Amid the howling blizzard, Kirschtaria stood as immovable as a mountain. Still floating in midair, he showed no sign of being affected by the brutal weather, nor had he lost control of his levitation.
"A Reality Marble… Just as you once criticized me, Teacher, haven't you also been holding back?" Kirschtaria remarked calmly. "To complete a grand forbidden spell like this, the Clock Tower would be proud to list your rank."
"Titles don't matter. If we keep wasting time talking here, we'll die," Shiomi replied.
He raised his hand and pointed it toward Kirschtaria from afar, fingers tightening as if gripping a puppet.
The ground shook violently. From within the storm of snow and wind, two frost dragons as tall as mountains burst forth with deafening roars, each swinging massive claws down at Kirschtaria.
But Kirschtaria was not the type to underestimate an opponent.
The moment Shiomi deployed his Reality Marble, it became clear that this battle far exceeded Kirschtaria's original expectations.
All the conclusions he had drawn from their training bouts at Chaldea were rendered meaningless.
Just like Shiomi, Kirschtaria was forced to reassess his opponent from scratch.
That was why he had gone all out from the very beginning.
The dragons attacking him were met with Magecraft bombardment from every direction. Each strike carried power on par with a Noble Phantasm, yet Kirschtaria's Mana seemed bottomless as he poured it out without restraint.
From a distance, Shiomi watched Kirschtaria struggle against the two frost dragons, analyzing his fighting style as the battle unfolded.
Aside from the very first defensive block, Kirschtaria focused almost entirely on offense. He clearly possessed absolute confidence in his attack Magecraft, enough to treat offense itself as defense.
Before long, gaps appeared in the dragons' assaults. Their massive bodies turned into enormous targets, and every one of Kirschtaria's attacks landed with pinpoint precision.
As he gained more breathing room, Kirschtaria began directing his Magecraft toward Shiomi instead, forcing him off the snowy plain and into the sky to respond.
Shiomi merely raised a hand. At once, the blizzard bent to his will, the wind shifting course and baring its fangs. Snow and ice transformed into a razor-sharp web that closed in on Kirschtaria from all sides.
"I've never heard what Magecraft attribute you possess, Teacher," Kirschtaria said as he expanded his defenses. "All I know is your mastery of Runes. These clearly aren't ordinary ones, but Primordial Runes, lost even from recorded lore."
Shiomi answered with alternating blasts of gale and thunder, yet the young man countered every strike methodically, without panic.
No modern Magus, not even an elite, could have handled this so effortlessly.
The conclusion was obvious.
"So you've restored your Magecraft system to the Age of Gods within this Lostbelt," Shiomi said.
As he spoke, the snow swirling in the wind abruptly changed nature, turning into countless razor-sharp ice spikes. Kirschtaria was briefly caught by the opening. The moment the ice brushed his cloak, frost began spreading rapidly.
"That was the intention from the start," Kirschtaria replied evenly.
His white cloak fluttered as he moved. The spreading freeze halted at once, then peeled away like an eggshell, leaving not a trace of damage behind.
Gales, thunder, and frost intertwined as different Magecraft overlapped. Shiomi unleashed spell after spell without restraint, surrounding Kirschtaria as if arranging a display.
At the heart of that violent vortex, Kirschtaria met each attack with careful offense and defense, allowing himself not a shred of complacency.
The Magecraft duel, its duration unclear, finally began to subside with the collapse of the frost dragons.
Their bodies of solid ice shattered and crumbled, crashing down and turning into two massive icebergs.
The two of them descended as well, landing atop the ice and facing one another.
"This is the first time I've dragged someone into my Reality Marble and still couldn't finish the fight," Shiomi said, offering a rare note of praise.
Of course, that was because he had only ever used it against a handful of opponents so far.
If it were Morgan or his master, even the Reality Marble would be unable to decide the outcome in a single stroke.
—That was Shiomi's conclusion.
"There's no such thing. Teacher Shiomi's attacks left no room to breathe. The moment I relaxed even a little, I would already have been defeated," Kirschtaria said modestly.
"After all, I'm not a sufficiently pure Magus," Shiomi said, running a hand along Gengnir. Killing intent flared sharply in his eyes. "Relying on Magecraft alone is still a bit unsatisfying."
Kirschtaria caught the scent of danger. He could not allow Shiomi to deploy a Noble Phantasm here.
So he had to seize this brief opening to strike back.
Shiomi's ability to cast so many large-scale spells freely within the bounded field was, without a doubt, a risk inherent to the Reality Marble itself.
Activating a Reality Marble required enormous Mana, and sustaining it demanded even more.
For a grand taboo that eroded reality itself, Kirschtaria had clearly grasped the precise moment when its maintenance would reach its limit.
"Stars, Cosmos, Gods, Animus, Hollow, Void, Anima, Animusphere—"
The young man raised his hand and slowly began to chant.
Shiomi could not help but close one eye. He could feel the stability of the Reality Marble starting to waver.
As expected of the "genius" the Clock Tower believed capable of changing the world, Kirschtaria had pinpointed the weakest timing of the Reality Marble and launched his countermeasure.
This world truly could not contain the young man before him.
The sky within the Reality Marble gradually shifted, becoming a firmament covered in auroras. Kirschtaria hovered beneath them, and above his head, countless stars lit up.
Standing on the sea, Shiomi watched the transformation unfold.
The starry sky, the falling bullets of starlight, were descending.
It was a Magecraft system that turned celestial bodies themselves into one's own "circuits" and "power."
This was precisely the reason Kirschtaria had entered Chaldea, to complete true celestial Magecraft.
That once-unrealizable theory, or at least part of it, was already known to Shiomi.
The deepest form of astrology, passed down from the Chaldeans, the progenitors of astromancy, to the modern age. An ultimate Magecraft that drew power directly from the cosmos.
Gathering the Mana that filled the earth, the Mana that filled the sky, and the Mana that filled the universe beyond, converging it into a single beam. The stellar miracle that linked planets together.
That was Planetary Bombardment.
At that moment, both sides fighting at sea looked up at the sky, even toward the cosmos itself.
The heavens had dimmed, and the stars could be seen, bound together by arcane formulae under Kirschtaria's will.
Shiomi released the spear from his hand. It was not surrender, but preparation for a counterstrike.
"Interfering with celestial bodies within the Milky Way and turning them into one's own Magecraft circuits. As expected, some theories really do need their creator to put them into practice. But that doesn't mean I'll just sit here and wait for it."
He crossed his arms before his chest and clenched his fists. The heterochromatic, star-like light in his eyes flared brilliantly.
"The universe is yours. But the planet will belong to me."