What might have caused it?

The towering skystorm neared, blowing harsher winds, hindering Elaine’s flight. She could hardly achieve a stable flight, but fortunately she didn’t need to reach a specific spot. A quick flight, though crude, would suffice as all she needed was higher elevation.

This flight, Elaine thought, will reveal everything.

***

Child Elaine was seated on a fine chair inside an extravagant dining room. The table was covered with speckless-white silk cloth, the silverwares atop: spoons, forks, and knives, were polished spotless until it could reflect the majestic chandelier and the painted ceilings above.

Child Ray was sitting opposite to her.

As to how he had obtained the room for private matters like this, at the time, Elaine had no idea, nor was she curious enough to ask.

‘Politics,’ Ray had begun, ‘isn’t about circles, factions, nor bloodlines.’

Previously, they had agreed to teach each other about their liked subjects; while Elaine was eager to teach him about the joy of magic, she wasn’t keen on listening about how politics could be useful. In fact, her mind was currently wandering to the unsolved magic puzzle that her master had given her.

‘My mother would often say that a person is a fire, that words are fuel, and that you have to feed the fire to feel the heat. In essence, that’s poli—’ Elaine was greatly losing interest because of the confusing analogy, and Ray sensed that. ‘All in all, it’s about dealing with people. Often, about finding hidden intentions.’

Hidden intentions?

The word slightly aroused her curiosity. Not exactly because she was interested in dealing with people, but because she thought she might find clues in solving her magic puzzle from this. After all, what was a puzzle but an object with hidden intentions?

‘How do I find hidden intentions if—’ it’s an object— ‘I’m not getting any responses?’

Ray smiled upon noticing Elaine’s interest. ‘You mean something like the other party being an extinguished fire—cough—I mean, the other party being as hard to crack as altune?’

‘… Yes.’

‘Then you’ll have to look at the facts and draw a conclusion.’

***

The signs have always been there, Elaine thought as she gained altitude.

Looking back, she had been too fixated about determining whether or not the negation magic was a red herring, that she failed to see facts from her area of expertise. To begin with, the monster worshippers were noise to her thoughts, and she should have just focused only on magic.

When she began considering what the negation magic might negate, questions began to surface; an important one being:

Why the alleyway?

Her first thought before was because the alleyway had maze-like pathways full of twists, and that was a perfect place to put a red herring. However, Elaine had chosen to get rid of that noise, of the monster worshippers’ intentions, and focused only on the magic.

As of late she had encountered written Formulae Magic, oblivious that they could instead be inscribed.

Inscription was the key to solving this problem.

Through the slashing winds and slicing rain, Elaine reached an elevation which she believed was high enough. She stopped propelling herself further upward, which brought a deceleration to her momentum, and finally looked down.

…

Tears fell with the rain.

Beautiful…

Elaine saw the alleyways from above; suddenly, the maze-like pathways all began to make sense. It wasn’t due to poor planning that the alleyway had those confusing twists and turns, but rather a meticulous planning that had been done with a specific purpose.

Inscribed with its infrastructure, the alleyway of Lune was a large-scaled Formulae Magic.

A Formulae Magic that had withstood the trials of time. Made with Extinct Formulae Magic at its core foundation, designed specifically for ease of understanding and repairing, which had been changed and adapted by countless mages over years. These improvements allowed Elaine to understand its primary function easily: To weaken the skystorm.

It’s Lune’s guardian.

The Formulae Magic meant that the skystorm had never actually grown stronger; instead, the Formulae Magic’s function had lessened at times and had needed repairs and updates. The skystorm’s sudden surge of strength nowadays, meanwhile, was because of the monster worshippers’ negation magic.

Elaine’s upward flight finally came to a stop, and she began falling.

I can see it:

The sanctum being the centre-control of this large-scaled Formulae Magic, with three failsafe in different spots to safeguard it. The monster worshippers’ invasion of the sanctum is to gain control over the Formulae Magic, and the negations on each failsafe are to cancel the weakening of the storm.

Their true aim might be to strengthen the skystorm and use it as an energy source, perhaps to power a wicked magic. I’ll have to foil that possibility.

I need to cancel the third negation magic.

Elaine altered the path of her fall and headed toward the third failsafe, toward where the last negation magic would be located. As she travelled downward, she saw the chaos at the sanctum, saw the remaining serpent-like monsters wreaking havoc.

They needed help, but Elaine couldn’t give that; she was the only one who could cancel the negation magic.

And—it turned out that she didn’t need to help the sanctum.

From above, she had seen three crucial matters: the large-scaled Formulae Magic that protected Lune, the chaos at the sanctum, and—

—the violet-haired swordswoman heading toward there.

***

Elaine weaved her staff, chanted formulas, and pointed the gemstone-end at the ground. She used wind Elemental Magic to soften her fall to a stop and arrived at an open space inside the alleyway.

The visibility was poor because of the wind and rain; not to mention, the monster worshippers most likely had camouflaged the negation magic with paint like the previous one. Time was of essence; the skystorm itself was a destructive force which could ruin Lune and needed to be suppressed.

There’s no need to conserve mana.

With the intention to employ a magic to search for the negation, Elaine began chanting and weaving her staff.

Whoosh.

A sudden harsh wind blew, throwing Elaine off balance.

Swish! Krashk!

A spear had flown past the side of Elaine’s head and ended up stabbed into a wall. Quickly, Elaine looked over her shoulder and saw a monster worshipper. The same one whom Ray was supposedly keeping occupied.

What is Ray doing?

‘Such fortune…’ the monster worshipper’s voice cut through the rain with sharp clarity. ‘I had aimed for your head, but that’ll do.’

‘!’ Elaine noticed that the gemstone-end of her staff had been crushed to pieces by the spear throw. While using magic without any tools was possible, her casting speed would effectively be reduced, and she wouldn’t be able to use intricate magic.

Her priority was to cancel the negation magic, but she doubted her opponent would allow that. She first had to deal with her opponent—without her staff.

‘…’

I have never even gotten a chance to test this prototype.

Elaine took out her glove, wore it on her right hand, and tightened it.