Saberfes!

Chapter 32

Silver and iron to the origin. Stone and the archduke of contracts to the cornerstone.

My ancestor is the great master I pay tribute to.

The alighted wind becomes a wall. The gates in the four directions close, coming from the crown, the three-forked road that leads to the kingdom circulate.

――――I announce.

Your self is under me, my fate is in your sword.

The intruder was stealthily approaching him now, almost within range of his "Rokudou Kyoukai" now. He seemed to be waiting for the second last line of the chant to strike, when he was the most absorbed in the ritual and would fail to react fast enough to most attacks. Unfortunately, the Bounded Fields that he had constructed were not so easily foiled. When the Yin was destroyed, Yang would surge forth to take its place, until the Yin repelled it in an automatic response to restore balance. When Yang was destroyed, the Yin would creep into its former territory until it was repulsed by Yang again to harmonize the system. His Bounded Fields were based on Taijitu, an ancient philosophy originating from China that he had learnt about from his time as a Buddhist monk wandering the country, seeing countless deaths occur in front of him while being powerless to stop them.

In essence, if one part of his boundary were to fail, another would cover for it until it recovered, and vice versa. The taijitu represented the supreme ultimate, a limitless infinity, or some would say a primordial universe. It was an entire world contained within the circle, and anything disturbing that balance would automatically be detected. In addition, in accordance with the nature of the circle, the balance would be "corrected", in various ways depending on the nature of the intrusion. If the intruder was a magus and entered from the Yang side, their mana signature would upset the Yang by increasing above the natural state, and thus a flood of Yin would seek to quench their mana signature, effectively "blocking" their Magic Circuits, though not outright destroying them. If they entered the Yin side, they would reduce the Yin, thus forcing the Yin to flow towards the Yang side and it would flow towards the formerly Yin side, creating something like a convection flow of heat, disturbing the mana and making it almost impossible to cast spells, unless you wanted it to go horribly wrong.

This was the most common variation he used, but there were others with different degrees of lethality and utility. This one however, was the easiest and fastest to construct, though it did require the use of stones made of a rare material that were made to exacting specifications to represent the two points of symmetry within the Yin and the Yang.

Slowly, the intruder approached the back of the chanting man.

In accordance with the approach of the Holy Grail, if you abide by this feeling, this reason, then answer.

I hereby swear. I will be all that is good in the eternal world. I will be the disposer of evil in the eternal world.

The air whipped into a frenzy as shimmering walls of mana fluctuated around the circle, lights fading in and out within it.

*WSSH*

A ball of fire shot towards his back after the intruder traced a rune in the air, Kenaz blazing for a moment in the air before fading away.

"Fugu. Kongou. Dakatsu. Taiten. Chougyou. Ouken." Even before the rune was traced, right after he said the word "world", he was already reciting the mantra under his breath rapidly.

"W-wha?!"

The startled cry of the intruder sounded from behind as he turned around to face him, letting the mana in the circle dissipate as he turned his full attention to his would-be assassin, bound in black and white tendrils of energy as three circles rotated around him.