Veronica moved like a streak of light cutting through a storm.
Every spell I launched tore across the battlefield in brilliant arcs with fire spiraling like furious serpents, compressed wind slicing through the air with shrill whistles, and blades of mana flashing in lethal streaks. She twisted, ducked, and pivoted. The hem of her clothes snapped sharply with every turn, her boots grinding against stone as she forced herself to stay one step ahead.
She managed to dodge almost everything I threw at her.
Almost.
A few grazed her, clipping her shoulder, brushing her thigh, and forcing her to adjust her rhythm. Not enough to cripple her. Just enough to remind her that she wasn’t untouchable.
"How much magic do you even know?" she demanded, breath heavier now, eyes sharp but strained. "Are you just making this up as you go?"
There was disbelief in her voice... and a little frustration. I couldn’t bla her.
She was right to question it.
I wasn’t using just the conventional magic that belonged to the foundational six.
Everyone knew the foundational six. Those were fire, water, earth, wind, healing, and barrier. Those were the pillars. The basics taught in academies. The types nobles bragged about mastering at banquets while pretending they hadn’t burned down half a training field learning fire magic.
But I wasn’t bound by pillars.
Creation Magic allowed to take those foundations and stretch them, as well as reshape them into sothing unrecognizable. Sothing layered, you could say. Or sothing complex enough that even the foundational six couldn’t replicate it.
Levitation Magic, for instance, could arguably pass as a branch of wind magic. It shared the sa nature. It had the manipulation of force and movent. If soone wanted to debate it over tea, I’d let them.
Sword Summoning Magic, though?
That was different.
There was nothing within the foundational six that could compare to it.
With a flick of my will, blades materialized around , and dozens of them. Ford purely from mana, each sword shimred faintly. They weren’t as powerful as the cursed swords like Ayuru. These were constructs, and they were sharp, efficient, and easily disposable.
But as projectile magic?
They were perfect.
The air scread as I sent them flying. Veronica’s blade flashed in response, steel clashing against conjured steel in a storm of sparks. Each impact rang out across the battlefield, and it was sharp and tallic clanging, like a blacksmith hamring out chaos itself.
Her eyes widened.
To her, this kind of magic simply didn’t exist.
And she wasn’t wrong.
Creation Magic didn’t stop at swords.
It went further.
I could use Resurrection Magic. It was sothing I had already done when I brought Martha back.
There were even more powerful spells I could create, if I truly desired to.
But Creation Magic had a price.
It wasn’t sothing you could casually toss around like a spark of fire. It sotis demanded an incredible amount of mana. And in certain cases, it required sothing far more personal.
Like my lifespan.
I had even devised Pseudo-Immortality Magic.
It was a spell that could grant eternal youth to my won so we could live on together without the shadow of aging creeping in.
But nothing that powerful ca without cost.
If soone wanted immortality—or sothing close to it—they had to buy it with an equivalent price.
A soul for a soul.
Simple.
Brutal.
Or you could call it fair.
And I wasn’t naïve enough to pretend otherwise.
Even then, it wasn’t true immortality. Pseudo ant it rely resembled the real thing. Eternal youth. Endless years. But if soone drove a blade through your heart, you wouldn’t magically shrug it off.
There was no aging.
As well as natural death.
But death, even with Pseudo-Immortality, if delivered properly, would still claim you.
Still, this wasn’t the mont to wander down philosophical paths.
Right now, Veronica was tiring.
Her movents were still sharp, but the precision was slipping. Her shoulders rose and fell faster. The fluid grace from earlier had turned into sothing forced. It was like soone running downhill and trying to convince themselves they weren’t losing balance.
She kept dodging. Kept slashing. And kept burning energy.
Her mana remained fierce, blazing around her like a stubborn fla that refused to go out.
But her body?
That was another story.
The exhaustion showed in the way her foot dragged a fraction too long before pivoting. In the slight delay before she raised her guard.
She couldn’t follow my movents anymore.
And the mont I recognized that, I acted.
There’s a thin line between confidence and overconfidence. She crossed it earlier.
I simply stepped through it.
In a blink, I vanished from her sight and reappeared behind her. She sensed it—her body tensed—but her reaction ca a second too late.
My foot drove into her back with solid, unforgiving force.
"Ku—!?"
The sound tore from her throat as my kick connected.
The impact echoed. It sounded very dull and heavy. She was sent flying, her body arching through the air before crashing violently against the surface of the Guardian. The collision thundered outward, a tremor rippling through the ground beneath us.
She fell face-first.
For a second, everything was still except the fading hum of mana.
Then she moved.
Her hands pressed against the ground. Her fingers trembled. Her muscles strained as she tried to push herself up.
Her body refused.
She was strong.
But she wasn’t limitless.
And that was when I decided to show them.
If I was going to reveal who I truly was, then there was no reason to do it halfway.
My hair lengthened, strands cascading down as the color drained into pure white. It shimred faintly in the light. I inhaled slowly, and as I exhaled, a beard ford along my jaw, completing the transformation.
I was no longer Leon.
And yet—
I still was.
I was Christopher Faust.
The owner of the Leonamon.
The shift in the atmosphere was imdiate. Nobles who recognized my appearance as Christopher Faust stiffened. Eyes widened. A murmur spread like wildfire through dry grass.
Recognition.
Shock.
A few even looked like they wanted to pretend they hadn’t noticed.
I glanced toward Myrcella.
She was smiling.
Not surprised.
Just proud.
I returned the smile.
There was no point in hiding anymore. We were slowly getting to that end-ga.
When I turned back to Veronica, she was still struggling. Her arms quivered as she tried again to lift herself. Her strength had been drained through motion, through impact, as well as through stubborn resistance.
I extended my free hand.
"Ti Manipulation Magic."
The air shifted.
It didn’t explode or flash dramatically. Instead, it folded. It was like invisible fabric being pulled taut around her. The space within a limited radius bent under my control.
I rewound her.
Her body snapped backward through ti, returning to the exact position she had been in before my kick landed.
Then I pushed it forward.
The kick connected again.
She flew.
She slamd into the barrier again.
The sound echoed once more.
Ti Manipulation Magic was also born from Creation Magic. It wasn’t global and certainly wasn’t absolute either. It could only affect a contained space. A minimum radius.
But within that space?
I was law.
I repeated it.
Rewind.
Impact.
Forward.
Impact.
Over and over.
The brutal rhythm of cause and effect played like a looped scene.
And I made sure of one thing.
Her injuries did not reset.
I could have allowed the rewind to restore her condition each ti. That would have been cleaner. Even kinder.
But I didn’t.
Each repetition layered pain upon pain. Exhaustion upon exhaustion.
She couldn’t move.
She couldn’t counter.
She couldn’t even fall differently.
Now, Veronica had no options left.
She had no clever maneuvers. And she didn’t have any final gambit against this.
She was trapped.
She could only surrender to the undeniable weight of my power.
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