Suppression

Tiriye had already abandoned the idea of stopping the Mages from the Time-Space Administration Bureau.

Iris was in danger, and she had no idea what sort of enemy Iris would face!

She mounted her motorcycle and sped along Tokyo's elevated roads.

The Mages from the Time-Space Administration Bureau were in the air: Nanoha Takamachi, Fate Testarossa, and the young Enforcer dressed entirely in black.

Tiriye had lost all desire to fight them. Once she learned that Iris might be facing a Grand Mage from the Age of the Gods, she knew their operation could no longer succeed. What mattered now was Iris's safety.

Suddenly, Tiriye noticed the scenery in her field of vision change.

She realized she had entered a magical barrier. It was like plunging into water in an instant-the world became entirely different.

Yet what appeared before her was a monster beyond anything she could imagine!

"What is that?!"

Nanoha and Fate, who had followed close behind, shared the same question.

What the hell was this thing?

A monster a full hundred meters tall stood in the center of the city, with countless heads and countless jointed limbs, as though every element of a nightmare had been jumbled together without rhyme or reason.

Only Chrono knew what it was.

Even in the Time-Space Administration Bureau's records, it was one of the most terrifying curses.

Do not approach. Do not investigate. Once it appeared, all personnel below rank AA had to evacuate immediately.

A nightmare among nightmares. The king of curses.

"This is the Book of Darkness... Eternal Curse Night!"

"No, you're lying!" How could the Book of Darkness possibly be something like this?

Tiriye could not accept it. Iris had told her that the Book of Darkness was the only treasure that could save her father, the only hope of restoring life to the planet where they lived.

"The Book of Darkness was never hope. It was a curse from the very beginning." Of that much, Chrono was absolutely certain. "The Time-Space Administration Bureau will handle this from here. All uninvolved personnel, clear the area immediately!"

Although he wanted to arrest the girl, once the Book of Darkness went berserk, everything else became secondary and could be set aside.

He had rehearsed how to deal with the Book of Darkness countless times in his mind. It was also the reason he had become an Enforcer for the Time-Space Administration Bureau.

Even the Roland Holy Sword in his hand had been developed at his request by Admiral Graham specifically to counter the Book of Darkness.

It was a weapon designed specifically to combat Eternal Curse Night.

That was why, the moment he saw the monster, everyone else stopped in shock, but Chrono charged forward without hesitation.

The blade of the Roland Holy Sword split into several sections and descended through the air.

"Freeze! Eternal Ice Coffin!"

The temperature plummeted, and the air around Chrono crystallized. An ultracold blizzard below minus two hundred and thirty degrees swept across hundreds of meters, engulfing the entire monster.

Chrono had spent years studying the data left behind by the Book of Darkness. Under Admiral Graham's supervision, the Bureau headquarters' technical department had been ordered to develop this equipment.

The Roland Holy Sword existed solely for this one strike.

The main body of Eternal Curse Night did indeed freeze solid.

But less than three seconds later, the ice shattered, revealing the monster beneath, completely unharmed.

It failed!

It worked in theory, but not in practice.

Were all those years still wasted?

Chrono had no choice but to accept the result. Even if the holy sword could break through the monster's defenses, its regenerative abilities were simply too powerful!

"President, if this continues, the destruction may spread beyond the barrier," Eriol said.

He was not particularly anxious. If the sky fell, someone taller would hold it up.

In the past, he had been that taller person. Now someone else stood at the pinnacle of the Age of the Gods.

"I know."

Huo Lin was indeed resentful. Hayate's abduction in particular had touched her sorest nerve. That was why she had deliberately allowed the curse to erupt and crush that artificial intelligence without restraint.

But as Eriol said, letting the curse spread any further would be inconsiderate.

Left unchecked, Eternal Curse Night's corrosion could devour the entire planet.

She reached out.

The mass of monsters, still growing and spreading, suddenly went rigid, as though it had frozen solid in an instant.

An enormous amount of magical energy gathered. Normally invisible to the naked eye, the energy was compressed so intensely that its spectrum changed, revealing a brilliant rainbow of colors.

This was not any sort of spell, merely pure magical energy being condensed.

Magical energy itself was harmless, but once its quantity exceeded a certain threshold, it began to collapse inward.

The Asura's early-warning radar screamed frantically as it detected magical energy far beyond its alert threshold.

Rank S+-the upper limit the radar could measure-had long since been reached.

"A Grand Mage from the Age of the Gods, indeed."

Although Admiral Lindy had heard the name Clow Reed long ago, this was her first personal encounter with a Mage from the Age of the Gods.

The monster's body was compressed.

Space-time curled under the high-density energy, ultimately forming a singularity from which nothing could escape-the most terrifying prison imaginable.

A few seconds later, it was all over.

No matter how ferocious the monster had been moments earlier, every abnormal phenomenon disappeared.

A bronze book fell from the air, landing lightly in Huo Lin's hand.

Chrono stared blankly at the scene. Only now did he dare approach.

"Lord... Clow Reed?"

He looked at the little girl before him.

She had disguised herself with magic to look like a little boy. But optical disguises created through magic were not particularly effective against people versed in magic, much less a veteran Enforcer from the Time-Space Administration Bureau.

His protective suit alone could see through simple disguises or illusion spells. More complex ones would require specialized detection magic, but the girl's disguise was not complicated at all.

He struggled to reconcile the image of Clow Reed, the Grand Mage from the Age of the Gods, with this elementary school girl.

Huo Lin chuckled. Before she could speak, Eriol gave a light cough beside her.

"I'm Clow Reed."

"Huh?"

Compared with Huo Lin's astonishing display moments earlier, the bespectacled Eriol really did not draw much attention.

Chrono hesitated for a moment before deciding that he was not joking.

"But... just now..."

"This is President Huo Lin Yagami. She is also a Grand Mage from the Age of the Gods. The Book of the Night Sky is currently in her keeping."

Another one from the Age of the Gods?

Since when did mythical beings like Grand Mages from the Age of the Gods start appearing in groups?

And in an unadministered world that theoretically had no magic, at that!

As for the word "president," it brought to Chrono's mind magical societies with long histories, such as True Astronomy, the Observers' Association, and Golden Dawn.

But after mentally reviewing all the prominent figures in the magical world he knew, he found none whose identity matched the girl before him.

Huo Lin dispensed with further pleasantries. She walked over to where Eternal Curse Night had been rampaging and picked up a crystal board from the ground.

The crystal was blue throughout, with no visible additional components, but there were several cracks across its surface.

It was technology that did not belong to this era, with something of a science-fiction feel.

"Iris!" Tiriye lost some control of her emotions at the sight.

This was a Ruins Board that Tiriye had found in some ruins years ago-the physical core of the artificial intelligence Iris.