exploded, and from within it, Lankart emerged, wreathed in dirt and dust.
Mounds of large and small sand and gravel orbited around Lankart. Inside the dust that had shattered and crushed the light into pieces, lightning and electromagnetic storms crackled brightly. With his hair sticking out in every direction, Lankart glared at Rue with an expression of genuine annoyance.
"Because of you, I've got an aurora over my head!"
How exactly does one end up with an aurora over their head? And why is hair sticking up the problem when there's an aurora?
It seemed it was quite a serious issue for Lankart. Lankart exerted his power in earnest. The dust within the Right-Handed World orbited around Lankart and rotated on its own axes, spinning chaotically before clumping and colliding together, gradually achieving equilibrium. Lankart crumpled the world with both hands and declared.
"Lankart System. Creation System."
In the Right-Handed World, Lankart was the sun. Everything revolved around him. With a single simple principle, a star system was born.
At the very center of the rotation, where dirt, dust, electromagnetic storms, and lightning recreated cosmic wonder, Lankart stood aloof like a god and pointed in my direction.
"Ring of the Silent Star."
A portion of the dust, harboring the electromagnetic storm, began to orbit around me. The defensive barrier of dirt and dust blocked and scattered the light raining down from all directions. Trusting in Lankart's power, I ran forward recklessly. Above me, Rue's condensed rays of light poured down.
Rays of light flashed, cleaving through the swirling electromagnetic storm. Every time Rue's beams were fired, the pitch-black darkness within the dust briefly flared with bright light. The light possessing physical force was powerful enough to pierce even solid rock, but the swirling dust caught and crushed the light even as it shattered and was pushed back. The electromagnetic storm swallowed the light and discharged lightning in all directions.
The fifty rays of light targeting my life collided successively with the ring protecting me. Pushed back by the pressure of the light, the ring stretched long into an elliptical shape. Then, at one point, with a sharp snap, the ring broke, and the storm lost its power.
Still, Lankart remained behind me.
"Don't act like you've become the sun just because you can manipulate light. I am the center of the world."
Lankart tossed a small pebble he held in his hand. The small pebble, callously discarded, gradually accelerated as it moved away from Lankart.
"Fallen King Planet."
The star bearing a king's name departed the Lankart System, small and solitary. Just before breaking away, at the tail end of its trajectory, the small pebble Lankart had discarded was accelerating at cosmic speeds. Relative to its tremendous speed, it was utterly silent. A cosmic slingshot was not to be compared with some terrestrial rock throw.
Above Rue's head, her half-opened halo shivered. The halo, illuminating in all directions, alerted her to the presence of the ultra-high-speed approaching object.
It was a detection system utilizing the reflection of light. So that halo wasn't just for decoration. Sensing the Fallen King Planet, Rue extended her hand without even looking.
"Light Dispersion."
The light passing through her spread fingers split into hundreds of strands. Dividing not into visible light rays, but into thousands of different types of light, it seeped into the pebble. The light destroyed the pebble, the Fallen King Planet, from the inside out, reducing it to dust.
At the same time, those hundreds of strands of light passed through Lankart as well. Preparing for his next attack, Lankart staggered, feeling dizzy.
"Ugh. I'm exhausted."
The Right-Handed World was powerful against physical force, but it was vulnerable to such attacks. Although Lankart had dropped out, it had created an opening. I dashed forward, skewer in hand. Completely consuming the Ring of the Silent Star Lankart had bestowed upon me, I pushed through the light to close in on Rue.
Once again, Rue's halo reacted. At the same time, someone who had spotted my approach shouted out.
"Saintess! Behind you!"
A single holy knight charged forward to block me. Sensing divine power from him, Rue let her guard down for just a brief moment. And just as he grabbed a ray of light to block me—
'Wait a minute. A holy knight? Inside this light?'
The halo flickered ominously. Rue fired a beam of light at the suspicious holy knight. It was fast for a surprise attack, but too slow for someone who should have already been on guard against Hilde.
'Hundred-Face!'
Rue's ray of light and Hilde's holy sword collided. Light flashed like a match striking in the dark of night. Having briefly revealed her true face to the saintess, Hilde smiled apologetically.
"Hehe. I'm sorry, Saintess. But I'd rather rely on Father than a faith with no promises. Both Yuel and I. Because we hate it when today is just the same as yesterday."
Faith had run its course. The holy sword pointed at the saintess soon lost its light. The remaining ray of light buried itself into Hilde's defenseless embrace. Without even a scream, Hilde collapsed limply, almost gracefully.
Rue's halo was still trembling. Probably because I was still remaining. I scattered cards before my eyes, hoping the metal cards would block even a single ray of light.
And beneath them, concealing a transparent skewer made of ice.
Inherent Magic Path, Crystallization Theory.
Borrowing the Master of the Blue Tower's Inherent Magic Path for a brief moment, I transmuted a skewer from ice in that fleeting second. Perfectly crystallized ice is completely transparent, invisible to the naked eye. It won't be blocked by the light Rue hastily unleashes, either.
Just a single moment. If only I can plunge this in.
It was useless. Light is instantaneous. Rue grabbed the halo above her head and tore it off. Just as I realized it was detachable, the halo aimed at me glowed dangerously.
"Holy Radiance."
Incomparably intense light engulfed my entire body.
So she always kept a light prepared on her. Tsk. Saintesses are nothing but a bunch of cheaters. I can't even get close.
"Haa, is this as far as I go?"
I couldn't overcome it after all. The world is just too rigid.
As long as the saintess protects a today that is the same as yesterday, a discarded person like me can never expect a changed tomorrow.
'It's over, King of Humans. Tomorrow will still arrive.'
Once again, in that fleeting moment, the saintess let her guard down.
I didn't stop. The light couldn't push me back. No, it was pushing me back, but it wasn't as powerful as she intended.
Just before it touched my body, the light...
...veered slightly to the right.
It didn't strike me directly. Skewing to the right, it grazed past my clothes and skin. My clothes tore and blood splattered, but that was it. The grazing light burned the droplets of blood, emitting a red vapor.
The Right-Handed World.
'This is... the Right-Handed World? The King of Humans has that?'
The Inherent Magic Path I briefly borrowed from Lankart. The Right-Handed World. Though not to the same extent as other matter, it can bend light too. That was probably because Lankart's Inherent Magic Path belonged to the Space System as well. Negligible compared to Lankart, but it still allowed me to interfere with the light.
A hair-raising moment, a single step. I countered her final move with the card I had saved until the very end. A today just like yesterday will never come. Because today, I obtained one new card.
My skewer reached the nape of her neck.
I won, Master of the White Tower.
Well, I only defeated Rue as the 'Master of the White Tower'. I didn't defeat Rue as the 'Saintess of Light'.
Blink.
And time stopped.