Fíliya had already mapped out her countermeasures.
From the moment she sensed something was wrong, to being dragged into the magic-sealing domain, to having both her hands severed, to watching Fres and Levi's strikes cut through Frieren's barrier — the entire sequence had unfolded in the span of a single breath.
Now, facing two slashes from different directions converging on Serie, Fíliya felt her composure crack just slightly.
She believed, deep down, that Serie would have something in reserve. But she couldn't afford to bet on that — not right now. She had to act.
Her own condition was far from ideal. Her hands had only been gone for two or three seconds, but she had already lost far too much blood. Tackling Serie out of the way was no longer an option.
So instead, she did the only thing left available to her.
She swept her leg in a powerful whip kick directly into Serie's ankles.
It was the fastest, most efficient motion she could still manage.
Serie's body instantly lost its balance and crumpled, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
The two strikes that should have been certain kills collided with each other in midair, in the most absurd way imaginable — never reaching their intended target.
...With that, the first wave of the assault had been neutralized.
But it wasn't over. Even with the first attack thwarted, the god-slaying faction didn't hesitate for a single moment. The second wave came immediately.
The Dwarf warrior launched himself straight at Frieren — his instincts told him that stopping the Elf was the highest priority.
Solitär was already moving too, positioning herself to intercept whatever Fres tried next.
As for Sense, Falsch, Fern, and Linie — they were surrounded by over twenty Shadow Warriors and had no way to push through to this side.
Then... my target is Levi, isn't it?
What can I use to stop that sword? A shield... I need a shield that can actually block a Magic-Breaking Sword.
Fíliya's mind raced at full speed.
And then — it hit her.
Right. The best shield available... is standing right beside me.
Her eyes snapped to the Emperor, whose expression was still slightly blank from the sheer shock of everything happening around him.
Fíliya immediately tucked into a roll.
"One second!"
She shouted to Solitär, trusting her to understand.
The moment she came out of the roll behind the Emperor, she sprang to her feet and drove a kick squarely into his back, sending him flying toward Serie.
In the time it took for the Emperor to reach Serie's side, Solitär had already absorbed a full second of simultaneous pressure from both the Captain of the Magical Special Operations Unit and the Commander of the Shadow Warriors.
The versatile Miss Solitär was nothing like a certain someone whose arrogance knew no limit — she didn't take any serious injury. But even she couldn't hold her ground against the two strongest combatants in the Empire, and was ultimately driven back.
The moment Solitär was repelled, Levi wheeled around and raised the Magic-Breaking Sword high, slashing down toward where the Emperor and Serie had landed — his intent made unmistakably clear: he was prepared to cut them both down together.
Hold on.
Fíliya's eyes went wide.
This man doesn't care about the Emperor at all... Of course he doesn't. He was never an imperial citizen to begin with!
Tch. A miscalculation...
The thought flashed through her mind — but her body never stopped moving, not for an instant. The moment Levi raised his sword, Fíliya was already slipping around behind him.
Just as Levi's technique was about to release, an unexpected figure intercepted his blade — and the one who stopped him was none other than his own partner, Fres.
Ah. So the Magical Special Operations Unit still cares about the Emperor's life after all.
A cold smile crossed Fíliya's face at the sight. A minor complication, but she had still achieved her goal: Levi's strike was broken, and because Fres had moved to stop him, the pressure on Solitär evaporated entirely.
Killing three birds with one stone? No — four.
And then Fíliya launched her own attack against Levi.
She drove the jagged stump of her left wrist straight into his back.
The sharp edge of fractured bone — a mark of devastating injury — she now wielded like a dagger.
In the same instant that her left arm pierced into Levi's body, Levi — knowing he couldn't turn around in time — made his own move: he drove the Magic-Breaking Sword into his own chest and abdomen from the front, impaling Fíliya through his own body.
...I'll admit it. I underestimated you. You really are the kind of man who will throw away his own life to get what he wants. But this is as far as you go. Consider this your funeral.
The magic-sealing effect had already faded. The moment Fíliya stepped clear of that floor tile, her ability to use magic had returned.
What she had to do now was simple. At the point where her severed arm had pierced into Levi's back, she channeled the Magic to Disintegrate All Things directly into the wound.
Whatever his reasons, she could no longer afford to hold back against him. If nothing else — for the sake of the innocent colleagues who had lost their lives because of this man — Levi had to die here.
Levi looked down at his body as it began to dissolve, as though melting away, and said nothing.
The moment he had moved against the Emperor, he had already made his peace with death. He had simply never imagined that his dream of slaying a god would remain unfulfilled.
And so, in his final moments, he did only one thing.
Before his hands dissolved entirely, he gripped the hilt of the Magic-Breaking Sword with everything he had — and twisted it, grinding through his own wound, and through Fíliya's.
His intent was obvious. Even in death, he would inflict as much damage as possible on the woman he had run through.
"...Your last act, at the very end, is this... You really are a... I don't even know what to call you."
Even in that moment, Fíliya couldn't help but feel a faint, grudging admiration for the sheer ferocity of the man's will.
As for the agony of having her organs shredded — that barely registered. The moment her magic had returned, she had severed her own pain receptors.
Within a single breath, Levi's body crumbled to ash. Fíliya, however, looked like something that had crawled up from the depths of hell — drenched in blood from head to toe, a vision of pure carnage.
Fres stared at the young woman before her, and simply could not comprehend what she was seeing.
In all her years, she had never once encountered anyone who wielded their own severed hand as a weapon. And this was a girl who had done it — a girl who was, in name at least, a mage.
Even so, she hadn't abandoned her objective. She hadn't wanted to involve the Emperor — but she had still been aligned with Levi on the matter of killing Serie. That was why she had cooperated with him in the first place.
The young woman before her was barely clinging to life, but there was no point finishing her off. Serie was the only target that still mattered.
Fres turned and rushed toward Serie.
"Too late..."
Fíliya's weakened voice drifted up from behind her. Fres understood immediately.
Because she saw it — the silhouette of a demon, already floating high above the center of the banquet hall.
"I did it! I actually did it!"
Just as no one had ever expected anything of her, Aura had managed it. In the chaos of the melee, she had concealed her presence entirely — and then unleashed the one technique that had always been her sole claim to glory.
A massive set of scales materialized in the air above the crowd, sudden and unmistakable.
"One of the Seven Sages of Destruction... Aura the Guillotine..."
Fres was of an age to know exactly who that was. Aura's hairstyle had changed, and her horns were hidden, making her look no different from an ordinary human girl — but Fres knew.
"The Magic of Obedience... A troublesome ability, to be sure. But it isn't too late to stop it."
Fres's expression was utterly confident. Aura the Guillotine was the weakest of the Seven Sages of Destruction in direct combat — a demon who could not hold her own in a straight fight. If she could eliminate Aura now, she could still stop the magic from taking effect.
Kill Aura first. Then deal with the green-haired witch. There was still a path to completing the mission.
That was what she told herself — and then she crossed the distance to Aura in the blink of an eye.
"Eek!"
Aura's eyes went wide with panic at the sheer speed of the approach, and she let out a short, startled shriek.
"I'm done for... I'm going to die... I'm going to die!"
Fres paid absolutely no attention to Aura's reaction. She simply needed to take this demon's head.
But in the instant the blade reached Aura's throat, Aura turned and fixed her with a thin, mocking smile.
"Ha. You actually believed all that."
Before Fres could even register her confusion, she felt a sensation like striking solid metal — and yet, even true metal should have been cut apart by her strength alone. Her power was simply that terrifying. But what she had run into, by sheer terrible luck, was something that resembled metal, yet was not — an indestructible substance in a category all its own.
Aura had transformed her entire body into gold. Yet the Magic of Obedience had not faltered simply because she became gold — the great scales still floated overhead, still passing judgment on the soul weight of every being in the banquet hall.
The realization of disaster hit Fres cold.
She made one last desperate attempt — but Solitär had already placed herself between Fres and Serie. And what made her despair most of all was this:
The goddess, who should have remained silenced by the magic-sealing domain, had already lifted herself from the floor.
It was genuinely over.
The moment that thought rang through Fres's mind, she lost consciousness.
Aura's Magic of Obedience had activated successfully.
In that instant, every living soul in the venue — save for Frieren, Solitär, Fíliya, and Serie, whose total mana reserves exceeded Aura's own — was enslaved.
The Shadow Warriors who had been pressing in on Sense and Fern dropped their weapons in unison, wheeling around to kneel toward Aura in a single, synchronized motion.
And not only them — even Valros the Dwarf, the high-tier combatant who had been locked in close combat with Frieren, came under the spell as well. His war axe clattered to the floor, and he too turned and knelt before Aura.
Shadow Warriors, members of the Magical Special Operations Unit, nobles and high officials of the Empire — and the Emperor himself — all wore the same blank expression as they lowered one knee to the ground, pledging their loyalty to Miss Aura.
The battlefield fell silent in an instant.
Serie, now free of her bindings, came immediately to Fíliya's side. The girl truly had barely a breath left in her — and right now, only the God of Magic could pull her back from the edge.
"I see now... No wonder the Prophetic Dream couldn't show me this moment. Because in that instant, every mana signature I emit would be cut off completely... I never imagined the Empire had actually developed something like that."
Serie spoke as she worked, a note of genuine astonishment creeping into her voice.
Under Serie's healing, Fíliya's ravaged body was being rapidly restored — and before long, even her severed hands had regenerated completely.
"I'm sorry... I was far too arrogant this time. I said I'd make absolutely sure, and I still let things get this close."
With her color returning, Fíliya looked at Serie with a genuinely apologetic expression.
"Mm... It wasn't actually as close as it seemed. I was only affected for the very first moment... By the time your hands were cut off, I had already recovered."
Serie said this with a faintly guilty look of her own.
...What?!
Fíliya's eyes went wide.
By the time my hands were severed... meaning this woman was completely fine the whole time?! She was playing dead like a puppet, just waiting for me to protect her?!
This trap — the combined masterwork of the Shadow Warriors and the Magical Special Operations Unit, the single most elaborate ambush they could possibly devise — actually only bound Serie for less than one second?!
She was playing me this entire time!!
Watching Fíliya's expression collapse as though her entire understanding of the world had just shattered, Serie — in a gesture almost unprecedented for a being of her status — offered a genuine apology.
"I'm sorry... I just wanted to confirm how far you would go for me. Whether you would truly fight with everything you had to protect me, just as you promised."
Seeing Fíliya stare back at her in open-mouthed, leaning-backward disbelief, Serie reached up and scratched her own cheek with an awkward hand.
"You know how willful I can be... Can you forgive me? Just this once?"
"Absolutely not! Get lost! Get lost! You can go straight to hell! Oh, what a perfect dead-fish impression — and you even suppressed all your mana responses while you were at it, didn't you?! Kept pretending the whole time you were still affected, didn't you?! I spit on you!"
Fíliya shot to her feet as though the last of her patience had finally snapped, and proceeded to kick Serie repeatedly.
The goddess, fully aware she was in the wrong, simply lowered her head and endured in silence until Fíliya had vented herself out completely.
By the time Fíliya finally calmed down, Aura had already sidled up beside her, practically vibrating with smugness.
"Hey, did you see that?! I did it! I actually controlled everyone in one shot!"
Aura beamed, her face radiating pure, unrestrained pride.
"Yes, yes. You actually pulled something cool off for once," Fíliya said, reaching up with a resigned sigh and giving Aura a pat on the head.
"I didn't expect you to transfer Gold Transformation to her..." Frieren let out a tired sigh of her own. "You really do have an extraordinary fondness for the Demon Race."
"Of course," Fíliya said, her smile returning full force. "Magic of Obedience plus Self-Gold Transformation — isn't that an unbeatable combo? I was genuinely impressed with myself when I thought of it. All Aura has to do now is cast Magic of Obedience and then tuck herself inside an indestructible golden shell while it takes effect — that covers the vast majority of any situation she'll face. No matter how powerful a warrior might be, they can't possibly outmatch a Great Demon in total mana."
Fíliya's face broke into a bright, satisfied grin — and it was genuinely bright. She had given away Gold Transformation Magic, and yet she didn't seem to mind in the slightest.
____
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