[PRESENT]
"Merlin... is this why... you're with Agnes?" Asked Grimhild, still spilling blood from her lips.
"That's exactly why, Master! Agnes showed me what it's like to be free! Not bound by moral principles and your faulty ideology! You never cared for me! You threw me out like dirt!"
Grimhild narrowed her eyes, lifting her palm.
"Gulzielga."
"What?" Merlin widened her eyes until a powerful shockwave knocked her back, slamming her into the stadium.
"So you were the one who taught Agnes how to use my Destruction Magic many years ago." Grimhild said, speaking to Agnes behind her.
"I wouldn't say taught. I merely blessed her with endless knowledge of the arcane." Said Agnes, smug as ever. "She can learn any magic she desires. It's as simple as that."
"I should've predicted this outcome, but then again, Chaos itself is unpredictable. It's in your nature, sister."
"My, how flattering, my dear sister." Said Agnes.
Grimhild suddenly burst apart into dark and purple flames, reappearing in the air.
"Huh?!"
"Grimhild!"
Jean and Fhiron, who were about to jump into the arena, stopped in their tracks.
"Stand back." Said the witch, gazing at Agnes from above.
"You wouldn't last a second fighting against her."
Both Fhiron and Jean frowned at her comment.
"Are you insane?! We can't let you handle this on your own!" Shouted the Ayleon.
"I refuse to let you be a dumbass!" Yelled Fhiron.
"Instead of worrying about me, how about you save the people of Mesnil?"
The stadium trembled as Grimhild hovered above, her form wreathed in black and purple flames of Destruction.
Meanwhile, the crowd screamed, scrambling for the exits.
Merlin rose from the shattered wall, blood trickling from her forehead.
Her violet eyes burned with bitterness.
"Master... you never wanted me to be free! You only wanted me to serve your ideals!" Her voice carried across the chaos, trembling. "But Agnes gave me choice! She gave me everything you refused me!"
Agnes, standing a dozen meters away from Merlin, lifted her pipe to her lips, smoke curling in the shape of serpents as she wielded the bloody Arondight.
"My, my, the child speaks truer than you, Grimhild. You molded her, then discarded her when she did not fit the vision of your precious little dream. And now you're surprised she walks with me?" She smiled widely, showing a flash of fang. "You were always predictable."
Grimhild's gaze was iron, never leaving Agnes even as her blood dripped down her chin.
"You call it freedom. I call it indulgence in chaos. You warp her with promises of choice, when in truth you are making her nothing but a vessel for your ideals."
"Shut up! I chose this! I chose her! You never believed in me—so I'll destroy you here and now!"
She raised her hand, and a circle of blackness expanded across the stadium floor.
The air itself seemed to tremble as the banners across the arena dissolved, with parts of the area collapsing into nothingness.
The crowd's panic reached a fever pitch as Jean and Fhiron clenched their teeth, their eyes darting between Grimhild and Merlin.
"Damn it!" Jean cursed under his breath. "If she really fights seriously here, the whole city's going to come down with it."
Fhiron growled.
"Grimhild, I don't give a damn what you say, if you fight both Agnes and Merlin at once, you'll die."
But Grimhild, suspended in the air, looked down at them with unshaken eyes.
"Do not misunderstand." Her voice echoed like the judgment of a god. "I am not fighting to live. I am fighting to ensure Mesnil survives this day. Your task is the people. Mine is the reckoning."
The words struck Fhiron silent, though his fists shook.
Jean's sharp gaze lingered on her a moment longer before he cursed again.
"...Fine. But you'd better not die, Grimhild!"
"Alright, you heard her, let's go! We have to save everyone!" Said Fhiron, facing Obsidia, Estrilda, Elizabeth, and the rest.
They all nodded before sprinting toward the stands where families were trapped beneath falling stone.
Agnes smiled wider, tapping her pipe as she stepped lightly forward.
"Always the martyr, sister. Always thinking of the world, of the people. You've grown sentimental."
A chaotic aura manifested around her body.
"But sentiment has no place in Destruction. I'll remind you of that."
Grimhild's crimson eyes flared like suns as she lifted her staff toward Agnes.
"You've meddled in my path long enough."
And then, like two storms colliding, their powers met.
Merlin screamed her spell
"Al Vorvianta!"
"Chaos magic?" Muttered Grimhild.
A purplish void-like blast of magic shot into the sky, devouring all possibilities.
The possibility of evading.
The possibility of resisting.
The possibility of guarding.
All of it was stripped away by Al Vorvianta and reduced to nothingness.
"Eguhalvor."
Grimhild pointed her staff at the magical blast, launching her own spell to counter.
Dark and purple flames slammed into the purple void as they canceled each other out.
"Ah yes, Eguhalvor, the Destruction spell that removes things from Creation." Muttered Agnes. "But you cannot freely remove Chaos, my dear sister."
All of a sudden, the spell she attempted to banish from creation returned once more, in the same location, chasing her down.
"How troublesome." Said Grimhild.
"Chaos is pure contradiction. You cannot ever hope to defeat it with your Destruction Magic, Grimhild." Said Agnes.
Grimhild lifted her hand at the incoming spell.
"You underestimate me far too much, Agnes."
"Hm?" The lady of chaos lifted her brows.
"Endrolmeda!"
In less than a second, Grimhild had already come up with a counter spell to Al Vorvianta as a black magic circle manifested above the spell, destroying it down to its roots.
"You're as quick as ever in combat! I see some things about you have never changed." Said Agnes.
"Do not worry, Lady Agnes." Said Merlin. "She lacks the power needed to win. Without the Yorgana system, she cannot ever hope to match up against me."
"Dulgariaz." Grimhild lifted her hand, conjuring dozens of other clones.
Wasting no time, they all used the same spells, manifesting Destruction Magic.
"Eguhalvor!" A spell that removed things from creation, launched downwards like black flames.
"Egudrolta!" A spell that annihilated all magic, coated their bodies in a thin layer of dark and purple flames.
"Eumen Ziel Futa!" A spell that brought an end to all stories, ideas, and phenomena was launched downwards like purple and black flames, in the form of serpents.
"Dulgariaz!"
Merlin simply copied Grimhild's cloning spell before doing the same, and launching her Chaos Magic.
"..."
Grimhild was baffled—Merlin's magic casting was far superior to her own by a large margin.
"So you've already surpassed me... in magic casting." Before Grimhild could even counter, the chaos magic collided into her body, and a deadly explosion went off.
The explosion ripped through the stadium, shaking Mesnil's very foundations. Stone shattered and dust rose in great clouds, blotting out the sun.
The screams of the fleeing crowd echoed through the chaos, but all was drowned out by the detonation at the arena's heart.
When the smoke parted, Grimhild's body tumbled through the air, blood spilling freely from her body. Her cape was torn to ribbons, and her staff barely clung to her fingers.
She only survived with the help of Egudrolta devouring most of the magic, but it wasn't enough against Chaos.
"Grimhild!" Elizabeth screamed from the stands, but Fhiron shoved her toward the exits, his teeth bared.
"Don't stop! Save the people—she ordered it herself!" Yelled Zarutha.
Obsidia dragged another family from the collapsing rubble as Estrilda tore apart fallen stone with her brute strength.
All around them, the arena trembled as though the gods themselves were waging war above.
Merlin hovered in the air beside Agnes, her expression full of cruel certainty.
"It's over, Grimhild. You can't win against me. You said I might surpass you one day—but that day is here! Without your Yorgana System, you're nothing!" Her words rang with both triumph and bitterness.
Agnes smirked, the smoking pipe dangling between her fingers as if none of this chaos mattered.
"So poetic, little bird. You've plucked your master's wings and cast her from the sky."
Grimhild staggered upright, her body breaking, yet her crimson eyes burned fiercer than ever.
"Surpassed me...?" She muttered, blood dripping from her lips. "No. Not yet. You have gained strength, Merlin, but you are still bound to chains you cannot see."
Merlin snarled.
"Stop talking to me like I'm still your student! You abandoned me, remember?! You cast me out!"
"Don't listen to her. She only seeks to bind you again, to make you a tool for her dream. Strike her down, and you'll be free."
Grimhild raised her staff high, her voice cutting through the screams and collapsing stone.
"Then come, Merlin! If vengeance is truly the path you have chosen—if Chaos is the master you now serve—prove it to me with all your strength!"
The earth groaned as Grimhild unleashed her power.
Dark-purple flames surged across the sky, twisting into a storm of Primordial End.
Merlin's own Chaos surged to meet it, her spells weaving like contradictions incarnate; each one canceling logic, tearing apart the very laws of existence.
The two forces collided. Destruction against Chaos.
The air screamed, and reality started to tremble.
The sky itself seemed to shatter as purple lightning forked across the sky, tearing holes in spacetime.
Jean shielded his eyes, shouting over the deafening clash.
"If this keeps up, they'll level Mesnil in minutes!"
Kyto spat on the ground, fury burning in his eyes.
"Damn it, Grimhild—you better not lose!"
Above them, Merlin screamed, her voice trembling with both hatred and grief.
"I'll erase you, Master! I'll erase everything you stood for!"
And Grimhild's reply came sharp as steel, her gaze locked on the girl she had once saved from the mud.
"Then come, Merlin—show me the price of your freedom!"
The battlefield of Mesnil was consumed in Destruction and Chaos as master and apprentice clashed in a war that threatened to consume the world itself.
"Ufufufu~! Yes, Merlin, correct the script. Eradicate Grimhild with the power I gave you. End this once and for all, and then... we can have the world to ourselves."