Basic equipment?
Are you kidding me?
This soul-piercing weapon specifically designed to counter him was considered basic equipment in this world?
Mahito's face twisted grotesquely as he writhed violently on the ground.
But the Black Keys had struck true, pinning his very soul to the earth, rendering him temporarily immobile.
To escape these blades impaling his limbs, he'd have to sever these portions of his soul like a lizard shedding its tail.
But doing so would cost him at least half his spiritual essence. For him, soul equaled power—losing over fifty percent meant forfeiting most of his strength.
At that point, forget escaping this bounded field—he wouldn't even survive pursuit from that black-haired hunter!
"Die."
Roy snorted coldly, holy white light gathering in his palm.
A Baptism Rite from the Church!
The only magecraft permitted to followers of the Holy Church. Drawing from the world's most fundamental foundation of doctrine, it worked anywhere on Earth. Though completely lacking physical destructive power, it held extreme potency against spiritual entities. Souls struck by this rite would be forcibly sublimated by the Lord's teachings, returning to their "original throne."
Since it returned souls to their proper seat, it caused minimal harm to ordinary human spirits. But against distorted souls? An instant kill. For curses—lifeforms composed entirely of negative emotions—it was the ultimate natural enemy. No curse could survive a Baptism Rite!
"Wait—what about those modified humans?!"
Mahito's features contorted from the searing pain radiating from the gathering light above.
Facing existential annihilation, he screamed at maximum volume, desperate to redirect everyone's attention.
"That magus you can ignore, but there are dozens of modified humans! I didn't kill them—they're still alive! I can revert them! Just let me go and I'll change them back—I'll even swear a Binding Vow to never return to Tokyo! We're talking scores of lives here, maybe hundreds! Including that girl you call Satsuki—!"
Binding Vows—natural jujutsu from Mahito's world.
Simplified, they were oaths sworn to existence itself. Breaking them incurred severe penalties.
Mahito's desperation to escape via vow was genuine.
Whether he'd seek vengeance later? Another matter entirely.
Though given his nature, such humiliation demanded retribution.
Yet the fate of dozens—perhaps hundreds—remained a legitimate concern.
"Mr. Roy!"
Shiki rushed forward, eyes urgent.
"If he's already trapped, why not let him revert the modified humans first—"
"I refuse."
Roy remained utterly unmoved.
He glanced at Shiki with unwavering coldness in his eyes.
"Right now, eliminating this thing is the top priority. I won't back down no matter who comes!"
"You... don't care at all about those people's lives?"
Shiki looked at Roy in disbelief.
He had hesitated before about whether to accept Roy's deal.
The price was handing over Tokyo City to him, in exchange for his own revival and freeing Akiha from bearing two lives simultaneously.
But there was one condition—that Roy couldn't be a ruler who treated lives as worthless.
If Roy were that kind of ruler, then Tokyo City falling into his hands would be anything but good. Countless people might die because of his decisions in the future. If that happened, Shiki felt he would bear part of the sin for trading away Tokyo City.
"Are you throwing a tantrum, Tohno Shiki?"
Roy's eyes narrowed slightly, a mocking smile appearing on his face.
"If we agree to this guy's terms and let him escape, who will take responsibility when people die because of him in the future? Can you shoulder that responsibility?"
"Or what, don't tell me you actually believe his promises? Those modified humans are already under his spell. Even if they're restored to their human forms, as long as he escapes, he can still activate his ability remotely and kill them. Then we'd have saved no one and let a disaster loose. Is your brain really that stupid?"
Shiki froze.
He was momentarily speechless.
It was true—he knew almost nothing about Mahito.
Neither his personality nor his spells.
If, as Roy said, Mahito escaped because of him and activated his ability remotely, then even if they restored the modified humans now, they would still end up dead.
A single thought from Mahito could trigger his modification ability. Even if they threatened him into restoring the modified humans now, in the instant before his death, he could still kill them all—to kill Mahito, who only reacts to soul attacks, before he could even respond, not even Roy was confident of that.
There was no possibility of saving the modified humans.
From the moment those people fell into Mahito's hands, their fate was sealed.
"...Sorry, I was too naive."
Shiki looked at the tiny modified human—now just the size of a finger—lying on the ground nearby, accidentally flung there by Mahito earlier. That was Yumizuka Satsuki now.
"Yumizuka-san..."
He couldn't save her. He could only watch her die.
"How's it going?"
Iskandar shielded Waver behind him, keeping an eye on the scene while whispering to him.
The argument in the field seemed to have bought them a lot of time—the longer the dispute dragged on, the better.
"There's no physical abnormality at all. As hard as it is to believe, I suspect the issue might be with the soul. Right now, we need someone who knows spiritual healing to examine me—I don't know spiritual healing!"
Waver's face was equally desperate, his heart burning with anxiety.
He knew many types of magecraft, but that was all—he merely possessed the knowledge. Limited by his own magical aptitude, he simply couldn't reproduce those spells!
But there were hardly any magi present to begin with, and they couldn't act recklessly. Where could they find a magus capable of spiritual healing?
On the scene.
As Mahito listened to the argument between Roy and Shiki, feeling the increasingly stinging white light above his head, his heart was filled with utter despair.
This white-haired guy was truly cold-blooded enough to not care at all about the lives of those modified humans!
But he wasn't wrong.
The moment those humans were touched by him, their fates were no longer in their own hands. Mahito could turn them into modified humans to use as weapons, or revert them back to their original human forms.
But he could also, from a certain distance, turn the modified humans back into corpses.
As long as he remained alive, those modified humans were destined to never survive.