Chapter 712: Breaking and Entering (5)
The Phoenix Hall, powered by the flames of Jak-hon, awakens from its slumber.
Simultaneously, the Solar System, which Lennok had temporarily suppressed, reactivated.
The burning will-thought of scorching heat, fueled by the soul-consuming flames, blazed even more fiercely.
The awakened form of the firebird had grown massive, enough to completely blanket the skies above.
Whoosh!
It unfurled its blazing wings, cloaked in a hellish, blood-red radiance.
Thousands of droplets of flame fell from beneath its wings like crimson tears.
Heat, as if the sun itself had drawn near, struck the ground. Beneath their feet, waves of metal began to melt and flow like lava.
Sizzle!
A scene of a lava hell, transforming the very ground in an instant.
“No… this can’t be happening!”
Duren mumbled, unable to even think of dodging the flowing molten metal.
“There must be a mistake. How could some rootless wizard—when my master is still alive—?!”
“Now that I’ve gained the tower’s authority, I understand what concept this artifact is used for.”
Interrupting Duren, Lennok gazed at the enormous firebird unfurling its wings.
The moment the flames fueled by a wizard’s soul flowed in, the Phoenix Hall’s power began to rotate explosively, erupting forth.
Was this the unreasonable fruit of human sacrifice, the result of overwhelming efficiency?
Had he seized the results of their human sacrifice and forcibly amplified the Phoenix Hall’s power?
If he had thought that, he wouldn’t have even considered touching the Jak-hon in the first place.
“To inter the souls of deceased wizards in the tower’s Solar System with a requiem. Isn’t that the original purpose of Jak-hon?”
“……”
“It seems it wasn’t even a form of human sacrifice originally.”
Jak-hon is the living flame itself, created by using the Blaiver Magic Tower’s wizards as material.
But it wasn’t conceived to be used as a weapon or wielded as a tool.
It was value itself, remaining with the tower’s will even after death, a value that only time could rival.
Flame Pillar Duren and Deadrise had forcibly processed and misused that very concept.
“They forcibly halt the souls of deceased wizards before they can be interred in an artifact like the Phoenix Hall, extracting only their power to use it…”
From that moment, Jak-hon ceases to be a requiem for deceased wizards and becomes a Forbidden Armament, an artifact constructed by processing living minds and bodies.
All Lennok did was recreate the requiem process they had halted, interring their souls completely within the Phoenix Hall.
That alone fully revived the Phoenix Hall’s internal system, now casting its flames before their eyes.
Rumble…!!!
Standing beneath the slowly fluttering wings of flame, Lennok smiled wryly, watching the three who couldn’t move rashly.
“Even pretending to disregard the Cult’s methods, you ultimately couldn’t abandon using humans. How regrettable.”
“…Because we aren’t geniuses or monsters like you.”
Solcier raised his arm, a twisted smile on his face.
Whoosh!
His form, raising a long spear ablaze with blood-red radiance, was like a demon drinking stagnant filth at the end of a battlefield.
“We can’t be as noble or arrogant as you. If doing our best within our given abilities isn’t enough…”
Starkton, who had walked forward scattering a mix of sinister killing intent and magic, spoke.
“Shouldn’t we go all the way, even if it means seizing what belongs to others?”
“Well…”
Whether it was Lennok, who killed enemies to survive, or them, who used humans as material for power…
Lennok didn’t deny that, broadly speaking, there wasn’t much difference. But—
“Can you do better than those who have already reached their limit with that method?”
“……”
“I don’t think so.”
There is a group that has delved deeper than anyone into treating humans as tools.
The executives of Deadrise must also understand the Cult’s history.
Now that they’ve resorted to Forbidden Armaments, can they surpass the Cult’s achievements?
Knowing this, Lennok had expressed his skepticism about their methods at a fundamental level.
“Why don’t you understand that that itself is the mindset of the chosen, Adamant Thunder?”
Starkton laughed.
“I’m rather envious that you can even ask that question. Because it shows how noble and uniquely talented you are.”
“……”
“It wasn’t that we chose evil. We merely chose whether to act or not to act.”
Leaving Duren, who had stumbled to his feet, Starkton and Solcier took the lead.
The blood-red radiance clutched in their hands flared and blazed even more intensely.
It amplified each of their presences in different ways.
Rumble…!!
“We’re not in a position to choose our methods while staring at an uncertain future.”
Solcier said quietly.
“We don’t even have time to worry about such things…!!”
Boom!!
The moment he gripped the spear in a reverse grip and twisted his shoulder, a crimson flash struck diagonally downwards, turning into flames that cleaved the ground.
Crackle!
A powerful slash that neatly cleaved through the very center of the domain.
He thrust the blood-red spear-tip between the carapace shield and the personal shield, instantly twisting and rupturing them.
Amidst the rain of crimson flames, spear-tips and lightning twisted, erupting in all directions.
Through the storm of heat and magical light, Solcier, who had instantly burrowed to Lennok’s front, whispered.
“If we just endure without dying, a brighter day will come. Don’t you think?”
“…That’s right.”
Lennok, who had been silent, raised his gaze.
“I’m the same. Just enduring and bearing it is overwhelming. But…”
“But?”
“I dislike the outcome-determinism that everything is predetermined. If so, shouldn’t we change it?”
If this world’s ending was predetermined.
If he couldn’t change his given fate, Lennok would have long since been crushed and suffocated by his penalty.
He didn’t envision the future because he had more leeway or was better off than others.
It was simply that Lennok’s time had been so twisted that without doing so, it would have been difficult to endure the present.
The executives’ expressions changed slightly as they understood the meaning of Lennok’s words.
It was because they intuitively sensed that this wizard, who possessed talent and potential far beyond theirs, was just as desperate as they were.
“…Even if you blabber like that, it’s too late.”
But even so, they instantly suppressed their agitation and gritted their teeth.
They also knew the importance of not overthinking.
“The Ghost Princess is already on her way back!!”
“Right. It’s time.”
The moment Lennok said that and raised his gaze.
The massive firebird hovering overhead spread its wings wide.
“So, I need to finish this before the Ghost Princess returns.”
“What…?!!”
Whoosh!!!
The firebird, which had been observing the ground at Lennok’s summons without participating in combat, soared into the sky.
As the Phoenix Hall’s will-thought, which had overwhelmed its surroundings with its mere presence, spread its wings, a fierce thermal current swept through, pushing back the clouds.
The landscape above began to transform, as if an invisible curtain was being drawn back across the sky.
Shhhhk!
“If a mirage, which refracts objects by utilizing temperature differences in the atmosphere, is processed within the domain of magic, it becomes a very powerful illusion.”
Lennok said, looking at the transforming sky.
“They use that to obscure the sky and hide the factory’s location. They must have been in Vulcan for this very reason from the start, right?”
They forcibly create temperature differences in the atmosphere using heat magic, and then use the mirage as a medium to construct a powerful illusion.
Magic manifested through natural phenomena, regardless of its lineage or Hierarchy, exhibits immense power.
Lennok, intuiting this fact and to confirm his judgment, first attacked Duren.
After seizing the Jak-hon and summoning the giant firebird, he shot a thermal current upwards, sweeping away the mirage in the sky entirely.
“The location of the illusion refracted through the mirage doesn’t distinguish by altitude.”
Lennok mumbled, casting his gaze far away.
“And, if there was a reason they specifically obscured and hid the sky so thoroughly…”
Clatter!
The sight of a massive factory, built on a platform of scrap metal, floating above the clouds.
Lennok smiled, confirming that the factory landscape he had just passed on the ground was floating exactly as it was in the sky.
“Isn’t it because the Satellite Factory was never on the ground in the first place?”
“…!!!”
Deadrise hadn’t built the Satellite Factory on a mountain of scrap metal.
From the start, they had actively adopted Evan Vylun’s Anti-gravity Technology and were constructing the factory above the sky of the restricted zone.
Taking the collapsed theme park as their location was also likely to easily reproduce the mirage phenomenon in a relatively spacious open area.
A secret strategy that exploited to the extreme the fact that Mana Sensitivity didn’t work well deep within the restricted zone and senses were slightly twisted.
A strategy only possible because they had veterans with long experience operating in Vulcan, as well as Central Front experience.
“Adamant Thunder!!!!”
Though the Satellite Factory’s location had been instantly revealed, it wasn’t too late.
If they could just hold this wizard here until Peshia returned, even sacrificing their lives wouldn’t be in vain.
The moment Starkton spurred his own will-thought and clutched his greatsword towards Lennok.
From beyond the Satellite Factory floating overhead, intense flames erupted.
Boom!!
The aftermath of a powerful conflagration spell, as if someone was grabbing and swinging fire.
Simultaneously, a cold frost mist settled on the opposite side, instantly sweeping through the factory and freezing it solid.
A feast of different Unique Abilities and magic, freezing and burning the Satellite Factory from front and back.
“The factory…!!”
“There wasn’t even a sign, how?!!”
Just as Starkton and Solcier’s faces twisted with an unprecedented bewilderment.
Lennok slowly drew up his mana and nodded.
“Tatiana and Anghel have arrived. Shall we begin here too?”
As soon as he realized the factory’s location was an illusion, Lennok diverted Tatiana and entrusted her to Anghel, who had been following.
The moment the mirage was erased by the thermal current, pinpointing the factory’s location, Anghel stormed the factory with Tatiana. They had begun to smash the Satellite Factory from front and back.
From now on, Lennok’s task was to tie their feet down while Anghel and Tatiana searched the satellite and rescued the wizards’ souls.
And if possible, to cleanly kill them on the spot.
Thwack!
As he stepped forward, he drew mana from deep within his body.
Regardless of the sheer quantity of mana, Lennok’s mana, freely accelerated by his will-thought, exploded outwards, crushing everything around him.
An output so overwhelming that Starkton and Solcier, whose attention had been on the factory, flinched.
Before they could even properly perceive its prelude, Lennok moved first.
Crackle!!
Electromancy-type Unique Magic Property Transformation: Emission Manifestation [Flickering Thunder [翩雷]]
Shards of electricity, extending from his fingertips, bounced rapidly, burrowing between the superhumans.
A strike that precariously squeezed through the gap between Starkton and Solcier, aiming for Duren’s head behind them.
But Solcier’s spear shaft intervened, blocking it just before the electrode could cleanly burst Duren’s head.
Boom!!
“Ugh, damn it…!!”
Solcier’s voice trembled faintly, having become a lightning rod and blocked the electrode in Duren’s place.
Just one spell. And he had only blocked it with his spear, not even barehanded, yet his arm tingled.
An intense pain, as if a knife were being shoved into his nerves and seared.
Immediately after Solcier endured the pain, gritted his teeth, and put distance between them, Duren began chanting heat magic and Starkton advanced.
Boom!!
As he slammed his greatsword, ablaze with crimson light, into the ground and twisted it, a fissure opened beneath the earth, engulfing Lennok.
The Jak-hon flames, surging below the fissure, instantly snared Lennok’s feet and flared.
[Foundation Thunder Pillar [基雷伸柱]]
Boom!!
A pillar of lightning, surging from beneath Lennok’s feet, pushed the wizard’s body upwards above the flames.
Immediately after Starkton’s greatsword, precariously touching the lightning’s conductor, crossed and shattered the Foundation Thunder Pillar.
[Thunderlight Well [雷光井]] [Chanting Thunder: Halberd Genesis [唱雷:産戟]]
From amidst the shattered lightning pillar, an immense volume of thunderbolts erupted, beginning to cascade down like a waterfall.
“Milo!!”
Solcier, who had forcibly drawn blood to his forearm to prevent cramping, belatedly joined the fray.
On the blazing field of the domain, the shadows of the three individuals crisscrossed amidst the falling rain of thunderbolts.
CRACKLE! CRACKLE! CRACKLE!!!
Two soldiers, wielding spears and greatswords at speeds barely visible to the eye.
Their speed was so extreme that even the fleeting movements of adopting a stance seemed to be omitted, overlapping each other.
They evaded falling lightning by a hair’s breadth, and even as their flesh and muscles ruptured from the thunder’s vibrations, they did not halt their sword strikes.
[Shattering Cut [斬碎]] [Flying Broken Bone [飛壞骨]]
Solcier and Starkton’s Miniature Universes simultaneously manifested, each burning the Jak-hon flames in different ways as they rotated.
The will-thoughts of the physical superhumans wielding the Forbidden Armaments intertwined wildly amidst the wicked weapons, transcending their limits.
Swoosh!
The entire battlefield became an illusion, stained with crimson hues and collapsing.
Flashing sword strikes and spear-tips ripped through space, intersecting and compressing sequence and order.
A miracle where even when they simultaneously wielded weapons and will-thoughts, mixing them in the same direction and space, they neither collided nor self-destructed.
But Lennok countered in the same manner.
Creation-type Unique Magic: Applied Spatial Weaving [Distortion Weave [歪曲昌連]] [Shedding Secret Radiance [脫却秘燁]]
Kiiiiing!!
The manifestation of intense refraction, as if manipulating space itself.
Simultaneously, he activated the Mystic Eye of Possibilities in his left eye, unleashing lightning magic frantically into the unseen space beyond.
Dududududu!!!
The light of thunder, rooted in his will-thought, was sucked into the refracted space, intercepting and deflecting the slashes that erupted almost simultaneously.
The three individuals’ forms incessantly crisscrossed, and mana and will-thought bent strangely, exploding.
Duren’s desperate heat magic, chanted from the rear, added heat and flames to the battlefield.
Not a single burst of magical light from within was wasted; it struck vital points systematically, as if predetermined.
“Ugh…!!”
They used each other’s mana and will-thought like consumables, discarding them without hesitation.
Even a meticulously crafted, desperate killer move was merely bait to buy a moment of time.
But even with their countless years of combat experience from the Central Front and their extreme mental chess.
They couldn’t read the thoughts of the wizard before them, who wielded mana in hundreds of ways.
Instead, as time passed, they were merely being toyed with, as if the outcome was predetermined, as if all their movements and judgments were being read.
Unable to endure, Solcier moved first.
“Milo, I’m going first…!!”
“No!!”
With his right arm, damaged from taking Lennok’s Flickering Thunder in Duren’s place, he couldn’t last long.
In that case, he had to force a decisive blow while his arm still had some sensation.
The moment Solcier stepped past the defensive line the three had desperately built, and Starkton screamed.
[Spiral Thunderkill [螺雷殺]]
Crackle…!!
Solcier’s shadow distorted, as if sucked into the twisting lightning.
“Aargh!!”
The fierce offense and defense they had built. The judgments they had desperately agonized over.
All that resistance and counterattack became meaningless; the spearman’s body, once within range, was ground to dust under the wizard’s will-thought.
Riiippp!!
The spiraling radiance of lightning ripped and tore through the superhuman’s body in reverse, churning it.
And instantly flung Solcier’s corpse, having lost nearly half its body, away like trash.
Thud!!
Solcier’s shattered body slammed into the half-collapsed amusement park ticket booth.
“Solcier…!!”
At the horrifyingly dead body of his comrade, the veins on Starkton’s forehead swelled as if they would burst.
But even gripping his greatsword until his knuckles burst, he couldn’t move easily.
Because he knew how surreal Solcier’s death, executed in the blink of an eye, had been.
‘Without even using a Domain or a high-hierarchy spell, how…!!’
A grand wizard who had transcended Hierarchy and reached an eighth Hierarchy that shouldn’t exist.
But Lennok hadn’t even drawn the most powerful cards granted to those cursed monsters.
He had merely overwhelmed the three in pure close-quarters combat with only basic firepower and mental strategizing.
He had even predicted the moment the situation would shift, using the aftermath of the first Flickering Thunder as a foundation, and killed Solcier in one go when he revealed an opening.
The meticulousness to unleash powerful magic capable of grinding a level 7 physical superhuman to dust, yet only choosing to unleash it at the exact moment he could guarantee a kill.
There was no way they wouldn’t know what that attitude, seemingly thoroughly conserving power, was preparing for.
Lennok was fighting the executives and Flame Pillars gathered here, yet was simultaneously preparing for a battle with the Ghost Princess, who hadn’t arrived yet.
“Come on.”
The wizard, his hand dripping blood, turned to look at the terribly distorted Starkton and the flinching Duren.
Lennok nodded, confirming the sight of the factory burning and freezing above.
“I’ll crush you.”