Widia Invasion (4)
When Leon cast his wide-area search spell, it caught five presences. There might have been more, but hesitating any longer would leave him caught between a rock and a hard place.
“Wait here.”
Leon stopped the group and landed on the ground. They stood in a forest where the shadows of massive trees stretched across the earth.
“This place is perfect for the enemy’s—”
“Shh.”
Leon silenced the protesting academy student and immediately slipped into his own shadow.
“Huh?”
The academy students—except for Lia—widened their eyes in shock. It was the exact same movement magic as the shadow assimilation technique used by dark mages. Unease flickered across their faces.
“You’re really going to fight them!”
By then, the five dark mages had arrived at their location. Leon, hidden in the darkness, determined that he couldn’t read one of their ranks, while the rest were all at Esoteric Beginner.
‘One of them is probably Esoteric Intermediate… or maybe even High?’
Even so, it didn’t trigger the same level of danger he had felt before. Leon burst out from the shadow of a tree near the dark mages and immediately hurled his wooden sword.
The highest-ranked dark mage stood in the center of the group, making him difficult to target right away.
“Pierce.”
The wooden sword, brimming with mana, sliced through the air like a beam of light as it hurtled toward the dark mages. The Esoteric Beginner who spotted Leon first flinched and hastily raised a defensive spell.
But the moment the wooden sword touched the slime-like barrier, it interfered with the spell formula as if causing static. That brief moment of confusion led directly to death.
The already crudely formed slime barrier was pierced straight through. The wooden sword embedded itself in the dark mage’s abdomen.
“Swell.”
As soon as Leon spoke, the sword lodged in the man’s gut expanded. The dark mage’s body tore apart in a horrifying, indescribable mess before he died.
The enlarged wooden sword shattered the dark mages’ formation. They stared in confusion at the same movement magic they themselves used, then belatedly regained their senses and launched attack spells at Leon.
“Don’t block the wooden sword—dodge it!”
The man who appeared to be the leader of the dark mage group instantly noticed the sword’s abnormality. The spells from the three Esoteric Beginner mages weren’t much of a threat to Leon, who could manifest nine spells simultaneously. The real problem was the leader’s magic.
The man—with his hair standing on end and dark circles reaching all the way under his eyes—summoned a mass of slime that looked twice as large as the others’.
‘If Pierce and Swell had linked properly, this would’ve been much easier.’
Unfortunately, they were only half-formed spells. As the leader’s massive slime split into several tendrils and surged forward, Leon didn’t bother blocking. Instead, he used a Blink scroll to relocate.
He immediately targeted the leader with a C-grade scroll—Gravity Well.
“Ugh… damn it.”
The man, about to cast another spell, couldn’t withstand the intensified gravity and collapsed forward hard. In that opening, Leon hurled five D-grade scrolls at the remaining enemies.
After three months of nothing but training, Leon had plenty of D-grade scrolls to spare. While they couldn’t deliver a fatal blow to Esoteric Beginner mages, their power was still nothing to scoff at.
Flames exploded around them, and elongated blades of wind tore through the air. While they were busy blocking the scroll spells, Leon retrieved his wooden sword and launched it again. The dark mages hurriedly slipped into their own shadows.
“Lia!”
At Leon’s shout, Lia understood instantly and cast her spell.
“Light Flare!”
As Lia used her memorized magic, a brilliant flash erupted, sending intense light radiating outward. The dark mages were forced back out of their shadows.
“Fall.”
Leon, who had been preparing in advance, dropped lightning on them. But they weren’t inexperienced Apprentice mages with zero combat experience.
“Defensio!”
The dark mages urgently pulled tokens from their robes and shouted. The lightning was blocked by the defensive barriers that formed around them. It was an artifact capable of blocking Esoteric magic—one that Leon also knew about.
Their eyes briefly turned toward Lia and the rest of the group.
“She’s a Light attribute mage.”
With those words, Leon realized they had marked Lia as their primary target.
‘You think you have the luxury for that?’
Leon immediately pulled a green potion bottle from his subspace. It was one of the thirty poison vials he had taken from Forn’s secret laboratory. The toxin had been extracted from Kito. He hadn’t used them until now because throwing them directly at people made them too easy to dodge.
But after seeing the performance of the poison mist orbs used by the traitors, he had kept their potential use in mind.
Leon hurled four poison vials at their individual barriers.
Crash—
The vials shattered against the barriers, splashing green liquid across them.
Sizzle—
Confirming that the barriers were melting, Leon fired off nine bolts of lightning.
“Fuck, block in front of me! Block it no matter what! I’ll kill them all for you!”
The three Esoteric Beginner mages moved to shield their leader. Each manifested three spells to block Leon’s magic. Meanwhile, the leader gathered mana from behind them.
‘Is he trying to use an Esoteric spell?’
In that moment, the academy students finished preparing their own spells and launched them at the dark mages, but every attack was swallowed by the slime wall in front of them.
Leon retrieved his wooden sword and threw it again.
“Bastion!”
One of the dark mages pulled a black stone from his robe and hurled it forward. The stone rapidly enlarged and formed a defensive wall in front of them. It was another artifact.
The wooden sword, vulnerable to artifacts, bounced off the boulder. Without its inherent abilities, Pierce was nothing more than basic magic.
Leon calmly retrieved the wooden sword and threw another poison vial.
Sizzle—
“Goddaaaamn it!”
The dark mage screamed as the barrier melted away. It must have been a rather precious artifact. But by then, the leader had bought enough time to prepare his Esoteric spell and pushed his subordinates aside.
“Everyone move!”
Right before the leader could chant his Esoteric spell, Leon pulled out the Bell of Confusion and rang it.
Ding— Ding—
As the purple bell tolled, the leader’s face twisted into a deep frown.
“Ugh……”
“Gah……”
The Bell of Confusion was an artifact that disrupted the mind. The leader’s Esoteric spell fell apart. However, the mental interference also affected allies, and once used, it couldn’t be used again for an entire day.
‘No choice……’
Without hesitation, Leon launched his wooden sword. It pierced straight into the chest of one of the dark mages blocking the way.
“Fall.”
Rumble— Rumble— Rumble—
Nine bolts of lightning crashed down on the poorly clustered group.
“Fall again.”
The lightning didn’t stop. It kept raining down. Leon continued chanting without pause as he pulled out a scroll.
It was a C-grade scroll—Giant Rock. Unlike the dozens of D-grade scrolls he carried, he only had ten of these C-grade attribute attack scrolls.
He poured mana into the scroll. A massive boulder formed above the dark mages, large enough to cover all of them, then plummeted in an instant.
Boom—
No one emerged from beneath the rock even after a long wait.
‘Phew… that was too close.’
His remaining mana was dangerously low. Of course, that was excluding the mana he had to reserve for flight. Infusing mana to strengthen the basic spell Pierce consumed far more power than expected. Not to mention simultaneously chanting nine spells.
“Hah… I can hardly believe it.”
Once the battle ended, the group approached.
“It makes me question whether this is even realistically possible. At this rate, we might be witnessing the childhood of a future Transcendence mage……”
“……”
“Are you okay?”
Lia asked worriedly from his side. Leon reassured her that he was fine, then used another spell to split the boulder apart himself. The underside of the rock was stained with blood.
“Ugh……”
One of the less experienced Apprentice mages frowned at the sight of the crushed corpses beneath the rock.
Leon retrieved his wooden sword, which didn’t have a single scratch. He didn’t bother searching the bodies for subspace pouches. There was no telling if they contained tracking devices.
By then, the academy student with the highest rank among them had apparently grown accustomed to the corpses and approached Leon.
“The dark magic you used just now… I won’t speak of it.”
Leon gave a bitter smile. Now that he had used dark magic, there was no longer any possibility of returning to Widia.
‘Well, I already revealed most of my power anyway. It was inevitable.’
The moment Leon was about to say they needed to keep running without rest instead of discussing dark magic, a high-speed spell assaulted the group.
Both the Guardian Robe Leon wore underneath and Lia’s necklace glowed at the same time. Barriers formed around Leon and Lia.
Boom—
What struck the barrier was wind. Extremely stealthy yet incredibly powerful wind. Leon endured it, but Lia was sent flying. The other students were torn apart, spraying blood as they collapsed.
A female mage holding a fan appeared before them, her face filled with puzzlement.
“All Esoteric Beginner except for one Apprentice?”
The woman with short green hair folded her fan and tapped it lightly against her lips.
A loud alarm bell rang violently inside Leon’s head.
‘Mystery rank!’
Leon immediately pulled out a Blink scroll. He appeared beside the unconscious Lia who had been thrown backward and lifted her into his arms. At that moment, another gust of wind struck him.
The spell she used was clearly wind attribute, yet it was so stealthy that reacting to it was difficult. Thanks to the Guardian Robe’s barrier, which automatically detected attacks, he managed to block it once again.
Leon was about to accelerate away using his golden wings when he noticed something and froze.
“That defensive artifact looks pretty go—”
Before the short-haired woman could finish licking her lips, a scorching heat suddenly engulfed her.
Whoosh—
A firebird large enough to cover her entire body flew straight at her.
“Tch.”
She swung her fan, but the massive firebird refused to be pushed back. Frowning with her heavily made-up face, the short-haired woman leaped backward.
“That bitch Arpina……”
“If you dare touch my disciple—disciples—you’d better die nicely.”
Arpina, riding on a cloud-like wind, descended in front of Leon.
Whether it was disciple or disciples, Leon simply let out a deep sigh of relief as he stared at her back.