Ra?k didn’t break his stance. He just let the rod drop sideways, like that alone was supposed to be enough.

  He was smiling. The smile looked… broken. I couldn’t even tell if it was aimed at us or at himself.

  “See it? I don’t need to run. You’re already inside it now.”

  Nael had been right.

  Residual echo—magic that lingered where an attack had passed.

  This battlefield was all Ra?k’s territory.

  He swung the rod horizontally.

  One second. Two seconds… nothing.

  …Or so it seemed, and then the air split.

  “Down!”

  Sera rolled away. I was late.

  Something cut my arm. It was shallow, but it burned.

  Next came a vertical swing.

  “Fire—watch it!”

  This time flames surged up immediately. No warning at all.

  Sera jumped, but the edge of her cloak singed. I threw myself sideways and rolled.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “The timing… it keeps changing!”

  “Sometimes it’s late, sometimes it’s instant—there’s no reading it!”

  Ra?k kept smiling. It wasn’t joy. It wasn’t madness either.

  “This… this is it. This is real magic. Mine!”

  He planted the rod into the ground.

  Silence.

  And a few seconds later, pressure slammed into our feet.

  I held, but Sera dropped to one knee.

  And then—right then, I felt it.

  A flow of mana. Not mine. Not the enemy’s.

  Sera’s mana coming through our kyōmei wasn’t new.

  But this time it was different.

  The mana that flowed into me stopped inside me for an instant.

  …Like it was asking.

  I answered without thinking.

  I gave it shape, and “returned” it to Sera.

  The strike that left Sera’s hand was different from anything before.

  Not a thick, heavy shot.

  Sharp. Straight. Like a spear aimed with intent.

  Ra?k’s face twisted.

  “You can hear it too…? That ‘sound’—!”

  A horizontal swing. This time it was immediate.

  The air became a blade and grazed Sera’s shoulder.

  No. We can’t last like this.

  If we can’t read the delay, then we can’t give him time between beats.

  “Sera!”

  I moved as I shouted, pulling his gaze onto me.

  With my movement, it would come again—I could feel it. Mana from Sera.

  This time, I shaped it on purpose.

  I formed it in my hands and sent it back.

  Sera’s arm moved.

  She fired.

  The light snapped in a straight line and knocked Ra?k’s rod away.

  It spun through the air and hit the ground.

  “Stop!! That’s— that’s the only thing that’s mine—!”

  I rushed in and slammed into Ra?k, taking him down. I pinned his arm and drove him into the dirt.

  “It’s not over! It’s not over, I’m not finished—!”

  But it was over.

  The air around us was quiet.

  There was no residual echo left.

  Sera lowered her arm and looked at me.

  I looked back.

  Words weren’t necessary anymore.

  We’d realized it.

  We weren’t just stacking power. We were making shape—and entrusting it. Aiming it in the same direction, and releasing it.

  That was the moment we crossed something we couldn’t name.