I'll Drag You Down

Anon Urdra. A Theoricus of the Lightning Academy — a man who had bloomed the seed of his world two entire ranks above my own. And against a man like that, I was currently running for my life.

KRA-KOOM! CRASH!

Lightning rained from the sky, the product of Anon drawing thunder from his inner world and giving it form through mana. Already several ancient trees had been scorched black and toppled to the forest floor.

"You were running your mouth just a minute ago. Now you're turning tail and running? Don't you have any shame?"

Anon's booming voice rolled through the trees, loud enough to shake the woods. I paid it no mind and kept pushing toward the heart of the forest. Seranea and Jeren were still outside. I couldn't let the two of them get caught up in this. And I had never fought a Theoricus-class mage in my life.

Fighting without even knowing how strong he is would be suicide.

My Third Eye flared. In the same instant, I saw the lightning taking shape in Anon's grip.

Why was he a Theoricus?

What separated a first-tier apprentice — a Neophyte — from a second-tier full mage, a Zelator, was whether one could wield elemental magic completely. The attribute housed within one's inner world, given definite form as a spell: that was the threshold of Zelator. I still handled wind and fire in only their most rudimentary shapes, which was why I remained a Neophyte.

Anon had surpassed even that. He was a third-tier Theoricus. And what divided Zelator from Theoricus was this:

Battlefield magic.

My Third Eye found the traces of mana wrapping around me and the entire space. The air reacted first. Empty void contracted as if drawing a breath, then swelled as if exhaling. Shadows on the ground tore themselves apart and stitched back together of their own accord. An alien heat slowly seeped into the air.

The sounds around me vanished one by one. As they faded, a strange pulse registered inside my ears. It was a heartbeat. Mine was the only sound still thrashing in this place — the sensation of being trapped inside a giant water droplet, flailing arms and legs.

A chill crawled up from somewhere deep. A biological threat rising from the pit of my stomach. The feeling that came when you knew, in your bones, that death was coming.

ZZZT—

Golden sparks spread through the surroundings. Space itself convulsed, dyeing everything gold. The instant I drew a breath, current would flow down into my lungs. In a single moment it would incinerate them and kill me.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The moment I understood that, I drove a mana-wreathed hand into the earth. My hands tore at the ground like a madman's. The soil, damp from sitting beneath the trees, dried at a terrifying speed. I didn't care. I clawed and dug until I had pulled the dirt over my own head.

Haneulseo!

At my call, Haneulseo coiled around my entire body in the form of armor. The instant I drove mana into it and wrenched its hardness to the maximum, a storm howled.

KRA-KRA-KRA-KRA-KOOOOOM!

A sound that tore the ears came first. In its wake, the entire area drowned in a searing, sulfur-yellow light. The lightning was not straight. Like a living serpent it hunted every living thing, snapping its neck this way and that as it ripped the world apart. Every ancient tree on the ground was scoured away, reduced to ash, and vanished.

The heart of the Sword-crown Forest — a place packed with trees that had stood for over a hundred years — was annihilated. Gone.

From beneath that blackened earth I burst back onto the surface with a gasp, scattering soil cooked black. Golden sparks crawled through the gaps in Haneulseo.

A single spell. Just one spell had blown the entire stretch of ground to nothing. Even as a fellow mage, the sight hit me with a sensation from an entirely different dimension. If the soil hadn't absorbed the current — if I hadn't had Haneulseo and a mana barrier — I would have died instantly.

Battlefield magic. The power really was staggering. A spell that blanketed an entire area in one's own mana and turned it into a battlefield — magic that only those who had reached the rank of Theoricus could wield.

Pushing as far toward the center as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I could was the right call.

The thought of Seranea and Jeren getting caught in that was horrifying.

"Well, well. You lived?"

Anon's voice drifted down to me. True to a mage, he gazed down from the sky with complete leisure. Golden light spread along his veins. With every gesture, thunderlight pulsed and current scattered.

Theoricus. I understood all over again just how high that rank truly sat.

"Doesn't look like you've got anywhere left to run, though."

The Sword-crown Forest that had hidden me was blown wide open. No more ancient trees would be intercepting his lightning. I was, for all practical purposes, a target he could hit whenever he pleased. If another blast of battlefield magic came down here, it would be over.

But a large-scale spell wouldn't be dropping again anytime soon. Through my Third Eye, I could see that his mana had dropped considerably. Battlefield magic wasn't something you could fire off at will. If it were, he wouldn't have been a mere Theoricus to begin with.

That didn't mean Anon was an easy opponent without it.

Mana bloomed in Anon's grip once more. The instant I registered it, I shifted the nature of my own mana to wind.

KRA-KOOM!

Lightning slammed into the spot I had occupied a heartbeat ago. I didn't even have time to confirm it — the moment my feet hit the ground I leapt again.

KRA-KOOOOM!

Lightning struck my previous position once more. The stark white scars left on the blackened earth made the power of that lightning abundantly clear.

The power of lightning was formidable. But even that kind of power only mattered if it hit. As long as I could see mana with my Third Eye, no attack was unavoidable.

Anon's brow twitched. He hadn't expected me to dodge his magic twice in a row, either.

"Sansu. You've got something, haven't you. This doesn't feel like fighting an ordinary mage."

Was this what a difference in years lived looked like? Anon clocked immediately that I hadn't dodged by accident.

"Interesting."

That was probably why Anon stopped raising his hand — to erase the possibility that I was reading his movements and inferring something from them. Instead, three masses of mana formed around him simultaneously.

The instant I saw it, I ducked forward and kicked off the ground.

I had already dodged two attacks in succession. My footwork was fairly quick, but it was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nothing compared to lightning. If he baited a first dodge and then fired at wherever I would land, there would be no escaping the hit. So I did the opposite. I closed in.

The distance between Anon and me began to shrink in an instant.

"Huh?"

A mage committing to a physical charge. To him, it must have been absurd. But for me, distance was a chance at victory. The moment the gap between us hit zero, I would end this.

Anon looked startled by my sudden move, but he finished his spell in no time. As far as he was concerned, shooting me down was enough. The closer I got, the harder I would be to dodge — he probably even appreciated it.

Here it comes.

This spell was not the same lightning as before. Three thunder dragons crawled out of the storm clouds. The largest of them twisted its body and dove — a perfectly straight line, nothing but a crushing, vertical drop. Two more followed at once. A pair of smaller ones, fast and erratic, twisting as they came.

It looked like a pack of dragons beginning a hunt. Not a single part of it was magic a human being could do anything about.

The giant thunder dragon reached a point above my head. It bared its fangs and plunged, hunting me.

Now.

I detonated the wind condensed at the tips of my feet. My body accelerated once more.

KRA-KRA-KRA-KRACK!

I surged forward again instead. The giant thunder dragon crashed into the earth and shattered. The explosive force of the wind tore the soles of my boots apart, leaving me barefoot, but I had no time to care. The two smaller thunder dragons were already bearing down on me.

If I cut the mana—

I could break the spell. But I couldn't do that yet. If Anon learned I could unravel magic, he would never give me any distance again. So I would punch through this with my own mana alone.

Haneulseo shifted in both my hands, flattening into broad-faced shields. Erratic as the thunder dragons' movements were, they were still mana in the end. The direction that mana was heading — I could predict that with my Third Eye.

I kicked off the ground and leapt toward the dragon on the left. The instant it bared its fangs and lunged, I thrust the shield into its path.

ZZZZT!

The thunder dragon collided with the shield and burst lightning in every direction. The sweat on my skin burned away all at once, and a short scream tore through the air. I clenched my teeth and focused on the flow of mana.

All things in this world follow the same principle as the flow of water. No matter how mighty the magic, it cannot escape that principle. The Third Eye — the eye they called a dragon's eye — could see the very source of mana itself.

So I saw it clearly. The flow of mana contained within the thunder dragon. The direction it was traveling. The instant I received the dragon and pierced through that direction, my eyes flashed.

I swung the shield that had driven into the thunder dragon's interior and slammed it toward the earth with everything I had. The dragon that had been about to swallow me whole bent toward the ground and crashed. At the same time, I drove the other shield into the head of the dragon coming from the opposite side — then wrenched its direction with all my strength and slammed that one into the ground as well.

"What?"

Was this a sight even a Theoricus like Anon had never seen? He stared down at me with stunned eyes. A technique that hijacked the flow of magic and forced its direction to turn — this, too, was an insight born from the principles of magic itself.

The breath spilling from my mouth was hot. Redirecting them didn't mean the aftershock of the current hadn't lingered in my body. But this was no time to sound weak. Right now I needed to crank my killing intent even higher and set my will to fight ablaze.

The smile hooked at the corner of my mouth gleamed with something vicious. At my taunt, Anon's face twisted. His own magic had been broken by a mere Neophyte. I didn't need to ask how humiliating that was.

But the humiliation was only beginning. I was going to be a mage the likes of which he had never met in his life — not once, not ever.

I had closed the distance.

Now I would bring this sky-high senior crashing down.