novelA Subsurface War (7)
| ← Ch.229 | Ch.231 → |
Adjest felt enormous anger welling up inside her.
When she entered the tower and saw Swan collapse, the only thing she could think of was killing Crow Mask.
That was why she rushed at him so desperately.
She tried every means at her disposal to kill him with her own hands. But she soon realized her limitations.
'I can't get through to him. '
Crow Mask was strong. The defensive magic he had invoked was a level of magic that couldn't be broken even if Adjest gathered mana to her limit.
Inside the spatial shield.
Crow Mask had busied himself calculating and forming something utterly terrifying. The spell array was massive and radiated an ominous aura.
In order to beat him, she would have to break through his defense and deal a fatal blow in one shot.
'I need to focus. '
She took a deep breath, calming herself. She couldn't afford to lose herself to anger. All she could do was believe in Desir. And she always believed in him.
She loosened her grip on her sword, Center of Ice, and backed away. [Scream of Wriggling Earth]
Desir's magic unfolded before him.
A Fourth-Circle spell.
Whips of dirt formed on all sides of Crow Mask, lunging at him shortly after appearing. *Quarrkkk*
The whips collapsed uselessly. They could not break through the defensive magic. 'This is not going to hurt him. '
'Scream of Wriggling Earth' was one of the few spells with physical manifestation, and on top of that, it would regenerate indefinitely as long as mana was poured into it. The whips could be produced as fast as they broke. And break they did. Debris began to pile up around Crow Mask's shield.
This was exactly what Desir aimed for.
With the whips being produced at a breathtaking rate, he continued to calculate another spell. It was simply a spectacular, overwhelming display of magical formations.
Any magician seeing this spectacular sight would be left overwhelmed and amazed.
An innumerable number of earthen whips had formed and collapsed, creating giant piles of debris. As the other spell Desir had been arranging was completed, the reality of Desir's plan was revealed.
A huge shadow was cast over the inside of the tower. [Bindel of Earth]
This was essentially Fourth-Circle defensive magic, but it was a spell that had been upgraded by the hands of Desir.
A giant sphere had formed in the air. A weapon capable of incalculable damage, whose power would be further increased by the tyranny of gravity.
*Roar!*
A roar rang out overpowering everything else. The top of the tower had already collapsed. Adjest's hopes were raised.
'At this level, we'll surely be able to beat Crow Mask's magic. '
It was a spell with the equivalent power to Seventh-Circle magic. It was definitely worth a try. Crow Mask's spell completed just in time. The Tesseract stopped moving momentarily, signifying it had completed its task.
[Hall Urban Abyss]
Crow Mask reached for the huge amount of rushing towards him.
A space of about thirty meters in total twisted in on itself greatly, before beginning to converge. As particles of matter between the distortions in space were pulverized, an eerie sound rang out.
Without limit, everything was torn apart to the extreme.
As the area continued to crumple in on itself, a physical manifestation of the boundary between the area of effect and its surroundings formed. It was as if the area around this spell started to form waves as it was pulled in towards the centre of the spell.
This spell felt quite different to the other space distortions Crow Mask had produced so far. It felt more violent and substantial. It didn't feel like the area it touched would return to normal if the spell were to be dispelled. As if that area were permanently fractured now.
"What the hell is that...?"
They could almost make out something. When they squinted their eyes to block out the extraneous light, they could barely just see a sphere, smaller than a bean, at the very center of the destruction.
A black dot whose end led to who knows where.
Desir called out.
"Adjest."
Adjest, who was focused entirely on the black spot, noticed that the landscape of the area was gradually blurring and dimming. 'Is it sucking in even the light...?'
The moment she recognized it, it was as if her blood froze."Magic...!"
She could not finish her sentence. The spell that Crow Mask had invoked was now in full swing.
A sphere smaller than a bean that had the power to attract everything."Urgh...!"
Shortly after Desir called her name, Adjest caught Desir.
Her hair was flapping madly. She plunged her sword, Center of Ice, deep into the ground to brace against.
[Wonder Crystal]
Adjest cast Fourth-Circle magic.
Ice rose from all sides, concealing the bodies of both her and Desir. *Ting*
The defense of their Clothes Line had been damaged due to overexposure to the elements.
Her spell was so powerful that she suffered damage from it. But, her quick thinking resulted in making the right call.
"...... There's a major difference between you and me, Desir."
This was the end. They both recognised the threat at the same time, and immediately afterwards, everything nearby was wiped out completely.
They couldn't understand what happened.
The phenomenon was not something they could intuitively recognize and understand.
They had just witnessed extreme space curvature. Concepts like fire power, or even time, meant nothing to it. It simply consumed everything.
The enormous mass of material that Desir had used as a weapon, consuming most of his mana in the process, was no exception.
It was a collision between a big sphere and a little one.
However, it was Desir's giant weapon that broke first.
It didn't even leave a sound behind. It was utterly destroyed and crushed, disappearing without a trace.
Eaten away entirely, rendered utterly futile.
"You're a C-tier magician who only mimicked magic at best. Now this is real magic!"
The magic with the most power, and the very apex of all Seventh-Circle spells, was that with the attribute of space. At lower circles, a magician specializing in this type of magic can only teleport and otherwise manipulate space with relatively low cause and effect, but at higher circles, nothing can win against someone capable of ripping apart the fabric of space.
*Smash*
About half of the tower had now been pulverized. 'Is he at such a level?'
So far, she thought only Zod Exarion was deserving of such a title as strongest magician to have lived.
Now, however, she had changed her mind. How could she have known Crow Mask was concealing this much strength?
'Can I even avenge Swan against this kind of opponent?' Adjest bit her lip.
'Did we come in too unprepared? Was it too much to suddenly enter the enemy's den?' "Don't give up yet, Adjest. All hope isn't lost."
Desir spoke, seeing the signs of her wavering resolve.
"I can see he's pouring all of his mana into this. If we can neutralize that spell, you can win."
"But we... won't last long here."
By maintaining this refuge, Adjest's mana was quickly being sapped away. She had forced all of the cold out of the Center of Ice and also brought her own mana to its limit. All she could do was barely hold out.
They were in such a condition, yet they weren't even that close to Crow Mask and the phenomena he had caused.
'As if it wasn't bad enough already, the mana drain rate is increasing as this goes on...'
In other words, the work required to prevent them from being dragged away was only growing.
Desir's hand spread out wide. A flash of light appeared in his hand as an artifact was summoned from the dimensional pocket in his Clothes Line.
It was the A-Tier artifact 'Mana Hole' that held mana gathered from the atmosphere, ready to be consumed by the owner.
As it whirred to life, Desir's mana, which had nearly been consumed, quickly began to refill. His mana restored itself to maximum before Adjest could process what she was witnessing... 'Desir, he still had a card to play. '
'But what good will it do? His most powerful spell has been blocked. It was entirely ineffective against such a spell. ' Their eyes met for a moment.
The reflection of platinum blonde hair fluttered in Desir's deep, dark eyes.
While seizing the Mana Hole, Desir began to move forward slowly. With a layer of transparent ice between them, Crow Mask faced Desir.
"Are you thinking of trying something?"
"Yes."
The ice broke at that single word.
A silvery line extending from Desir at the same time.
Runel.
It flitted towards Crow Mask at full speed.
Unlike other ordinary objects, this artifact was somewhat resistant to effects of the extreme spatial tear.
But that didn't last long either.
It came to a complete stop five meters away from Crow Mask.
This was exactly the point at which one could no longer resist the force of Crow Mask's spell. It then began to rapidly orbit around the center of the tear.
"I guess you had to give something a try. Did you mean to throw away that artifact?" Crow Mask laughed.
"I feel sorry for Swan who trusted you and left you behind."
"I've tested my last spare."
"Last spare?"
"Oh, yeah. I just finished my calculations."
*Crack*
The ice fell off in chunks as a result of the force of the black hole.
Crow Mask laughed at Desir, a mere Fourth-Circle magician.
"Don't be pretentious. Hypocrite! No matter how good you are, you can't reverse this magic in such a short amount of time."
"The calculation I spoke of was me measuring what I would get from killing you, and the price I would need to pay. And after calculating this, I've come to the conclusion that getting rid of you is worth it."
Desir spoke in such a manner that implied he could simply kill Crow Mask at any time. There was a moment of silence.
Adjest felt an ominous feeling surfacing.
At that moment she stepped up to approach Desir."Wait, Desir...!"
"Keep your magic up."
Desir stopped Adjest short. At the same time, he begins to arrange an intricate spell formation. It was enormous and intricate beyond belief. Something completely different to anything else he had ever used before. The magic itself also felt odd.
"You...!" This energy.
The amount and feel of the mana.
It was an utterly unusual feeling.
It was magic beyond all common sense. Something she couldn't begin to comprehend. But she knew what this formula meant.
It was something beyond even the Seventh-Circle; something that had reached a heaven defying level.
She had been cowed by Crow Mask's magic, a power that had exceeded her very concept of strength. And once again, in such a short period of time, she was witness to something beyond even that.
"Stop!"
Crow Mask shouted in terror. He could instinctively tell how dangerous this spell would be just from the feel the magical formation in front of him gave off.
".........!"
The vast amount of mana inside and around Desir disappeared, seemingly sucked into a bottomless vacuum, before quickly gathering again. His Fourth-Circle mana capacity was insufficient for this spell, but he could cope with the Mana Hole almost continually activating to refill it. It was natural that Desir's circles were ridiculously overworked in this process, however the cycle of emptying and filling was so quick that most magicians would only see Desir wielding near infinite mana.
She wanted to tell him to quit right away. Even though she knew nothing about the spell he was casting, she knew there had to be some kind of negative consequence from casting such a massive spell with only four circles. Pulling off an unusual spell like this would surely entail unusual or disastrous side effects as a result.
To be honest though, she didn't have the slightest clue as to what they would be. But Desir was determined.
He had decided that he would take down the Crow Mask in front of him. He had gone so far as to resolve himself to do it at all costs.
Adjest was determined to uphold and support his resolution.
She believed in Desir. She had always believed in him.
And...
Adjest groaned.
At the moment, her mana consumption rose sharply.
In a desperate attempt to stop Desir, Crow Mask greatly boosted the mana he was pouring into the offensive spell that threatened to pull in Desir and Adjest.
Adjest desperately poured more of her mana into their defense to offset Crow Mask."You fucking bitch!"
He had completely lost his composure.
Adjest clenched her teeth.
'I will never back down. ' *Crack*
As ice was ripped off, she reinforced it several times over while recreating it. Her whole body began to feel cold.
But she didn't care in the slightest about it. 'I believe in Desir. '
With her mind sharpened to a point, and her vision narrowed to that single objective, Crow Mask was unable to shake the resolve of Adjest.
All he could do now was think.
He had witnessed something similar to this spell with his own eyes. It was clearly the kind of magic Desir used to slay Dadenewt in a single blow, a being that was supposedly able to destroy entire countries.
But incredibly, the pace of Desir's spell formation this time was unreasonably fast in comparison to back then.
No matter what Crow Mask did, Desir's spell would be invoked first."......!?"
Adjest suddenly felt the suction force disappearing.
In a desperate attempt to deal with Desir's spell somehow, Crow Mask was invoking a different spell.
Just a moment later... "... gotcha."
Desir uttered a single word.
At the same time everything turned pitch black.
| ← Ch. 229 | Ch. 231 → |