To Serve and Protect (4)

Whatever Maelle Piquet thought would happen when she found the source of the anomaly, it wasn’t this.

Live Maelle Piquet reaction:

Calice is ruined.

To anyone with eyes, and especially anyone with her eyes, this was obviously the beginning of a Calamity-level extinction event. The dome wasn’t just a construction of shadow—before them stood the end of days given form: a live, devouring blackness. It pulsed with a terrible, living gravity, pulling at their very souls. Every fibre of her being screamed at her that she should turn around and run.

But Anna is inside.

She started thinking about the hours—maybe even days she would have to spend to get news of this anomaly back to Sienne without inciting more political strife. Then months convincing the surrounding baronies to evacuate. By her calculations, it’d take a half-year at the bare minimum before she’d even attempt any interaction with it, lest any of her prodding around resulted in the calamity expanding, or worse, collapsing while one of her subjects was in it.

Please hold on a little bit longer, I beg.

In her head, she was doing all kinds of mental calculus:

Why didn’t I get a vision for this?

How did this barrier form?

Is Primot inside, too?

…Is Primot the one who formed this?

Testing. We need to test if we can break it.

Should I start with Soren’s blade? Or magic?

No—what if it reacts?

No, wait. What if it’s not a barrier?

What if it corrupts anything it touches?

Will it grow?

Should we get out of here?

We should definitely get out of here.

…Asmodeus?

Not once did the thought that she should just attempt running through it occur to Maelle. But could you really blame her? The instinctual thing for anyone to do when they saw a rift of this size and magnitude occur would be to run away from it, not towards it. She’d already chosen the path of duty over her self-preservation instincts—and now she was expected to understand how the domain worked right away, within seconds of seeing it?

No.

There was no way for her to know that this was a one-way barrier that only trapped the entities within, or that it wouldn’t grow, or that it wasn’t a rift at all. Not within the twenty seconds she and her attendant had spent staring at it. There were limits to human genius, and the application of accurate heuristics to a never seen before event was one of them.

The only way to overcome the human weakness of overthinking… was to not be human at all.

Say, if you had a bird brain.

“Caw!”

“Stop. Stop that, you stupid bird!”

“CACAW!”

Once it realised the two humans it had banded with had no intentions of moving along, the Quanta-starved Cockatrice named Cockie exploded out of Maelle’s arms, flapping aggressively towards the barrier. Had Cockie been a dog and the black dome a living creature, Maelle would have chalked this behaviour up to rabies. But unlike the two humans applying rational thought and impulse control, all the turkey could think about was the fact that it desperately needed to see its master again, for it could sense she had disappeared, and it was angry at whoever would dare make its master disappear.

Maelle prepared herself for the absolute worst.

She gripped Soren tighter.

Soren conjured Galebrand, ready to put down the abomination that would result from this, and pre-emptively visualised the magic circle for [Frost Barrier].

She averted her gaze.

…

And then, as the bird made contact—nothing happened.

Nothing, except shadows parting like clouds after rain.

What?

A big circle, much larger than necessary for the bird to enter, formed as it charged in. As if the calamity was inviting things into it.

“Caw!”

Maelle couldn’t help but swear. “What the hell?” she blurted.

“Did… did that hatchling just… run through?”

She had never heard Soren so taken aback before—not even the Quantum Mage attempting murder on her had thrown him in for a loop, after all, so Maelle was completely convinced of the idea that Soren’s permanent stoicism had been permanently seared into his brain chemistry. Even through the distortion of his visor, his emotions were made abundantly clear from his uncharacteristic stuttering—but quickly, light exposed what was inside of this unknown domain, and that was when Maelle’s jaw too unhinged itself.

Thanks to her elevated position, she saw Anna and Primot inside, surrounded by a legion of fleshbeasts. None of that was particularly surprising. It was, in fact, relieving to find them alive, and not on each other’s throats.

The creations were whatever. They looked abhorrent, but Maelle’s combat hardened eyes and genius knowledge saw through this veneer and appraised the horde of them instantly. Each of the ghouls individually were probably Initiate-level, and altogether would require a particularly talented Knight or low Paladin to deal with. Soren could deal with this in his sleep. Maybe even Annabelle could pull through herself if she had been given time to prepare instead of having this sprung on her so suddenly.

Speaking of Annabelle—she was whatever as well. She looked much worse for wear, her pink hair basically blonde now, and her white robes were covered in all sorts of nasty black gunk—but she still looked, for the most part, like Annabelle. Okay, maybe the way she was wielding her staff was a cause for concern, but she couldn’t care any less about that right now. She was alive, and Soren was going to save her.

A wave of relief washed over Maelle—at least, that was what should’ve happened.

Because, you see… everything so far was within reasonable expectation, except… that boy next to her.

Her eyes were fixated on him.

Primot, or rather Watanabe Daisuke—as was revealed to her in a vision.

What in the world?

Was that really him?

What the hell is he doing?

His eyes were glowing in the dark, ablaze with amber. Just like hers.

But they were supposed to be black.

Then, in his hands, was something even more unthinkable. A blade, wrapped firmly with Quanta.

But never had Maelle seen such precise control before. Even just the act of wrapping a weapon with Quanta itself would’ve pegged that person squarely at Paladin level for the amount of control it demanded—packing such an immense amount of energy into a compact, tiny space, not letting it dissipate—this was considered an extremely high level technique, one that could not be demarcated by a magic circle, and for that reason itself was considered the sign of prodigious talent. She would know. Soren made an entire name for himself using it.

But this.

This went beyond just one in ten thousand, generic Paladin-level rabble. Not even Justicar-level skill or Imperial-level destructiveness could explain this.

This was about as unheard of as having two Marks.

The wrapping was far too sleek, razor-thin, more like an artisan’s creation than a mage’s technique. She would go as far to call it mesmerising. And as she looked further… she realised there was nothing underneath it all to even wrap.

If she’d paused to recall the man had thrown away his shortsword the day before—something about it “not being his”—she would have realised it sooner. Not that this katana bore the same shape as a shortsword anyway.

It’s just quanta.

The blade, the hilt, the guard—it was just quanta.

It was being projected onto reality.

Maelle couldn’t believe her eyes. No living person could do that. At most, you could think in terms of folklore—Saint Alicia had a staff of light. Saint Lucius had a blade of water. But those were just metaphors for Soren’s technique taken to a Saintly level.

…Right?

But also—his sword was grey.

Not colourless. Grey.

It didn’t belong to any element.

This broke apart every single rule of quanta Maelle had been spending so much time deciphering. There were universal spells, of course… but they still borrowed the colour of the user’s Mark.

This?

This was madness.

Then the other small details picked apart at her. The length of his hair, now reaching his neck. The fact he had a beard. His cheeks being hollowed, gaunt. Flicking her focus back to Annabelle momentarily, she realised she was severely malnourished too.

How much time had passed in that domain?

Days?

Weeks, even?

Wait. Those creatures… were infinitely respawning, weren’t they? Just like a rift?

And even then… the two of them… fended all of these monsters off by themselves?

Without any light?!

“Go, Cockie!”

The Cockatrice grew tremendously, reaching even… meh. Maelle lost focus. She couldn’t bring herself to focus on the admittedly impressive display of magic going on in front of her, even if Annabelle was the one performing it. Empowering summons—she had seen thousands of demonstrations by druids in the inner palace doing such things before. Annabelle’s skill and expertise was impressive for a Knight, let alone an apprentice, no doubt… but for an untrained goon, what Primot was doing was like spitting on every single secular belief Maelle had been carefully curating over the course of her life.

What is that guy doing?

His technique is a fluke, obviously. Obviously!

He’s just holding his sword and breathing like an idiot while Anna does everything! I’m going to—

“Bloom, Sumirezaku!”

Huh?

What kind of name is—

A flash of white.

Maelle blinked.

When she opened her eyes again, an entire group of creations had been decapitated. Their torsos were split in half, exactly at the point where human hearts should have been.

Then they reverted into blobs of ink.

Primot was ten paces away from before.

How was that possible?

But not all the ghouls were gone. Surely—

Navy.

Then, another blinding flash. This time, a single, icy stroke, and everything in his wake was frozen.

They disappeared into shards with a flick of his wrist.

Red.

A group of ghouls set on fire, incinerated into magical ash in moments.

Light blue.

Then he blinked around, teleporting and decapitating any stragglers he’d missed.

Orange.

But he had overextended. In the midst of all this chaos, there was one particular ghoul that had gotten into Annabelle’s blind spot. Jumping at her with no one except Maelle noticing—

A crack of a whip.

It disappeared as if swatted away by a vengeful god, splattering into a cloud of gore.

The poor princess felt like her jaw would never reattach itself if she kept watching. She snapped towards her attendant for answers, as she always did.

“What the hell? How is he—”

Soren clasped his gauntlet around her mouth. Turning her to the explosion of colours, he spoke.

“Maelle. When given the opportunity to witness greatness, it’s best to take it.”

Slowly but surely, the army of ghouls had been thinned down into a manageable group, a fraction of their once seemingly insurmountable power.

Maelle’s calculations had been all wrong. Adding in all the context she disregarded in her earlier assessment—the lack of light, their infinite nature, the exhaustion they were both in… this was an Archon—no, safely Justicar level threat.

This guy… He’s actually…

Annabelle at this point wasn’t doing anything—just staring at the black-haired swordsman in awe. The Cockatrice too had reduced to a more reasonable size, but it didn’t make a sound, just tilting its head as it watched the human.

Then—a heartbeat.

The dome pulsed violently.

The lake of ink started re-forming its creations. This time, they seemed even more insurmountable in number. But instead of looking distraught, or excited, or even anything… Watanabe Daisuke’s face was just… there.

No, seriously… How can this be?!

He stared down the demons without a shred of fear or pride in his gaze—which reminded Maelle of a certain someone.

The world’s strongest Templar—down to the fact he used a blade, the gauntlet he wore, and the blue cape by his shoulder.

The only thing missing now was a visor.

She shuddered. This couldn’t be happening.

“The hole is closing, my lady. Should we—”

“Is that even a question? They need saving! Get in there!”

Soren smiled. Not that anyone would be able to see.

“Of course.”

The two of them jumped off the crocodile. Soren thanked it for its service, then sent the Snapjaw back into the aether. In a realm of eternal nightfall, they had to conserve every bit of quanta they had.

Then, with sword and princess in tow, the Royal Bodyguard entered the fray.