novelTitan-level Alchemy Colossus
| ← Ch.0718 | Ch.0720 → |
Everyone was stunned. The magic backlash brought by the failure of the spell was not that great, since everyone was sharing the burden. However, it also prevented them from casting any magic anytime soon. They discovered that the Mage Killer Eminos, who had been roaming outside, had somehow disappeared when they were not paying attention to him.
At this moment, everyone's heart was filled with dejection, and no one knew who would be doomed next. They had no idea when Eminos would kill them silently, but they knew that the legendary Mage Killer would only require a tenth of a second to kill. Although Eminos could not assassinate everyone within a short period of time, it was the uncertainty that plunged everyone into endless fear. Even the few Legendary-mages wouldn't be able to immediately cast a low-level magic shield to protect themselves within this tenth of a second.
However, just as the Elemental Shield dissipated and Rosen and the other Legendary-mages cast magic shields on themselves, the Helios' Scepter in Lin Li's hands emitted a dazzling light. It was not a defensive spell, but a powerful offensive spell, Meteor Shower. The target of the offensive spell turned out to be Lin Li himself.
While countless fireballs bombarded them with a loud roar, Lin Li did not waver nor stop, and instead immediately launched his own Light and Darkness Domain, which blasted against his own flames.
Lin Li's almost self-abusing behavior made everyone confused, but the shriek that sounded in the sky a short while later made their eyes widen in shock. However, Lin Li did not stop. Instead, he condensed his Light and Darkness Sword and swung it forcefully in the direction of the shriek.
A burning man emerged from the Meteor Shower and landed on the ground in front of them.
He didn't extinguish the flames on his body immediately, and instead said to Lin Li in a hoarse voice, "H-how did you know that my target is you..."
Lin Li stepped out of the crowd and walked towards the man in flames who was clearly already on the verge of dying. He smiled, and said, '"I'm the youngest one here, so I'd naturally seem like a pushover."
Rosen was still getting ready to reprimand Lin Li, but when he walked towards the edge, he immediately stopped because he heard Lin Li's answer.
He wondered if Eminos was pleased with Lin Li's answer. As the flame gradually diminished, Eminos' body was charred, and no one could tell if he was dead or not.
Of course, age was just the reason that Lin Li had come up with randomly. In fact, from the moment that he'd recognized Eminos to be the Mage Killer, Lin Li had already begun doing his best to hatch a plan and perform well for this moment.
When Rosen called out Eminos' name, Lin Li began to work hard at recalling all the information about Eminos, and also gained a general understanding of the characteristics of the legendary Mage Killer. For example, in order to sneak away, Eminos couldn't cast any defensive spells or use any magical equipment with protective effects. In addition, most of the magic he learned was focused on stealth and assassination. He enjoyed using low-level single-target magic spells, and disliked learning powerful Legendary magic and so on.
Hence, Lin Li began to perform. He first obtained the temporary commanding right from Aldwin, and then tried to behave as a young mage who was a great commander. That was actually not difficult. As long as the mages obeyed him, it would be enough to show how good he was at commanding.
Next, Lin Li suppressed his own magical waves. Although his strength was at the peak of level-23 and it was hard for him to disguise himself as an apprentice in magic, Lin Li believed that Eminos wouldn't use his mental strength to sense his power, because that would expose his tracks. If the fluctuations in his mental strength were captured, Eminos would immediately become the target of the mages.
While suppressing the magical waves, Lin Li put up his magical shield and avoided casting other high-level magic. When casting the magical shield, he also behaved like a mage between level-10 and level-15. That required good acting chops as an over-exaggeration would arouse Eminos' suspicion. Fortunately, Lin Li did not take too long to advance from an apprentice to the way he was now; hence, he could still remember how he behaved when he was an Archmage.
Through the performance, Lin Li portrayed himself as an extremely important commander of team, and at same time pretended to be weak. At first glance, he did seem like a pushover. If Lin Li were the Mage Killer, he would definitely choose himself as the first target of assassination as well.
In the eyes of the Mage Killer Eminos, Lin Li was just like a bait that he could not refuse, but that did not mean that he would take it desperately without caring about anything else. Hence, Lin Li needed to give Eminos an opportunity that would allow him to take the bait without any worries—the mages' failure to cast the spell.
What happened yesterday had undoubtedly caused a crack in the team of mages. Although they were the elites of the elites, and might not let the crack affect their tacit cooperation during the battle, they still could not solve their psychological issues easily. The cracks would definitely cause their joint spell to fail, and Eminos definitely wouldn't miss the chance to attack.
Finally, all of Lin Li's efforts were not in vain. The legendary Mage Killer who had instilled fear within countless people during the Dark Age truly became history after more than 1, 300 years.
Looking at the flames that were dying out and the scorched corpse, the mages who had escaped from the verge of death could not help but gasp in shock that they had been suppressing for a long time after a moment of disbelief. The Mage Killer Eminos, who was one of the butcher Osric's sharpest weapons and a legendary figure of the Dark Age, actually died like this...
"Haha, Felic, I didn't expect this Mage Killer to die in your hands!" Andoine walked towards Lin Li smilingly and patted his shoulder.
The terrifying thing about assassins was the fact that no one would know whom they were targeting until the latter was on the brink of death. However, once the conditions had been determined, the assassin would only become an idiot no matter how sharp and shrewd they might be.
Seeing that the Mage Killer had died, Andoine, Aldwin, and the rest could basically tell what Lin Li's plan was since they were not fools. Rosen glanced back and forth at the Mage Killer's corpse and Lin Li several times, and had to admit that Lin Li's method of making Eminos take the bait was really not something that ordinary people could do, especially with a menacing Mage Killer.
"Felic, although you were lucky enough to have your plan succeed, you've put everyone in danger just now. I hope that if this happens again, you'll explain your plan to everyone. Otherwise, others would be danger while you're in a safe position. Don't you think that's being unfair to them?" Rosen chided indignantly. Clearly, Lin Li had already gained some prestige amongst the mages through killing the Mage Killer. That was definitely not something that Rosen wanted to see.
Lin Li stopped Andoine who was going to flare up, and turned to look at Rosen smilingly."Thank you for the reminder, Master Rosen. I almost forgot that I have to thank you for your help in allowing me to successfully killing the Mage Killer. If it weren't for your help, I'm afraid it might not have been easy for the mages to fail in casting a joint without looking like they were pretending."
Lin Li's words made Rosen's face grow extremely sullen, while the other mages appeared rather guilty. Everyone knew that if it weren't for Rosen's behavior yesterday, the mages wouldn't have slipped up. The failure of the joint casting had caused the mages to lose their battle power. At the thought of this, Aldwin glowered at Rosen angrily.
Rosen cocked his head towards the side, turning as pale as a sheet. After all, it was impossible for Aldwin to fall out with Rosen; hence, he had no choice but to suppress his anger and begin to count the number of casualties amongst the mages. However, it still hurt Aldwin, who now felt like his heart was bleeding. Under the assassination of the Mage Killer, the mages actually lost 17 Archmages who were all elites of the Alanna Guild of Magic. Every Archmage had been nurtured painstakingly by him.
However, Aldwin also knew that they were in Osric's mausoleum, and the team had encountered a Mage Killer who had already been famous since the Dark Age. Actually, if it weren't for Lin Li, none of them would have survived. The only thing to rejoice about after the Mage Killer Eminos appeared was that it implied that Osric's mausoleum was probably not too far away.
At this time, the sky was completely dark. Although there were some conflicts among the leaders, there was no room for mistakes when exploring Osric's mausoleum. They had no choice but to sit back together with sullen expressions and discuss their next move.
However, just when Rosen and Antoine were arguing whether they should continue to move forward or rest overnight on the spot, a sudden tremor came from the ground underneath, and gradually became stronger. There seemed to be a giant object approaching them rapidly. Soon, the mage acting as sentry issued a warning signal, and everyone immediately got up and stayed alert.
The ground began to shook violently, and a huge figure began to shine brightly as if it were tearing the night sky apart. With rumbling footsteps, it quickly approached everyone, and when that huge figure appeared, they all could not help but gasp in horror.
The Alchemy Colossus! It was a massive Alchemy Colossus!
"Damn it, it's a Titan-level Alchemy Colossus. It definitely is Titan-level!" Lin Li looked at the huge body of the Alchemy Colossus opposite, and was filled with horror that he could not describe.
Others might not know it, and simply think that the size of the Alchemy Colossus was just for show. After all, the ultimate form of the Titan-level Alchemy Colossus did not exist in this era, and only remained in unrealistic legends. In fact, there was no relevant data that could be verified.
However, when Lin Li saw the Alchemy Colossus, he immediately thought of the skeleton of the Titan he had obtained in the Haiga Mountain Range. Although he had never seen an actual[1] Alchemy Colossus in real life, he firmly believed that the Alchemy Colossus before him now was the ultimate form of the Titan-level Alchemy Colossus.
Even with the experience that he had in the Endless World, the Alchemy Colossus in Lin Li's memory had always only existed in legends. Although the Titan Alchemy Colossus was not really a work of an Alchemy Guru, it would still be a far-fetched dream for an ordinary alchemist to build it. If someone could build a real Titan-level Alchemy Colossus, it would be no exaggeration to say that they had reached the peak of an Alchemy Guru. They would just be one step away from a Divine Smith.
Moreover, building a real Titan-level Alchemy Colossus would require countless materials, manpower, resources, and the production of countless Alchemy Arrays, as well as an unimaginable amount of energy. Ordinary alchemists would never be able to do it. It was said that even during the peak of the development of Alchemy, the High Elves who had a large number of alchemists were never able to create the Titan-level Alchemy Colossuses which only existed on the drawing board. As for Lin Li, he had never dreamed of creating a Titan-level Alchemy Colossus despite knowing how powerful it was.
"Titan-level Alchemy Colossus?" Andoine shrieked in shock when he heard Lin Li's exclamation, and turned to look at him in disbelief.
Lin Li nodded bitterly with a wry smile, and said, "I can't think of any other possibility besides the Titan-level Alchemy Colossus. Believe me, this thing is definitely more terrifying than legends have it."
[1] As opposed to inferior replica.
| ← Ch. 0718 | Ch. 0720 → |