Chapter 74
Chapter 74
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 74
Chapter Title: Ambush (4)
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A brilliant azure flash accompanied a blue lightning bolt that slammed into the ground.
The reason Oliver barely managed to dodge it wasn't his reflexes or his body enhanced by black magic.
It was thanks to a thin strand of mana that had descended first, pinpointing the coordinates just before the lightning struck.
The moment he sensed that mana, Oliver instinctively leaped forward, evading the bolt by a hair's breadth.
Kwarrrrng——!
The ground shook amid the dazzling blue flash. A few seconds later, a deafening roar echoed as dirt and stone fragments from the lightning scattered everywhere.
It was an utterly tremendous display of power.
'This is magic...'
Oliver kept running forward, his mind flashing back to the lightning mage he'd fought in the past.
Perhaps because they both wielded lightning magic, he came to mind—not just in how they handled mana, but even in the feel of it.
He wondered if they might be friends, but he couldn't dwell on it long amid the relentless barrage of lightning he had to dodge.
'It's as threatening as ever. No wonder Murphy was so scared.'
Oliver thought as he eyed the shattered, cracked ground.
Sure enough, in a fight like this, numbers would only be a liability.
The attack looked overwhelmingly powerful on the surface, but its area of effect didn't seem that wide. Still, he could see that the moment the lightning hit the ground, it spread electric shocks several meters out.
And visually and audibly, it was intimidating too.
The people inside the warehouse cowering in fear was proof enough.
Oliver activated Targeting to leap up onto the building.
Targeting
Body pulled toward designated target
The mages stood motionless in their spots at first, looking down as Oliver approached. He dodged the lightning while closing in on them step by step.
Along the way, he didn't forget to absorb the minions he'd placed in advance, replenishing his emotions.
When he'd halved the distance, the lull in lightning strikes ended, and another bolt came crashing down.
Shiiiii——! Kwarng—!
He used Targeting to yank his body aside and dodged it again.
Now he understood why the previous lightning mage hadn't used this lightning spell.
It might've been that he couldn't, of course, but this falling thunderbolt was powerful yet ill-suited for single targets rather than groups.
It wasn't easy to dodge, but with countermeasures, it was feasible—and its excessive power meant it guzzled mana.
The reduced potency of this bolt compared to the first was proof.
Unless they pinned down his movements completely, landing a hit on Oliver wouldn't be easy.
"Huh...? Black Shield."
Right after narrowly dodging with Targeting, he sensed a mass of mana flying toward him and unfurled a black curtain.
Thud thud thud——! Three magic missiles collided with the shield, packing considerable force.
But that wasn't the real threat. While he'd paused to deploy the shield, the lightning coordinates zeroed in on Oliver.
It was a beat too late to dodge.
'I'm wearing three layers of Black Suit, so I can tank at least one or two. But I can't afford to burn through them before the real fight even starts...'
Oliver finished his judgment in an instant, extracting emotions to spawn a small minion and disrupt the lightning's coordinates.
He'd thrown the minion aside to create a decoy—and right after, the blue flash struck again.
Kwarrrrngggg————!
What luck was this?
His improvised defense had worked perfectly; the coordinates shifted at the last second, and the bolt speared the minion beside him instead of Oliver.
Though its power caused collateral damage around them, the Black Suit spared him any direct harm.
And with the mana humming overhead vanishing from the sky, he'd actually come out ahead.
Another magic missile came flying in.
This one packed even denser mana than before.
"Recovered your mana already? How...? Hate Bullet."
Oliver extracted emotions to fire a Hate Bullet, intercepting the magic missile.
Perfectly calibrated, it detonated the missile midair with a thunderous boom.
"......!"
Too far to see the mage's face clearly, but his emotional state screamed considerable fluster.
One other detail caught Oliver's eye.
The lightning mage chugging a blue potion.
'Ah, so that's how he recovers mana... But that seems like something you shouldn't abuse.'
He could see the mage's mana surging back at an unnatural rate from his heart after downing the potion.
Potions didn't seem like miracles conjured from nothing—they looked more like drugs that strained the body.
Meanwhile, more magic missiles rained down, stronger and in greater numbers than before.
Two black magics activated simultaneously.
A black dartboard appeared on the mage's body, and wrath bombs loaded into bullets collided with the missiles.
The wrath bombs detonated on impact, nullifying the follow-up missiles while shrouding both sides in smoke.
The mages panicked for a second or two as their vision clouded. Seizing the moment, Oliver fired black magic at the pre-placed Targeting markers: [Hate Bullet].
Hate Bullet (Multiple)
Fired like a machine gun barrage
The mages hastily deployed shields in surprise, but imperfectly—groans of pain leaked through.
Along with that came the mages' bewilderment, fear, and terror glowing brightly.
The leisure they'd shown on arrival was gone; they looked utterly incredulous at the situation.
Oliver channeled Black Suit energy into his legs and closed the gap to the mages in one bound.
'If I force close combat now and knock out the explosion mage like before... Huh?'
A rift tore open before Oliver's eyes—the same kind he'd seen from the warehouse—and a hand crackling with lightning thrust out.
A delicate hand, free of calluses.
It clamped onto Oliver's face and smashed him straight down off the building.
The impact was tremendous mid-leap, yet the Black Suit kept his spine intact.
A voice thick with rage boomed out.
"How dare you...! Fake mage scum...! Electronic Shock!"
Electricity enveloped his body with the incantation.
If falling thunder was great against groups, Electronic Shock was fitting for a single foe.
It focused the mana from a thunderbolt on one person.
Simple principle, devastating effect. His Black Suit melting in real time attested to its efficiency.
"I'll roast you to a crisp!"
The mage bellowed. Oliver tried to move and counter, but the electricity kept the suit from responding properly.
It was a dire crisis, yet Oliver calmly scanned his surroundings to assess.
This pissed-off lightning mage had pierced through to initiate close quarters first, but where were the other two?
A joint assault now would be truly dangerous.
Focusing his eyes revealed their positions.
Just like with the explosion mage, they were teleporting into the warehouse via magic.
"See?! Where my friends went! I'll sweep up all the gang scum you're guarding too! Die in despair!"
"Ah... Thank you."
Oliver replied, turning his gaze to the warehouse.
As the lightning mage said, the two had warped inside and were attacking the panicked gang members.
Oliver signaled the minion he'd stationed there.
"Minion, if you would."
With that, a small explosion echoed from the warehouse, and the condensing mana vanished like a lie.
The minion had burst, spraying Cling Spider Web across the entire interior.
Cling Spider Web (Area)
Restrains bodily freedom across warehouse
A binding black magic that stole physical freedom.
Weak to external shocks aside, it perfectly immobilized captured targets—and it seemed to work on mages too.
"You...!"
Misunderstanding something, the mage jammed even more forcibly recovered mana from his potion into the attack.
The crackling electricity turned to a shrill chichichichik and accelerated the Black Suit's erosion.
Fueled by rage, its power had surged. Oliver considered explaining to clear the misunderstanding but shook his head.
Two reasons.
First, emotion-laden minions were nearly there. Second, the mage's rage-narrowed vision had blinded him to it.
Chichichichichik!
With a chilling sound, the second Black Suit shattered, and the third began to fail.
Now he felt the electricity indirectly.
"Die! Fake!"
"Imprisonment," he commanded the nearby minion.
The minion spewed its massive load of emotions, which tangled together into viscous, muddy blackness.
"What is this...!"
The flustered lightning mage. Come to think of it, the first one he'd met had fallen the same way, blind to his surroundings. What an amusing coincidence.
The churning Imprisonment swirled toward the mage, surrounding and smothering him.
He stood and attacked the emotions in resistance, but having overexerted to fry Oliver, he couldn't muster full power.
His strikes only briefly loosened the encirclement; the pressure intensified. Desperate, he summoned lightning around himself again to escape, just like before.
Thud!
Futile. The sticky emotions grabbed his ankles whenever he tried to leap.
Oliver recalled his fight with the explosion mage.
That one had kept casting despite harming himself, eventually breaking free of Imprisonment. If this one did the same, it could get dicey—so Oliver treated it like his last chance, continuously controlling the spell rather than just triggering it.
The mage thrashed, blasting electricity everywhere to burn through the enveloping emotions, while Oliver manipulated Imprisonment to devour him.
Half the Imprisonment depleted in the process. Sensing victory if he held out a bit longer, the mage crowed.
"As expected of a fake mage!"
At that moment, Oliver thrust one hand into the air.
And ripped out the mage's fighting spirit, rage, bewilderment, and countless other emotions.
Shoooooooosh———!
"......!!! "
Ignoring the mage's shock, Oliver fed the extracted emotions straight into the Imprisonment.
The diminished mass swelled stronger than before with fresh fuel. The mage recoiled in horror and terror.
Like sinking into a swamp.
This let Oliver extract emotions more efficiently, bolstering the Imprisonment further. Soon, the lightning mage was fully ensnared, his initial momentum gone.
Oliver pressed the advantage, swallowing him whole in one gulp.
Gulp.
"........."
The lightning mage fell silent, buried in sticky emotions.
Oliver cautiously staggered to his feet.
Fatigue was setting in, but then mana condensed around the captured mage. Like with the explosion mage, lightning erupted from all directions, shaking off the Imprisonment.
He scraped the dregs of his mana, forcing it out.
"Such petty tricks won't—"
Crack!
Oliver thrust his quarterstaff. Infused with Deep Sleep.
The mage resisted, but several doses of Deep Sleep overwhelmed him. He stumbled and collapsed.
Looking down at him, Oliver said,
"......Whew. That was rough."
Oliver slung the fallen lightning mage over his shoulder and returned to the warehouse.
As expected, Cling Spider Web blanketed the place, binding everyone inside.
All they could do was roll their eyes frantically.
Oliver glanced at the mages staring in shock at him—or perhaps at the captured lightning mage.
A sharp-featured short-haired woman and a round-faced curly-haired man. Oliver set the lightning mage down, then charged his quarterstaff with Deep Sleep and jabbed the bound mages.
With that, he'd captured them all.
A wave of relief washed over Oliver for a job well done. He released Murphy and his crew from the Cling Spider Web.
He asked the stunned Murphy,
"Any trouble on your end?"