Huh?
Ruel disappeared. Having lost my target, I swung my skewer-posing hand through the air anyway. Flailing and falling clumsily, I looked around for Ruel.
Strange. Did he run away?
Even using mind-reading, I couldn't catch a trace. Did he really run away? But why? When he has the authority to stop time, why bother?
Ruel's authority to stop time is truly an absurd power. I can't move, yet he moves alone. To use a card game analogy, it's like taking two or three turns at once. That goes beyond cheating; it's outright malicious.
A game where my turn never comes. The only way to win such an unreasonable game is to make the opponent step on a landmine themselves.
The way to move in the time stopped by Ruel is 'light'. Manifesting and moving using the dangerous magic that turns the entire body into light, through divine power and the Unique Magic Path.
I scatter invisible blades made of ice. So that if he materializes in that spot, he will be pierced by the blades. It's an obvious and meaningless tactic. Transparent blades cannot cut 'light', and Ruel would easily read the intent and avoid the ice blades.
However, that's a decoy to induce Ruel's carelessness and limit his position.
The dagger to pierce Ruel was Ruel's Unique Magic Path.
I had already stolen and was using Ruel's Unique Magic Path. It must have been maintained even while time was stopped. The card-shaped mirrors I scattered earlier would have diffusely reflected the light Ruel shot out, attacking him directly.
It was a trap to reflect Ruel's attack right back at him... But I never thought he would just leave like that.
It doesn't match the thought pattern I read from Ruel. Did he have a whim while time was stopped? Or was there a trigger?
"Did he run away? He was so stubborn, but it seems he valued his life at the last moment."
Ran Karte scoffed, but I didn't agree with his words.
Valued his life? That's a bit hard to say. If he noticed my trap, he could have just avoided the trap and attacked.
It feels like there was some sort of trigger...
"I'm glad Ruel backed down. I don't know what would have happened if we fought to the end."
Shey sighed, as if relieved of tension, and naturally interjected. I was about to reply to that, but I shut my mouth at a sudden sense of discord. I looked at Shey without a word.
"Huh? Hughes. W-why are you staring at me like that?"
'Didn't you tell me you knew Ruel? But I didn't know Ruel was the White Tower Master either.'
No, that's not the problem. Ruel's identity isn't important at all.
The important thing is you. With your great intuition, why can't you feel the discord?
You moved while time was stopped.
I realized the identity of the discord. The discord came from the fact that there was no discord. Even though she should be the first to feel the sense of incongruity, she was so calm, as if even that sense of incongruity had been swept away.
You must have been the one who sent Ruel back. If Ruel had stayed, I would have read his mind.
"Hmm."
I really don't know what happened at all. I looked around and said.
"I don't know what whim he had, but it seems he won't interfere with me anymore. Now then, shall we go up?"
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Fighting to the death against a powerful being like the Saint of Light is a loss for me. If I lose, I die; even if I win, I'll be harassed in many ways. I can say it's a relief that she left like this.
Archbishop Elton and the paladins retreated without a word, as if they had heard a 'revelation', and the mages were overwhelmed by the mythical battle they had just witnessed. No one was left to block my path.
In the end, it was power that quelled this chaos.
***
If we roughly think of space as paper, distorted space can be thought of as a folded part. The boundary between distorted space and normal space can be seen as the fold line of the paper. If you follow that part, a space leading to the center appears.
I don't really know either. Anyway, that's how it is.
The stairs to the final floor were at the very edge of the Tower of Babel. I headed towards the boundary with my companions.
The folded part of space was closer to a path than stairs. I just walked forward, and my body naturally floated up towards the artificial sun. The end of this long, long journey. To the top of the Tower of Babel, where human arrogance reached its peak.
Like that, the artificial sun grew closer and closer, and just as the dazzling light was about to envelop me—
"You've come! The dragon of this Dragon Gate! I've liked all the talents from previous Dragon Gates, but I've never been as expectant as I am this time! Come on in!"
The 'Demon King' welcomed me in a bizarre space.
It was a room. It was a square room, but also star-shaped. There were a total of eleven rooms, and from where I stood, I could see all the way inside the other rooms. Tables and chairs were attached to the ceiling, bookshelves on the floor were densely packed with books, and the small windows on the walls largely reflected various parts of the floating castle.
Hmm. It was roughly a distorted space. I decided not to try too hard to understand it.
"What about the others?"
"I sent them each to a place that suits them. They'll be receiving rewards fitting for them in their rooms."
"Then does that mean you will give me my reward, Demon King?"
"Of course. But before that, wait a moment. There's something we need to watch."
The Demon King pulled one of the windows with his hand. The light inside the window swelled and instantly enveloped me. I closed my eyes at the glare and opened them, only to find I had moved to another space.
"Hwaran Fahrenheit! Eliot Pascal of the Defense State commands you! Stop the attack on the Tower of Babel!!"
"Ughhhh...! That landmine of a woman blew up again...!"
To the space where the Red Tower Master, Hwaran Fahrenheit, was battling the Green Tower Master and the Black Tower Master.
What. Why are the Tower Masters fighting each other again here. All five Tower Masters are just brawling. The floating castle must be in total chaos.
More importantly, wait. I can't read thoughts?
The moment I felt a question about why my mind-reading wasn't working. A massive flame exploded right before my eyes. It was a gigantic explosion that seemed ready to sweep away the world. A flashing light enveloped my entire body, and I felt the fear of death a beat too late...
But that was just light. I was perfectly fine.
"Are you going to stand and watch? It seems like it'll take a while, so sit back and watch comfortably."
Beside me was the Demon King, sitting calmly in a rocking chair, crunching on a popsicle. I awkwardly sat in the chair he offered.
"That was an image made of light. You startled me."
"To be exact, I projected all the light generated within a certain space into this space. The fight between my disciples is happening in real time."
"Is it light magic?"
"It's space magic, as you know. Haven't you experienced it too? That light is also affected by the concept of space."
Experienced it, I have. Light deviated into a right-handed world, after all. There was a reason the White Tower Master couldn't confront the Demon King.
If I didn't have to worry about getting caught up in it, there was nothing as entertaining as watching a fight. I also sat in the chair he offered, crunching on a popsicle and spectating the battle of the three Tower Masters.
"Eliot. Lyne. Aren't you curious? Don't you want to go further?"
It seemed the space projected not only light. The Red Tower Master's voice could be heard from within the explosion.
If there had been people in this space, an explosion that would have caused as many deaths as that number occurred, but none of the three Tower Masters with their Unique Magic Paths died. The Green Tower Master surrounded himself with the wall of One-Way Traffic to protect himself, and the Black Tower Master removed the amplitude of the explosion with a Vanishing Point. However, the expressions of the two Tower Masters were not very good.
The Red Tower Master, Hwaran Fahrenheit. Wrapped in a red aura over her entire body, she was unreservedly displaying her madness and heat.
"Have you never thought of surpassing your master? Do you have no will to complete yourself by putting the power your master possesses into your hands? How can you stay still after gaining such power? Isn't the talent you possess a waste?"
"Is setting fires everywhere and driving people out what you call going further?! Cut it out! Who do you think can't do that?!"
The Green Tower Master aimed his jewel-studded umbrella at the Red Tower Master. At the same time, dozens of magic circles drawn with wind floated in the air. The magic circles drawn with condensed air looked as if they would disappear at any moment.
That was their purpose from the start. Catalysts follow their nature. Magic circles drawn with wind are momentary, but they are the most suitable for controlling wind. The wind that passed through the magic circles had turned into something like a bomb. She momentarily suppressed the wind, which was trying to explode, through her Unique Magic Path.
Unique Magic Path, One-Way Traffic.
A storm that would require a vessel forged from solid steel to barely contain was simply condensed with the Unique Magic Path. Its number was easily over a hundred.
The Green Tower Master of the Defense State is a master of wind magic. When it comes to the range and scale of power, he is unmatched. There, the wind amplified by his Unique Magic Path covers the world.
"Aerial Cylinder!"
With a sharp chant, the Unique Magic Path was released.
The projectiles shot from the cylinder of One-Way Traffic pierced through the Red Tower Master in a straight line. A volley of wind magic. Projectiles containing the magic power of wind bullets each flew in. The moment they collided with the red aura wrapping the Red Tower Master, a massive explosion occurred, blowing away everything around.
Amidst the darkened field of vision due to gun smoke and dust—
"Light. Lukewarm. Eliot. Is this all you've got?"
The Red Tower Master's voice, sounding disappointed, rang out.
"Protecting yourself isn't enough. If you don't break the mold, you can't grow any bigger. Shed your skin. You have to burn the shell covering you and grow bigger. You must try to surpass your master! That is the way to repay your master!"
Even as the explosion swept over the Tower Masters, the Demon King was calm. Instead of stopping his disciples who were fighting to the death, he merely crunched on a popsicle. The Demon King, having swallowed the popsicle, spoke to me.
"It's Reactive Armor. What do you think? Is the Red Tower Master's magic interesting?"
Is he asking me? I don't know what answer he wants. I answered hesitantly.
"Rather than interesting, it's marvelous. She's basically walking around wrapped in bombs, isn't she? How can she live without being terrified?"
The approaching shock, energy, and power. In response to that, the aura wrapped around her body explodes and blocks it. It doesn't matter how strong the attack is. The reaction is just as intense. The recoil is offset by an explosion in the opposite direction.
It's not absolute like One-Way Traffic, not mystical like Vanishing Point, and not absurd like Time Stop. If you had to compare, it's similar to determinism, but the direction is the exact opposite. An extremely offensive defensive technique.
"It's the power of her Unique Magic Path."
"Even with a Unique Magic Path, it's still risky. If she makes a mistake in her calculations or deploying her Unique Magic Path, her own body will be blown away, right? No matter how confident she is, she couldn't do something like that."
"Didn't you also reach the White Tower Master's throat in a similar way?"
...He watched the Red Tower Master's fight here. So he must have watched my fight in the same way.
"I did that because I had to, but it must be similar for the Red Tower Master. For a mage, devising a means of self-defense is the most important thing."
"Since it came up. Do you know the identity of the power wrapping the Red Tower Master's body?"
Do I know? I can't even read thoughts, so how could I know...
No. Trying to induce carelessness against the Demon King is meaningless. That's only a meaningful tactic when I can read the opponent's thoughts.
...I already read it, though. Hmm.
Hwaran Fahrenheit's Unique Magic Path is Flashpoint. Whether it's magic power or matter. The power to adjust its ignition point. The problem is that air is needed to ignite. Even if she lowers the ignition point to cause an explosion, it has no meaning if there's no air.
That's why air is necessary. I answered.
"What's wrapped around her body is explosive gas. She lowered its reactivity with her Unique Magic Path and wrapped it around her body. Just like the Blue Tower Master, you can apply the Unique Magic Path to gas and magic power."
"Very good. I especially like that there's no need for petty explanations or metaphors. No waste."
The Demon King smiled gladly and raised his glass.
The battle was gradually getting fiercer. The two magicians, the Red Tower Master and the Green Tower Master, both had explosive and emanating properties. The flashy battle between the two led to a fight for occupying space. When the wall of One-Way Traffic contained the explosion and whipped up the wind, the Red Tower Master offset the wind with an explosion and burned everything around.
"Ughhhh. Self-Vanishing."
Amidst this, the Black Tower Master, fed up with this noisy and destructive battle, fled into the Vanishing Point.
The ground explodes. The Red Tower Master's power, Flashpoint, turns everything into explosives without discriminating between living things and things that shouldn't be burned. Sucking in oxygen rapidly, the ground explodes.
She contained that power within the wall of One-Way Traffic and fired it back. Perfectly controlled wind is stronger than a blade. Just before the sharp wind blades reached the Red Tower Master, the wind that had escaped the control of the Unique Magic Path simply fueled the Red Tower Master's flames even more.
The Green Tower Master works the bellows, and the Red Tower Master adds heat. The storm is controlled by One-Way Traffic and sets fire to the flames, and the flames that burn like that create an enormous updraft, shaking the space. It's as if a dragon of fire is coiling and rampaging.
Between the two, the power only continued to amplify. The storm of flames and heat circulated between the Red Tower Master and the Green Tower Master, swelling even larger.
"A fight between mindsets and mindsets eventually leads to a clash of domains. In your eyes, who looks like they'll win?"
"They've already gone past the stage of discussing victory or defeat, haven't they? The side that withdraws their power first loses. That absurdly condensed power is going to explode eventually. This is a game of chicken that ends with the death of one of them."
"I'm asking with that in mind."
This is too easy of a question. I answered without a single inch of hesitation.
"That. Of course."