Sphinx

Sphinx (スピンクス) was one of Lugnica's three enemies during the Demi-Human War as a leader of the Demi-Human Alliance. She is the first copy of Ryuzu Meyer, created in the Sanctuary by the Witch of Greed, Echidna.

Echidna attempted to possess Sphinx, however, unfortunately for the Witch of Greed, her soul was too large for the body of Sphinx to contain. Ultimately, Sphinx was only able to absorb a portion of Echidna's memories, resulting in a replica whose mental state was severely distorted. Sphinx was abandoned by Echidna, with no purpose, Sphinx began wandering the world in the hopes of becoming complete like her creator. Fortunately for her, the replica of Ryuzu did inherit a large portion of her creator's knowledge on magic, making Sphinx a potent mage.

Appearance
Despite being around four hundred years old, Sphinx perpetually maintained the body of a girl roughly ten to twelve years of age. Her dark cyan eyes and charming face usually proffered an emotionless expression befitting of her mental state. As a half-elf/half-human hybrid, Sphinx's ears were distinctively pointed. She had long fluffy light-pink hair that curved outwards at its ends and trailed down to her hips. As a replica of Ryuzu Meyer, she was physically identical to the original and all of the other copies.

The only thing Sphinx wore over her body was a long white robe. Even her feet were left completely bare. Despite her innocent physical appearance, Sphinx radiated a massive aura of malignance and malintent that indicated her existence as abominable. Her demeanour of evil was so powerful that Sphinx had no way of hiding it.

Personality
According to Ryuzu Alpha, the first few copies had broken personalities; this is shown when Sphinx had no problems with killing Libre Fermi, a fellow leader of the Demi-human Alliance, just to have someone protect her. As she has a broken personality, she doesn't have complete emotions either, being unable to understand why Wilhelm tried to keep fighting even though he was injured, however, things such as emotions intrigue her. She also has a habit of saying in short (要 you) with a verb in accordance to certain things she mentions or sees, such as saying in short: observe (要・観察 you: kansatsu) when observing Valga's actions.

History
Ryuzu Meyer was a young half-elven girl around twelve years of age that became indebted to the Witch of Greed Echidna. The Witch, with Ryuzu's permission, began experimenting on Meyer in a secret laboratory. Echidna sought to unlock immortality by cloning Meyer and transferring her consciousness to the clone, meaning she could live for ever through a long line of different clone bodies. She was able to create the first five clones of Ryuzu, the first of which she decided to transfer her conscious into. However, the quantity of information contained within Echidna's soul proved too much for the clone body to handle, resulting in an emotionless girl with a fractured mind who possessed a vast amount of magical knowledge and power, albeit not close to the level of Echidna herself.

The girl left the laboratory and journeyed into the world with the hopes of gaining a full mind. For the next few centuries the rogue clone, now known as Sphinx, travelled the world in relative obscurity. Around three hundred and fifty years later, Sphinx became involved with the Demi-Human Alliance, a large insurrectionist force based within the Kingdom of Lugnica. The Alliance, made up entirely of the marginalized demi-human races, sought to reap the blood of their oppressors, starting a civil war as a result. Alongside the giant strategic mastermind Valga Cromwell and the master duellist Libre Fermi, Sphinx was considered one of the heads of the Alliance, although her involvement was kept relatively secretive.

Two years into the civil conflict known as the Demi-Human War, Sphinx planted numerous magical circles around Castour Field (the site of an upcoming battle) at the behest of Valga Cromwell. These magic circles exploded when triggered by a person walking over them much like a landmine. During the Battle of Castour Field as it became known, Sphinx's magic circles worked with brutal efficiency, laying waste to the Kingdom's army and contributing to the Demi-Human Alliance's subsequent victory. Not long after the battle, Sphinx, Valga and the reanimated corpse of Libre Fermi enacted an attack on the Royal Castle. Sphinx was confronted by Grimm Fauzen, Carol Remendis and Roswaal J Mathers. They successfully managed to cut off one of her arms and drive her away. Upon escaping to the sewers, she was confronted by Leip Barielle who supposedly engaged in combat with her, killing her on the spot and burning her body to cinders. In truth, however, Leip cut off Sphinx' limbs and took her hostage, hiding her away somewhere underground in the Barielle territory, where she remains until this day.

Roughly forty years after the end of the Demi-Human War, Sphinx was mentioned by Ryuzu Bilma, one of the other four original clones of Ryuzu Meyer. Bilma, like the other four, had remained in the territory surrounding the laboratory for the last four centuries. One night, she indirectly mentioned Sphinx to the Japanese teenager Natsuki Subaru whilst explaining the origins of Ryuzu's various clones. Bilma also mentioned Sphinx's apparent death at the hands of Roswaal J Mathers.

Abilities
Magic (魔導士 Madōshi): Sphinx has been shown to use a number of different magics such as Fire, Water, and Earth due to the knowledge she inherited from Echidna, making her quite the potent mage.
 * Jiwald (ジワルド): Using yang magic, Sphinx was able to conjure and manipulate visible light into beams of scorching heat that laid waste to whatever object stood in its way. Offensive light magic was Sphinx's preferred method of combat. Like most spells, there were four levels of offensive light magic that increased in intensity and amount depending on the level. The most basic offensive light spell was "Jiwald" that allowed the caster to project a single beam of concentrated light out of a finger that was so fast that even the trained human eye could barely register it. Sphinx could also use the ultimate version of the Jiwald spell "Al Jiwald."
 * Al Jiwald (アル・ジワルド): The most powerful offensive spell in Sphinx's arsenal, consisted of a single ray of light projected from the Witch's entire palm. The spell was much faster and larger in scale than any of the other Jiwald variations and was easily the most destructive, usually annihilating anything in its path. That being said, the soldier Grimm Fauzen was still able to deflect Al Jiwald with his shield.
 * Fire Magic: By superheating the air around her, Sphinx could produce and manipulate fire. During her first encounter with Roswaal, Sphinx attempted to incinerate Wilhelm Trias with a vortex of flames, although the master warrior abated the fire with his sword.
 * Flying Magic (飛行魔法 Hikou Mahou): Sphinx used flying magic, allowing her to float in the sky.
 * Sacrament of the Immortal King (不死王の秘蹟 Fushiou no Hiseki): The Sacrament of the Immortal King is an ancient and incredibly powerful spell, created by an unknown Witch ages ago . The spell, when cast correctly, will allow the user to reanimate corpses of the dead and make them do their bidding . Sadly, the technique to properly cast the spell has been long lost to time, and only an incomplete incantation exists which was transcribed in an old and withered book regarded as the most important heirloom of House Argyle . Originally, however, the spell was thought to be capable of fully reviving a dead person, and there are legends of the aforementioned Witch being supposedly capable of bringing back people exactly as they were before their demise . Sadly, though, that part of the spell has not been transcribed and has been long lost to history, with no hope of ever regaining it . Effectively, the written chunks of the spell's full passage is incapable of producing anything more than walking corpses with no will of their own, whose flesh slowly withers away and decomposes through time . To further limit the usefulness of this mostly-lost spell, a caster with natural affinity for the spell must be found in order to recreate even the most basic effects of this forbidden magic – an affinity so rare, that no known person had possessed it in over a century . Finally, it should be worth bringing up that once successfully reanimating a dead person, their soul will not return to the body and they'll be nothing more than a clump of decomposing flesh . As the version Sphinx used was incomplete, she was only able to reanimate corpses.
 * Barrier: Sphinx is able to deploy a barrier that strongly affects her opponents the more magic ability they have.
 * Magic Circle: Magical Circles are a type of geometric magic algorithm used to perform complex spells and rituals that can be drawn on objects or living beings. These can produce great kinds of effects, such as large-scale magic that completely alters the state of a battlefield, imbuing an individual with extreme power, or even temporarily cutting off Divine Protections by cutting an area off from the flow of Od Laguna. However, once Magic Circles are found drawn on the ground, one can have their effects be nullified, so hiding them until activation is necessary. Since this is ancient magic, very few people know about it and even fewer are capable of using it. Magic Circles were deployed frequently by demi-humans during the Civil War.

Trivia

 * Sphinx's first appearance in The Love Song of the Sword Devil predated the initial appearances of the original Ryuzu Meyer and any of her other replicas by roughly ten months.
 * There are visual inconsistences between the description of Sphinx provided in The Love Song of the Sword Devil and the colored illustrations that accompanied it. Within the light novel, Sphinx's robe was referred to as white, yet a colored illustration displayed it as black. Additionally, the manga adaptation presented the robe as black.