Chapter 884: The Eye That Sees Fate (20)
A streak of flame and a fluorescent spear tip raced through a dark, dusty back alley, crossing paths alternately.
The sight was of a wizard accelerating by blasting flames from his back, and a girl running on all fours with a spear shaft in her mouth.
Dudududu!!!
But surprisingly, the faster of the two was Meryllda, who propelled herself forward by driving her arms and legs into the ground alternately.
“Disgustingly fast.”
Lennok, who had been flying low as if skimming the ground, shook his head as he saw Meryllda instantly closing in behind him.
“To think she can achieve that speed on all fours with a human body. How are her joints even structured?”
“I told you to stop!!”
Drrrk!!
Clenching the spear shaft with her teeth, she twisted her entire body and rotated in mid-air.
The long spearhead glinted in response to the beast-kin’s grip, and just as it bent to strike Lennok’s accelerating back-
Fwoooosh!!
The output of his flame wings exploded, pushing Lennok’s body forward even faster.
It was a flexible double acceleration, unbelievable to have been performed while already moving at full speed.
A stream of fire spread out in a fiery spiral, lingering in the abandoned alley and quickly setting its surroundings ablaze.
Kwaaaa!!
It was a propulsive force so great that even the Execution Squad aiming at Lennok from all sides momentarily lost track of him.
Meryllda, who had almost caught him only to lose him in an instant, scowled fiercely.
“Dammit, what kind of speed is that for a damn flame wizard…!!”
Born of mixed beast-kin blood, she was faithful to the animal instincts of playing, eating, and sleeping, but she hadn’t remained an executive in the organization for so long for nothing.
Havng handled the Cartel’s affairs alongside Olivera, Meryllda also possessed a wealth of experience and knowledge about various forms of spellcraft.
She was naturally aware of the characteristics of flame-heat magic among the pure elemental magic systems.
Considering that typical flame-heat spells required time for preheating and ignition, that casting speed and mobility were indeed abnormal.
At this rate, she would just be chasing the wizard’s tail and end up with nothing.
Whipping her spear around, Meryllda kicked off the walls of nearby buildings, bounding up to the rooftops.
Looking down at the Execution Squad moving to avoid the flames engulfing the alley, she shouted.
“Get out of the sector and control the access points. Stop anyone from entering the designated perimeter!!”
If a flame wizard specializing in wide-area saturation fire also possessed mobility, he was a terrible match for the organized Execution Squad.
Instead of wasting their strength needlessly, it was better to have them control the inner and outer perimeters of the area and eliminate variables.
[Understood!]
Before Meryllda could even finish her words, the Execution Squad scattered. She pulled a communicator from her pocket.
“Hey, Angel!! Are you listening!!”
-Yeah~ I’m listening.
As soon as she pressed the button, Meryllda’s shriek was met with a lazy reply from the other side.
“He’s heading your way, so stop him! You can freeze him with your ability, right?!”
-What are you talking about?
Angel asked back, his voice baffled.
-He’s fire, and I’m ice. What did you learn in science class, Meryllda?
“I didn’t go to school!!”
Meryllda yelled into the communicator, but no answer came back.
Only a faint mist began to spread from the other side of the sky with a powerful roar.
Sensing that Angel had encountered the wizard, Meryllda clicked her tongue and increased her speed.
“Hoo… I didn’t want to get involved because I knew it would come to this…”
Confirming that the communication with Meryllda had been cut, Angel let out a deep sigh.
Hoooook…!!
With every breath he exhaled, a cold frost formed, and the frozen rime cooled the heated air.
After winding through the narrow back alley for a while, he had reached the remnants of a closed dam located at the edge of a sheer cliff.
Towards Angel, standing at the edge of the dam’s stone wall, a young man clad in wings of flame was approaching at tremendous speed.
Though he had never seen his face before, it wasn’t hard to tell who his opponent was.
The Lighthouse Keeper who leads the Eyes of Blue. The flame wizard who single-handedly protected the kin of an Ascendant.
And now, a monster rampaging through the megacity to reclaim his master, who had been abducted by Adamant Thunder.
“Alright, stop right there! This is a speed-restricted zone from here on out…!!”
Crack-ck!!
The moment Angel clasped his hands together and stomped one foot on the frozen stone wall, a barrier of ice rose upside down, blocking Lennok’s path.
Immediately after, Lennok’s body, wreathed in flames, collided with the wall. Fire and ice mixed, melted, and exploded, releasing a tremendous amount of steam.
Kwaaaaaang!!
Beyond the collapsing ice wall that melted like flowing water, red flames billowed and seeped out.
Like the tongue of a living beast, it gently licked away the ice, approaching as it pierced through the cold in an instant.
Chiiiiik!!
Seeing the wizard’s expressionless face up close, Angel broke out in a cold sweat.
“Haha, what kind of thermal energy is this…!! Are you a fire spirit or something?!”
No answer came back.
[Explosive Flame Orbs]
[Triple Manifestation - Repulsion]
Three flame orbs rose from Lennok’s hand, spinning violently as they converged to a single point.
Immediately after, they repelled each other, firing an immense amount of heat straight forward.
[Blood-Flame Line]
Booooooom!!
A fan-shaped flash of flame with tangible impact spread out, incinerating everything in its path.
“Aaaargh!! It’s melting…!!”
Angel was sent tumbling with a shrill scream amidst the helplessly evaporating frost mist.
But even in that state, Angel was deftly drawing on the moisture within his body to somehow deflect the heat of the Blood-Flame Line.
Kwarurururuk!!
Along the long boundary of the dam, flame wings several meters in size flickered and accelerated.
The frost mist, drawn from all directions, flashed as if to envelop and suppress the waves of fire that skimmed over the structure.
Kugugugu!!
The clash of the two ability users with different elements made it seem as if a natural phenomenon centered on the dam had gone awry.
The late-arriving Execution Squad paled as they witnessed the brilliant dance of fire and frost.
“Impossible. Sir Angel is a Saint-level innate ability user…!!”
“Does he possess an aptitude in elemental manipulation comparable to a superhuman’s?!”
Chiiiiik!!
The ice melted into surging water, and on its surface, the figures of Angel and Lennok became entangled, sliding across it.
Lennok scooped up the flames burning at his fingertips like lava, melting the chunks of ice Angel blasted at him.
They wreathed their fists in fire and ice, freezing, melting, and blasting their will-thoughts and spellcraft.
However, the firepower of Lennok’s spells was so explosive that every time they clashed, a fiery blast erupted behind Angel, sending his body flying helplessly.
Booooooom!!
Angel screamed as he saw a massive pillar of fire erupt and obliterate the ice barrier.
“Kyaaak!! I told you, I’m terrible at close combat!”
“So it seems.”
From Lennok’s perspective, who had even triumphed in a fight against Dylan, the punches Angel threw weren’t even worth paying attention to.
From the start, his spell output was overwhelmingly superior.
Once Lennok stopped trying to size him up and started to crush him with sheer power, Angel’s body was sent flying, left dangling precariously from the edge of the dam.
“Ah, hot, hot…!!”
He quickly blew on his hands, freezing them to the edge of the dam to prevent himself from falling.
The frozen surface of the dam where Lennok and Angel had slid had, in the time they had passed over it, already turned into a boiling river.
Bubble bubble!!
“For all your fuss, you’re holding up quite well.”
Lennok said, walking over the boiling, evaporating water to look down at the dangling Angel.
“It’s commendable that the output of your innate ability hasn’t dropped even in this situation. Is your unwavering mental strength a natural talent?”
“…”
Among all innate abilities, superpowers were the ones that relied most on the user’s mental strength.
That was why they were the most unstable, yet also sometimes capable of transcending the laws of spellcraft.
But Angel, despite being pushed back so helplessly by Lennok’s magic, had not once lost control of his ability.
Proof that even while fighting Lennok alone, the mental fortitude that was the foundation of his ability had not wavered.
“On the other hand, the output of your ability itself is somewhat bizarrely amplified. It looks like you’ve been doping somewhere.”
“Haha, that’s not exactly the kind of compliment I wanted to hear…”
Angel’s expression turned sheepish as he realized Lennok had seen right through it.
Lennok took a cigar from his pocket, lit it, and spoke.
“I’m not going to all this trouble because I want to spare your lives. So how about you just make a show of it and step aside?”
Lennok’s eyes, looking down at Angel, glinted eerily.
“If things go wrong and become irreversible, I don’t think I’ll be able to end it like this.”
Naturally, he had no intention of killing the Cartel executives here.
However, he needed a minimal justification for fighting them and not causing casualties.
He had used Lapis’s name as an excuse, but Angel seemed surprisingly deeply impressed by his words.
“A good answer. That one sentence is enough to know what a fine organization the Eyes of Blue is.”
“…”
“I used to belong to a place like that myself. So I can understand that desire to protect one’s core.”
Kkigik!!
As Angel exhaled lightly, the air around him began to cool rapidly.
“However, the wizard you are trying to face is a person completely unbound by such logic or sentiment. We are wary of him.”
Angel’s gaze, looking up at Lennok’s face as he dangled, suddenly deepened.
“As excellent and outstanding as you are, I worry you might provoke him in the wrong way…”
“…”
“While I personally respect Sir Van’s character, it’s clear that it wouldn’t be strange for him to twist at any moment. My apologies to the Lighthouse Keeper, but we cannot afford to consider her circumstances.”
Angel slowly shook his head.
“The Cartel’s course has been set, and I am on board. It is regrettable that your flame will be extinguished in this city, but it cannot be helped.”
“I see.”
Fwoosh!!
As Lennok smiled and raised his hand, flames blossomed from his fingertips, rose up, and began to swell on their own.
The magic, having escaped Lennok’s control, instantly lost its restraint and amplified the spell’s power.
The fist-sized fireball above Angel’s head transformed into the shape of a massive greatsword.
Unique Flame-Heat Magic Property Transformation: Melting Sculpting
[Demon Sword of Searing Heat]
Kwawoooo!!
A flame that bloomed with no medium, using only its own magic as kindling.
But its heat was so desolate and intense that it could evaporate Angel’s entire ice-type innate ability.
The moment the burning greatsword rotated above Angel’s head and began to fall, Angel, sensing death, gathered his remaining mental strength and activated his superpower.
A huge, hexagonal ice shield formed, and the moment it clashed with the falling blade of the greatsword-
Kwohaaaak!!
An enormous amount of steam, enough to completely overturn the dam, burst forth, dyeing the surroundings in a white mist.
“Cough, cough!!”
Angel, who had fallen from the top of the sloped dam, rolled on the ground, coughing ceaselessly.
It was a bizarre sight, with about half of his body melted like flowing water.
Even a superhuman who could turn his body to frost and move couldn’t withstand the thermal energy Lennok had just thrown at him.
But despite that, Angel was still alive.
It wasn’t because he had drawn out power beyond his limits the moment he sensed death—
“Lauder, you’re late!!”
“Oh my, my apologies.”
A slender young man with glasses, dressed in a flowing dobok, walked leisurely out of the mist.
The man, holding a large scroll in one hand, smiled as he looked at the sprawled-out Angel.
“The pharmaceutical division I recently took over has been so busy. There were so many things to attend to here and there that I lost track of time.”
“Don’t lie.”
Angel spat and got to his feet.
Turning to look at the brightly smiling Lauder, Angel asked with a look of displeasure.
“You just didn’t want to get involved in something the Chairman and Virgil haven’t reached an agreement on, did you?”
“Because Sir Virgil is not the master of this grand Cartel.”
Lauder agreed without a change in expression.
As he pushed up the wide sleeves of his dobok, all sorts of complex tattoos covering his forearms were revealed.
He tapped alternately on the tattoos on his forearm and the scroll, and an image identical to the tattoos was quickly inscribed onto the scroll.
Kiiing!!
In an instant, Lauder, having completed a spell formation on the scroll by gathering all sorts of symbols, turned and said.
“Is there really any reason to involve ourselves in matters not included in the executives’ duties?”
“The new 6th Executive doesn’t seem very interested in the Cartel’s internal structure.”
Angel grumbled.
“Even if Virgil has a difference of opinion with the Chairman, is it likely that their trust would break?”
“One can never know what the future holds for people.”
Lauder’s smiling eyes seemed to glint strangely for a moment.
“In the end, we weren’t told anything about what the Chairman thinks about this matter, were we?”
“…”
“Well, even so, I appreciate your advice, Sir Angel. Sometimes, you have to put in the legwork without expecting an immediate return.”
Flutter!!
Unique Curse-Type Spellcraft Property Transformation: Catalyst Augmentation
[Ghost Soul]
[Joyful Calamity Bone Collection]
The moment Lauder unfurled the scroll and infused it with magic, the form of a giant purple skull shot up and swallowed the two of them.
Immediately after, a wave of flames that flowed down from above swept over the spot where the two executives had been standing.
Unique Flame-Heat Magic Property Transformation: Diffuse Combustion
[Crimson Cascade]
Kwaaaaaa!!
The purple skull’s form was engulfed in the wave of fire and instantly eroded away.
But every time the skull burned and vanished, a gloomy will-thought burst out like marrow, clinging to the blazing flames and extinguishing them.
In the instant the heat weakened, a path of ice spread out from the back of the skull, and Angel and Lauder slid out.
Kwaaaang!!
Immediately after, Lennok’s body, wreathed in a fiery blast, crashed down, shattering the skull’s head to pieces.
“Not an ordinary elemental spellcraft.”
Lennok pressed the array device on his forearm to vent the heat, looking around at the gloomy will-thought scattered about as he asked.
“A curse user?”
“It is a curse made from the vengeful spirits of the victims who burned to death in the Tarashas Great Fire 25 years ago.”
Lauder nodded.
“Humans have a pathetic nature of obsessing over the medium or object that caused them pain. Rather than retracing the cause or catalyst, they simply obsess over and try to remember the weapon, the shape, the image that killed them.”
“…”
“Using that nature to process the vengeful spirits of those who burned to death into a curse, they will obsessively cling to the medium of fire.”
Lauder said, rolling up the scroll.
“To grab onto your feet and cling to you relentlessly, never letting go. That, I believe, is the essence of a curse.”
Instead of taking Lennok’s magic head-on with the curse, he had thoroughly prevented the heat from spreading.
Considering that curse users generally focus on various forms of back-end support rather than direct attacks, it wasn’t strange.
Rather, it was Angel, who had been calmly listening to Lauder’s words, who stuck out his tongue with a strange expression.
“Ugh, isn’t that just too creepy?”
“In short, a curse is a power that cannot be explained simply by the concept of disparaging and hating the opponent,” Lauder said with a broad smile.
“The more you delve into it, the more you are drawn to the ugliness and hypocrisy of humanity. It is a truly fascinating spellcraft.”
“It’s well known that curse users suffer from misanthropy,” Lennok retorted.
“That’s so cliché I don’t even know how to respond.”
“Then how about this?”
As Lennok sneered and walked forward, Lauder immediately unfurled the scroll again.
The completed curse on the scroll was this time cast upon Angel.
“Uuuut…!!”
Every time Angel let out a strange scream and writhed, a frigid chill, incomparable to before, burst from his body.
Fwooooooong!!
The raging storm of cold was so intense that it instantly froze the heated air below the dam.
The chill even reached the skin of Lennok, who stood wreathed in flames, threatening to momentarily freeze his blood.
It was a terrifying level of cold he had never felt from Angel until just now.
“Negative emotions and words stimulate the human mind very powerfully.”
The moment Lennok realized this was the result of the doping that had surpassed the original output of his superpower, Lauder spoke from behind Angel.
“So for a superhuman who uses an innate ability based on their own mind, can you even imagine the synergistic effect that occurs when a curse close to an obsession is injected into their psyche?”
“Hey, Lauder!!”
Kwaaaang!!!
At that moment, a spearhead shot down like a ray of light, piercing through the storm of cold.
A girl, perched on the spear shaft embedded in the wall of the dam’s lower slope, looked down at Angel and Lauder and yelled.
“I told you not to use your spellcraft like that!!”
“Lady Meryllda. I’ve explained several times that this is a general-purpose application-”
“What kind of crazy bastard casts a curse on an ally instead of an enemy!”
“…There’s no getting through to you.”
For the first time, Lauder’s smile seemed to fade, but he quickly recomposed himself and turned back to Lennok.
“Well, it’s fine. The flame-heat magic you use. We have finished confirming its principles.”
“Confirming?”
“An abnormally fast casting speed and mobility, far from what is typical for flame-heat spellcraft. That must be the result of abandoning wide-area projection of firepower and concentrating it in a narrow area, correct?” Lauder asked.
“Instead of spreading your spell’s range to occupy space, you moved your body directly to burn us. That is proof that the range of your concentrated firepower is limited to the vicinity of your body.”
“…”
“The firestorm that burned down the apartment complex was powerful magic, but you didn’t begin the casting until just before the battle ended… Even if you can switch the way you use magic, it’s clear that it takes a very long time. In that case-”
“Uryaaaaap!!”
Crack-ck-ck!!
The moment Meryllda gripped the spear she had embedded and twisted it hard, cracks began to form on the dam’s slope, centered on the spear.
The wall of the closed dam, which had stood firm against the impacts of the three clashing, began to shake as if it were collapsing.
Kwaaaaaaaang!!!
The thick stone wall crumbled, and the water that had been pooled inside the dam cascaded down like a waterfall.
A dilapidated dam. A waterfall of polluted wastewater, stagnant for a long time, mixed with green algae.
As Lennok looked up at the magnificent torrent of water falling on him, he frowned for a moment.
Kagagak!!
Angel, wreathed in cold, ran towards the breach in the dam, while Lauder quickly backed away.
“Lady Meryllda!”
“Shut up!!”
Meryllda flung her spear shaft as if flicking it, widening the crack in the dam, and as she fell, she snatched Lauder’s body.
Lauder unfurled his scroll and activated the last completed curse formation.
Unique Curse-Type Spellcraft Catalyst Transfer: Will-thought Interference
[Basket of Regret]
This dam in District 45 was a dilapidated facility that had been closed for over ten years. The water contained within was also stagnant, rotten, polluted water.
A substance with such strong negative energy could be used as a catalyst for a curse, forcibly amplifying the spell’s power.
The target of the amplification was the ice-type innate ability user, Angel, who had already been cursed.
A mind pushed to its limits through a curse, an innate ability strengthened by using the surrounding polluted water as a catalyst.
The forced amplification of will-thought and the creation of an environment optimally suited for the innate ability.
Through this, Angel’s own mental strength could now reach a phase of spellcraft he could never normally use.
“Phase Domain Transition.”
Phase Domain: Ability Transition Ice-Type: Mindscape Augmentation
Jjeojeojeojeok!!!
The water falling down the dilapidated dam’s slope instantly froze, surrounding Lennok and Angel.
Dozens of pure white ice pillars fell around Lennok, then began to isolate the space itself, constructing the form of a prison.
An overwhelming scale, created by freezing the entire volume of the dam, as if designed not to restrain a human but a giant.
Kugugugugugu!!!
Inside the prison being constructed in real-time, Lennok, realizing his flames were rapidly weakening, let out a smirk.
It was because he now understood that the reason the executives had been waiting near the abandoned dam was a gambit to capture him from the very beginning.
“Is it a concept that designates a specific space and changes its properties entirely? It’s on a different track from a Domain, yet there’s a strangely similar aspect to it.”
Unlike a Domain that unfolds centered on oneself, a Phase Domain’s spatial coordinates are designated centered on others.
Was it a power that altered the phase or priority of a specific concept itself, creating an environment optimized for an elemental superhuman?
If it required such meticulous preparation that it had to be deployed with the polluted water of the dam as a catalyst and the assistance of a curse user, its power itself must undoubtedly be on a very powerful level.
“This kind of response is troublesome…”
“Don’t worry… you…!!”
Angel, whose complexion had turned purple from being unable to withstand his own cold, gritted his teeth.
“First, we’ll take you before the Chairman… to discuss the future schedule…!!”
“That’s not what I was talking about.”
In the air that was chillingly freezing the entire space, Lennok slowly raised his hand.
“I suppose it’s alright to show you here.”
“…What did you say?”
The moment he gently waved his hand in the air, a massive Sphere of Flame appeared as if melting into existence.
Kuoohhhhh!!!
A ceaselessly glowing crimson light was spinning violently, burning within the giant flame sphere.
Was this what it would look like if an immense amount of fire was drawn by gravity and forced into a shape?
Around the sphere of flame, a very elaborate and complex spell formation rotated like the rings of a planet, adding a silvery luster.
Woooooong!!!
Like a planet revolving around Lennok, like a flame of gravity drawing an orbit with the caster as its sun.
The moment he placed his hand on the first flame sphere, which floated and rotated slowly at an angle.
“Begin release.”
Kiiiiiing!!
The spell formation surrounding the flame sphere like a planetary ring began to spin violently, expanding in size.
Simultaneously, the magic power blooming from Lennok’s body exploded, dyeing everything around him red.
The power of the unique flame-heat magic, growing and amplifying without limit.
Lennok’s magic power, which had greatly increased its maximum capacity, was still beyond his control.
Thus, Lennok gave up on controlling the endlessly swelling magic power and the spell’s might within his body.
Instead, he had simply extracted it from his body and re-established it as the concept of a new power source.
Kwahahahak!!!
“Huh?”
“Dammit, increase the distance!!”
“Ensure your survival. We can never withstand this…!!”
As the fiery star began to rotate, Lennok looked back at the Execution Squad hastily trying to communicate, and thought.
When fighting the Cartel’s 1st Executive, Farden McQueen, Lennok had once used a Magic Power Core to supplement the magic needed for a Domain deployment.
A storage device used to pre-store magic and use it just before casting to cover the magic consumption deficit.
He had recreated that concept, once treated as a type of artifact, using his own uncontrollable magic as the power source.
After completing the casting and preheating, he had compressed the radiant flame searching for kindling to its limit, manifesting it in the form of a flame sphere.
Using Jindun’s barrier arts, he fixed its shape and established an internal circulation system to give it the structure of a core.
The completed flame sphere, quite literally, became a new sun for Evan Martinez alone—
“Wait, this is…!!!”
The moment an eerie heat shot up the spine of Meryllda, who was rapidly circling the dam.
Lennok placed a fist on his palm and, as if pulling the flame sphere towards him, pushed it up and whispered.
“Full Crimson.”
Unique Flame-Heat Magic Property Transformation: Amplification Zenith Crimson Star System: Solar Zenith 3rd Star: Convergence
[Spring of the Embryonic Star] [Full Crimson]
Kugwagwagwagwa!!!
From beneath the cascading phase domain of ice, a dazzling vermilion light erupted.
The cluster of light did not end with a flash; it expanded explosively, consuming the surrounding space.
Eventually, it became a colossal sphere of the sun, descending as if manifesting on the earth.
Immediately after, the prison of ice that Angel had amplified with curses and his innate ability fell like a meteor from the sky and collided with the sun.
Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!
Not even steam arose.
The prison of ice, created using the entire volume of the closed dam, evaporated without a trace the moment it collided with the sun of Full Crimson.
“…How can this be.”
With his self-made sun at his back, Lennok turned to look at Angel, who was muttering blankly in the distance, and slowly clenched a fist.
By now, this moment must have clearly reached the eyes of those watching the battle here.
The secret art of flame-heat spellcraft.
The ultimate technique that had reached the pinnacle of amplification property transformation, the Crimson Star System.
This was the new potential Lennok had reached as a flame wizard.
The result he had obtained by letting his uncontrollable flame spells run rampant to their very limit.
It was the cause and effect that would convince all who watched of Evan’s journey to continuously kindle a fire to reach lightning.
That Evan’s words about using this city as kindling were no empty boast.