Deep within a dense forest, Sawyer stood in confusion as he studied his surroundings.
The trees were enormous, the vegetation lush and unfamiliar, and strange, vicious-looking beasts occasionally moved through the undergrowth.
"Weren't we supposed to be among friends? Why did she teleport us all the way out here?"
Remaining alert, Sawyer began searching for the others.
Not far away, a tuft of pink hair poked out from a thick patch of flowers. A moment later, a small girl climbed out.
Sawyer immediately brightened.
"Meredy! Have you seen Ultear or the others?"
Meredy blinked, then hurried over to join him.
"No. I think it's just the two of us here."
Because she had spent seven years sealed away alongside the Tenrou group instead of physically aging normally, Meredy in this timeline had never grown from a quiet, expressionless little girl into the cheerful young woman she otherwise might have become.
She was only a year older than Wendy, and her petite frame still looked rather delicate. Glancing nervously around the forest, she murmured,
"I wonder where Ul and everyone else went…"
Before Sawyer could answer, an enormous figure suddenly crashed down from the sky.
BOOM—!
Both of them immediately assumed fighting stances.
The person who had landed before them wore a karate uniform and possessed an extraordinarily muscular build.
She appeared to be a woman.
Probably.
The muscular woman exhaled sharply through her nose.
Her heavily defined features carried an oppressive intensity as she spoke in a deep voice.
"I am Mimi, one of the Moonlight Divinities. By order of Selene-sama, I shall administer your trial."
Sawyer's heart skipped.
'She's huge!'
Her name might have been Mimi, but her appearance didn't exactly match the delicate image that name suggested.
Her arms were nearly as thick as Sawyer's waist.
Still, Sawyer had his pride as a powerful mage.
"You think you can test us?!"
Crimson patterns of light immediately spread across his body.
His Laser Acceleration Magic and sensory-dulling magic activated simultaneously, and from Mimi's perspective, Sawyer vanished completely.
An instant later, pressure struck her shoulder.
Sawyer had already appeared beside her, his flying kick landing before she even seemed to notice him move.
Mimi barely shifted.
"For a man, that level of strength is pitifully weak."
A strange energy Sawyer had never encountered before surged around her body.
His rapid kicks struck her like blows against solid steel.
Sawyer's face flushed.
He activated his acceleration again and vanished.
Mimi remained perfectly calm.
She was a genuine martial artist through and through.
When it came to tempering the body and refining hand-to-hand combat, there was almost no one in Elentear who could compare with her.
Using Spirior to reinforce her physical body, Mimi planted herself firmly against Sawyer's relentless hit-and-run attacks.
No matter how rapidly he appeared from different directions, she met his speed with patience and raw resilience.
One of them firmly believed that a man who finished too quickly would never amount to anything.
The other was determined to prove that being fast did not make him any less of a man.
And somehow, their battle descended into a deeply strange stalemate.
Meredy watched from the sidelines, her small face gradually becoming expressionless.
'Why do I feel like… this woman is weirdly perfect for Sawyer?'
...
Back at Black Moon Mountain's hot spring, Ankh watched Sawyer's fight through the water mirror after Selene finished explaining what she knew about the White Magic Cult's activities over the years.
"He's always been absurdly confident in his fighting style."
At some point, Selene had moved closer. She poured Ankh another cup of wine and smiled.
"Mimi has never liked men who are too quick. Hopefully he can prove himself and not waste the effort I put into arranging this."
Ankh turned to her in surprise.
"You arranged it?"
Then he felt the soft pressure of Selene leaning against his arm and gave her a strange look.
Selene smiled sweetly.
"Didn't you ask me to introduce him to a woman? This seemed convenient."
"Most of my subordinates came to me after being cruelly abandoned by men in this world for one reason or another. Their lives haven't been kind, but they're all good girls."
"You really do like humans."
Ankh shifted his attention to the other two water mirrors, where the battles were equally intense.
Inside an underground cavern, Mirajane and Sorano were fighting another Moonlight Divinity named Yoko, the "Mystic Fox."
Yoko's Spirior allowed her to create many kinds of yokai, as well as modify her own body with their characteristics.
In practical terms, the ability shared many similarities with transformation and Take Over Magic.
Mirajane and Sorano had understood Selene's intentions much faster than Sawyer.
Once they fought Yoko long enough to realize what she was using, neither woman seemed particularly interested in defeating her quickly.
Instead, they deliberately slowed the pace and began studying how Spirior worked.
Spirior was essentially another form of "magic" that had evolved under Elentear's extraordinarily dense magical environment, and Yoko's yokai techniques shared obvious similarities with the Take Over Magic used by Mirajane and Sorano.
As a result, their battle was surprisingly civil despite the destructive magic flying around.
Selene watched with amusement.
"Those two women, and the dark-haired one Hakune is dealing with… you like all three of them, don't you?"
"They're clever."
Ankh glanced at her without answering.
"You didn't deny it."
Selene looked almost disappointed, although the grin on her face said otherwise.
"For a god who pursues emotions, you certainly spread your affections widely."
Ankh was about to fire back when Selene suddenly pointed toward the third water mirror.
"Look at this."
Her smile became distinctly suspicious.
The final mirror displayed a frozen landscape buried beneath snow.
Standing there was Hakune, the strongest of the three Moonlight Divinities.
She specialized in ice-and-snow Spirior, using extraordinarily pure magical energy—known in Elentear as spiritual power—to freeze virtually anything.
She could also shape illusions through her ice, creating the things her opponents desired most and drawing them into those fantasies.
Compared with Mimi and Yoko, Hakune certainly looked more deserving of the title "Divinity."
Long silver-white hair framed striking gray-blue eyes, while an elegant ice-blue kimono gave her the mature beauty of a graceful widow.
Hakune smiled gently and raised one hand.
The blizzard around her immediately began closing in on Macbeth and Ultear, clinging to them from every direction.
The two felt the world around them begin to shift.
Warm arms seemed to wrap around each of them from behind as indistinct figures formed through the snow.
Hakune's voice remained soft and soothing.
"The Spirior of the Snow Woman can freeze Magic Power itself. It can also assume the form of the person of the opposite sex you desire most, drawing you into an illusion before taking your—"
"Huh?!"
Hakune's calm smile suddenly froze.
She stared at Macbeth in disbelief.
He was still wearing exactly the same permanently deadpan expression as before.
Without the slightest hesitation, he charged straight toward her.
Behind him followed several figures created from Hakune's own snow and illusion magic.
His former companions from the Oración Seis.
Macbeth gathered distorted rays of light between his hands and slammed them mercilessly toward Hakune's face.
His cold voice rang through the storm.
"I've already seen illusions like this in my dreams more times than I can count!!"