Starting in Type-Moon, but an A Certain Magical Index Mage

An enormous barrage of magic bullets rained down like meteors, bombarding the giant that had lost nearly a third of its body several times over. Amid the thunderous explosions, the gods finally reacted and immediately joined in finishing off the wounded giants.

In an instant, more than a dozen of the hundred-odd giants had been destroyed!

"He even optimized that spell. The power it's showing now is much greater than last time!" In the distance, Hecate used her torch and flames to burn a giant alive, all while looking toward Mephistopheles, who had just attacked, and muttering under her breath.

Athena, standing beside her, heard that and asked in confusion, "That was magic?"

Wasn't that weapon forged by the planet—the strongest weapon?

"If it had been that weapon forged by the planet, those things would have been wiped out the moment it was unleashed." Hecate shook her head. "Have you forgotten that battle from the past? The power Star Sword displayed back then was nowhere near this weak."

That explained why the previous strike had been weaker than the Star Sword they had seen in the past, but it only left Athena even more shocked.

"So that was magic?!"

"Yes, magic he developed himself. You can tell he's highly skilled in magic..." Hecate smiled, looking completely relaxed now and no longer particularly worried about the giants. "But he probably has other spells he wants to test."

"Other spells?" Athena was still wondering what kind of magic it could be when a light appeared in the distance.

It was not an individual directly radiating light. Rather, its white body reflected the light around it!

It was a giant, another giant with a body over a hundred meters tall. That terrifying figure inevitably brought back memories of the civilization devourer that had defeated Earth's gods one by one in the distant past and nearly destroyed the entire planet—Sephar!

"Sephar!"

"No, that isn't Sephar. It's somewhat different!"

At that moment, all the gods cried out in alarm. If Sephar had truly appeared, then today's battle would likely end with the destruction of the gods.

"Based on the history I told him back then, he created two spells. One was Star Sword, and the other was Sephar—a spell that transformed himself into Sephar for battle. He called it the Velber Transformation Formula."

Hecate explained it casually. She was the least nervous person present, watching the spectacle with complete ease.

"Th-That's magic too?!"

"Please don't attack me, everyone! I'm just testing a spell!" A booming voice came from inside the white giant's body. Then it swung its arm and smashed it viciously toward a giant!

Bang!

Ferocious force—pure physical strength—collided at that instant.

Both its voice and its actions told the gods that this white giant, this juvenile Sephar, was currently their ally rather than their enemy.

The Velber Transformation Formula was a spell Mephistopheles had constructed based on the Comet Probe's invasion of Earth. It could completely transform his body into that of a Comet Probe, or rather, into the state of the ancient Sephar—the Comet Probe that had invaded Earth—but it came with enormous limitations.

Its basis was not the real Sephar, but the being from legend. What could be manifested were traits such as "a powerful body," "a shell that ignored the heat of stars," "armor against civilization's defenses," and "slowly growing stronger alongside civilization."

But what Sephar was truly like on the inside was something Mephistopheles could not know.

Furthermore, the formula itself consumed a great deal of mana. It relied entirely on Mephistopheles' own mana to forcibly drive the surrounding mana into action. If he wanted to reduce the difficulty, he would have to further expand the story, then find a way to construct a Phase in this world that fully encompassed that ancient tale—or an upper special space—and turn it into a divine kingdom containing that story.

Naturally, Sephar would then serve as the Demon King responsible for destroying the world within that divine kingdom, making it far easier to imitate and summon.

After throwing more than a dozen punches at the giant in succession and tearing apart its outer hide before finally beating it to death, Mephistopheles chose to end the spell.

Whether in terms of mana consumption or efficiency, Star Sword was better suited for dealing with these giants.

Besides, he had only come to test it. For the rest, he naturally intended to fight using the methods he was best at.

Excited, Mephistopheles took out his staff. His trench coat flapped wildly in the gale.

Around him, a yellow dagger, a blue Holy Grail, and a green astrolabe spun through the air like planets orbiting the sun.

Mana erupted at that moment, permeating everything around him!

The world turned golden!

Everyone looked toward the culprit, only to see rays of light appearing behind Mephistopheles. The lights intertwined and gathered, forming two wings of light.

At that moment, he was incomparably holy!

Chapter Seventeen: Angels

Anyone who studied magic in modern or contemporary times would inevitably have heard the name of a legendary figure: Aleister Crowley.

This man was known as 666, the strongest magician. He was versed in both Eastern and Western learning, intimately familiar with everything from the I Ching and Tao Te Ching to Buddhist scriptures, Christianity, and more. He was truly a prodigy.

This Aleister Crowley also existed in the world of A Certain Magical Index, where he founded the city with the highest technological level—Academy City.

Before researching his own Thelemic System of magic, however, he had joined a magical cabal that was equally famous.

It was the Golden Dawn!

It had completely transformed magic from the classical form into modern magic, greatly reducing the difficulty of practicing magic, and had produced many famous and powerful magicians.

McGregor Mathers, William Wynn Westcott, Alan Woodman, and others were all members of the Golden Dawn.

However, that organization later fell apart. As Dawnlight, which inherited the Golden Dawn's power, grew once again, it naturally inherited the Golden Dawn's magical system in many respects as well.

That was the modernized magic based on numerous occult elements, including the Hermetic School, Kabbalah, Tarot, Egyptian mythology, Enoch, astrology, and more.

Among them, the magical formulas Mephistopheles was most proficient in were based on Kabbalah and Enoch.

Of course, that did not mean Mephistopheles knew nothing about other formulas. For example, using the traits of the elements to correspond to celestial bodies, then using those celestial bodies to summon the power of beings from other mythologies, was also a method of casting magic at which he excelled.

At that moment, the wings appearing behind Mephistopheles represented the power he was using.

They were the Wings of Angels, the power of the messengers beneath the Lord who had created all things—the great being at the highest position, incomprehensible to humanity, the first and final Lord, the great thing that could be called nothingness.

Naturally, this power was incredibly weak, because Mephistopheles could not truly make use of an angel's real power.

Yet even power that had been divided by hundreds of billions, trillions, perhaps even quadrillions of times or more had granted Mephistopheles terrifying destructive force and allowed him to display certain traits that did not belong to humans.

"Here, I declare my magic name. My name is Veritas000, meaning one who seeks truth!"

A magic name represented the reason someone had walked the path of magic, or rather, the obsession in their heart. For Mephistopheles, seeking truth was the obsession that had led him onto the path of magic.

When a magician spoke their magic name, it meant they were getting serious. This battle would inevitably be a battle of conviction!

"Angels stand ever at his side. In the name of Y-H-V-H, angels of earth, wind, water, and fire, descend swiftly before him and protect him."

YHVH was the name of God, the name of the Lord. When recited in a special manner, the trembling voice carried a special meaning. Under that meaning, four phantoms appeared around Mephistopheles.

An angel wielding a sword, an angel holding lilies, the protector of travelers, and the keeper of Hell.

These four great angels were the strongest angels said to stand at God's side: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel!

Even if they were merely phantoms, even if they were only an insignificant projection of power divided until it was infinitely close to "one divided by infinity," the terrifying energy displayed by that power was still enough to effortlessly destroy continents, even planets.

However, though that power had been summoned, Mephistopheles could not directly use it. After all, he was merely a weak, ordinary magician.

The descent of the four great angels made the elemental power around Mephistopheles even denser. At that moment, everything seemed to be at his command!

The appearance of those phantoms also drew everyone's attention.

"What is that?!" Zeus stared fixedly at the distant phantoms. As the chief god of the Greek pantheon—and the king of the gods—Zeus should have been the strongest person present.

Not to mention that Zeus had once been an interstellar combat annihilation-type mobile fortress flagship that traveled through outer space. He understood power far better than Earth's gods did.

Yet even so, Zeus found it difficult to comprehend the power that person was displaying!

Each of those four phantoms seemed capable of effortlessly annihilating everyone here!

Yes, the power constantly leaking from each phantom alone could destroy everyone in this place!

Could these be projections of Outer Gods?!

"What is this? A deity he worships? Has that deity directly bestowed its power to help him now?" Hecate looked at Mephistopheles, surrounded by the four great angels, and frowned slightly, her eyes filled with confusion.

She had always been curious about the secret Mephistopheles kept hidden. Yet after seeing that secret, she only had more questions.

He seemed to be using authority bestowed by a god to cast magic, but what authority could directly pull down a god's incarnation?

Or was he some kind of priest of that god, deeply favored by his deity?

Medea's mouth hung open as well. She had always thought Mephistopheles was handsome and mysterious, with his own unique understanding of magic and excellent self-created spells.

But seeing Mephistopheles like this now completely elevated her opinion of him to another level!

The young woman even forgot that this was a battlefield. Her eyes were filled with nothing but his figure. How could she care about anything else?

Artemis, the moon goddess, stopped what she was doing. She stared blankly at the figure surrounded by angels, feeling that he was filled with divinity at that moment. Especially beneath that golden radiance, it seemed as though the entire world was cheering for him!

The young man—or rather, the boy—raised the staff in his hand.

Then he slowly recited a simple phrase.

"Heat and dryness." Note 1

A simple description, as though describing a trait. Then scorching flames appeared atop the staff. Power from Michael gathered at that moment and formed an arrow.

The flaming arrow shot at incredible speed toward an uninjured giant. The giant hurriedly tried to dodge, but the arrow was simply too fast and the giant far too massive. Unable to evade in time, it was struck directly by the flaming arrow!

Boom!

With a thunderous explosion, the flames burst apart and shook the earth as though an earthquake had struck.

Amid the tremors, the giant toppled backward and crashed heavily onto the ground. Its body was blasted into a bloody mess by the flames. Its hide, which possessed exceptional resistance to magic, magecraft, civilization, and more, was utterly useless now!

Perhaps it truly was useful, but when faced with an attack that had already surpassed the limits of its defenses, useful was the same as useless!

Mephistopheles lightly waved his staff, and three identical flaming arrows appeared behind him, aimed forward!

Chapter Eighteen: Mages Love Melee Combat, Of Course

In the not-too-distant past, roughly twenty years earlier, when Mephistopheles was still in the world of A Certain Magical Index, he had made some modifications to the Angel Summoning Formula.

At the time, he was a 5=6-ranked magician within the Golden Dawn system.

The ranks of Golden Dawn magicians—or rather, their tiers of power—were divided in great detail.

A beginner started at 0=0. Only after beginning to study magic, theoretical knowledge, and so on could they improve their abilities and reach the level of 1=10.

Above that came 2=9, 3=8, and 4=7. These ranks all belonged to the First Order, which was the status of ordinary members.

Naturally, most magicians were actually within this range. Even magicians from different systems were, in terms of power, generally at roughly these levels.

Beyond that was the Second Order, also known as the Order of Adepts.

Magicians who reached this level were capable of serving as leaders within large magical cabals.

Among them, 5=6 was called Lesser Adept, 6=5 was called Great Adept, and 7=4 was called Exempt Adept.

An Exempt Adept, 7=4, had already reached the limit humanity could attain—the highest Prima Materia accessible beneath the Upper Three Emanations on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

Going further was not only exceptionally difficult, but once one crossed that threshold, it was equivalent to surpassing humanity's limits and entering the domain of the inhuman.

For instance, one could even acquire true immortality.

Judging from the names alone, 8=3 was not only called the Secret Chief. It also had a more intuitive title: Temple Chief, Lord of the Temple!

Angel summoning could be called the highest-level magical formula. It placed tremendous demands on the caster's knowledge, mana, and more. Once successfully cast, it could pull down angels from the Christianity Phase—or rather, the divine kingdom—and have them fight on the caster's behalf.

Every angel summoned in this way possessed the tremendous power to cleanse the entire world. The world here was not merely a description of something like Earth, but the literal material universe!

The infinitely expanding material universe could be cleared by any one of these angels alone. Merely allowing one of them to descend could make the entire world tense, because if an angel truly let loose, it might directly destroy this universe!

Angels were such terrifying beings.

But the requirements for this spell were so high that, as far as Mephistopheles knew, only one person had successfully cast it: McGregor Mathers, the founder of the Golden Dawn.

Of course, Mephistopheles believed several others likely possessed similar strength as well.

Before his death, McGregor Mathers had reached 7=4, the highest rank of an Adept and the limit humanity could attain.

Mephistopheles was merely a weak little 5=6. He could not reach McGregor Mathers' level, but he wanted to cast the angel-summoning formula. So after modifying it for a long time, he finally succeeded.

The angels' power was weakened without limit, reduced until it could only affect planets, and even that power could not be used directly by him.

At the cost of so many restrictions, the angels could be summoned and strengthen Mephistopheles' control over the four elements of earth, wind, water, and fire.

To put it simply, after Mephistopheles realized that the Angel Summoning Formula he had painstakingly developed was far too weak and could not even directly fight enemies, he instead used the four great angels' association with the four elements to control elemental power and attack directly with it.

To Mephistopheles now, the four great angels were like a BUFF that "strengthened elemental attacks and accelerated elemental spellcasting," allowing him to unleash attacks far beyond his usual power while they lasted.

Therefore, even though the spells Mephistopheles cast were relatively ordinary elemental magic, their destructive power was completely different from before.

If Mephistopheles had not possessed fairly precise control over his mana and kept his power at just the right level, indiscriminate bombardment could have reduced this place to a devastated wasteland like the surface of the moon!

At that moment, under Mephistopheles' control, several fire arrows crashed toward the giants. They were too fast to evade, and amid repeated explosions, several more giants fell.

As their companions continued to die, these seemingly dim-witted Gigantes finally reacted. Roaring and howling, they charged toward Mephistopheles. To them, everything around them combined was less threatening than this tiny human!

Only by killing this human would they have any chance of completing their mission to destroy civilization!