Chapter 338: Summons (2)
“…What on earth is going on?”
My back ached from sitting on the hard floor for so long.
Lennok, rubbing his side, rose to his feet and scanned his surroundings.
Since Lapis’s face was visible before him, the spell itself hadn’t failed.
The icy air, instantly bringing forth his breath, indirectly proved it.
Unlike the southwestern continent where the mega-city Vulcan is located, the Northern Hemisphere experiences completely reversed seasons.
Despite it being the season when winter should be ending and spring arriving—the opposite of Vulcan, where winter was just beginning—it was this cold.
Lapis, too, was naturally dressed in a fur-lined scarf and a thick coat.
Only the mittens on her hands seemed terribly out of place in the current situation.
Thud, thud, thud!!!
Lapis, hunching her head against the incessant impacts rattling the shield, quickly replied.
“We’re under attack.”
“…Attack?”
“With various factions converging on the Northern Highlands, the situation has become far more complicated than expected.”
Lapis peeked out, glancing beyond Lennok’s shield, and said.
“A free-for-all is happening everywhere. So, while secretly scattering to relocate our base, we ended up… ”
“So, problems arose, and you’ve been on the run until now.”
“Hahaha! Found you, you little br—”
CRACK!!
Lennok, conjuring a fireball in his hand and blasting the head of a swordsman charging from outside the shield, said.
“And you didn’t even secure a summoning location, so you hastily began the summoning right here to meet the time?”
The message Lapis had sent Lennok was a pre-arranged time before heading to a region where external communication was impossible.
If she failed to meet the appointed time, summoning Lennok would become utterly impossible.
Anxiously fleeing and pressed for time, she ultimately risked exposure and summoned Lennok at the appointed time right then and there.
Lapis bowed her head, her face faintly flushed.
“I’m so sorry. I truly apologize.”
“Haa…”
The time spent endlessly marveling at the beautiful phases and principles of celestial magic seemed like a lie.
No, perhaps her genius for successfully performing a summoning spell of that magnitude in such a situation should be praised instead.
Lennok, instantly pulled back to reality, put a hand to his forehead and let out a deep sigh.
Beyond the vast snowfield, dozens of presences were rapidly approaching.
There wasn’t much time to ponder or ask questions. Lennok quickly made a decision and moved.
He snatched the very person he needed to protect first. Staying like this was too dangerous.
“Whoa?!”
“Stay still. It’s hard to keep balance.”
He cast a lightweight spell on Lapis’s body and slung her over his side.
Lennok bound her struggling waist with magical threads, hoisting her up like a messenger bag, and then stood up.
Lennok pulled out two painkiller pills from his pocket, chewed and swallowed them, then began to sprint across the snowfield.
Shwaaaak!!
“Kyaaaaak!!”
The trick was the same as moving across the sand in a desert region.
He pushed magic beneath the snow particles, then propelled himself forward, gliding across the snow beneath his feet.
At the sight of Lennok, who shot out from between the shields like an arrow and dashed across the snow, the superhumans who had surrounded the area began to give chase.
“Has backup arrived?!”
“Kill him quickly before he stalls us!”
“Once we capture The Lighthouse Keeper, the autonomous region will be ours! Don’t let them get away!”
Lennok, listening intently to the voices coming from all directions, asked.
“What are the others doing? Grisha or Seon-myeong?”
Among the Watchers Lennok had met in the autonomous region, a considerable number of skilled individuals had attended to Lapis.
If Lapis had headed to the Northern Continent, wouldn’t they naturally have followed her?
As he brought up the names of the Watchers with whom he had at least exchanged greetings, Lapis, still dangling, replied.
“While I was performing the ritual, they were moving separately to draw attention. During that time, other factions, noticing the celestial shift, intervened.”
“So, you unintentionally drew attention.”
“I had also summoned a familiar to protect myself, but while performing the ritual, I was left alone and ended up being un-summoned…”
Hostile force A, who had originally seized the Eyes of Blue’s base and pursued them, and force B, who had caught wind of it and interfered while Lapis was performing the ritual.
If this is the situation before things have even truly begun, it’s impossible to know how many organizations and monsters they’ll have to face in the future.
Lennok, looking down at Lapis who was blushing with embarrassment, immediately drew upon his magic.
“Let’s get out of here first, then think. Where are the others?”
“They’re scattered, so it’ll be hard to pinpoint individual locations. We have a pre-determined rendezvous point, so heading there first…”
“Indeed… my magic feels a bit sluggish compared to usual.”
Lennok’s sensory range, which should cover an area of several kilometers in all directions, felt much blurrier than usual.
The only things he could sense were the enemies within a few hundred meters, radiating killing intent towards him.
No familiar magical presences like Grisha or Seon-myeong could be detected anywhere.
That wasn’t simply because Lennok’s senses had dulled; it was more accurate to say that the unique environment of this snowfield was interfering with magical perception.
Lennok glanced at a high mountain, impossibly far from the snowfield, and narrowed his eyes.
“To think it could have an effect even from this far away… The power of a Transcendent truly defies common sense.”
“…Evan, did you know?”
Lapis, dangling from his side, her blue hair constantly swaying, suddenly lifted her head and asked.
Lennok calmly nodded.
“I heard a few things before coming here. You know there’s a reason this Northern Snowfield is attracting so much attention.”
“…”
“Let’s talk later for now.”
Saying that, Lennok extended his empty right hand to the side.
Whoosh!!
A spear of flame, conjured in his hand, pierced the charging man’s chest and incinerated his entire body.
“Hyaaaaah!!”
A truly alien sight: a man, turned into a fireball, rolling in the snow.
Even as he rubbed his body against the chilling ice, the clinging flames didn’t diminish in the slightest, burning his flesh.
Lapis, mouth slightly agape, admired the sight.
“Pyromancy. It truly hasn’t dulled a bit.”
“…”
Come to think of it, the last time he directly demonstrated his magic to Lapis was when he dealt with the Drug Lord in the autonomous region.
It had already been well over a year since he used pyromancy and gravity-based spells to crush an entire floating island to kill Dominic Cavallo.
It was natural that Lapis, aside from needing Lennok’s power, wasn’t well-versed in his primary magical specializations.
“Close your eyes.”
“Huh?”
There was no answer.
[Cremation Forging]
The sphere of flame Lennok threw spun dozens of meters above, instantly scattering spears of fire in all directions.
Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud!!!
Dozens of fire spears, striking the middle of the snowfield in the direction they were aimed, melted the surrounding snow and increased the speed at which Lennok’s feet slid.
Lowering his stance slightly and using magical threads to maintain balance, he drew his revolver towards the superhumans charging from all directions.
Tatata-tang!!!
Aimed shots, aided by marksmanship magic, never missed a single target even amidst his swaying movements, striking directly between the eyebrows of the pursuing enemies.
“Ugh…!!”
“Gah!”
The sight of superhumans collapsing, scattering crimson blood across the pristine white snow.
Those whose attention was divided trying to evade the rain of fire from the sky lost their lives with startling ease.
Those who instantly grasped Lennok’s offensive methods quickly exchanged information.
“It’s bullets, dodge them!”
“Is he a designated marksman? Unbelievable skill…!!”
“Look at the magic flow. He’s being aided by an unknown spell!”
“Hoo.”
The snowfield, now filled with dozens of superhumans.
Lennok, who had been crisscrossing the area, ceaselessly killing enemies, heard those words and sharply turned his head.
Whoosh!!
Ice crystals rising from the snow beneath his feet instantly seized the man’s legs, freezing them.
“Wai—!! Damn iiiiit!!”
THWACK!!
Lennok, gliding over instantly, seized the chin of the man who had recognized his marksmanship magic, and asked.
“Not many people have recognized that until now. How did you know?”
“Uuuuuugh!!”
Lennok examined the man’s pale face, soon found the answer, and smirked.
An unknown tattoo etched like a circle around the man’s left eye.
The unknown wavelength emanating from within it filtered the man’s vision, like a filter, revealing things that shouldn’t have been seen.
“Interesting. A tattoo that can detect the presence of auxiliary magic, even if you don’t know what it is. Quite impressive for an acquired enhancement.”
“Um, isn’t this not the time to be doing this… is it?”
Lennok, completely ignoring Lapis’s voice, channeled magic into his hand and muttered.
“The Northern Hemisphere of the continent… Being so far from Vulcan, there are quite a few spell systems I’ve never seen before.”
Wheeeeeeng!!
“Uuuuugh!!”
The man, sensing his end, desperately struggled to break free from Lennok’s grasp, but it was already too late.
The ice crystals binding the man’s feet instantly grew, covering his entire body and freezing him solid.
Immediately after, a spear of flame descending from the sky pierced him from the crown of his head, shattering his body into ice shards.
CRUNCH!!
Lennok muttered, looking down at the frozen corpse shards.
“Then, let’s check a few things while we escape.”
“…Evan?”
There was no answer.
Instead, Lennok, carrying Lapis, simply moved even faster.
Shwaaaak!!
“Kyaaaak!!”
Acceleration and deceleration, sudden stops and changes in direction—all executed with such freedom, as if he had lived on snowfields for decades.
The important thing was to control the friction and speed of the sliding snow beneath his feet to plot his movement, and to delicately maintain his balance so it wouldn’t collapse.
While doing so, Lennok swiftly began to slaughter the organization members who had been pursuing Lapis, even delicately adjusting her internal sense of balance to prevent her from feeling nauseous.
“Indirect spellcasting mediated by desires, perhaps. Doesn’t seem ideal for combat like this.”
“Hyaaaah!!”
CRUNCH!!
“A word sorcerer using lip shapes as a basis. Unique, but not refined. Self-taught, I suppose.”
Thudududuk!!
“A uniquely shaped bladed weapon. Why is the tip of the blade pointed towards oneself even when gripping the hilt?”
Slash!!
He recorded unique spells into his database via Davi, and for unfamiliar artifacts, he pumped magic into them once, recovering only those that remained intact.
Having killed countless sorcerers and warriors and observed various magical flows over several years, Lennok possessed the insight to gauge a spell’s potential with just a glance.
“A simple barrier. And the type that instantly changes its target and scope, flipping between oneself and the opponent.”
Lennok’s eyes flashed as he instantly grasped the opponent’s spell and moved to strike his neck.
BANG!!
An older man with deep wrinkles around his eyes. Lennok blasted his solar plexus with impact magic, knocking him down, then stomped on his head with his boot.
“Ugh!!”
“This… is far more advanced than I thought. Just by switching the barrier’s frame, it can control augmentation and deceleration.”
“H-how…”
“The precision is unbelievable for a sorcerer like you to have created. Tell me the name of your school or Magic Tower.”
Rotating the barrier clockwise and casting it on oneself grants a buff. Flipping it the other way and casting it on an opponent grants a debuff.
The usage is simple, but the principles contained within are by no means simple.
The moment the barrier’s axis of rotation is flipped, its internal components are meticulously designed to reverse their direction entirely, performing the opposite function.
A sorcerer with the talent and wisdom to design a barrier of this level wouldn’t have been caught by the wave of flame Lennok just casually threw.
It was a natural deduction that the barrier spell the man was using had a separate master.
“I, I don’t know…!!”
The older man, his head stomped under Lennok’s foot, trembled and desperately cried out.
“It’s a spell I learned from a book I accidentally found… in an abandoned te-temple somewhere in the Chedry Mountains…!!”
“You learned it accidentally?”
“I-it’s true… Please spare me… I promise right here that I’ll never lay a hand on the Eyes of Blue again—!!”
CRACK!
There was no need to hear more.
Lennok then brought his shield down, crushing the man’s breath, and rummaged through his pocket to pull out a small booklet.
Lennok, taking out the booklet and flipping through a few pages, clicked his tongue and closed the cover.
“The pages necessary for the barrier’s construction have been intentionally damaged. It’ll be hard to restore them immediately.”
“…”
Lapis, silently hanging from Lennok’s side, looked around and closed her mouth.
Lennok hadn’t prolonged the fight with the barrier sorcerer for no reason.
Every superhuman who had been tracking, surrounding, and attempting to kill her was now either dead or incapacitated.
Only the scent of blood and dust lingered across the vast snowfield.
“Lord Evan. C-could you please put me down now…?”
“Just a moment.”
“I-if you were going to fight like this anyway, wasn’t there really no need to carry me around?”
If the plan was to escape pursuit to the rendezvous point, carrying Lapis would have made sense, but Lennok instead simply killed all the pursuers.
Lapis protested in a small voice, but Lennok chuckled and shook his head.
“Normally, I’d prefer to hide you while fighting, but the circumstances are a bit different now.”
“Huh?”
“If I lose focus for even a moment, you might die.”
“What do you mean…”
Instead of answering, Lennok simply extended his hand towards the dozens of fire spears plunged into the ground all around.
Responding to his will, the spears simultaneously resonated, reacting to the sphere of flame still floating in the sky, and instantly conjured a massive heatwave.
WHOOSH!!
A fiery wind sweeping through the endlessly low-temperature snowfield.
Heat haze billowed, distorting the open view, and as the cold air between the snow and wind dissipated, a hidden presence revealed itself.
A young man with sharp features and long, winding tattoos covering his entire skin.
Intense magical energy flowed from the rings worn on his fingers.
Only then did Lapis’s eyes widen as she belatedly discovered the magical source hidden there.
“An Ar-Archmage…!! How did he evade my sight…!!”
As a direct descendant of The Lighthouse Keeper and the closest inheritor of their power, she had reached a level surpassing Hierarchy when it came to sight.
Evading her eyes with ordinary stealth magic would be virtually impossible.
However, Lennok had a rough idea of how the opponent had managed to hide himself until now.
“So you knew the magical flow around here was strangely distorted. And you hid your presence within that flow to evade Lapis’s eyes?”
Lennok’s gaze naturally drifted to the tattoos covering the young man’s face.
“Moreover, the tattoos themselves are specialized for concealing presence.”
Strictly speaking, it was a method of filling the entire body with magical seals to prevent magic leakage. Though it borrowed the power of a spell, it was a very crude means.
“Oh, you’re much more perceptive than I thought.”
The young man looked up at Lennok, then smirked and stood up.
“The Lighthouse Keeper is just a child who hasn’t even lived twenty years. I thought it wouldn’t be difficult to capture them if I hid my presence within the power of a Transcendent…”
The young man’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Lennok.
“This is certainly unexpected. To think you’d summon such a formidable individual as backup.”
“…”
“If I had known this, I would have hurried more. It seems I’ll end up wasting more magic than expected.”
Lick.
His long tongue flicked out from his mouth, lightly sweeping beneath his chin.
The young man watched with amusement as Lapis frowned at his bizarre gesture.
“The Lighthouse Keeper’s eyes are said to be more beautiful and valuable than any gem. I’m sure the boss will be very pleased if I bring them.”
“So your boss has a hobby of collecting body parts?”
At Lennok’s unconcerned remark, the young man simply shook his head.
“He’s a gem sorcerer. The eyes of exceptional humans are akin to beautiful gems themselves… The boss will definitely like them.”
As he spoke, the young man’s two eyes rotated outwards, tracing blurry spirals.
His pupils vibrated rapidly, overlapping to an extent that made gaze tracking impossible, then displayed unknown patterns in both eyes.
Lennok immediately realized it was a type of Mystic Eye and chuckled.
“Are you saying that because you yourself possess a Mystic Eye? I thought it was nonsense, but it seems to be heartfelt, born from experience.”
“…”
“Before coveting someone else’s eyes, why don’t you offer your own eyes to your boss first?”
“Please, continue talking.”
The young man slowly lowered his stance, bringing a hand to his ear.
“Soon, you won’t even remember what you just said.”
“Quite confident. In that case, I’ll show you something interesting too.”
Saying that, Lennok brought a finger to his left eye.
“As it happens, I’ve also become able to do wondrous things with this eye.”
When he opened his eyes again, they were stained with a clear violet light.