"Gh...!"
My left shoulder burned like it was on fire.
I'd managed to avoid a vital spot, but the mana-water thorn had pierced straight through my shoulder.
Mana vanished from my surroundings.
Enduring pain so intense I wanted to scream, my vision gradually blurred with tears.
But in exchange for that agony, I'd obtained the final piece of crucial information.
Her [Mana Devourer] was indeed incomplete.
"Got you!"
Due's cheerful voice rang out from behind.
Turning just my head to bring her into view, I saw several cracks in the ground where she stood.
She'd probably flowed mana-water through those fissures, extended it to the wall, then reshaped it into thorns.
So when she'd stomped earlier, it wasn't just out of frustration.
If it weren't for [Mana Devourer], even if I'd overlooked it, Titania certainly wouldn't have.
This was truly troublesome.
Just like the first time I'd been caught, Titania channeled wind blades through me toward the ceiling—but the highly viscous mana-water clung to it, neutralizing the blades.
"Ahaha! The same trick won't work twice! Die already, Silver-hair!"
Due transformed her left arm into a sharp blade again and charged forward aggressively.
"No way... I'm dying in a place like this...!"
Since the thorn had stopped after piercing me, I backed up to forcibly yank it out.
An even sharper pain shot through my left shoulder, but ignoring it, I swung the staff in my right hand as I turned.
But Due had already slipped inside the staff's reach—its blade tip closing in.
Her expression was one of assured victory.
"You let your guard down. Sloppy!"
Before the tip reached me, I switched from staff to dagger and struck the flat of the incoming blade, deflecting it.
"—Eh?"
Flowing with the motion, I drew the dagger across her torso from abdomen to right shoulder in a single passing slash.
This was a dagger technique taught directly by Telche, who excels at it most.
I'm nowhere near specialists in close combat, but I can manage at least this much.
I immediately escaped [Mana Devourer]'s range and activated [Time Regression] to revert my body to before the shoulder was pierced.
The fact of the piercing vanished from my body, though the pain lingered as phantom sensation.
It's unavoidable.
Still, compared to before, it's far more bearable.
"Why... why!? You were holding a staff just now! How did it turn into a dagger!?"
Even though the strike should have been fatal to a human, Due showed no sign of pain. She screamed hysterically, unable to believe I'd countered her.
"Who knows?"
No way I'm answering that.
That said, there's no trick here.
My storage magical tool is a special custom job made by that genius magical tool craftsman.
It's designed to be usable even in the boss areas of the northern and southern great labyrinths' hundredth floors...
In other words, I simply stored the staff and drew the dagger.
"Cut the crap!"
"I'm not messing around. —I've got all the information I need now. From here on, this isn't a fight to the death. It's a one-sided extermination."
"!!! Don't get cocky just because you barely survived!"
Due flew into a rage. Her hair began to writhe, the bundled strands transforming into mana-water and lashing toward me.
『Titania, I have a request.』
Switching back from dagger to staff, I spoke to her mentally while constructing a formula in my mind.
『...If it's something I can do, I'll help.』
『Thanks. Gather as many ice spirits as possible from outside here—along with any mana that has the potential to become them.』
『I want to ask what you're planning, but there's no time, is there? Where should I collect them?』
『On the surface directly above us. Also, prepare to transfer to the second floor and the surface anytime.』
By the time our telepathic exchange ended, the mana-water had drawn quite close.
I activated magic before entering [Mana Devourer]'s range.
"[Space Leap]"
Once again transferring behind Due—near the third floor entrance.
The spot I'd just occupied was now covered in mana-water.
(If it's spread this much, she should be able to devour it efficiently.)
"You're still just running away! How dare you talk about killing me!"
Due quickly shifted her gaze to my transfer point. This time, the fingertips of both hands turned into mana-water and stretched toward me.
Perfect timing.
I manipulated the surrounding ice spirits to activate the magic.
"Spirit Magic—[Boreas Froststorm]!"
In an instant, frost blanketed the dome's floor. A silver-white gale roared from the magic circle that appeared before me.
[Boreas Froststorm].
Anything exposed to the silver gale becomes coated in frost on the surface and frozen solid throughout—a wide-area annihilation magic.
It has various restrictions, like requiring ice spirits to be channeled in, but its destructive power is incomparable to ordinary magic.
"Ahaha! I told you it's useless!"
Naturally, it had no effect on Due with her [Mana Devourer] active.
The silver gale vanished into nothingness more and more.
But that's fine.
The mana erased by Due's [Mana Devourer] doesn't disappear completely.
So where does it go?
Into the magic stones embedded in her body, presumably.
And since magic stones have a finite capacity for storing mana...
That monstrous breath earlier likely resulted from releasing mana that had exceeded the stones' limits.
If so, saturating the stones' capacity would prevent further erasure.
Magic would work normally again.
"...Gh... ugh... ...Eh? Already...?"
After sustaining [Boreas Froststorm] for a while, Due clutched her chest again and began writhing—just like before.
My own head gradually grew heavier too.
A precursor to the headache from overusing magic.
I hadn't felt this in a while, but maintaining it this long was bound to happen.
"...Sorry. I wanted to kill you without making you suffer, but looks like that's impossible."
Apologizing to the suffering Due, I constructed a new formula in my mind.
"No way... that's her plan...! Even if I spit it out, it won't mean anything... Damn it!"
Even if she expelled the internalized mana as breath, that mana would simply linger in the dome without disappearing.
With the total mana in this dome exceeding [Mana Devourer]'s capacity, Due's ability was effectively neutralized.
Destroying the dungeon core had been the right move.
Due must understand that too.
Even while in pain, she searched desperately for a way out.
"This means betraying Papa's expectations... I finally got a chance to be useful... No... NO! I don't want to be called useless...! What do I do...!?"
Due grew half-mad under the silver gale.
I felt a twinge of sympathy, but I couldn't let someone who would harm the duchy go free.
"Magic stones... Right, if I don't have enough...!"
Seeming to find a breakthrough, Due wore a fearless grin.
"If it's not enough, just add more!"
With those final words, her body began to swell.
Like a balloon inflating, until finally it burst—mana-water surging outward in massive waves from where she'd stood.
"Titania—to the second floor above!"
Seeing that, I immediately called to Titania.
The scenery shifted instantly—I'd transferred to the second floor.
『Shion, why transfer? I can prepare the mana. Even if her capacity increased, gathering enough to saturate it would kill her easily. Let's finish her quickly.』
『Well, yeah, but an opportunity this perfect won't come again. Let me use it as my growth ground for now.』
『What are you scheming?』
"I'm going to touch 'beyond the laws of the world' here."
『...You're serious?』
"I wouldn't joke about something like this. I told you earlier, right? I'm going to catch up to Orun. He's ahead... so it's about time I stepped forward too."
『Because an incomplete [Mana Devourer] and I are existing in the same place simultaneously—an ideal opportunity, huh.』
"Exactly."
『...If you're going to do it, I won't stop you. But if you fail, I'll take your life as payment. Is that acceptable?』
"Mm, that's fine. I've eliminated as many failure factors as possible."
『Then go ahead. I'll help as much as I can.』
As our conversation ended, the ground began shaking as if on cue, cracks spreading across it.
Due must be forcing her way up from below.
"Titania, the surface above is a lava zone, correct?"
『Yes. Without the dungeon core, the first floor is pure hell.』
"Then let's finish this! —[Super Explosion + Chain Explode Chain]!"
Raising my voice high, I activated my ability to trigger a chain of explosions in the ceiling.
By destroying what served as both ceiling and the first floor's ground, lava and dying magical beasts swallowed by it from the first floor poured down under gravity.
"Titania—to the surface!"
Right before I transferred, the second floor's ground fully collapsed, creating a straight shaft from first to third floor.
Naturally, the lava and beasts cascaded onto Due, now a mass of mana-water.
I didn't see what happened next.
Logically, mana-water—not mana—should evaporate on contact with ultra-high-temperature lava, but who knows?
Returning to the surface felt reassuring.
This labyrinth—called Farm by them—was an especially bizarre space, so the relief was even greater.
"The outside air really is delicious~"
I stretched and murmured my honest feeling.
『You seem awfully relaxed.』
"Well, once you've come this far, you just have to steel yourself. —All right, let's begin."
After one last light jab at Titania, I closed my eyes to focus.
Closing them let me feel the ice spirits Titania had gathered much closer.
Some ordinary mana was mixed in among them too.
Likely mana with potential to become ice spirits.
My ability [Time Regression] rewinds a target's time.
More precisely, it overwrites the target from its "present" state to a "past" state.
Unique abilities have far more flexibility than people think.
The same ability can become something entirely different depending on interpretation.
So I wondered—if I interpreted [Time Regression] as "the ability to move a target's time," couldn't I shift it from "present" to "future"?
After all, abilities like [Future Sight] interfere with the future.
But in practice, that interpretation was half wrong, half right.
Against physical objects, my ability could only regress time.
Against mana, however, I could transform it into a future state.
In other words, mana with high potential to become ice spirits could be sublimated into them using my ability.
Why only mana exceeds [Time Regression]'s framework—I still don't know the reason.
But right now, the reason isn't important.
The fact that I can sublimate mana into spirits is what matters.
Slowly opening my eyelids, I activated my ability to sublimate all the mana into ice spirits.
As I did, the surrounding temperature dropped further. Frost settled on the ground and vegetation.
Once the drifting mana turned entirely into ice spirits, I manipulated them through the Spirit Eye to converge in one place.
The denser they became, the more the colorless, transparent spirits shifted toward my silver-white hue—eventually visible even without the eye.
I converged that silver-white ice spirits further.
Pain began in the back of my right eye.
Further convergence.
The ice spirits started distorting the surrounding space.
Further convergence.
The right edge of my vision gradually eroded with red.
Further convergence.
"...Gh...!"
Ignoring all the pain bearing down on me, I converged further.
A hole opened in the world...
And the ice spirits made contact with "the outside."
"——"
An incomprehensible flood of vast information slammed into my mind, halting all thought.
『Don't lose focus. You'll be swallowed.』
"—!? Close... close one..."
Titania's voice echoing in my blank mind snapped me back.
I immediately released the convergence. The spatial distortion gradually faded.
The ice spirits returned to invisible, colorless transparency—drifting around me like when I'd first transferred to the surface.
But this was fundamentally different from before.
Contact with "the outside" had vastly increased the information they contained—beyond comparison.
"This is... mana beyond the laws of the world..."
I still couldn't decipher that information.
But instinctively, I understood it could perform my intended function.
『A success, for now. Just so you know—"that" will gradually revert to normal mana or spirits. Until then, it holds the potential to collapse this world. Handle it with extreme care.』
"Mm, got it. —All right then."
Wiping the blood streaming from my right eye and nose carelessly, ignoring the persistent headache, I shifted my thoughts.
Right after I did, as if a geyser erupting, a massive volume of mana-water burst from the ground a short distance away.
Leaping back with the surrounding spirits to escape [Mana Devourer]'s range.
From the large hole in the ground emerged a monster Due over five meters tall.
A chimera-like mass of mana-water combining countless magical beasts—indescribable as anything but a grotesque abomination. No trace remained of the cute girl from before.
She'd probably swallowed massive numbers of first-floor magical beasts to absorb their magic stones.
"Kill. KILL. KILL!"
Her ego had already collapsed—only that man's orders drove her now.
Multiple monstrous jaws opened. Dense mana gathered in them, forming countless breaths that surged toward me.
Against breaths powerful enough to erase the surrounding area, I enveloped myself in a mana barrier before activating my ability.
(This is a mana barrier... With this, I can proudly say I've reached the pinnacle of mana manipulation. Though using spirits feels a bit like cheating.)
The breaths detonated against the barrier with deafening roars. Everything outside the barrier vanished instantly, forming a massive crater.
Immediately after, the crater rewound—as if time itself reversed—returning to before the breaths exploded.
"...Sorry. No matter how much you want it, I can't die for you."
Speaking to her while channeling ordinary mana into a constructed formula, I fired ice spears.
As before, they vanished into nothingness before reaching the monster.
"The effective range hasn't changed—good."
『So what now? [Mana Devourer] devours magic too. The barrier becomes meaningless if she touches it directly.』
"It's fine. My magic should be unaffected by [Mana Devourer]!"
The monster swung a long, beast-neck-like arm down toward me.
Without evading, I manipulated "mana beyond the laws" while interfering with time through my ability.
"—[Fimbulvetr: Frozen Purgatory Garden]"
In this world, mana is merely something that exists—meaningless on its own.
Only when channeled through a formula does it cause the phenomenon called magic.
However, mana that has touched "the outside" temporarily exists beyond this world's laws.
Thus, "it" causes phenomena according to the laws of magic—not the world's laws.
The general term for that phenomenon—is magic.
With the magic I activated, the world's time froze.
『This... Did you interfere with the entire world to avoid contradiction!?』
"...This... is rough... If I let up even a little, I'll collapse instantly."
Through magic, I brought the world's time progression as close to zero as possible.
Complete stoppage is impossible for me now, but within this, only I can move freely.
Even without full stoppage, no one should be able to match me here.
Yet Titania existed unchanged even in this frozen world.
As expected of a fairy... No, no time for idle thoughts now.
Looking up again, the arm swinging down at me appeared stopped—but was creeping infinitesimally closer.
I can't maintain this state long, so let's end it quickly.
Raising my right arm, countless ice pellets—about one centimeter in diameter, slightly larger than hail—appeared in the air around me.
Swinging my right arm down, I pointed the staff at the monster and activated the magic.
"—[Sleety Strafing]"
The airborne pellets shot toward the monster at subsonic speed in unison.
Not just the initial ones—newly generated pellets fired sequentially, unrelenting.
Even in this slowed time, [Mana Devourer] remained active, devouring pellets one after another.
But I know it has limits.
This is a battle I could win without magic.
Having touched beyond the laws, there's no way for me to lose.
After pelting with pellets for a while, they finally began reaching the monster—[Mana Devourer]'s capacity exceeded.
Through the Spirit Eye, I confirmed every magic stone's position inside the monster's body and pierced them all.
Once the magic stones were gone, I released the time interference.
Gradually, the world's time returned to normal.
"...Haa... haa... haa... ...I won...!"
Pressing a hand to my racing heart to calm it, I watched the monster's body melt and lose form—realizing I'd won this battle.
『Honestly, you pushed way too far. You could've won without that recklessness.』
"Ahaha... No excuse there. But... it was a battle with huge gains, so personally, it's a plus. —Assuming I make it through safely."
『What do you mean?』
"Exactly what it sounds like. I overdid it. I'm at my limit..."
『...I see. If you die here, I'll keep telling everyone what a fool you were, so rest easy.』
"That's... not great..."
『If you hate that, don't die. Leave the rest to me.』
"Mm... got it..."
With those final words, my consciousness faded into darkness.
◇ ◇ ◇
I caught the collapsing Shion with mana and gently laid her on the ground.
She had touched "the outside" and become a transcendent.
Impossible—that's my honest impression.
Among living humans who have reached the outer laws: Orun Dura, Fuka Shinonome, and Beria Sans—three in total.
The only others with potential: Oliver Cardiff, and—though slim—Philly Carpenter. Just those two.
In my view, Shion Nastachium had considerable potential but remained bound by the laws.
Yet she risked death by fusing the Spirit Eye into herself—gaining near-[Spirit Dominion] capability—and forcibly reached the outer laws.
Once again, humans prove to exist beyond my understanding.
Even so, there's no doubt Shion has become a powerful ally.
『...But even so, will this outcome remain unchanged? Shion, you were supposed to be the key. Please wake up soon. Otherwise—your most beloved person will destroy the world in the end, weeping...』