A second blare of the loud siren served as the starting bell to the duel of the ages, Lina Inverse against Naga the Serpent. With their pride and the reputations of their associated factions on the line, neither sorceress would be giving up this battle easily, making it a fight that no one in Riesenfalle would soon forget.
“Alright! I’ve been waiting to shut you up for a while now, Naga!” the pint-sized adolescent called out, taking it upon herself to make the first move. By outstretching her left arm and aiming upwards at the massive leather-clad woman in front of her, Lina prepared to shoot at the gargantuan Naga, knowing that she was guaranteed to score a hit against her huge body. Aim for her breasts… Aim for her breasts… she mentally psyched herself up, targeting the mammoth mounds of envy high above her in the distance. “Let’s see if you can handle this! Flare Arrow!”
Unleashing the fire shamanistic spell against her opponent, Lina let loose the magical ruby arrow from the tip of her index finger, her salvo unfortunately already off its trajectory, poised to make contact with her target’s midsection. Confident that her rival could never dream of scratching her at her present size, Naga simply stood in place, her hands square on her hips, ready to take the small attack head on to prove her superior defenses. The instant the narrow beam of light connected with her flesh, the gigantic royalty exhaled sharply, causing her to stumble backwards from the surprising amount of force it exerted against her, exploding in a bright flash of scarlet radiance. Unable to keep her footing, the violet-maned beauty fell backwards onto her rear in complete shock, her impact rattling the land for thousands of feet around her.
“What… What was that…?!” Maius exclaimed from up in the stands, sharing the sentiment of both his partner and the rest of the town as they marveled in awe at Lina’s inexplicable firepower.
“A-hahahaha!” Linus burst out in laughter, proud of seeing his modification spell in action. “What, you think I was gonna put my little lady up against whatever you were gonna throw at me without some insurance? Think again, ya numbskull!” he boasted, smacking his son on the back of his head in the process. “Now listen up and listen good ‘cause I’m only gonna say this once, ya got it? With all the size the kid lost, I was able to do some manipulation with her magical capacities to compensate for the reduction in scale,” the old man elaborated. “First off, her spellcasting stamina’s through the roof now - she could sling spells all day and not feel the least bit tired. But the real kicker’s what I did to her magical output: by my estimations, I turned her into one heckuva powerhouse! She’s easily got over 100 times the power she had before while bein’ able to cast her spells with the same amount of mana without any sorta penalty. Heck, if I’m bein’ accurate here, I’d say it’s more like she’s close to 200 times as powerful as she was when she was normal-sized!”
Despite hearing Linus’s explanation through Maius’s communicator line, Naga placed her gloved palms against the ground and soon rose to her feet, almost immediately pointing her right index finger at the grass in the distance where her opponent resided. “What sort of trickery was that just now, Lina Inverse?!” she glowered, furious at the unexpected power behind her attack. “There’s no way a simple Flare Arrow could have that sort of force at your scale! I demand you tell me what you did at once!”
Didn’t she just hear what the old man said? Lina sighed, shaking her head at Naga’s usual ineptitude. ...Still, I guess he really was serious earlier about amping up my magics as part of his spell. If I really am this powerful, I actually might stand a chance of beating that overgrown boobs-for-brains after all… she nodded, looking down at her hands for a brief moment to admire the hidden potential newly awakened within her body. “You really need to ask, Naga? Don’t you know that big things can come in small packages, and clearly I’m no exception,” the sorceress smugly replied.
“Grrr…” the colossal beauty fumed, enraged by the answer she received. “If that’s the way you want to play it, fine! Now it’s your turn to witness just how much stronger I’ve become from my upgrade! Freeze Arrow!”
Wasting no time in preparing her counterattack, Naga retaliated with a chilling azure projectile from the tip of her right index finger, the massive magical bolt connecting with the field below and instantly turning the ground near her opponent into a frozen patch of tundra. The initial impact from the spell was powerful enough to send Lina hurdling into the air, flying high above the stalks of grass all around her as her body repeatedly somersaulted against her will. While she was not physically harmed from the sudden assault, Lina was both practically and literally blown away by the scope of Naga’s enhanced might; it seemed that by her sheer size alone, her magical power had also been scaled up proportionally with her height, making the haughty titaness even more of a threat than Lina had initially deemed her.
The Bandit Killer continued to tumble in mid-air for another two seconds, eventually managing to land on her feet on a now completely glaciated plane of turf, the icy surface slippery to the touch. “Waaaaah-ooooohh-wooooooooooah!” she yelped, struggling to maintain her balance after her touchdown, her body comically flailing left and right to re-establish her equilibrium. “Phew! That was a close one,” she sighed a few moments later, regaining her footing and wiping a few droplets of sweat from her brow. Lina proceeded to turn her gaze from her left to right, surveying the arctic wasteland that seemed to stretch onward forever from her vantage point so low to the ground, impressed by just how much the once neutral grassland had shifted in a matter of seconds. “So this is what Naga’s magic is like now, huh? If she had cast an offensive spell that could actually do some real damage, I would’ve been done for!”
“Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho! How do you like that, Lina? You’re not the only one with a magical… upgrade…” Naga trailed off, visibly becoming fatigued without warning. The sorceress bent over slightly to rest her gloved palms on her knees, breathing heavily as she found herself out of breath, completely exhausted for some inexplicable reason. “What is… going on here? Why am I… so tired…?!” she groaned between inhalations. “...And why am I almost completely out of mana all of a sudden?!”
“I can answer that one,” Maius reluctantly chimed in, his voice also being picked up by Lina’s communicator due to his proximity to his father. “I honestly had only planned on making you gigantic to show off to the town and to my father here today, so I didn’t expect you’d actually end up using magic during the Royale. Unfortunately, however, there is one minor downside of being so positively monumental, oh magnificent Goddess Naga, and that has to do with casting spells,” he explained. “You see, as the size of one’s body increases, the size of their mana pool doesn’t necessarily expand as well, but the required mana to cast the same spell does increase proportionally. Essentially, because you’ve become over fifty times your original height, give or take, you have to pay an increased cost in mana of that same multiplier as well now whenever you cast a spell. That means that if you try to fight against that pitifully small girl by using magic against magic, you’ll be quickly drained of your mana reserves in an instant, just as you are now.”
“Grrr… And why am I only learning about this now?!” the exhausted seductress barked back, finding the strength to berate her partner amidst her recuperation.
“I’m so sorry, my glorious vision of massiveness! As I said, I truly never believed the need would arise today!” Maius pleaded for mercy. “I was planning on telling you after the Royale was over, honestly! I was even going to ask father for help afterward about adjusting your mana pool if at all possible, but it seems that will have to wait until your fight is over. I’ll make it up to you, I promise! How does, erm… I can’t believe I’m doing this, but… 90/10 sound to you?”
“A 90/10 split, huh?” Naga asked, her stamina having instantly recovered from the sudden appeal to her inherently greedy nature. Standing back up to her full height, the voluptuous bombshell clapped her hands together, reinvigorating herself to get back into the battle at hand. “If that’s the case, then I guess I can overlook that indiscretion for the time being, though I’ll make sure you fix this after I win,” she pompously asserted. “For now though, while I had wanted to settle our score in a contest of magic, I’ll simply have to settle for crushing Lina physically instead!”
The leather-clad titaness immediately stomped forward, capitalizing on her motivation to keep the pace of the battle in her favor. Naga’s initial footfall shook the earth powerfully, causing Lina to fall down onto the frozen grassland without any opportunity to catch herself, succumbing to the giantess’s successive strides as she continued strolling at a slow, ominous pace. It only took a total of four steps before Naga was in proper striking range of her target, pausing in place and cementing her left boot on the ground to steady her footing. In the next second, she raised her right foot over her target, casting Lina in the darkness of her immense shadow.
“Woah! Not good!” Lina panicked, sensing the imminent doom high above her. “Raywing!” A spherical shield of wind instantly formed around Lina’s body, blowing her away from the danger zone with the force of an incredible gust behind it, narrowly dodging Naga’s vicious strike just in the nick of time. The strands of solidified grass shattered instantly and exploded outwards into countless chunks of icy shrapnel, littering Lina’s escape path with a barrage of hail from all directions. Luckily for Lina, the barrier created by the air shamanistic spell served as a natural defensive cover, deflecting the rain of shards the moment they touched the swirling winds. “What the hell, Naga?!” she shouted up at her off-and-on comrade. “Are you seriously trying to kill me?!”
“Sorry, Lina, but I really don’t think anyone’s going to mind if I end up squishing a little bug like you. Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
After confirming that her miniscule rival had survived her attack, Naga remained on the offensive, picking her boot up off the ground and performing a second mighty blow against the planet’s crust, shattering more of the frozen field beneath her footwear. Thanks to her numerous adventures with the annoying mage, Lina was able to successfully predict where Naga would stomp next, avoiding her attack with another use of Raywing. The duo’s game of cat and mouse continued on for a while longer, with Naga using both of her feet to try and crush her rival like a common housefly, while Lina furiously casted spell after spell to propel her away from the merciless rampage of her opponent. It was in the midst of Lina’s thirteenth cast of Raywing, however, that Naga saw her opening, deciding to fake out the shrunken sorceress with a feint, prompting Lina to preemptively use her spell and throw her off her timing. Seizing the opportunity, a mighty boom thundered outwards from the point of impact as the purple-haired titaness stomped harder than ever before, certain that she had landed a direct hit. The meadowy battlefield became deathly silent in the aftermath of the decisive strike, not even the gentle breeze of the wind daring to disturb the sanctity of the moment, mourning the death of Lina Inverse. The entire population of Riesenfalle looked on with baited breath, stunned at the outcome of the match; even both of the competing Vastonia men were at a loss for words, neither of them ever foreseeing that the battle would have taken such a dark turn for the worst.
“Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!” the mighty Naga cackled, her laughter slicing through the quietude as she could not help but bask in her victory. “Well, I guess we can call it a day. I think we know who won the Royale this year, hmmm?” she grinned, shrugging her pauldron-clad shoulders with impertinence. “It was such a shame poor Lina had to perish, but you know, I really think-”
“Mega Brand!”
A massive explosion instantly triggered from beneath the 300-foot tall woman’s body, launching her high into the air; beneath where Naga once stood, the remnants of a familiar magical seal rapidly began to fade, revealing an enormous pink circle roughly as large as she was. The spectators to this epic clash of sorceresses immediately let out cheers of delight as the gargantuan Naga fell to the ground with a mighty thud a great distance away, her entire body burnt to a crisp from the incredible power behind the spell. In a rare act of unified relief, father and son happily embraced one another in a tight hug in the stands, overjoyed that Lina had made it out alive and was still in the competition.
“Kid, I dunno how the hell you pulled that off, but that was one heckuva comeback!” Linus congratulated his combatant. “Next time you’re gonna pull somethin’ like that, warn me first, got it? Damn near gave both me and the entire town here a collective heart-attack!”
“I know this is a contest and all, but even I wouldn’t want to see you killed,” Maius concurred in the sentiment, sighing heavily as he felt a lump disappear from his throat. “How on earth did you survive that?” he asked, putting his ear up against his father’s to listen in to his communicator.
“Honestly? It’s because I’m just lucky enough that Naga’s a complete idiot!” Lina responded from down within the grass, confidently crossing her arms beneath her non-existent chest.
“Lina Inverse is still alive?!” an irate Naga exclaimed, immediately rising back to feet and appearing to be fully healed, her penchant for comedically instantaneous recovery triggering for the second time in this fight. “But I thought I crushed her completely? I didn’t see you move out of the way out of my boot! There’s no way she could have possibly survived that!”
“Well, you’re right about one thing, Naga: I didn’t move outta the way at all,” Lina explained, running her left hand through her orange mane to flaunt her ingenuity. “You see, it took me a few stomps of yours to realize that even though you were trying to crush me, even if you managed to hit me dead on, there was still a ‘safe zone’ of sorts that I could always get to even if I couldn’t escape: the arch of your heel. Unlike my shoes, those black boots of yours have a pretty wide arch, big enough for someone to duck under if they needed to - and with my smaller size, I’d have a lot more room to hide in it. I figured you’d try and trip me up sometime, so I just waited for the right moment and pretended to fall for your trap. Like you could really fool me with just how predictable you are!” she gloated. “All I had to do then was wait for you to drop your guard. That annoying laugh of yours was the cue I needed to let you have it!”
“Hmph!” the giantess scowled, enraged at the smaller magician’s masterful gambit. Not willing to be humiliated by another tactful display of Lina’s magics, Naga decided it was time to level the playing field back in her favor by revealing her secret trump card. Raising her left hand in front of her, Naga’s once livid visage had become calm, cool, and collected, a devious grin forming on her beautiful features. “Well, if that’s the way you want to play it, then I suppose you leave me with no other choice but to use my secret weapon…”
“Secret weapon?” Lina blinked, confused by her ominous threat.
“That’s right. For you see, I, too, have a hidden power I’ve yet to demonstrate, only to be used as a last resort should I need to use it,” the smug sorceress continued. “And given how our battle is going, now seems like the perfect time for me to use it. Behold, Lina Inverse, my own new special ability: the power to grow even larger at will whenever I so desire! Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
“W-What?! Naga can… Naga can get even bigger?!” Lina exclaimed as her eyes widened in shock, taking a step backwards in surprise out of instinct.
“You tellin’ me that ugly chick of yours can grow whenever she damn well pleases?!” Linus shouted at his son, equally baffled by the sudden discovery. “What the hell’s the matter with you?!”
“That’s…” Maius began, pausing as his muse’s heavenly laughter dominated the air around him. “I… I can’t believe she said that…” he immediately facepalmed, too embarrassed by her divulgence to say anything further on the subject.
“That’s right! With just a simple statement of desire, I can take on any greater height I please!” Naga confidently bragged, feeling her fractured ego rejuvenating rapidly as she drank in the astonishment of the entire town marveling at her latent ability. “Now then, Lina Inverse, prepare yourself as I, Naga the Serpent, become even larger and more powerful! I wish to be taller than all the mountains in the land!”
Lina, the Vastonia family, and the entire population of Riesenfalle watched on with bated breath as the haughty colossus declared her future size, utterly afraid by how much havoc she would wreak on the region as a whole if she truly shot up to such an excessively large stature to continue the battle. With everyone else unable to take their eyes off of her or even daring to make a move, Naga proudly took a forceful step forward towards her rival, carrying with her an air of mystical anticipation of what she was certain would be an explosive growth spurt.
“What’s the matter? Have you finally realized that I was simply going easy on you?” the leather-clad goddess taunted, taking another earth-shattering footfall to further close the distance between the two combatants. “Any moment now, I’ll grow to my desired height just as I did before, and this time, I want to make sure you get to watch it as up close and personally as possible. After all, it’s not just any day that you can say you were defeated by your opponent merely becoming bigger and stronger instead of actively needing to attack you, right? But then again, I suppose factoring in that pitiful downgrade of yours in the height department, I could merely grow a tiny bit and look like I’ve practically doubled in size compared to you! Ohhhhhh-hohoho-”
Just as Naga seemed poised to unleash the full strength of her growth within a mere step away from Lina, her usual overbearing laughter was unexpectedly interrupted as she began to plummet towards the ground almost instantly. In the midst of her next stride, Naga had tripped over a large rock in her path that was obscured by her enhanced bosom, causing her to pratfall face-first into the meadowland below her. Though Lina herself knew all of Naga’s weaknesses and reactions, even the young sorceress could not have predicted her sudden lack of carefulness while in the midst of her temerity, leaving her with no time at all to dodge the incoming titaness. With the force of a meteor crashing into terra firma, the 300 foot woman slammed into the earth, instantly falling unconscious from the force of the impact.
While the entire town was left to marvel at the overgrown sorceress’s display of foolishness, Lina now found herself pinned underneath the massive Naga, unable to move a muscle underneath her 9000 ton form. “Nggh… Damn Naga… Why the hell is she so freakin’ heavy?!” she complained aloud, currently attempting to free herself from an unknown prison. While being too dark to see anything and with her arms and legs pressed together by soft, pliable walls surrounding her on all sides, the Bandit Killer was powerless to even attempt casting a simple Lighting spell to discern where she was on Naga’s body. “Darn it! If only I just had a hand free!” Lina lamented. “Ugh… Well, at least I’m still alive. It’s probably because I’m as small as I am that I actually managed to survive at all, really,” she reasoned, beginning to calm herself down and become focused. “Alright, let’s think about this for a second. Naga fell forward when she tripped, which means this is the front part of her body. It looked like she was still pretty far away from where I saw her, so if that’s the case, then…” Pausing momentarily to test a sudden theory in the back of her mind, Lina pressed her right hand tightly into the restrictive wall at her side, pushing with as much force as possible before suddenly relenting and bringing her hand back to her side.
BOOOOOOOOING!
“No… NO! You have got to be kidding me!” the miniscule mage shouted as loud as she could, horrified by the familiar sound she had just experienced, all but confirming her present location. “I’m trapped… I’m trapped in Naga’s cleavage?! Of all the places it had to be, why the hell did it have to be her breasts?! Damn it, I’ve gotta get outta here, and fast!”
Upon her astonishing deduction that she was currently imprisoned in Naga’s bosom, the feisty teen immediately struggled against the resilient walls of mammary that held her in place, desperately trying to escape before Naga could wake up, knowing full well what would happen if the larger woman were to spot her. Lina tried to move her body in every which way imaginable, using whatever bit of leeway she had to try punching and kicking the fleshy orbs, attempting to free herself one fraction of an inch at a time. Unfortunately for her, the enhanced malleability of Naga’s chest in relation to Lina’s height made them truly invincible foes when it came down to a contest of physical strength; the perfectly round, supple spheres effortlessly bounce-countered her every move, making her efforts completely and utterly futile. “Damn it, Naga, why the hell are your boobs so freakin’ huge?! These were supposed to be my boobs, not yours!” she wailed to no effect. “Get up already, you big oaf!”
A short time later, the earth began to stir as Naga slowly started to regain consciousness, drawing countless murmurs and shouts from the crowd in the distance to mark the continuation of the battle. As her sapphire eyes slowly fluttered open, the mighty seductress waited several moments for her mind to recover, letting a light haze clear from her head before trying to figure out what had happened. “Mmm… Mmm?” she lightly groaned, placing her gloved palms on the ground to gradually prop her body upwards as she assessed the situation. “Hmmm? Ah, I get it now. My growth spurt must have truly taken it out of me. Everything looks so much smaller already…” she boasted, gently picking herself off of the terrain and rising back up to her full height, admiring her ‘increased’ stature. “I barely even recognize this place. Oh, how I wish I could see the look on poor Lina’s face after witnessing my hidden trump card in action. Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
Unaware that she had brought a pint-sized passenger along for the ride, Naga’s smug laughter sent her chest bouncing, pummeling Lina from all directions just as daylight was restored to her vision. The constant wobbling of the supple mounds left the smaller sorceress with little recourse other than to scream into her opponent’s chest flesh for attention; the massive orbs completely absorbed any sound Lina made into them, rendering her resistance completely hopeless. After several more seconds of torture in her new personal nightmare, fortune seemed to shine upon the Bankit Killer for a brief moment, allowing her head to pop into open space between the mounds for a chance at freedom. “...ga!” Lina barely succeeded in yelling yell out, only managing to get the final syllable of the giantess’s name out of her mouth before being smashed by more of the unyielding tan mountains surrounding her.
“Ohhhhhh-hoho-Huh?” Naga paused in the middle of her second wave of laughter, her superior hearing picking up on the call of her name from parts unknown. “That sounded almost like Lina…”
With the larger woman’s chest now suddenly settling down from her regained composure, Lina was no longer passively subjected to the merciless battering of the bouncy balloons of her prison, allowing her to once again speak freely without any dampening effect. “That’s ‘cause it is me, Naga!” the orange-haired captive angrily shouted back, wasting no time in making her presence known. “Down here!”
“Hmm?” Blinking several times out of confusion, the massive mage immediately craned her neck downwards, almost immediately spying a brightly-colored oddity wedged in her cleavage due to her enhanced vision. “Is that… Lina?” Naga asked, curiously pressing her right index finger against her right breast and partially freeing up Lina’s body in the process. “How the devil did you end up in there? And how come I can still see you? Don’t tell me you grew too somehow?”
“Finally, I’m free!” Lina cheered, throwing both hands above her head to stretch her limbs. With Naga’s finger providing the support needed to escape the cavernous cleavage, the sorceress wasted no time in using the springy flesh as a series of trampolines, bouncing off one orb to the next in rapid succession until she cleared the canyon entirely, landing on the surface of Naga’s left breast in no time at all. After taking a moment to catch her breath, Lina stared daggers at her off-and-on companion, unleashing a vicious tirade. “Naga, you idiot! You didn’t get bigger; you just tripped over yourself and landed on top of me!” she roared. “Ugh, I can’t take this any longer! Flare Arrow!”
Using an alternative version of the fire family spell, over a dozen flaming magical arrows appeared all around Lina, surrounding her in a circle for a brief instant before immediately advancing straight towards Naga’s face. Due to the naturally quick cast time of the spell, her target had absolutely no time to defend herself from the close-range attack, every last scorching bolt scoring a direct hit against her heavenly visage. Naga was immediately sent reeling backwards with a loud shout of pain, instinctively covering her face with both her hands to shield herself from any further blows, passively bouncing her attacker from her body in the process.
“Woaaaaaaah! Levitation!” Lina shouted as she fell from roughly 250 feet in the air, quickly chanting a spell to save her from certain doom. As she rapidly flew down to the ground from a relative height of thirty-nine miles, the plucky heroine could only watch as the titanic Naga stumbled backwards into Bony Day Hill, using it to prop herself up as she continued to stagger in pain from the point-blank barrage against one of the most vulnerable parts of her body. “At least that’s over for now,” the petite teen sighed with relief, continuing her descent back to terra firma. “What the heck just happened back there?”
“Couldn’t tell ya, kiddo,” Linus interposed, trying to answer her over their communicators. “I’m just about as baffled as you are. Hey, Maius, you better tell us just what the hell is going on with that crazy broad of yours!”
“I… I might as well tell you,” his son lamented, throwing up his hands in embarrassment. “The truth is that my ethereal deity really can’t grow any further. It was just a lie I told her earlier so she wouldn’t try to accidentally crush me before the show started. I told her that it’d be usable sometime after or late in the Royale just to keep it out of her mind, but I never thought she’d actually try and attempt it, honest! You can trust me; Naga is incapable of becoming any larger than she is now.”
“Seriously?! So Naga really only did that because you told her she could? No wonder she tried to get bigger!” Lina barked back at the younger Vastonia. “How the heck do we know he’s tellin’ the truth anyway?”
“I’ll vouch for him on that one,” the old man replied. “My son might be a lotta things, but after livin’ with him for all these years, it’s not too hard for me to tell when he’s tellin’ the truth or not. You can rest easy kid; Maius ain’t lying. Doubt he’s got the heart to tell your nutty friend about it either, so you can use it to your advantage and take her out!”
“Heh, well, if you say so…” A short time later, Lina had finally landed back in a sea of grass-trees, the towering stalks serving as both a familiar sight and a bastion of relaxation, allowing her to take in a deep breath and compose herself just as her Levitation spell faded. “Alright, I’ve had enough of this,” she spoke, a strong determination now present in her serious tone of voice. “It’s time to finish this once and for all!” Concentrating her magical energy into the palms of her hands, Lina slowly raised her arms above her head, channeling her power for a final blow. The masterful sorceress proceeded to gently close her scarlet eyes, focusing on the incantation for her signature attack:
Power beyond the twilight
and crimson blood that flows,
Buried in the stream of time
is where your power grows,
I pledge myself to conquer,
all the foes who stand
Before the mighty gift bestowed,
in my unworthy hand...
DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGON SLAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!
Calling upon the power of Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu, Lina’s eyes opened broadly as she maneuvered her arms from a vertical to a horizontal position, an incredible orb of ruby light now being held together between her gloved palms. The strongest spell in the black magic family of magical arts was ready to be unleashed, and wasting no time in using it, Lina hurled the pulsating sphere at her opponent, watching as it sailed off into the distance at incredible speed. Meanwhile, just as Lina had launched her finishing blow, Naga had finally recovered from the Flare Arrow assault, her face free of any noticeable marks, save for a slight bit of dust on her cheeks, as she lowered her hands.
“Urgh! That Lina! How dare she do that to me!” the noble beauty fumed, clearly enraged by the ambush. “And for that matter, how come my special ability didn’t work? Maius said that just about now should be the time that it should be able to be used again, so how come it… Hey, what’s that light over there?”
Leaning her head forward out of curiosity, Naga managed to spy a bright crimson spark emanating from the ground in the distance, observing the anomaly as it expeditiously closed in on her location. Before she could identify what exactly the strange spark was, it had made contact with her body, scoring a direct hit against her left boot. A massive mushroom cloud immediately engulfed both Naga and the surrounding area for thousands of feet around her, destroying everything without prejudice in a gigantic sphere of destruction. Due to Linus’s enhancement of Lina’s magical potential, the normally ultra-destructive spell had become further amplified to the next level - broad and destructive enough to level a city with ease - making it the perfect weapon to defeat a fortified opponent such as Naga. The incredible winds formed by the spell’s spontaneous explosion could be felt back in Riesenfalle proper, citizens being blown away left and right by the intense gales surging throughout the area of effect. Closer to the blast zone, the Vastonia males watched on in amazement as Lina made her move, both of them quickly having to grab hold of a metal railing on the stands to prevent themselves from being blown away as well. While they had hoped to avoid a similar fate, the railing itself gave way almost instantly, throwing them high into the air as they screamed for their lives, at the mercy of gravity for the potential of a relatively safe landing.
It took a full twenty seconds after Lina cast the Dragon Slave for the lingering effects of the burning wall of searing crimson energy to begin dissipating, leaving a massive crater in the earth from where the fairgrounds once stood. Bony Day Hill, the distinguished complement of the Bony Day Spring, had been completely vaporized in the attack; a mere pile of leftover sedimentary rocks was all that remained of the former natural monument, a true testament to the Dragon Slave’s unmatched destructive power. In the nearby lake, the titanic Naga lay flat on her back, her eyes in a complete daze and glazed over, utterly defeated by Lina’s ultimate attack. Despite her enhanced size and defenses, Lina’s magical power was simply too much for even the overgrown Naga to survive unscathed, solidly handing the victory to her diminutive rival.
“That should do it,” Lina nodded, clapping her hands together to congratulate herself on a job well done. Surveying the obliterated battleground all around her and witnessing her defeated opponent remaining unmoving in the distance, she solemnly tilted her head downwards slightly and closed her eyes, confident in her victory. “The aftermath of an intense battle is always so grave and tragic for all…”
“...Kid… Kid, ya hear me?” a familiar voice mumbled in her ear.
“Old man Linus?” Lina blinked, surprised to hear the change in his tone. “You alright?”
“Well, as well as I can be. Damn near killed the two of us with your spell back there!” he replied, instantly back to his usual level of vigor while yelling at his representative. “Luckily, I had Maius to cushion my fall, so I’m fine.”
“Can’t say I’m much better off though…” Maius grumbled, rubbing his back in mild pain while standing next to his father, both men having been whisked away back to town from the incidental gusts created by the Dragon Slave. “Ouch…”
“Eh, quit yer yappin’! You young ‘uns are supposed ta be fulla energy!” Linus admonished him, clonking him on the back of the head. “As for you, Lina… If the townspeople hadn’t evacuated when they did, you mighta killed everyone in Riesenfalle! What the hell’s a-matter with you?! Using that kinda spell so close to other people like that… Didn’t you remember your power’s amplified?!”
“I, uh… I guess it just sorta slipped my mind, y’know?” Lina awkwardly chuckled, scratching the back of her head nervously to partially deflect the master mage’s ire. “But everything worked out fine, right? I mean, minus the whole area being destroyed, but nothing really was lost. The important thing here is that I won, hands down! And since I did, you can undo the spell now, right?”
“Well, about that…”
The ground slowly started to rumble in the distance just as Linus was about to elaborate, drawing the attention of the entire town. From the depths of the spring, Naga gradually began to sit up, pulling her boots towards her buttocks before placing her hands on the ground to assist her with standing up to her full height. Groggily taking a step forward, the weakened giantess made sure to step with the whole of her foot, clearly too exhausted to even remain standing for a long period of time.
“Well, I should’ve expected nothing less from Naga. She sure is persistent if nothing else…” Lina grinned, crossing her arms beneath her non-existent chest to take on an arrogant posture. “Hey Naga, it’s over! Just give up already! I’ve already won!”
“That’s… what you think… Lina Inverse…” the exasperated magus answered between heavy breaths, never before feeling so exhausted and bruised in all her life. “...But I’ve just been holding back… I’ve yet to reveal my true… trump card!”
“Oh brother, not this again…” Lina said just before facepalming into her right hand.
“I was just going easy on you last time… but now you’ll see just what I’m truly capable of… This time, I won’t hold anything back!... Watch and be amazed as I will myself so large…” Naga paused, holding her left index out in front of her, “...that I can hold the entire planet on the tip of my finger!”
“Ugh, she’s so dense…” the Bandit Killer sighed, shaking her head into her gloved palm. “Naga, for the last time, you can’t-”
To everyone’s surprise, the planet’s crust once again trembled ceasingly, only this time, Naga was not moving a muscle. Instead, the purple witch’s entire body was shaking uncontrollably, causing her to let out a slight gasp of pleasure as a familiar shiver traveled down the back of her spinal cord.
“But… But how…?! This shouldn’t even be possible…!” a bewildered Maius spoke up, his eyes widening in pure terror at the sight of his personal goddess displaying a familiar set of symptoms.
“Eh? What’s not possible, Maius?” Linus blinked as he turned to face his son. “What the hell’s come over you? Ya look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“This… I’ve seen this before… It was right after I tricked her into growing for the first and only time several hours ago at my workshop…” the younger Vastonia explained, his body now quivering with both fear and excitement simultaneously. “I wasn’t lying earlier when I said my divine muse could only grow but once… but now… I don’t know how this is happening, but it seems that she’s… she’s unlocked the ability to grow she pleases once again…!”
“What did you say?!” both Linus and Lina shouted in unison, flabbergasted at the revelation.
“Wait, so you’re telling me Naga actually can get as big as she says she wants to be?” the fiery-haired sorceress inquired. “But if that’s true, then that means…”
“Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!” the overconfident noblewoman cackled, her curvaceous physique rapidly rising higher and higher in the moments after her haughty laughter commenced. Enlarging at a rate of several dozen feet per second, Naga could feel her spurt showing signs of rampant acceleration almost immediately, her stamina recovering in mere moments as her growth seemed to refresh her with its continual rush of empowerment.
While the sudden awakening of Naga’s at-will enlargement ability was a truly unexpected development and an impossibility under normal circumstances, it was the battle itself that facilitated the unlocking of this legendary power for her through the right combination of serendipitous elements. When Naga was hit with the Dragon Slave, it panned out that the impact from the initial collision managed to dislodge the vial of enchanted water that was hidden away in her skull ornament; the tiny bottle flew out, landed in her mouth, and was accidentally swallowed by the sorceress. To anyone else, the sacred waters of the Fountain of Growth would have aged the imbiber into a much older version of themselves, turning Naga’s insides into those of an eighty-year-old immediately upon consumption. However, due to her treatment and exposure to its effects via Maius’s ritual spell, it instead resonated with her body, giving Naga numerous positive growth-related boons, all to be activated upon another at-will spurt. This, in turn, reactivated the one-time use of the ancient magics to evolve into an anytime talent with infinite usage, heralding the vainglorious sorceress as a master of the enlarging arts.
"Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!" Naga burst out in another bout of her signature smug laughter, the volume of her naturally loud voice amplifying exponentially as her body continued to rapidly shoot outwards in all directions.
"Oh, come on!" Lina growled as she jumped to safety beneath the arch of Naga's right heeled boot as it swiftly approached her location, Bony Day Spring itself quickly turning into nothing but a footnote on the buxom woman's path to godhood.
As she expanded without end, the citizens gathered back in Riesenfalle were able to view the expanding beauty rapidly nearing them without moving a muscle, her feet ravaging the land mere moments later, bulldozing through everything in their path to give herself more room to grow. Fifty miles came and went, as did a hundred, and soon two hundred miles, the milestones bringing with them an equivalent amount of loss of life and absolute calamity. In no time at all, she grew through the ancient Monster Barrier with ease, shattering it into countless magical shards that were instantly absorbed into her being as fuel for her ascension. Entire kingdoms soon fell to the unrelenting power of Naga's ever-expanding leather, her weight causing the ground to crack, shatter, and rumble uncontrollably with her seemingly infinite growth, swallowing up massive swathes of land into the depths of the planet. Streams of lava burst forth from the mantle in an effort to alleviate some of the pressure placed upon the world, consequently flooding innocent towns by the dozens as an accidental aftermath of the planet's self-defense mechanism.
Unfortunately for the denizens of the world and the planet itself, Naga was not merely becoming physically larger, but growing in other ways as well. Mipross Island’s fabled Fountain of Growth certainly lived up to its reputation as practically everything about the mighty sorceress improved exponentially. While most notable to the masses - and Lina herself - would be an almost doubling of her current cup size, Naga's greatest improvement would be her "growth" beyond mortality: the complete loss of all necessary mortal survival functions such as sleeping, breathing, and the need to maintain homeostasis through daily consumption. A being now beyond the concerns of humankind, even Naga's cells had ceased aging through the perpetual and eternal upkeep of her homeostatic mechanisms, rendering her eternally youthful and an ageless immortal. Of course, while Naga would only appreciate these new perks in due time, the noblewoman herself was most impressed by the growth of her own inherent magical abilities. Mystical energies flowed throughout the sorceress's expanding physique like a raging river, making her the most powerful spellcaster on the planet without question as her might continued to swell, liberating her of the former cost increases exacerbated by Maius’s original ritual. By the time she was 300 miles tall, Naga was certain she could cast the Dragon Slave at least twenty times in a row without any form of incantation, that number only increasing in proportion to her height.
As the world struggled to survive against the relentless onslaught of the mighty Naga the Serpent, their newborn goddess blessed them with the first of many gifts upon reaching 5000 miles in height, just after her boot sunk into a neighboring continent.
"Levitation!" Naga proudly declared, her body soon coated in a heavenly aura of pure white light as she began to gradually float off of the planet's surface, allowing her to continue her evolution unabated in the depths of space. The people of the world were utterly helpless but to crane their necks upwards in sheer awe and terror, watching their goddess become an even more unstoppable force of nature, a modern deity in a world where the old gods now slumbered or had long since passed.
Back on the remnants of Riesenfalle Centennial Magic Royale battleground, Lina gradually struggled back up onto her feet, utterly astonished by how much pure magical potential was brewing within her companion. Of course, Lina's amazement quickly turned into jealousy and envy as her eyes became glued to the size of Naga's chest, immediately irritated by how much larger the already-buxom woman was sporting for all to see. "What the hell?!" the Bandit Killer screamed as she stomped her right foot against the cracked earth below her in protest. "Those are supposed to be my boobs!"
Several more minutes passed before, by some miracle of the heavens, Naga's growth gradually tapered down to a stop, the effects of her new ability no longer persisting due to finally reaching her desired stature. By her own estimation, Naga was roughly 350,000 miles tall, the planet itself now a mere bluish-green marble hovering in front of her cleavage, a veritable toy to the fledgling deity. In addition, to say that Naga's magical abilities were now enormous would be an insult to just what she was now capable of casting. Not only was her magical regeneration nearly instantaneous, but were the Giga Slave not exclusive to Lina, the almighty sorceress could chain the spell - without incantation - all day without feeling any tax on her vast stores of power. As a final testament to her ultimate power, Naga's body was now surrounded by an ethereal radiance, a natural barrier that absorbed any magics cast against her, adding their mana costs directly into her own stores in the process. In every sense of the word, the sorceress known as Naga the Serpent had evolved into an absolute, all-powerful, invincible goddess.
"Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!" the newly crowned deity triumphantly laughed, resting her right hand atop her cleavage as she stared down at the world in front of her chest, her almighty voice defying all logic and piercing the vacuum of space, rattling reality itself around her. "Well, Lina, I told you that I was merely refraining from using my true ace in the hole out of respect for your own skill, but now, I won’t be holding back any longer,” she threatened, speaking directly to her rival as her eyes zoomed in to focus on Lina’s location. “I think I’ll be the bigger person here and allow you to do something you didn’t bother affording me: the luxury of admitting defeat now before we continue our battle and I utterly crush you once and for all! Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!"
With Naga's powerful laughter shaking the planet to its core with her every syllable, Lina could only growl at her fellow sorceress-turned-divinity with the utmost contempt as she covered her ears to protect herself, her blood boiling at the power and beauty that was meant for her. “What did you just say to me?!” the less-than-an-inch-high spellcaster fired back, utterly infuriated by the offer.
“Woah, woah, woah! Calm down there, little lady!” Linus called out from within her communicator, attempting to pacify the feisty mage. “There’s no way you can win this fight now.”
“Father’s right,” Maius concurred. “You don’t stand a chance against… against…”
“Don’t you dare say it, son!”
“The Divine Goddess Naga!”
“Oh brother…” Lina sighed, not needing another headache in the form of Maius’s delusions to add onto her already full plate of problems. “I’m surprised you two are alive though. Guess you made it out alright too, huh?”
“Heh, even the end of the world won’t bring down the Vastonia men!” Linus beamed with pride.
“We simply made a barrier over ourselves and used our combined talents to reinforce it like crazy,” his son added. “Can’t say the same for the rest of the town though, and most of the world, really. I’m almost certain Erinn’s fine somewhere out there, however. She may not look like it, but she’s still a Vastonia; she can definitely protect herself if she’s in a real pinch just like we did.”
Uh, didn’t she get into a life or death situation that she couldn’t get out of on her own when we first met? I’m pretty sure she’s probably not fine… the teenager mentally griped. “Well, whatever. What are we gonna do about Naga then?”
“Egging her on won’t be good for anyone, especially for the planet itself,” Naga’s sponsor answered. “Your only hope is to stall her by any means possible. I don’t know how, but you two are good friends, right? If you can think of something to buy us a lot of time, I think my father and I might be able to come up with another ritual art with an opposite effect to override the original modification.”
“That’s it?! That’s literally all you’ve come up with?!”
“Hey, it took both of us all night to change you two to how you were at the start of the Royale!” Linus bellowed. “With a problem of this magnitude, it’ll probably take us that long working together, so the more time you can buy us, the better. Doubt you wanna live with those oversized udders hoverin’ over the world for the rest of your days, right?”
“Grrr… You’ve got me there…” Lina huffed, staring into the sky and growling at Naga’s voluminous chest filling the entirety of the firmament. “Alright, I’ll do what I can, but no promises, got it?”
“We’ll take whatever you can give us, so just focus on distracting her as best you can. C’mon, Maius, we gotta get started thinkin’ of how the heck we’re gonna fix your mistake…”
Calming herself momentarily, Lina took in a deep breath to collect her thoughts, deciding to play on Naga’s general stupidity to prolong the battle indefinitely. Readying herself to play the part, the young magician shook her left gloved fist up at her new goddess of an opponent with all the rage she could muster, knowing that her competition could see her clearly. “Hey Naga, you hear me up there, you big idiot?!” she prefaced. “There’s no way I’d ever just give up like that! Who the heck do you think I am anyway? Not to mention that you’re not the only one who’s been holding back this entire time,” she continued, expertly lying through her teeth. “Old man Linus didn’t wanna hurt his kid’s feelings by telling him how much more powerful I actually became thanks to his magics, but now that he’s given me the OK, I can use just a little more of my new strength and make you wish you had given up a long time ago. You’re gonna have to be a lot bigger than that if you wanna defeat me, Naga. My power’s literally out of this world, so don’t think for a second that I won’t be able to beat you down even now!”
“Hmmm… Well, you wouldn’t be my rival if you truly weren’t an opponent worthy of defeating, Lina Inverse,” Naga mused, her every word oozing with unbridled smug. “In that case, I guess I’ll have to show you just what my full power looks like as well. Of course, I wouldn’t want any accidents to happen in the meantime, so for the time being, I don’t think you’ll mind if I keep the planet safe between my big, beautiful, bountiful, perfect breasts, now will you?” she proudly taunted, knowing that Lina would be seething with bust envy.
Carefully moving her right hand in front of her mammoth chest, the violet-haired goddess gracefully extended her index finger and thumb, bringing her gloved digits within close proximity of the planet. With an elegant display of dexterity representative of her noble upbringing and superior nature, Naga gently placed her fingers on opposite sides of the globe, making sure to target already-devastated areas to minimize casualties while applying as little pressure as possible so that she would not accidentally pinch the fragile world into oblivion. Once the macrocosm was safely in her grip, the interplanetary deity plucked the spheroid from its ethereal foundation, bringing it towards the top of her bosom and proceeding to expertly press the southern hemisphere of the world into her cleavage, safely trapping it between her invincible mounds. Where only a few minutes earlier Naga’s breasts dominated the heavens, her skull necklace was now on display for those still alive on the top of the relocated planet, the old charm’s deathly symbolism a grim reminder of what their new deity was capable of doing to the planet whenever the mood struck her fancy. For those who were unfortunate enough to still subsist near the planet’s equator or its southern half, they were greeted by the gentle pressure of Naga’s enormous orbs relentlessly pushing against the planet, smothering them on all sides by her feminine perfection. In a strange twist, however, it seemed that Naga’s barrier of invincibility had passively covered the globe in her holy radiance, acting on her will to protect the planet and its people completely while in the comfort of her cleavage until her quarrel with her rival was fully settled. Regardless of where anyone was located, everyone on the cosmic marble was now a captive, eternally imprisoned on the chest of the buxom goddess for as long as she desired.
“Ah, there we are,” the haughty deity nodded, boastfully placing her hands on her hips before readjusting her vision to remain focused on her insignificant challenger atop her latest acquisition. “Now then, Lina Inverse, witness the full might of the all-powerful Naga the Serpent! As the supreme sorceress that I am, I’m going to grow until there’s nothing left to outgrow, because then, and only then, will we be able to truly cut loose!” Naga proudly declared, excited by the thought of finally trouncing her frenemy and being officially declared the greatest sorceress to ever live. “Of course, I have no idea just how long that’ll take, but I can assure you, once I get there, we’ll settle our fight once and for all! Prepare yourself as I wish for absolutely nothing else to be bigger than I am, everything else to be held in the palm of my hand before the Royale can truly be brought to its grand finale!”
“Did… Did she just... “ Lina fumbled, unable to get the words out of her mouth after hearing Naga’s latest and most ludicrous proclamation to date. “...Did she just say she wanted to outgrow everything?!”
“You… You can’t be serious, right?” Linus gawked, at a loss for words himself after comprehending the massive woman’s plan. “Maius, she doesn’t possibly have that kinda power in her, right? Right?!”
“I… I absolutely love it! This is what I’ve always dreamed of! B-But I… I never truly thought that it would actually happen… She… She does remember that this is permanent, right?” his son worriedly asked, watching on as Naga’s entire body began to shake with a reality-warping energy, her godly magical power about to truly make her as omnipotent as she blustered.
“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HOHOHOHOHO!” Naga’s all-encompassing laughter resonated throughout time and space, her ever-growing form beginning its quest to outgrow all of creation and beyond to ready herself for the ultimate battle between sorceresses to come...
To be continued…?