Volume 4—Chapter 116: Nidhogg
The three of us stepped out of the building.
The air felt heavier outside. The sky still carried that strange, unnatural tint, and in the distance, faint echoes of destruction hadn’t fully faded.
I lifted my smartwatch and tried to call Elizabeth-sensei. No response.
I tried again.
Still nothing.
“Weird…” I muttered under my breath.
“What’s the matter?” Amelia asked, glancing at me.
“My contact can’t be reached,” I said. “She should’ve picked up by now.”
Amelia didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked toward the distance, eyes narrowing slightly as if sensing something far beyond what I could perceive.
“…There’s something at the centre of the city,” she said.
“Syena… give me the broom.”
“Ah, right. Here,” Syena said quickly.
Only then did I notice it again. The broom that had been quietly floating near her this whole time, almost like it had a will of its own, subtly keeping close, protecting her.
Amelia grabbed the broom without hesitation.
Then, before I could react, she pulled both of us in.
One arm around Syena.
The other around me.
“Wait…”
The ground vanished beneath our feet.
We shot upward.
“Whoa… I’m not ready yet!” I shouted as the wind rushed past us.
As we soared higher above the city, the wind howled against us, sharp and restless, as if it too sensed the disturbance ahead. Then we saw it.
The sky itself was torn open.
A massive spiral churned overhead, twisting like a violent storm frozen in place. It was not made of clouds. It was deeper than that, darker, as though the heavens had been peeled back to reveal something that should never be seen.
“Is that… a dimensional crack?” I murmured, my voice nearly swallowed by the roaring air.
“Calling it a crack would be generous,” Amelia replied, her tone unusually dry. “That’s a full rupture. A hole.”
“What… is that?” Syena whispered.
She pointed upward, her hand trembling.
Something was emerging from the spiral.
At first, it was only a shadow, writhing against the swirling void. Then it pushed through, vast and monstrous, its form unravelling into view piece by piece. Scales blacker than night. Wings that stretched wide enough to blot out the fractured sky. Eyes that burned with a deep, ancient malice.
“Is that… a dragon?” I said, my breath catching.
Amelia didn’t hesitate.
“To be precise, that is Nidhogg,” she said. “The dragon that gnaws at the roots of the world tree.”
Then I noticed something else.
“Look over there!” Syena called out.
Beneath the colossal beast, flashes of light erupted across the sky. Figures darted through the air, weaving between blasts of energy and torrents of destruction.
“The high-level espers…” I said, narrowing my eyes. “They’re all here.”
Explosions bloomed like fireworks around Nidhogg’s body. Barriers shimmered. Blades of energy slashed against its scales. The sky had become a battlefield.
But the dragon didn’t falter.
“They can’t defeat it,” Amelia said calmly.
I shot her a sharp glare. “Why do you sound so sure?”
“It’s not pessimism,” she replied. “It’s reality. If their goal is to kill it, they’ve already lost. Nidhogg isn’t something you defeat. The best they can do is force it back, drive it away before it decides to do more than just appear.”
Then, through the chaos, I saw a familiar figure.
“Amelia,” I said quickly, “drop me down there. Next to the blonde woman.”
“Got it.”
The wind surged as she descended. In one swift motion, she released us.
The ground rushed up to meet us, and a moment later, Syena and I landed beside Elizabeth-sensei.
Amelia didn’t stop. She veered upward again, heading straight toward the dragon.
“Irana?” Elizabeth-sensei turned, clearly caught off guard. “Where did you come from… and Syena?”
Her expression hardened instantly.
“Why is Syena here?” she demanded. “She’s not an esper.”
“I, um… I can help!” Syena said, stepping forward despite the pressure in the air.
Elizabeth-sensei stared at her, disbelief flickering across her face. Then her gaze sharpened, her posture turning rigid with authority.
“What can you do?” she asked, her voice cutting through the noise.
Syena froze.
“I… I…”
The hesitation said everything.
Elizabeth-sensei’s expression didn’t soften.
“You can’t do anything,” she said firmly. “So stay behind.”
Above, Nidhogg let out a deafening roar that shook the very air, as if the world itself was protesting its presence.
–
But my attention wasn’t on Nidhogg.
It lingered on Elizabeth-sensei… on the way she responds to Syena.
Something didn’t add up.
From everything Amelia had told me, Syena should have been the same as Onee-chan.A sealed disaster waiting for the right trigger.
A human weapon.
An Esper with hidden power that, if awakened, can create a catastrophe. Just like the nuclear weapons from my previous life, except this one breathed, thought, and stood right beside me.
And yet…
Elizabeth-sensei didn’t react that way.
When she looked at Onee-chan before, there was always something else in her eyes.
But with Syena?
Nothing.
Only stern concern. The kind of teacher shows a student who wandered into danger without understanding it.
“…She doesn’t know,” I muttered under my breath.
The realisation settled in quietly, but it hit harder than the chaos around us.
She genuinely didn’t know.
As that thought settled in my mind, the sky split with a sudden burst of light.
I looked up.
Amelia.
She hovered high above, her figure small against the vastness of the fractured sky, yet impossible to miss. In her hand, a sword blazed to life, radiating a dense golden light that cut through the darkness like a beacon. It was not just bright, it felt heavy, as if the air itself bent around it.
The glow intensified.
For a brief moment, everything else dimmed. The smoke, the explosions, even the swirling rupture above seemed to fade before that single point of brilliance.
Then she moved.
The sword traced a clean arc through the air, releasing a surge of golden energy that shot forward with terrifying speed, tearing across the battlefield toward Nidhogg.
At the same time, the dragon roared.
The sound crashed down like a physical force. The ground trembled beneath my feet, the air shuddered, and my chest tightened as if something invisible pressed against it. The golden strike and the roar collided in the same instant.
Light and sound overlapped, shaking the entire battlefield.
And for a fleeting second, it felt like the world itself had been caught between them.
Comments (0)
Please login or sign up to post a comment.