Emilia abruptly looked up.
High above, a familiar figure carrying another, smaller silhouette was breaking through the swirling snow, descending rapidly toward the center of the square. The figures grew clearer and clearer.
The newcomer was—Natsuki Subaru!
In his arms was a little girl in a deep red dress with fluffy blonde twin-tails. Her iconic appearance was that of the Great Spirit who guarded the Forbidden Library, Beatrice.
Thud!
Natsuki Subaru landed steadily, gently setting Beatrice down. He immediately turned, his gaze sweeping across the battlefield before finally resting on Emilia.
"Sorry, I'm late, Emilia."
"Subaru, you're back…" Emilia's eyes widened in disbelief.
"I'm back, Emilia," Natsuki Subaru said, looking at her. "Leave the rest to me."
"…"
Garfiel, watching from the side as Natsuki Subaru suddenly dropped from the sky, felt some of the tension instantly leave his taut body.
He remembered fighting Subaru with all his might in his Beast Transformation state, even using his trump card, and still losing, getting a sound beating instead.
From that moment on, he knew Natsuki Subaru's strength was far beyond his own.
Now, seeing Subaru appear, he couldn't help but speak up.
"Hey! You finally showed up! The Great Rabbit has been charging in wave after wave. My wounds were about to reopen; I almost couldn't hold on!"
"But now that you're here, things are different. With you, we've finally got a little more hope against these bastards!"
"You've worked hard, Garfiel."
Natsuki Subaru turned to the scarred Garfiel and nodded with a smile.
Being praised made Garfiel a little uncomfortable, but he maintained his usual proud demeanor and snorted.
"Hmph! My Great Self is the Shield of the Sanctuary; I just did my duty! You, on the other hand, stop wasting time now that you're here and figure out a way to deal with these bastards—they're not gonna wait for us to chat!"
"Don't worry, they won't be running rampant for long." Natsuki Subaru was amused by his tough act, then his smile faded. "If you can still hold out, guard our flank in a bit. Don't let any stray Great Rabbits circle around for a sneak attack."
"You think you need to tell me that?" Garfiel scoffed, clenching his fists. "Protecting the Sanctuary is my Great Self's duty. Leave the flank to me. I won't let a single one get past!"
"Good."
Natsuki Subaru nodded and turned to face the surging tide of the Great Rabbit horde. The Magic Beasts were chittering and grinding their teeth, their claws scratching countless marks in the snow as they closed in.
He couldn't help but look down at Beatrice beside him and ask,
"Beatrice, are you ready?"
"Hmph, Betty has been waiting impatiently,"
Beatrice said, crossing her arms. A magical aura, denser than before, swirled around her, its force gently pushing away the surrounding snowflakes.
Inside the church, Roswaal watched the events in the square.
Seeing that Natsuki Subaru had not only returned but had also brought Beatrice with him, a complex light flashed in his mismatched eyes. He thought to himself,
"I see… So you went specifically to seek Beatrice's help? You avoided the previous trap and found new support. Is this your choice, Natsuki Subaru?"
Ram, standing beside him, saw Natsuki Subaru in the square and murmured,
"I didn't expect Subaru to actually come back, and to persuade Lady Beatrice to come along."
"Indeed—a truly unexpected variable—oh my~" Roswaal replied, an inscrutable glint once again flashing in his heterochromatic eyes. "I wonder to what extent—he can turn the tables this ti~me."
"…"
The Sanctuary square was now a blanket of white, and as far as the eye could see, it was filled with the horde of Magic Beasts known as the Great Rabbit, the incarnation of gluttony.
The sound of their grinding teeth and claws scratching at the snow intertwined, creating a suffocating noise.
It was worth noting that after dealing with Elsa at the mansion, Natsuki Subaru had gone to the Forbidden Library, where he not only resolved Beatrice's inner turmoil but also officially formed a contract with her.
Originally, Subaru had wanted to use the Shadow Monarch's class-specific skill, Shadow Exchange, to return directly to the Sanctuary.
But that skill could only be used by himself and couldn't bring Beatrice along.
So, in the end, he had to ask Beatrice to fly him over using her magic.
Thinking of this, Natsuki Subaru looked at Beatrice, who was holding his hand, and praised her.
"Beatrice's flying speed is seriously fast, it feels like riding in an airplane. As expected of the spirit guarding the Forbidden Library, your power is amazing."
After all, it had taken Subaru nearly half a day to return to the mansion from the Sanctuary before, but this time, with Beatrice flying him, they reached their destination in just over ten minutes.
Beatrice's cheeks flushed slightly at the compliment. She feigned composure and let out a light huff, tugging on Natsuki Subaru's hand with a distinctly urgent tone.
"Honestly, what time is it to be talking about such trivial things! Don't you see the Great Rabbit is still approaching? If we dawdle any longer, they'll be right on top of us!"
"Don't rush, we're about to solve it right now." With that, Natsuki Subaru's gaze shifted to Emilia. "You did a great job, Emilia-tan. It's incredible that you held out this long against so many of the Great Rabbit… Now, leave the rest to me and Beatrice. You get some rest."
"Be careful, Subaru."
Emilia nodded lightly. Confronting the Great Rabbit had already consumed a great deal of her mana, and her body had long since grown weak.
In truth, Emilia knew very well that the Great Rabbit was numerous and could multiply infinitely. Even Garfiel, who fought until he was wounded, couldn't suppress them. It would surely be difficult for Subaru to deal with them too.
But for some reason, from the moment Subaru broke through the snowstorm and landed in the square, the string in her heart that had been pulled taut to the breaking point suddenly went slack.
The suffocating feeling of being enveloped by despair while facing the dense swarm of the Great Rabbit, the panic of not knowing how much longer she could hold on—it all seemed to dissipate, blown away by the snowstorm the moment she saw Subaru's figure.
As long as Subaru was here, it felt like there was nothing to worry about.
Even if she was too weak to help much right now, even if the Great Rabbit before her was still terrifying, just knowing that he would stand in front, that he would find a way to solve the problem, brought a special kind of peace to her heart.
The feeling was strange, yet incredibly real. Just like all the other times she had faced danger, Subaru could always come up with an unexpected solution. It would surely work out this time, too.
Because she believed in Subaru!
Natsuki Subaru looked down at Beatrice beside him and asked seriously,
"So, Beatrice, our opponents are the Great Rabbit, one of the Three Great Mabeasts. They are numerous and can multiply infinitely. Are you mentally prepared for battle?"
"We just formed a contract, and I haven't even had a moment to breathe before having to face a Magic Beast of this caliber," Beatrice said, her tone laced with a hint of complaint, though her eyes showed no fear. "Besides, it's been four hundred years since Betty last participated in a real battle. I've long forgotten how to fight so many Magic Beasts."
"And?"
Natsuki Subaru raised an eyebrow at Beatrice, his eyes full of anticipation.
"The obstacles are just right. The more difficult the opponent," Beatrice met Subaru's gaze, a confident smile gracing her fair face, "the more interesting it is to win, isn't it?"
At that moment, the white horde of the Great Rabbit let out a dense chorus of screeches. Countless crimson eyes glinted in the snow.
They simultaneously kicked off the ground and leaped, their sharp incisors gleaming with a cold light as they rushed toward the pair like a white tidal wave.
Beatrice's gaze sharpened. She raised her free right hand, a faint purple glow appearing in her palm.
"Let's start with a little warm-up. El Minya!"
As her chant concluded, the space around them suddenly began to twist and distort. Even the falling snowflakes seemed to be drawn by an invisible force, swirling around the two of them.
Immediately after.
Purple crystals rapidly condensed from the distorted space, fanning out in layers around Natsuki Subaru and Beatrice.
These crystals had the regular shape of icicles but glowed with a deep, brilliant purple light. They were Beatrice's exclusive magic: Purple Arrows.
In the blink of an eye, the air was filled with a dense formation of Purple Arrows.
They were arranged side-by-side, orderly yet exuding an oppressive aura, their tips all aimed at the surging horde of the Great Rabbit below, not even sparing the few stragglers at the edges.
The scene was spectacular. The purple light was particularly striking against the white snow, and just looking at it, one could feel the terrifying magic contained within.
"Fire!"
Beatrice gave the soft command without any extraneous movement, merely lifting a fingertip.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The next second, all the Purple Arrows shot through the air simultaneously, flying toward the Great Rabbit horde.
The arrowheads pierced precisely into the head of each Great Rabbit, not a single one missing its mark.
The rabbits impaled by the Purple Arrows instantly went rigid, unable to even let out a cry of pain as their bodies began to crystallize into the same purple substance at a visible rate.
As soon as these purple crystals formed, they were caught by the blowing wind and shattered with a series of cracks into fine powder, disappearing into the snow.
In just a few short seconds.
The entire vanguard of the Great Rabbit was wiped out, as if a large stain had been erased from the snow with a rubber.
The area once swarming with the Great Rabbit was instantly left with nothing but clean white snow and lingering traces of purple light.
Such a stunning display right from the start made even Natsuki Subaru's eyes widen. He marveled inwardly,
"The power of a Great Spirit is truly terrifying. A single casual move can have such destructive force."
The battle had just begun, and the situation was instantly reversed.
Of course, Natsuki Subaru also knew that for the endlessly multiplying Great Rabbit, this loss was hardly a fatal blow. But the power Beatrice had just displayed still made him cheer out loud.
"That was amazing! Wiping out so many of the Great Rabbit with one move, you rock, Beatrice!"
Hearing this, Beatrice's cheeks flushed slightly and the tips of her ears turned pink, but she maintained her tsundere facade and sniffed.
"I-Is that so? It's no big deal. For Betty, that was just a warm-up, easy as pie."
"A warm-up?" Natsuki Subaru asked curiously. "A spell that powerful, what level of magic is it? Judging by the mana fluctuations, it must be of the Yin Attribute, right? I've never seen such a dense and precise Yin Attribute attack spell before!"
"Isn't it obvious? Of course it's Yin Attribute." Beatrice lifted her chin slightly, her tone carrying a natural pride, but she deliberately lowered her voice to add, "And… this spell isn't as strong as you say. It just happens to be effective against these low-level Magic Beasts."
Even though she said that, after receiving Natsuki Subaru's praise, Beatrice couldn't help but puff out her flat chest proudly, her eyes brightening.
"But the warm-up is over. Next, Betty will use her strongest magic to finish off these Great Rabbits and show Subaru the true power of a Great Spirit!"
"Wait, Beatrice."
Natsuki Subaru suddenly placed a hand on Beatrice's shoulder, stopping her.
If he remembered correctly, in the original story, Beatrice's mana consumption during the battle against the Great Rabbit was astonishingly high.
Beatrice had been storing mana for four hundred years, using the Forbidden Library as a medium to slowly absorb mana from everyone in the mansion. It took her four hundred years to accumulate that reserve.
Yet, most of that mana was consumed in this one battle.
It had to be known that Beatrice was an Artificial Spirit, an identity that made her far more capable than ordinary Natural Spirits. She could expertly cast long-lost Yin Magic like spatial transfer, time freezing, spatial rupture, and existence fixation, making her the ultimate expression of Yin Magic.
But correspondingly, Beatrice's mana consumption was also extraordinarily high, far beyond what an ordinary spirit could compare to.
More critically, Artificial Spirits had an inherent limitation: they couldn't absorb mana from the atmosphere to recover naturally like Natural Spirits, nor could they accumulate magic from any source other than their contractor. They had to rely solely on their contractor for supply.
And right now, Natsuki Subaru had only just formed a contract with Beatrice. His own mana supply rate was still very slow and couldn't possibly replenish the vast amount of mana consumed by high-tier magic in time.
If he let Beatrice use her strongest magic now, it would likely drain the mana she had saved for four hundred years.
This mana was Beatrice's foundation. Depleting it would not only leave her in a prolonged state of weakness, but if they encountered danger later, she might not even have the ability to protect herself.
"What's wrong? Subaru."
Beatrice looked up at Natsuki Subaru, a flicker of confusion in her blue eyes.
"It's nothing, I just want a chance to show off too, Beatrice," Natsuki Subaru said to her. "I can't let you do all the work. I have to do something, or wouldn't that make me look like a useless contractor?"
"Subaru, don't you be reckless," Beatrice immediately frowned, blinking her bright blue eyes and emphasizing her words with a heavier tone. "This is the Great Rabbit, not some ordinary Magic Beast! They multiply. Kill one, and it becomes two. Even if you're strong, you can only fight them one by one. You can't possibly handle such a massive number. Only wide-area magic can clear out a large swath at once and stop them from multiplying."
"Who said I'm alone? Come forth, Shadow Legion!"
As Natsuki Subaru's words fell, the shadow beneath his feet began to ripple violently.
______
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