Chapter 254: White Lion (4)

An unnamed mountainside in the volcanic zone.

Shwoooosh…

“Damn it…!!”

Gionis gritted his teeth, staggering to his feet.

Had it been a mistake to approach Van, thinking Evelyn had finally left the tower?

Not only had she sniped down her target from outside the Ignition Sealing Array surrounding the tower, dropping it, but she’d even intercepted the White Lion escaping in that brief moment.

He knew she was a skilled archer, but he had severely underestimated her true power.

He never imagined she could manipulate an arrow’s trajectory in such an absurd manner.

Watching him, Turan smiled leisurely.

“Heh heh… Calm down. The battle isn’t over yet.”

Blood gurgled from his left shoulder, which hung limply as he leaned against a nearby rock.

A single shot, sharply piercing the nerves from below his armpit, severing all the tendons in his left arm.

From the start, Evelyn had focused not on killing Turan, but on thoroughly eroding his combat power.

A terrifying level of concentration, and a cold, unyielding rationality devoid of greed.

It was truly the talent of a born hunter, enough to send shivers down a beast’s spine, but there was nothing to be gained by being afraid here.

Unlike before, Turan’s eyes glinted calmly.

“We couldn’t hide the crash site, so unless they’re idiots, they’ll be tracking us immediately. We don’t even have much time to talk like this.”

“…So we’ll only survive if we kill those two here.”

“We lost the old men from the Elder Council we kept as hostages, and we’ve strayed from the Forge itself… That’s the only thing left to do right now.”

Thud!!

Supporting his massive frame with his right arm, Turan stood up, tore off some of his own mane, and wrapped it around his arm, tying it.

His left shoulder, quickly staunched, began to heal rapidly.

Without time to marvel at his astonishing regenerative ability, Turan took up his double-bladed axe and began to lead the way.

“I’ve thought of a way.”

“…What?”

“If you’re an Archmage, you should know how to deploy a Domain, shouldn’t you?”

The oppressively hot air of the volcanic zone suddenly felt eerily chill.

Turan slowly raised his senses and mana, then spoke.

“If they’ve overturned the board we set, then we have no choice but to set it up again to our advantage.”

“…”

Thump!!

Turan slammed his axe blade deep into the rocky terrain, straightened his body, and looked forward.

“I’ll buy us some time. Prepare yourself immediately.”

Gionis gazed at Turan’s broad back, a slightly surprised expression on his face.

He had only thought of him as a cannibalistic berserker, but to think he was a veteran capable of calm thought even in such a critical moment.

Watching him, Gionis felt his own confused mind calm down.

Gionis quickly regained his composure and spoke with difficulty.

“If I start gathering mana, our position will be revealed immediately. I’ll need at least two minutes in that state. Can you do it?”

“Damn it, that takes a damn long time.”

There was no need to explain how difficult and arduous it was to withstand 40 seconds in a battle of superhumans where victory was decided in an instant.

Gionis gave a hollow laugh at Turan’s grumbling.

“Yes. Because I didn’t personally grasp the Archmage state with my own hands… So this time, I will definitely seize it with my own power.”

[You’re just spouting fortunate nonsense.]

And as if in response to his words, Evelyn’s chilling voice echoed from between the rocks.

[Do you think that justifies throwing the tower’s mages as food to that murderer?]

Gionis, looking up at her over Turan’s shoulder, cried out urgently.

“They’re coming. Get ready!!”

“Hmph!!”

As a flash of light burst from among the crumbled rock debris, Turan took his stance, blocking Gionis.

At that moment, a straight beam of light struck precisely between the obliquely raised axe blades.

“…!!!”

Under the oppressive force that seemed to crush his entire body, the White Lion’s face hardened.

Crackle!!

A speed close to supersonic. A tremendous impact force to match.

But what startled Turan most was the scattering green eye-glow emanating from the point of impact.

Evelyn Marcia, holding only a single arrow, had charged straight at Turan from the front.

Clang clang clang…!!

Compared to the massive size of the double-bladed axe Turan wielded, the single arrow in Evelyn’s hand looked ridiculously meager.

However, that one arrow in her hand twisted its trajectory dozens of times in mid-air, digging beneath the axe blade and mercilessly raking across Turan’s shoulder.

Crack!!

Even knowing she was targeting his already shattered left shoulder, Turan deliberately exposed his arm to Evelyn.

As the arrow struck, he tensed his muscles, breaking the arrow shaft, and then forced her back with a kick.

Wham!

“Kuhuhu… She’s insane.”

Turan laughed, exhaling a hot, painful breath.

“With that kind of archery skill, instead of keeping her distance, she’s crawling right up to me. Has she gone mad from shooting too many arrows?”

Instead of replying, Evelyn drew a new arrow from her quiver and took her stance.

The aftermath of using up all her mana to prevent the Forge explosion was considerable.

Furthermore, the amount of mana consumed not only to shoot down the target but also to intercept and knock down Turan was by no means negligible.

Rather than rashly using her bow with the mana she had left, it was better for her, capable of close-quarters combat, to stand on the front line.

But there was no reason to reveal such facts to the enemy.

Especially since the most capable wizard she knew was right there with her.

“Van.”

“I’m listening.”

Click!

As Evelyn slightly widened the distance, Lennok, who had positioned himself among the rocks, shouldered his rifle.

Sniper Rifle Sightglass-992. Mana, maximized by shot-assist magic, coiled around the barrel, heating it up.

Bang!!

The muzzle spat fire, spinning the bullet within.

Following the bullet’s trajectory as it sliced through the air, a chilling cold dispersed and vanished.

Simultaneously, the mana imbued within, aligning with the bullet’s rotation, completed another spell, independent of Lennok’s will.

[Ice-attribute Creation Magic]

[Bullet Imbuement: Binding]

[Cold Pact]

Wheeeee!

Generally, a wizard who reaches Level 7 and completes their hierarchy doesn’t experience a drastic change in combat ability.

Completing all seven definitions of Self-transformation is ultimately about the Domain. Unless one enters combat using their Domain, it’s difficult to achieve visible results.

However, for Lennok, who had applied magic in every conceivable way, it was different.

Completing the hierarchy meant he could infuse a thread of freedom even into the process of applying and projecting it.

Even enchanted shooting, which previously could only imbue simple magic, now expanded its scope according to Lennok’s understanding of spell formulas.

A miracle: containing the essence of unique magic in a single, fingernail-sized bullet.

What’s more, the magic, manifested with a time delay according to the bullet’s rotation, appeared right in front of Gionis’s nose.

Turan, barely stretching out his hand, slapped the bullet away with his right hand.

Crrraacckkkk…!!

At that moment, an intense cold burst forth, instantly freezing Turan’s right hand.

A cold so profound it wouldn’t be strange if it froze and burst every cell in his body.

Even with an incredibly resilient body, it was impossible to endure it for long.

Turan, looking down at his rigidly frozen right hand, tensed his arm and shattered the clinging chunks of ice.

Even the frozen grip muscles shattered along with it, but he didn’t care in the slightest.

On the contrary, he gripped his axe with his broken hand and began to laugh confidently.

“Yes. This is the kind of fight that makes it worthwhile, isn’t it?”

“…”

“Come on, you complacent, cowardly worms!!!”

As Turan roared, Lennok and Evelyn began to move.

She instantly drew three arrows from her quiver and, at close range, plunged them into Turan’s abdomen with her bare hands.

Lennok, too, frantically inhaled cigarette smoke and continued to pull the trigger.

He didn’t just fire cold-imbued bullets; a wide sheet of ice formed along the trajectory of each bullet.

Evelyn, using the ice as footholds, rotated and boldly closed in on Turan.

Dududududu!!

Green flashes and white trajectories intersected repeatedly, pouring down like a bombardment.

Evelyn, having glided through them, tried to pierce Gionis’s head, but…

“Uwaaaaaaaah!!!”

She was blocked by the beast’s desperate struggle, roaring and shielding Gionis with its bare body.

Tatata-tatang!!

Not only did he fend off Evelyn’s dazzling attacks right before him, but he also took Lennok’s sniper shots aimed at Gionis with his bare body. His form had long since surpassed the limits of a living creature.

He stood on sheer madness and impulse rather than logic and reason, enduring the ceaseless incoming assault.

In this extreme close-quarters combat, where Turan seemed to think only of surviving the present moment without a thought for the future, even Evelyn’s expression subtly creased.

At that moment, just as she couldn’t grasp the reason for his desperate struggle – throwing aside even his axe to bite the enemy with his teeth—

Gionis, who had been silently engrossed in chanting behind Turan, finally stood up.

“You’ve waited long enough.”

In his hand was a small, red-tinged booklet. It looked like a ledger, filled with dense lines of unknown characters.

“I think I finally understand what I truly desire.”

He roughly flipped through the booklet in his hand with one hand as he spoke.

“The time I spent trapped in the tower, obsessed with false renown, is over. I will turn even these hateful shackles into my own power…!!”

With those words, an enormous amount of mana began to erupt from Gionis’s body, clenching the booklet.

Wooooooooosh!!!

Colorless waves spread out beneath his feet.

Hundreds of cracks spread through the massive stone slabs he stood on, and from within them, a dark crimson glow appeared.

There was no doubt, given the immense pressure heavily weighing down on his shoulders and the widespread presence now bursting forth, unlike before.

That power, akin to the qualification and privilege of a Level 7 Archmage.

A qualification he had finally grasped through the limitations of his left eye and the confined space near the magic tower.

Fwoooooooosh!!!

As Gionis’s words reverberated, the area encompassed by the colorless waves rapidly began to separate from the outside.

At the same time, the rocky ground cracked open, and fierce flames surged from within.

Dozens of pillars of fire connected the heavens and earth of the Domain, spinning endlessly.

In the center of the giant birdcage made of connected flames, the monacle-wearing wizard holding the small booklet imperiously looked down at his enemies.

Domain deployment.

Mental Imprint Projection.

[Crimson Woven Birdcage]

Rumble rumble rumble!!

A scene that seemed to fully reveal the wizard’s origin and sense of betrayal, born from realizing he had lived his entire life confined within the Tower Lord’s embrace.

But Gionis, exposing his true feelings, showed no shame.

He simply stepped in front of the battered Turan, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Turan. You’ve suffered enough.”

Gionis, his eyes gleaming with a dark crimson light, glared at Evelyn and Lennok and spoke.

“To escape, one must first know how to fight. Now, I feel I can finally face my master directly.”

“Then that’s fortunate.”

Turan, who had been kneeling behind Gionis, laughed.

“You shouldn’t leave any regrets on your final journey, should you?”

“…What?”

The moment Gionis, belatedly understanding the meaning of Turan’s words, turned his head—

Turan, mouth agape, charged forward and devoured the right side of Gionis’s head.

Crunch!

“…!!!!”

As Lennok and Evelyn stared in horror at the betrayal they hadn’t anticipated at all,

Gionis, with half his face gone, trembled, his mouth quivering.

“Yo-you… Tu-ran…!!”

Gnaw gnaw gnaw!!

That was Gionis Verbane’s last will.

Turan, right there, began to devour the rest of Gionis’s body whole.

This was the true nature of Turan, the so-called Man-Eating Lion.

The savage nature of a murderer who viewed humans as nothing more than prey.

“Urgh…! It’s been a while since I had such a satisfying meal.”

Turan, who had devoured an entire human in an instant, stood up with a satisfied smile.

All the wounds that had covered his body had vanished without a trace.

He clapped his hands lightly and grinned.

“Thanks for the meal.”