Iska, the Successor of the Black Steel, and Alice, the Ice Calamity Witch

Sector Three of the Imperial capital.

Nene looked out the window to see the sun at its peak and used her fingertips to push

aside her bangs, which were slick with sweat.

"Phew. It's hottt. It's already noon, too."

The ends of her hair held on to droplets of sweat. She was dressed lightly in thin

training clothes. Behind her was a rack of weight lifting equipment.

"Hey, Jhin. You think Iska and Captain Mismis are coming back soon? Training in this

room forever is getting boring."

"We're training to protect ourselves. It's not a matter of whether it's boring or not."

The silver-haired sniper sat on a metal bench.

He'd already finished his self-training regimen earlier and was starting to perform

maintenance on his favorite rifle.

"That's true, but, like, that's not what I was trying to say."

"Are you saying that all four of us should be doing it together?"

"Right! That's it, Jhin. You totally get it!"

"It's fine if they skip a day. We know they're heading over to the neutral city."

"But what are they doing there?"

The night before, the captain had suddenly informed them about the change of plans.

She usually didn't try to hide what she was doing or where she was going, but this

time, she was strangely ambiguous. When they pressed her on it, she didn't seem to

know herself what she would be doing.

"If it has anything to do with our unit, they would have met at the capital. Since they

didn't, we don't have any business worrying about it."

"But Captain Mismis went with him, right?"

"..." Jhin gripped the scope that he'd taken off the gun and closed his mouth. He'd

gone quiet.

"…Iska has been off lately," he answered eventually in a low voice with carefully

selected words.

"Off? Why do you say that?"

"Something in him isn't running properly. It feels like his mind and body aren't aligned.

He said he hasn't been getting much sleep lately, right?"

"Yeah, ever since we went to the Nelka forest."

"Where he ran into the Ice Calamity Witch." The sniper brought a leg up on the bench

before hugging his knee. "And he's been going to the neutral city nonstop since. If

someone from the Empire and Sovereignty met there, no one would know. Iska's gone

twice, and the third time he's taking the captain with him…"

"Huh? What're you saying? Jhin, did you figure something out?!"

"…No, it's nothing."

"No way! Jhin, you just looked away from me!"

"Ugh, just be quiet already. Come on, everyone around us is staring. We're making a

racket—"

A sound came from Jhin's lap—from the communicator on the bench, which suddenly

started blinking red and yellow.

"It's an emergency call. And… speak of the devil."

"Captain Mismis?"

"If we're to believe the name on the screen." Jhin stared intently at it before he pressed

the receiver to the side of his face. "It's me. I'm with Nene. Yup, training. Of course, if

there's anything wrong, we can come right away."

From up close, Nene witnessed the moment his smart eyes opened wide.

"…The Founder Nebulis? Wait, calm down, boss. What's going on?" Jhin stood up, still

gripping his scope in his hand. "…I understand. Actually, no, I have no idea what's going

on, but I get that something is happening over there."

He glanced at Nene from the corner of his eye. From his nervousness, Nene could

understand something unusual was going on.

"At the neutral city of Ain, huh. It's too far for Nene and me to get there in time. Who's

holding her back…? Iska? He's planning on doing it on his own?"

There was silence.

A moment later, the sniper declared in a firm tone, "In that case, this isn't the time for

me or Nene to intervene." He knew Iska the best. "Boss, you should take refuge, too…

What? The legendary Grand Witch? Yeah, I know, but it doesn't matter."

"B-but, Jhin?"

"If his opponent is a mage, Iska won't lose. Who's going to stop this good-for-nothing

war if not him?"

Jhin had absolute conviction as he answered the captain through the receiver.

"That's the whole reason why he's the Successor of the Black Steel."

They were on the scorched wastelands.

The neutral city of Ain was still plagued by embers in the background as fire and

sandstorms flew about and raced up the hill.

"Imperial soldier…"

The Founder Nebulis continued to float nearly ten yards off the ground. Her eyes were

shut tight, and her expression was practically blank, completely devoid of emotion.

The dark-skinned girl raised a slender hand into the air as though she were the

seasoned conductor of an orchestra.

"Dog of the Empire. Oh, how your kind have oppressed the astral mages."

Her back glowed vermilion from the inside of her lustrous black wings.

"Disappear."

The combusting atmosphere was audible. The moment Iska felt the fire igniting

behind him, he sprang from the ground and leaped into the air.

"…You managed to dodge it."

"I didn't."

The Grand Witch's eyebrows knitted together when she realized he had foreseen that

she would invoke fire.

Iska immediately denied it. "I did this to face you."

The explosive flames produced a shock wave that pushed him from behind. Using his

own jump as a springboard, Iska took advantage of the hot air's lift to launch himself

high above—until he wasn't jumping so much as soaring.

"How impressive—using the flames to give you the momentum to leap so far."

He headed into the sky, where the Founder Nebulis waited for him.

…Those dark black wings.

…I definitely saw her wings shining when she invoked her astral power just now.

Those wings radiated with the same color as the black astral sword.

They housed the secret to Nebulis's powers. Relying on his epiphany, Iska swung the

astral sword up, intending to sever the wings on the Grand Witch's back.

"If you thought your sword would reach me, cool those expectations."

He heard a loud snap, the sound of the moisture in the air between Iska and Nebulis

freezing due to astral power.

"Ice?! No way!"

Humans can have only one type of astral power within them. And the Founder had just

battered them with intense hellfire moments ago.

…Does she control more than just flames?

…That's strange. She should be able to manipulate only one type of phenomenon.

What kind of astral power did the Grand Witch have?

Even as the glacial wall advanced toward him, threatening to crush him in the sky, his

attention was completely dominated by that impossible anomaly.

"Iska!"

A sharp roar cleared his mind.

The call came from none other than Alice, who looked up at him from the ground.

"Hah!"

Iska held his sword sideways and thrust it into the wall, pivoting around the blade to

plant his feet on the thick ice. With that, he hooked the tip of his shoe into a shallow

depression and stomped on the wall. As he made his escape, the frost fell to the ground

in countless fragments of ice.

However, Nebulis wasn't looking at the wreckage but at the Imperial swordsman

who'd escaped unharmed.

"To think you could evade twice."

"I manipulate the planet's memories."

"I contact the Will in the second layer. I beckon it to the surface of the planet."

The Grand Witch snapped her fingers, and the space around her tore open in a vertical

gap, which continued to extend down like a twirling tentacle, making its way toward

the ocher sand.

…Last time, flames crawled up from that hole.

…Is that about to happen again?

He hunched over and crossed his swords as he readied himself.

Would it be an explosive flame that scorched the wastelands or a supermassive block

of ice? Could it be both? He tried to predict the attack to come, imagining

countermeasures for each situation in his mind.

However, the oldest mage's powers went beyond his wildest imagination.

There was a rumble at first.

The ground burst open, heaving upward. From the depths of the earth appeared a lion

the size of a small mountain.

"A golem?! Does this mean she can invoke the astral power of the earth?!"

"Unfortunately, I don't have the time to fight some rag doll." Alice kneeled to the

ground and touched the shattered crust with her fingertips. "Fly away!" she muttered

without waiting for a response.

She'd created a monstrous ice calamity, the same attack she'd used to freeze the Nelka

forest. It passed through the ground, rippling as though it were the surface of a

tranquil lake and turning the scorched wasteland blue with frost.

She was the mage feared as the Ice Calamity Witch.

When Iska spun around, the ground had become frozen over for as far as he could see.

"I expected nothing less." He landed on the icy slope, where he saw the lion golem

frozen mid-roar. "Alice, what's the deal with her astral power?"

"…I'd like to know, too."

Even though she'd just used enough strength to overpower a golem, the Ice Calamity

Witch's voice was wispy as she focused on the Grand Witch, who'd been calmly looking

down upon them up until that point.

"Even the queen, even my mother, doesn't know anything about her astral power. I

thought that if I saw it in practice, I would understand it, but…" The princess ended on

a vague note.

Iska was on the same page: He hadn't been able to come up with an appropriate

conclusion. The Grand Witch was different from every mage he'd fought so far. Her

only abilities should have matched the astral power that resided in her body.

"Do you think it's possible she has multiple?"

"It doesn't seem possible." Alice shut him down. "You know how humans with astral

power develop a mark?"

"That's the astral crest, right?"

It was one of the reasons why mages had been oppressed.

A unique mark materialized on the bodies of any who were hosts to astral power. The

stronger the astral power, the bigger the mark. As though they were possessed by

demons—at least, that's what the people who first encountered them feared, which

led to the imprisonment of mages.

"I saw her back as she was flipping around in the air. She has tears in her clothes,

where the wings are sprouting out, and there's a huge black crest there. That should

be where the astral power lies within her, but…" The Ice Calamity Witch narrowed her

eyes and stared at the Founder.

"When I saw her in the royal palace, she didn't have those wings. If they're manifesting

as a function of her defense mechanism, that means those wings aren't actually a part

of her body. They must be formed by the astral power of time and space itself."

"That's all I need to know."

If those pitch-black wings were the embodiment of Nebulis's powers, then as long as

he could sever them, he might be able to separate her from her power all at once.

"I need to do something about those wings—"

"—You—you—you think…"

"Huh?"

"—You think you can do that?" The Grand Witch laughed.

It happened incredibly suddenly.

The eyes of the girl with copper skin slowly opened. "…I… remember this place. This

is the Vishada wastelands."

"Nebulis?!"

"Oh, astral power. You couldn't have possibly roused me from my slumber for this

Imperial soldier, right? I can't fathom why this would be a reason to partially awaken

me early."

A light began returning to her eyes, growing sharper by the moment. "…Hmm, I see. I

haven't seen those weapons for quite some time."

The Founder was looking at the astral swords in Iska's hands.

"You know about these swords?"

"—"

She was silent. It wasn't that she had been intentionally keeping information from

him: The Grand Witch Nebulis had forgotten to speak, contemplating as she observed

the astral swords and Iska.

"Well, it doesn't matter. I don't know how you've acquired them, but those cannot be

used by anyone except Crossweil."

"Crossweil?!"

"Does that mean something to you?"

"…That's the name of my master."

He was the strongest swordsman in all of Imperial history, Iska's master, and the

previous owner of the astral swords.

…But why?

…Why would a great mage from a hundred years ago know my master?

"You're his…?" The Grand Witch raised one eyebrow inquisitively, but immediately, her

small lips curled ominously. "Ha. He baffles me. Why would he entrust the astral

swords to a common foot soldier?"

"You won't know unless you fight me."

"It's obvious. There's no outcome in which you could defeat me."

Piercing the ground frosted by Alice's hand, a boiling crimson spray blasted out—

magma, the largest source of energy on the planet.

It was molten rock that had formed under extreme heat inside the core of the planet,

blazing at nearly two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. It could eat through city walls and

civilian homes, indiscriminately burning and melting everything in its path.

"Can you cross a burning ocean?"

"We'll see."

A jet of lava splashed out as if to engulf him. But amid the intense heat and steam, Iska

didn't hesitate to throw himself at the burning spray. He'd intently watched the clumps

of magma as they fell back toward the earth and predicted their trajectory. That's why

he didn't retreat, surging forward instead, contorting his body as he took one step,

then spinning like a top with the next to precisely avoid the molten rock raining down

around him. As for the smaller pebbles that he couldn't avoid, he batted them away

with the tip of his sword.

"Choosing to fearlessly come closer despite the immense heat, eh?" The girl with tan

skin exhaled slightly. "Wrong choice."

The lava that had been spurting up was condensing in midair, transforming into a

coiled snake enveloped in fire.

Iska had to crane his head to see the bulky mass that made up the writhing flame

golem. At his sides, more free-flowing lava morphed into walls, threatening to close

him in. With the fire snake blocking his path forward and a wave of lava slamming into

the ground behind him, Iska was being pressed on all sides.

"I have you now, Imperial soldier."

"Hey! Could you stop ignoring me sometime soon?" The boiling lava froze over. "No

matter how hot your fires burn, I can hit you right where it hurts."

A curtain of cold air surrounded the girl with golden hair, emanating a blue light. Iska

cleared a way for her, and Alice marched forward. Neither of them had put it into

words, but the two of them knew exactly what to do.

"…Such a refined chill. Your astral power is of good stock, and you control it well."

"I'm honored to hear that from you."

The frost built up to cover the lava and flame golem. With this scene in front of her

eyes, the Grand Witch finally understood Alice's true strength and clicked her tongue

in annoyance.

"Girl, I had decided to deal with you after finishing with this Imperial soldier."

"Oh? Aren't you so kind to your fellow mages?"

"It's the opposite." The Founder looked down upon one of her own with a gaze filled

with an indescribable cruelty. "A mage joining forces with the Empire… Know that I

will not forgive you for your sin, even if you cry and scream for mercy."

"Good. I won't forgive you, either!" The princess returned her ancestor's piercing glare.

"You're a mage who's willing to hurt your own people without so much as batting an

eye. Look what you did to Rin. You're not a hero to the Sovereignty or to anyone

anymore!"

"A hero? How superficial. Something that shallow won't save the world." Her shoulders

shook as she chuckled in pity, making it clear she found the idea absolutely hysterical.

"I've known this for a century. This world is full of scars, and it doesn't have anything

resembling heroes or a savior. For that reason, I've become a witch—to drive the

Empire to extinction. That's all there is to it."

The witch's sneer was filled with bottomless despair. It was a confession of her

hopeless anguish.

"I am a witch, and you are my foes."

A ferocious gale began to blow, forming a whirlwind between Iska and Alice that was

strong enough to throw someone into the air. It peeled the frost and soil from the

ground, and those fragments became a part of the tempest as it grew larger and larger.

"Our astral power formed inside this planet, making it the oldest element on earth. It

records all phenomena on this planet, and it can be called upon from beyond the

boundaries of space and time. Now, you eyesores. Disappear to the ends of the world."

"Ngh…"

"Alice!"

As a gust of wind slammed into her from the side, Alice let out a soft cry. The gale had

become a raging storm that could blow humans away like scraps of paper. But before

she could be whisked off by the roaring winds, Iska grabbed her hand.

With his left sword stabbed into the earth as an anchor, he gritted his teeth as he dug

his feet in, pulling Alice back, even as he was exposed to the whipping winds.

—Suddenly, a spray of crimson.

The moment he'd snatched her hand, something had sliced through his arm, spilling

fresh red blood.

"Ow!"

"Iska!"

"…You've even got dust devils up your sleeve, huh."

It was as though the wind had turned into tiny blades. This was a supernatural

phenomenon that occurred when a tempest picked up gravel from the ground and

accelerated it at a terrific speed to be used as a weapon.

"Let go of my hand!" As her body flapped in the wind, the Ice Calamity Witch shouted

at him.

As the tempest continued to assail him, Iska's arm began to sprout fresh wounds as

cuts turned into gashes that made their way up to his shoulder.

"What are you doing?! Hurry and let go of my hand before your arm tears off!" The

mage tried to worm her way loose from his grip.

But he wouldn't allow that.

"…I can't hear you."

"What?!"

"I said that I can't hear you over the wind, Alice! I can't hear you telling me to let go!"

"Ugh." Her face contorted. "…Why?"

Her eyes glittered like jewels, and she looked away.

"…I'm a witch. I'm not someone you should want to offer a hand, especially if you're

going to get hurt."

Alice bit on her lip as she gave voice to a thought that pained her deeply.

No matter how ardently she labeled herself a "mage," strangers would call her a

"witch," fear her, shun her… She couldn't help but be frustrated.

The one called the Ice Calamity Witch, Alice had bared her soul.

He looked into her eyes.

"Alice." The voice of the Imperial soldier was genial. "Don't you think we're alike in a

lot of ways?"

"…Huh?"

"We're both pissed off at her. For your part, Rin got hurt. After getting abused by this

mage, I'm in no mood to negotiate with her."

"And what about it?"

"We're not in either the Empire or the Sovereignty. We're in the neutral city. Our goals

are the same. That's all that matters."

That city had been the beginning of everything. It had been the catalyst.

They'd seen an opera in the neutral city of Ain, gone to the same restaurant, and

ordered the same food. Their interests had aligned at a painting exhibition. They'd

gotten carried away with all their chatting.

"I feel the same way. I don't want to lose to her, either, so I'm not letting go of your

hand."

"..."

Alice opened her mouth as though she had something to say. Then she cast her face

down soon after, apparently giving up… But she continued to hesitate and look up,

biting her lip over and over again.

"…Can I trust you? Even though you're from the Empire, Iska?" The Ice Calamity

Witch's gaze quavered as she asked the question.

Then, in the eye of the raging storm, Aliceliese Lou Nebulis IX's hand glowed.

"Ice Calamity—Myriad of Snow Lights."

Crystals of ice glittered around them as light began to branch out from around her feet

and snow blanketed the wastelands in a heavenly scene. It was the embodiment of the

word myriad: They were surrounded by an uncountable, unfathomable number of icy

gems floating through the air, unleashed by Alice's astral power.

"Stars of ice, rise!"

With a flash of blue, the glittering crystals blasted off from the earth's surface and left

sparkling afterimages as they flitted into the air. The supercooled shooting stars

traced an arc as they hurtled up and over the gale, heading straight toward Nebulis.

"Ice missiles? I didn't think they could overcome this gale… Is that an original

technique of yours?" the Founder asked haughtily as she thrust her hands in front of

her and condensed the atmosphere itself into a shield.

The strength of her barrier exceeded that of a thick steel wall, and it was impossibly

elastic. She brought it up to catch the incoming flashes of ice.

"Ugh!"

Then she fell back.

The feared Grand Witch cast aside her defense and started to take measures to

prepare for a retreat. It was a scene that no Imperial soldier could have witnessed a

century ago.

"Surely this couldn't…"

A red droplet traced a line down her coppery cheek. The stars of ice had managed to

penetrate her shield of air, and one had even grazed her face.

"So it can pierce through my protective barrier."

"I'm far from done. These missiles will keep coming until I use up every last bit of snow

on the ground!"

"—"

The dark-skinned girl twirled in the air.

Just when they thought she was about to soar even higher, she suddenly flipped

around, turning again as she skimmed the ground before coming to a sudden halt.

With her complex and inscrutable flight patterns, she'd skillfully woven through and

dodged Alice's barrage.

But Nebulis had managed to evade only a few hundred of these stars at most. Alice

chased after her with a web of endless, overwhelming volleys, forcing the Grand Witch

to skid to a stop once again. As if to follow suit, the gale that engulfed Iska and Alice

settled down as though it had never been there in the first place.

"We've driven you into a corner, Founder."

They'd won. Alice let her confidence in their victory slip into the expression on her

face. "Surrende—"

"So aves cal pile—Come, divine staff."

"I manipulate the planet's core."

"I connect my body. I beckon it from the ends of time and space."

The Grand Witch turned toward the heavens. A shadow appeared above her head,

growing darker and darker as if crowded with clouds. The sun's rays had been

interrupted by an ominously black miasmic vortex.

"…My stars!"

The inky current formed a barrier in front of Nebulis, who was still hounded by Alice's

ice missiles—but the stars that had once pierced through the atmospheric wall left

behind only blue glitter as they ricocheted off the partition.

"What? What is that black stuff?!" Alice rasped as she stared straight up at it.

The air current converged into a vortex, and in the outstretched right hand of the

world's oldest mage appeared a pole as long as she was tall.

"It took some time to make this. Apparently my astral power still hasn't fully awakened…"

The black staff twisted and turned while taking shape. The Grand Witch flourished the

staff as though she really were a witch performing magic.

"Meet your doom." She threw the staff at them from high above.

When he watched the scene playing out before his eyes, Iska was assaulted by an

intense sense of vertigo.

…Is the sky warping?!

…What is this…? What is that creepy staff?!

The staff from the heavens hurtled toward them, and he could feel it in his skin that it

was an unavoidable danger.

"Ngh… My stars, take down that staff!"

The staff plunged through the sky as a myriad of ice stars launched from the ground.

They crashed together with a head-to-head collision in midair. Before Iska even

realized what had happened, the tip of the divine staff blinked.

—Space itself was completely destroyed.

The air shrieked. The ground roared and broke in two. The endless stream of ice

missiles had been so devastated that little remained.

Before he had time to realize it, Iska was blown high into the air by an invisible shock

wave.

"…Ugh… Guh, ha…?"

He crashed onto the icy ground and rolled down the slope.

Iska could taste blood in his mouth. He'd probably cut something inside it while falling,

but he didn't even know when that had happened. He was completely unaware of

when he had been hit by the shock wave.

"…Ali… ce…?!"

"—"

He received no answer.

The princess was lying facedown, unable to raise her head.

He could tell she was breathing as her back faintly moved up and down, but she'd been

hit with the shock wave. On top of that, her whole body had hit the ice hard. Whether

she was conscious or not, she wasn't in a state where she would have been able to

move.

"That's the limit of my divine staff, huh. I guess my powers haven't completely

returned after all."

The black staff remained in the air.

Even after it destroyed Alice's ice missiles and then released enough energy to shatter

the very ground itself, the Grand Witch still seemed unsatisfied as she snorted.

"…What do you mean, this is all it can do…?"

"This is the difference between you and me—the difference that sets apart heaven and

earth. Can't you tell?"

Her power was overwhelming, of course. Her gaze told him that they hadn't even been

strong enough for her to consider them real opponents from the start. It was true.

Alice had barely managed to graze Nebulis's cheek.

Other than that tiny flesh wound, they had done nothing to her. She didn't even have a

speck of dust on her clothes.

This was the Founder, the one feared as the Grand Witch, a being who possessed

enough power to cause a natural disaster with the wave of a staff.

However.

"—"

"What's that look in your eyes?"

Iska used his astral swords to support himself as he stood.

As she looked down upon him from high above, the Founder seemed unamused as she

raised her voice. "You won't run, beg for your life, or look afraid… That gets on my

nerves. That impudent manner in which you behold me. Did you dare to think you

would successfully stand up against me?"

"No."

He propped himself up with the astral sword in his left hand. Then he thrust the point

of the blade in his right hand toward the Grand Witch.

"I'm going to fight you, starting now."

"Are you insane?" Nebulis asked shrilly, as if she couldn't understand a word he said.

"The only thing that protected you from the divine staff was that girl's astral power.

But take a look around you. She's collapsed and can't even stand up. You have no way

of protecting yourself anymore."

"Exactly!" Iska spat blood and kicked at the icy ground. "Alice did all that, so I need to

make sure I don't waste this chance."

He'd felt the power of her divine staff in his very bones, but his body still moved. He

ran at his top speed, following along the scarred, broken ground. He sprinted toward

the Founder floating with the sun at her back.

"Your only skill is running, you mongrel." The dark-skinned girl pulled the staff toward

herself. "Crawl pathetically along the ground."

She waved the staff.

The sky rumbled as though it were about to weep, and the atmosphere warped. A

blade fashioned from the space-time continuum came into being with an edge sharper

than steel and invisible to the human eye.

But the astral sword that Iska brought down split through the Founder's approaching

blade.

"What?"

"Even if it's invisible, I can still sense it."

He could feel the undulation of the warping atmosphere on his skin and listened for

the sound of the invisible blade slicing through the air. Even if it was a means of attack

he'd never seen before, as long as it was astral power, he could intercept it with his

black astral sword.

…That is why I trained.

…So that I will never hesitate, no matter what kind of mage I face.

"What kind of joke is this?"

"Joke? I'm always serious!"

Blades of condensed air rained down on him from all directions.

As he faced the barrage, Iska chose not to retreat or stop but to go faster. The air

practically shrieked as he sliced through it with his sword to ward off the invisible

blades.

He dodged one that came at him from behind and slipped past another coming from

his side. His cheek was grazed and a gash appeared on his shoulder, but Iska wouldn't

stop.

"…Keep… running!" The princess scrambled onto her trembling knees. "Rise up."

The ice on the ground started to twist heavenward and transformed into a glacial wall.

Bit by bit, it was chipped away as she masterfully sculpted it into a polished staircase

right before Iska's eyes. It pointed straight into the sky—a final glittering path of ice

that led directly to the Founder Nebulis.

"Here I come."

"How impudent!" The Grand Witch wielded her staff sideways. "You, someone who

doesn't even know the true extent of the Empire's countless evils, would dare to face

me—"

"You still don't understand, huh." Iska sprinted up the ice stairs. "This pointless war

won't end, because people like you are trapped by their hatred!"

"Silence!" She released the powers from her staff. "Astral sword or not, you won't be

able to endure this attack!"

Her technique that used the astral power of time and space could wreck the

atmosphere and cause the wind to howl. Even if the astral sword could intercept all

other astral powers, it was useless against this. The moment the tip of his sword and

the point of her staff made contact, it would detonate the very fabric of existence itself.

Even if he managed to hack through her staff, he would still get caught in the blast.

"I know. I saw what happened with Alice's missiles."

Shling. The black astral sword rang shrilly as it fell to the ground. Iska had let it drop

out of his own right hand.

"What are you planning?!"

"I know what the strongest shield in the world is."

He thrust out his right hand, revealing something broad and flat. It was an "ice seed."

"An invincible shield: It's even resisted the firepower of Imperial weapons of mass

destruction."

She'd said it was invincible.

And Iska chose to believe her—that she'd entrusted him with a shield that could

withstand the force of the divine staff.

"Alice!"

When he called down to her, the Ice Calamity Witch replied with just one word as her

face remained planted on the ground. Even then, she had absolute confidence in

herself.

"…Bloom!"

The shard of ice in his hand burst open, emitting a sharp ringing sound that echoed

into the backdrop. The ice seed sprouted into the most beautiful mirror shield in the

world—an ice flower.

Though his black sword could sever any astral power, this was the one exception.

Aliceliese Lou Nebulis IX possessed the astral power of ice flowers, and its true form

manifested as a blossom of frost.

"…Can I trust you? Even though you're from the Empire, Iska?"

While they were swept up by the gale, Iska hadn't let go of her hand. And as their

fingers interlaced, Alice had entrusted him with her biggest secret, an ice seed—which

bloomed to become Iska's shield.

The most beautiful petals of ice in the world caught the blow of the divine staff.

"That's impossible!"

The witch's staff and the flower of frost groaned before they both shattered into a

thousand pieces, leaving the copper-toned girl exposed and totally defenseless. She

couldn't move. Though it was true that her powers hadn't completely returned yet, she

was shaken that her ultimate attack had been stopped.

But she seemed to be in a stupor, as if she refused to accept the truth.

"…Why…?"

"Don't you get it?" Iska twirled the white astral sword with his left hand. "A hundred

years ago, you'd only take up battles with swordsmen. But you've never had to fight a

swordsman and a mage at once."

Nebulis had once represented hope for all astral mages. If she'd still been the symbol

of change in this era, the battle would have ended on a different note, and Alice

wouldn't have entrusted the ice flower to Iska.

But Alice's astral power had come to a decision: The Grand Witch wasn't going to be

the mage to shoulder the burden of bringing about the new age.

"Go back to sleep, Nebulis." Iska brought down his sword, aiming at the base of the

pitch-black wings that peeked out from the back of her cloak. "Next time you wake up,

I bet the world will be in a better place."

There was a tiny cry.

And with that, the girl lost consciousness as the connection to her source of power

was severed, falling forward with her eyes shut tight into a deep slumber once more.

Her body was swallowed by a crevice in the sky and disappeared from sight.