The Laughing Swordsman

Within Evermore city, a small dot had appeared in the air. It was the platform of earth Lucifer and Maya were on.

Hardly anybody noticed that strange dot and those that did just assumed it wasn't anything worth paying more attention to.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

At some point, an unassuming light appeared far off in the distance. A few of the townsfolk turned their heads towards it.

"Hey, what is that?"

"Huh, is that a star?"

"But it's the middle of the day!"

Although it caused a ruckus among a few of the people, there was not much they could do to find out what the strange light was. After all, it wasn't like they had some sort of plane to fly up there.

And even if they did, so long as it didn't directly concern them, why should they care?

...Then, something changed.

A visibly large fireball formed in the distance along with a few streams of shimmering blue light. This immediately attracted the attention of most people.

"Hey, what happened to the light? That's definitely not a star."

"Huh, it looks really nice though, those blue lights are like a painting in the sky."

"...Hey, isn't that a fireball?"

People began standing rooted at the spot, staring at the strange spectacle in the sky. Almost like a disease, more and more joined the crowd, just looking.

The streams of mana got longer and thicker, spanning quite far across. As someone said before, it really did look like a nicely done painting.

However, it wasn't just a painting.

The fireball began to burgeon and contract erratically, until eventually becoming what looked like a second sun.

At this point, nobody could shrug this off casually.

"That's... that's a fireball!"

"No, no. For how far it is, that thing has to be enormous. Nobody could cast something like that!"

"Unless... the gods?"

The gemstones began shattering, causing many tiny bright lights to fill the air. It was as though a firework show began.

"I-It must be the gods!"

"But gods don't exist! Are you crazy?"

"Look at that! It must be the work of a god, you're the crazy one!"

Then like it was a dream, the fireball disappeared entirely, causing confusion among the people.

"Eh? Where did it go?"

"Ah, maybe it was some kind of explosion?"

"Hmm, that must be the case."

Without warning, the fireball reappeared and expanded several times over. While before, the clamor gradually increased, now, a sudden silence descended on the people.

It was simply too huge.

Perhaps if the sun were to begin falling towards the earth, it would look like this. After a few minutes, someone got the courage to speak up.

"That... That isn't coming for us, right?"

"W-We have to run!"

"Run to where? We won't be able to escape that!"

An eerie silence descended while the massive fireball remained still.

Kabito had been rubbing one of the horns on his ox-engraved crown. He was currently in the middle of the streets, wondering how Maya could've disappeared. However, no matter how thoroughly he scanned through his memories, this was the first time he had seen something like this.

Teleportation was something that a fairly large amount of people could do. However, it involved entering a separate realm or using some spell to emulate it. In other words, it should've involved tearing the fabric of space to enter another realm, or require mana.

On top of that, most of these spells would have some kind of limitation. This came in the form of a delay in teleportation, or only teleporting within a certain distance. That distance was typically at most line of sight.

Yet, this wasn't the case.

Although Kabito relied mostly on his physical strength, he had a very strong sense for mana and didn't sense any fluctuations. His natural senses were also unnaturally strong, letting him sense most of the people within the city.

Yet Kabito couldn't find Maya no matter how hard he looked. Before he could ruminate any further, a bright light appeared in the sky.

Kabito snapped to it.

"What?"

He narrowed his eyes.

Kabito crouched down until his knees were pressed against his chest and placed both palms against the floor. Then, let out a deep grunt.

A thundering bang resounded.

The cobblestone path underneath Kabito shattered while some passerby in the distance were startled. As for Kabito himself, he launched up high into the sky, drawing an arc with his flight path.

After streaking through the air for a few moments, he landed on top of the walls of Evermore city with a crash. Several cracks appeared in the stone walls, but Kabito could hardly care about that.

After all, a massive fireball spread out right in front of him.

He stared at it for a few moments. Kabito was as still as a statue, but his mind was racing as several thoughts passed by at the same time.

He was able to guess that the fireball was heading towards this city. It would not make sense for something like that to be untargeted, and the only target was the city. As for why someone decided to do something so exaggerated, that was unknown.

Kabito took a deep breath.

For a few moments, he thought about using every single trump card to fight this off, but...

Kabito didn't think he could fend this off with everything he had.

However, this was the city Kabito promised to protect and been a part of for many years. Kabito narrowed his eyes and tightened the muscles in his legs. 

Then only did what any proud man would naturally do.

Run away.

Kabito leaped off the wall scattering snow high into the air upon landing, then ran as fast as he could away from the city, kicking up large amounts of snow and dirt as he went.

Some would call it cowardly, but Kabito would tell you it was logical.

He wasn't going to deal with something like that!