“LET ME GHOOOOOUGHEGH…!”

Ehmi was on a right track to growl through the pain but her own melted intestines found their way through her mouth together with the bile rising up from the remains of her stomach.

“Fhuck…!”

The crimson-haired girl mumbled a curse clenching her fist while creating a white-hot blade to cut through the skeleton’s bones and free herself – but as she did, a sight of the neon pink substance condensing in empty space below the ribs of the skeleton where a stomach should be. The next second the substance followed the way between the ribs to where the esophagus and throat should be, only to spray at Ehmi’s face as the skeleton opened its jaws.

*KSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*

“GHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Ehmi didn’t even need to cut her way out, the spasm of horrendous, ungodly pain send her flying straight down into the inferno of her own creation while the was carried further away by the wave of acid.

“Miss Roiso, miss Mirienne…! Heavens… how… who horrible, how can I reverse that…?!”

That was also the moment that Benevirau, the dark-blue-haired water sage arrived and managed to reach the main battlefield after assuming that Metavicero would not attempt to follow him.

The water sage promised the snow magician to save the acid magician…

…but there was barely anything left to save…

And it was not like his looks were what caused Benevirau to say that – the water sage was using the mana flow to recognize the world around him since he lost his sight in the battle with the now deceased fire sage Vanterl.

And what he experienced through that ability was fading acid mana in the ocean of fire element raging by the corruption of space and time caused by the time attribute being extensively used.

At least he confirmed that the young lady Epsine was alive and fine, but when it comes to his promise…

“Miss! Can you perceive me?!”

The white flames touched by the neon pink acid did not shoot back up so Benevirau could approach the disintegrating skeleton of the acid magician.

His choice of words wasn’t random either – he specifically meant perceiving through the mana flow – which was the only sense that the being below him could possibly have access to.

“…”

*crumble*

*KSHHHHHHHHH*

Unfortunately, even though for a second it looked like Benevirau could truly reach and communicate with what was left of the acid magician, the very moment that the skeleton had turned towards him, its brittle bones crumbled into splinters that evaporated, melted away by what remained of the neon pink mana.

“…rest in peace…”𝞸𝗏𝓛xt.𝚌𝓞𝑚

The water sage lowered his head in powerless disappointment and breathed out, about to turn around and go check whether there was anything he could do to help out the platinum-haired girl…

“IF YOU FEEL SORRY FOR THAT BITCH, WHY DON’T I SEND YOU TO HER NEXT?!”

“!!!”

At that time, through the cover of the sea of scorching flames, the only natural-born fire sage in the world shot right up at the completely unprepared water sage.

Ehmi’s abdomen had a hole all the way through it and most of her face and neck were melted due to the last attack of the acid magician – but on her right hand was a concentrated blade of the purest fire that reached a state of aggregation outside of Benevirau’s expertise and knowledge.

*SHING*

“…oh…”

The spell born out of desperation, hatred, and the will to survive of the crimson-haired girl sliced through the dark-blue-haired man’s body, cauterizing the wound as he let out a soft gasp.

…the problem was not the potential bleeding that got stopped though, but the fact that the cauterized wound was on both halves of Beneviaru’s body.

“OUT OF MY SIGHT!”

*SHING*

Ehmi growled and lobbed off the water sage’s head from its diagonally cut neck, unintentionally sending it flying towards the castle’s gate.

“NOW FOR THE WHORE THAT HOLDS MY HUSBAND HOSTAGE!”

The half-mad fire sage roared and shot through the air and flames like a rocket.

She was the absolute queen of flames and knew exactly how far they extended and where they ended – which meant that she knew exactly where Miriette who protected herself from the fire with her spell was.

Of course, she also knew where Cherro was – although Miriette surely hoped that Ehmi’s rampage would finish the job for her, and kill the self-proclaimed hero, Ehmi’s control over her attribute had no flaws.

She didn’t want to kill her husband, so not even a single hair on him was burnt, nor he was even unpleasantly hot despite being stuck dead center of the raging hellfire.

“GET YOUR FILTHY SPELL AWAY FROM…!”

*^%$@#$%$#@#$%^%$#@#$%^%$#$%^%$#$%^%$#@#$*

As the crimson-haired fire sage reached the platinum-haired time magician, about to end her just as she did with the fire sage moments earlier, everything turned to gold.

For a brief moment, Ehmi thought that she was in the middle of being teleported – she completely lost her sense of direction, unable to even tell whether she was upright or upside down.

She completely lost the connection to her flames, which further seems to confirm the teleportation theory…

*CRACK*

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHH…!”

Only when her bones began to break under the onslaught of unfathomably powerful light magic did she realize that it was not a teleportation spell but a fully offensive large-scale light attribute attack cascading upon her.

Just as suddenly as it started, the spell finished, leaving the wounded Ehmi half-buried in the steaming-hot crystalized ground with not a single spark remaining of her white fire.

Truth be told, except for the ghastly-pale Miriette, Cherro clad in jet-black armor, and Horeo basked in golden light, there was nothing except the crystalized ground to see…

The royal castle that disappeared during Ehmi’s fight with Roiso was one thing, but the entire capital disappeared too without leaving a single building or even a stone that would suggest that the area was ever anything other than a crystalized wasteland…!

“It is quite a sight to see that not only that filth survived, but Ehmi too. I should have not held back.”

Horeo slowly descended through the air and landed by Miriette.

“No, you definitely needed to hold back – I almost died!”

The platinum-haired girl gulped down her saliva and declared, barely able to control how much she was shivering after facing the attack of the young king.

“You say that, but you are still holding back that scum.”

“Why the hell did you use the wrath of light for?! What happened with the whole benevolent king’s act?!”

Horeo shrugged his shoulders and scoffed dismissively, but Miriette wasn’t going to let him get away without a proper explanation.

“I used it for two reasons. First – she killed Benevirau and I got worried. Oh, and, the necromancer managed to evacuate the entire city too. Only the property was destroyed, not a single civilian was lost.”

The young king breathed out and revealed, somehow stopping himself from rolling his eyes – it was clear that the first reason was the most important one with the other being just the afterthought.

“I also teleported all the others the moment that the snow girl lost it when Benevirau’s head landed in her lap… and couldn’t really let Zoemi’s sentinels get hurt even more.”

Horeo added, tensing up at the mention of his best friend.

“Understood. It looked like she was literally using every type of mana except acid to fuel her fire, even time attribute, so how did you work around it?”

The platinum-haired girl gritted her teeth not wanting to mention Zoemi’s name and change the subject as she turned to watch the crimson-haired girl crawl up and slowly drag her feet towards the man she chose over her old way of life…

———

While all of that was happening back on the surface of the earth, up above high in the sky, right on the edge of the gravitational pull of the planet’s atmosphere a more one-sided duel was about to finish.

“My little prince… why… why aren’t you restarting everything…? Isn’t that the proof of your feelings for me…?”

An overwhelming mass of jet black smoke-like substance looking like a sandstorm that could swallow the planet whole spoke – or rather communicated through magic – with a young platinum-haired girl with downcast eyes, who looked like a speck of dust in front of the mighty fluctuating mass of darkness that would melt into the void of space if not for the unceasing movement that covered the light of the stars all around it.

“I am about to connect with the actual flesh and blood body, the current timeline iteration of me, with that, our true reunion could truly…”

“My Zoemi is dead.”

The planet-threatening darkness declared triumphantly but stopped the moment that the small girl mumbled a short sentence under her breath.

“He is. The fraction of myself that I share bits and pieces of memories with managed to consume and process the very core of his existence. If you were worried about him dying, then you should have… separated him in two just as you did with me… But worry not, I know that it was all a test to see the extent of my love for…”

The mass of darkness that turned out to be Cherro’s main consciousness that was anchoring the one back on the planet through all the timelines boasted triumphantly, although its message didn’t lack the annoyance aimed at the platinum-haired girl’s actions.

“…shut up… I didn’t get rid of you and was so desperate to have him kill you because during the original timeline when all of us died for the first time, pieces of yours and Zoemi’s soul got stuck together.”

The small girl shook her head without actually raising it to face the darkness, and spoke, clenching the sides of her dress s hard that she was about to wear the fabric thin.