The sky was torn open.
That wasn't a metaphor.
Every sweep of Kanna's vast draconic body carried thunderous might. Her silver-white scales glimmered in the dim light like roving thunderclouds. What she breathed out wasn't the spirit energy used by this world's Dragonia—it was the purest lightning magic from another universe, a force bearing alien laws, hurled straight at the leader of the Flügel.
"—!"
Azril had never faced an opponent like this. As one of the first Flügel, near-perfect handiwork of the War God Artosh, she had fought countless battles and confronted many Dragonia. She knew their attack patterns, understood how their power flowed, and could always find that crucial "point" to shatter them in one strike.
But this Dragonia was different.
Kanna's power was seamless—no gaps to exploit. A heavy look flickered through Azril's golden eyes. She analyzed every strike and still found no weakness. The thunder wasn't spirit energy at all, but a form of power utterly unfamiliar to her—pure yet intricate, savage yet exquisitely precise.
"This can't be…" she muttered, beating her wings to retreat and barely slipping past a bolt that could have vaporized a mountain range.
"Roar!"
Kanna's bellow shook the heavens, carrying an otherworldly majesty no creature here possessed. She opened her jaws again—this time not for a breath weapon, but to summon a swarm of lightning orbs that moved like living things, hemming Azril in from all sides.
Azril's face hardened. The halo above her spun at a furious clip. Every feather on her wings gleamed with spirit energy. She thrust both hands forward and built up layered, composite wards—just enough to blunt the barrage.
BOOM—!
Shockwaves rippled outward from the collision of energies—only to be swallowed and stilled by an invisible barrier.
"The spatial barrier is about to shatter!" Jibril cried from the ground; she could feel her own construct coming apart.
"It won't." Rei Ao didn't even look up. He simply tapped the air.
In an instant, the turbulent space settled. Even the raging aftershocks in the sky seemed soothed by an unseen hand, no longer bleeding into the outside world.
Jibril's eyes widened. She felt her barrier replaced by a power she couldn't begin to comprehend—harder, steadier, no longer a temporary defense but something woven into the world itself.
"Master…" she breathed, awe flooding her gaze.
Rei Ao smiled faintly and looked back up at the fight. "Keep watching. It's about over."
Schwi tilted her head, data streaming across her eyes as she parsed Kanna's combat pattern. "Kanna's output equals approximately eighty-seven percent of an upper-tier Dragonia," she reported calmly. "But the energy type is entirely different—not spirit energy. Closer to… a variant of primordial mana."
Standing beside Rei Ao, Michiru watched with wide, shining eyes, equal parts curious and astonished. She came from a relatively ordinary world; she had seen Kanna's dragon form before, but never anything on this scale.
And the people around her fascinated her even more: Jibril, winged and haloed like an angel yet calling herself a Flügel; Schwi, outwardly a little girl but clearly a mechanical lifeform; and Couronne, a seemingly ordinary human whom even those two treated with respect. Now, all of them seemed to be moving at Rei Ao's direction.
"Kanna isn't a dragon of this world," Michiru murmured, eyes still fixed on that silver-white streak in the sky, her worry refusing to fade.
Schwi spoke up. "Kanna is adapting to the battle. Her learning speed is high. She is decoding Azril's fighting style."
Sure enough, Kanna stopped relying on brute-force breath attacks alone and began using finer, more complex techniques. Her lightning wove into patterns—some spreading like nets to ensnare, some thrusting like spears, some curving midair to strike from impossible angles.
Azril's burden spiked. She had to go all out. Her halo brightened more than twofold; the light from her wings turned her into a small sun. She reached for higher-order arts: space distortion, magic rewriting, even attempts to directly tamper with the region around Kanna.
None of it did much.
Kanna's power seemed innately resistant to such interference—her very presence felt like a negation of this world's laws.
"Azril-senpai's situation is very bad," Jibril blurted, unable to keep from voicing what she saw.
Rei Ao glanced at her and suddenly asked, "Jibril, how do you think we should handle Azril?"
"Eh?"
Jibril froze, clearly not expecting the question. She fell silent, a complex look crossing her face. She had betrayed Artosh and the Flügel's old stance and acknowledged Rei Ao as her new master—but she couldn't deny that Azril had always looked after her, a good senior to whom she was very close.
Naturally, she didn't want to kill Azril. Yet she also understood she should consider her master's position, so she dared not speak lightly.
Since Rei Ao had asked, she lifted her head after a moment's thought and said earnestly, "Master, would you take Azril in?"
"Oh?" A glint of surprise touched Rei Ao's eyes.
Jibril quickly explained, "I believe Azril's power is on par with mine. And she commands the entire Flügel. If, through her, the Flügel could become your strength as well, then in this world they could act as your eyes and ears and get things done."
~~~
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