Chapter 174

“I will guarantee your life. So why not willingly become one of us?”

[Casting Percival’s Radiant Spear.]

Crackle!

A crackling lightning spear flew high and struck its target.

“That’s my answer.”

Unfortunately, his barrier was just strong enough to block my attack.

The Hound of Venizelos burst into cheerful laughter.

“Hahaha, I understand. Of course I do. I suppose it might not hit you yet just how generous my offer really is. In such cases, taking off your limbs first and giving you time to think isn’t a bad approach, wouldn’t you say?”

Was this guy insane?

“Oh, don’t worry too much. I’ll attach something better later. How about a dwarf’s arm? Not much to look at, since it’s short, but excellent for delicate work. Or perhaps harpy wings? You can fly without magic, though flying with a human body is quite tough; harpies have hollow bones, after all. Minotaur or centaur limbs are great for strength, but anyone who chooses those is an amateur. There are far better options. Personally, I recommend kraken tentacles. They’re slippery and squishy, so it takes time to adjust. But once you’re used to them, nothing’s more versatile.”

He really was insane.

As he rambled on in his own twisted world, I hit him with the next spell.

[Casting Terantez’s Plague Ray.]

I deliberately chose the nastiest spell I had.

When the sickly green ray slammed into him, I saw him recoil in horror.

At last, the smile disappeared from his face.

“Grgh… Seems taking your limbs won’t be enough. But as long as the head remains, you can be revived, so I’d recommend dying once completely. Just once. Really. I’m being far too generous with a newcomer. It’ll make the other members jealous. I should probably tone it down.”

He raised both arms.

A sudden gust of wind began to swirl in the windowless chamber.

Whoooosh!

A strange resonance rang out, and everything flashed white.

That light came from the activation of a magic circle.

The huge hall, as large as all the rooms of Winslet Castle combined, had inner walls densely covered with magic circles he must’ve prepared over the past week.

As they all activated at once, hundreds of concentric circles aligned themselves toward me.

It felt like staring into the many eyes of some colossal deep-sea monster.

Good thing I don’t have trypophobia.

I read the flow of mana and realized what kind of attack was coming.

A light-element anti-personnel sniping spell.

Light-element magic isn’t particularly destructive, but when concentrated to that extent, the story changes.

But I had already finished preparing my countermeasure.

If it’s been gathered, then all I have to do is scatter it again.

[Casting Ice Barrier.]

As usual, I formed a barrier but changed its structure.

A triangular prism, with the refraction angle widened as much as possible.

I forged a huge prism of ice and enclosed the space around me.

Right after that, his attack was unleashed.

Hundreds of beams of light came crashing down toward me.

When they struck the ice prism, they scattered.

The walls and floor were painted in dazzling, iridescent hues. So bright they could blind.

A surreal, almost hallucinatory scene persisted for several seconds.

Ironically, there was almost no sound.

Only the sharp hiss of ice evaporating and the rush of wind from heat-induced pressure waves could be heard.

“To think you could block it without even singing a hair….I can’t believe it! Well then, let’s see you block this!”

Another wave of spells poured out from his magic circles.

As if testing me on purpose, he summoned an assortment of elemental attacks.

Individually, they weren’t especially powerful, but they were chained together in tricky combinations.

The obvious and flashy ones I intercepted half a beat early, while the harder-to-handle ones I dealt with all at once.

[Casting Palette Swap.]

A high-level spell that alters the elemental property of enemy magic. Every attack that entered my mana field was turned into a mere breeze.

“I’d heard you were only good at ice magic, as per the reports from Karaf, but seeing it firsthand, it seems you don’t have any real weaknesses.”

“Let’s see how long you can keep that smug tone.”

He was only able to act so casually because he had barely taken any hits.

He attacked three times for every one chance I had to counter. He maintained full control of the battle from start to finish.

Because this hall itself was a battlefield meticulously prepared for him.

The huge cathedral-like golem forged using Venizelos’s secret spell suppressed my mana field, and the hundreds of magic circles covering the walls supported both his offense and defense.

If I were a mage of equal power to him, I’d have already been crushed by now.

And yet, the reason I wasn’t being overwhelmed in this power struggle was thanks to two things.

The level I had reached as an 8th-class mage, and the refinement of my mana brought about by the pain in my heart.

I defended calmly, waiting for an opportunity.

That opportunity soon came.

[Casting Vendigate’s Secret Spell– Shadow Chains.]

As he grew more reckless trying to break through my unyielding defense, his field of vision narrowed. He failed to notice the shadows creeping up the wall beneath his feet.

He widened his eyes and tried to react, but it was too late. A single strand of the shadow chain managed to coil around his arm.

Then it yanked him down.

The man at last fell from his lofty perch.

“Foolish trick!”

It would’ve been convenient if the fall broke his neck, but his skills were nothing to scoff at.

Even mid-fall, he focused and manipulated the magic circles.

Hundreds of magic circles fired beams in a frenzy.

Their accuracy was abysmal, but sheer quantity compensated for the lack of precision.

The shadow chain, being the elemental opposite of light, was destroyed by a single lucky hit.

But that was enough for me.

Just a few seconds of breathing room, earned through a surprise blow.

In that window of time, I poured in high-level attack spells, one after another.

[Casting Percival’s Rushing Thunder Spell.]

[Cast Eugene’s Small Blade Great Storm spell.]

[Casting Star-Piercing Spell.]

[Casting Suffocating Arrows Spell.]

…

…

Some of them missed.

The bastard had used flight magic to stop his fall.

But over half of my spells hit and that was enough to turn the tide in my favor.

And if I could just wrestle the initiative to a 50/50… then I knew I wouldn’t lose.

“Grrgh!”

Desperate to recover from his mistake, he tried to mount another barrage but the situation had already shifted.

Now, when he attacked, I attacked too. When I had to defend, so did he.

It became a contest of who could cast multiple spells faster, and who could complete them with greater speed and precision.

It was a relentless slugfest. Blocking spells with spells, constantly countering with the right or wrong elemental matchups without pause.

“My, this is quite entertaining. In all my life, I’ve never seen a mage wield such a wide variety of spells so freely!”

The feeling was mutual.

He was an executive of the Knowledge Liberation Front, known for stealing others’ spells.

And I was a long-time veteran of Candela of Judgement.

Between the two of us, we had memorized dozens of times more spells than an ordinary mage could encounter in a single lifetime.

And those spells clashed midair in a storm of full-spectrum destruction.

The inside of the hall was a sight that words like “dazzling” could no longer describe.

But the balance of power was not equal.

Gradually being pushed back, the Hound of Venizelos finally let out a cry and unleashed his mana.

“Haaahp!”

It erased my attack and bought him a breath, but it was a technique that consumed a tremendous amount of mana.

The slugfest ended in a decision victory for me.

The bastard was panting heavily.

“To think I’d struggle this much against a mere kingdom mage, not even a Karaf… It’s been a long time since I’ve been pushed this far. Very well….then I’ll show you my true strength.”

Fwoooosh!

Wind surged through the hall again, and his magic circle began to glow and heat up.

The light grew stronger and stronger. Enough to make me wonder if it would melt from its own intensity.

Then he snapped his fingers.

Snap!

At the same time, a loud crashing sound rang out.

Dozens of magic circles drawn along the uppermost walls of the hall shattered like glass plates being hurled to the ground.

And I knew, instinctively—

He had sacrificed those magic circles to cast a powerful spell.

As a reddish glow slowly scattered through the air, his magic began to activate.

It was a massive spell, triggered by consuming dozens of smaller magic circles like ignition charges.

A seven-layered circular magic circle lit up with me at its center.

Another pre-laid trap without a doubt.

Anyone coming to rescue Count Winslet in the office would be forced to stand at the center of that very circle.

“So this was your plan all along.”

“It was merely a precaution, just in case. If you had been a mediocre mage, I wouldn’t have needed to use it. Take it as a compliment.”

The bastard stopped attacking and focused solely on defense, concentrating on activating the magic circle.

Sensing the danger, I quickly began analyzing the circle.

At its very center were magical runes representing flame, burning, surge, and spring water.

The surrounding section was covered in hastily added spell structures. So chaotic I couldn’t even make them out.

But what truly stood out was the overwhelming amount of mana stored within the magic circle.

Just opening the gate to channel that much power would take dozens of seconds.

“Hahaha, I can see your eyes wavering. What do you think of my masterpiece? Impressive, isn’t it? I spent a full week in this castle gathering the mana needed just to power it.”

In that case, it wasn’t quite on the level of meteor strikes or tsunamis, but it was just barely within the realm of grand magic.

But why hadn’t I noticed this magic circle before?

Ah…I see. It had been hidden within the mana field of the fortress golem.

That changes things.

I didn’t know how wide the range of this grand spell was, so I had no choice but to postpone the fight and get out of here first.

Going head-to-head with a natural disaster using human strength would be sheer stupidity.

With that thought, I turned to retreat but my feet suddenly froze in place.

It wasn’t my will.

A burst of magical force had struck like thorns, piercing into my body and locking me in place.

Then, before my eyes, a pair of mana rings appeared.

Vreeeeeeen!

Two deep-blue rings spun with a sharp, shrill sound.

“This…could it be…”

“You noticed? This wasn’t part of the original plan, but I drew inspiration from the magic you used. I tried adapting that mysterious prison spell you used to subdue my golem. So tell me, is it to your liking?”

The Knowledge Liberation Front were masters at stealing other people’s spells.

And this bastard was one of their high-ranking members.

He had stolen Cyprus’s Millennium Prison secret spell.

Now, I was rooted in place, standing in front of a ticking time bomb.