9th Circle Magic
9th Circle Magic
Red Gate.
A extremely rare phenomenon where a gate degrades into something corrupted, it was also a calamity from which no one could exit until the clear was complete once entered.
On top of that, because the rank of the Gate could vary drastically, even high-rank Hunters couldn't easily let down their guard.
A type of disaster with an extremely low occurrence probability.
'Why are there so many of them!'
Even Yoo Seolhwa, who had subjugated countless Gates as an S-class Hunter, was entering a Red Gate for the first time.
[Skill Used - Frost Explosion (A)]
A massive amount of mana condensed in her hands.
Dozens of soldiers rushed toward her.
They were the very magic beasts that all of Jihoon's party members had fought prepared to die just to narrowly defeat.
Such magic beasts were—
—Peo-eong
—meeting their deaths with screams at a single use of her skill.
It was the moment when her potential shone—truly Korea's best AoE dealer and Mage-class Hunter.
'Why are such high-rank magic beasts here?'
Magic beasts that would appear at least in an A-rank Gate, every single individual was a high-rank magic beast.
In Hunter terms, they were equivalent to upper B-rank Hunters, yet such magic beasts were scattered everywhere like this.
At first she wondered if it was an A-rank Gate, but if it were a Gate of that level, there was no way she, the Master of the White Night Guild, wouldn't know about it.
Looking at the gate tinted in red, she became certain.
'A Red Gate?'
If it was a Red Gate, not only the young child who entered first, but even the Hunter party was in danger.
As time dragged on, her anxiety only grew.
'Perhaps already....'
No, she shouldn't make rash judgments.
Do her best in the current situation. It was a motto she had held even before she led the White Night Guild.
Just as she was moving forward while thinking positively.
—Jjirit
A massive mana wave gushed out from the castle.
She hurriedly turned her gaze.
'The Boss's mana?'
Even from such a long distance, her skin shivered.
An astronomical amount of mana she had never experienced before.
Even the A-rank Gate they subjugated last year wasn't to this extent.
Just as Yoo Seolhwa's complexion was about to darken.
——!
Another wave of mana erupted from the castle.
"H-ngh—!"
For a moment, her legs almost gave out.
'W-What is this?'
Was the one from earlier not the Boss? Is the current mana the Boss?
But surprisingly, the immense energy that had dominated the area soon subsided.
Wondering if it was an illusion, as she re-awakened her senses, she felt a presence behind her.
Reflexively, she turned around and tried to cast a skill, but at the end of her gaze was a somewhat familiar face.
"It has been a while, Hunter Yoo Seolhwa."
Head of the Field Response Unit at the Management Bureau.
South Korea's sole high S-class Hunter.
"Jeong Seah-ssi?"
Jeong Seah approached while holding a spear.
Back inside the castle.
"I'm going to kill you."
Out of nowhere, Tia spat out an AoE death threat.
Because she was in a bad mood?
No.
Tia was extremely satisfied. In the sense that an entity other than herself had used magic.
Then why did she suddenly declare that she would kill?
It was simply intended as a warning.
A warning not to interfere with her.
So even if the Hunters moved, it meant she wouldn't try to kill them out of the blue. Of course, if they were magic beasts, that would be a different story.
The magic the Demon King used earlier.
『Gravity』
A type of magic that manipulates gravity.
In it, Tia saw.
When the Demon King cast magic, the core pulsating in his body and the multiple rings wrapping around that core.
'Wow! You know about mana cores! And even circles!'
That was it.
They, too, used the concepts of circles and cores that Tia had cultivated alone using her past life's knowledge.
There were subtle differences, but since they were identical in fundamental aspects, the corners of Tia's mouth couldn't help but twitch upward.
"Hehehe-"
Curiosity—once again, Tia's curiosity as a magician flared up.
'Isn't there something I can learn?'
If they handled magic in the same way, wouldn't they know about parts she had missed? That was her thought.
'These guys must have developed and established this kind of magic for generations.'
Rather than developing magic alone over a long time, it must have developed through multiple people from various perspectives and into various types.
—U-u-ung
Nine circles settled down in an instant. She almost opened all circles out of excitement, but barely managed to restrain herself.
Fully revealing her power didn't particularly matter to Tia herself, but from past experience, she had realized that fear wasn't very helpful in acquiring information.
Tia had grown one step further.
"First, you!"
To the Demon King who was still striking a pose and looking down from his throne, Tia pointed her tiny finger and said,
"Show me other magic too!"
The very person who was thus pointed at, Demon King Andras, was currently lost in thought.
'What was that aura?'
Goosebumps had erupted across his entire body for a moment. Like a herbivore encountering a wild beast right before its eyes, his senses trained for hundreds of years rang alarm bells.
That too was brief; such a sensation subsided in the blink of an eye.
'Did I feel it wrong?'
Perhaps his senses had dulled from sitting lazily for so many years.
Putting that aside for a moment, that arrogant brat who appeared before his eyes.
'She is different.'
No matter how much he thought about it, she was different from the outlanders he had seen before.
Something fundamentally different.
He couldn't figure out that far, but he could briefly grasp the other facts.
[....]
The system window that was raging until a moment ago telling him to kill the challenger had long gone quiet.
After much deliberation, he reached a conclusion. That thing was a separate entity from the outlanders—in other words, not a challenger.
And now he finally understood.
"Heh, so it was you, wench, who penetrated this one's mana detection before?"
"Yup yup! You remember—!"
Upon receiving confirmation from the entity before his eyes, Andras took a small breath.
Whatever that thing was, it no longer mattered.
"For the crime of daring to ruin my amusement, pay with your life."
The magic formula unfolds.
Multiple formulas made of mana merged with each other and transformed.
A formula of gravitational force that pulled space, and a formula of collapse that forcibly inverted it once that gravitational force reached a critical point.
To make up for the lacking destructive power, a formula of cohesion was added to drive the compressed power into a single point, and as if that weren't enough, a formula of multiplication was overlaid to amplify the force released upon recoil several times over.
Thus, the magic formula was completed.
A single large magic circle formed before the Demon King.
The result of dedicating a whole lifetime to magic with a demon body that transcended lifespan.
That was about to blast forth right now.
6th circle complex magic.
『Collapse Nova』
The compressed space seemed to be sucked into a single point, and in the next moment, all of it violently backflowed.
Kwagagagak—!!
A sound as if space itself was screaming echoed. The entire throne room shook, and the banners hanging on the walls fluttered as if being torn apart.
By now, whether it was the challenger or that bizarre entity, both must have vanished without a trace.
"What a disappointment—"
How disappointing. Such words were about to come out.
"Amazing!"
?!
Demon King Andras's eyes were dyed with astonishment.
'She survived?'
Clearly, his magic had hit that entity directly.
And that too, a grand magic of the highest output he was capable of.
'Just how?'
Rendered meaningless against his thoughts, the entity walking proudly out of the dust, Tia, continued speaking with sparkling eyes.
"Since you showed me something good, I'll show you something good in return!"
The core pulsated and circles rotated.
One circle, followed by two circles, past three circles to four circles.
Five, and then.
Six—.
The circles recognizable to Andras's eyes were six. Even so, the circles residing in Tia's body did not stop and became even faster.
'She surpassed the 6th circle?'
—Jjeojjeok
The Demon King, Andras, who was watching this with astonished eyes, looked up at the sky at the strange sound that suddenly occurred.
The ceiling of the castle hung in tatters after being forcibly torn off, and what was visible through the torn gap was.
"What on earth is—"
The sky split open.
That sight was clearly visible even from outside the castle, so
"What is that again...."
Yoo Seolhwa's footsteps, which were about to enter the castle after joining up with Jeong Seah, came to a halt.
She looked up at the sky.
The sky exposed a black space as if roughly torn somewhere.
Soon, everything was being sucked in by an enormous gravitational pull.
She blankly gazed at it and thought.
Is this what the end of the world is like?
"Hunter Yoo Seolhwa!"
Fortunately, she urgently snapped back to her senses at Jeong Seah's shout, but it still didn't feel real all the same.
"What on earth is that...?"
"I do not know either, but...."
Strength surged into the hand holding the spear.
"Something big must be happening for sure...."
Jeong Seah judged. For now, whether it was their target of surveillance Tia or the Red Gate's Boss, they shouldn't approach that castle.
"Should we move...?"
"First, it seems best to watch from afar...."
She didn't know what that thing in the sky was, but she merely prayed in her heart that the aftermath wouldn't reach this far.
"...."
The knights were barely holding out, but the moment that magic was cast, there would be no way they could endure it.
He looked straight ahead.
The culprit of everything, that thing was merely smiling innocently.
"...What are you."
He was a king.
The king of demons and one of the 72 Demon Kings was none other than himself.
—Deudeudeuk
For the first time, he stood up.
"Who on earth are you!"
As he gestured, dozens of magic circles aimed at Tia.
Multi-casting, the pinnacle of magic he had achieved on his own.
Dozens of magic circles surrounding Tia soon shone brightly and were cast.
The cast magic headed toward Tia, but scattered in the form of mana before reaching the end.
"Why are you interfering? This is all for you!"
The emotion of fear welled up in the king.
Next was despair.
For hundreds of years, he had no rival. The demons called him king, and he willingly accepted the title of king.
And yet.
"It's magic prepared for you."
A grand magic spontaneously modified after seeing two types of magic, 『Gravity』 and 『Collapse Nova』.
Probably the final destination of magic that Demon King Andras aimed for.
Tia attempted to manifest that.
Nine circles spun relentlessly.
Formulas even Andras could not comprehend were stacking layer upon layer, bringing something into fruition.
The massive gravitational sphere floating in the sky.
The sphere compressed to its absolute limit was finally about to be released.
9th circle magic.
『Demise』
A roaring sound as if the sky were tearing apart echoed throughout the Gate.