#267. When the Sun Rises (6)
—
Ray drew forth the emotions associated with the two gemstones as the indigo beam surged toward him.
Yellow mana—joy and excitement.
Green mana—curiosity and belonging.
As the emotions surged, his chest tingled and burned.
Then, just as the indigo beam reached striking distance, twin beams of yellow and green burst forth, clashing head-on with the indigo.
**KWAHHHHHH───!!**
The massive mana shockwave generated by the collision of the three beams swept across the area like a gale.
A thunderous roar erupted.
The mana in the air trembled violently.
Everyone around forgot their battles for a moment, utterly mesmerized by the sight.
At first, Ray’s beams appeared to be pushed back—but only briefly.
Soon, the two lights merged, their brightness intensifying, and then they began to push back the indigo beam with increasing force.
‘This… this is completely unexpected.’
Indiago was stunned.
And instinctively, he couldn’t help but realize—
The two gemstones possessed by the boy were other fragments of the Rainbow—the very shards he had been desperately searching for.
He was shaken.
Who *was* this boy, to possess not one but two fragments of the Rainbow?
But more urgently, the pressing reality was this: **he was being overwhelmed**.
And it wasn’t just because the boy had more fragments.
‘…The ability to wield the fragments—that’s where the difference lies.’
He could tell even without some instinctive insight.
The light woven by the boy’s beams shone far more intensely than his own.
**Grit…!**
As he clenched his teeth, dark blue mana—the color of inferiority—swelled like a tide within Indiago’s vessel.
A magician more powerful than himself?
Such a thing couldn’t be allowed to exist. It **must not** exist.
Envy, jealousy, rage, hatred—
Each emotion clung to the dark blue inferiority, churning together in a murky mess.
The indigo beam, resonating with that turmoil, began to regain strength—just as…
**THUUUUUUD───!**
A massive shipping container struck Indiago’s barrier with explosive force.
“What the…!”
The shock rocked Indiago’s body, and the indigo beam wavered unsteadily.
Snapping his head to the side, he saw the Pope floating not far away in the sky.
“How dare you…! Using such petty tricks…!”
Furious, Indiago stretched out his free hand.
Dark blue mana condensed rapidly into a bolt of flame and shot forth.
**KWAANG──!**
The blue flames struck the Pope and blazed furiously.
The heat was stifling, suffocating.
But when the flames dissipated, the Pope stood unharmed, protected by a powerful barrier.
His eyes blazed with unshakable resolve.
Five radiant circles glowed on his chest.
Just moments ago, Pope Betelgeuse had broken through the wall of the Fifth Circle.
Years of patience, and the enlightenment brought by his encounter with Ray, had led to this breakthrough.
Before Indiago could react, the Pope swept his hand through the air.
The curtain surrounding the artificial sun—and the pillars styled after temple architecture—were torn from the ground.
**CRACK! CRACKK!**
The ground trembled with the impact.
Enormous pillars rained down upon Indiago’s barrier without pause.
**BOOM─! KRAKKAANG─!**
“Ghh…!”
Indiago trembled with rage and humiliation.
How *dare* these lesser beings stand in his way?
But it was clear—he was losing ground.
Ray’s beam closed in steadily, and the relentless bombardment of pillars gave him no chance to ready another spell.
**BOOM─! KRAKKAANG─!**
‘You miserable insects… How *dare* you…!’
Suddenly, past memories flashed through Indiago’s mind.
His childhood, born in the lowest depths of society, crawling through filth.
Losing his mother to the world’s cruelty.
The day he swore to become the strongest, so no one would ever look down on him again.
If the world was a monster, then he would become one too.
He would grow strong—by any means necessary.
And that moment, the emotions swirling in his vessel fully aligned with the mana stored in his circles.
Dark blue mana, like oil-stained water.
Inferiority laced with malice.
“I’ll…kill…you all…!”
Indiago’s bloodshot eyes turned toward the magicians of the Dawn Society who were still fighting.
He had given them the mixed circles in exchange for consuming shards of the indigo gem—mass-produced replicas of the Rainbow’s indigo fragment.
And those bearing the mixed circles could only obey their leader.
Loyalty? Camaraderie?
Irrelevant.
He, who held the original indigo shard, could take their lives at any moment.
Of course, they didn’t know that.
If they did, they’d surely rebel—but it didn’t matter.
—**Kugh!**
They’d all die here today anyway.
—**Ghhk!**
—**Urgh!**
With every resonant hum from the indigo shard at the tip of his staff, the magicians of the Dawn Society coughed blood and collapsed.
The mixed circles reacted violently to the shard’s vibration, triggering internal chain explosions.
**Thud! Thud!**
All seventy or eighty magicians collapsed in an instant.
Indiago didn’t hesitate in the slightest.
He had long discarded things like empathy or compassion the moment he chose to become a monster.
Over their corpses, dark blue mana rose like sticky mist.
It took shape as thousands of mana strands, forming a vortex that rushed toward Indiago.
But—
**CRACKLE! CRACKLE!**
More than half of them vanished mid-air.
Ray’s cold, focused gaze had swiftly dismantled their elemental bonds.
“HOW DARE YOU! DO NOT INTERFERE, YOU LOWLY WORMS!”
Indiago’s voice, steeped in malice, rang across the battlefield.
Ray could see the massive emotion surging inside his vessel.
Like a polluted heart, it was a writhing mass of dark blue mana.
Grotesque or not, it was concentrated emotion—and amplified the wielder’s power without filter.
Emotion is mana.
And mana is emotion.
The rate at which the mana strands were absorbed into the vortex center began to accelerate.
‘…There are too many.’
Ray couldn’t block the absorption alone.
Only he could deconstruct elemental bonds—no one else could be expected to help.
Instead—
“Everyone, attack!”
Solite and the other priests disrupted Indiago by other means.
**BOOM─! KRAKKAANG─!**
Fire, lightning, ice—powerful spells bombarded the indigo barrier like artillery.
Smoke billowed.
The blasts shook the entire sanctuary.
And finally—
**CRACK! CRACKKK!**
Fissures formed in Indiago’s barrier—then it shattered completely.
At that moment, Ray’s beam, which had completely overpowered the indigo beam, crashed into Indiago.
Amid the blinding flash and storm of wind that swept across the sanctuary, Ray drove his foot down with all his strength.
─────!
In the next moment of brilliant light—
He saw them up close: the five indigo circles.
─────!
Then another flash—
And he slashed through the silhouette of Indiago’s right arm, which was outstretched to absorb mana.
The eternal light faded, followed by three sounds of impact.
**Tap.**
The first was Ray’s light landing.
**Thud, tap.**
The second was Indiago barely catching himself on the ground.
And the third—
**Thump!**
The sound of Indiago’s arm—clutching his staff—falling to the ground.
“……”
Ray stared at Indiago.
Everything below his left shoulder had been severed.
He must’ve twisted his body at the last second, sacrificing his left arm to protect the right, which had been absorbing mana.
“In the end… I am the victor in this fight.”
Clutching his severed shoulder, Indiago muttered through cold sweat.
He had spent a great deal of mental energy—his gaze was as murky as the mana tainting his vessel.
But his presence was anything but weak.
Dark blue mana flooded through Indiago’s entire body, surging through his veins.
‘He’s absorbed a massive amount of mana… even despite our interference.’
The sacrificed Dawn Society members—nearly 70 to 80 of them.
Perhaps blocking all that dark blue mana had been impossible from the start.
**WHOOOOOOOOM───!**
Everyone in the sanctuary instinctively sensed danger from the dark blue mana surging toward Indiago’s hand.
The severed arm had fallen in the middle.
Ray dashed forward to retrieve the indigo shard.
“Attack!”
The Pope, Solite, and the other priests unleashed a storm of spells on the regenerated indigo barrier.
Through the rising smoke—
A silhouette of a hand stretched skyward.
—**Behold the difference in power between you and me.**
**FLASH!**
With a voice like a thunderclap, an intensely concentrated beam of indigo mana shot into the sky.
It halted at a point high above and swelled—forming a massive indigo sphere, tens of meters in diameter.
Soon, the sky over the sanctuary was dyed in indigo.
“This is…”
Solite looked up, face frozen in shock.
It was the same phenomenon they’d seen that day in Sector 37—the day they first met Ray.
Wasn’t this the unidentified spell developed by the Dawn Society?
But there was no time to dwell on it.
The indigo sphere soon rained down sharp mana spears.
Thousands of spears fell in a dense storm, nearly impossible to dodge.
The priests’ barriers were pierced like paper. Screams erupted all around.
“Ghhk!”
“D-Damn it, there’s no way to run from this…!”
At that moment, a vast white shield spread over the priests, enveloping them.
Blue zipped through the air above, dodging the spears—Veronica riding atop him, casting the barrier.
A boy looked up.
A girl looked down.
Their gazes met.
The boy nodded and dashed through the downpour of spears using his lightning magic.
“Get on my back. No—I’ll carry you.”
“Th-thank you—urk!”
He tirelessly carried the priests who hadn’t made it into the barrier, flying them in one after another.
Just as he was about to enter the barrier with the last priest slung over his shoulder—
────!
Ray suddenly felt an intangible force push against his back.
It was telekinetic magic—magic that could freely lift or move targets at will.
Its manifestation was both precise and swift, and Ray was pushed forcefully forward, tumbling into the barrier.
And when he turned his head—
He saw it.
A long, razor-sharp indigo spear had landed exactly where he had been standing moments ago.
And a short distance away, the pope stood—his chest impaled by the same spear.
The spear dissolved into particles and vanished.
And the pope’s body, slowly leaning forward…
*Thud!*
…collapsed limply to the ground.
“Your Holiness…!”
“The Pope—dear heavens…!”
Just as the priests began to move toward him, Ray’s body flashed and disappeared.
A few seconds later, he reappeared within the barrier and gently laid the pope down from his back.
‘His condition is bad.’
Just like the other priests struck by the spears, healing magic wasn’t working on him.
Veronica, who had arrived through the torrential rain, tried her own magic—but it was the same.
“It’s no use…! No matter how much magic I use, there’s no sign of recovery…!”
\[*It seems similar to the symptoms I had when I was struck by the sphere.*]
Blue was right.
The dark indigo mana—navy-blue mana—was spreading from the wound across the pope’s entire body.
Just like the attack from the black-red sphere that had floated above the clouds near the Sky Island.
‘The red and blue colors by themselves are fine.’
But once black is mixed in, it seems to take on a special toxic property.
Ray turned his head.
Beyond the barrier, Indiago was encased in a dark indigo shield, like an egg.
Unless they killed Indiago, this rain wouldn’t stop.
‘But breaking through that shield again is going to take quite a bit of time.’
Just then, Veronica’s tearful voice reached him.
“Ray, at this rate… His Holiness will…”
Above Veronica’s vessel, the white sun was still shining bright.
Suddenly, realization struck.
Maybe—no, definitely.
His repeated speculations had turned into certainty, and Ray instantly scooped Veronica into his arms.
“Kyah! Wait! N-no, I mean—why, why all of a sudden?!”
“Hold on tight.”
The moment Veronica instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck, Ray kicked off the ground and bolted out of the barrier.
And moments later—
A brilliant white radiance erupted from behind the veil, flooding the entire sector.
