“YOU KILLED DAD!”

“YOU ARE DEAD!”

Despite Immeri keeping it together quite well, Ettemi and Oemir completely lost it the moment they saw Cherro.

*WHAM* x2

“GH-UAGH…!”

The two corpse puppet sentinels launched into the air and punched at the self-appointed hero’s stomach, smashing right through the jet-black armor and turning his intestines into bloody jelly and fusing Cherro to throw up a fountain of blood.

Although the two acted without consulting anybody else, no one was about to stop them.

It really didn’t matter who killed the self-appointed hero after all.

The important thing was that the person boasting about killing Zoemi would end up dead.

Of course, the two corpse puppet sentinels were not satisfied with just a single punch each, they also didn’t intend to let Cherro live any longer.

So they both backed off just a little bit to have enough of a runaway and charged at the incapacitated opponent in perfect sync, with their fists aiming straight at his head.

But…

*WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO*

Just as their hits were about to connect, two pillars of crimson flames erupted straight from the floor and swallowed them whole before their attacks could reach Cherro.

“Stop!”

“…!”

Metavicero shouted in panic and reached out her hand towards the flame and Benevirau followed suit gritting his teeth.

*WHOOOOOOOOO*

But instead of the fire getting quenched with the water and snow spells subsequently, the flames began to burn with even more power and change their color first to orange and then to bright yellow.

“ENOUGH!”

Immeri roared unable to contain their anger and sprouted dragon wings from their back – and with a single flap, they got to the horrendously hot flames and put their hands in, pulling both Oemir and Ettemi out of the yellow fire.

Immeri didn’t fly back down as much as they fell and crash-landed. Elsby run up to them and supported the being of darkness back as they placed the corpse puppet sentinel on the floor.

Oemir and Ettemi were in terrible condition, both unconscious, with their bodies charred so much that half of them turned into literal charcoal…

“This… this is more than troublesome…”

*crack*

Immeri breathed out and their arms crumbled into dust all the way up above their elbows.

“Sorry… the truth is I am much weaker than those two…”

The being of darkness apologized and fell to their knees, having Elsby wrap her arms around their torso, under the dragon wings.

“Don’t be stupid! You did well! Just don’t get yourself killed!”

Elsby shook her head, clinging to Immeri in desperation, worried to death that they will crumble into dust entirely.

As that happened, the two pillars of fire combined into one before getting sucked toward one of the windows.

“Hey… aren’t you forgetting about someone? I told you that I picked the winning side – because every side that I would pick would be victorious!”

The fire in the window got concentrated and condensed on itself until the silhouette of a voluptuous woman showed up.

The next moment, Ehmi clad in her own version of fire armor walked out and stepped down on the floor with the might and power of the strongest fire sage alive.

Her flame dress was burning yellow, showing off the much hotter than normal flames and her expression was far from peaceful.

“…”

*WHOOOOOO*

Miriette gritted her teeth and glared at her, but that merely caused Ehmi’s flames to burn brighter.

“What the…?!”

The platinum-haired girl got wide-eyed, the same magic that was stopping Cherro of all people, had no effect on the crimson-haired young woman…!

“Cunning fox, focus on stopping that bastard for a bit longer, alright? I will deal with her.”

Horeo glanced over at the severely wounded sentinels and stepped forward, with an expression best described as cold fury.

“Horeo, you can try, but I am afraid that you will find out why it is futile.”

“Nobody asked.”

*^%$#$%^&*

Ehmi declared with a mocking smile but the young king merely scoffed back and launched a barrage that Cherro managed to stop – but the crimson-haired girl should not be able to…

“What in the…?!”

Unfortunately, the bad news just kept coming – Ehmi didn’t even need to dodge the attack, she literally stood there and took it – and with each beam of light that struck her, her flame dress was getting brighter and brighter.

After the onslaught of light was over, the crimson-haired girl was left with the evolved version of her spell – a pure-white wedding dress, almost exactly the same as the one that appeared after she intercepted Zoemi’s spell back during the tournament for her hand.

“Well, well, well… look at this? And here I thought only lord Banemor would make me done a wedding dress aside from my husband. Speaking of which, where is Zoe? I want to match up against him myself.”

Ehmi checked out her new looks and chuckled softly raising her hand in a white fire glove.

“…”

“…”

“What’s with the sudden silence…?”

Miriette bit her lips and looked to the side and Horeo gritted his teeth outright stopping whatever spell he was going to use next, causing Ehmi to furrow her brows cautiously at the complete change of atmosphere.

“Your husband apparently killed him. Zoemi’s sentinels confirmed that he is dead.”

“…”

As no one else seemed to be keen on letting the crimson-haired girl in on the news, Elsby ended up taking a deep breath and informed her, while Immeri’s wings slumped down in sadness.

“…eh…?”

Contrary to her extremely aggressive behavior a moment later, Ehmi seemed to be genuinely shaken by the revelation. As her face became pale she let out a gasp and turned to look at her husband, Cherro – or Arisu – stopped in place a couple of feet above the ballroom’s floor by Miriette’s time spell.

“…wh-what…? what did you just say…?”

“…?”

The crimson-haired girl wasn’t the only one to be utterly shaken.

There was someone else who initially missed Cherro’s boastful entrance.

“You’re lying…! Lo… lord Banemor cannot be dead…! He can’t…!”

The acid magician was knocked unconscious by traveling through the air together with the water sage finally came to, waking up to the possible worst news they could hear.𝞸𝗏𝓛xt.𝚌𝓞𝑚

The control of the body was immediately surrendered to Roiso with no hesitation from Mirienne.

“…Dad died… and that scum is giving off the same aura as dad did… he killed him and took over all of dad’s power…”

“…”

Immeri looked at the neon-pink-haired variant magician and spoke in a pained voice – Roiso stared at them and then at the person that the being of dakrness was pointing at with one of its dragon wings.

*kshhhhhhhhhhhh*

“Roiso…?!”

The acid magician – who already was sitting down with her back against the wall – slumped down like a puppet with its strings cut off – only to have the characteristic sound of her acid melting through mana and physical matter alike resounded through the ballroom causing Metavicero to call out in worry.

“…he…? He killed my beloved lord Banemor…?”

“ROISO!”

Despite the sound of matter melting, there was nothing disintegrating in the vicinity of the acid magician – at least not until she raised her head prompting the snow magician to cry out in terror.

Roiso was crying.

And her tears were so potent acid that they were melting off her own face and the gas mask she was wearing to protect the world from herself.

“I WILL MELT YOUR FUCKING SOUL UNTIL THERE IS NOTHING LEFT, YOU MURDERER!”

*KSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*

Roiso roared, stunning everyone, and the next moment she conjured a torrent of acid that carried her like a wave towards the frozen Cherro, melting absolutely everything in its wake.

The acid magician was not in a condition to differentiate a friend from a foe so if not for Elsby and Horeo rushing and getting Immeri, Oemir, and Ettemi out of the way, all three sentinels would have perished then and there.

“I am not going to let you kill my husband!”

*click*

*WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO*

EMI managed to compose herself in time and snapped her fingers, causing a pillar of brilliant, hot-white fire to swallow both the neon-pink-haired magician and her acid wave.

*KSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*

“THEN DIE TOGETHER WITH HIM, YOU CHEAP SLUT!”

But despite the flames being much more powerful than the ones that knocked out both Zoemi’s corpse puppet sentinels, Roiso’s acid powered through, melting out the burning mana, overwhelming Ehmi’s spell.

Not only that – just as Roiso roar suggested, the wave of acid branched out and a part of it diverged and targeted the crimson-haired girl in the burning white wedding dress.

“!!!”

This was the outcome that nobody expected – especially not Ehmi.

After receiving and proving superior over the gold-haired young king, a random variant magician that wasn’t anywhere near the realm of the sage was showing to actually be a grave threat to her life…!

“We are getting out of here.”

Without waiting for the confrontation to reach its climax, Horeo declared and teleported everyone he could out of the royal castle.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOM* *WHOOOOOOOOO* *KSHHHHHHHHHHHHH*

“Wha…?! Why did you do that?! We need to stop her!”

Metavicero was the first one to gasp and voice her complaint as their group in the almost full roster as they witness the destruction of the surface level of the most important building in the kingdom of Bellcephora as the brilliant white flames were battling and losing a neon-pink acid in one of the most violent chemical reactions their world had the misfortune to be exposed to.

“I could attempt that and I’m certain to succeed but that would wipe out that city from the map and kill your friend. Not to mention that I’m cheering her on.”

The gold-haired king announced in an indifferent voice, pointing with his thumb at the night view of the capital seen from the royal castle’s gate.