A Magician Without Foundations
Lighthein.
A flash of light.
Crackle—sizzle—snap!
"Hmph. Your reaction speed isn't half bad!"
Haste.
A burst of power.
The moment Wei Chen loosed Lighthein, he cast Haste on himself — and his body transformed, accelerating until he moved almost like a cheetah at full sprint.
Watching him, Do-ha's expression hardened further.
"I don't even know where to start pointing out the problems."
A low thrum of magic.
Earth Liquid.
A dull impact.
Clicking his tongue, Do-ha spread magic across the surrounding ground. The earth began to undulate like the surface of a water balloon.
"Wha—?!"
A lurch. A crash. A long, grinding scrape.
In the end, the heaving ground sent Wei Chen sprawling. He tumbled across the floor, his legs simply unable to keep up with the sudden surge of acceleration.
"You don't use Strengthen?"
"I don't need Strengthen to deal with a punk like you!"
"Then why did you use Haste?"
"?"
At Do-ha's question, Wei Chen furrowed his brow and tilted his head.
"?"
Watching him, Do-ha tilted his head right back.
"Ha… something is seriously wrong here."
As the two of them stood there cocking their heads at each other, Do-ha let out a sigh.
That idiot…
He genuinely has no idea why a magician needs to cast Strengthen first.
"If a magician wants to use Haste, the first thing they have to cast is Strengthen."
Only with Strengthen — physical reinforcement — could the body stably withstand the effects of Haste. Haste had originally been designed to support knights with sturdy physiques. For a magician to use it, they first had to apply Strengthen to themselves. Otherwise, the slightest change in terrain would produce exactly the result they had just witnessed.
"What kind of nonsense is that…"
"Hey. Tell me about your circle-construction process."
"…What?"
"Thought so."
When Wei Chen clearly failed to understand a word, Do-ha nodded to himself.
That persistent sense of wrongness.
This guy doesn't actually know how to use magic properly.
Among the enemies he had faced so far, there had occasionally been magicians like Wei Chen. At the time, he had assumed they were simply fighting halfheartedly. Now he knew better.
—Do-ha, something's off about that guy… Looking at his mana alone, he's almost at the fifth circle, but his foundational knowledge is completely that of an ordinary person…
Even Canteas, who had been keeping quiet, sent a telepathic message.
—You're right about what you're sensing.
—Why is he like this?
—I have a theory…
It was almost certainly because the process of accumulating power had gone wrong. No — more precisely, the problem had started from the very beginning.
Aura beads that held aura. Circle rings that held mana. Dantian that held internal energy. All of them were vessels for absorbing the free-floating magical force of the world. Different names, different properties — but the starting point was the same.
Earth's Awakened, however, were a little different. They did not craft a vessel and then fill it with energy. At some point, they simply… started using power. With no foundation whatsoever, they had Awakened in a single explosive instant. Naturally, they possessed none of the foundational knowledge that should have been built up along the way.
That said, not every magician was like Wei Chen.
Some magicians had cast their spells the proper way. Looking at it now, they seemed to fall into exactly two categories: those who had gained power through sudden Awakening but then studied magic carefully, step by step — and those who trained only the raw power they had Awakened with, never bothering to study magic at all.
In this case, though, the situation was actually convenient.
Because that guy is a member of the Demon God Cult.
A quiet motion.
"What are you doing?"
Without a word, Do-ha thrust his fist forward. Wei Chen's brow furrowed. They were roughly twenty meters apart, and the man was simply holding his fist out in front of him.
"Let's finish this quickly. Fighting someone like you is just depressing."
"You son of a—"
A deep, resonant hum.
Baekbo-singwon.
A crushing surge of force.
A heavy impact.
"Guh—!"
Fist-force slammed into his abdomen. Wei Chen swallowed empty air and doubled over. There had been nothing there — and then something had suddenly flown in and struck him square in the gut.
"Tsk tsk. A magician who doesn't even cast a protective spell… Your level is genuinely pathetic."
Honestly, that Fire Bear gang member who had turned to stone would have been a better opponent.
A sharp step.
As Wei Chen clutched his stomach and bent forward, Do-ha stamped out a footwork pattern and charged in at high speed.
But in that instant—
A flicker of movement.
"Heh! Die!"
Still coughing, still clutching his gut, Wei Chen snapped upright and thrust his magic staff forward. In truth, he had been preparing from the moment Do-ha first extended that fist, sensing an attack was coming.
A roar of magic.
Fire Pillar.
A screaming rush of heat.
From the tip of the staff pointed at Do-ha, a colossal spiral of flame began to whirl.
"I was wondering what you were doing all bent over like that. This is it?"
Having already read Wei Chen completely, Do-ha snorted and moved his hand.
Dispel.
A sharp crack.
"Wh— What the hell?!"
The flames that had been on the verge of erupting from the staff's tip vanished in an instant. Wei Chen reeled in shock.
Why did the magic just disappear?!
"Ugh. The level of this…"
A spinning whirl. A deep thrum of power.
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong — Second Step: Mujegak.
Do-ha spun his body in a wide arc and drove a kick straight at Wei Chen's head.
"Sh— Shield!"
A chill racing down his spine, Wei Chen threw up a Shield spell at once. But a mere Shield was nowhere near enough to stop Mujegak.
A cracking crunch. A burst. A long, whistling rush of air. A heavy crash.
Do-ha's foot shattered the Shield and sent Wei Chen flying far across the ground.
A soft patter of falling debris.
"Ghk… M-my… my teeth!"
Staggering to his feet, Wei Chen screamed at the sight of his teeth dropping to the dirt. A single kick had shattered more than half of them.
"When you decide the opponent's power is too strong, you don't stubbornly hang on to a Shield — you Blink immediately. You moron."
Do-ha shook his head as he walked forward. Setting aside the total absence of foundations, Wei Chen's ability to handle one-on-one combat was abysmal. Watching video of him hunting monsters, Do-ha had thought he fought reasonably well. Facing him in person, the man's adaptive capacity was critically lacking.
"Being one of the Divine 200, most people probably just ran scared — or got crushed under that absurdly massive mana pool of yours."
"Y-you… you…"
Watching Do-ha approach at a leisurely pace, Wei Chen's face twisted into something demonic.
"You… I will kill you no matter what it takes!"
A screaming surge of energy.
"Huh?"
As demonic energy erupted from the shouting Wei Chen and a horn sprouted from his forehead, Do-ha's brow furrowed.
Wei Chen was undergoing demonization. But demonization was only possible when a bishop administered a baptism.
They gave a baptism to someone like him?
In the world of Belhart, only cultists of bishop rank or higher could typically undergo demonization. That made sense — demonization meant bestowing a portion of a demon's power, and there was no reason to waste it on the weak. A demon shared its strength and then used that investment as nourishment to grow its own demonic energy. If the human receiving the power was weak, the return was meager — pure waste.
"Keheheheh… This is my first time using demonization… but at this level, I could even kill a god."
"A god? With that?"
Hearing Wei Chen's words, Do-ha burst out laughing. He wasn't even a real demon — just a demonized human — and he was talking about killing gods. On top of that, Wei Chen's demonization was incomplete, a half-finished product. Properly done, the skin would change color, wings would sprout, and the teeth would elongate. All Wei Chen had managed was a single horn.
"Shut up!!"
A high-pitched whine of gathering power. A cataclysmic roar.
Drool streaming from his mouth, Wei Chen thrust out his arm. A massive surge of energy blasted from his hand toward Do-ha.
A casual motion. A light tap.
"Wha…"
Do-ha swatted the onrushing mass of demonic energy aside as if shooing away a bug. Wei Chen's jaw dropped. One lazy flick of an arm, and his demonic energy had simply ceased to exist.
"U… uwaaah! What the hell are you?!"
A howling blast of power.
Terror overtook him. Wei Chen began indiscriminately spraying magic in every direction.
Tsk tsk. The demonic energy has eroded his brain.
That was what happened when demonic energy took root. Reason faded bit by bit, leaving only instinct. Wei Chen was holding on a little longer only because he was a magician of relatively high intelligence.
Explosions. Roaring detonations.
"Fighting you any longer is a waste of time. Die already."
A sharp rush of movement.
With those words, Do-ha weaved through the oncoming spells and closed the distance at high speed.
A firm grip.
The moment he reached point-blank range, Do-ha stretched out his arm and seized the tip of Wei Chen's magic staff. Magic that was all raw power and no accuracy was never going to hit him.
"You idiot! Grabbing a magician's staff with your bare hand!"
A deep, building roar of energy.
The fear that had been on Wei Chen's face a moment ago twisted into a smile. A magician could channel mana through a staff directly into an opponent's body and detonate them from the inside. And he had demonic energy on top of that.
"I'll blow your body apart right here!"
A cataclysmic surge.
Tremendous power erupted from Wei Chen's body. Once demonic energy invaded, even letting go of the staff would become impossible.
A faint smile.
A chill down the spine.
"…You're smiling?"
Do-ha's smile sent a shiver racing along Wei Chen's back. Under this crushing pressure… he was smiling?
"Hold on to that staff tightly."
"What?"
A soft hiss of energy. A metallic click.
"A click?"
As a faint current of energy flowed into the staff, an unfamiliar sound reached Wei Chen's ears.
It sounded exactly like a lock coming undone…
A sliding ring of steel. A flash of light.
"…A sword?"
Staring at the light glancing off a blade, Wei Chen's face went blank with disbelief.
What…?
Are my eyes deceiving me?
Why did the magic staff just split apart?
No — more than that, why is there a sword inside the staff?
And how did this bastard know that?
A deep, thrumming resonance of power.
Myeol-hwang Sword Technique — Fifth Form: Hwaryeong Gangwol.
A slash. Another slash. A screaming cascade of cuts.
"…Damn it."
Watching the flames dance beautifully before his eyes, Wei Chen muttered a quiet curse.
And then—
A savage, continuous rending.
"Gyaaaaaaah!"
Flames that seemed almost to possess a will of their own tore through his body, severing every limb and immediately cauterizing the wounds. How vicious a technique it was. Even as it cut, it seared each wound with fire-qi so thoroughly that neither recovery nor reattachment was possible.
"Guh—"
A heavy collapse.
With both arms and both legs severed, Wei Chen screamed and crumpled to the ground. Everything below the elbows and everything below the knees had been cut away.
Footsteps, unhurried.
"Wei Chen."
"Cough…"
Hearing Do-ha's voice, Wei Chen slowly moved his eyes.
"You're going to die soon. But if you answer my questions, I'll make it quick."
"Kh… heh… Do I even have a choice…?"
"No."
"Cough."
"The Demon God Cult. When did it first appear?"
"From the beginning…"
"What?"
"It's existed… since the world changed ten years ago."
Swallowing the blood rising in his throat, Wei Chen forced the words out slowly.
"How many members does the Demon God Cult have in total?"
"I don't know either."
"Then the identities of the Pope or the Cardinals? Someone baptized you, so you must have seen them."
"I don't know that either… The ones who baptized me weren't them… It was an assistant bishop."
"…"
Hearing that, Do-ha's brow furrowed.
Not the Pope. Not a Cardinal. An assistant bishop had administered the baptism…?
This is getting serious.
Originally, receiving a baptism from the Demon God Cult required a considerable record of merit. Only after investing significant time and effort would the Pope or a Cardinal reluctantly grant one. But an assistant bishop handing out baptisms? Not even a full bishop — someone far below that rank?
That meant demonic power was being distributed indiscriminately. Flatter someone enough and you could get a baptism. Pay enough money and you could get a baptism. That was roughly the standing of an assistant bishop within the Demon God Cult.
Demons don't normally scatter their power so carelessly.
Why? Why had that changed?
"…"
A sudden realization struck him, and Do-ha's brow tightened.
…It's because of me.
The reason the Demon God Cult had changed like this… The existence that had made them anxious and desperate… was him.
I reduced the Demon Realm's forces, and they got desperate.
Damn it. So this was how things had turned out.
"Then are there Demon God followers among the other Divine 200 as well?"
"I don't know that… We all hide our identities from each other…"
That's different too.
Originally, cult members all knew one another's identities. They might not know who the Pope was, but every other follower knew the others and cooperated. Now they were concealing their identities even from each other.
"Th… that's everything I know."
"Alright. As promised, I'll end it cleanly."
A quiet motion. A wet thrust.
Do-ha drove his sword into Wei Chen's heart.