[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: China Country]

[Outskirts]

"They're losing pretty badly," Puck murmured from his side.

Her voice was quieter than before, stripped of any levity. She hovered close enough now to feel the disturbances in the air each time Grimm minutely adjusted his position, her gaze fixed downward. Below them, porcelain bodies shattered against the ground, limbs cracking and breaking.

"That they are," Grimm agreed without hesitation, tracking the movement of the battlefield. "They have no formation to speak of. Their spear wielders are clustered too tightly—no spacing or discipline. Archers are present, but they aren't supporting the front line adequately. And they lack proper infantry entirely." His tone remained analytical. "It's little wonder they aren't all dead yet."

Puck swallowed. "Are… are you going to help them?"

The question escaped her before she could stop it. Even as she asked, she knew how foolish it sounded. Grimm had never once presented himself as anything resembling a hero. If anything, he seemed the opposite—a mere observer if anything.

"No," Grimm replied flatly. "There's nothing interesting here. Sentient dolls, even if self-aware, hold little value overall. Magic could replicate this phenomenon with far greater efficiency."

Puck's eyes widened. "Wait—so… you would have helped if you found them interesting?" she asked, incredulous.

"Yes," Grimm said easily, as though discussing something mundane. "If there were something to gain."

She stared at him, stunned by the simplicity of it. By how calmly he dismissed lives—fragile as porcelain, yes, but lives nonetheless—simply because they failed to engage his curiosity.

("Just what is with this guy?") Puck thought, her mind racing. ("His personality is all over the place. He seemed lax at first… then curious, almost childlike. And now he's just cold.")

It was unsettling. And yet as she watched him, hovering there in silence, she realized something else.

What stood beside her wasn't human at all.

No—he wasn't. He was kin to dragons. She'd known that from the start. And yet she'd still tried to measure him by mortal standards, by ideals even she herself didn't always follow. It was unfair of her.

Still…

Her gaze drifted back down. Another porcelain figure was crushed beneath a beast's paw, its body splintering apart. There was no blood or gore—but the sound alone made her flinch.

("Should I do something?") she wondered. ("If I use my magic, I'll just draw attention… but doing nothing means more of this.") She glanced at Grimm again. ("Would he even be able to help?") The answer felt obvious. ("He's basically a dragon, right? He has to be strong. In the forest, he was impossibly fast…")

The problem wasn't whether he could help.

It was whether he would.

("How do you convince someone like him?") she thought. ("He's driven by interest. The moment it's gone, so is he.")

Her thoughts stalled, then sharpened.

"You know," Puck said aloud, her voice steadier than before, "if you never invest in something, you'll never know how interesting it could've been."

Grimm's attention shifted to her. Not fully—but it was enough.

She pressed on. "Think about it. There's more to these porcelain people than what you're seeing on the surface. You're judging them like broken tools, but doesn't it strike you as strange?" She gestured upward. "Why there aren't any clouds above their city. Not a single one."

Grimm followed her gaze. The empty sky above the porcelain walls loomed unnaturally clear.

"Hm," he hummed, contemplative. "I suppose… there may be something worthwhile."

Slowly he raised a gauntleted hand toward the battlefield below.

Puck held a breath.

His palm angled downward, fingers slightly apart—as though he were gripping something invisible.

The air behind him changed.

A pressure change that made Puck's flying form stutter. Then, one by one, points of gold ignited behind Grimm's back.

They were orbs—a dozen of them—each the size of a clenched fist, hovering in a loose semicircle. Their light was not warm or comforting. It was sharp casting highlights across Grimm's armor and throwing shadows over the battlefield below. The orbs did not pulse or throb with energy like spells usually did. They were steady.

Puck's eyes widened.

"That—" she started, but the word never finished forming.

The orbs moved.

There was no windup or warning.

Each orb collapsed inward, compressing itself into a razor-thin line of gold, and then they launched.

The beams tore downward at impossible angles, not falling straight but zigzagging, bending mid-flight. They curved around obstacles, split apart, rejoined, then diverged again, carving paths through the air.

The first beam struck a Deseruit Beast shaped like an overgrown wolf, its tail a mass of snakes.

There was no explosion.

The beam passed cleanly through its skull.

The creature didn't even have time to howl.

Its head separated into two halves, the cut so precise the edges glowed for a heartbeat before the body collapsed, serpentine tail thrashing blindly as the light carved through it next, severing scale, bone, and sinew alike. The snakes dropped lifelessly, bisected into neat, smoking segments.

Another beam twisted sharply and pierced a three-headed lion mid-leap.

Each head died individually.

One beam lanced through the left skull, vaporizing an eye and exiting through the jaw. A second beam followed a fraction of a second later, spearing the center head straight through the open mouth, punching a hole through its neck. The third head tried to roar—only for a beam to slice laterally across its face, peeling bone and flesh away before the entire body crashed down, armor-like plates cracking apart as the lion's momentum carried it forward into death.

A blazing red serpent reared up, its body coiling as the light met it head-on.

The beam bored through its open mouth and did not stop, tunneling through its entire length. The serpent convulsed violently as its insides were flash-seared, the beam exiting through its tail in a burst of steam. The creature collapsed into a twisted, glassy corpse, its scorched body hissing as heat bled into the ground.

All erupted into chaos.

Deseruit Beasts that moments ago had been charging now faltered, some turning instinctively, others freezing in place as beams curved toward them with terrifying force. The light did not miss. It merely adjusted its course. A beam arced around a lunging beast, doubled back, and took it from behind, slicing through its spine in a clean diagonal. Another split into three thinner strands mid-flight, each strand threading through separate targets—eyes, throats, joints—before recombining and punching through a massive creature's chest.

Porcelain soldiers screamed—not in pain, but in disbelief.

Most were small, their bodies glossy white and pale blue, designs reminiscent of molded glass figures: painted seams at the joints, floral patterns etched into armor plates, faces smooth and doll-like with wide, painted eyes. Some wore miniature helmets shaped like teacups or domes, others sported capes glazed to look like flowing cloth.

They stared upward as beams of gold rained down like judgment.

"What—what is that?!" one of them cried, dropping their spear as a beam sliced a charging beast in half mere feet away.

"The sky—look at the sky!" another shouted.

Puck looked on in shock.

Her mouth hung open, her form frozen mid-air as she watched the slaughter unfold below. Seeing the speed and the raw power that wasn't unleashed indiscriminately.

"Holy—!" she finally managed, voice cracking. "What are you using?! That's not magic—there's no mana reaction or even a rune formation, nothing!"

Another wave of beams fired.

The remaining Deseruit Beasts barely had time to react before their numbers were cut down. One beast tried to flee—its back legs severed in a single diagonal sweep of light. Another raised thick, bone-plated arms to shield itself—only for a beam to spiral inward and drill through the armor, emerging out its back in a plume of superheated vapor.

Within seconds, the battlefield was quiet.

The last beam dissipated midair, thinning into nothingness as the final Deseruit Beast collapsed, its body split cleanly down the center.

Silence followed.

Smoke curled upward from scorched ground and steaming corpses. Shattered porcelain fragments littered the field—fallen dolls.

The golden light behind Grimm faded, the orbs unraveling into nothing as though they had never existed.

Grimm lowered his hand.

Puck stared at him.

"…That wasn't magic," she said again. "Was it?"

"No," Grimm replied calmly. "I recall saying I was unable to use magic."

She turned fully toward him, eyes wide. "Then what was it?"

He glanced down at the battlefield once more, as if confirming the outcome, before speaking. His tone was almost academic.

"My ability," he said. "I possess direct control over elements. Not through spellcasting, not through mana manipulation. I impose structure."

Puck blinked. "…Structure?"

"Yes," Grimm continued. "Light, at its most fundamental level, is electromagnetic radiation. I manipulate the conditions required for its generation—electron excitation, energy gradients, particle interaction. The orbs you observed were localized zones where I forced elemental alignment to produce coherent photons."

Her brow furrowed deeper with every word. "You… forced… photons?"

"I did not launch them at true light speed," Grimm added, almost as an afterthought. "That would be inefficient and unnecessary. Instead, I accelerated them to velocities sufficient to cause catastrophic molecular disruption upon impact."

Puck hovered there, completely lost.

"So… you made light… without magic… by rearranging… elements… and then shot it at things?" she summarized weakly.

"That is a simplified interpretation," Grimm agreed.

She stared at him for a long moment.

"…I didn't understand a single word after 'electro,'" Puck admitted.

"That is acceptable."

Below them, the porcelain people slowly began to move again.

Some approached the fallen beasts cautiously, poking at the corpses with spears as if to confirm they were truly dead. Others looked skyward, scanning for the source of the attack. A few dropped to their knees outright, hands clasped together as though in prayer.

One porcelain soldier—its paint chipped, a crack running down one cheek—looked directly up at Grimm and Puck.

"…The beasts," it said, voice hollow with disbelief. "They're… gone."

Another turned in a slow circle, taking in the devastation. "They were here a moment ago…"

Puck swallowed hard. "You just wiped them all out," she said softly. "That was hundreds of them. In seconds."

"Yes," Grimm replied.

She searched his voice for pride. For satisfaction.

There was none.

"And you did it all so easily," she said.

"Yes," he answered simply.

The porcelain people began murmuring among themselves now, confusion rippling through their ranks. Some pointed upward. Others gestured at the breached walls, clearly unsure whether the danger had truly passed.

Puck looked between them and Grimm.

"Seems they don't even know what just saved them," she murmured.

Grimm remained silent, his gaze fixed on the field below. His form did not radiate compassion or disdain, but merely assessment.

Interest.

Puck, hovering beside him, felt a chill crawl down her spine as she realized something, the reason for his dull responses.

Of course it was obvious.

He hadn't acted out of mercy.

He hadn't acted out of heroism.

He had acted because, for one brief moment—

He had been curious.

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