Chapter 182: Archmage (3)
I soar up, riding the rough updraft. It’s been a while since I’ve flown. A pleasant pressure travels between my outstretched arms and legs.
The moon gets closer and the ground farther away.
Opening my eyes wasn’t a problem. Instead of a helmet, winds were protecting my head.
The sky with few clouds was bright enough with the light emitted by the crescent moon, but night was still night.
Things visible on the ground become smaller. I had long since adapted to the darkness of night, but not to the distance. My vision gradually becomes hazy.
The figures of those creatures disappear, and even trees start to look like a single mass. It’s okay. I’m still estimating their position.
From the sky, I brought a telescope to my eyes using winds instead of hands and checked below.
‘As expected.’
I didn’t think Shahri and the devil worshippers would run away. There was no reason to.
Just talk or fight. I felt the latter would be even better.Seeing their surprised and serious expressions, and lips opening and closing, it seemed they were talking.
There’s still plenty of time. I ascended a bit more into the sky. I was planning to plunge down from above.
‘I hope this goes well.’
Right now, I’ve turned myself into a bomber. The plan is to drop glowstone while flying through the sky and then escape the radius.
It was a plan I had conceived since having destructive power hundreds of times greater than a magic bomb.
The first thing that came to mind when hearing about that destructive power was a nuclear bomb. Still, I personally think it will be different from a nuclear bomb.
This is magic, after all.
Well, I don’t know much about nuclear bombs, but can magic create something like that? Of course, I can’t be certain.
‘I need to be careful. There are issues after that too.’
If it’s really like a nuclear bomb, I should worry about radioactive contamination. That’s also why I chose this place.
There are no cities nearby, few people around, and it’s at some distance from the imperial capital.
Anyway, even excluding such additional risk factors, the destructive power exceeding a hundred times that of a magic bomb was the problem from the start.
I think the only way to detonate this and survive is to use it like I am.
Hmm. I wonder if a Sword Master could survive? I’m not sure. Still, I don’t think I can guarantee it.
Osten said it would explode about 20 seconds after magical intervention. If we consider an error margin of about 5 seconds, 15 seconds would be dangerous even for a Sword Master.
Anyway, within what I can do, the only way to use glowstone without dying was this wing suit.
You also need to know how to self-adjust especially if you have winds, so currently, I’m probably the only one on the continent who can do this.
‘No worry about misfires either.’
I had never experienced aerial bombing. I hadn’t practiced separately while waiting for today either.
But I don’t think it will be a problem.
From the start, with that destructive power, I can assume 99% fatality if it just falls nearby.
Since the opponent is Tilivan who directly received the devil’s power and an Archmage, there’s a 1% possibility, but that’s what winds are for adjusting.
From the moment of dropping until the explosion, winds will guide the bomb to those guys. Can they avoid this?
Well. I think it’s absolutely impossible.
‘This should be enough.’
I gauged the sky and ground. I was between the crescent moon and those guys. If they looked up now, they could see me as a dot above the moon.
I move a bit further. There was a small cloud below me. Now. I changed the air current of winds.
Hiding my body in the small cloud, I folded my arms and legs and pointed my head downwards. Winds and gravity press down on me.
From sky to ground, I accelerate in a straight line.
Fierce descent. The sense of speed receiving the force of gravity and winds at full power made my heart pound.
At that moment, an unexpected desire arose. It was the effect of Eccentric Actions sending a signal after a long time.
At a time like this? I frowned in the sky, but fortunately, it wasn’t anything strange.
I just wanted to properly feel this glide. After all, winds were protecting my body now.
I released the winds enveloping my body.
“Ackk! Ack!”
Winds press down on my face with impossible pressure. For a moment, my lips parted and my cheeks were pushed, letting out a weird sound.
Breathing was impossible, of course, and my hair whipping my cheeks in the strong winds felt like being hit with a whip.
This isn’t it. I quickly wrapped my face with winds. Of course, only a little, as there was the desire of Eccentric Actions.
Only then did I feel the appropriate pressure of winds. My clothes flutter roughly, and a cold but refreshing sensation envelops my body.
‘What is this… in such an important situation.’
Even I found it absurd, but the workings of Eccentric Actions were not something I could stop.
Well, it’s probably a stroke of luck that I didn’t have the desire to commit suicide along with the bomb.
Anyway, the distance had narrowed considerably now. The trees that looked like a mass became clearer, and those guys were visible.
I focused on the glowstone in my hand. It was covered with a light-blocking screen to prevent light from leaking.
There’s no warning from Death Avoidance. I intervened in the Great Magic maintained steadily inside, moving mana with peace of mind. It wasn’t a difficult task.
I’m not using magic, just causing a crack in that magic, that’s all. The flow becomes problematic.
’20 seconds from now.’
It was the time left until an explosion that even I found hard to imagine. 20, 19…..
Suddenly, goosebumps started to rise on the nape of my neck. It was the precursor symptom of Death Avoidance activating.
I immediately pulled my right hand back in midair. The light-blocking screen covering the glowstone was stripped off and shot up into the sky.
In the night sky, below the crescent moon, another light was created. And twisting my legs, waist, arms, my whole body, I threw the glowstone down.
And that light was shot towards the ground at a terrifying speed, added to the inertia of the vertical descent at an incredible speed.
***
“The fact that he called out me and you guys means……”
This bastard, Shahri frowned and trailed off as she saw Tilivan suddenly looking up at the sky while she was speaking.
Is there something there? Is this perhaps a ploy to induce carelessness? Thinking so, she also glanced sideways.
‘A meteorite?’
There was light in the sky. It was something that felt like the sun, with orange, yellow, and red mixed together.
And a beat later, something rectangular was seen flying next to the meteorite.
It was strange to call it a bird, but the light falling from the sky was the priority.
Something seemed odd to call it a meteorite. Shahri had seen falling meteorites twice before. Her staff was also made with meteorite as a material.
Therefore, she knew that ordinary meteorites leave a tail of light.
But the light falling now had no such tail. It meant it was falling in a straight line.
And a beat later, the glowstone entered her vast magical field.
Shahri’s thoughts momentarily stopped. An enormous Great Magic power was writhing within her magical field.
“Oh shit!”
Everyone gathered in the clearing was looking at the falling glowstone, but only Shahri and Tilivan sensed the crisis now.
Tilivan, too, instinctively felt that the light falling from the sky was not ordinary.
‘……’
In the silence, Shahri and Tilivan’s eyeballs rolled quickly. Their thinking heads were hot enough to burn.
It was a moment’s instance, and the two made different judgments.
Shahri chose defense, Tilivan chose escape. Shahri stuck her staff into the ground and started chanting spells quickly.
Tilivan immediately turned his body and kicked the ground roughly.
While an Archmage’s physical abilities are above average, Shahri judged that she couldn’t escape on foot.
The high-ranking executor decided to buy time to think while escaping first.
“Uh… uh…?”
The devil worshippers next to them were also confused by their behavior. Something ominous was happening.
While they were at a loss, Shahri was concentrating on magic.
A massive wind started rotating around Shahri’s body. It was a winds barrier.
The water in the lake moves. And above those winds, a sphere of water was created. That wasn’t the end.
Soil rising from the ground built a solid earthen wall, and surrounding trees were uprooted to cover that earthen wall.
Meanwhile, a black form was flickering over Tilivan’s body as he fled. It was the devil’s power.
Tilivan glanced at the sky with red eyes. And realized he couldn’t avoid it. It was already above his head.
‘Father of darkness…’
He gave up on escape and crouched in place. Darkness rose thickly from Tilivan’s heart.
A very thick form of darkness covered his body. It was a defense with all his might.
At that moment, contrary to the darkness, the glowstone falling alone while emitting light in the night sky reached the forest.
And, it exploded 25m above the forest.
There was light.
In an instant, the night sky with the crescent moon brightened. The whole world turned white.
It was as if a small sun had risen above the Karantang Forest. The two mountains behind the forest brighten as they receive the light.
Two massive shadows flicker momentarily behind the mountains.
This was light and shadow that could be felt even in the city quite far beyond the mountains.
And.
Baaaaang-!
The small sun exploded. In that light, the defenses of trees, earthen walls, water, and wind crumbled helplessly.
The devil’s power enveloping Tilivan’s body was no exception. The darkness that crumbled from the outside didn’t even leave powder behind.
“Oh sh…!”
Carlyn was also caught in the explosion. After throwing the glowstone, he advanced riding the wind without looking back.
It was an escape with all his might, but the distance was insufficient.
The fortunate thing was that he didn’t receive the direct impact of the explosion. An enormous shockwave engulfed Carlyn.
He blocked with winds, but it was powerless.
Carlyn was hit and flew in midair. Diagonally upward towards the sky.
His vision rotated this way and that. Dizziness, that was Carlyn’s last memory.
Because his consciousness was briefly cut off right after.
‘Am I… alive?’
When Carlyn regained consciousness, he was falling to the ground in a defenseless posture.
He hurriedly raised winds, but the flight wasn’t perfect. It was because the wing suit was torn to shreds.
He grabbed the torn wing suit with winds and balanced himself. It wasn’t to the extent that he couldn’t fly.
The night sky was darkness. Carlyn circled in the sky. His heart was beating violently.
‘If I had been just a second late… I think I would have died too.’
The place where the bomb exploded was easy to find. A mushroom cloud was rising on the distant horizon.
It could be seen from afar.
‘Just how far did I fly?’
The distance was quite far. Carlyn created an air current with winds and advanced towards it again.
He waited briefly nearby. Even when trying to approach, there was no warning from Death Avoidance.
Carlyn, having made up his mind, advanced towards the mushroom cloud.
Amidst the rising mushroom cloud, there was no reason to doubt the bomb’s destructive power.
Because the Karantang Forest had disappeared.
Below the mushroom cloud, there was only a massive crater. The same was true for part of the two burning mountains beyond.
Crumble- Because part of the two mountains had disappeared, soil was pouring down to fill that space.
It was a massive landslide. Burning trees were being uprooted and flowing down.
‘Surely they can’t be alive…’
Carlyn shook his head. There’s no way. It was impossible for there to be survivors in such a disastrous scene.
Still, just in case, he probed the area where the forest had been with winds. But nothing could be felt.
They were definitely dead. Carlyn felt elation. After all, he had killed an Archmage and a high-ranking executor simultaneously, in one shot.
A slight smile even escaped him.
‘Archmage? Actually, aren’t I the Archmage now?’
The tension had eased, and with the sense of achievement from success, even useless thoughts like this came to mind.
But it wasn’t time to be immersed in joy. Carlyn quickly came to his senses.
‘Let’s flee for now.’
Ding-!
After advancing for a while after turning his body, suddenly a system message was updated. It was a level up after a long time.
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