In Gospel Country, on Highway 47 toward Azula, a Floating Car wreathed in electric light was racing along the ground. Its smoking, sizzling chassis made it perfectly clear that its anti-gravity module had completely failed, while the two taillights behind it were cycling rapidly through red, orange, and yellow, proving that its autopilot module had suffered a total Malfunction. A crazed driver was flooring the accelerator and tearing down the road far over the speed limit.
A streak of Aura swept across the Night Sky and landed on the roof, turning into an extremely thin, short Goblin. He was only ninety centimeters tall, wore nothing but a scrap of rag around his body, and yet held a spring-steel spike longer than he was tall—practically a spear to him.
He took aim at the driver's seat inside the car and drove the steel spike viciously through the roof!
The steel spike did not meet the sensation of piercing flesh. Instead, a straight blade stabbed out from inside the car and slashed hard, cutting off half the Goblin's foot. Yet the Goblin showed not the slightest trace of pain from the severed limb.
Before setting out tonight, he had been placed under the "Pain Blocking" Miracle. As the price, however, all his reflex nerves would stop functioning—most close-combat sorcerers who roamed the underworld did not like using Pain Blocking. After all, pain could still be overcome somehow, but the weakening of reflexes caused by losing pain was the difference between life and death in a split-second clash. But Goblins were among the very few close-combat sorcerers who did not rely on Body Art, and that was clear from his Movement Miracle, "Rainbow Light." As the most famous and most powerful Miracle of the Light Art Faction, Rainbow Light allowed a sorcerer to