[Casting Earth Tremor.]
Rumble, rumble, rumble…
The low-octave vibration shaking through the ground reverberated into my bones.
The shockwaves spread in all directions. They were strong enough to make it nearly impossible for anyone to stay standing.
But my target wasn’t the people; it was the buildings.
The shabby houses and walls of Low Chapel’s back alleys collapsed helplessly before the earthquake born of magic, leaving behind a wide clearing with me at its center.
I was creating a battlefield fit for a mage.
In a duel between swordsmen, the one who closes the distance between blade and vital point seizes the initiative.
But when a mage faces a non-mage, distance itself is initiative.
Choosing a wide, open battlefield with clear sightlines…that’s the basic discipline of a battle mage.
And if such a battlefield doesn’t exist? Then you make one yourself. Just like I did now.
Of course, not just anyone can casually throw around 7th-class spells… but that’s their problem, not mine.
“Throw!”
The assassins weren’t going to sit back and let it happen.
Something came flying from within their ranks.
Its speed was slow, tracing a high parabolic arc. It was easy enough to block.
[Casting Telekinetic Barrier.]
Ping! Ping!
The thrown objects bounced harmlessly off the defensive wall.
But that wasn’t their true aim.
Fssshhh…
The projectiles that hit the ground began spewing acrid smoke.
Smoke bombs.
From the small metal cans shaped like tin canisters, ash-gray smoke billowed out. It was born of burning sulfur and gunpowder.
I pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it against my nose and mouth.
As expected.
So that’s how they want to play it.
Smoke bombs were, without a doubt, one of the most effective weapons against mages.
First, the toxic gas could poison the enemy.
Second, simply forcing the opponent to cover their mouth and nose was already a victory. Because the moment a mage’s hands went to their face, both their chanting and their hand seals, the two essential tools of spellcasting, were sealed away.
Lastly, there was the smoke itself.
Mages relied heavily on sight, and in restricted visibility, they became drastically weaker.
Their smoke had undone my earlier work. The battlefield I had widened with Earth Tremor shrank once more, swallowed by thick haze.
My vision too was reduced to almost nothing.
“Now! Throw it!”
Following the smoke bombs came the nets.
Shhhraak!
A massive net, the kind you’d use to hunt a bear, dropped over the barrier I had raised.
Nets and barriers were a bad matchup.
Arrows or daggers…. those were simple enough to stop with a barrier, and even a net could be blocked by it.
The problem was that it didn’t matter if you blocked it.
If the net was bigger than the barrier, it would smother the entire shield.
And then the mage trapped inside had nowhere to go.
Even after dropping the barrier later, you’d end up tangled under the net with your own body. It was an annoying predicament indeed.
If the net’s ropes had shards of glass or small blades tied to them, like the ones they just threw, it would have been even more dangerous.
Keep the barrier up to block the net, and you’d slowly inhale more of the poisonous gas.
Drop the barrier to clear the smoke, and you’d be caught in the net.
That was the real power of the smoke-and-net two-step combo.
If I had been a single-caster who could only use one spell at a time, or a mage without much real combat experience, this would have been the point where things turned heavily against me.
But what they failed to account for was this: I was the ultimate veteran of Candela of Judgment, and Winter Winslet was a once-in-a-generation magical genius.
[Casting Wind Blade.]
First, I cleared away the net with a simple spell.
Wherever the blade of sharpened mana slashed, the net was sliced apart with crisp snaps.
Ting! Ting! Tinkle—
Seeing their net getting shredded, the assassins threw more projectiles like knives, harpoons, and the like…but I was still maintaining the barrier.
Double casting.
For Winter Winslet, that was nothing special.
Two spells at once? Please.
I’d already been preparing a third.
[Casting Dragon Landing.]
Whooooooooosh!
The moment the spell completed, a furious downdraft came crashing down on me. Like a waterfall of wind.
It wasn’t a convection current stirred up from the air filled with poisonous gas around me—
It was a rush of fresh wind, drawn down by magic from two hundred meters above.
Right now, my mana field must look like a pillar thrusting straight up into the sky.
The hazy smoke rolled outward in a circle around me, and now it was the enemies who were smothered in the toxic gas.
That was triple casting.
But it didn’t end there.
Defense alone is boring, isn’t it?
[Casting Belladonna’s Arcane Art — Six-Finger Lightning Spell.]
In Candela of Judgment, an Arcane Art was a kind of secret technique or an ultimate move.
It was the crystallization of obsession, honed and refined by a supreme mage who abandoned compatibility and efficiency for the sake of achieving a single purpose.
That is what Arcane Art means.
So, what did the owner of this magic desire?
Belladonna Melanie was the Last Witch.
At the height of the Aeon Church’s power. In an era remembered as a religious war, though in truth it was closer to one-sided hunts and massacres, Belladonna was the archmage who slaughtered eleven inquisitors and an entire knightly order.
But the Order hounded her relentlessly, sending army after army, and placed a staggering bounty on her head.
After years on the run, Belladonna finally walked the path of defeat and downfall. In her final refuge, she devoted herself with mad fervor to completing a single spell.
What she longed for was a bolt of lightning to strike down the assassins sent to kill her.
With her radiant genius, she at last completed her Arcane Art. And with those final words, she closed her eyes.
“At last, I can sleep for five minutes.”
Belladonna’s Six-Finger Lightning was a flawless lightning spell, one that automatically struck down every enemy and hostile projectile within her mana field.
A spell that could track down even assassins hidden in invisible darkness and burn them away—
A spell that overcame the very limits of a mage with magic itself.
[Remaining Mana: 87.05%]
I raised my right hand with my palm facing upward.
From the tips of my five fingers, thin strands of plasma began to rise.
The blue-and-violet plasma looked like threads at first, but under magical control, it quickly compressed into the shape of spheres.
Woooong. Woong-woong.
Low-frequency hums echoed from the glowing orbs.
Five of them in total.
Since I was one short, I used my left hand to assist and conjured one more sphere.
After all, the original caster of this spell had six fingers.
The completed plasma spheres spread evenly into a circle, then began to rotate.
Wiinng. Wiiing. Wiiing.
The faster they spun, the louder the sound grew.
Wiiiiiiiing!
At last, the noise swelled as loud as the buzzing wings of hornets, and the rotating plasma spheres, leaving behind afterimages of light, looked like a glowing blue ring.
I thrust it high above my head.
Crackle!
With a sound like the air itself being torn apart, the first bolt of lightning leapt forth.
Then came the explosion.
One of the nearest smoke bombs was struck, and the leftover gunpowder inside ignited.
Now that’s what I call effective.
I expanded the reach of my mana field.
Each time my mana field stretched farther and locked onto an assassin, the ring of light unleashed a barrage of lightning like artillery fire.
Belladonna’s Six-Finger Lightning was originally meant as a defensive spell, but with enough range and output, it could be used like this as well.
Crackle, crackle! Kzzzzt!
Thanks to Dragon Landing, the smoke from the smoke bombs was continuously swept away.
And wherever the smoke cleared, scorched corpses were revealed without fail.
By the time the battlefield was fully rid of the haze, Belladonna’s Six-Finger Lightning had wiped out nearly forty enemies.
Forty, huh. Quite the harvest.
But plenty were still alive.
“Everyone, gather here! Stay near the suppressor. You won’t get hit by the magic!”
Of course. Figures we’re near the black market.
They shoved a ballista at Josephine earlier, and now they pull this out?
The assassins had brought an anti-mage suppressor.
A device normally used only in special prison cells to confine mage convicts.
“See? It’s not working!”
“Fall back to safety while we can!”
I couldn’t help but snort.
As if I’d just let them walk away.
Really now, I didn’t think I’d have to use this…
[Casting Hufeng Suquan’s Great Thunderbolt.]
There were ordinary spells that, in terms of sheer power, surpassed even arcane magic.
This one was originally an 8th-class level spell, but somehow, I felt like I could pull it off now.
Winter Winslet’s official mage classification was 7th-class. But that information was last updated five years ago.
[Remaining Mana: 41.05%]
An immense amount of mana was sucked into the circuit all at once.
And the moment the formula I channeled into the circuit reached completion—
Flash!
Night vanished from the slums.
The world turned stark white.
Then came a deafening roar that seemed to devour human hearing.
Fzzzzzzzzzt….Booooooom!
Countless massive bolts of lightning.
White plasma erased everything standing on the ground.
The sharp scent of ozone pierced my nose.
Once that overwhelming force of nature that was impossible for humans to resist had passed, the inner courtyard of the thieves’ guild lay in utter ruin.
It was the spectacular debut of Nice Goodman.
[Notification]
[You have cleared a Death Flag.]
[Achievement points have been awarded.]
Step, step.
As the situation settled, Josephine walked over toward me.
Despite having just witnessed that terrifying magical storm, she didn’t seem particularly frightened or on guard.
That was the composure befitting the captain of the Candela Knights.
But… why is she walking this way?
At first, I thought she might be coming to speak to me, but Josephine walked right past and headed toward an assassin collapsed on the ground.
It was the very same assassin she had struck down before the battle began, when she threw her sword to help me.
The sword Josephine had hurled like a shot put was still lodged in the assassin’s shoulder, driven all the way into the ground.
Ah, so she came to retrieve her sword.
When Josephine pulled the blade free, the assassin let out a dying scream.
“Ghhhaaa… s-spare me, please…”
Ironically, the one who launched the first surprise attack on me ended up being the last one left alive.
He began to beg for his life.
“I… I’m a squad leader in the Thieves’ Guild! I’m the Guild Master’s right-hand man! If you kill me, the guild will—gaaaagh!”
I stomped on his wound to shut him up.
He started foaming at the mouth and soon passed out.
That’s unexpected. So it wasn’t Sakis Lubas’ men tailing me, but the Thieves’ Guild?
I had plenty of questions, but I could ask them later.
Right now, my fiancée in front of me took priority.
Josephine tilted her head, watching my actions with a look of confusion.
I understood what she meant and replied,
“I won’t kill him just yet. I have questions to ask.”
Josephine gave a nonchalant nod, then turned her back on me and walked away.
She picked up the auction money that had fallen to the ground at the start of the fight, then went on her way.
Now that she’d recovered her lost sword, it was as if she no longer had any business with me.
When facing the masked man instead of her fiancé, Josephine was cold to the core.
I wasn’t sure how to feel. Proud, maybe, or a little hurt.
She was so different from the woman I usually saw…
It felt oddly refreshing. Maybe even amusing.
The idea of suddenly ripping off my mask and revealing my identity felt way too much like something a dopamine addict would do. So I let that go.
Anyway.
It was a strange encounter and a strange farewell.
A masked mage and a masked swordswoman.
Two people who seemed completely unrelated but who were, in truth, connected…fighting an unrelated enemy in a ridiculous battle in the slums of Lambart.
And so, the night in the slums came to an end.
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