Flames. Lightning. Compressed wind. Torrents of water. Jagged earth spears.
Every elemental attack froze mid-air.
For a moment, the world held its breath.
Then Akira closed his hand.
And they vanished.
Everyone was shocked, both the mages and Iori and Erika, who were watching.
But the leader, who caught his composure first, screamed, "Don't stop! Attack him! Use Formation B!"
The mages moved immediately.
Five remained behind, forming a layered teleportation array.
Three stepped forward, their magic circles overlapping.
Metal chains burst from the earth.
Chains of light shot forward.
Twisting plant vines erupted from the ground.
They converged on Akira at once.
Akira raised one hand.
A white magic circle unfolded silently.
The chains halted mid-lash.
The runes inscribed along their lengths flickered.
And then.
They reversed.
Metal snapped backward.
Light reoriented.
Vines twisted inward.
The three casters were bound in an instant.
At the same time, ice spears tore through the air.
Thunder lances and flame lances screamed toward him.
Akira waved his hand.
The Trajectories bent.
Ice, fire, and lightning curved.
And pierced the bound mages instead.
Then the ground beneath him glowed.
Layered sigils spread outward, preparing to rupture the earth.
Akira lightly stomped.
The sigils shattered.
The mana flow collapsed.
Nothing happened.
The mages flinched. None of them had ever seen magic erased so effortlessly.
The leader recovered first.
"Formation C! Surround him! Don't give him time to react!"
They moved immediately.
Five remained behind, finishing the teleportation array.
The remaining seven attacked in unison.
Wind blades shrieked through the air.
Water spheres compressed into high-velocity shots.
Stone fragments hardened into piercing rounds.
Fire condensed into burning streaks.
Lightning flickered between them like snapping threads.
Small. Fast. Relentless.
They rained down on him from every direction.
Akira waved his hand.
The trajectories shifted.
Fire collided with water.
Steam exploded outward.
Wind redirected the vapor into a rolling wall.
Lightning spread through the moisture, branching violently.
Screams erupted as arcs of electricity tore through the formation.
Stone rounds followed, raining down through the mist.
Most of the mages managed to put up a barrier in time, but three of them were paralyzed and couldn't raise their barriers in time. The stone bullets struck them down.
Behind them, the teleportation circle finally completed. Runes aligned. Space began to distort.
Akira's gaze shifted slightly toward them.
The runes scrambled.
The circle fractured.
And shattered.
The mages panicked. Their escape route was cut off.
But the leader didn't give up.
"Don't stop! All of you, attack him at once! Formation E! Full suppression!!"
The mages moved, surrounding him but standing far away from each other, raining down attacks of different kinds on him.
Akira raised his hand.
His eyes were glowing.
But looked more empty than before.
Erika and Iori, who were watching from the sidelines, were also shocked by this fight.
Erika had never seen anything like this.
From the beginning, Akira hadn't cast a single offensive spell.
And yet the mages were falling, struck down by their own magic.
She had seen Akira use magic before, but she had never seen anything like this.
Iori stared, stunned.
"He's using their spells against them… This is like Ajuka Beelzebub's fighting style."
"Who?" Erika asked.
Iori explained, "One of the Four Great Satans. I heard he fights by using his enemies' magic against them. I think it's called the Kankara Formula."
Erika froze slightly. In the second volume of Akira's novel, he had written about training under one of the Devil Kings.
"Is that it…?"
Selena telepathically said, "Well, my brother did train with him, but he is not using the Kankara Formula."
Erika asked, "Then what is it?"
Selena said, "Something he created himself. Entropy Axiom Sequence."
Erika thought, "Entropy Axiom Sequence?"
Selena said, "Ajuka treats magic like mathematics. But my brother treats it like code."
Erika asked, "Code?"
Selena continued, "Yes. Like computer code. He rewrites it to make their magic his own."
Erika thought it was amazing that he could do that.
But when she looked at him, she felt something was wrong.
As if he were different.
The Akira she knew was cold sometimes, but even when they were attacked by werewolves as children, he had joked around, taunted his enemies.
Now he hadn't said a word.
He didn't even blink.
His eyes looked empty.
Devoid of life.
It almost made her feel like the Akira she knew had gone far away.
Making her uneasy.
As if reading her mind, Selena telepathically said, "Don't worry. He's just accelerating his cognition."
Erika thought, "Accelerating?"
Selena said, "Yes. Something from his previous life. If he wants to, he can process and operate his brain like a supercomputer. Though it suppresses his emotions temporarily."
Erika's fingers tightened slightly.
"Is that safe?"
Selena replied, "At this level? He is fine. But he hates using it."
Erika asked, "Why?"
Selena said, "Because he doesn't like turning back into this."
Erika was stunned, then looked at Akira, who seemed cold and emotionless, like a machine, as he overpowered the mages.
She didn't like this.
She wanted her idiot back.
But she didn't want to disturb him either.
Feeling helpless, she could only mutter his name softly.
"Akira."
The nine remaining mages split apart, spreading wide. Layered barriers shimmered around them as they unleashed everything they had left.
Firestorms.
Lightning arcs.
Razor winds.
The night lit up again.
Akira didn't move.
His gaze shifted slightly.
He raised his hand as if grabbing something.
The raging elements slowed.
Twisted.
Began folding inward.
Fire condensed into a white-hot core.
Lightning spiraled around it.
Wind compressed the structure tighter and tighter.
The chaotic storm refined itself.
Stabilized.
Solidified.
In Akira's hand, a blade of condensed plasma formed.
He stepped forward once.
The blade moved.
A single horizontal arc of white light cut across the battlefield.
The world went silent.
Four mages disappeared.
No explosion.
No debris.
Only ashes in the empty space where they had stood.
The leader and the remaining mages stood in shock. Only five of them remained. Seeing that they had no way to run and teleportation magic was stopped too, the leader decided they had to somehow incapacitate Akira to survive. His voice dropped.
"Formation G."
The four remaining mages gathered together. They joined forces to make a multilayered magic circle for an extremely powerful spell.
Meanwhile, the leader said, "I never thought I had to use it."
The leader crushed the artifact in his palm.
The ground split open.
Stone and soil surged upward, assembling piece by piece.
A fifteen-meter titan of compacted earth rose into the night sky.
Its shadow swallowed Akira whole.
It was a fifteen-meter-tall earth golem.
He screamed, "Go crush him!"
The golem stepped forward, shaking the ground as it raised its hand to punch Akira.
Akira raised his hand.
His fingers closed slowly.
The titan froze mid-strike.
Cracks raced across its body.
The binding sigils shattered.
And the giant collapsed into cascading sand.
The leader staggered back.
Even his powerful earth golem was destroyed.
Years of work undone in a second.
Akira looked at the combination magic that had by now gathered a massive amount of mana and was ready to fire.
He glanced at the formation.
He snapped his fingers.
The layered circles destabilized.
The mana flow reversed.
The focal point collapsed inward.
The formation detonated from within, sending all the mages flying. Two more mages died in that explosion.
When the dust cleared, only three of them remained.
The leader shouted, "Scatter!"
The three mages ran in three different directions, their last-ditch effort for at least one of them to survive.
Akira calculated the optimal solution.
Three targets.
Divergent trajectories.
Escape probability rising.
Optimal solution — long-range elimination.
Deploying particle beam.
Akira raised his hand and formed the shape of a gun.
White particles gathered, condensing into a narrow line.
The beam fired.
The first mage vanished mid-stride.
A second beam followed without pause.
The second disappeared.
The leader ran toward the school grounds.
Akira adjusted the angle.
No civilian presence detected.
Firing.
The beam hit him, and he also disappeared, but it didn't stop.
The beam continued past its target and hit the school barrier.
For a split second.
The air rippled.
The school barrier flickered.
Something deep beneath the ground trembled.
Akira didn't question it, but looked at the sky.
High above, something invisible fractured.
A faint shattering sound echoed through the night.
The surveillance magic broke.
Finally, Akira closed his eyes.
Mission completed.
Silence returned.