Now then, I'd said we'd cooperate, but honestly, the hero's party had almost no part to play in this upcoming battle. This was not only because of the level difference, but also because the matchup was just awful for them. The enemy was a mass of water, which basically invalidated physical attacks, and the hero's party consisted of a Sword Saint, a mercenary, some adventurers, and a knight. The only useful one was the elf jiji… Mitokado was completely terrified of me though, and he refused to move. Basically, the only one who would be even slightly useful was the boy, Haruto. If I remember correctly, the Chosen class should learn some useful support skills early on, so he could be useful in that respect.
Well, the best thing would still be for Wendy and Fiona to return, so Penny could use her firepower to mow the enemy down. Then, once the water had been turned to mana, I could turn it all into an apple.
"Still… It looks like that thing is just gathering mana left and right."
"Yes, it's a little troublesome. It's sucking mana up like a vacuum. And not just from this country, but from a pretty wide surrounding area as well."
From what I could see at this distance, Wendy was doing her best to erase the mana, but she wasn't managing to keep up the pace.
Wait, isn't that Kushina's skill? The name was Vindemiatrix, I think… It's a niche skill that only cancels out magic, which is both really useful and also limited. But I guess it's much better in this world, since the grimmfolk equal magic? Dang, Kushina. So you even taught Wendy that skill?
Still, it looks like that's not enough. The water's growing faster. I'm betting that it started off manifesting itself with mana from just around here, but it started collecting mana from other places to deal with Wendy.
The water monster was stealing mana from completely unrelated places to become bigger and bigger. While we could still deal with it, things might become dangerous if it managed to suck up all the mana in Midgar. Well, all that meant was that it needed to be dealt with before then, though.
I transmuted a white sphere in the palm of my hand and threw it up into the sky.
"Breidablik."
Along with my announcement, the sphere burst and expanded, becoming a white dome that encapsulated the entire area of the capital. Breidablik's effect was an area debuff. While it was in effect, it applied a mid-level power debuff to all magic on both sides. If used badly, it would harm rather than help, since it would get in the way if any friendlies used magic. It was a hard-to-use skill. But it was also the perfect support skill for muscle-brained parties that had nothing to do with magic.
In lore, it apparently cut off mana, so I'd figured it would help here. Apparently I was right. I had managed to completely cut off mana flow from the outside. However, while I was feeling smug, I heard someone fall down behind me. When I turned around, the Sword Saint had fallen for some reason.
"Ah… Big Sis… The mana repellent barrier you just cast has quite the effect on monsters and beastmen, you might say… Uh, beastmen will lose their ability to move in this barrier. And given how little restraint you used when erecting it, I imagine that those who aren't at least Twelve Zodiac's Guardians level won't even be able to lift a finger…" Haruka explained, seeming troubled, but I could hardly believe my ears.
Huh? Seriously? This is supposed to be a debuff for the enemy. What's the point if it debuffs friendlies too?
I hurriedly turned to look towards Tayuya and the others, checking to see if there was any effect on them.
"Please be at ease, my king. While there is some effect, we can move just fine at our strength."
"Ahhhnn! It's like I'm being bound by you. This is a reward!"
"No Problem! This is perfect for a handicap!"
"There is absolutely no effect on me."
Hmm, it looks like while there is some effect on Tayuya, Jaune, and Anko, it won't be a problem. And Penny's completely unaffected. In the game, this would have affected both players and golems. This is pretty different. Not only does it hit friendlies, but it doesn't work on Penny either. Looks like this one won't have much use outside of situations like this.
"A m-mana repellant barrier… And big enough to cover the entire capital in an instant…"
"How big is this capital again, Mitokado?"
"Three thousand kilometers. In pure area, it's larger than Svel."
"About one and a half times the size of Tokyo, huh…? And she did that in an instant? Isn't that kind of insane?"
After overhearing Mitokado's answer, I once again was reminded of just how small a country was here. It made me want to sigh. To think that a country with several species living together was only a little bigger than Tokyo and still tried to call themselves an empire. I couldn't help but feel just how small humanity's sphere of influence was. Like, could all of the countries of humanity put together be barely bigger than Japan?
Well, whatever… This would all be fixed by wiping out the grimmfolk anyway.
"We will be going to support Wendy. All of you, come."
Grabbing the boy, Haruto, and securing him under my arm, I took flight. Penny took off after me holding Haruka, and Tayuya did the same holding Suigetsu. It was easy to forget, but Tayuya could actually fly, sort of.
Anko was following us by using her hair, stabbing it into the mountain—apparently it was called Hnitbjorg—and then shrinking her hair to allow her to make huge leaps. Damn. Her range with that thing is no joke. This was just a small detail, but since she was extending her hair out, she was leaping backward, and she looked ridiculous doing so.
Also, I was carrying the rest of the hero's party along as well using telekinesis.
We all landed near Wendy, who was fighting at the foot of the mountain, and I once again looked up at the mass of water. It really is huge now that I see it up close. It's maybe, like, one kilometer in length already? If it kept getting bigger, it'd be possible to even swallow Blutgang.
"Miss Naru!"
"Wendy, are you hurt?"
"N-no!"
I dropped the boy off nearby and confirmed Wendy's status using Observing Eye. She was almost completely undamaged. It looked like Fiona had done a good job protecting her. Fiona herself was also basically undamaged. It seemed like the fight was actually not as hard as it looked.
As soon as Fiona noticed me, she turned human and landed next to me. As a small aside, she was, in fact, wearing her clothes. She'd probably done a quick change the moment she'd turned back.
"Sorry, Lady Naru. No matter how much I burn him, he just comes back…"
"Ah, don't worry about it. You did well protecting Wendy."
I had ordered Fiona to support Wendy. She'd carried that out spectacularly and had kept Wendy safe in the process. There was nothing for me to blame her for. As for this giant blob of water, their matchup was just bad. Fiona didn't have any way of erasing mana, after all. For that, both Tayuya and I would have several ways to deal with this, but I might as well take a chance. I decided to give Wendy all the credit.
Using an Esper skill, I started to apply my telekinesis to the mass of water. The skill was called 'Psycho Compression.' It wasn't anything amazing. It just dulled the target's movements and applied DoT (damage over time). By focusing some power into it, I compressed the giant blob.
Imagine if you had an unbreakable container, and you filled it with water. Then, you shrunk the container as much as you could. What happens to the water? I'm sure everybody's wondered about this as a kid. In real life, water can only be compressed so much before its pressure breaks the container instead of compressing the water. This hypothetical makes the container literally unbreakable.
Right now, I was basically doing the same thing. I had the giant mass of water inside an invisible, indestructible container, and I was compressing it as much as I could without reserve.
I'm not too confident in this, since I only heard it from a teacher way long ago as he was chatting to the class, but… apparently, depending on the temperature, water crystallized when you subjected it to several thousand or tens of thousands of atmospheres of pressure. I'd never measured how much pressure I could apply with my telekinesis, and I didn't even know what the name for what water became was. In fact, I didn't even know if water made from mana was even subject to modern physics. But, I could confirm that the compressed water was forming into ice.
I wonder what'll happen if I try this with coal… Would I get diamonds? Well, it wouldn't be surprising no matter what happens in a world like this, where the laws of physics are getting constantly sabotaged. Even rocks could become diamonds in this world, let alone coal. Pretty much anything goes here.
At any rate, the blob was now in check. The giant mass of water couldn't even maintain its form as ice anymore and dispersed into mana. And thanks to me compressing that mana, too, I'd managed to form some weird crystal.
"Sh-she supercompressed a huge amount of mana to its limits to create the strongest legendary substance known to humanity… It's a mana diamond… I-It really does exist! Wait, is this something that can normally be created by a human…?" Mitokado was absentmindedly muttering to himself about something. What's up with him?
Haruka whispered exactly what I wanted to know into my ear. "Ah, the crystal you just created is something that no one in Midgar has ever seen before. It's a legendary phantom item. One thousand years ago, you and your party thought raising a fuss would be troublesome… Anyway, fearing that, you all decided not to publicize your discovery and used this as materials for your accessories."
"We see. So it's a rare item."
Apparently I'd accidentally created quite the rare item. This might be surprisingly useful in alchemy or something. But right now, giving Wendy a chance to shine was more important. I didn't mind giving up on a rare item for that.
With that decision having been quickly made, I made the crystal float in the air in a position where it could be easily targeted by Wendy.
"Now, Wendy, finish it. Make it flashy!"
"O-okay!"
The mana was currently crystallized, but if it broke, it would just go back to being water. Now it was Wendy's turn. Replying to my command, she raised both hands, a white glow appearing between them.
"Vindemiatrix!"
She used her complete magic nullification skill with the ability to absolutely erase mana. Wendy lit up the crystal with a skill that had only been usable by the former Virgo guardian in the game and had very niche applications. By doing so, the compressed crystal faded and dimmed before completely disappearing from this world.
"The mana diamoooonnnddd! The legendary crystaaallll?!"
Mitokado was shouting like he was about to die, but unfortunately, I had no idea what he was going through. Since it'd been explained to me, I could kind of figure out what was going on, but I couldn't quite believe it was worth making that big a deal over.
Ah, he turned pure white and fell over. What a ham.