Chapter 206: Airam and Hermione Join The Fight [4]

"Lord Hendrick! Rina!"

Esther screamed, immediately watching them rush toward death.

Her voice broke as she reached out toward them.

Tears spilled down her cheeks again, and she tried to run forward, but Airam caught her around the waist and pulled her back.

"No," Airam said.

Esther struggled against her.

"E—Eldest sister! T—They are going to die!"

"You cannot go there!"

"He helped us!"

"I know."

Esther collapsed against Airam’s arms, crying hard enough that her whole body shook.

Across the clearing, Hendrick met the first Valmorian knight.

Their swords clashed.

The impact made Hendrick’s arms jerk downward. His reinforcement spell was gone. He had spent too much mana maintaining it during the earlier fight, and he no longer had time to rebuild the formation.

The Valmorian soldier still carried the strength of the serum.

He struck again.

Hendrick blocked.

Rina moved toward the second enemy, trying to keep him from reaching Hendrick’s side. Her sword met the black blade once, twice, three times. Each impact forced her farther back. Her injured shoulder could barely hold the weapon up.

The second Valmorian knight kicked at her wounded side.

She tried to move away.

The kick caught her anyway.

She was thrown into the mud, but she rolled before the enemy could bring his sword down. The black blade cut through the grass where her neck had been.

Hendrick saw her fall.

He tried to reach her.

The Valmorian knight before him did not allow it.

A spearhead came from the side.

Hendrick twisted away, but the point scraped across his ribs and tore through his armor. Blood spilled down his side. He answered with a slash toward the enemy’s neck, but the black armor turned the blade at the last instant.

The two Valmorian soldiers were pressing them apart.

Hendrick had to defend himself from one.

Rina had to survive the other.

Neither had enough strength left to win.

Hermione watched them struggle.

Her chest tightened.

She knew what would happen if she did nothing.

The same thing that had happened to the others.

Another Rubenhart knight would fall. Then Hendrick. Then the Valmorian soldiers would come for Airam, Esther, and her.

Hermione turned toward Airam.

"Airam."

Airam was still holding Esther against her side.

"What?"

"I need your help."

Airam looked at Hermione’s hands.

The tremors had not stopped. Faint burns of mana still marked Hermione’s palms from forcing the last Rank 3 spell into existence too quickly.

"You cannot cast another spell," Airam said.

"I have to."

"You nearly lost control."

"I know."

"Brian Strelley warned us about this."

Hermione’s face tightened.

The Grandmaster’s voice returned to her memory.

He had spoken to the sisters after seeing the way their mana reacted during training. Their power was too great for their age. It did not flow calmly like ordinary mana. It surged. It pressed against the boundaries of every Formula Ring they formed. It wanted to expand, to escape, to become more destructive than the spell required.

Airam’s witchcraft was dangerous because of the runes she controlled directly.

Esther’s magic was unstable because her fear and emotions affected the flow of her mana.

Hermione’s power was dangerous for another reason.

When she focused, she could weave spells too quickly.

She could force too many runes into place before her body had time to understand the strain. Her Formula Rings would become larger and stronger than she intended. If she lost control, the spell might strike allies as easily as enemies.

Grandmaster Strelley had warned her clearly.

"Power without restraint kills the people standing closest to you."

That was why Hermione had avoided dangerous spells.

That was why she had tried to use small force pulses and narrow winds. That was why she had held back even as the Rubenhart knights fell around her.

But Hendrick was about to die.

Rina was about to die as well.

Hermione looked across the clearing.

The Valmorian soldier fighting Hendrick struck again. Hendrick blocked, but the force drove him to one knee. The second soldier had cornered Ria near the side of the tent. She raised her sword, but her arms shook so badly she could barely hold it.

Hermione looked back at Airam.

"I know what he said," she whispered. "I know I could hurt someone."

Airam’s expression hardened.

"Then do not cast it."

As cruel as it sounded, Airam didn’t want to take the risk of getting Hermione hurt, even if Hendrick and Rina died. The Valmorian in the end wouldn’t kill them after all.

"I cannot leave them," Hermione said.

Airam looked toward Hendrick.

The captain had given everything he had to protect them. He had stood between the sisters and Valdris’s men even after the rest of the camp had fallen. He had told the girls to stay safe while he went to die in their place.

Airam’s fingers tightened around Esther.

Then she looked at Hermione.

"What are you planning?"

Hermione raised one trembling hand.

"I will not attack them with mana."

Airam’s eyes narrowed.

"Their armor is made to resist spells," Hermione continued. "Their swords can destroy magic. But their armor cannot stop a stone once it is already moving. Their blades cannot cut apart a spear that has become a physical weapon."

Airam understood.

Hermione would not send a fire spell or force blast at the Valmorian soldiers.

She would use magic to move what was already there.

Rocks.

Broken weapons.

Spearheads.

Fragments of armor.

The shattered remains of shields and supply crates.

Then she would use wind pressure to accelerate them.

Airam’s gaze shifted toward the battlefield.

"That will still hit Hendrick."

"Not if you help me keep the paths stable."

Airam looked at her.

"You want me to guide the projectiles."

"And destroy their barriers."

The two sisters remained silent for a moment.

Hendrick fell back again.

The Valmorian knight’s sword struck his guard. His weapon nearly slipped from his hand. The enemy’s next attack came for his head.

Hendrick leaned away.

The blade cut into his cheek.

Rina cried out as her opponent drove her into the tent wall. The canvas shook. She raised her sword in desperation, catching the enemy’s blade above her face.

Her arms began to give way.

Airam released Esther slowly.

"Stay behind us," she told her youngest sister.

Esther grabbed her sleeve.

"P—Please do not go."

"We are not going anywhere," Airam said.

Her eyes turned toward Hermione.

"Do it."

Hermione raised both hands.

A new Formula Ring appeared before her.

It was larger than the one she had cast before, but this time the circle did not shake. Airam stood beside her, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. Crimson runes appeared around Airam’s hands, though they remained separate from Hermione’s Formula Ring.

Hermione began weaving the spell.

She did not force the runes into place through panic.

She built them in order.

The inner ring gathered raw force.

The next ring reached into the ground, searching for objects heavy enough to cause real damage. Stones responded first. Broken pieces of rock rose from the torn earth around the stream. Then came splintered lengths of wood from the supply wagon. Fragments of broken shields lifted from the mud. A fallen spear rose slowly beside the body of the knight who had carried it.

The objects hung in the air.

More followed.

A sword with a broken edge.

A dagger.

Pieces of shattered armor.

Long pieces of stone torn from the ground by earlier spells.

They circled above the camp in a widening pattern.

Hermione’s spell did not create them.

It only lifted them.

The final rings formed around the collection of weapons and debris. Wind gathered around each object, wrapping them in tight currents of pressure. The air began to scream as Hermione compressed it further.

The stones trembled.

The spear shook in the air.

The broken weapons turned until every point faced the Valmorian knights.

Hermione’s face had gone pale.

Blood ran from her nose again.

But this time, Airam stood beside her.

Crimson runes moved through the air around the Formula Ring. Airam did not try to control Hermione’s spell directly. She guided the unstable parts. Whenever a rune began to drift from its proper place, Airam caught it with witchcraft and pushed it back into the correct path.

Whenever the wind pressure threatened to spread too wide, Airam bound it tighter.

The spell stabilized.

Hermione’s eyes opened wider.

She could feel it.

The Formula Ring was holding.

The Valmorian knights finally noticed the objects rising around the clearing.

The soldier fighting Hendrick looked up.

A broken spear hung above him.

So did rocks, blades, and splintered pieces of wood.

The female Rubenhart knight saw them too.

Hendrick understood first.

He looked over his shoulder.

Hermione met his eyes across the battlefield.

"Dodge!" She shouted.

Hendrick did not hesitate.

He threw himself to the side.

Rina did the same. She dropped beneath the Valmorian soldier’s next swing and rolled away from the tent wall, dragging herself through the mud with one arm.

The two Valmorian knights looked upward.

Their black armor could withstand magic.

Their anti-magic weapons could break spells.

But the weapons suspended above them were no longer mana.

They were steel, stone, wood, and sharpened fragments moving through the air.

The soldiers raised their swords.

Formula Rings formed around their hands.

Defensive barriers.

A pale, hardened layer of mana spread before them. The shield spells were strong enough to stop a direct magical attack. They expanded into curved walls between the Valmorian knights and the storm of debris above.

But they had both forgotten the dark-haired sister.

Airam lifted both hands.

The crimson runes around her fingers darkened.

Their glow changed.

Red faded into black.

The color was so deep it seemed to swallow the firelight around it.

Airam’s eyes followed.

The glow of her already dark irises disappeared beneath a pitch-black glow.

Hermione felt the air turn colder.

Airam had chosen a destructive set of runes.

These runes were made to break connections.

To sever the paths that held a magical formation together.

The Valmorian barrier spells stood before the soldiers, their mana walls bright and solid.

Airam’s black runes shot forward.

They struck the barriers.

The Formula Rings protecting the Valmorian knights shattered.

The defensive spells broke apart in bursts of pale light. The soldiers’ faces changed beneath their helmets as the barriers vanished before they could rebuild them.

Hermione released her spell.

The clearing roared.

Dozens of stones, weapons, and broken fragments flew downward.

Wind pressure drove them with terrible speed.

The first stone struck the Valmorian knight near Hendrick in the chest. His black armor dented inward, and the impact drove him backward.

A broken spear followed.

It pierced beneath his arm, finding the gap between breastplate and shoulder guard. The force carried him off his feet and pinned him against the ground.

The second Valmorian knight tried to turn.

A piece of shattered shield smashed into his helmet.

A dagger struck his thigh.

Then a long shard of stone hit his side hard enough to crack the armor.

He stumbled.

The final spear crossed the clearing.

Its metal point entered beneath his jaw.

The force drove through his throat and out behind his neck.

His sword fell first.

Then his body.

The remaining stones struck the ground around them, tearing through grass and mud. Broken weapons buried themselves in the earth. Steam rose from the impact points where Hermione’s wind pressure had heated the air around them.

Silence followed.

Hermione lowered her hands.

The Formula Ring above her broke apart slowly.

Airam’s black runes faded one by one.

The darkness left her eyes.