SPELLCRAFT: Reincarnation Of A Magic Scholar

The plan was a simple, but calculated move.

After making a conscious effort to search for Jared's home world among the vast worlds that existed in the Aether Tree, and having no luck locating it, Legris came to a conclusion.

Neron, or someone stronger than him, was currently ensuring that the world remained undetected.

While it was vexing, Legris couldn't do anything about it—at least, not yet.

However, the moment he arrived in the Constellation Realm, he was able to use the heightened realm as a template to search for Jared and Neron's homeworld.

Sure enough, he found it.

Once he was about to navigate his way to the place, he figured it would be a useful card to exploit, so he did what any sensible strategist would resort to.

"Stefan, you'll go take that planet hostage. Kill anyone who stands in your way, and ensure no one leaves that world."

If push came to shove, he could use their world as collateral—or even bait—in order to steer them away from his plans.

Considering that their families were present there, it only made sense that they would have more of an emotional attachment there over anywhere else.

And, in the case that they didn't take the bait, then… there was the second option.

"Kill everyone there if a certain time elapses without any external intervention."

That was the plan.

It was a cruel, but satisfying thing for Legris to do for the home base of his adversaries.

Either way… he would win.

*********

"Y-you…"

Kuzon felt his body tremble only slightly, but his face was warped with unbridled rage as he glared at Ciel.

She had a satisfied smile on her face, and even though it was clear she was powerless before the group, she enjoyed watching them suffer.

"S-so… what will it be? Will you try to protect your home? Will you stick to the mission? I… wonder." She cackled, her voice croaking out despite being choked.

~VWUUUUMMMM!!!~

Kuzon growled, and a powerful surge of energy overwhelmed Ciel.

It caused her to scream as golden lightning coursed through her. The wild smile on her face swiftly faded away, replaced by the agonizing expression of someone being tortured.

Despite her noise, Kuzon paid her no mind. Instead, he turned to his comrades.

As one would expect, they all had troubled faces and for good reason.

The enemy had just said something devastating, and it weighed heavily on the mind.

Their home world was in danger.

"What do you think?" Kuzon asked, not throwing the question to anyone in particular, though his gaze was specifically on Ana.

Ana's countenance immediately fell. It was as if she was struggling to remain rational despite her emotions rising.

"We can stop the cocoon and save our comrades! We can do both, right?" The one who brought this up was Lemi.

"Let's just use the same strategy as last time. Kuzon, Edward, and Serah should stay here while everyone else goes back."

Lemi's voice seemed to garner the consensus of almost everyone present. However, those in the know knew how implausible her words were.

"We can't." Ana sighed, her small hand covering her face as she spoke.

Out of everyone present, she was one of the people who had a lot to lose. Her two parents were still alive, and she had lots of older siblings she looked up to back home.

However, she could not deny how ill-favored the situation made them.

"We need to use [The World] to get to our home world. But, it is currently being used to keep the gateway open from the Aether Tree to this place." Ana explained.

"If we were to use it for any other purpose, it would leave the three here stranded with no other way of escape."

Once they destroyed the Cocoon, the resulting explosion of inverse energy would definitely kill them if they didn't escape using [The World] as quickly as possible.

As it currently stood, this mission was already a big risk.

"None of us are skilled enough at Inter-dimensional Magic. That means Ciel has to be the one to wield the Magic. I doubt she can open two distinct wormholes through worlds at the same time."

Even if someone else could utilize [The World] as efficiently as Ciel, there was another issue.

"She can't use [Forge Of Creation] while using [The World], so she can't create another Arcana for us to use." With that, Ana concluded her statement.

There was no way she could find a way back to their home.

"Why don't we use this Ciel? She has the same abilities, doesn't she? You can just control her like you controlled the clone." Maria quickly posited.

Her parents—no, her friends and family—were in her home world.

She was growing increasingly tense that she eventually had to blurt out what had been on her mind for a while now.

"Anabelle isn't with me. I'm currently using my Automaton to remotely control Ciel and make sure she keeps up the portal leading back to the Tree."

There was a very small possibility of external factors interfering with the [Absolute Hijack], and if that happened, they would all be stranded in the middle of nowhere.

That was why Anabelle had to stay behind.

"You don't need Anabelle. I can use my Authority to control Ciel to create another [The World] and take us to our home world."

"Kekeke… kekekeke…" Ciel chuckled, now regaining her ability to speak after so long.

"What [Authority]? Have you not realized it already? You can't use your Representations here. This isn't the Aether Tree, and the Constellations have no authority in this place!"

The only reason Kuzon had managed to make Ciel spit out so much information was due to the remnant Authority he had, as well as the sheer volume of his Aether.

However, now that they had spent enough time away from their Constellations, they couldn't rely on their help any longer.

They were quite literally on their own.

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Thanks for reading, everyone!

What do you think the squad should do?