Chapter 42 The Cursed Black Flame

Victor didn't even have a smudge on his face.

"Boy, I have burned in Black Flame. The Witch Queen's fire. And I survived! Why, by any logic, would you think your cute, pink sparkles would make a difference?! I was about to give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps you were brave. But no. You're just that dumb!"

He drew his foot back, dark energy forming around it.

 "Last time, I was using one percent of my power to humor you. Now, I will kick you with one hundred. Let's see how much of you rema—"

His words cut off mid-sentence. His eyes, which had been locked on Enji's furious face, dropped. He was staring at Enji's shoulder.

"Your arm. It should be gone. I saw it. You used Sacrifice Magic. There is no mistake. The flesh offered is consumed by the primal pact. It is lost forever. It's a cursed, annihilating magic. First of all, where did you even learn that? I personally burned the last of the Ancient Grimoires that held such rites. Modern magic has no records..."

He shook his head, dismissing the lesser question.

"No. That is not it. More importantly... how did you get your arm back? Only a handful of beings in all of history could reverse a Sacrifice Curse. And most of them are dead. Or locked away in The Archive with no key, no path back."

"You're getting worked up over a little scratch, old man? A minor injury like that is nothing for the Great Heatburst-sama! I could lose an arm and a leg and still kick your ass! You think you're the only one with tricks? I've got more up my sleeve than you've got wrinkles!"

"Is that so? Not going to talk about it, huh. Fine. Then I have no more use for either of you."

Victor's hand swung Mirai's body and hurled her directly into Enji. Her body became a projectile of bone and tungsten. It struck Enji with the force of a freight train. The combined force launched them like a single, mangled comet away from the Veil's surface. They streaked across the sky, trailing smoke, before plummeting to the city below, where they vanished into a colossal explosion of dust and smoke as they leveled a small office building.

Victor didn't watch them fall. His business with them was done. He turned his full attention to the glowing crystal chamber. 

"Enough distractions." 

He raised a hand, palm down toward the crystal roof. A wave of pure darkness rippled from his hand and slammed into the chamber.

The crystal, reinforced to withstand anti-kaiju artillery, was blown away, revealing the interior.

Inside, Victor saw it. A perfect, spherical barrier of blue-white light. And within it, Shota, kneeling, hands on the Eternal Veil, eyes closed in deep concentration. The boy hadn't flinched. He hadn't even looked up. The Erosion Wave had washed over the barrier and done absolutely nothing. 

Victor walked right up to the barrier, stopping inches from its surface. He let out a low whistle.

"Well now. I didn't hold back. Not even a little. And there isn't even a scratch. You're full of surprises, boy. But whatever game you're playing in there... it's time to pack up. The house is closing." 

He raised his hand again, darker energy than before beginning to spiral around his fist.

 "Let's see how many hits your perfect little bubble can really take."

“Could you… not? I’m kind of busy right now. Almost done. It would be nice if you could wait. It’s… really hard to focus... with you being so loud out there.”

BEEP. BEEP-BEEP.

Just then, console on his wrist beeped. Victor’s hand halted. He lowered his fist, the dark energy dissipating, and glanced at the screen.

A single, pulsing green icon glowed on the display. A status bar beneath it read: CHARGE: 100%. SYNCHRONIZATION: COMPLETE. FIRING SEQUENCE: ARMED.

The World-Severance Array was primed. The artifact was ready to fire.

“It would seem that your request for silence is about to be granted. Permanently.”

He took a step back from the barrier, his gaze lifting as if he could see the hidden cannon miles away. He raised his wrist, his finger hovering over the console.

“Goodbye, boy. Enjoy the last few seconds of your world.”

Victor pressed the button.

For a heartbeat, nothing. Then, far on the horizon, the night sky turned to blinding, noon-white day. The light explosion was like a gathering of reality itself into a single point of energy. It shrank from a false sun down to a pinprick of light so intense it hurt to look at, flickering like a star in the night.

The World-Severance Array fired.

A beam of absolute destruction, wide as a city block, lanced across Tokyo, leaving a temporary scar of vacuum and twisted physics in its wake. It was aimed directly at the center of the Eternal Veil.

Inside the barrier, Shota's eyes snapped open. 

"All done. Just in time."

As the annihilating beam crossed the final miles, the Eternal Veil shuddered. Then, it collapsed inward. In the space above the tower, where the Veil's apex had been, the light condensed into radiant, blinding gold. The light took shape—humanoid, feminine, majestic. 

The beam from the Array arrived.

It struck the glowing, human-shaped manifestation of the Veil—it struck the resurrected Witch Queen, Lycoris Noire, in her full, physical form.

She raised her hand and slapped it sideways, like swatting a mosquito.

WHAP.

The colossal beam of annihilation was bitch-slapped off its trajectory. It veered wildly, deflected at an angle, and screeched harmlessly off into space.

Victor Creed stared, his hand still raised, his console glowing green. His perfect, world-ending shot had not only failed, it had been used as the backdrop for the return of the one person he never expected to see again.

The gold light dimmed, settling into a form. Lycoris stood, whole and real, her eyes opening—two pools of calm, ancient power. She looked first at Shota within his barrier, a look of profound gratitude. Then her gaze turned to Victor.

Her voice, when it came, was the same melodic, gentle tone.

"Hello, Victor. I believe you were looking for me. It's been a while. What a naughty, destructive boy you have been. Ten years of scheming. All that pain, all that loss you caused, just to throw another tantrum. There is no redemption for you. You took something beautiful and tried to turn it into your playground. That was very, very bad. Now, it's time for you to be quiet."

Victor’s eyes opened wide, the pieces crashing together in his mind.

“The hidden wizard... My Ancient Shadows during the kaiju attack… they... you eliminated them. The Leviathan… the injury that forced it to retreat into the deep. That strike. That wasn’t a lucky shot from the pro wizards or Kenji. That was you.”

He looked down at his own hands, then back at Lycoris, realization dawning.

 “The boy’s arm… Sacrifice Magic cannot be undone by any modern art. But an UR-tier restoration specialist, a master of life-force magic… All this time… It wasn’t just a boy with potential. It wasn’t lucky accidents or unseen wizards. You were there. You were always there! I should have known! But how?! Tell me! How did you survive?!”

“Victor, we are past the stage where we can casually talk. It's time to end this.”

She moved. One moment she was hovering, the next she was directly in front of him, her form a streak of black and pink light.

Victor’s instincts, honed by decades of survival, screamed. He didn't try to block. He flung his hands forward, summoning a massive, swirling void portal directly between them—the same trick that had swallowed Kenji. The darkness opened, ready to teleport her away.

Lycoris didn’t slow. Her knee came up, burning with Black Flame—the same fire that had killed him once before.

She drove her Black Flame-knee through the center of the void portal itself. It shattered like black glass, its darkness tearing apart around her leg.

Victor’s eyes went wide with pure shock. There was no time for anything else.

Her knee slammed into his stomach. Victor folded around her knee; all the air and arrogance blasted from his lungs. A choked, silent gasp was all he managed before he was launched.

 He beamed, a dark comet carved across the Tokyo skyline, vanishing into the distance with a trail of shattered atmosphere and dying Black Flame in his wake.

Victor’s body plowed through a skyscraper’s structure before finally cratering to a stop in a ravaged office floor, dust and debris raining down around him. He lay on his back, gasping, the world swimming.

The agony was absolute and familiar. His abdomen was a ruin, the Black Flame still clinging to his flesh, not just burning, but erasing him, molecule by molecule, just as it had a decade ago.

He clawed at the air beside him, summoning a shard of solidified void magic—a blade of absolute darkness. With a scream that was equal parts pain and fury, he drove the void-blade into his own burning torso and ripped.

A chunk of his own abdomen, flesh and cloth and the cursed Black Flame still devouring it, was sheared away. It fell to the ground and dissolved into nothing, leaving a horrific, gaping wound. He clamped a hand over the spilling guts, dark energy sizzling as he tried to staunch the flow.

Through the blinding pain, through the haze of shock, one undeniable truth burned brighter than the wound.

“That power… This cursed Black Flame… this is not mimicry. Not some forgery… This is her. There is no mistake… this is Lycoris Noire! Damn you, Witch Queen… This… is not the last you see of me… It will take time… to recover… But I… will be back.”

With the last of his strength, he pooled the remnants of his void magic around himself. The darkness swallowed him, and he vanished from the ruined office, leaving behind only a pool of blackened blood.