Book 16 Chapter 3
The strongest black magic organization of all time!
Clash, Seven Souls (1)
“Kyuuuu~!”
Sbal reappeared the day after they subjugated the sea eel.
I didn't realize how annoying it was when this guy rubbed its fur on my cheek.
Still, its body was cool, which was nice. The sea is humid, so the perceived temperature is higher.
“What is it, this useless thing?”
“Kyuuung~!”
“There's always someone who's never around when you need them, and only around when you don't? Ppi-shung ppu-shung ppa-shung?”
At that time, I was researching immortality magic all night in the cabin.
Currently, it's at the rune design stage.
I say it grandly, but you can just understand it as not even having taken the first steps yet.
Which rune should I use?
I tried the crude method of just freezing the body, and I almost died. Frieda saved me from freezing to death.
“How did you use that back then? Give me some tips.”
“Kyu!”
“Why are you turning your face away and acting sulky again? I didn't say anything wrong, did I?”
“Kyubut!”
“Do you know how fierce the battle was when you weren't there? Kiehs even had to levitate to survive.”
“Kyu?!”
Just then, the cabin door opened and Lista rushed in. She hugged Sbal tightly with both hands and smiled brightly.
“You're here, Sbal! I feel so empty without you, Sbal, even for a day, I feel like I'm going to die!”
“Kyuu~!”
“Aww, so cute~ Our Sbal. Why are you so cute? Cute enough to make me want to destroy the world.”
A completely crazy lunatic!
Seeing Lista get along so well with Sbal, a corner of my heart became annoyingly stuffy for no reason.
So I snatched Sbal from Lista's hands.
“This useless guy was talking to me just now. Come back later.”
Lista, who had been blinking, suddenly covered her face with her hand and giggled slyly.
“What, Lin~ Are you jealous? Because I get along well with Sbal? Who are you jealous of? Me? Sbal? Or both?”
“Shut up. Fireball.”
“Sorry! I'm sorry! You can't use fire here!”
It was around that time that Frieda's fire spirit urgently summoned us. The spirit, saying, “Hurry, hurry, come up quickly!” then expended all its power and disappeared.
“……!”
Lista, who had gone up to the deck first, was silently gripping the ship's rail. Frieda was next to her, and Kiehs was standing on the mast.
Land was visible beyond that, and to my eyes, nothing was clearly visible except for the outline, but if I were to ask, “What is it?”, I'd have to be called a commoner, not the [Strongest Mage].
Therefore, I leaned against the ship's rail and opened my grimoire. I let out a triumphant smile and a line.
“Hmph, as expected…”
* * *
“Hmph, as expected…”
Lista understood why Lin had been in such a hurry until now, and why he had so quickly found the mastermind in the Iron-Cutting Archipelago.
Lin had already predicted it.
With his sophisticated mind, it was the best conclusion reached after considering what kind of disaster would strike the continent.
‘As expected, Lin had a plan all along.’
Frieda exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke beside him.
“Look at this, the dark clouds hanging over that city are thicker than my cigarette smoke.”
“Yeah, you're right. Those aren't ordinary dark clouds. It can only be said that they've been influenced by the Abyss (深淵).”
“When I asked if he could see anything, Kiehs crossed his arms to make an X. Does it make sense that there isn't a single person in a port city of that size?”
In <Blade Saga of Valor>, Pequirer undergoes physical modifications during the hero training process.
Her eyes were also modified into Dragon Eyes (龍眼), allowing her to adjust her optic nerves to see distant objects as close, and close objects as far.
Lista's expression, as she meticulously observed the details of the port even from this great distance, grew increasingly grim.
“It's not just that there are no people. All the ships have rotted and sunk. The wood of the piers and docks too. Only the parts that used iron have managed to maintain their shape.”
“There must be many casualties. Unless it's always been like that.”
“Let's go quickly.”
Then Lin, who had been turning the pages of the grimoire, shook his head.
“What? Just like this? Really?”
Lin had merely asked because he thought he wouldn't have time to research magic once they landed.
“!”
But Frieda and Lista felt a shock as if they had been hit by a hammer the moment they heard those words.
Lin was right.
It was too dangerous a place to dock the ship. If they went together, who knew what would happen to the ship and its crew.
“You're right. It's better to turn the ship back from here. We have one life raft, so let's take that. I can row it myself.”
This incident would be remembered as the greatest and fiercest battle fought by Lista's party before crossing over to the Adrion Continent.
June of 1104, when they returned to the continent after the Iron-Cutting Archipelago expedition, was quite ominous from the start.
Lista's party sensed the ominous prelude with their entire bodies the moment they landed in <Northstar>, the northernmost port city of the Hosen Kingdom.
“Injured people? Sick people? No, living people?”
Frieda, forming a megaphone with her hands, flew through the city on a broomstick, shouting. Pipi echoed, circling low over the city.
“No one, no one, is anyone here? Everyone come out to Pipi.”
No response came, but the city was enveloped in an uneasy silence.
This was not the silence of emptiness.
The city was waiting for something. Or holding something. It was such an impious silence. Frieda's eyes narrowed.
“What on earth happened? The houses and even the roads have all melted down to the point where their shapes have collapsed.”
Kiehs, who had been leaping from rooftop to rooftop, meticulously searching the city center, signaled Lista, who was searching the other side via the White Spear Bow.
[☜(ㅇ_ㅇ)!]
A look of horror appeared on Lista's face as she confirmed that direction.
“Lin, look over there where Kiehs is pointing! The terrain itself has completely turned into a swamp!”
As if I could see it just because you tell me to.
Do you think I'm the same as you guys?
But, true to the [Strongest Mage], Lin decided to respond with cynicism. This was the correct approach.
“Hmph, as expected…”
A swamp appearing near the seashore was an unprecedented phenomenon. In other words, it was a product of artificial power, something that could never occur naturally.
At that moment, all situations exploded simultaneously.
The Golden Spear in Lin's hand trembled, then *jingle*, the iron ring at the end chimed clearly and swung backward.
‘This reaction!’
‘The King's Flesh?’
Shurpeng also chimed clearly at the same time.
Tsutsutsutsut──!
Just before a massive wave of power crashed down, the inevitable premonition of death sweeping through the entire body, such as tremors in the air and the onset of murderous intent.
────Chaeaaang!
Lista kicked Lin, sending him stumbling forward, while simultaneously extending her gauntlet to parry the cleaving attack.
‘The Iron-Cutting Gauntlet…!’
Even though she instantly imbued it with magic power to increase its strength, the tip of the gauntlet, now split in two, rolled across the floor.
The culprit was a double-bladed axe.
Just before the gauntlet broke off, scattering sparks, that is, in the fleeting moment before the impact reached her arm, Lista pulled her hand back, avoiding direct impact.
“You guys…!”
The attacker swallowed her rage and shouted.
“You black church henchmen, worse than beasts!”
Is this when one uses the phrase, "the pot calling the kettle black"?
“What the hell did you do here, to this beautiful city?!”
Lista immediately tore off a steel beam from a nearby outer wall to block the continuous attacks, but this too was easily severed.
“I, I'll kill you all!”
Kiehs immediately tried to nock a magic arrow onto the string of Cervabon's bow and fire it, but…
“!”
…he immediately changed the arrow's trajectory. He had detected an arrow rushing in from his blind spot. The White Spear Bow's arrow clashed with the surprise arrow in mid-air, causing a magical explosion.
“Hold on a second. We just got here!”
Lista shouted, deep in thought.
Should I unleash Shurpeng?
But the opponent was making a big mistake. Was it truly right to overwhelm them with full power at this moment? Even at the cost of shortening my lifespan?
“Don't lie!”
“It's true!”
“I saw everything! Your little companion smiling at that catastrophe!”
The opponent, clad in heavy armor and wielding an axe, was undeniably a warrior. The axe was large enough to be described as a 'giant weapon'.
The heavy armor appeared to have mobility and defense enhanced by being skillfully integrated with lion fur, and it was clearly a top-quality item at first glance.
The axe, armor, fur, and most of her gear subtly glowed with the dark blue light of the Abyss. This indicated that she was a mercenary who had been active at Trident Point.
“What kind of madman!”
Five or six lionesses followed her, surrounding Lista.
The way they casually scaled outer walls could only be explained by their combat experience.
“How could someone who isn't the culprit smile at this sight?!”
“Ah, well.”
Lista hesitated, unable to find a retort, then was startled by the alien and sinister aura emanating from the charging warrior and her lions.
“Wait, are you perhaps using [King's Flesh]? You and all these lions?”
At that moment, ‘the madman who, despite not being the culprit, smiled at this sight’ was raising his dirt-covered body far away from the battlefield.
“I swear, I'll definitely get my revenge on that monster gorilla someday… Someday, after I become the [Strongest Mage], I definitely will.”
Lista had pushed him without controlling her strength, causing him to tumble straight off the rooftop!
What a ridiculously weakling!
If he hadn't instantly cast earth magic, he would have plunged headfirst into the muddy ground.
“Kyu, kyugyut!”
Just then, Sbal barked urgently, pointing downward. Something strange was happening at his feet.
Kiiiiiiiiieeeeek…….
The Golden Spear, crafted by Yoshuar from fragments of souls, was light itself; the ground touched by the end of the staff shrieked like a beast and was incinerated.
“What is this? Is it all the Abyss?”
At that moment, a blade of wind flew in from somewhere.
Osarius-style hand seals, 3-star… Lin didn't even turn around urgently, merely weaving together three hand seals to block it.
An ice wall, amplified by Sbal's power, surged up with a clear ringing sound (淸音) and blocked the blade of wind.
“Was it you who rotted all the lands of Leonia's country? I've been looking for you, black mage.”
“?”
“But you're even younger than me. Age doesn't matter. That skill, unfitting for your young appearance, must also be a product of black magic. I will judge you.”
Lin tapped his shoulder with the shaft of the Golden Spear and tilted his head once. Twice, thrice. Then he spoke.
“Dude, who are you?”
A magic battle is inherently extremely simple, and one can easily gauge an opponent's capabilities by what magic they use at a crucial moment.
This guy is weaker than me.
However, his face and physique were unrealistically handsome. Even if I subjectively loaded him with extra points out of bias and prejudice, the match itself wouldn't even be close.
‘He looks like the most handsome man I've seen in my life, and his proportions seem good too.’
Noble-looking black hair and mysterious red eyes… The epithet 'noble scion' (貴公子) must surely have been coined for someone like him.
“You don't recognize me, Pencion Ludwig, a super-genius mage who, as a mage, achieved the rank of Atlas (3-star) at the youngest age in history?”
“Who?”
“Kyuung?”
“Wanna die? Even this most useless snowflake in the world doesn't know you? And here I thought you were someone important.”
“Kyuung!”
“This brat's ridiculous provocation… Alright, then watch closely! And engrave it in your eyes! I'll show you who I am with my own power!”
He boasted so confidently, but I didn't particularly have high hopes.
But something… Hmm, what should I say…? Something that made the fine hairs on my arms stand on end… A kind of potential? Is that what I should call it? Is it because of those eyes that began to glow red?
“───Bel, Sidious!”