Temptation in the Mansion (7)

As soon as the elf declared that she would kill her, the fine threads of mana surrounding her swelled into a torrent.

Whoooosh!

A violent wave swept through the study. She had used no spell or technique. This was simply the force of the mana rising from her body, yet it struck with terrifying aggression.

“Ah…!”

Lerazie grimaced as it battered her from every direction. She had faced countless mages, but never mana with a presence quite like this. It was as if the elf's will had taken shape and was ordering her to kneel.

I'll die if this keeps up!

She could feel the force preparing to tear her apart. In a contest of raw power, Lerazie was among the weakest of the Grand Dukes of Hell.

But this time she wasn't as helpless as she had been in the drawing room.

She had shed her human appearance and released her own power. More importantly, the elf had entered the double barrier Lerazie had placed around the study. Somehow she had slipped inside without breaking either layer.

You stupid woman…!

Lerazie was a dream demon skilled in magic that attacked the mind. Entering her barrier intact was like a tiger charging into a hunter's trap, trusting in its strength.

Just before the elf reached her, Lerazie snapped her fingers with a thin smile.

Click.

The gesture sent a great ripple through the floor.

Crack!

The surface gave way. Pillars split, the ceiling shattered, and the entire study seemed to dissolve into darkness.

Sensing something wrong, the elf kicked off the ground to close the distance. But Lerazie remained out of reach. Space stretched between them like rubber, pulling the world apart faster than the elf could cross it.

At last she stopped and looked around.

She stood on an expanse of polished marble laid out like a chessboard. Overhead, a vast red moon—the emblem of the demon realm—hung in a starless sky.

A dream world…?

Lerazie had dragged her consciousness into an illusory realm through mental magic. Dream demons used such worlds to subdue opponents stronger than themselves.

Even the elf found the situation troublesome. Within the dream, the trapped person could not leave without the creator's permission. Magic and physical laws bent in the creator's favor.

Irritation sharpened the elf's anger. She glared ahead.

Lerazie smirked and beat her wings, rising into the air.

“What? Did you think I'd simply let you kill me?”

She hadn't won her position as Grand Duke of the Hell of Carnal Love by chance. She had survived hardship after hardship in pursuit of the title Queen of Dreams. This elf would be another obstacle to overcome, even if a formidable one.

Around Lerazie, bats with enormous mouths began to gather.

She snapped her fingers. The creatures opened their jaws in unison, condensing demonic energy into luminous spheres.

In the real world, attacks of this scale would consume an enormous amount of mana. Here, the phenomena were conjured inside Lerazie's illusion, where the usual loss of magical power did not apply. She could manifest spells immediately, even without their customary incantations.

“Are you going to kill me?” the elf asked.

Lerazie's lips twisted.

“You're the one who's going to die!”

She thrust a hand forward.

Dozens of beams shot from the bats' mouths, converging on the elf.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Demonic blasts shattered the marble and shook the false sky. A lesser mage would have died beneath a single barrage. Lerazie fired again and again to make certain there was no escape.

The thunderous explosions finally subsided. Thick white smoke swallowed the ground.

Lerazie hovered above the devastation, searching below. Surely she had killed the elf. At the very least, she must have inflicted a mortal wound.

Relief had scarcely reached her when a vast magic circle lit up inside the smoke.

“What…?”

Had the elf drawn a circle while defending herself against the barrage? Inside Lerazie's dream world?

“That's imposs—”

Light flashed.

Bang!

Huge black spears burst from the smoke like cannon shots. They looked like weapons a giant might have hurled with all its strength.

Lerazie knew at once she couldn't stop them head-on. She warped the space along their path.

Whoosh!

The nearest spear veered just past her, curved through the air and struck the floor below.

KRAAANG!

Marble heaved upward as if an explosive had detonated beneath it. Dust rose in a vast cloud.

A chill ran down Lerazie's back. If she had bent space a moment later, the spear would have torn her limbs away.

She swallowed hard and bit her lip, her hands trembling despite every effort to keep them steady.

“You're using scraps of magic…”

The elf walked out of the smoke. Her long silver hair stirred in the wind, and cold contempt shone in her red eyes.

Lerazie stared in disbelief.

The elf hadn't suffered so much as a scratch. Not one strand of silver hair was out of place. The terrible barrage might never have happened.

“You've misunderstood something,” the elf said.

A cruel smile touched her lips.

“A worm doesn't become a person's equal just because it can dream.”

The claim was monstrous in its confidence. Lerazie shrank beneath the gaze, then fought to master herself.

This was her world. Whatever the elf said, surely a domain created by a Grand Duke of Hell couldn't simply turn against its master.

She steadied her breathing and drew a line through the air.

A gigantic bell appeared directly above the elf and fell.

KRAANG!

It smashed into the marble, enclosing her. Lerazie hurriedly cast another spell, and sacred symbols on the bell's outer surface lit up.

[Servant of Karatias]

It was a miracle employed by high-ranking priests of the Church of Light to suppress the magic of anyone trapped within it. Many demons had been imprisoned and killed by such a miracle.

Lerazie had no choice but to reproduce every powerful spell she knew if she wanted to destroy this elf.

The bell began to shake.

Bong! Thud!

Whatever was happening inside, the metal rang as if it were about to split.

Damn it. Damn it…!

Sooner or later, the bell would break. Then it would be Lerazie's turn to die.

She summoned the strongest magic she knew.

Crack…

Space split open. A rift widened across the sky of the dream, opening onto a vast darkness pricked with stars.

It resembled the universe. No—it was the universe itself, at least as her spell manifested it here.

“Ah… ahaha!”

Lerazie laughed helplessly at the enormity of what she'd called forth. Surely even the elf couldn't withstand this.

The spell was so great that it threatened its own caster, even inside the dream. Lerazie knew that. But if she couldn't stop the elf now, she was dead anyway.

She poured all her remaining concentration into releasing it.

WHOOOM!

The world shuddered.

A massive meteor emerged from the rift. The sky blazed red as it descended, and the heat softened the marble beneath it.

“Ugh…!”

Even with a barrier prepared around herself, Lerazie could hardly endure the temperature. She folded her wings about her body for shelter.

The meteor grew red-hot as it plunged through the atmosphere toward the prison bell. For an instant, when it struck, the dream world's darkness vanished beneath the light.

AAAAAH!

The meteor shattered the bell and exploded. Fragments scattered in every direction; the marble collapsed into a crater.

The impact knocked Lerazie out of the air. She hit the ground and struggled to rise while the world shook around her.

Her wings had partly melted in the heat. The pain was unbearable. Swaying, gagging, she wiped her mouth and looked into the smoke.

Please… let that have killed her.

But the sight before her destroyed the last of her hope.

“How many times must I tell you?”

The elf stood in the center of the crater, untouched among the broken bell, flaming rubble and fragments of meteorite. Not a strand of her hair was burned.

“Bugs can't kill people.”

She said it as though it were an ordinary fact.

Fear gave way to something even more frightening: awe.

“Ah…”

Despair washed over Lerazie. There had never been a contest here. No matter how hard she fought, she couldn't harm this being. To the elf, she was little more than a bug.

The humiliation stirred a last flicker of anger.

“What kind of magic did you use?!”

Lerazie's cry echoed over the ruined dream world.

“Magic,” the elf replied coolly. “What about it?”

“Don't play games with me! That was the highest level of magic! Even an archmage would struggle to use it! How can you stand there unharmed after taking a direct hit?”

The spell had summoned matter from beyond the inner world. Among mages, it was regarded as one of the most destructive forms of attack imaginable.

Yet the elf hadn't suffered a single wound.

Lerazie couldn't make sense of it. She shouted again, but the elf merely sighed, irritated.

“Listen.”

The next words came as quietly as the rest.

“Who do you think invented meteor magic?”

Lerazie had no answer. With the enormity of the claim sinking in, she collapsed to the ground.