Chapter 70
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 70
Chapter Title: Eyes on the Flame Demon
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Elin and the demon locked eyes.
Radia reacted first.
“Run!”
She snatched Elin, whose reflexes were comparatively sluggish, and bolted down the hallway.
Isel followed right behind.
In an instant, flames roared to life, the small cluster of bushes that had concealed them erupting into a blaze and scattering ashes in the wind.
“Isel, look after Elin. I’ll head back…”
“Radia-senior! Wait!”
As the demon leaped from the floor below, Radia whipped around in a panic, only for Elin to grab her.
In the heat of the moment, she didn’t even have the presence of mind to protest Radia casually shoving her toward Isel.
“Senior might wound the demon, but it won’t go down like that.”
The demon posed a threat for any number of reasons, but one feature stood out above the rest.
‘Death aura.’
A substance that neutralized mana.
Any attack fueled by magic power was either dismantled by the death aura or robbed of its potency.
Worse still, the death aura lacked a fixed, tangible form. It shifted fluidly—gas, liquid, solid—whatever best shielded its host.
And that made it the greatest obstacle in battling a demon…
Elin rushed to add more.
“Demons have incredible regenerative abilities. They don’t have a core like golems do. Surface wounds get patched up by their natural healing, just like that. So to land a truly effective blow…”
“Then what’s the method?”
Elin faltered for a moment.
Mages were walking repositories of knowledge. Even casting a single spell required comprehending its element, dissecting the underlying phenomenon, and mastering the theory behind it.
Magic was the harmonious force that bridged phenomena, an academic pursuit grounded in the belief that one phenomenon could spawn or transform another.
The same principle applied to death aura.
Somewhere, there had to be a catalyst for change, something capable of spawning an entirely new phenomenon.
No—there was.
If a mage couldn’t find it, that just meant they didn’t know how.
No perfectly pure essence, untouched by any phenomenon, had ever been discovered outside of runes.
‘Death aura wreathed in flames.’
If only there were some way to snuff it out…
Elin racked her brain like she was wringing out a soaked rag.
There was no one foolproof method for taking down demons.
Holy water or a accompanying priest might work, sure, but nothing that screamed “weakness.”
‘But…’
“…Every demon’s traits are unique. From what you and Isel-senior saw, what’s that one like? Its attack patterns, anything.”
“A heat ray of compressed flames, blistering heat, and flames cloaking its body.”
“And to add to Radia-senior—the candle-like flickers it scatters around. They seem like probes, but they pack a punch you can’t ignore.”
Isel fleshed out Radia’s description.
They’d all witnessed those patterns before. The flames’ applications might vary, but the demon’s approach stayed consistent.
A hellscape straight out of purgatory.
The indiscriminate melting of cement and brick into a sickly sludge was horrifying enough on its own.
“What about regeneration? Radia-senior, when you slashed its body before—how’d it recover!?”
Radia spat the words through gritted teeth.
“…Looked like it absorbed flames.”
Defeat washed over Elin’s face.
‘Burns its surroundings for fuel, then absorbs the blaze to heal and attack?’
As long as there was anything flammable nearby, it was all but invincible.
Radia caught Elin’s expression and grumbled in complaint.
“Last time at the magic tower, a demon went down from one punch by Professor Aiden.”
“That’s only because Professor Aiden’s a master!”
Elin cried out.
You couldn’t lump someone who could punch holes in the clouds into the general category!
Elin groaned and clawed at her hair.
“If you pulverize it in one hit before it can recover, sure, that’d work. Professor Aiden must’ve managed it.”
Whether Radia-senior could pierce the death aura for a solid hit was anyone’s guess—but Isel and Elin? No chance.
Especially since the death aura lashed out viciously to guard its host, making its defenses even more ironclad going forward.
‘And with flames all around, it’ll regenerate in no time.’
If it could ignite anything nearby, the demon was practically immortal.
It burned objects, absorbed the resulting inferno to regenerate.
Which meant defeating it required stripping away all combustible material in the area.
‘But it’s melting the cement underfoot—how do you even…’
Radia grumbled in bleak frustration at Elin’s words.
“It’s not like we’re in the middle of a snowfield. Where’s a place like that supposed to be…?”
Isel, who’d been listening quietly, chimed in.
“The middle of a snowfield… Don’t the Snowfield Magic Tower mages whip those up right in front of the tower?”
Elin and Radia halted mid-stride and whipped their heads toward Isel.
The startled Isel panicked.
“D-did I say something weird?”
But Elin and Radia let out exclamations instead of replies.
“Ah!”
How had they not thought of it? Elin’s eyes gleamed.
When the magic tower fell to magic contamination.
The Snowfield Magic Tower had summoned a massive blizzard.
And it was doing the same right now amid the crisis.
To hem in the corpse golem, the tower was blanketing the area in snow.
‘A snowstorm—the Snowfield Magic Tower’s signature area-denial spell.’
Set the stage with an environment suited to spellcasting, and any magic you wove would guzzle far less mana.
Theirs drew from a snowfield motif—eternal, unmelting snow.
No doubt a raging snowfall gripped the corpse golem’s location too.
Inside that blizzard’s radius, even a flame demon couldn’t ignite a thing.
‘Plus, the corpse golem’s weak to fire.’
Lure them together and strike at once.
“Radia-senior! We need the magic tower to kill that demon!”
Radia gripped her sword, clearly in agreement.
Though it was less about rallying her resolve and more about desperately fending off the oncoming flames.
Roooar!
Radia and Elin threw up their hands.
Droplets coalesced in the air as Radia absorbed Elin’s conjured water, whipping it into a vortex.
Flame met torrent.
Shhhhh—
Vast clouds of steam filled the hallway with choking white smoke. Isel hacked and coughed.
Elin had proposed the idea herself, but the sheer heat left her dazed, a wry chuckle escaping her lips.
Radia clenched her jaw, parried the heat ray, and stared at her trembling right hand.
‘What strength…!’
Her palm throbbed with numbness.
The hand clutching her sword had halted just shy of blistering. Had she not gritted her teeth and deflected it…
Radia wiped away cold sweat and steadied her ragged breaths.
“Let’s head down the stairs for now.”
The demon had vaulted up to the second floor earlier, so it could probably manage short leaps.
Better to descend via stairs than climb to the roof.
Isel, breathless, asked Radia.
“Okay, so we need the magic tower’s help to take down that demon—I get it. But how? They’ve got a corpse golem too. One’s bad enough—two at once…”
She worried they’d both end up stranded.
Isel ground her teeth.
Elin swallowed back the absurdity bubbling up and held her tongue.
Radia was the one with a concrete answer.
Her eyes screamed reckless, but no choice.
“Someone of Professor Aiden’s caliber asked for help from the likes of us. That’s how dire it is. We can’t just sit around waiting for the magic tower to handle the golem.”
And besides…
Radia shot Elin a sidelong glance.
“That demon gets stronger the more flames it burns and absorbs, right?”
“Uh… I’m not sure…”
“It’s stronger now. When I first clashed with it, the heat ray didn’t hit like this.”
Elin hemmed and hawed, unable to respond precisely to those assured eyes.
“If that’s how you felt, Radia-senior, I’m not sure if it’s growing stronger or just adapting. New demons usually go through an adjustment phase, so… maybe it’s regaining something?”
“Regaining?”
“I hate to admit it, but that’s Professor Prezel. A magic specialist—top of the senior mages, and a sitting professor.”
Radia pressed her.
“It seems like she’s lost her mind to the side effects for now… but what if she starts recovering her memories? Imagine a professor reduced to destructive impulses, fully merging her lifetime of combat magic prowess with demonic power…”
“No need to hear the rest. That’s the worst-case scenario.”
Radia clicked her tongue.
Ri Sete Academy was the empire’s premier institution.
It varied by department, but everyone acknowledged it.
Professors there were naturally at the pinnacle of knowledge.
Professor Prezel reigned unrivaled in elemental magic—flame magic in particular.
Now she wielded those flames as a demon.
Elin broke out in cold sweat.
“…She’s not channeling it as proper magic—just spewing it wildly. If she started casting structured spells, though… I don’t know.”
“So there’s a time limit. Damn it.”
Radia dredged up a memory of the botany professor.
She’d been in the Magic Department, but her post relied more on herbal lore than magical talent.
Even she, the moment she turned demonic, had leveraged her expertise to forge an overwhelming colossal form that crushed the tower’s entire staff, spawning grotesque swarms and spore clouds.
A demon’s true horror lay in this: unlike mindless beasts, they gradually reclaimed their human talents, fusing them with their newfound might.
That demon hadn’t yet awakened Professor Prezel’s knowledge.
“We miss this shot, we’re done.”
“We’re stuck waiting for Professor Aiden, then.”
Isel sighed as Elin echoed Radia’s point.
“Fine. Then like Elin said—let’s try it, success or failure. First things first: lure Professor Prezel… no, the demon… toward the Snowfield Magic Tower.”
That’d incidentally rescue the students collapsed in the Magic Department building too.
“So how do we pull that off…?”
Even brushing the heat ray meant a fatal burn.
Luring required keeping pace at a safe distance—nothing ordinary about the risk.
Elin clutched her necklace at Radia’s fretful tone.
She swallowed hard, then eyed the two remaining glows.
Two memorized spells.
If there was an answer, it lay here.
Elin’s eyes lit up.
“How about this?”