Chapter 48
Chapter 48
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: Chapter 4: Eyelid (21)
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***
“But you’re smarter than I imagined. Using a mutant’s sturdy muscles and discarded spirit stones for an attack... Isn’t this just more proof that our choice was the right one?”
Zzzzap! Zzzzzaaap!
Dozens of blue whips extending from Isaac’s back lashed through the air, and with each strike, the room’s air grew hotter and hotter.
‘Attacks so fierce they heat the air through friction. So that’s the source of the strange noise—that magic. At that level, getting hit wouldn’t just mean injury.’
It was odd. If that many whips had come flying at him all at once, even he wouldn’t have survived, but Isaac’s whips only thrashed the empty air, showing no sign of advancing.
Isaac, on the other hand, seemed impressed that I was standing right in front of him, calmly observing the situation.
“Impressive. Facing a threatening attack head-on without exploding into rage. And... you’re studying me? Searching for a way to kill me! Even now, you’re learning! Mutants truly are...”
Pang!
“Marvelous!”
As Isaac spoke, two of the whips thrashing the air shot toward Raksha and me.
‘Damn it, if I don’t do something, we’ll just get pummeled one-sidedly!’
The moment I leaned forward to block with my body, Raksha’s arm barred my path.
“Hold on just a moment?”
“Why...”
In response to my question, she simply flashed a bright smile and raised her hand,
Kkiriririk—!
“Thread Art: Amrita.”
She literally yanked at the empty air. Not figuratively—space itself rippled and distorted like heat haze at her fingertips.
‘A skill? Some kind of sorcery? Isn’t Raksha an assassin?’
With the incantation, cracks began to spiderweb through the air. No, looking closer, countless threads connected from her fingertips, stretching between Isaac and her. The whip of water slicing through the air like a bullet scattered into mist with a sound like plucking a stringed instrument.
“I’m not so careless as to get hit by something like that.”
The sound of her fingers plucking threads rang out in succession from her hand, and Isaac’s whips began moving even faster.
‘He wasn’t just thrashing the air—he was blocking Raksha’s threads?’
Looking closely now, the thin threads filled the room like a spiderweb, tightening around the mages from all directions under her control.
“Thread Art... I’ve heard of arts like this from the tribal nations beyond the great desert in the far east. What brings eastern barbarians to Lordric?”
“Oh my, prying into a lady’s secrets? That’s disqualification as a man.”
Kkiririk—!
With the sound of white fingertips pulling threads, the faintly scattered strands converged so densely they gleamed white, instantly squeezing toward the mages in the back.
“You think such tricks will work... when I’ve shown you time and again that they won’t!”
Pissit—!
Isaac’s right hand pointed at Raksha. In an instant, he clenched his fist, and a small droplet of water was sucked from her skin into his hand. Red spots began creeping across her skin.
“...!”
Raksha bit her lip, and the threads filling the room gathered and thrummed like drumbeats, ventilating the internal air. Cool air flowed in through the hole the Professor had entered, lowering the room’s temperature under her guidance.
‘This humid heat... damn it! An attack using the opponent’s bodily fluids?’
The Professor realized the nature of the red blotches spreading across Raksha’s body. At the 6th order, control over water would be immense. While moisture inside the body belonged to the person and couldn’t be easily manipulated even with great power, moisture expelled outside—like sweat—could be controlled even with spirit-stone-weakened dominance.
‘The silver lining is that he’s not using a variety of spells. Raksha’s pressure plus the spirit stone weakening—Isaac isn’t overflowing with leisure either.’
The threads tightening toward the rear mages reluctantly turned back toward Isaac, who withdrew his hand aimed at Raksha, formed hand seals, and resumed lashing the air with water whips.
A solid defense, altering the surroundings to his advantage while defending, methodically whittling down the enemy’s combat power. Textbook water mage tactics.
Threads gathered in the air wrapped around Raksha’s arm, from which blood was seeping. She had blocked in front of the Professor right up to the moment of injury, and what that meant was clear.
‘She took the hit to give me information.’
Confirming his left arm, now grown to the wrist, the Professor sorted the situation.
‘A narrow, confined space. Raksha’s threads blanket everywhere... but without mana, she can’t output much power either. The enemy builds an environment easy for defense and spellcasting while raising the room’s temperature to a point where evasion becomes impossible. That massive water orb in the center... must be the mana source controlling the eight rivers flowing into the city—Lead Flow Magic Tower’s power core. That’s the source of Isaac’s mana.’
[Overcome Mental Fragility] rapidly sorted the highlighted events into meaningful intel.
Raksha’s threads attacking the rear mages. Some of Isaac’s defensive whips diverting there, others canceling as he desperately attacked Raksha.
‘Isaac’s the type who’d sacrifice an entire city’s civilians if needed. Protecting his disciples so fiercely in combat isn’t sentiment—it’s necessity. That spell, and the mana flow... ah, 1st order magic, [Flow Manipulation].’
The Professor was a fledgling but enlightened mage. In his eyes, the mana flowed clearly from the source to the disciples, then efficiently to Isaac.
‘In a mana-repulsion field like this, absorbing and casting mana simultaneously would be tough. The rear disciples secure mana from the source and funnel it to Isaac, who can use it most efficiently.’
The Professor checked the system clock.
[Jokeman’s Moon, Day 18. 1 AM]
‘No time. Tobrun’s forces will swarm the tower soon. We need to subdue him and clean up before then to move to the next phase.’
The key was that the enemy knew this too. Isaac was operating his magic very defensively, and right now, there was no way to breach that defense.
‘In the end, it’s a gamble...’
Thanks to Raksha’s sacrifice, he’d grasped the enemy’s weakness. Take out the rear disciples, cut Isaac’s mana supply, and Raksha could take him. But reaching that weakness required a game-changing way to alter the mage’s constructed environment.
Zzzzaaap!
“Red mutant. You wear a deeply troubled face. Indeed, high intelligence without learning is no different from a savage. Is this your first magic battle?”
Isaac addressed the Professor in a warm voice, like instructing a child. The arrogance of one certain of victory laced his tone.
“...Shut up, human. For my mother, I’ll kill you!”
With a deliberately raspy, guttural voice, Isaac’s attention snapped fully here.
‘Raksha’s injury looks deeper than thought. Manipulating countless threads like her own body—that delicate technique loses much sharpness with even minor wounds. If she takes more damage, we lose any chance of victory.’
He needed to draw the bastard’s focus. His interest. No need to think—his fascination with me, even in life-or-death combat.
“Grrruk, human... I smell my brothers’ blood here. Where have you dragged my brothers?”
The Professor spoke as mutant-like as possible, stepping forward to shield Raksha with his body.
Unlike physical-entity whips, target-designated spells become hard to cast once the target leaves sight. This alone would prevent Raksha from suffering more from that moisture magic.
At the Professor’s words, Isaac cast him a gaze of even greater interest.
“The smell of your brothers’ blood... yes. So that’s it. You’re wary of us, the mutant researchers? That’s why you targeted us by tossing a precious ‘talking mutant’ card right into the city’s heart. What an honor...”
Isaac’s words lit a spark in the Professor’s eyes.
‘As expected, mutant research here too. As their main base, maybe even larger scale than the count’s underground lab.’
Ding-!
[Mutation Berserk activated. Consuming blood.]
Sssshhh!
A drying sensation gripped his body as red steam billowed from his entire form.
‘If there’s mutant blood, that changes everything!’
“Gr-wooooar!”
Bang!
The Professor’s massive body rocketed toward Isaac like a cannonball.
“Foolish! Charging in because you can’t handle the pressure—disappointing! You can’t be like this. You must be stronger, wiser! To become the cradle of the new humanity!
Zzzzaaap!
The water whips lashing the air shot toward the Professor like arrows.
“That’s not enough!”
“Such! Danger...!”
Raksha’s threads hurriedly gathered behind the recklessly charging Professor, but Isaac flicked them away with dozens of whips, intent on crushing the lone intruder in his attack range.
Pabang! Pababaang!
“Guhhh!”
Water whips stabbed like spears, slamming into the Professor’s body.
Two on the arms. Three on the legs. One to the chest. Wounds healed instantly, but the impacts slowed his charge.
“Know your place, beast! I am a 6th order mage who has attained enlightenment in water flow, straight thrust, variability, pressure, life, and compression! You’re not even worthy to cross hands with me!”
The Professor eyed the whips returning to Isaac after batting him away, while scanning the floor Isaac stood on. Wooden base without pillars, stones fitted from the walls. Reinforced with spells—this was how skyscrapers were built in this era.
‘Without the tower’s protective magic, it’s a slightly unstable structure.’
Tadak!
Reaching Isaac raggedly, the Professor swung his clasped hands like an axe at the water-whip-guarded body.
Kwahang!
Uujik, uuujik!
So fast it blurred into a sphere, the water whip caught his arms, shaking the building,
Pung!
Isaac smiled stiffly as the Professor’s hands tore free and flew.
“You’re no match. Attacks like that can’t harm m—”
“I know, you bastard!”
Using their height difference, he pivoted on his left foot and stomped down with his right like a hammer.
Kwaang!
Exploding water droplets scattered. His leg sheared through the whipping tendrils, but their power slid harmlessly along the water barrier around Isaac’s body.
‘Damn it, still not enough!’
Absorbing an attack didn’t make its force vanish. The impacts from the previous two strikes dispersed around Isaac without a hair’s damage, guided by his water shroud.
To the ground he stood on.
Uujik, uuujik!
‘I figured it’d break by now... tougher than expected.’
But almost there. Beneath Isaac’s feet, light from below seeped through cracked, splintered wood.
In his falling stance, the Professor arched his body back like a bow.
‘Head... even with Mutation Berserk, not sure if it’ll hold... but no choice now!’
“Breakkkk!!!”
His remaining left leg planted, elastic core muscles whipped his backward-arched body like a hammer at the floor.
Kwaaaang!
The Professor’s all-out headbutt smashed the 7th floor. Accumulated damage from ceaseless whips, plus the prior two impacts half-sinking the floor—it collapsed completely.
***
Kurrrung!
The floor gave way, sending everyone on the 7th floor—along with the tower’s mana engine—plummeting below.
Raksha reacted first. She released her threads to seize control, wrapping the unconscious falling Professor and landing lightly.
The Professor lay like a corpse, fully out.
‘Even with his special constitution... will wounds this bad really heal?’
His state was dire. Both hands and one foot gone, face literally a bloody pulp with a caved-in skull exposing the inside.
Of course, they needed to reverse the situation ASAP. The most dangerous mage was one who’d prepared long, and Isaac could build his own battlefield mid-fight.
Water magic’s advantage lay in ‘water’—concrete yet freely formable—allowing organic spell chaining. Like water from a hydraulic sphere into ice field, then heat absorber.
Humidity inside the 7th floor had risen, making movement burdensome. More time, and even this desperate measure wouldn’t have worked.
Sssshhh—
Red mist still poured from the Professor’s body, drying him out. Raksha cocooned him protectively in threads, then scanned around.
‘This... a lab?’
Where the ceiling had collapsed into was a grotesque space. Specimens of creatures everywhere, vials of unknown reagents, arrays of knives. If the Professor saw it, he’d say, ‘They made it exactly like mine!’
Kwaang!
Opposite the lab, massive water spray and debris shot skyward. Behind Isaac—shrouded in a thick water veil—were his disciples and the tower’s mana source. Counting, two mages short—crushed by debris in the fall.
Isaac returned the water shroud to the mana source and spoke.
“Textbook. If a mage builds the environment, change the battlefield. Have you studied magic battles? Or... sensed it intuitively. He is one of the Queen’s masterpieces, after all.”
Tak, tak, tak!
Isaac’s hands swiftly formed seals before Raksha’s attack completed. He wasn’t the only one who’d lost his setup. Raksha hurriedly loosed threads to disrupt, but Isaac was a beat faster.
“Bort Iger’s [Heavy Rain].”
“...!”
The incantation completed, and tiny droplets burst from the rear mana orb—acting as the source—like a living school of fish, wreaking havoc in the lab at Isaac’s gesture. Small, but each infused with ‘pressure’ enlightenment—heavy force to crush and dent on contact.
Kwagagagak!
“Hup!”
Heavy Rain pursued Raksha like a living school, destroying everything it touched.
Reagent vials shattered, spewing smoke; sturdy metal lab tables, bookshelves of research data, ornate lamps, and
Pubububuk!
Nameless mutant corpses. All swept up and burst.
Mutant corpses lofted by the overwhelming violence. Amid shattered fragments, blood mist sprayed, tiny droplets defying gravity toward one point.
A thin thread of mutant blood stretched toward the white cocoon fixed to the ceiling.
Shuuu—
Isaac, hunting Raksha like a rat; Raksha, desperately scattering threads while bounding walls and ceiling—both suddenly stared at one lab corner. Blood from dozens of mutant corpses flowed in one direction.
“What in the...?”
“Hoh. New ability? Yes, your ‘talking mutant’ fame was disappointing. But of course you won’t just die!”
Soon, the red cocoon—having absorbed the lab’s last blood droplets—turned white again, unraveled, and spat out a figure.
“Suuuuup— haaah.”
A deep, lingering first breath, like a revenant inhaling grave dirt upon resurrection.
Patting his desiccated hands, feet, and body in momentary disbelief, the Professor said incredulously,
“This is... ‘outside’?”
The Professor’s eyes lit with the joy of a long-imprisoned criminal finally freed into the world.
***