That last composite spell was called Thunderstorm — the name Adam had given it. Built from the low-level water elemental spell Mist, the fire elemental spell Streaming Fire, the wind elemental spell Gale, and his knowledge of the electrical element, it simulated a supercell thunderstorm of the natural world, and it was the strongest thing he could cast. He had only ever run it inside his threads before; today was the first time he had used it for real. Fortunately the effect was spectacular — it had not let him down.
And with that full-power unleashing, his grasp of the electrical element climbed another level; the methods he could bring forth were richer and more powerful.
But the power came with a frightening cost: the spiritual power and mana he had just recovered were drained dry once again. Adam took out his last ether crystal and held it in his hand, recovering as he chased in the direction the bone giant had fled.
Adam paid William no attention. William did not hurry to catch up either; he hung in the sky with his fists clenched, staring toward where Adam had gone, no telling what he was thinking.
The fleeing First Servitor was filled with dread; her faith in the Supreme God had begun to waver.
Ever since that being had told her to gain power through blood sacrifice and to summon the god's descent, the other-plane creature had never actually sent her a single clear oracle. All the First Servitor heard were vague, beguiling fragments. One could say that everything she had preached for years was delusion.
But the power had been real. Under strength such as they had never seen, she and all the Servitors' faithful had put their whole trust in the other-plane creature.
She had begun to doubt whether the Supreme God's power was truly enough to cleanse the world, enough to raise the dead. If it truly is, then why can't it simply destroy even the sickness of these worlds outright?
"Great Supreme God, what should I do now?" the First Servitor prayed to the god again and again, but no answer came. Having lost her believers, the other-plane creature could not even pass on vague information.
When it came down to it, she had once been nothing but the most lowly slave; stripped of overwhelming power, her wits counted for nothing.
She had always been unwilling to expend too much energy, because she needed it to display miracles and cultivate new believers; she knew the ignorant were countless, and that a single glimmer of hope would make them offer up everything. But now the First Servitor understood that if she still clung to the idea of conserving energy, the evil god at her heels would kill her.
The First Servitor shattered one of her own arms, bone shards scattering across the sky; after an incantation she growled, "Blades like rain."
The shards split again and again, multiplying, made savagely sharp under the cold white light, and then stabbed toward Ophelia and Cristel faster than sound.
Light flames still burned around Ophelia, but her face was utterly weary. Seeing the Servitor's divine spell, she reversed her grip on the magic sword and prepared to cut herself a way through.
Just then Cristel flashed in front of her. She did not turn her head to look at Ophelia, only said firmly, "Miss Ophelia, I will open a path for you. What comes next is up to you."
With that she tore the scroll all the way open. The power of a second-tier formal spell obliterated everything ahead in an instant; even the distant bone giant was caught in it, another arm and a leg blown apart at the same time.
The First Servitor shielded her head and chanted at speed, then shouted, "Shields like a forest." Using her own shattered body as material, layer after layer of shields came into being behind her, sliding constantly to follow the flow of energy.
Ophelia burst out from behind her, wings beating, still killing her way toward the First Servitor. Facing the barrier, she lifted the magic sword before her and began to spin at high speed in midair, punching through every shield almost unobstructed until she was right in front of the First Servitor.
The bone giant was still charging along without looking back, but the First Servitor turned her body around inside it. She spoke to Ophelia: "Your life force is draining away. At this rate you will die. Come, help me — join the Church of the Supreme God. I will restore your life with a grand blood sacrifice, and on the day of the descent the Supreme God will grant you eternal life!"
Ophelia did not answer, but the flowing light flames around her carried mockery. She raised the magic sword high and, with the momentum of her charge, brought it down on the bone giant with all her strength.
The First Servitor shrieked. The bone giant's body shrank abruptly to five meters, dodging the slash, and fled forward without a backward glance.
Ophelia's sword struck only air. Weakness rushed over her like the tide, the light flames dimming rapidly; a bitter look crossed her face, and she fell from the sky against her will.
Fortunately Cristel, coming up from behind, caught her. Cristel looked at Ophelia with a lost expression, then at the bone giant, at a loss for what to do.
Just then a confusion of sound came racing up behind her. Cristel looked back and saw Adam, his body wrapped in lightning, flash past her in an instant.
Cristel put her mind at ease and said to Ophelia in her arms, "Miss Ophelia, why did you use that thing? This is only an academy mission. Why gamble your future on it?"
Ophelia's body was failing by the moment. She gave no answer, only stared blankly at the sky.
The liquid in the syringe was a hormone extracted from a kind of other-plane creature: a creature that lives only a single day. Born at dawn, it gains tremendous power at noon, and before the next sunrise it dies — without a single exception.
Once the hormone is injected, the body's every latent potential erupts for a short time — but after that eruption, one passes straight into one's twilight years.
Even among body-refining Mages such things are taboo items, used in only two situations: when fighting a last stand, and when advancement holds no hope.
As the ether crystal shrank smaller and smaller, Adam grew faster and faster, until with another surge of mana he appeared ahead of the bone giant and blocked its way.
"I'm sick of this. You should just die," Adam said coldly, and the lightning in his hand became a spear that flew straight at the First Servitor.
The bone giant opened its vast mouth and sprayed white light, canceling the lightning spear, then roared, "Blasphemers—"
Adam pressed his palms together before his chest, then spread them; five lightning spears lined up in a row and, at his thought, shot out.
"Shut up, idiot."
The five spears gathered in the air, spiraling forward, boring through the white light like a drill until they reached the First Servitor; with a tremendous boom, cracks split the giant's skull.
"No, no, no!" the First Servitor screamed in panic.
Adam repeated the trick, and after three consecutive volleys the lightning spears smashed the bone giant's skull apart entirely and nailed the First Servitor into the ground. The crystal skeleton in her arms tumbled into the dust, not a trace of the uncanny left in it.