Horizon:Volume 9B Chapter 36

Chapter 36: Commander in the Heights

I keep at it

But it’s still high damage

I ero

But it’s still a high return

Point Allocation (O-Okay, Let’s Do This!)

●

“An excellent reaction! You set that up, didn’t you!?”

Toshiie had expected the Technohexen’s charge.

...Yes, they are attackers.

That pair was all about surprise attacks, mobility, and – most of all – striking force.

Those terms on their own reminded him of himself and Narimasa. But those Technohexen had almost identical abilities, while he and Narimasa were entirely different.

...I wonder what Na-chan’s up to right now!

Fuwa had said he was getting involved in Honnouji. And Fuwa had said she was leaving him to it because he was the type to never let something go if he didn’t like how it turned out.

Toshiie was much the same. Shibata had helped him out and he knew a lot of the others here. Maybe Narimasa was fine with not sticking with them to the end, but Toshiie was not. Of course, sticking around for the next half hour wasn’t the same as sticking with them to the end, but…

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have been so specific about the 30 minutes.”

...I was trying to look cool.

Did that mean he had used the history recreation as an excuse to hide how he really felt? But…

“It’s just like me to be here even if I’m not seeing it through to the end.”

Based on the Testament, Maeda Toshiie had been quite skilled in a variety of areas, but for that very reason, he hadn’t stood out much in the highly individualized Oda clan. His more generalized talents had made him something of a balancer and an important official.

He had worked hard to keep the peace. That was who the current Toshiie was named after.

Meanwhile, his second inherited name of Wallenstein had fought in a variety of lands during the Thirty Years’ War, but he had earned the ire of the lords and kings who couldn’t pay his fees and he had ultimately been assassinated.

The two had a lot in common, but they were opposites when it came to how they viewed themselves.

Maeda Toshiie wouldn’t have wanted to be someone like Wallenstein.

He wouldn’t have wanted to disturb the peace and get assassinated without solving anything.

But Wallenstein wouldn’t have wanted to be someone like Maeda Toshiie.

If he had been able to bow his head and keep going without converting his power into money, he wouldn’t have become known as the mercenary king.

Which one am I?

He had tried to handle his double name inheritance by compensating for each of their flaws, but…

“They’re just so different, Shibata-senpai.”

With that, he raised his hands.

At the same time, the crouching colossal skeleton rapidly regenerated its lost arms.

Ether light sprayed out as the arms formed, spread their hands, and pushed out ahead.

The hands were directed toward the Technohexen. Those two were charging toward it, so…

“Counterattack.”

The right hand aimed for the white one and the left hand for the black one. Even if the Technohexen did fire, the attacks would only hit the colossal skeleton’s hands.

“So what will you do now, Technohexen?”

●

...What will you do!?

Even as Toshiie asked the question, he saw the black Technohexen, who was flying out ahead of the other, force herself into a slide.

Her schale besen, made up of black acceleration panels, made a right-angle slide using gravitational control.

“Down the center!”

She forced herself in between the outstretched arms.

The white Technohexen slid toward the center in the same way.

They had chosen a central route. Once they were in firing form, they could blast the colossal skeleton from face to torso.

A moment later, Toshiie reacted.

“Yeah, that’s about what I thought.”

He had predicted this. So he gave a new instruction.

“How about another explosive roar?”

It would probably hit those two directly, but they would be fine. Because…

“You have Crus Fortitudo – Vetus. You can survive one hit, can’t you? Of course, the force of the blast will still launch you away.”

●

Yoshiaki saw the enemy begin its next action.

She and Angie had already seen the colossal skeleton’s explosive roar from below. They had a kinetic vision boosting divine protection for use when moving at high speed, so they had seen it all perfectly.

...Strangely, it “inhales” once first.

It was a ghost and its explosive roar would be spell-based. Without lungs, it wouldn’t need to take in air.

But Maeda must have decided it would be simpler to match his own breathing before firing. Plus, the ghosts forming the colossal skeleton would still remember the action of breathing from when they were alive.

Thus, it leaned its head back a bit first.

Yoshiaki took that moment to call out to Angie.

“Angie!”

Angie was already on the move, She really did have good intuition.

So Yoshiaki got moving too. They kicked themselves away from Weiss Fürstin and Schwartz Fürstin, escaping to the left and right.

●

Toshiie realize the explosive roar hadn’t worked.

The attack had definitely traveled right between the colossal skeleton’s arms.

But the enemy wasn’t there. The white and black Technohexen had escaped to the sky on either side.

He had missed.

The two schale besen stalled out without their pilots. The kicks had put them on a descending course.

The explosive roar passed between the Technohexen and above their brooms.

It hadn’t hit anything at all. It meaninglessly flew into the forest behind.

But it did have side effects. Its shockwave struck the Technohexen, sending white and black feathers flying.

And the two of them landed on the arms held out to strike them.

As soon as they got back up, a white explosion erupted in the forest out ahead.

With that white light behind them, the Technohexen spread their wings even as they scattered feathers. They had Magie Figurs opened in their hands.

...Are they going to launch a cannonless spell attack on me!?

How naive. No matter how powerful they were as Technohexen, it would take them time to construct the barrel and the rest of the external acceleration system with only spells. And he wasn’t about to wait around. So…

“Fly!”

He had the colossal skeleton swing its arms outwards. The arms twisted like they were swinging a racket, launching the Technohexen from them.

In an instant, black and white feathers scattered and only the Magie Figurs remained.

“––––!”

But those burst. Only ether light dust remained in the space where the spread arms had been.

Toshiie had eliminated the enemy.

●

I exorcised them, thought Toshiie. He wasn’t sure if it was a good idea for a ghost to talk about exorcising, but he did feel he had “exorcised” that problem away.

It was a form of purification.

They had been a nuisance placed upon him. He felt relief at having purified his role in the Battle of Shizugatake and everything related to his upper and underclassmen.

He had done what he was meant to do.

Hey had sufficiently paid his debt to Shibata. So now…

“Ma-chan.”

Artillery fire was incoming from the Azuchi.

So he deflected that with the colossal skeleton’s defense barriers and opened his mouth.

...Once my 30 minutes are up, we’ll leave.

He had no regrets. So he prepared to inform Matsu of his plan to leave.

“––––”

The words never came.

The view sent from the colossal skeleton’s vision showed him something that hadn’t been there before.

Ahead and a bit blow – around throat height – two things were positioned with some distance between them.

But instead of being stacked vertically, the glowing panels were positioned horizontally to each other.

They were defense barriers. Specifically, ones made with Technomagie.

●

...What is going on here?

He understood what these were: defense barriers. But he didn’t understand their purpose.

He didn’t know what they were meant to accomplish, so he deemed them dangerous. He checked and saw two figures falling on either side of his vision, scattering ether light as they went. Those were the Technohexen he had flung away with the arms earlier.

They were falling without even spreading their wings, but they were looking his way.

They both stared straight at the colossal skeleton’s face and spoke with raised eyebrows and smiles.

“Sorry,” said the white one.

“But it’s not us,” added the black one.

What’s not you?

They were the white and black on the right and left. And he had sent the explosion down the center, so…

“––––”

He didn’t understand. It felt like something was underway without his knowledge.

Then he heard a sound. It came from up high and traveled far enough to reach the colossal skeleton’s auditory system.

“Lu, ah.”

It was a wolf’s howl. And he saw someone making a great leap up into the sky out ahead of the colossal skeleton.

She had black hair and silver cross armor ready in her hands.

“Kasuya Takenori!”

●

Angie whistled into the sky. She matched the wolf’s howl.

...This’ll work!

It was pretty much their last resort.

They were sending Kasuya, a close-range ground fighter, against the colossal skeleton.

The Technohexen had been their main force against that skeleton, but also a diversion.

That was the last resort Takenaka had thought up.

After all, this enemy was both Maeda Toshiie and Wallenstein. He had been working for Shibata lately, but before that he had fought all over the place.

Someone like that was going to predict their tactics.

Thus, they went with a last resort.

They had Kasuya’s permission. Takenaka’s instructions had arrived while they were still in the forest.

“Kasuya-san,” called Angie.

There she was after being knocked back into the forest when approaching the colossal skeleton.

It looked like she had taken a lot of damage breaking through the tree branches and rolling through the forest. While they were still waiting in the forest, she had approached from behind them, wiping away dried blood, but her voice was firm.

“I only need to do what I can, correct?”

So Angie and Yoshiaki had made their charge.

They hadn’t managed to fire, so they had moved to guide the explosive roar.

That was when Kasuya had emerged from the forest.

Crus Fortitudo – Vetus had boosted the defenses of the brave. That had allowed her to use the explosive roar itself to hide from the colossal skeleton.

From there, Angie and Yoshiaki had focused on being a diversion. They had sent Weiss Fürstin and Schwartz Fürstin soaring through the air. So Kasuya could use them as footholds. And by using the colossal skeleton’s fading rocket punch as a starting point, the black wolf would use the Zwei Fürstin like stairs to reach the enemy’s face.

The defense barriers ejected from the Magie Figurs were the same.

By drawing the colossal skeleton’s eyes to the sides, it hadn’t noticed the wolf using bursts of speed to race up through the center sky. Angie and Yoshiaki had been flung away by the arms, but…

“We can deal with that thanks to Crus Fortitudo – Vetus!”

Angie saw Kasuya using a defense barrier as footing for another leap.

The colossal skeleton was crouched low. The ground unit’s earlier diversion had all led to this.

They had found the correct route through the branching paths.

“Ohhh!” roared Kasuya, launching herself to the very top of the colossal skeleton’s head.

●

Toshiie had the colossal skeleton stand up in a hurry.

...What do I do!?

Kasuya was a close-range ground fighter. The Argent Clous on her arms were powerful, but they were meant for use against people, not warships or a colossal skeleton.

But he also knew her identity. So…

“Are you giving this everything you have, black Loup-Garou!?” he shouted, standing up.

He only needed to swat her off the skeleton’s head, but she moved before he could.

She threw away something that had been covering her eyes.

It was a visor. The spell device let her see in the dark and identify her enemies.

And for nonhumans, it kept too much moonlight from entering their eyes.

The black wolf threw that away and then looked up into the night.

The twin full moons hovered in the sky as she threw back her head, hair trailing behind the motion.

“Ah.”

She raised her voice. As a wolf’s howl.

“Ee.”

It was so much like a wail, a plea, a call to something out there.

At the same time, an ether mist burst from her body and she changed shape.

This was her beast transformation.

●

“Good,” said Yoshiaki, flapping her wings to slow her fall as she watched her friend change shape.

This wasn’t her first time seeing this. She had seen it a few times before, most recently during a certain battle.

The battle against Takigawa. Due to the phase of the moons, it hadn’t been a complete transformation then, but Kasuya had done it anyway. Just as she and Takigawa had looked evenly matched, Takigawa had increased the number of physical copies, so Kasuya had responded.

The black wolf howled below the full moons in the same way now. She readied her arms and shouted.

“Luohhhhh!”

The trees around her shook, their leaves answering the howl.

Animal ear tufts grew diagonally up from where her normal ears were and a long tail swished through the air behind her. Her clothing had become a black dress and decorations resembling the phases of the moon danced about her.

This was a werewolf’s beast transformation. Unlike other nonhumans, they would rewrite the “realm” around them with a version of themselves a lot closer to a spirit form.

Ether light danced around her like a protective cloak, but that scattered into the night sky as the wind blew.

...It’s so beautiful.

Anyone would say black was Kasuya’s personal color. And she clearly agreed.

But with the full moons shining in from behind that black silhouette, her golden wolf eyes gleamed bright.

Those eyes drew attention to who she was far more than her usual form.

Everything about this form was different.

But Yoshiaki still saw her as a friend and the howl seemed to be calling out to her.

●

Kasuya felt a tremor run through her.

...I can do this!

The beast transformation honestly put a heavy burden on her. It allowed her to draw on power well beyond her usual form, but it also rapidly wore down her stamina as a Loup-Garou. After seeing the nonsense the Reine des Garous had pulled at the Keichou Campaign, she assumed there was a trick to preventing that, though.

But even if she had room for improvement, she needed that power now.

This changed everything about her. Even her mood was oddly elevated.

But one thing did not change.

...Argent Clou!

Her weapons were unchanged. And she ended her howl. She cut off the bestial words as if swallowing them.

“…!”

The forced silence signaled the beginning of her action.

First, she slammed the Argent Clous together in front of her as if punching her fists against each other. As soon as the metallic clangs and sparks scattered, the left Argent Clou left her arm and connected to the right one.

That was done.

“Argent Clou – Combined Form!”

With those words, two long crosses opened up above her right arm. They produced mechanical sounds as they fully opened. Ether light rapidly gathered within.

And a drill pile made of ether extended from the rear.

The drill fang was far longer than she was tall as she raised it in her right arm and howled.

“Oh!”

She aimed straight down, driving the drill bunker into the colossal skeleton’s head.

The 15m spike was instantly launched down.

The full attack was blasted into the colossal skull.

●

Toshiie saw Kasuya’s attack. His lernen figur displayed a diagram of the damage caused by what looked like a thick needle plunging into the center of the colossal skeleton’s head.

But 15m wasn’t much to an 800m skeleton.

On the scale of a 2m human, it was no more than a needle of less than 4cm.

...Of course, it’d still be bad for a human if that needle punctured through their skull!

But this was a collection of ghosts creating a colossal skeleton. It wouldn’t be a problem. So…

“Get her out of there!”

Toshiie waved his hands to tell the skeleton to brush her off of it. He would see the result soon enough. But…

“Huh?”

The first to notice was Matsu, who had returned to her normal size.

She had turned to look at something with eyebrows raised and her hand in her hair as if brushing it.

“That’s weird.”

Her comment led Toshiie to look too.

Only then did he realize the colossal skeleton had ignored his command and stopped moving altogether.

It had raised its arms to shoulder height, but they lost speed there. Its hands were still slowly rising, but it looked like they would eventually stop.

...But why?

Instead of thinking about it, he sent the instruction again. He raised his left arm over his head like Matsu was doing.

The colossal skeleton moved in response. But…

“Hey…”

The movement was sluggish. It was no longer demonstrating nimble movements that matched a human-sized individual. Thinking back, Matsu must have already tried this. Hence the hand in her hair.

But why had this happened?

Toshiie quickly had the nearby ghost warriors take defensive action. Then he opened a spell lernen figur and checked the colossal skeleton’s status. Every single field displayed the same error.

“Geographic phase error!?”

●

Toshiie was confused. A geographic phase error shouldn’t have been possible.

The colossal skeleton’s size meant it created its own geographic phase.

It was 800m tall, after all. At that size, trees became woods, water became a lake, and a hole became a cave.

But the colossal skeleton’s geographic phase had been rejected. The error flashed on the status screen, just like when the smaller ghost warriors set foot in a different geographic phase.

The colossal skeleton’s geographic phase should have been “sacred ground”. But if that had changed…

...What is it now?

Toshiie looked over and saw the colossal skeleton currently stood in a forest.

A European forest. And a high quality one at that.

“Why?” he muttered just before a voice reached his ears.

It sounded so much like the voice he had heard before. It had the sound of a howl or a roar, but it also carried a melody. It was a song.

“Ah…”

Kasuya was singing.

●

Kasuya raised her voice. She directed her voice toward the ether spike and sang to the ground it had pierced.

She sang a song she knew well.

“I reveal the darkness without facing it.”

It was a Loup-Garou song. She let the wind carry it.

“I am Loup-Garou.”

She stated that truth. And...

“I bite at human fear from the abyss.”

Something grew at her feet.

“Hear me, Loup-Garou children.”

Grass. Underbrush made of ether grew from where she stood and spread out from there.

The ether forest was beginning.

She inhaled and sang.

Sang the Loup-Garou song.

●

The Reine des Garous was curled up in the darkness.

She sank low as if pinning down her prey in the clearing outside the candy house’s entrance.

Thanks to the full moons, she was in her animal form.

...I’ve had a lot more chances to do this of late.

Before participating in the Siege of Odawara, she had been too busy and moving around too much as a show of force. So she had missed a few full moon nights, but she had enjoyed a fulfilling summer break after her non-full-moon beast transformation during the Kantou Liberation.

On the Musashi, she had stayed in the diplomatic building and it had felt a lot like a vacation. Being in her usual forest was relaxing, but the view outside of the building had been lovely. Especially at night when the stars felt so much closer than on the surface and the moons were truly lovely.

She had been very “active” those nights.

Unfortunately, when she tried to be “active” outdoors on the Musashi, there had been a surprising number of Shinto barriers in the way. She doubted it was actual public policy, but since she had been considered an outsider there, offspring-producing acts were apparently frowned upon. She had tried it in five different places and received a warning signe cadre each time, so she had felt she had no recourse other than making a direct appeal to the Asama Shrine.

However, that was an embarrassing thing to have to ask about, so during the day, she had feigned nonchalance as she picked up her husband and made a dash to the father of her daughter’s friend who ran the Asama Shrine.

“Excuse me!”

“Oh, if it isn’t Mitotsudaira-san’s parents! I saw the report that you tried to go at it five different times last night! Any more than that and your husband would’ve been shitting kishimen for three months, so I’m glad for his sake you stopped there!”

“My, you were informed!?”

“Yeah, our god put it like this!”

<Ugh, not again. It’s the usual offenders. Don’t make me kishimen them. By, god.>

“So I was thinking of contacting you myself if you started up again!”

Since she had a Far Eastern inherited name, she did have a Shinto reverse-hidden setting, but she had gone ahead and set up a partnership with the Asama Shrine too. The discount when calling her daughter made it a great deal. The physical buffs for her husband and the ‘Never Ending Battle – Night Edition’ (which made Musashi’s standard divine protections free starting at 11 PM) showed the Asama Shrine really knew what they were doing. I need to give my daughter a push so that Asama Shrine Representative doesn’t outdo her.

And the candy house was actually partially covered by the Asama Shrine’s divine protections too. Because the Asama Shrine Representative had applied those protections and set up a divine transmission connection when they camped there. That meant it was currently the free time period, but…

“Hm?”

She heard a familiar song in the distance. But that wasn’t all.

“What is it, Mrs. Loup-Garou?”

“The forest is concerned.”

To start with, the forest’s leaves were rustling.

It was confused. Because…

“Why is this happening when even Nate couldn’t do it?”

The pale green light spilling from the air was the ether forest that created her “place”. It was overlapping the actual forest.

“Don’t you worry. The werewolf queen is right here.”

It was kind of cute how her precious man nodded below her. But her words must have reached the forest through her “place” here. As far as she could hear, the forest calmed, regaining its stillness.

“Now, then.”

She laughed and lightly bit her prey with her lips. When she licked him and lowered her curled-up body, his back tensed as he began trying to endure.

“My, my. You don’t need to try that hard.”

She slipped her arms between the blanket of grass and his back to support his arching body. He tried so hard that even his throat joined the arch, so she repeatedly bit his neck with her lips and then kissed him.

Immediately, she lifted her lowered body and then dropped it forward with a twisting motion.

“Eek!”

She used her tongue and cheeks to wash away the cry and the breath as he reached his limit and she scratched her fingers along his back, from his flank to his hips, to guide him to the next stage. She received his heated breath in response and she whispered to him.

“I wonder if Nate has noticed.”

“Eh? N-noticed...what?”

“Well,” she said, licking up his tears and thinking how precious their flavor was. “There is a girl out there who knows something only we should know.”

●

Toori noticed Mitotsudaira suddenly look out from the ship.

They were aboard the transport ship to take them to Honnouji.

Even the deck was covered by armor, several layers of divine protections had been put in place, and they apparently had a few similar ships prepared for the return trip.

He appreciated it, but it honestly felt too formal to him.

“Nate…”

He called her name, but she wouldn’t look him in the eye.

He tried to hug her from behind, but she chose that moment to take a step away.

“C’mon, Nate. Why are you avoiding me?”

“Well, um, no real reason. This will be over soon.”

The way she looked back over her shoulder told him it wasn’t that she disliked him now or was trying to keep her distance. Wondering what it did mean, he looked to the side where Horizon pinched her nose and frowned.

“Toori-sama, I believe this is her response to the filthy Toori Stench hanging in the air around you.”

“Eh!? Where did that come from!? Is this new!?”

“Um, well,” cut in Asama, raising her index finger.

Asama: “I’m not sure how to say this, but thanks to everything that happened before you went to sleep, well, apparently there is a happy sort of smell coming from you and from Horizon and the associated happy feelings are contagious when she gets too close.”

Gold Mar: “Yeah, humans do emit a small amount of pheromones.”

Horizey: “You mean Toori-sama is in fact producing a happy stench?”

Me: “Don’t call it a stench! And that ‘happy stench’ is coming from you too!”

She slapped him. And immediately afterwards…

“Why would you say a girl has a ‘stench’, Toori-sama?”

“A-as much as I’d like to argue my case, it’d be faster if I just apologized, wouldn’t it!?”

Toori heard some comments of “that’s the same as admitting defeat”, but he chose to ignore them. But to get back on topic…

“Um, what if I hugged Nate from behind right now to help us get closer?”

His sister pointed to the big smile on her face and then formed a letter P with her fingers.

“Happy pee?”

“I-I would not!?” insisted Mitotsudaira. “I can hold it in before a battle!”

“But you would otherwise?” asked Nate, so Toori decided to make a mental note of this.

...So I just have to wait until there isn’t a battle on.

Could he reward her for her efforts after the Honnouji Incident was complete? Would that be acceptable? But first…

“Are we gonna have a victory party after we get back from Honnouji? What do you say, Horizon?”

“The stench is apparently really bad in the Main Blue Thunder, so should we use the other Blue Thunder instead? Then I could demonstrate my true skill.”

Art-Ga: “FYI: a thread titled ‘Forbidden Secrets of Flavor – Stay Away from the Blue Thunder – Victory Party’ popped up the instant you said that.”

“Also,” added Asama. “She said the smell is coming from Horizon too. So be careful.”

Horizon looked first at her right hand and then her left before sniffing them.

Finally, she casually wiped them off.

“It’s not gerrrrrrrms!” protested Toori.

“I felt I had to do that at least once.”

But something else had grabbed Toori’s attention. They were currently at the stern of the transport ship, but they were on the starboard edge, which faced north. They had gathered there to view Hashiba’s ship earlier, but…

“Nate, is there something interesting in that direction too?”

“The northwest would be where the Battle of Shizugatake is being fought, Mitotsudaira-kun.”

Neshinbara’s comment made Mitotsudaira turn around.

She inhaled and looked Toori in the eye without hiding her flushed cheeks.

“I sense something familiar in that direction.”

“Another stench, Mitotsudaira-sama?”

Stenches are all the rage tonight, thought Toori as Mitotsudaira started to nod but tilted her head instead. She looked unsure what it was herself.

“At first, I thought I sensed my mother there.” She tilted her head again. “But now what I’m sensing reminds me more of you, my king.”

●

Kousaka listened to Kasuya’s song.

This was a battlefield surrounded by forest. And she had heard this song in the forest earlier.

It was a Loup-Garou song. She knew the first four measures herself. Her birthplace had once been part of werewolf territory, so the song had been passed down by the people there.

It sounded a lot like a howl, but it was a song of exultation.

It was a song of the ruler of the forest and the darkness. It was a song of the terror that played with delight.

It was a song of the Loup-Garou expanding her “place” and making it her territory.

And as Kasuya sang, a change came over the colossal skeleton.

The skeleton was its own geographical phase, but the “place” created for Kasuya rewrote that geographical phase.

Around the drill pile driven into the skeleton’s head, underbrush grew and trees stood tall. It all traveled down the head to its neck and collarbones before spreading from the chest to the sides and back.

There were animals in the ether forest and something emerged from the depths of the darkness.

Wolves.

The ether wolves raced out as if leading the expansion of the forest.

And at the now-unseen depths of the forest, a song came from near the full moons.

That was Kasuya.

She completed the first four measures that Kousaka knew, but after that…

...Is she going to sing more!?

What was this? What did it mean? Kousaka couldn’t say.

But that girl knew something Kousaka did not.

And as the strongest of her race, she sang.

●

“I travel the night without challenge.”

Kasuya watched the wolf pack go. They circled once around her like the wind before one of them howled and led the rest out. Down toward the ground.

“I am queen.”

The wolves ran along the colossal skeleton. The footprints they left on the skeleton’s skin became forest trees. The joints they leaped over became forest streams. And…

“I dance in the moonlight and the deep shadows.”

The wolves bit at the base of the colossal arms, tearing them down as if in challenge. As if to say those heights were unnecessary and only impeded their running, the wolves smashed through the bone, the sounds of their racing feet and biting fangs louder even than their roars.

“I am queen of the Loup-Garous.”

And her “place” spread.

The entire colossal skeleton had been rewritten into an ether forest.

●

Toshiie watched as the colossal skeleton collapsed.

“Are you kidding me?”

He understood how it worked.

This was the “place” a Loup-Garou had as part of their territorial divine protection. Kasuya had activated that using the colossal skeleton as the medium.

The skeleton itself was a mass of ether. The drill pile was also a mass of ether, so driving it inside had given her a starting point from which to activate her “place”.

There were spells for rewriting geographical phases. As a ghost-user, he was aware that a lot of anti-ghost field spells worked by rewriting the phase to eliminate the danger.

But a rewriting on this scale and of the ether itself was something else altogether.

“Toshiie-kun.”

Matsu shook his shoulder just as the colossal skeleton’s arms unraveled from the shoulders.

With groaning and peeling sounds, the entire skeleton broke apart like rotten trees finally giving way.

Its back and chest were torn away as new trees grew and the flowing streams formed cracks to help it break apart altogether.

Toshiie also heard a song. He heard the song that guided the racing wolves.

“Werewolf…”

No, that wasn’t it. The lyrics pointed to something deeper.

For one, this “place” was powerful. It had overwritten the skeleton’s entire 800m height, but the forest he saw wasn’t done growing.

This forest could clearly continue growing for several kilometers – no, even more.

What was this? He hadn’t seen it himself, but he had seen the reports.

During the Keichou Campaign, it had supposedly reached a radius of 22km.

This wasn’t as large as that, but…

“That’s the Reine des Garous’s move.”

Then he heard a sound. The colossal skeleton’s neck couldn’t bear the strain, its torso crumbled in half, and the entire thing collapsed.

It was completely destroyed.

●

Angie flew through the sky to snatch Schwartz Fürstin while she viewed the wolf overhead.

...Uh, oh.

Kasuya’s beast transformation was ending. The ether wind spiraling around her was the one that signaled a return to her normal form. But she was in bad shape.

Maybe it was exhaustion, but she collapsed weakly.

Since she had been on the Azuchi, she would have a descent spell installed as a divine protection, but even with the colossal skeleton turned to a forest and collapsing, it still had all its mass.

She may have been a Loup-Garou, but she wouldn’t fare well if she was caught in that collapse.

“Kime-chan!”

“You handle it!”

Angie’s partner already held Weiss Fürstin and pointed down toward the surface.

Near where the skeleton wreckage was falling, gathering in piles, and stabbing into the ground, the ground unit had resumed its charge. Some covering fire from above would help them a lot. Especially when the “forest” still existed up here.

A voice called up to them from below.

“You two! Grab our leader for us!”

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