Chapter 169: Hidden Core of Magic

"Jagged Edge—you step back."

Aleister was the first to speak, positioning himself protectively in front of Reicia.
Fiamma didn’t interfere. He merely watched their movements in silence.

"What’s this? True, I don’t have much of an advantage against Fiamma, but my immortality should still be of use. I can at least serve as a shield for you, can’t I?"

"That’s a rather extreme way to put it. Besides, you’re underestimating Fiamma’s power. If you were to take a fatal hit, the one Shiren would blame later—given the current misunderstandings—would be me."

Aleister spoke with a faintly amused shrug, then added, "Besides…"

"When it comes to Fiamma of the Right, it’s actually easier for me to fight alone."

There was something strangely convincing about the way he said it.
Reicia didn’t argue. She simply nodded and stepped aside.

"Now then. Sorry to have kept you waiting."

"No need," Fiamma replied, his eyes fixed on the “human” before him. "Even if that girl fled to the other side of the planet, it’d take me less than a moment to finish her off."

Then, almost as if bored, he added, "But more importantly—shouldn’t you be worrying about yourself?"

A moment later—

BOOOOM!!

A burst of blinding light erupted from the monstrous arm extending from Fiamma’s right shoulder.

It was the spell that automatically derived and unleashed an attack guaranteeing absolute victory over any opponent—Holy Right.
In Christianity, miracles are said to be performed by the right hand; thus, Fiamma could manifest any miracle recorded within its doctrines.
In other words, it was a Christian counterpart to a multifaceted “multi-skill” ability—but his right hand didn’t merely choose a miracle. It chose the specific miracle necessary to win.

No matter what abilities Aleister Crowley possessed—even if it were the Blasting Rod, a wand capable of striking with ten times the impact of the opponent’s own image—it wouldn’t matter.
Holy Right would simply select a miracle capable of overcoming even that.

Naturally, this single blow should have sealed Aleister Crowley’s defeat.

"…Hey. What the hell is that?"

—Or it should have.

The light from Fiamma’s so-called infallible right hand twisted unnaturally before Aleister, veering off course and vaporizing a completely different patch of space.

"Optical deception won’t work on me," Fiamma snarled. "My right hand acts upon the target I designate. No matter how much you tamper with my visual data, it should pierce through illusion and guarantee victory!"

"It’s not that surprising, is it? This isn’t the first time your hand has missed. Did you already forget you failed to finish me off earlier?"

The “human” before him only shrugged, utterly unshaken.
Indeed, Aleister had already survived one strike from Holy Right. Even if taken by surprise, the moment that arm moved, its attack was guaranteed to hit—and hitting meant victory.
Unless one possessed a certain spiky-haired boy’s right hand, simply avoiding that attack should have been impossible.

"Also, your terminology is off," Aleister continued, his tone that of a teacher correcting a pupil. "The spell you wield only grants you the conditions necessary to absolutely win against an enemy.

If you were actually manipulating the threads of time to fix a ‘victorious result,’ that would be another matter entirely. But with a simple ‘sure-hit, sure-kill’ mechanism like that—you won’t be killing me."

Aleister—
Neither man nor woman, neither adult nor child, saint nor prisoner—smiled with an expression so alien it could belong to no one else, and began walking toward Fiamma.

"Now then. Let’s speak of the hidden core of magic, shall we? The time for wishful thinking… has ended, hasn’t it?"

In his hand, a silver staff slowly rose into view.

The world’s worst magician… had bared his fangs.

Final Chapter: I Don’t Know Anything About Predestination  -  Theory “was” Broken.
Episode 142: The Hidden Core of Magic  -  Extremity of Arts.

Aleister Crowley quietly extended their right hand forward.
That was all.

And yet, with just that motion, Fiamma of the Right saw it—an illusion of a flintlock pistol forming in Aleister’s grasp.

Sparks, like scattering numbers, flickered before his eyes.

32, 30, 10.

Then came the impossible: rapid gunfire from a flintlock.

RATATATATATAT!!

Thunderous shots filled the air. Fiamma raised the grotesque arm jutting from his right shoulder to block them—but even that defense faltered.

"Guh—!?"

The “Holy Right” groaned under the hail of bullets.

No—what was truly abnormal was that it stopped them at all. A single swing of that arm should have guaranteed victory, annihilating both the bullets and Aleister in one strike. The very act of defending, rather than instantly crushing, should have been impossible.
And yet—impossibly—that’s what was happening.

Aleister’s calm voice followed.

"Spray."

Fiamma’s body convulsed, folding in on itself like a drawn bow. A grinding jolt ran through his insides, forcing a ragged breath from his throat.

"W–what…!? There’s no magical signature—none at all!?"

"Of course not. There wouldn’t be. That last strike was magic—but its cause wasn’t magic itself. It was the world."

—Spray.
A technique that condensed the “distortions of fate” created by the collision of magical phases into a single offensive burst.

It wasn’t the spell itself that struck Fiamma, but the repercussion—a ripple Aleister had carefully guided.
The source of that power lay beyond Christian law, outside the framework of its miracles.

"You wouldn’t understand, trapped as you are in the Age of Osiris. When this is over, I suggest you start by verifying the very ground you’re standing on."

Once again, Aleister raised the phantom pistol in their hand.

"…You seem to think this is already over."

The monstrous arm on Fiamma’s shoulder twitched ominously.

"Too bad. I’ve already read your entire hand."

And then—

Aleister Crowley’s body was blasted several meters into the air in an instant.

"—Ghhk!"

The world’s worst magician let out a strangled gasp. Though they managed to cast something midair and land on their feet, one knee struck the ground as accumulated damage finally caught up.

"True enough. It seems my ‘Holy Right’ isn’t as flawless as I believed," Fiamma said almost casually, eyeing his warped, distorted arm.

"But that doesn’t mean there’s an exception to my absolute victory. Perhaps if it were that special right hand, things would be different—but as long as the authority to ‘always win against my chosen opponent’ remains intact, there’s no room for doubt. So where lies the trick behind this back-and-forth? The answer… is within your own existence."

He pointed directly at Aleister.

"Consider Vento of the Front’s Divine Punishment. If there are two personalities within one body, which ‘hostility’ does it respond to? Or Terra of the Left’s Execution of Light—if his target possessed dual personalities, what would happen to the side he didn’t choose?"

Such a dilemma could already be inferred from today’s battlefield.

And in Fiamma’s case—

"My power lets me absolutely win against the target I designate. That doesn’t mean I’m powerless against anything else, but it falls short of absolute victory. It’s like trying to crush a firearm using strength meant for an ordinary human—it simply doesn’t match."

That was precisely why the “Fiamma of the correct history” had once triggered a world-scale war—the Third World War—to designate “human malice” itself as his enemy, drawing power from the vastness of that collective evil.
And in that history, he failed—because humanity’s malice had not been as immense as he had calculated.

From that, two facts could be deduced:

First: Holy Right never fails to correctly identify its designated target.
Second: its power adjusts automatically in response to the real threat, regardless of Fiamma’s awareness.

And Aleister Crowley contained within them 1,083,092,867 distinct possibilities.
If Aleister could freely shift between those possibilities at will, then Holy Right would achieve absolute victory only against the current Aleister it had identified. Once the internal possibility shifted, that victory would no longer apply to the new Aleister.

However, that trick would be meaningless if Fiamma simply recalibrated his targeting parameters before each strike—

—which he had.

Right before the attack, he had reset his target, and the moment he did, Aleister’s deception crumbled. The world’s worst magician was now down on one knee.

"I see… that’s quite the feat. To interfere with my art—the culmination of a billion miracles—that alone is worthy of pride."

Then Fiamma’s voice hardened.

"But this is where it ends. Rest peacefully, remnant of the Golden Dawn."

He swung his Holy Right.

The monstrous hand flared with blinding light—
—and a beam of pure heat tore straight through Aleister’s body.

But just before that, the blast had veered off its natural course, vaporizing an entire building to the side.

There had been a sign.

Right before the attack, Aleister had dismissed the Blasting Rod and snapped their right fingers—

Just like that girl who could make hostility itself fail.

"…Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me."

Rather than shocked, Fiamma sounded almost exasperated.

"Result Twister, huh?"

Result Twister.

If that right hand could make hostile interference fail, then yes—it could potentially make Fiamma’s attack fail as well.
But the premise didn’t add up.

"I’ve already observed that right hand of yours. But… that wasn’t an ability at all, was it? If I recall correctly, you even failed to obtain it for yourself, didn’t you!?"

By all logic, Aleister shouldn’t have anything capable of wielding Result Twister.
The Academy City’s artificial neural network allowed him to tap into every esper’s AIM field using a method akin to Remote Spiritual Tracing—but Result Twister wasn’t an esper ability. The only known user capable of invoking it was Jagged Edge.
And yet…

"Ah, I did fail, that much is true.
But—I never said a single word about not gaining even a fragment of the result I wanted, did I?"

Aleister Crowley stepped past the premise as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Tch!"

Frustrated, Fiamma readied himself—but this time, the Holy Right did not activate.

Normally, once invoked, escaping the Holy Right was impossible.
But Result Twister had proven capable of nullifying even a launched attack after the fact.

In other words, it now ranked among the rare exceptions—alongside Imagine Breaker.

Seizing upon Fiamma’s hesitation, sparks of light flickered like numbers around Aleister.

30, 30, 10.

In rapid succession, a flintlock pistol unleashed a storm of bullets at an impossible rate. Fiamma dove behind cover—not with the Holy Right, but with his bare body.

"Too much destructive power can be a problem too, you know. With your current spell formula, trying to block those bullets would just injure me."

"Still as troublesome as ever, aren’t you!"

Yet, surprisingly, Fiamma maintained his composure.

Result Twister was far from invincible. Both Vento and Terra had already pointed out its weakness: the phenomenon relied on the sound produced by the right hand.
If that sound could be disrupted, Aleister’s defense would collapse, and the Holy Right would strike true.

"Now then, shall we bring this to a close?"

"You think you can? One of Result Twister’s flaws is its timing. Use an attack invisible to the eye, and your trick will fail."

"Don’t underestimate me. Just by observing the flow of magic through your body, I can tell exactly what spell you’re about to cast."

Aleister’s confidence never wavered. Fiamma recognized that much—and smirked inwardly.

(Of course… that’s exactly what I wanted you to think. Now he believes I have no way to interfere with Result Twister.)

If Fiamma truly had a means to nullify Aleister’s right hand, he would have used it immediately.
The very fact that he aimed to exploit its timing implied he had no such countermeasure.
That was the silent mind game underpinning their exchange.

(But thinking you could surpass my Holy Right with a mere imitation was your biggest mistake.)

Aleister raised his left hand, miming the shape of a pistol.
Sparks danced through the air, and an illusory gun materialized in his grasp.

Just as he declared—it was time to strike.

Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire erupted in rapid bursts.

Fiamma activated the Holy Right, parrying the barrage. Without a set target, even blocking bullets strained him—but then he made a choice:
to designate as his target only the imaginary bullets within his own perception.

"I told you before, Aleister! I can guarantee victory against any target I designate!!"

And with that momentum, he redirected his strike toward the building wall.

A deafening GGOOOOONNN!! thundered through the air—drowning out every other sound.

(Result Twister targets whatever’s exposed to the sound from the right hand. Then all I have to do is create a blast so loud it erases every other sound—leaving nothing for it to act on!)

Result Twister was neutralized.

On Fiamma’s right shoulder, the Holy Right swelled and twisted. In the next instant, the grotesque arm transformed into blinding radiance.

And then—

GOHHHHHH!!
It was unleashed, straight toward Aleister.

Sound vanished.
Light vanished.
Before that overwhelming destructive force, all phenomena were obliterated. Aleister was no exception.

Meaning—

"Hmph. For once, I’d call that a complete success."

Before Aleister’s eyes, the Holy Right had—
stopped moving.

"…Huh?"

It was impossible.

Aleister Crowley had used Result Twister in some form to make the Holy Right fail. Fiamma had witnessed it firsthand.
By all logic, exploiting Result Twister’s weakness should have allowed the attack to pass—or at least it should have gone through.
Yet Aleister was alive. More than that—he had stopped the Holy Right.

What that implied was—

"…No way."

Cold sweat traced down Fiamma’s jaw.

"No way… you never had Result Twister at all, did you!?"

"Took you long enough. A bit lacking in psychological warfare experience, aren’t you—Seat of God?"

GYA-RIINN!!
The Holy Right twisted violently, then shot toward the heavens.

"There’s no need to be ashamed. In fact, you should be proud. It’s precisely because of that purity that I was able to take this approach."

"…What are you talking about? Imagine Breaker, Result Twister—only irregulars of that scale could match my Holy Right! Yet you have neither—so how did you survive my strike!?"

"The essence of God’s Right Seat lies in this: magicians who have altered their very flesh to resemble angels."

Aleister spoke as though revealing a secret.

Indeed, the members of God’s Right Seat had removed their Original Sin, reshaping their bodies into forms closer to angels—suitable vessels for Telesma, the angelic power.

That explained why they could wield Telesma at densities far beyond human limits, why they could perform “angelic formulas” no human could, and why conversely, human formulas were beyond them.

In other words, every spell cast by the Right Seat contained immense angelic power—Telesma. Even Acqua, bearer of the Mother’s Mercy, was no exception.

"Your formulas are saturated with that power. Now then, here’s a question: within the Golden Order—the foundation of the Golden-style organizations I once belonged to—what kind of rituals do you suppose were performed?"

"…The summoning of angels!"

For instance, in Aurora Dawn, certain members could summon angelic simulacra through tarot.
Manipulating Telesma was one of the most fundamental Golden teachings.

Which meant—

"The Telesma you wield—bearing the nature of the archangel Michael himself…"

"Yes. I summoned it."

Aleister stated it plainly, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

"That’s absurd! Even if it’s high-purity Telesma, this isn’t like the Index seizing control of a spell. It’s like ripping magical energy from a magician mid-cast and hijacking the spell itself!"

"Who do you think I am?"

Aleister Crowley—
the monster whose name still echoed through the magical world as the worst magician in history—
spoke to the man who possessed only a special right hand.

"Though I admit, there were uncertainties. If you had noticed in advance and built a dedicated defense into your formula, the result wouldn’t have been nearly this dramatic. You might even have repelled my summoning entirely."

In other words—Result Twister had been nothing but a decoy.
A misdirection to divert Fiamma’s attention away from the summoning.

The very fact he revealed this meant—

"The third and final diversion—combined with the initial two feints. That should just barely meet the cost threshold of seven."

And then.

An overwhelming surge of power flared behind Fiamma.

He recognized it immediately.

"Echo Summon. Think of it as a curse reflected back upon you. You’d best accept it."

From the void, an enormous, grotesque right hand manifested—
and lunged straight for Fiamma.

The Right Hand of God—Fiamma of the Right—

…was still alive.

Beaten half to death, blown through several buildings, and sent flying hundreds of meters from where he had been moments ago, he hadn’t lost a single limb. His consciousness remained intact.

"Truly fitting for God’s Right Seat. I envy that durability."

Before he realized it, Aleister—who should have been hundreds of meters away—was now standing right beside Fiamma, lying collapsed amid the rubble.

"If you’d ever known failure, the moment I deflected your attack, you might have felt a sense of caution—something like, ‘He might know how to counter my technique.’ But unfortunately, your endless victories, your constant success, have robbed you of that possibility. You’ve never once been given the chance to learn what it means to lose."

That was why Fiamma had failed to see through Aleister’s deception.

It wasn’t just that his formula guaranteed victory at the input of a command—leaving him little experience in tactical warfare. The root of it ran deeper: his arrogance. Aside from the extreme exception of the “Right Hand” with its mysterious power, he believed there was no one he couldn’t defeat. That overconfidence birthed a fatal assumption—that if his attack was ever deflected, it could only be by something akin to that supernatural right hand.

Aleister raised their staff in their right hand, adding one final remark.

"Your defeat was sealed by the fact that you have never—ever—failed before."

32, 30, 10.

Numbers flickered like sparks—and in the next moment, a dry gunshot echoed only in Fiamma’s ears.