Noelle cried out in shock, her water magic flickering as she lost her footing. Leopold gritted his teeth, attempting to summon a pillar of fire to blast himself out of the circle, but the spatial pull was too heavy.
But Asta was standing dead center in the runic circle, the heavy, rusted Demon-Slayer sword resting on his shoulder.
The spatial magic reached out to grab him, searching for the core of his mana to anchor the teleportation sequence. It searched for the frequency of his soul, the density of his magic, the standard biological pathways that every living creature in the Clover Kingdom possessed.
It found a bottomless, utterly terrifying void.
Asta had zero mana. The spatial spell simply slid right through him, finding absolutely no traction. Worse, the dense, heavy anti-magic radiating passively from the rusted sword he held acted like a massive, disruptive static field against the delicate, complex geometric calculations of the portal.
The portal couldn't handle the contradiction. It was attempting to divide by zero.
The dark purple runes etched into the mud began to stutter and spark violently. The swirling vortex of spatial energy turned erratic, flashing with jagged lines of unstable light.
With a sound like a shattering mirror, the localized portal surrounding the three teenagers completely destabilized. It cracked, sputtered, and died, dissolving into harmless wisps of purple smoke before it could pull them under.
Asta, Noelle, and Leopold collapsed onto their hands and knees in the mud, coughing and utterly bewildered by the sudden pressure drop.
"What... what was that?!" Noelle gasped, clutching her grimoire to her chest.
"A trap!" Leopold growled, scrambling back to his feet, his eyes scanning the rooftops. "Someone tried to move us! The cowards!"
Lencar let out a quiet, muffled laugh beneath his disguise. Asta's very existence was a system error that the Eye of the Midnight Sun simply could not process.
Before he could relax, Lencar remembered the other variable.
He immediately pushed his sensory web toward the central commercial district. Yuno had been walking there earlier. He was a prodigy, wielding the four-leaf clover, and his mana signature was bright enough to rival some of the senior knights. He was undoubtedly a target.
Lencar found him just as the trap sprang.
A purple vortex opened perfectly beneath Yuno's boots. The spatial gravity gripped him instantly.
But Yuno was not a standard mage. And he was no longer fighting alone.
As the portal attempted to drag him down, the tiny, translucent figure of Sylph, the Spirit of Wind, materialized on his shoulder. The spirit didn't panic. She giggled, a sound of pure, elemental amusement.
She waved her tiny hand.
Yuno didn't even need to cast a spell. The Wind Spirit violently manipulated the atmospheric pressure directly beneath his feet. A hyper-concentrated, incredibly powerful blast of wind erupted downwards, entirely bypassing Yuno's own casting time.
The physical force of the wind blast was so immense that it functioned like a rocket thruster. It slammed against the surface of the portal, physically launching Yuno high into the air, propelling him backward and completely out of the gravitational pull of the spatial trap before the portal could close around him.
Yuno landed gracefully on the edge of a nearby rooftop, his golden eyes narrowing as he looked down at the empty, swirling void that had nearly claimed him.
Lencar withdrew his sensory web, his chest tight.
The heavy hitters were gone. The Captains and the high level magic knights had been removed from the board. But the core anomalies—Asta and Yuno—had survived the purge. The board was in absolute, unprecedented chaos.
And the Eye of the Midnight Sun was just getting started.
As the remaining junior knights and the terrified citizens looked around, realizing that the overwhelming, protective presence of the Magic Knight Captains had vanished into thin air, a new, chilling sound echoed across the capital.
It was a laugh.
It wasn't the unhinged, manic cackle of Rades Spirito. It was a mature, velvety, incredibly condescending laugh that seemed to carry clearly over the noise of the burning city, amplified by magic.
Lencar looked up toward the sky near the center of the Royal Capital.
Silhouetted against the bruised, smoky clouds, floating leisurely above the chaos, was a woman.
She was riding on a long, ornate wooden broom, seated comfortably as if she were taking a pleasant evening stroll through a garden. She wore the traditional, somewhat stereotypical attire of a witch—a long, elegant, dark purple dress that clung to her curves, a high collar, and a wide-brimmed, pointed hat that shadowed her face. Long, luxurious silver hair cascaded down her back.
This was Catherine. An operative of the Eye of the Midnight Sun, and a master of Ash Magic.
She floated above the main plaza, looking down at the panicked, screaming citizens and the bewildered junior Magic Knights who were desperately trying to maintain the defensive lines without their commanders.
"Oh, my," Catherine's voice purred, echoing clearly through the air. She lazily twirled a strand of silver hair around her finger, her lips painted in a dark, cruel smirk. "It seems the grand, heroic protectors of the Clover Kingdom are incredibly easy to fool."
She leaned forward on her broom, her eyes sweeping over the devastation below, her tone dripping with mock sympathy.
"Falling for such a simple spatial trap," Catherine sighed dramatically, shaking her head. "And leaving these helpless, weak citizens all alone... how utterly tragic. It breaks my heart, truly it does."
A junior knight from the Aqua Deer, his face pale with fear, pointed his grimoire at her. "Who are you?! What have you done with the Captains?!"
Catherine didn't even bother to look at him. She ignored the knight completely, her gaze drifting over the huddled masses of commoners and young squires below.
As she looked at them, a strange, hungry light entered her eyes. Her tongue darted out, slowly licking her dark lips. The elegant, mocking facade slipped just a fraction, revealing the deeply disturbed, parasitic nature of her magic.
"However," Catherine murmured, her voice dropping into a low, predatory hum. "Every tragedy presents an opportunity. Just look at all of you. So much young, vibrant, beautiful mana, just running around in the streets with no one to protect it."
She raised her hand, her grimoire floating before her, glowing with a dull, suffocating gray light.
"It takes so much energy to maintain one's beauty in this harsh world," Catherine said, her smile turning entirely wicked. "I think I'll have a taste of that young mana while I can. Consider it a tax for your survival."
Lencar stood in the shadows of the alleyway, his disguised features set in a grim, unreadable line.
The vanguard of zombies had just been the distraction. The spatial trap was the isolation tactic. Catherine and the other elite operatives were the true executioners. The massacre was about to begin in earnest.
He didn't move to engage her. Catherine was an Ash Magic user who specialized in draining mana and crippling large groups from a distance. If he stepped out now and engaged her in aerial combat, he would be forced to use high-tier spells that would instantly blow his cover.