In the middle of the {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} night, a wave of green fire surged upward.
Against it clashed a stream of piercingly cold blue water.
The two elements tangled, colliding and canceling each other out with violent shockwaves.
Where the hellfire prevailed, the water evaporated into steam. Where the water prevailed, the flames sputtered out.
But in most places, they matched evenly. Because of that, thick white steam, like dawn’s mist, spread across the battlefield.
Even through the rising steam, Casey and the Hellfire Skull aimed at each other, exchanging blows nonstop.
“What... what destructive power.”
“She’s holding her ground against that monster without giving an inch. There’s no way to intervene.”
The agents of the Magical Information Bureau watching from afar could not help their astonishment.
They knew Casey was Marias’s younger sister, and that she bore one of the <Colors> titles.
Yet deep down, they had always harbored a quiet sense of superiority—believing perhaps they might be more capable than her.
In truth, it was jealousy.
Casey had been born with great talent, yet wasted it, in their eyes, on the work of a detective.
Meanwhile, they trained rigorously, hunted criminals, and fought life-and-death battles.
Surely, in an operation like this, they were the ones meant to play the vital role.
But watching Casey fight, they realized how mistaken they had been.
“She’s on a completely different level from us.”
They could admit to themselves—they had envied her status as a single-element mage.
But they were confident that if they ever faced her directly, they wouldn’t lose.
After all, magical strength wasn’t decided purely by destructive power. Real combat was different. Things could go any way once the fight began.
That easy confidence... was completely washed away now.
That skull blazing with green fire was a monster that could unleash impossible barrages of attacks with nothing more than its breath.
And Casey Selmore was clashing head-on against it, matching it blow for blow.
It couldn’t be dismissed as a matter of elemental affinity.
From the moment she freely commanded thousands of tons of water, any talk of advantage or disadvantage in attributes became meaningless.
“Fall back.”
A cold voice cut toward the Bureau agents.
It was Ludger, addressing the onlookers.
“You...”
“This is not a place for you.”
“Are you saying we’re of no use here?”
“Yes.”
The agents’ faces twisted in humiliation at his blunt answer.
The fact that he wasn’t wrong only deepened their shame.
“This situation has grown far too large. We’re holding things down, but a battle this flashy will draw attention from far away. People will come swarming. ”
Ludger’s eyes caught the flickering green glow through the thick steam.
“Expand the perimeter. Don’t let anyone inside. That’s all you can do right now.”
“You—what do you know, to say that!”
The one who snapped back was a young mage.
He had once quarreled with Ludger, yet his life had also been saved by him.
He knew Ludger was far stronger, and knew he owed him, yet he couldn’t accept being dismissed—he and his seniors alike.
“We didn’t come all the way here just to do something so trivial!”
“Then did you come all this way to throw yourselves against that thing with power you don’t even have?”
“Th-that’s...”
“Wake up. If you’re truly acting for your country, start with the small things you can actually do.”
Ludger’s cold gaze silenced him.
He knew his words were nothing but stubborn pride.
The team leader, watching his junior bite down on his lip in frustration, spoke heavily:
“...He’s not wrong. We’ll fall back.”
Now they understood why Marias had summoned those two specially.
As team leader, he made the most rational choice: rather than die meaninglessly, do the best they could in their place—even if it seemed small.
He addressed Ludger.
“Please handle that monster for us as well.”
“I already intended to.”
The Bureau agents withdrew with heavy steps.
It was good they hadn’t insisted on staying. Their interference would only have made things worse.
Ludger turned his eyes back to Casey, who was still locked in combat.
‘Casey is still going strong.’
Perhaps frustrated that she rarely got chances to shine, Casey was unleashing every spell she could against the black skull.
Even the steam born of fire and water’s collision was water in the end—something she could turn to her advantage.
Water was endless, forever circulating.
Casey drew the foggy steam together, condensing it into torrents exceeding hundreds of tons.
Rumble!
A colossal stream of water spun above the black skull’s head like a halo.
As though angered at the idea of water hanging over it, the green flames blazed hotter.
The surging emerald fire swallowed the watery halo.
The skull intended to vaporize it all away, yet quickly realized something was wrong.
No matter how much it burned, the water didn’t end.
Even when it tried to erase every drop, leaving not even steam behind, more kept pouring in without stop.
The reason became clear at once.
“Hey, bonehead. Did you forget where you are? This is right next to the harbor.”
Casey mocked the skull that had once been Kaloto’s corpse.
“You shouldn’t be fighting me near the sea.”
Streams of water writhed like living serpents in the air.
Like great silken banners unfurled across the heavens, the waters covered the night sky, endlessly feeding the halo.
This was a harbor city, a warehouse district by the coast.
There was all the water she could ever need close at hand.
And the sea was limitless.
Casey could draw on it at will, without exhausting herself.
“But what about you? Do you think that pitiful flame can vaporize every drop of seawater in the world?”
At her taunt, the skull’s fire roared higher, burning stronger than ever—truly hellfire.
For a few moments, the surroundings were drowned in emerald light.
Then—whoosh!
Artificial rain cascaded from the heavens.
A sudden squall drenched the area, snuffing out every green flame.
The skull realized the truth.
If it continued with a contest of pure firepower, it would only burn itself out and lose.
It pointed a finger at Casey.
Hellfire gathered at its fingertip, then erupted in the shape of a cross, shooting a beam straight at her.
Handling vast amounts of water, Casey had no time to react.
But the green ray bent mid-air, as though space itself twisted, and soared harmlessly into the sky.
“Looks like you forgot about me.”
Ludger stepped before Casey, his shadow rippling around him.
Wide-area attacks were difficult, but pinpoint beams like this? He could bend them aside easily.
“Tch. I didn’t need help—I could have blocked that myself!”
“In times like this, you just say thank you.”
“...Wh-who’s thanking you?!”
Casey shouted back furiously, then vented her irritation by unleashing an even heavier downpour on the skull.
The poor target of her misdirected anger, the black skull, flailed helplessly.
Water engulfed it, sweeping it around as if trapped in a vast invisible bucket set to spin like a whirlpool.
The vortex formed on the ground began grinding its body apart.
At this rate, it would be destroyed.
It sensed danger.
How long had it even possessed this host body? To end here already?
That desperation and panic sparked fiercer flames within it.
Boom!
The hellish mana inside it detonated, blasting apart the whirlpool from within.
Casey wasn’t fazed.
She simply pulled the scattered water back together to encircle it again.
But then the skull did something strange.
Instead of spreading its flames outward, it compressed them tightly around itself.
Wreathed in condensed emerald fire, it stamped the ground.
Fwoosh!
Jets of flame blasted from its legs, propelling it upward.
In an instant, it shot high into the sky.
Casey’s eyes widened.
“What the hell is that now?”
“It seems it’s learned a new way to use its power,” Ludger observed.
Unlike before, it was no longer flailing blindly, but had grasped how to focus its strength.
The hint had been there already, when it compressed fire in its fingertip to fire a beam.
“This is bad. If it keeps surviving and learning at that pace, it’ll become even more dangerous.”
“And right now, its target is that magic circle, isn’t it?”
“Exactly. It won’t run. It still has its pride.”
Sure enough, the green fireball soaring high veered, then plummeted toward the ground.
Trailing a long tail of flame, it fell like a meteor.
The two moved at once, without words.
Casey erected countless walls of water along its trajectory—enough to divert it or at least sap its firepower.
Meanwhile, Ludger rushed toward the magic circle.
Kaloto’s two disciples, who had just finished their task, flinched when they saw him.
But only for a moment—then they bared their teeth, glaring murderously.
“You bastard, how dare you lay hands on our master!”
“Can’t say that’s entirely fair. Your master blew himself apart, unable to control his own power.”
Treating him like the master’s murderer was nothing but shifting the blame.
‘Not that I didn’t have some influence... but still.’
Either way, it didn’t matter now.
“You two. If you don’t want to die, leave. Now.”
“Don’t make me laugh!”
The disciples drew on hellish mana, casting spells.
Ludger had expected this. He began weaving his own faster.
Behind him, Casey’s warning rang out:
“Watch out! It’s still coming down!”
All eyes turned skyward.
Beyond the many walls of water, the green meteor still descended.
Its size and power diminished with each barrier it pierced, but it never stopped.
Ludger had to decide—catch it, or deflect it elsewhere.
If it reached the magic circle, it would absorb the hellfire gathering there and explode.
In that case...
His decision made, Ludger’s mana flared.
There was no time to add elements. A pure mana cannon, condensed to maximum output.
A blue flash shot into the circle’s core.
The disciples, distracted by the falling meteor, couldn’t react.
“What... what is this!”
The first disciple’s eyes widened at the sight of the stabilizing circle.
A circle infused with hellfire couldn’t be stopped simply by smashing it.
But Ludger had chosen another way.
He injected his own mana into its core.
Blue mana mingled with green.
They seemed to clash, yet synchronized.
Ludger’s mana wrapped the hellfire and dragged its flow elsewhere.
That alone was enough.
A circle required a set quantity of mana to follow its designed paths. By redirecting the flow, its function collapsed—maybe not perfectly, but at least by half.
Not by breaking it from outside, but shaking it from within.
And more: he was controlling hellfire, the most savage and violent mana, bending it to his will.
“Th-this is something even Master couldn’t do...”
The disciples gaped in disbelief.
Ludger had to retreat as the green meteor slammed down.
Boom!
A colossal explosion tore the ground, a shockwave ripping through the dust cloud.
At the center, the black skull stood.
But the hellfire it had hoped to absorb was nowhere near enough.
Its gaze darted around—then fixed on the nearest of Kaloto’s disciples.
The younger one.
It reached for him.
“Wh-what—?! Guaaaahhh!”
The disciple screamed as green mana poured from his eyes, nose, and mouth into the skull’s hand.
His body went slack, dead.
Strengthened by stolen hellfire, the skull’s flames flared higher.
“Damn it. Just when we almost killed it, it goes and recharges?”
Casey growled, about to strike again.
But an unexpected voice stopped her.
“You’ve done enough.”
A smooth, leisurely voice, full of composure.
Before Casey could even react—
Crackle, crackle, crackle.
White frost enveloped the skull, freezing it solid.