Chapter 339: Summons (3)
The young man’s expression subtly changed as he confirmed Lennok’s left eye.
“A Mystic Eye… and a single one at that. How intriguing.”
The young man grinned and slowly lowered his stance.
“Usually, if someone only has one Mystic Eye, it’s often because they’ve transplanted someone else’s.”
As he massaged both wrists, two short-bladed daggers were gripped in his hands in a reverse grip.
The speed was almost imperceptible. He clearly had considerable mastery in dagger combat.
“Let’s lay you down first and then slowly ask whose eye you’ve stolen and are using.”
“You talk too much.”
Lennok said, raising a hand with an expressionless face.
“Why didn’t you talk as much when your subordinates were dying?”
“…”
There was no answer.
The young man’s expression hardened slightly, and as he sprinted forward, his color faded, becoming faint as if erased.
All traces of mana and life disappeared, as if he had vanished into thin air.
Lennok, watching him directly, was impressed by such sophisticated stealth.
“Left…!!”
Lapis, clinging to Lennok’s side, whispered.
Immediately after, two streaks of light that had shredded the raised shield struck directly between the fragments of armor.
Thump!
An unusual impact. It was unbelievable that such a high level of stealth could be combined with such force.
The young man’s preemptive strike didn’t end there.
A flurry of attacks, spinning in a completely different direction from his initial thrust, sought out Lennok’s vital spots.
Even while unleashing such sharp attacks, his stealth remained unbroken.
Blades appearing from the air where all presence had vanished traced overlapping trajectories, starting to shave away Lennok’s shield.
Kagagagak!!!
Shattering the shield and breaking through took only a fleeting moment. But the chilling blades did not churn through the wizard’s insides.
Lennok, without even turning his head, extended pillars of ice from thin air to block the two blades aimed at Lapis’s face.
Thump!
Impact and immediate halt. The shock scattered ice fragments everywhere, spreading a chill across the snowy field.
The young man, who had stopped right in front of them, looked down at Lapis and licked his lips.
“You’re utterly bothersome. I’ll definitely take care of you right here.”
Swish!
He vanished from sight again, moving at a speed that was barely perceptible.
Lennok paid no mind to his words, focusing instead on manipulating the mana within his hands.
Considering his superhuman agility, refined stealth, and combined dagger skills, he was likely an ability user specializing in assassination.
A physically perfected individual, capable of concealing his presence even as he wielded blades to kill his opponent.
If so, rather than trying to track his faint presence, it was necessary to focus on other aspects.
The young man, hidden beneath the swirling blizzard, stared at Lennok with sharp eyes.
‘His guard is tighter than I thought…’
He hadn’t missed a single preemptive strike, yet he hadn’t even touched the wizard, let alone the Lighthouse Keeper.
No matter what trick he was using, it was impossible unless he could see through the possibilities that arose the moment the young man attacked.
‘Avoid a frontal confrontation.’
The young man, who had hidden his presence and watched his subordinates die, was well aware of how powerful Lennok’s fiery magic was.
If he were to draw out his mana for a direct exchange of blows, it wouldn’t be strange if his entire body were pierced.
Even a momentary mistake would turn his body to ash on the spot.
The target was set.
‘Target the Lighthouse Keeper. It would be good if I could kill her outright or capture her, but if not…’
He could kill the wizard who was distracted protecting Lapis.
Since he had confirmed that his preemptive strikes couldn’t be entirely nullified, forcing a choice was now the opponent’s problem.
Sliiiick!
The young man’s long tongue wrapped around and swept up the two daggers.
Immediately after, his perfected Mind Imprint manifested as a Miniature Universe, melting the twisted color of his mind into potent venom.
The daggers, where his tongue had passed, were stained a bluish-green.
‘This is a potent venom that can paralyze even spirit beasts. Just a graze and victory is mine.’
Swish!
The young man’s body, still hidden within the blizzard, darted forward.
The hood pulled over his head was a rare artifact, used both to conceal tools and suppress his presence.
But even that was now discarded as he charged towards the wizard.
“…!!”
Lennok’s gaze immediately fell to the discarded hood.
He didn’t stop there, discarding all other tools he had kept close, pouring all his effort into scattering Lennok’s concentration.
All he wanted was a single opening.
A single moment where he could not only approach the opponent but also force an inevitable choice.
Recognizing that he stood at the crossroads of victory and defeat, the young man’s mana surged relentlessly, and every nerve in his body sharpened, focused entirely on his opponent.
In the fleeting moment when their elongated shadows on the snow overlapped.
‘Now!!’
The young man appeared before Lennok’s eyes, meeting them with his own two Mystic Eyes.
A swirling spiral pattern. Activated by direct eye contact, this ability reversed the opponent’s mana flow in the direction the Mystic Eyes spun.
If it landed properly, it could completely reverse the internal mana flow, causing blood to spurt from the entire body and leading to death.
Of course, it wouldn’t affect a wizard of Lennok’s caliber for long, but it would be enough to momentarily distract his consciousness and prevent him from casting spells.
If his protective shield and counter-attack mana were disrupted, the bastard would be helpless.
He twisted his waist, thrusting and sweeping the daggers held in reverse grip with frenzied abandon.
Swaaash!
In that fleeting moment, as the dagger, warped as if space itself was distorted, grazed Lennok’s neck.
Immediately after, he was slammed to the ground headfirst by an unknown impact.
Cwoooosh!
“Kee-aaghh!”
The young man lay writhing at Lennok’s feet, letting out a single scream.
Trembling, the young man looked up at Lennok and stammered.
“H-how…?”
Even if the Mystic Eye’s ability hadn’t worked, the speed at which the counterattack was launched was abnormal.
The young man’s body, which had just appeared in front of Lennok and accelerated, had momentarily approached the speed of sound.
It was inconceivable to react and respond at the wizard’s reaction speed. It would have been impossible unless Lennok had been reading his movements from the start.
“Because I knew you were hiding yourself in the mana flow of a Transcendent.”
Lennok replied, looking down at the young man with an expressionless face.
“Then all I had to do was reverse-calculate that flow and find where the pattern distorted.”
“Kuh, huhuhu…!!”
The young man writhed at his words, laughing with difficulty.
“T-that’s impossible…!!! How could you possibly understand the mana flow of ‘Jindun’…!!”
A Level 7 Archmage.
While not many things were impossible for a superhuman who had mastered the seven concepts of Self-transformation, Lennok’s words still sounded like nonsense to the young man.
A monster on a different level from Level 8 Archmages who had transcended Hierarchy and shed the limits of their species.
How could anyone possibly understand and interpret the mana of Transcendent beings who truly abandoned personal meaning and challenged ascension?
Even an Archmage like the young man could only use the mana flow in the vicinity to conceal his presence.
However, Lennok’s expression also subtly changed.
“Well… I admit it was a coincidence.”
The mana flow around the snowy field had felt strangely familiar.
Its true nature was part of the barrier mana flow that Lennok had felt when observing the World Rift in Palgung Fortress.
Hadn’t the barrier wizard, invited at the time to seal the rift in the fortress, called it his masterpiece, left just before he became a Transcendent?
The Transcendent who had left behind a barrier protecting the rift and then achieved ascension was none other than ‘Jindun,’ the Transcendent who had settled in this northern high plateau.
Having long studied and observed the barrier and rift left just before Jindun became a Transcendent, Lennok was able to roughly understand Jindun’s mana pattern and recognize the familiarity.
‘Though there are more than a few things I don’t understand…’
Lennok had heard that Jindun had not moved from the northern high plateau for well over several hundred years, yet the history of Palgung Fortress’s creation did not exceed a hundred years, no matter how generously estimated.
This meant that the time Jindun installed the barrier in the fortress and the time he reached Level 9 did not align.
Whether this discrepancy was simply a misunderstanding or if a greater secret was hidden within it was currently unknown.
He could only be satisfied that he had one more question to ask when he met a Transcendent.
Thinking so, Lennok silently looked down at the young man writhing and clutching his chest.
As his violet Mystic Eye slowly rotated, synchronizing with the young man’s eyes and resonating with their speed.
The young man’s head began to throb intensely, feeling as if it would burst, and grew hot.
“Ugh…!!”
His whole body burned with pain, feeling incredibly hot.
The pain was so excruciating and his head so dizzy that he couldn’t even guess what magic had afflicted him.
It was just like when he first learned assassination techniques and built up his poison resistance.
“The pain will last a long time. It’s an ability designed for that.”
“Haaah…!!”
“You feel a strong sense of disconnect between your mind and body, don’t you? Recently, I’ve had some things to consider regarding methods of consciousness transference.”
Lennok crouched down, looking at the young man, and continued speaking.
The disparity between body and consciousness he had pondered while dealing with Gearsight. Lennok had succeeded in mimicking that disparity through his Mystic Eye’s visual synchronization and mana transference.
“Even if I can’t perfectly replicate it, mimicking its side effects isn’t difficult. Your ego will waver, you’ll lose control of your body, and you’ll die.”
This was fundamentally possible because Lennok’s Mystic Eye was constantly growing, moving beyond merely observing the realm of possibilities.
Lennok was learning how to interfere with the scenery in his sight and the movement of mana, transcending the concept of just seeing through this Mystic Eye.
Whoooooosh!
From the endlessly spinning violet Mystic Eye, the young man couldn’t tear his gaze away, his entire body convulsing.
The transfer of information through the Mystic Eye’s shared vision.
With Davi’s help, Lennok arbitrarily created an immense amount of information and hammered it into the young man’s mind via the Mystic Eye, rendering even a Level 7 ability user helpless.
“Tell me your organization’s leader, purpose, and location.”
Lennok said.
“Then I’ll kill you painlessly.”
“Hmph, hmph…”
The young man chuckled, beads of cold sweat running down his face.
“Too bad, th-this pain… I can endure… as long as…”
His attitude was resolute, even as he struggled to speak properly.
But Lennok, guessing that it was an artificially induced reaction rather than the young man’s inherent willpower, frowned.
“I thought he was close to an assassin, but it seems he really did receive this kind of training. His memories should be scrambling by now, yet he’s still responding like this…”
“His eyes are starting to roll back…”
Lapis, who had been clinging to Lennok’s side and observing the situation, muttered.
The young man’s eyes began to flip due to the unknown information directly flowing into his mind.
Meaningless words began to spill from the foaming young man’s mouth.
“Rozesti… must pass training to eat bread… experimental subject… want to die…”
“It seems getting a normal answer is out of the question.”
The moment Lennok muttered that and began to gather mana to end his life.
A name suddenly tumbled from the young man’s lips.
“Jawoon… Audis…”
“…”
Lennok paused at the unexpected name that popped out.
Shwaaak!
The young man, eyes rolled back, extended his tongue and shot it out towards Lennok.
But a flame erupted from the tip of that tongue, incinerating his body alive, traveling back along the elongated tongue.
Whoosh!
“Keeeee!!!”
The young man, letting out an unknown death rattle, then breathed his last.
With the flames burning on the snowy ground behind him, Lennok gently placed Lapis, who had been clinging to him, back down.
“Ugh…”
Perhaps because she had been clinging in a half-prone position, Lapis swayed slightly, then managed to regain her balance and sighed.
“Jawoon Audis… If that man is here, it’s truly dangerous.”
“…What?”
“Don’t you know, Evan-nim?”
“No. I know who Jawoon Audis is, but…”
A top-tier wanted criminal and a gem sorcerer. And the leader of the terrorist organization Phalsion.
He had conspired with the black wizard Craig Tillion to overturn the megacity, but hadn’t he sensed the failure of the plan when Lennok killed Craig and fled?
His unique behavior, mindset, and cruel methods still remained vividly in Lennok’s memory, but he hadn’t expected Lapis to know his name.
No matter how eccentric a criminal Jawoon was, by the standards of the time, he was a Level 6 Commander Wizard.
Lennok had vaguely thought it unlikely for his reputation to spread across the Northern Continent, let alone remain in the memory of a Lighthouse Keeper like Lapis.
But Lapis, hearing Lennok’s words, looked slightly surprised and shook her head.
“It seems Evan-nim knew who Jawoon Audis was in the past. But now, that man is virtually a completely different person.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Western Continent. Among the Archmages in that region, Jawoon Audis is the sorcerer most highly regarded as being close to Level 8.”
“…”
“He’s the one who, centered around his formidable gem sorcery and military might, elevated the criminal organization he leads, Elderbine, to the largest scale in the West.”
Lapis muttered, looking down at the young man’s corpse with a slightly hardened expression.
“If Elderbine has decided to involve themselves in this incident, it’s not something to be taken lightly on our end.”
“Elderbine, huh…”
Is that the name of the new organization, formed after abandoning Phalsion?
Though he had lost all his organization members to Lennok’s hand, he hadn’t expected Jawoon to go all the way to the Western Continent and rebuild his foundation.
But the most surprising thing was Jawoon Audis’s incredible growth rate itself.
It would be strange if Lennok didn’t feel a sense of disconnect knowing that the man who, when last seen, hadn’t even properly grasped the concept of Domain, was now looking towards the realm of Archmage beyond Archmage.
Had he, too, accumulated no small number of fortunate encounters and experiences without Lennok’s knowledge?
More information was needed.
“Tell me anything else you know about Jawoon Audis. It would be good to know beforehand if we have to deal with him.”
“Even if you say so… I’ve actually never seen his face directly even once…”
Lapis looked up at Lennok with a slightly troubled expression, then suddenly seemed to remember something and opened her mouth.
“Ah, I heard a rumor that he has a dual personality. Whenever he commits a crime, he always steps forward once, and each time his behavior is markedly different…”
“…”
This was information Lennok had never found in the Jawoon Audis he remembered. But even if it was a vague rumor, wasn’t it a very peculiar characteristic?
It felt too alien to be a new personality trait that had appeared in just a few years.
Perhaps Jawoon Audis’s astonishing growth rate was…
“Khahahaha!”
The moment Lennok roughly guessed what Jawoon had done, boisterous laughter suddenly echoed from the middle of the snowy field.
“I wondered what was going on, with some bugs dropping dead nearby, but it seems I’m lucky.”
Dozens of warriors riding wolf-like beasts covered in white fur emerged through the blizzard.
The beasts, walking effortlessly as if floating on the snow even in this snowfield, quickly surrounded the two.
The bearded warrior who appeared at the front smiled contentedly and reached for his waist.
“I never thought I’d get to escort such a distinguished guest myself. It’s an honor to meet the Lighthouse Keeper in person.”
“…”
“Let’s go together while I’m being nice. You wouldn’t refuse, would you?”
Screeeeng!
Seeing the man draw a sharp sword, Lennok turned his gaze to Lapis and asked.
“Who are they?”
“Zakira’s warriors. One of the most dangerous warrior groups in the Northern Continent.”
Lapis, lightly sweating, quickly replied.
“They’re composed of organized warriors and riders to the extent that they’re said to be capable of waging war. I can’t believe they already caught wind of us…”
“I didn’t realize so many people would recognize her. Was the Lighthouse Keeper always this famous?”
He had guessed it might be dangerous, but this situation, with everyone and their mother trying to get their hands on the Lighthouse Keeper, was certainly strange.
“That’s part of it, but my personal information also spread as the Eyes of Blue recently expanded its scale.”
Lapis replied with an awkward expression.
“Perhaps they think if they capture me, they can also control the Watchers who assist me…”
“…”
It seemed many things had changed during the time he hadn’t been in contact with the Eyes of Blue.
Perhaps because Lapis herself, who led the Watchers, didn’t seem to have changed much, he was a little slow to realize it.
He hadn’t expected a casual favor to expand in such a way.
“Step back.”
The moment Lennok moved Lapis behind him and prepared to gather mana.
Lapis, her face brightening, tugged at Lennok’s sleeve.
“They’re here…!”
“What?”
He didn’t need her answer.
A black flash, shot through the white mist, pierced the head of the slowly approaching beast from the crown.
“Gack…!”
A single black arrow was embedded in the head of the furry beast, which had let out a final scream and then slammed its head into the ground.