Chapter 75
Chapter 75
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 75
Chapter Title: The Return of the Archmage (2)
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Canis brought him a light green robe. Though Arin was watching, Arcane changed his clothes without a second thought.
Leaning on the table for support, Arcane finally managed to catch his breath after taking a seat.
“Hahh, now I feel alive.”
“Are you alright, Master?”
Canis asked with concern. The dark circles under his eyes, a stark contrast to his pale skin, made it clear he was a dark mage without him having to say a word.
*He has splendid eyes. That’s why I took him as my disciple.*
Arcane, on the other hand, was not particularly fond of Arin. The mutation of her black hair and eyes clearly indicated she had talent, but she was soft-hearted and her judgment wasn't very sharp.
Her pretty face showed no trace of malice, and her large eyes openly revealed her every emotion.
Arcane clicked his tongue at the sight of her, her pupils trembling ever since she had seen the old man’s naked body.
*Tsk, tsk, what use is someone like that? Utterly useless.*
If she hadn't been Canis’s best friend, he would never have brought such a weak-willed girl with him.
It was on that day, seven years ago.
Even with the aid of a life support system, his movements had become difficult. Mustering his last bit of strength, he had entered the capital, Bashka.
As befitting the largest city in the Tormia Kingdom, the streets were opulent and vibrant. But behind the light, the city’s outcasts endured a miserable existence.
The slums of Radum.
As one would expect from a capital with severe social polarization, the residents of Radum lived far more wretched lives than the beggars of other cities.
In this place people wouldn't dare approach, the only way to get food was to rummage through trash cans. Even that was fiercely competitive, and it was a common occurrence for people to commit murder over a fish bone.
It was there that Arcane had found Canis and Arin.
In Radum, where daily life was a war, the only way for the ten-year-old Canis to survive with Arin was to become cruel.
Canis’s eyes were burning with hostility toward the world.
Arcane liked that look in his eyes. He brought the two to his dungeon and taught them dark magic.
*My eyes did not deceive me. He's certainly the real deal.*
Arcane stood up, refusing Canis’s help. This was the day he would finally escape his wretched old age, and he didn't want to show any weakness, at least not today.
“Watch closely, and behold the greatness of dark magic.”
Arcane gripped the black crystal and closed his eyes. His hand trembled from lack of strength, but his face was filled with an unconcealable excitement.
“Haaa!”
With a shout, the crystal softened and coiled around Arcane like a stream of water. Then it billowed out like a dark cloud, enveloping his entire body.
“Graaaaaaah!”
Arcane let out a monstrous scream. He was absorbing forty years' worth of power all at once; an ordinary person would have already lost their mind.
The concepts of dark magic are absorption and assimilation.
Arcane was regaining his former power by assimilating the dark energy he had absorbed into the crystal with his own darkness.
“Wooooooh!”
The shadow at Arcane's feet blazed like a flame, then detached from his body and scattered like fragments.
How much time had passed?
Canis and Arin slowly opened their eyes. The frailty that had defined Arcane was completely gone.
It wasn't that his appearance had grown younger or his back had straightened. But his complexion was flushed, and his eyes were filled with vitality.
Feeling an unapproachable aura from his restored master, Canis trembled with overwhelming emotion.
*Is this my master's true form? I'd only heard rumors, but this is truly incredible.*
Arcane smiled, satisfied. He was just as he had been before his defeat at Alpheas’s hands—powerful.
“Let’s go. From this day forward, the history of Arcane will be rewritten.”
Having waited forty years for this day, Arcane left the dungeon without even a moment to savor the afterglow of his surging power.
* * *
Arcane arrived at Bashka's western prison, ‘Inferno.’ As a facility housing felons ranging from D-rank to B-rank, it boasted ironclad security.
“Halt! Who goes there! This is a restricted area!”
Even though the approaching figures were an old man and two children, the guards did not respond carelessly. They immediately drew their weapons and shouted a warning.
“Identify yourselves! Failure to comply will result in your arrest!”
“You greenhorns…”
The shadow at Arcane's feet stretched out and merged with the guards' shadows. Unaware of what was happening, the guards' eyes rolled back and their eyelids fluttered. Then, they fell to their knees and collapsed to the ground.
“Hmph, hardly even a snack. Canis, open the gate.”
Canis took a ring of keys from a guard’s belt and unlocked Inferno's main gate. He knew his master could have crumpled the iron gate if he wished, but it seemed he had no intention of making a big scene.
However, Canis’s assumption was soon proven wrong. The moment they passed through the main gate, Arcane began to show his true colors.
“Intruders! Attack! Lethal force is authorized!”
“Contact the royal castle and request backup! It’s a mage!”
The guards charged, brandishing their weapons. But numbers meant nothing to a dark mage. Arcane's shadow stretched out like tentacles and merged with the soldiers' shadows.
“Urk! What is this?”
“I can’t move my body!”
The guards found themselves unable to move. Then, with a wave of Arcane’s hand, they turned on their comrades and began to thrust their spears against their will.
“Aaargh! Are you crazy? This is dangerous!”
“I don’t know! It’s not me!”
Arin’s face turned pale. Born with eyes unlike any other, she was receiving the guards' terror unfiltered.
“Canis, Master never said we’d be coming to a place like this.”
Canis was just as puzzled. But his faith in Arcane did not waver in the slightest.
“He must have a reason. Let’s just follow him for now.”
Arcane calmly strode through the battlefield toward the building. As the shadows connected to the guards were severed with a snap, the men who had been brawling collapsed, foaming at the mouth.
It was mind control, a characteristic of dark magic.
Darkness becomes one with other darkness. Using this property, a mage could infiltrate another's shadow to control their body and mind.
Looking only at its advantages, the very nature of dark magic was overpowered.
Yet, the reason it was considered a fringe discipline was because a single drawback overshadowed all its strengths.
Its weakness to light.
While the sun is out, darkness can exist only as a sliver of a shadow. Furthermore, the stronger the light, the more mental energy is required to cast dark magic.
Of course, a dark mage’s power is maximized at night, but even that was a trend that was losing its luster with the popularization of the Photonization theory, developed by the genius Kergos.
Across all the magic academies on the continent, there were almost no students majoring in dark magic, which showed just how disdained the dark arts were in the magical community.
But Canis knew that Arcane had completely overcome the weaknesses of dark magic. And the ultimate essence he had realized had been passed down to him in its entirety.
*Yes, I have to trust my master. The one who gave me everything.*
After breaking down the entrance and entering the prison, Arcane dealt with more guards in the corridor. Then, he opened the iron gate to Block A-3, where the prisoners were held. The inmates, sensing that something was happening, banged on the iron bars with their food trays.
“Hey! I don’t know who you are, but get us out of here!”
“Hey! Open this damn iron gate! I’ll make it worth your while! Or I could even kill someone for you!”
Arcane slowly extended both hands. The prison’s grim environment was the perfect place for Arcane to display his talents.
“Authority of Darkness.”
The shadows in the corridor morphed into the shape of hands and rose up three-dimensionally. As hundreds of hands gripped the iron bars and pulled, the sound of twisting metal filled the air. The terrified prisoners backed away against the walls as the bars along the corridor were ripped out one by one.
*CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!*
Authority of Darkness was a spell that allowed one to command shadows that had absorbed ambient energy as if they were one's own limbs. A single strand of shadow could barely lift a pebble, but hundreds of pairs of hands moving with mechanical precision could unleash enough monstrous strength to easily tear out iron bars.
A while after the gates were opened, the prisoners shuffled out and revealed themselves. Heavy iron balls were shackled to their ankles.
“What, are you a mage? That was quite a trick.”
“Anyway, thanks. Let’s introduce ourselves. I’m Crown the Night Cat. In this line of work, my name alone is enough to get respect.”
Arcane wore a displeased expression as he felt the prisoners' pathetic auras. Forty years ago, Inferno wasn't like this. What had happened to this place, once filled with all sorts of vicious criminals, to make it fall so far?
*How times have changed. Does this mean life has gotten better?*
According to Arcane's theory, as civilization develops, the quality of criminals declines. Scammers who are only good at petty tricks become more common, while the truly evil ones infiltrate society.
“Pathetic fools. A criminal introducing himself? Do you really think you can just walk out of here because the bars are gone?”
“What, has this old geezer gone senile? I was trying to be nice, but do you have any idea who I am?”
The prisoners acted tough, relying on their superior numbers. There was no guarantee that sharing a prison made them allies.
“Listen well, you idiots. If you’re not confident you can defeat me, then stay rotting in your cells. If you defy my command, you will suffer the pain of broken bones.”
The prisoners burst out laughing.
“Puhahaha! What’s this old man rambling about? Does he really think we’ll go back quietly after coming this far?”
“Let’s crush him! I’ve got to get out of this damn prison!”
In the excitement of regaining their freedom, the prisoners charged recklessly. But they soon realized a crucial fact: the shackles were still on their ankles.
Had their reason been momentarily paralyzed? Or perhaps they hadn't noticed, having worn them for years.
“Huh? Huh? Damn it!”
Only then did the prisoners begin to panic. Arcane watched their sorry state and snorted.
If one chooses evil, one must have skill. If one lacks skill, one should at least have brains. But these men were nothing more than parasites feeding off the prison system.
“Authority of Darkness.”
“Ugh, aghhh! What is this!”
The hands that had torn out the bars now coiled around the prisoners and dragged them into the darkness. Their eyes, noses, and mouths vanished into the black shroud as if being buried in a giant gel.
A moment later, the sound of breaking bones could be heard.
“Mmmph! Mmph!”
“Grrrrrrr!”
Their mouths covered, the prisoners couldn't even scream.
Hearing the eerie crunching and cracking, Arin shuddered and spoke to Canis.
“Canis, does he really have to do this to get his revenge?”
“Arin, to deny our master is to deny ourselves.”
“Even so…”
“Have you forgotten what happened to us in Radum? We went through things much more horrible than this. Besides, the prisoners here are the same kind of scum who tormented us in Radum.”
“But we promised. We promised to forget everything that happened in Radum. To be happy from now on.”
“Nothing is over yet. Until our master’s grudge is settled, we won’t find happiness either.”
When the darkness that had filled the corridor dissipated, the prisoners with broken bones lay squirming in bizarre positions.
Arcane looked down on them with arrogant eyes and muttered.
“Weaklings. Was this a wasted trip? Or perhaps it will be better if I go to another block?”
The number of criminals incarcerated in Inferno was 320. It was possible that this particular block just happened to be filled with lowlifes.