Bahamut Howl!"

Bahamut Howl!"

Then color fled from the world. No, it was beyond the ability of man to perceive color, not within this whirlwind of light and flame. Surging forth from Stella in every direction and none all at once it swallowed Deus Ex Machina, the marionette Mikoto, and at last the whole ring, stopping just short of the audience as an invisible wall halted its advance, before soaring upwards, searing through the skies in a pillar of glory.

Twenty seconds passed―and when the burning light, so bright one could not gaze upon it, faded, there was nothing left. The ring itself had melted, its turf turned to ashes, its soil blasted and blackened, like the wastelands of a primordial earth.

At ground zero, Deus Ex Machina looked much the worse for wear: its body of slurry and concrete had all but sloughed away in melting puddles, leaving naught but a charred skeleton of metal, which collapsed to the ground, clattering bonelessly as it did so.


Reisen noted the shallowness in his thinking ruefully as he fell together with the charred rubble.

"My, my. This was a failure, huh?"

That warcry, that power from earlier had enveloped the entire ring. If she had used it from the start, the match would have ended right there and then. In other words, had she so wished, she had the ability to one-sidedly end the match. She did not do so, however, and there was a single reason as to why: Bahamut Howl was too powerful. Its area of effect was not limited to the 100-meter-wide ring. It had the power to consume the whole Bay Dome, and even the surrounding ghost town. Such a thing should not have been used even in Illusory Form, since Illusory Form was only harmless to humans, but the uncontrollable heat from that technique would have completely destroyed the surroundings.

In order to use it, she required the aforementioned 'support' in order to keep her power within the ring. Indeed, this was a technique that from its inception required the help of others. To use it in a battle that prided itself on honorable one-on-one combat was not her style. Hence, she had not relied on it, choosing to continue fighting without relying on the aid of others.