The Seven Sages (2)
Tiamut.
Their notoriety spanned the entire globe.
Which meant countless people feared becoming their target—or even tangentially tangled up with them.
The response was cold. Entirely understandable, too. No matter how many record-shattering feats Hajun had stacked up one after another, the weight the name Tiamut carried was crushingly heavy.
But as firsthand reports kept pouring in, one by one, everyone gradually came to accept that this was no bait.
The reports kept coming. At the sight of a Tiamut that had truly made up its mind, some ascenders poured out their worry.
But then—
Hajun's battle delivered a staggering shock to everyone watching. Overwhelming power that transcended his tier—a living demonstration of how he had managed to shatter record after record all this time.
And then—
A variable appeared.
Crack. Craaaack.
Whoosh.
Sparks and flames flickered and danced across the surrounding terrain—the scars left behind by a relentless barrage of Thunderbolt and Fireball.
Whew.
Feeling my mana churn down to the bone, I gulped in the breath I'd been holding.
"Ugh, uuuaaagh……."
"Ghhk……."
Before me, more than a hundred ascenders clad in Tiamut uniforms lay sprawled across the ground.
"A m-monster… he's a monster…."
A spirit-crushed voice drifted over from beside me. I turned my head to find the Toad-faced Executive, his body covered head to toe in burn scars, staring at me with eyes full of incomprehension.
Level 71, I suppose. That's why he didn't die.
I let out a small snort at the man who was all but out of commission.
"I told you, didn't I? When I give you a chance to walk away, you take it."
"Grrk."
At my words, the man's face twisted violently. The already fearsome features somehow managed to look even uglier.
"Time for you to go."
I had no intention of sparing him.
True, he was closer to a non-combat type—likely an ascender with some kind of detection trait—but his level sat at 71, among the very top ranks in the entire world.
The reason he'd fallen so pathetically easily to me was partly because my Fireball carried destructive power beyond his tier, and partly because he'd let his guard down badly.
Which was exactly why I intended to pull this weed out by the root right here and now—severing any future entanglement with him cleanly, once and for all.
Crackle, crackle-crackle.
Emerald lightning blossomed in my hand.
The moment Thunderbolt was about to launch from my palm—
"That's far enough."
Chills.
In an instant, goosebumps erupted across my entire body.
Damn it!
Instinctively, I stumbled back a step. And as I looked past the Toad-faced Executive, I saw a powerfully built man approaching.
Ho… he is one who has crossed the Wall.
Ellaon spoke, his voice taut with wariness. I had no idea what "crossing the Wall" meant, but I could feel it on instinct: this man was monstrously strong.
Who is he?
The man's skin was jet black. Against that dark skin blazed a stark contrast: eyes of pure, snow-white. Abyssal depths of an gaze bore straight into me.
Shivers.
Goosebumps crawled up my arms a second time.
His level is…
The instant I instinctively checked the man's level and name through Sage's Sight—
"…!"
My eyes flew wide open.
[Lv 86]
[João Fernandes]
Level 86—a genuinely insane number. And a name I knew all too well.
The Seven Sages…!
The man standing before me now was one of the Seven Sages—the seven great ascenders revered as living legends.
The only problem was:
He hailed from South America, a region that had degenerated into lawless territory.
And he's someone who thrives on mutual back-scratching with Tiamut.
João Fernandes maintained a cooperative relationship with Tiamut.
How could anyone cooperate with a public enemy like Tiamut?
Because raw power trumps everything.
João Fernandes simply didn't need to care what anyone thought of him. He possessed absolute power—the kind that came with being revered as one of the Seven Sages.
That alone entitled him to deal with Tiamut freely. Besides, João had never exactly been squeaky clean—he was grey at best, even before now.
"L-Lord João."
"Tch. Fall back."
João looked down at the Toad-faced Executive with a contemptuous sneer. The toad-faced man—Shin Myeong-jun—hung his head, his flushed face burning with humiliation, and retreated.
Now João Fernandes and I stood face to face, one on one.
He swept his gaze over me from my feet to the crown of my head, then bared his teeth in a white grin.
"Interesting. I can more or less guess why he was hunting you so desperately."
Is that so?
The moment I tilted my head at João's words—
Raise your Mana Shield! Now!
Ellaon's urgent cry pierced my eardrums.
Flash!
On pure reflex, I manifested the Mana Shield (7-Star ★★★★★★★) embedded in the Sage's Robe.
And at the very same instant—
BOOOOOM!
Viiiiiine.
A thunderous detonation and a massive shockwave slammed into the Mana Shield.
…!
The corners of my eyes trembled finely.
At some point, João had already drawn his bow and taken aim at me. He had loosed an arrow at a speed my perception couldn't even register.
With the daily limit on Time Protection already spent, if that Mana Shield had come up even a heartbeat later, I'd have taken a serious wound.
Gulp, gulp.
I hastily chugged a Mana Potion. My mana reserves had been nearly drained absorbing that shock.
The Mana Shield had dimmed to the faintest ghost of its color. As the potion replenished my mana, its radiance swelled back to full strength.
And along with it, a heavy question surfaced.
Even if he's one of the Seven Sages—once he's descended to Floor 2, shouldn't he be capped at around Level 20?
Yet what he'd just displayed was far beyond anything Level 20 could produce.
Ellaon answered that question for me.
Because he is one who has crossed the Wall. He has been granted a measure of freedom from the Tower's constraints. And that bow of his is no ordinary thing either.
The Wall—don't tell me you mean the Level 80 threshold?
In terms of level, yes. It refers to the threshold one crosses upon reaching Level 80.
Ah. Now that he mentioned it, I had heard something like that before.
The only ones who had ever set foot on the 9th floor were the Seven Sages. No one besides them had ever surpassed Level 80.
I'd simply assumed they'd awakened 9-Star traits—but it seemed there genuinely was a Wall standing at that threshold.
"Impressive, I must say. Deploying a Mana Shield so quickly. There's no 2-Star skill that grants a Mana Shield. Did you perhaps acquire some Legendary item with one built in?"
While I hurriedly regrouped, João Fernandes was leisurely sizing me up through narrowed eyes.
He was overflowing with composure. I could see it plainly—the confidence of a man certain he could capture me whenever he pleased.
Right. Even my chance to guzzle that Mana Potion had only existed because João hadn't bothered to press the attack.
He's looking at me like I'm dirt under his boot.
Clicking my tongue softly, I leveled the Forest Guardian Staff at João.
The pressure radiating off him was on an entirely different dimension from what I'd felt facing the non-combatant Toad-faced Executive. So this was a Sage of the Seven.
But was it enough to make me despair?
If you asked me that—
Well.
No. I can work with this.
I'd run those calculations even without Spirit Amplification. Sure, my odds of winning dropped sharply without it, but not to the point of hopelessness.
That said, I couldn't help feeling the absence of Spirit Amplification keenly. Ah—twice in a single day I've felt its lack this painfully.
Still, a way to fight back did come to mind.
If you have no teeth, bite with your gums.
João had awakened Divine Archer, a trait built around the bow. Which meant his projectile speed was blistering. Intercepting him with my magic would be no easy feat.
And even if I did intercept—problem. Why?
One glance told me João was wrapped head to toe in Legendary gear.
Even under the Tower's floor constraints, that looked like Legendary equipment in the 7-to-9-Star range at minimum. He was fundamentally, categorically different from the unremarkably-equipped Toad-faced Executive.
There was no telling how high his magic resistance ran.
Which is why—
Mana Drain.
That would be my gambit.
Maybe I should have picked Double Casting.
If I'd chosen Double Casting instead of Dragonia for my Level 10 perk skill, I could have stunned him with Mana Drain and shredded him with Wind Cutter on the spot.
Regrettable, in more ways than one.
But if I could land Mana Drain—
Somehow, some way, a path would open. That intuition flashed through my mind.
Mana Shield. Shadow Binding. Stealth.
And last—
Time Protection.
A true invincibility skill that nullified all damage for a full second. If I chained those together well, I could carve out more than enough of an opening to close the distance on him.
It would've been easier if I still had Dispel left, though.
Running the fight below full strength stung, no doubt about it. But even so, I still believed this was more than doable.
Now.
The instant I kicked off the ground—
"Let's see what you've got…."
João, as if he'd been waiting for exactly this, curled his lips into a smirk and drew his bow on me.
First, Shadow Bind—
—was what I was about to invoke, when an unforeseen variable exploded onto the scene.
SHUUUUUUNG—!
A colossal mass of mana descending from the sky. The same spine-chilling sensation I'd felt facing João Fernandes for the first time swept across my whole body.
"JOAAAAO!! STOP THIIIIS!!"
KUUUUUUUUM!!
With a bellow that seemed to split heaven and earth apart, a man dropped down between João and me.
Staring up at the ascender—a mountain of a man every bit as massive as João himself—
I was forced to stare in astonishment yet again.
[Ivan Petrov]
[Lv 86]
The same level as João. And a name I knew well.
That's right. The man who had just descended before me was the Russian absolute powerhouse—
one of the Seven Sages themselves, Ivan Petrov.