Chapter 212: The Immortal Wizard
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 212: The Immortal Wizard
Ruuuumble!
The sky darkened. Rain clouds were gathering. A cluster of layered thunderheads unleashed a downpour.
There were six clouds in total.
Caleb had already cleared eight magic slots in his Memory Book, bringing the Hourglass’s total Action Points to ten.
He spent two of those points to refill two slots with ‘Enchanting’ and ‘Vampiric Siphon’.
Then, he cast the thunderclouds and a vampiric magic circle simultaneously.
Five of the clouds, now sitting atop the magic circle, began to pour down a rain of blood.
White Lion didn't know the exact state of Caleb's Memory Book, but he understood what those clouds meant.
‘Thirty seconds.’
That was how long the rain would last.
‘The ice?’
White Lion scanned the surrounding trees. The blizzard had subsided, but the part of the forest it had swept through remained frozen solid. Of course, the ‘Forest of Death’ was larger than the blizzard’s range, so there were still plenty of living trees on the outskirts.
But the frozen trees formed a natural barricade, making it difficult to approach from the outside.
This fight had to be settled here and now.
‘What if I wait until the rain stops?’
To be honest, that was his first instinct.
But White Lion couldn't afford to waste time. Both Hunter Shark and Beetle were locked in difficult battles of their own.
For a rogue like him, a lone wizard was a target he could eliminate in an instant. If time was to be saved, it had to be here.
Thud-thud-thud!
White Lion plunged into the downpour.
Fights between masters are over in an instant.
And for a rogue, killing a wizard is even quicker.
“Static Coat.”
Caleb cast the magical coat over himself.
“Superconduct.”
By casting it on himself, he drew lightning down from the surrounding thunderheads.
It was to charge his Static Coat, which would discharge electricity upon receiving a melee attack.
‘So that's how you plan to counter me?’
A wizard could never react in time to block a rogue's Leaping Ambush.
But the Static Coat was another story.
So…
‘Dagger Throw!’
White Lion threw his dagger first.
The moment the magic dagger struck Caleb’s chest, it unleashed an electrical discharge. And White Lion...
‘Leaping Ambush!’
He landed on the opposite side of the electrical discharge. In the same instant, the dagger was back in his hand, its tip slicing across the back of Caleb's neck.
Thwack!
Blood gushed out.
“...”
White Lion took a step back.
“I thought you had some grand strategy.”
Caleb was collapsing forward, his body limp.
“What? There's no way he'd go down this easily...”
“Lightning Shock.”
Even as he fell, Caleb's wand spat a flash of light at White Lion.
*
BOOM!
White Lion dodged it, half by a stroke of luck and half by prediction.
He had rated his opponent far too highly to believe it would be that simple. A wizard of the Hourglass, a champion of Wizus—there was no way he would fall so easily.
“...”
But even though he dodged the Lightning Shock, the current struck the centimeter-deep pool of bloody water on the ground and spread instantly.
Rain clouds and lightning magic were a deadly combination.
As the current spread through the water and shocked White Lion, the thunderclouds above reacted.
CRACK! BOOM!
Five consecutive lightning bolts slammed down, forcing White Lion to his knees. No matter how nimble a rogue was, he couldn't dodge lightning moving at the speed of an electron while his body was seized by a shock.
“What the...”
White Lion gritted his teeth against the searing pain where the lightning had pierced his torso and forced his head up.
An unbelievable sight was unfolding before his eyes.
Caleb's half-severed neck was knitting itself back together.
“...The hell?”
As far as White Lion knew, healing magic of that caliber was Tier 8 or higher.
For example, during the last Labyrinth Eruption, Cardinal Servan of Nathaniel's temple in Sohen had cast the Tier 8 healing spell, ‘Sacred Unction, Mark of Salvation’.
A spell like that could reattach a half-severed neck.
But there was no way Caleb could use Tier 8 healing magic.
Had the Spider Doctor or Bipa cast it on him?
While not impossible, he couldn't sense anything of the sort.
If such a powerful spell were active, White Lion would have sensed it on him, just as he could visually identify the Static Coat currently enveloping Caleb's body.
The Wizard King had once stood at the pinnacle of the continent's mages. Even after tens of thousands of years since he'd traded his wand for a blade, his senses remained sharp.
‘Caleb has no death-prevention magic on him.’
He was certain.
So why wasn't he dying?
“What's with the curiosity?” Caleb raised his wand.
“Judgment Lightning.”
This time, a Tier 7 spell descended—far larger, more powerful, and more unavoidable than Lightning Shock.
‘Shadow Leap!’
White Lion jumped away, but the lightning chased after him, tracking him through the pools of blood. As long as his feet were in the water, there was no escaping it.
Fzzt!
The searing current burned through one of White Lion's ankles. The nerves went dead, the sensation dull.
But.
‘Fatal Dagger!’
The Tier 7 dagger skill struck Caleb square in the forehead.
It was the same powerful skill that had brought even the Spider Doctor to the brink of death in a single blow, a skill that dropped its target's health to zero and left them incapacitated.
Thump!
Caleb was slammed face-first into the bloody water, but...
“Ugh...” He stood back up, pulling the dagger from his forehead.
“What... are you?” White Lion's confusion had now reached an indescribable peak.
“The Vampiric Magic Circle can absorb vitality,” Caleb said.
“Shut up. Do you take me for an idiot? A spell like that can't heal you this much.” White Lion ground his teeth.
“Believe what you want, then.” His wand pointed at White Lion again.
‘This time, I'll finish him for sure.’
In this downpour, in these puddles, the lightning was unavoidable anyway.
White Lion decided to just endure it. But he couldn't afford to be stunned. He had to end this now.
[Scroll: Meditator's Endurance]
White Lion produced a Tier 5 scroll in his palm.
It was a spell that resisted all kinds of incapacitating status effects: freeze, shock, sleep, stun, and so on.
In exchange for its versatility, however, the user took the full brunt of the damage.
That was fine. He could endure that much.
‘Shadow Leap!’
White Lion charged forward, shoving his hand straight through the Static Coat.
He endured the resulting electrical discharge that erupted around him.
‘Instant Kill!’
The Tier 7 rogue skill plunged into Caleb's heart.
“...”
“...”
Bloody rain trickled down.
And Caleb...
“Ball Lightning.”
...was still not dead.
Even as blood poured from the gaping hole where his heart should have been.
“What in God's name did you do...?”
To his disbelief, the wound was already closing.
*
I'd drunk a potion. To be precise, the potionized ‘Water from the Oasis of Life’.
When I do, my vitality is constantly readjusted, averaged out as a percentage with the Emperor's.
No matter how high White Lion's attack power is, he can't drop my vitality into the negatives. The lowest it can go is zero.
The moment my vitality hits zero, it's averaged with the Emperor's, and I recover to half of that new total.
Of course, with a wound as severe as having half my neck sliced open, my vitality drains away as fast as it fills up.
For example, it would play out second by second, like this:
Caleb: 100%, Emperor: 100%
Caleb: 0%, Emperor: 100%
Caleb: 50%, Emperor: 50%
Caleb: 0%, Emperor: 50%
Caleb: 25%, Emperor: 25%
Caleb: 0%, Emperor: 25%
...
This was the same method I used to pull off my 'disappearing Lancer' trick.
By slicing open my own stomach, I made my vitality constantly drop to zero, which in turn drained the Lancer's vitality in a matter of seconds.
But there are two differences this time.
First, the Lancer was frozen solid and couldn't move. Our Emperor, on the other hand, is not.
‘You chugging those potions?’
Bipa and the Spider Doctor had plastered him with every regeneration spell they had and handed him a mountain of healing potions.
They told him that if he wanted to live, he had to chug a potion every time he felt a pang of pain.
The Emperor's job is to restore my vitality.
The other difference is that the Lancer was a massive health tank, while the Emperor's health pool is about the same as mine.
Thank God he's a lightweight.
As an extreme example, can you imagine how many potions Mugol would have had to chug if he were in that role?
In a battle of percentages, a larger health pool is a disadvantage.
This strategy is only possible because both the Emperor and I are frail, squishy mages—and he's a sedentary emperor with the posture of a desk jockey.
My vitality might be dropping at an incredible rate from my half-severed neck, but the Emperor's meager health pool can be refilled in an instant.
Thanks to me, the Emperor is probably force-feeding himself potions right now, but what can I say? He has to pull his own weight if he wants to survive.
Squeeze!
I grabbed the White Lion who had just plunged his Instant Kill skill into my heart and pulled him into a tight embrace.
“Superconduct!”
I had to be right up against him to slam him with this spell.
CRACK! CRACKLE!
A spell like Superconduct is meant for close-quarters defense and doesn't do much damage on its own, but I had five summons ready to provide lightning support.
BOOM!
The ensuing lightning strikes hit me along with White Lion, but that was fine.
My Static Coat was immune to lightning. In fact, it was better this way. It even recharged the coat.
“...Gah.”
The last bit of composure vanished from White Lion's face.
Yeah, you're panicking now, aren't you? You never imagined anything like this.
“You got careless, thinking I was just a lone wizard, didn't you?”
You thought you could kill me in an instant and get out, so you figured wading into a bloody downpour was no big deal.
You thought you had to finish me off quickly and go back up the other Inter-floor Lords.
A single tactical miscalculation can be fatal.
Whether it's a battle between third-rate scrubs on the 1st Floor or masters in the Deep Layer.
“The moment you stepped into this downpour, you'd already lost.”
“D-don't bullshit me...”
White Lion tried to shove me off with his arms, raising his dagger. He was still under the effect of 'Meditator's Endurance.' But that incredible debuff resistance wouldn't last long.
Right, White Lion?
You're desperate to finish me right now.
And I'm going to kill you. Just as soon as this five-second cooldown is up.
“Lightning Sho—”
Thwack!
My vision flipped upside down.
My mind went black for a second.
My consciousness flickered out, and I could see my own back from behind.
Ah, fuck.
I was really hoping it wouldn't come to this.
‘My head's been cut off.’
A Tier 9 rogue skill. ‘Unstoppable Death.’
If you can't block it, your health simply drops to zero and you die. Not even a spell like the Tier 8 Mark of Salvation can bring you back. It even bypasses soul preservation. When the head goes, everything goes.
A skill that definitely lives up to its name...
‘...huh.’
My consciousness, which had been flickering on the verge of extinction, came flooding back.
It felt like waking from a deep sleep.
The pool of blood on the ground was reconnecting the severed edges of my neck. Like stretched mozzarella, strands of blood reached out—
I'd laid down the Vampiric Magic Circle for two reasons.
First, if I suffered a 'severing' wound, I could use the pooled blood on the ground as a medium to overturn the system's 'limb loss' verdict. That way, the Emperor's healing link would still work.
I'd pulled this trick plenty of times in the game, though I never had a chance to test it in the real world.
‘Thank God it works by game logic.’
Still, my neck reattaching itself in a pool of blood fucking hurt.
“Ligh'ning Shog.”
Guess my vocal cords haven't fully reconnected yet.
I fumbled at my throat and could definitely feel a gap.
My finger sank right in.
And I could see White Lion's face, frozen in utter shock.
It was a look of pure terror.
“What are you...”
“Lightning Shock.”
I fired off a bolt, my pronunciation back to normal.
BOOM!
Amidst the crashing lightning, he was still resisting the shock with 'Meditator's Endurance'.
But he was too stunned to move.
“An Hourglass... wizard can do this with a Vampiric Magic Circle...?”
And that was the second reason I cast the spell. Let him get lost in that unanswerable question.
“You think I put this spell in my build for no reason?”
Fanning the flames of his confusion, I charged.
Splash! Splash!
I sent sprays of bloody water flying as I ran.
CRASH!
I threw myself at White Lion.
I'd done this before. When was it? Ah, right. When I grabbed the blacksmith and took a double dive into lava.
Thump!
I tackled White Lion, and we went down together. A wizard initiating melee combat with a rogue is insane. Usually.
“Listen up, you lion bastard.”
I got into a mounted position on top of him and pressed my wand to his chin.
“Labyrinth Master, Wizus, I don't give a fuck about any of it. They can fight over the damn Hourglass all they want! I'm not on anyone's side! And.”
I waited for the five-second cooldown on my lightning.
“I'm definitely not on yours.”
“...”
“You get me, you motherfucker? Especially not you. Join the Labyrinth? Work with you? Go fuck yourself. You caused the Labyrinth Eruption, you hurt Professor Meldini's family, and you killed Professor Dalstream!”
I grabbed him by the collar and pressed down with all my weight.
“Lightning Shock!”
Five more bolts of lightning slammed down.
His body convulsed as the current coursed through him.
‘The stun is working.’
So, White Lion, your 'Meditator's Endurance' finally wore off, huh?
“Y-you crazy bastard...” He flailed his limp arms.
He opened a gate with his left hand, trying to pull out a scroll.
“Superconduct.”
I shocked him again to keep him from using his hands. Then I pressed my wand firmly under his chin.
“Judgment Lightning!”
Die, White Lion.