Back to the matter at hand.
At that moment, Silver charged forward with the Holy Spear in hand, unleashing a relentless storm of attacks on Merlin.
The flowers on the ground were shredded, the shield pierced, and the staff knocked away. Left with no choice, Merlin conjured a longsword out of thin air and moved to meet him.
"Ah, never mind... I'll borrow this for now. I'm sure Lia won't mind."
The longsword's blade was broader and thicker than Caliburn's, engraved with a line of fairy script, while its guard was cast from gold.
Like the sword in his hands, the swordsmanship Merlin now employed struck a balance between agility and brute force.
"Come to think of it, this is the first time I've wielded a sword with both hands since becoming a mage...
Now I'm getting sentimental all of a sudden. Is Alaya affecting me too?"
Merlin noticed the changes in himself as he fought Silver. A full-force slash sent Silver flying, putting distance between them.
His pupils took on the shape of flowers as he watched the impassive Silver in the distance.
There had been nothing around the boy before, but now, through Merlin's eyes, vast amounts of an unknown substance drifted around him like golden smoke, flowing steadily into the Holy Spear.
Presumably, that was Alaya's divinity.
"Storm!"
Seeing Merlin leap out of the Holy Spear's range, Silver immediately called upon the raging wind for aid.
Caught in the gale, Merlin was forced back toward Silver.
He adjusted his posture in midair and, riding the wind's momentum, brought his longsword down in an overhead slash!
Silver naturally refused to sit there and take it, blocking the attack with the Holy Spear.
And in that instant, as they clashed again, Merlin confirmed his suspicions.
Heh. Just as I thought.
Merlin smiled faintly. Silver's power output was dropping, Alaya's divinity was beginning to flow back into the Holy Spear, and Sovell's body was becoming harder to control.
Though some of it had rubbed off on Merlin during their brief exchange, such a small amount of divinity would take no more than a flick of his fingers to expel from his body.
"Holy Spear, release your anchor."
???
Hearing that incantation, Merlin was utterly dismayed.
Firing a beam in the middle of a weapons duel? That's just dirty!
Hiss... Wait, haven't I seen this scene before?
Merlin had no time to pursue that thought. The Holy Spear's radiance was already poised to fire.
He could only turn himself into a spirit and circle around to Silver's side, barely knocking the spear's tip aside in time to keep it from piercing both him and the earth.
"All right, all right, I get it, you're strong! Now get some sleep!"
With that, Merlin slammed his sword's pommel into the back of Silver's neck. The tremendous impact immediately disrupted the nerves in Sovell's neck.
Silver's neural functions were also thrown into disarray by the distress in Sovell's body, forcing him to collapse to the ground.
Silver-down for the count.
"Alaya's divinity... I'd better avoid getting involved with it from now on."
After dealing with Silver, Merlin repeatedly stirred the faint traces of Alaya's divinity within him. Every time that divinity moved, it awakened his emotions.
Merlin could feel that the human emotions he was experiencing now were curiosity and delight.
Still, he pulled that divinity out of his body and let it dissipate within Avalon.
After all, Merlin's own emotions had ceased to exist after his teacher retired from the world and stopped seeing him.
His usual expressions, tone of voice, and the like were merely an act he put on in front of others.
For an incubus like him, these human emotions stirred up by Alaya's divinity were hardly a good thing.
"Who would taste the delicacy of dreams through the mindset of an emotionally fragile species like humans?"
That was the advice an older incubus Merlin had once met had given him.
Unless something unexpected had happened, that incubus should have returned to the Inner Sea of the Planet by now.
Even without tasting dreams, human emotions were ill-suited to anomalies among primates like him and Sovell.
Of course, Sovell had to live in the human world, so human emotions did help him.
"Well, what's done is done. Time to eat."
So Merlin said.
Then he opened his right hand toward the fallen Sovell. A purple orb of light rose from Sovell's chest and flew toward Merlin.
The orb kept shedding motes of light in Merlin's hand until it finally disappeared.
"A very delicious nightmare. Though the contents are a little... bleurgh."
As Merlin savored it, he began to notice something wrong.
Why was the dream about me getting skewered by the Holy Spear?!
And Sovell was standing there crying, only to turn around and chop my head off with the Wind King Shield.
What even was all that? What a complete mess.
The mage's mouth twitched. Suddenly, he wanted to vomit up the dream he had just eaten.
Unfortunately, incubi lacked the physiological structures needed to regurgitate dreams.
"Ah-!"
The boy's startled cry rang out.
Sovell had awakened.
Merlin glanced over and found that the boy's eyes had returned to their original, pure silver.
It seemed Alaya's influence had disappeared.
"Sovell, your dream really was enough to make someone... Never mind."
"You saw it?"
"I ate it..."
Merlin covered his face with one hand. He had no desire to see any of what he had just witnessed ever again.
Although nightmares were more nutritious for incubi, for Merlin, a human-incubus hybrid...
Nightmares might indeed be more nutritious and taste wonderful, but very few failed to leave him feeling miserable.
Even if humans' pleasant dreams or erotic dreams offered little nutritional value.
The positive emotions humans gave off while having such dreams always provided Merlin with considerable psychological comfort after tasting a nightmare.
Perhaps that was also why Merlin liked wonderful, interesting stories and enjoyed seeing smiles on people's faces.
Even if he sometimes understood neither the stories nor the reasons behind those smiles.
Yet even after realizing that, he continued to like them. It did not matter if that fondness was merely instinctive.
"Merlin, what happened to me just now? I feel like I took a nap, but my body's even more exhausted than after a hundred rounds of sword practice with Lia."
Hearing Sovell's question, Merlin lowered his hand and answered with a smile:
"Your mind probably stalled briefly because of an instantaneous overload of magical energy flow and magical backlash. Then the magical energy surging back from the Holy Spear began controlling your body.
To put it simply, using the terminology from Seres, the Holy Spear temporarily possessed you.
Don't risk your life like that again. While you were being controlled, you nearly ran me through with the Holy Spear."
With that, Merlin kept smiling, but smacked Sovell on the head.
"Is that so... Can I still use the Holy Spear?"
"Don't worry. The Holy Spear only controlled your body this time because your consciousness went dormant during the magical backlash.
Once your body and mind have fully matured, you won't have to worry. The consciousness within the Holy Spear won't control you.
Besides, who lets magical energy flow backward into their body so carelessly? Do you have any idea..."
Sovell lowered his head and accepted Merlin's lecture. Looking at the Holy Spear in his hand, he turned it back into a longsword and slid it into the Wind King Scabbard at his waist.
The boy hesitated for a moment, then made up his mind. He raised his head and addressed the mage:
"Merlin, undo the seal on my Magecraft."
Before you continue