What kind of spell is “Starfall”?
Sure, it would be quite the spectacle if it actually dropped something like a meteor… but to bring down a shooting star, there needs to be one in the sky in the first place.
You can’t just conjure something out of nothing and drop it.
Summoning a meteor from outside the atmosphere like in “Meteor Strike” belongs to the realm of grand magic. Magic so immense that even Karaf and the now-ruined magical kingdoms of the past wouldn’t dare attempt it lightly.
Not even Winter Winslet would be capable of such a feat.
More importantly, using something like that here would cause massive destruction to the entire port and city, leaving absolutely no reason to cast it.
The true nature of “Quichiel’s Secret Spell: Starfall” is siege magic. It was a spell designed specifically for the purpose of attacking fortresses.
The Archmage Quichiel created this spell to assault the Empire.
It wasn’t for any particularly noble reason or tragic backstory.
Quichiel simply loved Karaf a little more than others did and had a slightly stronger desire for recognition.
He was a mage born in a country completely unrelated to Karaf and had never even visited the place.
But like many mages, he held a Karaf-centric worldview that all true mages were essentially Karafian at heart. And he deeply believed himself to be one of Karaf’s mages.
So when Quichiel one day learned that Karaf had once been attacked by the Empire, he grew excessively enraged.
He decided the Empire deserved to be repaid in kind for what they had done to Karaf.
And unfortunately for the Empire, he actually had the power to make that happen.
It was only two months later that the eastern gate of the Empire collapsed under the attack of an unknown mage.
Quichiel, a true genius of magic, was also quite the romantic.
Having watched with deep satisfaction as his magical bombs, crafted entirely to his own taste, fell like a meteor shower upon the Empire’s gateway fortress which was a proud symbol of its history and might…. he simply returned home and slept soundly with both legs stretched out.
Naturally, the incident immediately escalated into a diplomatic issue.
The Empire, outraged by the unprovoked attack without any declaration of war, sent protest letters to Karaf by the ton.
Karaf, having neither produced a mage named Quichiel nor ordered any attack on the Empire, was bewildered but conducted a thorough investigation nonetheless.
Eventually, they located Quichiel and summoned him to Karaf.
When Quichiel set foot on Karaf soil for the first time in his life, he stood in court with a face full of emotion.
There’s a well-known story that the 18th director of Karaf’s Grand Library Felixtow walked over to the one responsible for the incident, gently patted him on the shoulder, and offered a few kind words.
At any rate, the true identity of the Starfall spell is that of a powerful light-element siege magic.
It summons hundreds of glowing spheres of magical power in the sky and rains them down like a meteor shower.
Each of these “stars” brings with it intense heat and concussive force, sweeping away a wide area upon impact.
Since I wasn’t planning to demolish an actual fortress, I dialed back the power a bit.
Roughly thirty magic bombs, each a meter in diameter, formed according to my will.
As if conducting an orchestra, I brought both arms down and in response, the starlight began to fall from the sky.
The descending meteors, leaving behind trails of blue fire, were truly a beautiful sight.
And yet they struck the ground with such devastating power that the sense of beauty almost felt contradictory.
Boom! Whooosh—boom!
Each time a sphere of magical power struck the earth and exploded, the air blasted outward and the ground trembled.
Thunderous roars like crates of gunpowder going off ripped through the thick fog in bursts of blinding blue light.
Crack. Snap! Rumble-rumble!
Even the surrounding warehouse buildings were caught in the shockwaves and collapsed.
Even I, standing 50 meters away, would’ve had trouble staying on my feet if I hadn’t offset the shock with a barrier.
As for the demon worshipper caught in the bombardment…he was likely being torn apart in real time.
I could feel his presence thrashing violently within my mana field.
He seemed to be trying to respond with some sort of countermeasure, but he wasn’t Nerico Resolu, the cult leader.
Just a second-rate demo worshiper. Not someone capable of withstanding this kind of attack.
If he’d fled before the bombardment began, maybe he’d have had a chance.
Kiieeek!
The shadow hounds under his control began to run wild in every direction.
But they weren’t searching for me, the attacker.
They were just flailing in panic.
It meant the sorcerer had lost control over his demonic creations.
Some of the rampaging shadow hounds happened to charge in my direction, but that was pure luck on their part.
[Casting Suffocation Arrow.]
I burned those ones myself.
By the time the Starfall bombardment came to an end, the hounds had already scattered, abandoning even their master. This was a clear sign that the sorcerer had been neutralized.
When I tried to approach his position to confirm the kill, the fog interfered with my vision.
I wasn’t about to let my guard down and get caught in a last-minute surprise, so I planned to eliminate all variables.
There are several ways to clear fog.
The most reliable method is to draw in air from outside the fog zone and ventilate the area, but casting a spell of that scale would require excessively expanding the mana field.
That would not only be a huge waste of mana, but it would also expose my presence to any remaining enemies. It was an unwelcome outcome.
A hunter must always stay hidden.
Until I tracked down and eliminated today’s main target the cult’s high priest, none of them could be allowed to escape.
I opted for a smaller, more efficient solution.
[Casting Heated Gaze.]
Fog, after all, is a natural phenomenon. Water vapor condenses when the air temperature drops below the dew point.
By heating the air, the relative humidity drops, causing the fog particles to evaporate.
In time, the warmed air would rise and fresh fog might drift back in, but for now, I had a clear line of sight.
Beyond the ruined harbor, laid waste by magical bombardment, I spotted the demon sorcerer.
A figure clad in black priest robes lay buried in the ground with his lower body missing.
His face was grotesquely deformed.
The eyes, nose, and mouth had rotated counterclockwise, and their shapes were twisted beyond recognition.
It wasn’t the bombing that had caused this. It was a side effect all demon sorcerers suffer.
Demon sorcery grants immense power without the need for mana or training…but always at a price.
They say if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss gazes back at you.
The priests of the Unholy Gaze Cult led by Nerico Resolu, the Fourth Point of the Heptangam society, draw their power from Tenebra Maledicta, a demon of the abyss.
The price demanded by this abyssal entity is bodily mutation and the accumulation of madness.
The sorcerers claim it is a process of “elevating the soul” by forging a deeper connection with a transcendent being—
But to me, it’s nothing more than being devoured by the very entity they’ve made a pact with.
“Krrrk.”
The dying wretch let out a phlegmy gurgle.
The demon worshiper rolled his eyes toward me.
The next instant, his zigzag-twisted mouth opened wide, spewing out a barrage of rapid-fire words.
“The crying of a child writhing deep below awakens in a bone-chilled city, and the laughter beyond the glass dissolves. Then, as the door opens, green wings walk the lying prophets, and on the tip of a plaza tongue blooming in the coral of the cosmos, corpses praise geometric fungi, and the deepest sea surges skyward, and thousands of heads with tens of thousands of eyes and hundreds of thousands of arms and legs…”
[Casting Frost Spear.]
I didn’t need to hear more. I pierced his chest with ice.
It was a mental attack.
That made one more cult priest eliminated.
The rest would be more of the same, and the night was still young. The hunt had only just begun.
Time to check remaining mana.
[Remaining Mana: 86.11%]
[Remaining Mana: 89.84%]
[Remaining Mana: 93.36%]
……
……
Winter Winslet’s [Mana] was ranked [S].
After narrowly escaping death last time, not only had the quality and output of my magic subtly improved, but even after unleashing a large-scale siege spell, I recovered quickly.
In battles like the one just now, I could probably go all-out ten times in a row without issue.
I checked the signals coming from the magic circle.
The demon worshipers were launching simultaneous attacks from three directions.
What I had just crushed was the first wave, and the second and third were moving away in opposite directions.
It was time to choose which one to pursue.
After a moment’s thought, I decided to intercept the third wave.
That was because there was a shelter run by the Guardians of the Night in the path they were headed for.
Keith D’Alembert, Trisha, and those vampire bastards said they’d use the homeless staying at the shelter as bait to lure in the cultists—
But that’s a choice only vampires, who treat human life as trivial, would make.
In the end, only humans can save humans.
I hurried in that direction.
[Warning]
[Willpower and Health have temporarily decreased.]
[Trait Activated: Always Elegant]
– Elegant even in death. Restraint is the true mark of nobility.
– Permanently increases Dexterity and Charisma by one level.
– When engaging in rigorous activity that causes shortness of breath or sweating, Health and Willpower temporarily drop significantly.
“……”
I hurried slowly.
***
Not long after Professor Winslet had left,
Jacqueline sensed that the time had come while at the Warehouse Guild Hall.
“It’s about time we made a move.”
“A move for what?”
Rita gave her a puzzled look.
Jacqueline glanced around.
Only after making sure no one was eavesdropping did she lower her voice and speak.
“That warehouse. The one Guildmaster Dawson unlocked and went into. It was obviously suspicious. Aren’t you curious? We should go check out what’s inside.”
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