The ruined, cratered circle was a testament to Lencar's previous match. He stood on one side, his face a mask of calm calculation. Asta stood on the other, vibrating with an energy that was half excitement, half-feral anticipation. Asta was holding his giant, black grimoire in one hand and had the massive, rust-colored Anti-Magic sword already drawn, resting on his shoulder.
Yuno watched from the sidelines, his expression unreadable. Lord Fungen, the magistrate, was leaning forward in his chair, a small, cruel smile on his lips, finally entertained.
"This is it, LENCAR!" Asta roared, his voice echoing across the plaza. "Don't hold back! Let's see who's stronger!"
"I don't hold back, Asta. I calculate," Lencar replied, his voice quiet. He opened his grimoire, the three-leaf disguise holding steady. "Mage Mode. Active." The oceanic weight of Yuno's mana settled over him.
"Semi-final match... BEGIN!"
Asta's reaction was predictable. He charged. There was no strategy, no finesse—just a single-minded, impossibly fast explosion of pure, muscle-bound offense. He crossed the thirty-yard ring in less than three seconds, the giant sword raised to cleave Lencar in two.
Lencar, however, had been waiting for this. His "Mana-Forged 2.0" body, already thrumming with Yuno's power, perceived Asta's charge as if he were moving through water. He's fast. But he's linear.
Lencar didn't dodge. He cast.
"[Fireball]."
He'd spent a month learning the 'firehose' effect. He knew this wasn't a tiny ember. He was aiming a cannon. A roaring, compressed sphere of flame, the size of a carriage wheel, exploded from his palm, aimed not at Asta, but at the ground in front of Asta.
FWOOM!
The explosion was deafening. It kicked up a curtain of smoke, dust, and superheated rock, a perfect smokescreen. Asta, blinded, was forced to skid to a halt just inside the cloud.
"Is that all you got?!" Asta's voice bellowed from the smoke.
No. That was the primer. This is the test.
"[Magic-Sealing Chain]!"
Lencar fired his second attribute into the smoke cloud, aiming for Asta's center of mass. This was the first true data-gathering test: what happens when his Anti-Magic-infused chain hits Asta's Anti-Magic sword?
THWACK!
The chain, a perfect anti-magic tool in its own right, was batted aside. Asta's sword negated it. The magic of the chain simply... died.
Lencar's eyes widened fractionally. His negation is dominant. My chain's properties are nullified.
The smoke cleared. Asta stood there, a manic grin on his face. "My turn!"
He charged again.
"Foolish. You're a one-trick pony, Asta," Lencar stated, his voice cold. He has a hard-counter to all my magic. So, I won't use magic to fight him.
"[Chain-Dance Slasher]!"
Lencar fired a flurry of chains, not at Asta, but at the ground around him. He wasn't attacking; he was building. In seconds, he had created a dense, crisscrossing 'web' of chains between them, a barrier to slow the charge.
Asta just roared and cleaved through them. "USELESS, USELESS!"
"The chains weren't for you, Asta," Lencar said, just as Asta broke through the last of them. "They were for me."
Asta had been so focused on the charge, he hadn't seen Lencar's real move. While Asta was cutting the web, Lencar had grabbed the end of one of his own chains.
He was in Mage Mode. His body was reinforced by a four-leaf's mana.
With a grunt of pure, physical effort, Lencar whipped the chain.
It wasn't a magic spell. It was physics. He used the chain like a ten-meter-long steel bullwhip, the heavy, anti-magic iron of the tip breaking the sound barrier.
CRACK!
The tip of the chain, moving faster than Asta's eyes could track, slammed into his side, just above the hip.
It wasn't a magic attack, so the sword couldn't negate it. It was a purely physical blow.
"GAAAAH!" Asta yelled, thrown sideways. The impact was strong enough to shatter stone.
He rolled, catching himself, and staggered to his feet, clutching his side. He was bruised, but not broken. "Wh... what was that?!"
"My 'Mana-Forged 2.0' body, Asta. The same principle as your training. Just... better." Lencar stated, letting the chain retract. Analysis: He is vulnerable to physical attacks. But his durability is monstrous.
Asta's grin was gone. It was replaced by a look of pure, animalistic focus.
He's taking this seriously now.
Lencar prepared for Asta's next charge.
And Asta... didn't charge.
He leapt.
He shot straight up, twenty feet into the air, using his leg strength. He was a black silhouette against the grey sky, his giant sword raised.
"This ends... NOW!" he roared, dropping like a meteor.
Lencar's mind raced. He's unpredictable. He changed the axis of attack.
Lencar couldn't dodge in time. He had one option.
Click.
He toggled. "Heretic Mode. Active."
The world went silent. The ocean of mana vanished. His grimoire went dead. He was just Kenji Tanaka, in a body forged by a decade of effort.
He raised his arms, his muscles screaming, and braced. He willed his own, meager mana not to cast a spell, but to harden his skin, his muscles, his bones—the original "Mana-Forging" he'd practiced his whole life.
Asta's sword, the Anti-Magic blade, slammed into Lencar's crossed forearms.
CLANG!
The Anti-Magic negated Lencar's skin-hardening.
But Lencar's physical body, the product of his hybrid training, held.
A shockwave, a physical one, exploded from the point of impact. Lencar's knees buckled. The packed earth of the ring cratered under his feet. His arms, he knew, were fractured in a dozen places. The pain was blinding, a white-hot supernova.
But he was still standing. He was still in the ring.
Asta landed in front of him, his eyes wide with genuine shock. "You... you blocked it?"
"I... calculated," Lencar wheezed, his arms useless.
Analysis: My Heretic Mode is a perfect defense against magic... but I'm still vulnerable to...
Asta, in a brilliant, instinctive move, let go of the sword's handle and drove his own, non-magical, rock-hard fist into Lencar's stomach.
It was a blow Lencar hadn't seen coming. He had been so focused on the magic and the sword that he had forgotten about Asta.
The punch, delivered with all of Asta's monstrous, non-magical strength, was definitive.
Lencar's vision went white. He couldn't breathe. He felt himself lifting off the ground, a purely physical reaction to a perfect blow.
He flew backward, tumbling end over end, and landed hard on the packed earth, skidding to a stop a dozen feet outside the circle.
Silence.
Lencar lay on his back, staring at the grey sky, his entire body screaming. He couldn't move. He couldn't even think.
His plan. His analysis. His training.
It had all been defeated by one, simple, unpredictable, stupid punch.
He heard the Tower Master's distant, shocked voice. "W-Winner... Asta!"
A roar went up from the Hage orphans.
Lencar closed his eyes.
Result: Failure.
He had lost. By the smallest, most idiotic margin possible.
Asta had been holding his ultimate trump card—his own Anti-Magic fists—in reserve. He had won with pure instinct, and Lencar's superior analysis had been completely, and publicly, defeated.