Chapter 255: The Feat of a Reserve Flagbearer (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 255: The Feat of a Reserve Flagbearer (4)
Because he was small, it was easy to wrap him up in the robe. Had Dante been the size of an average adult male, it would have been impossible to hide even his shoes.
Thump.
‘Did I just hear something get poked? Must be my imagination.’
Even if it wasn't, it wasn't as if he could pull Dante out to check.
Jin looked down at the fallen Veradin. The man was twitching and convulsing, on the verge of passing out.
The best way to break through the Zipple mages’ encirclement was to use Veradin as a hostage. However, if Jin paraded him around like a banner to force their retreat, Veradin's defeat would become an official, public record.
Countless reporters would witness the scene. Veradin’s loss had to remain an internal Zipple matter, if at all possible.
‘I hope he doesn't wake up from this beating and cause another ruckus within his clan. I thought Dante was the one with the “charge ahead, consequences be damned” personality, not Veradin.’
It was no wonder the two were close. Both Dante and Veradin were the type to stake their lives on fiery conviction rather than make the most efficient choice.
Whoosh!
As the flames grew fiercer, the gold bars began to melt. Streams of molten gold flowed away from the fallen Veradin and toward the sea.
“It’s him!”
“We’ve found Jin Runcandel!”
The mages all turned their gazes toward Jin at once.
However, unlike their previous frantic shouting, they were no longer flustered. Some cast shields upward to prepare for a potential Pluto Sword attack, while others formed ranks and readied offensive spells with good synergy.
Even with twenty Zipple mages targeting him, Jin wasn't nervous. Since he had already revealed his identity as a Runcandel and the alias ‘Barmul’ back at the plaza, there was no longer any need to hide that he was a magic swordsman.
Of course, the Zipple could pressure the Runcandel clan later by citing the Covenant.
But Jin thought, ‘That’s a problem for the clan to handle.’
If he had judged the Runcandels so incompetent that they couldn't handle such a thing, he never would have revealed his identity at the plaza. In fact, he wouldn’t have even set the goal of becoming Patriarch after his regression in the first place.
Vroom—!
Mana gathered in Jin’s palm. The Zipple mages did not miss the sight of ambient mana being instantly refined and drawn into his grasp.
But even seeing it with their own eyes, they couldn't believe it.
“Mana? He gathered that much mana?” the section leader stammered, flinching.
The reason for his shock was simple. It wasn't just that Jin was ‘gathering’ mana. The spell was forming at a speed that terrified even these mages, men who had been called geniuses until they entered the Zipple.
Furthermore, the purity of the mana was far higher than anything the Zipple mages could produce. They had always believed that this level of mana manipulation was a feat only possible for pure-blooded Zipples.
And yet, a Runcandel was doing it—and a mere young reserve flagbearer at that!
“Commence the attack!” the section leader shouted through gritted teeth.
He didn't know what trick the damn Runcandel was using, but he felt insulted. The mere thought of a Runcandel wielding magic superior to their own was a nightmare.
As soon as he spoke, a volley of light beams shot from the mages' staves. Shuri’s eyes glowed as she twisted her body.
Swish! She leaped left and right, dodging the mana beams, and sliced apart the ones she couldn't avoid with her claws.
The mages seemed to have expected this much and calmly followed up with their next spells.
Elemental magic—Lightning Call, Flame Barrier, and Ice Prison—poured down. Shuri was forced to stay in constant motion, unable to touch the ground for even a second.
‘They’re even preparing a barrier.’
From Jin’s perspective, the Zipple mages were responding excellently. Despite their numerical advantage, they calmly chose a standard approach to eliminate variables. Their use of three or more elemental spells pressured him in perfect, efficient harmony.
But that was as far as their skill went.
They failed to account for the unpredictability that only a true genius possessed. It was only natural. They couldn't conceive that they weren't geniuses themselves, nor could they imagine that Jin possessed magical insight that far surpassed their own.
Flash!
Shuri suddenly leaped high into the air to avoid flames erupting from the ground.
As if they had been waiting for this exact moment, the Zipple mages raised their staves in unison and aimed at Shuri. Just like when they first fired the mana beams, the ten mages—excluding those maintaining the shields—were all chanting the same spell.
“Tear him apart!”
Hell Wind. The essence of 8-star wind magic.
Artificial, opaque winds rushed toward Shuri and Jin. They were as sharp as aura-coated blades and had a hazy form that made their trajectories difficult to predict. Above all, since Shuri was in mid-air with no ground to kick off from, evasion was impossible.
‘They chose this because its range makes it impossible to miss, and it’s a spell that’s difficult to deflect with a sword.’
However, the Zipple mages casting Hell Wind was exactly the development Jin wanted.
Heaven Reversal!
Just before the Hell Wind reached them, a small rift opened in the air above Jin’s head—the genesis of the Heaven Reversal sphere. Once the mana inside surged and created a vortex, the rift would expand into the full sphere.
While 9-star mana was required to cast a complete Heaven Reversal, Jin had usually cast an incomplete version with around 7-star mana.
But right now, Jin wasn't trying to cast Heaven Reversal with his own mana.
The ten streams of Hell Wind swallowed Shuri. As the mana roiled, her falling form was momentarily hidden from view.
Screech, grind, rumble—!
However, the mages didn't hear the sound of flesh and bone being sliced apart. Instead, they heard a bizarre noise, as if the mana of the Hell Wind was being shredded by a saw.
It was an extremely brief moment, but the mages instinctively sensed that something had gone terribly wrong.
Shuri and Jin landed lightly on the ground, perfectly fine without a single scratch.
In less than a second, the initial rift that had heralded Heaven Reversal had expanded into the largest sphere Jin had ever cast. To the mages, it felt as if the sky had been momentarily blotted out.
Gwaaaaah!
It let out a strange, explosive roar like a monster’s howl.
In the brief moment it took the mages to process what was happening, Jin unleashed the Reverse Flow Explosion he had prepared in the air through simultaneous casting.
He had only used the minimum mana required to activate Heaven Reversal. Then, he had swung the Reverse Flow Explosion he’d summoned like a shield to redirect the incoming Hell Winds.
Thanks to that, the Hell Winds were sucked entirely into the Heaven Reversal rift, becoming the fuel for the spell to manifest fully.
In other words, he had absorbed their Hell Winds to hurl them back at them.
A Heaven Reversal with power exceeding the 9-star level had begun, yet the actual mana Jin had used was only enough to cast a single Reverse Flow Explosion.
For most mages who weren't Jin, this was a feat possible only in theory.
The Heaven Reversal Jin had just performed in mid-air involved at least five masterful techniques: the speed to complete the Heaven Reversal formula in seconds, the strategic foresight to predict the opponent's move, the use of simultaneous casting, the precise control to choose a spell’s origin point at will even while on a moving mount, and the sheer confidence to execute it all without hesitation in a situation where failure meant certain death.
“This is how you’re supposed to use magic.”
A thin trail of blood trickled from the corner of Jin’s mouth as he smirked.
It wasn't from mana backflow. When he swung the Reverse Flow Explosion like a shield, he had simply been struck in the jaw by his own forearm from the recoil of blocking the Hell Winds.
His mouth was numb. Other than that, he was completely unharmed.
“Everyone, shieeeeeld!” the section leader screamed like a madman, the first to grasp the situation.
Even then, about half of the mages still had no idea what had just happened.
‘His understanding of magic is on a completely different level.’
That was what the section leader was thinking as he stared at Jin. Had he known Jin possessed such talent and had mastered Kidad Hall’s secret techniques, he would have responded differently.
Though they weren't elites or special forces, there were twenty Zipple mages present. How could they have expected to be so thoroughly outplayed in a battle of magic and wits?
By a Runcandel reserve flagbearer who wasn't even twenty years old.
Kiiiiiiiiing—!
Having absorbed all the mana from the Hell Winds, the Heaven Reversal began to suck in ambient mana in earnest.
First, the shields that had been prepared for the Pluto Sword began to buckle. The attack squad tried to cast new shields, but a rushed incantation was poison to a mage.
“Gah!”
Mages were already collapsing from mana backflow, one after another. Casting a shield immediately after a large spell like Hell Wind was a daunting task even for geniuses.
The moment their Hell Wind was absorbed by Heaven Reversal, the Zipple mages' defeat was a foregone conclusion.
“Instead of casting shields, you should have cut your mana and scattered,” Jin said coolly. “If you were lucky, maybe one of you would have survived.”
In his previous life, he had felt inferiority and defeat countless times while looking at his Runcandel siblings and other knights. But he had never once felt envy toward the mages of the Zipple.
Back then, Jin had started magic at twenty-five and reached the 5-star level in just three years; he had no reason to feel intimidated by so-called geniuses. He had felt something similar toward Veradin, but even then, he believed he could have surpassed him if only he had started magic earlier.
And now, that thought had become reality. Veradin was the only person from the Zipple who had ever earned his respect.
Clang!
Sigmund slid from its scabbard. The moment the blade glinted in the sunlight, the mages looked like condemned prisoners. Bound by the shackles of Heaven Reversal, they had no means of resistance.
“Break through, Shuri.”
Shuri lowered her posture and dashed forward like an arrow.
The mages who hadn't yet succumbed to backflow fired off harassing attacks, but their spells were merely sliced apart like leaves by Jin’s lightning-infused sword strikes.
From this point on, it wasn't a fight; it was a slaughter.
Of course, Jin had no intention of leaving a single person alive.
“I have no personal grudge against you,” he said. “Blame the fact that you belong to the Zipple.”
“You bastaaaaard…! The Zipple will surely kill you!”
“That’s a relief. I would have been even more disappointed if you had begged for your lives.”
Slash! Thud.
Every time Jin swung his sword, a mage’s body collapsed to the ground like a doll with its strings cut.
A group of reporters who had just arrived at the port instinctively covered their mouths at the sight.
“W-What on earth is happening…?”
The Zipple’s Golden Castle was burning and melting away. And before it stood Jin Runcandel, methodically killing Zipple mages.
From this evening on, the world would be flooded with articles about him.