When Fantasy Glitches

Standing on the scorched ground, Magnus and Seraline took a moment to assess the situation around them. Their initial attack had cleared most of the monsters on this side of the wall, but other sections were still under heavy assault.

"You handle the ones flooding out of the forest, heading for the village," Seraline began, with Magnus finishing, "And you'll take care of the ones that slip by, plus those already at the wall."

They nodded in silent understanding before splitting off in opposite directions. Seraline became a blur, moving faster than the human eye could track as she sped toward the walls, while Magnus dashed to intercept the approaching monsters. The first ones he spotted was a group of lizard creatures rushing forward at high speed, faster than even Olympic runners. Their upper torsos resembled humans in a way, with two arms, a singular komodo-like head, and two eyes. But black scales covered their bodies, looking tough enough to resist even a sword. Their lower halves were anything but bipedal, running on four legs with tongues hanging out of their mouths as they sprinted.

There had to be at least twenty of them, and Magnus had no doubt they could scale the wall if they reached it.

"Where the hell are all of you coming from?" Magnus shouted, waving his hand in their direction. Mana condensed in an instant, and a wall of ice erupted from the ground, covered in jagged spikes. It happened so suddenly that many of the charging creatures couldn’t stop in time, impaling themselves on the wall that stretched over a hundred meters across the forest floor. The ones that did stop quickly turned their attention to Magnus, snarling as they prepared to attack.

"Oh, that got your attention?" Magnus muttered with a grin, readying himself. About fifteen of the four-legged lizards, along with a dozen cone-mouthed monsters and several other beasts, screeched and charged at him. The lizards were the fastest. The leader of the pack lunged at Magnus, arms outstretched and sharp teeth bared, but its attack was countered. In one swift move, Magnus grabbed its arms and flipped it over his shoulder with an overhand throw.

The lizard had no time to react as its body slammed into the ground, collapsing under the sheer absolute force of [Self Body Puppetry], splattering on impact. The music of the battle, which had long since begun echoed around Magnus, alerting him to another incoming attack. Spinning around, he raised an arm just in time to deflect the claw of another lizard that had lunged for his neck. Seizing the opening, he thrust his free hand toward its chest, and a condensed ball of white flames began to twist and form in his palm. Sensing the heat, the lizard tried to retreat, but it was already too late.

The ball of flames shot forward like a spear, burning a straight line through the lizard in front of him and several more behind it, the heat intense enough to melt through metal. Yet the monsters didn’t falter. Even surrounded by the bodies of their fallen, they kept charging, and the next threat was already closing in.

It looked like a strange mix between a giant gorilla and a rhino. Instead of fur, its skin was patterned like a tiger’s, and its limbs were massive, disproportionate to its torso. Its skull was pointed, forming what could only be described as a horn. Magnus spotted two of them above him, swinging beneath one of the many wooden bridges stretched beyond the borders of Freyborn Village, reaching out to nearby trees.

Their immense size didn’t seem to affect their agility at all and with one final swing, one of them let go of the bridge, hurling itself through the air like a living missile, aiming to crash into Magnus.

But instead of panic, Magnus grinned, holding out his hands.

"Haven’t gotten a chance to use this yet," he murmured.

Then he clapped his hands together as if trying to catch something invisible. At that moment, the air around the falling horned gorilla began to flood with a sudden appearance of condensed mana, which quickly took another farm. Sparks began to fly as the air itself seemed to heat up, until finally, a sound like that of thunder echoed through the air. A field of electricity came to life in the air, and the horned gorilla was at the center of it. Immediately from all sides, arcs of electricity began to zap it, charring its skin, and sending countless volts through its body.

It was dead before it even hit the ground.

Magnus leaped into the air as the gorilla’s lifeless body crashed into the ice wall he had created earlier, which hadn’t fully decomposed back into mana. The impact crushed several of the four-legged lizards that had just reached his position. However, being airborne left him vulnerable. From below, several cone-mouthed monsters opened their jaws, shooting long tongues in his direction. Most missed, but one managed to wrap its tongue around his leg, yanking him out of the air and hurling him to the ground.

"Huh? Oh shi-" His sentence was cut short as his body slammed into the earth, cracking the ground beneath him from the impact. But it wasn’t over. The second-horned gorilla, clearly enraged by its partner’s death, leaped from the bridge and launched itself toward Magnus, head-first, just like its partner before it. Still lying in the crater, Magnus groaned as his eyes widened at the sight of the creature barreling toward him. He scrambled to his feet, dodging to the side just in time. The spot where he had been lying exploded into a mess of dirt, rock, and debris as the beast smashed into the ground with a thunderous crash.

But despite the force of its impact on the ground, the horned gorilla seemed unhurt. It quickly got back on its feet, its eyes burning with rage as they locked onto Magnus. With a roar, it charged, raising both of its massive arms high before slamming them down toward him. Magnus raised his hands in response, the scene was almost laughable—just a boy trying to stop a creature towering three meters tall with nothing but his bare hands. Yet, that’s exactly what happened. The beast's powerful arms came to an abrupt halt as Magnus caught them mid-air. His arms didn’t so much as tremble under the tonnage of force the gorilla poured into the strike.

"Ragh!"

The creature roared in frustration, thrashing to free its arms, but no matter how much it pulled or shoved, Magnus stood firm. His grip tightened, digging into the beast’s flesh. Then came the unmistakable snap. With a powerful downward yank, Magnus dislocated both of the creature’s arms, bending them inward. The horned gorilla let out a bone-rattling roar that echoed for kilometers. It struggled even harder to break free, but it didn’t matter—Magnus loosened his hold, letting the creature fall backward onto the ground with a heavy thud.

Meanwhile, the remaining monsters, those already charging and others spilling out from the forest, began to circle Magnus. Yet he barely seemed to notice, his focus entirely on the downed gorilla.

He jumped onto its chest, looking down at the helpless beast. Without its arms, it thrashed uselessly, unable to stand.

"I never paid much attention in physics class, you know," Magnus muttered, clenching his right hand into a fist.

"But one thing stuck with me: speed begets power. It's a phrase my physics teacher used to say all the time. But, I think I only truly understood it after one lesson in particular. It was one where he sat everyone down and explained that if something with mass ever moved at the speed of light, even if it was as small as a grain of sand, the energy it would carry would be infinite." The horned gorilla, of course, wasn’t paying attention, but that didn’t matter—Magnus wasn’t really talking to the monster but to himself.

"It's fascinating, right? That just by moving at a higher velocity, even something as simple as my fist becomes capable of wiping out the world... not that I'd ever actually do something like that," Magnus mused, glancing at his right hand as a smirk tugged at his lips.

"After all, if I ever threw a punch like that, I'd end up killing everyone, myself included. Infinite energy can’t be controlled, after all. Still... it's not often I get a chance like this. No restrictions; no one around to worry about." Even during the Live Examination, he always had to hold back—afraid of killing his opponent or hurting someone nearby. But here, against beasts like the one under his feet and a wide-open area like this?

There was no need for him to restrain himself.

"So, I was thinking... why don't we use this as an experiment?" As he spoke, he slowly began to raise his right arm, his eyes fixed on the struggling gorilla below. It was as if the creature sensed something dangerous was coming because its movements became more frantic.

"Even if a strike at light speed is impossible, aren't you curious to see just how destructive my attacks can get?" Magnus's words were accompanied by the construction of a visualization in his mind, one of a strike that exceeded that of any he'd launched before.

And, in what seemed like a drawn-out moment, faster than any human could perceive, that visual became reality.

In an instant, Magnus's fist tore through the sound barrier with a deafening crack, accelerating to ten times the speed of sound. The air around his arm twisted violently, forming a shockwave that rippled outward, warping the atmosphere. As the ionization process kicked in, a faint blue glow began to trail the arc of his fist, shimmering like the edge of a lightning storm.

But his arm continued to accelerate, blurring beyond the limits of perception as it elongated and seemed to vanish from sight. It shot past Mach one hundred—a hundred times the speed of sound—where the air around him began to crackle, giving off bursts of electricity. The energy radiating from his body turned chaotic as if a localized storm had erupted around him. Blue plasma coiled tightly around his arm, transforming it from mere flesh to a glowing weapon of lightning and fire.

Yet Magnus's visualization had not even begun to approach its end point, he could push it further.

His arm’s acceleration rate only kept climbing, surging exponentially. At this point, the sheer velocity began warping the air, creating a vacuum effect as it tore apart the atmosphere around it. Oxygen and nitrogen were ripped apart, vaporized into strands of white-hot plasma, leaving nothing but a scorched path in its wake. As he passed Mach one thousand, a blinding flash of light burst out in all directions, so intense it forced the guards on the eastern wall to shield their eyes and even made the monsters flinch away from the sheer brilliance of it.

And then, in the final instant before impact, Magnus's strike hit its unimaginable peak—over eight thousand times the speed of sound. At this point, both sight and sound had become irrelevant, bending under the sheer force of speed. His arm appeared to teleport, almost as if it were skipping through space and time itself, leaving behind only a trail of shimmering colors that shifted between red and blue, like cosmic rays streaking through the atmosphere.

The strike itself was beyond measure.

But what followed was a shockwave of such immense power that the ground beneath it flattened as if struck by a colossal hammer, the force so intense it scorched everything within a kilometer of the impact site. Flames ignited instantly, vaporizing vegetation and setting even distant monsters ablaze. Half the guards on the walls were thrown violently to the ground, struggling to regain their footing as the wooden fortifications groaned, cracked, and splintered under the sheer pressure. The entire village trembled as a seismic ripple, like a miniature earthquake, spread far beyond the immediate area, shaking the earth for kilometers.

At the heart of the destruction, a hundred-meter radius around Magnus had become an inferno. The ground itself had liquefied into molten slag, glowing with the heat of the impact. From this molten wasteland, a towering pillar of fire spiraled into the sky, writhing like a serpent. The firestorm was so intense that the air above turned turbulent, raining down embers like fiery ash, casting an eerie orange glow over the world below.

Even Seraline had to stop, raising her arms to shield herself from the aftershocks. She turned to glance back at the scene, her keen vision cutting through the thick cloud of debris and raining flames where she saw, at the heart of it all, Magnus.

He hovered in the air, examining his right arm, which was regenerating from a state of being incinerated down to the bone. The hyperdense barriers he’d used to shield all but his fist from his own attack were shattered, their remnants flickering away as particles of condensed mana before vanishing into the wind. The ground around him was reduced to molten rock, the crater stretching thirty meters deep, with an even larger secondary crater formed by the shockwave's aftermath.

The sheer destruction was beyond comprehension, enough to leave anyone speechless, their stomachs churning at the sight of such overwhelming power. But even from her distance, Seraline could see it—the look of satisfaction on Magnus’s face, the faint smirk pulling at his lips.

It only reinforced what everyone, herself included, already knew about Cain, or, should she say, Magnus.

He really is a monster...

Back on the walls, in the sector where Elip stood, his expression was frozen in shock and horror. As a captain of the village, and an Apprentice-level knight, he couldn’t fully perceive Magnus’s attack, but the aftermath was unmistakable. The massive crater carved into the earth was impossible to ignore. Unlike many of the other guards, Elip hadn’t been blown back by the shockwave, so he had seen its full scale. He likely would have stood there for another minute or so if he wasn't snapped out of his daze when he heard a voice calling to him from his right.

"Captain Elip, what was that!?" It was the guard he had managed to save from the centipede’s acid earlier, accompanied by two more still capable of fighting. The others were either dead or too injured to perform their duties and had retreated. Elip’s eyes drifted back to the crater, now a scar on the landscape just a few hundred meters from where they stood.

"I'm not entirely sure," Elip replied, his voice tight.

"But… I did hear that village elders sent a request to the capital of the region, Arlcliff, hoping for aid from Takerth Academy. But that was a while ago." The mention of Takerth caused the guards’ expressions to shift immediately, their gazes snapping toward the distant figure of Magnus floating in the air.

"D-Do you think he’s… a mage from Takerth?" One of the guards stammered.

"Like I said, I’m not sure," Elip said, shaking his head.

"Even the elders didn’t think the request would be answered. But I’ve heard rumors—mages from Takerth Academy wear black robes, and their knights wear white." He squinted, trying to get a clearer view. Although he couldn’t see Magnus perfectly from this distance, it was clear he wore a black uniform. And while Seraline had been moving too fast for a proper look, she seemed to be dressed in white. The likelihood that these two strangers were from Takerth Academy was likely in his mind.

But to have such destructive power... did they send a Master-level mage to assist us? If so, then we might have a chance to truly turn this around.

With newfound determination, Elip turned to the stunned guards.

"It doesn’t matter where they came from. They’re helping us, and that’s all that matters. That attack wiped out most of the monsters on this front, but there are still others. We can’t just stand here." The guards snapped back to attention at his words.

"Ri- Right!"

"Yes, Sir!"

With one final glance at Magnus, Elip led the guards toward another sector of the wall. As he said, Magnus’s attack had annihilated a significant portion of the monsters flooding in from the forest, but those that had already reached the walls remained untouched. They still had to be dealt with.

Luckily, that was exactly why Seraline was sent to the wall. While Magnus may have beaten her out in terms of destructive power, Seraline precision was on an entirely different level.

"Agh! Le-Let go!" A guard yelled, stationed on the opposite section of the eastern wall from where Elip and Magnus were. His head was being crushed in the grip of one of the four-legged lizards, its claws squeezing his skull like a basketball. The other guards were too overwhelmed by the monsters scaling the walls to help him. Desperately, he stabbed at the creature's chest and legs with his sword, but each strike glanced off its hard scales. The lizard ignored his struggles entirely, its grip tightening as it opened its mouth, ready to devour him.

"No! No!" He screamed, bracing for the worst. But before the creature could clamp down, Seraline’s blurred figure rushed along the wall’s catwalk. Her eyes narrowed, taking in every enemy and ally in an instant, her spear ready in her hand. The guard barely had time to register what was happening before the creature’s head—along with its gaping maw—vanished. Blood splattered onto him as the beast’s grip loosened, and its body collapsed at his feet.

Stunned, the guard fell back, looking around in shock. He wasn’t the only one. All along the wall, guards blinked in confusion as a white flash tore past them, reducing the monsters they had been fighting to pieces. They couldn't even track Seraline’s movements—just the gust of wind in her wake and the shredded remains of their enemies. But Seraline paid no mind to the gawkers. Her focus remained on the battlefield, scanning for any other threats. In moments, she had cleared almost the entire eastern wall. The few stragglers still attempting to climb the wall or bash against the gates posed no threat—the remaining guards and archers could handle them.

Then her keen eyes locked onto something new: a massive snail at the far end of the wall. Unlike the other creatures, which had just scaled the walls and were being beaten back, this one had fully made its way onto the catwalk. Its body was coated in thick mucus that corroded everything it touched, rendering the guards’ arrows and swords useless. Each attack was absorbed by the slime, the weapons dissolving on impact. The only advantage the guards had was the snail’s sluggish pace—it couldn’t catch them to devour them.

But perhaps it had realized that. Instead of pursuing the guards, the creature began slithering down the other side of the wall, moving slowly but surely toward the village and the fleeing villagers.

Among the defenders trying to stop it was the captain of this section of the wall, his armor battered and his sword chipped. He glared at the giant snail, his frustration evident.

"Dammit!" He shouted, charging at the beast. His aura flared as he swung his sword at its massive shell, which loomed like a small hut. But despite his strength as an Apprentice-level knight, his blade barely scratched the surface. The snail didn’t even slow down, and his sword chipped further as he kicked off the shell after his failed strike to avoid touching the corrosive mucus. It was like a tank, nothing they did seemed to phase it all.

"What do we do?" An archer called out in desperation, loosing another arrow to no effect.

"At this rate, it's going to make it into the village," A guard muttered through clenched teeth. Hopelessness had weighed on them all through this battle, but the sense of being powerless was even worse.

Seeing the giant snail from several meters away, Seraline’s gaze sharpened, and she adjusted her grip on her spear mid-run. Her aura flared to life, transforming her entire form into a blazing inferno. In the blink of an eye, the fiery aura shifted, concentrating around her spear, swirling around it like a vortex of flame. The spear was completely engulfed, crackling with destructive power. Without a moment's hesitation, she hurled it at the snail, now over fifty meters away.

Her spear tore through the air faster than any arrow, breaking the sound barrier and releasing a sonic boom as it flew.

The captain, his focus still on the giant snail, was the first to react. He watched in stunned silence as something rocketed into the center of the snail's shell. The shell, which none of them could even scratch, cracked like glass as Seraline’s spear embedded itself a quarter of the way in.

"What in the-" The captain began, but his words trailed off as Seraline leaped into the air, soaring a full twenty meters with ease, her trajectory set toward the beast.

“Aerial Arts: Fallen Crest," she muttered under her breath. Her leg extended, and as she plummeted toward the snail. Her speed increased exponentially, her entire body wrapped in her blazing aura looking like a meteor descending from the heavens.

A shockwave rippled out from where she struck, accompanied by a shockwave that echoed through the air. She kicked the butt of her spear with such force that the snail's seemingly indestructible shell, went from cracked to shattering completely, splintering into fragments. The beast’s body convulsed, but it had no time to react further. In the next instant, its form exploded, sludge-like flesh raining down from the sky alongside shards of its shell.

The captain stood frozen in disbelief, watching as the giant snail—an unstoppable tank just moments ago—was reduced to nothing. And there, standing amidst the wreckage, was Seraline. Her aura still blazed around her, blending seamlessly with her long maroon hair, the two almost becoming one. Not a single drop of the snail's corrosive mucus touched her—her aura acted as a barrier, stopping even the remnants from falling onto her.

Then, as if sensing his gaze, her eyes met the captain’s. Her piercing, rosy eyes seemed to look straight through him, filled with an intensity that made his breath catch.

"W-Who are you?" He asked, the question slipping out instinctively. He hadn’t expected an answer, but Seraline gave him one.

"Seraline Sostenza," she said, her voice calm.

"My comrade and I have come in response to your request for aid."