Overwhelmed by the music spirit’s whistling volley, the ghost frantically plucked at its harp strings, its music as wild and uncoordinated as a child smming their hands against a piano keyboard.

  The sounds emanating from the illusory a harp grew even more frenzied, dissonant, and insane. Yet, this chaos only heightehe potency of its invocation, enabling the ghost to finish casting its spell far soohan expected.

  [Dissonant Chords]!

  A glittering surge of mana burst outwards from the instrument.

  Almost like clockwork, the whistling bullets punched effortlessly through the glimmering mana wave, only to get destabilized by the harsh dissonan returheless, by the time they had fully unraveled aonated, many of the mana bullets had already advanced much farther than in previous attempts.

  Boooom~! Boom~! Boom~!

  The ghost was engulfed by a series of devastating shockwaves.

  Without waiting to see the result of her attack, the music spirit immediately slowed down her song’s tempo, transitioning from rapid sixteenth o drawn-out half notes as a sad and somber melody escaped her flute.

  A glimmering bullet of mana densed before her, the surrounding wind element maling down siderately as if not wanting to disturb its formation.

  After about three or four beats, the malevolent vortex, who had mao ehe spirit’s bombardment, roared with fury!

  Almost as if she had been awaiting this, Musiptly unleashed her spell.

  [Whistling Lulby]!

  Instinctively, the evil ghost maed its harp, strummed its strings, a out a glimmering wave of mana to intercept the spirit’s spell.

  Boom~!

  As the glimmering mana bullet burst against the dissonant mana wave, it sent out a serene shockwave that dissipated the surrounding turbulence, enveloping the area with a sense of tranquility.

  Music, seeing the ghost behavily as she anticipated, became more fident about her “pn”—if it could even be referred to as that.

  It roughly went as follows. First, she would elimihe ghost’s astral proje. Then, the moment it attempted to swirl bato existence, she would elimi once again. She would keep preventing this over and ain, until the other two spirits pleted their preparations and came to fetch her. Then, whetle spirit saesome and capable she was…!

  Just imagining it, the music spirit swirled in anticipation.

  In short, beat up the ghost, keep it from getting back up, and show off. Music’s future course of a was set.

  Still, if things didn’t go as pnned… she could always fall back to pn A: allowing herself to be chased by the ghost while occasionally provoking it. This was how ghosts were normally dealt with.

  cludihoughts, the music spirit entered an unpreted state of focus. As she deftly maniputed the keys of her flute, weaving a rapid and intricate melody, a halo of whistling mana bullets swiftly materialized around her, orbiting her like the rings of a p. In cert, the iridest mana posing her swirling mana body began to visibly wane, her ethereal form shrinking naturally to suit the new amount.

  The illusory silver flute, once perfectly sized for its user, noeared ically oversized, its wielder resembling a kindergartener clutg a bazooka. Yet, despite the absurd sight, the whistling bullets cirg around her glimmered with a dangerous iy, eae primed to unleash a devastating serving of violence upon the slightest provocation.

  Feeling as though she’d already won, the music spirit subtly looked down on the aberration in front of her.

  As, as much as she would have preferred to elimi ht… this was genuinely not worth the effort. Doing so would require her to not only exhaust the ghost of all its mana but also deplete all the wind-element mana from the enviro. Otherwise, it would simply project itself onto a new wisp of mana before rapidly rest itself by siphoning mana from the surroundings—as it had done once earlier.

  Not only was fulfilling these ditions immensely difficult but, sidering that she could obtain virtually the same result—with far greater security and minimal risk—simply by cooperating with another spirit to cast the ghost ceiling ritual… insisting on the brute force approach made little practical sense.

  As for whether her partnered spirit might flee and abandon her, Music wasn’t overly ed about this. After all, there was nothing physically preventing her from simply fleeing. Moreover, Curiosity irit, and all spirits hated ghosts!

  “Aww~! You poor thing… Allow me to show you the sound of true music!”

  With a dramatic sweep of her instrument, Musileashed the barrage of spells that had been cirg her.

  [Whistling Volley]!

  A symphony of whistling sounds reverberated through the cavern as a flurry of wind spells surged through the air. However, rather than heading straight toward the ghost, the bullets scattered into tless different dires, missing their mark entirely.

  Just when it seemed like the music spirit had fallen under some kind of illusion, the numerous whistling bullets suddenly corrected course, closing in on the ghost from every dire at once.

  Fag the spirit’s overwhelming aiculous bombardment, even in the event that the ghost mao destabilize all of the whistling bullets, as it had pulled off until now, this would not be enough to save it from the ensuing of explosions.

  “Your finished~!”

  Right at the moment when Music became assured of her victory, the ghost did something that their oppo, a proud music spirit, never could have anticipated!

  In the split sed before the whistling bullets made tact, the ghost, summoning a faihereal mana tendril, grasped onto one of the illusory a harp’s strings and yanked on it with all its might. In unison, a vast amount of mana verged around the string, sparkling brilliantly like a fsh of lightning before a thundercp.

  Music, suddenly feeling an intense sense of forewarning, immediately transformed into a swirling current of wind mana areated as quickly as possible.

  Crack~!

  As the harp string tore with a resounding snap, a terrifying shockwave erupted from the instrument. Torrents of glittering mana surged outward untrolbly, instantly redug all of the music spirit’s attacks to nothingness.

  BOOOOOOM~!!!

  Numerous crystal flowers shattered instantly, their tless glistening pieces shooting through the air, filling the cavern with a symphony of sharp, tinkling impacts as they scattered in every dire. Stactites fractured and plummeted from the cavern ceiling, their thundering impacts kig up massive plumes of dust, sending it billowing through the air.

  After waiting a couple of moments for the apocalypse to die down, the now muodestly sized music spirit gingerly peeked out from her hiding pce behind a protruding boulder, only to be stunned silly by the utter devastation.

  Everything within about teers of the explosion’s epiter had been reduced to ruins.

  Music, starting to have a bad premonition, gnced hesitantly at the ghost’s instrument.

  Now that she took a good look, she realized that the illusory a harp was missing numerous strings. With one mo appeared even more dipidated than before. In spite of that, the harp still had fourteen strings left.

  Fourteen more strings!

  Fourteen more times that it could unleash that devastating attack!

  The malevoley, swiftly deteg her gaze, roared in her dire.

  It was at this moment that Music realized… she screwed up.

  maury