-A Firebolt
“Yasin!”
“Nasanhaegyeong!”
The two slowly approached each other.
Neither Yasin nor Nasanhaegyeong was pleased to see the other.
There was no way something like camaraderie existed among black mages, but these two in particular were independent by nature and did not keep other black mages close even in ordinary times. Both of them lived drunk on their own greatness.
On top of that, Nasanhaegyeong had been nursing resentment over the thought that Samir favored Yasin, so there was no reason she would be glad to run into him in a situation like this.
“So this is where you were hiding? I heard you vanished after losing to Oudin. You managed to survive somehow.”
Yasin was the first to sneer.
“Lose? I was only careless for a moment. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to smash that brat Oudin to pieces. More importantly, you’re still alive, old man? I heard you were badly injured and hiding somewhere, so I thought you might finally be leaving this world for good.”
Nasanhaegyeong gave as good as she got.
“Your mouth is the only thing alive and kicking. From the look of you, your mana’s been drained dry, too. I’ll deal with Oudin myself, so don’t touch him.”
“Don’t touch him? What, are you on Oudin’s side like people have been saying?”
“Shut up. Don’t say anything ridiculous. More importantly, are you alone? Did no one else survive?”
Yasin asked as he looked around.
As expected, the laboratory and factory were nowhere to be seen, and the cave had vanished without leaving even a trace.
What was unexpected was that a magical forest had grown here.
It had to be the work of that divine mage of pure white light.
“There’s no one here, and nothing left. The cave and the portal are gone, too. This forest someone made with magic is all that’s here.”
“Ah, my golden apple laboratory and factory have all been blown away……”
“You think the laboratory and factory being gone is the problem? Look at this forest! This isn’t something Lord Samir made. Who made this? Who covered over the crustal upheaval Lord Samir caused?”
“Why are you screeching at me? What would someone like you know, mouthing off like that? Isn’t it obvious? It was the divine mage!”
“Divine mage? Who’s that?”
Nasanhaegyeong asked, but Yasin did not answer. He turned away and extended detection magic.
He was already certain, but he was checking to confirm it.
As expected, this forest had been made by the divine mage who had interfered with Yasin in Neo Forest. The faint texture of the magic left behind was the same as back then.
Even then, he had keenly felt that the mage was no ordinary opponent, but now that he was standing in this forest, goosebumps rose all over his body.
‘Not only did he stop the crustal upheaval Lord Samir caused, he formed an entire forest in an instant. A forest with an incredible amount of mana. He’s a mage with completely insane skill.’
He had never even seen the mage’s face, but at the weight of that presence, Yasin suddenly shuddered.
“Hey, why aren’t you answering when someone asks you a question? Who is this divine mage?”
Nasanhaegyeong snapped sharply.
Even though she was furious at Yasin for completely ignoring her while going on about “someone like you,” she had asked politely because she was curious about the divine mage’s identity. Yet he was acting as though he had not heard her at all.
Her temper flared until she could hardly bear it.
“I told you to be quiet!”
Yasin, irritated by the fact that he was trembling in fear of the divine mage, took that irritation out on Nasanhaegyeong.
He stretched out one arm and sent pressure magic toward her.
“You damned old geezer!”
Nasanhaegyeong found her breath catching under the pressure Yasin sent at her.
The fact that she was being suffocated by that level of pressure only made her angrier. Her mana had not yet recovered enough.
But that did not mean she intended to simply let Yasin have his way with her.
Nasanhaegyeong gathered her mana and formed gravity magic. When she stomped her foot, the ground rippled, and a vibration flowed toward Yasin.
“What are you doing? Hahaha! Did you think you could do anything to me with magic of this level? I heard you were a big shot even on the Chinese continent, but it seems the famous feast has nothing to eat. How pathetic.”
The spot where Yasin stood began to sink inward.
But so what? Yasin easily lifted his body with kinetic magic.
He shot upward altogether, looking down at Nasanhaegyeong as he mocked her.
Seeing him like that, rage surged up from the pit of Nasanhaegyeong’s stomach.
Rage had always been an excellent driving force for her. Her mana began to whirl.
“You rotten old man, who do you think you’re laughing at? Just because Lord Samir treats you generously, you must think you’re something special. Do you know what all the black mages of the Magic Tower whisper about you? They say old man Yasin is one step away from lying down in his grave!”
“Utter nonsense! Do you know who I am? Eternal life will begin from my very fingertips.”
“What are you babbling about? Senile old fool!”
“Then why don’t you try defeating this senile old fool?”
Nasanhaegyeong was chanting a spell under her breath. A pitch-black hollow formed around her.
The forest, which had been filled with tall ferns and flowers, rotted black in an instant.
From there, gray energy rose like smoke and gathered at Nasanhaegyeong’s fingertips.
It might have been someone else’s territory, but in any case, it was a magical forest rich in mana. It was full of mana she could draw on as much as she liked.
And Nasanhaegyeong’s specialty was precisely this: drawing things in.
She could even draw in mana and living creatures from other dimensions, alter them, and use them. There was no reason she could not seize the mana of the forest right here.
“Black whirlwind, rage!”
As Nasanhaegyeong shouted, a black whirlwind sprang up.
When she gestured, the black whirlwind spun round and round and headed for Yasin.
“What’s this? You really want to do this?”
Yasin was still floating above Nasanhaegyeong. He quickly generated gravity and pressed the air downward.
The black whirlwind was pushed down by the gravity and could not rise, instead widening its range in every direction.
The nearby plants were flattened as if struck by the wind from a helicopter, collapsing as they rotted black.
‘Oh! This forest isn’t much after all.’
Yasin’s fear of the forest the divine mage had made began to fade.
Instead, he too thought he should use this forest’s mana, just as Nasanhaegyeong was doing.
Yasin had also sensed that the magical forest was overflowing with mana.
On the way here, he had been conserving his own mana in case something happened, but now that he knew there was no one in this forest except Nasanhaegyeong, there was no need.
Since it was the divine mage’s mana, it was an alien energy to absorb directly, but converting it into gray energy was nothing for a black mage of Yasin’s caliber.
“Press down!”
Yasin swept his hand broadly and drew in the mana drifting nearby.
The forest rotted over an even wider area, and gray energy rose up. He gathered that mana at his fingertips and sent it toward Nasanhaegyeong.
The black whirlwind spinning low to the ground scattered even more, and a heavy pressure took its place.
The pressure pressing down from all sides constricted Nasanhaegyeong as though to strangle her.
“Black whirlwind, sweep through!”
“Gravity, press down!”
The swirling black whirlwind and the heavy downward-pressing gravity competed for space. They were evenly matched.
Waves of gray mana surged and tangled throughout the area, and the forest burned away to a crisp.
“Blow that crazy old geezer away!”
“I really ought to sew that noisy mouth shut. Press down!”
Nasanhaegyeong, who had been staggering weakly until just moments ago, was now alive and thrashing with vigor.
The battle of rage had, if anything, revived her.
Yasin was the same. There was no trace now of the tension he had shown at the divine mage’s traces.
Because he was fighting someone manageable, he was delighted to pour out all the irritation he had been suppressing.
“Show me your specialty. I hear you summon fresh monsters from other dimensions. Go on, bring one over.”
“What about you, old man? What happened to all those experimental subjects of yours? Let’s have ourselves a proper fight!”
“I’ll take a look at the life-form you summon first, then bring out something of the right level.”
“Don’t act so high and mighty. Old geezer, your era is over! The era of Nasanhaegyeong is coming!”
“That’s why I’m telling you to try.”
Even as the two bickered, the black whirlwind and gravity wrapped themselves in gray energy, distorting space as they competed in strength.
On top of that, summoning a life-form from another dimension required even more mana.
Nasanhaegyeong gritted her teeth and murmured a spell.
A strong wind began to blow through the forest. The pitch-black hole surrounding the two grew larger and larger. The forest burned away and vaporized into gray energy.
The magical forest was gradually being destroyed.
Just as Nasanhaegyeong was about to summon a life-form from another dimension through the pitch-black hollow opened in the forest—
A firebolt suddenly struck down.
“Aaaagh!”
“Aaagh! Lord Samir!”
Nasanhaegyeong and Yasin’s screams rang out simultaneously beneath the night sky.
The two immediately knew that this was a firebolt sent down by Samir.
The already dark surroundings turned into complete pitch-black darkness, and the smell of sulfurous flame drifted through the air. Then a searing pain drove straight into their brains, making their whole bodies tremble before they stiffened and went numb.
Yasin, who had been floating in midair, was thrown down to the ground, and Nasanhaegyeong collapsed to her knees with a thud.
A pain as if every cell in their bodies were shattering into pieces and burning grain by grain. A pain that sent hot shudders through them from head to toe as if they had been set aflame. Nothing but extreme agony.
It was only for a moment, but the two of them nearly lost their souls.
Even as her soul seemed to flee her body, Nasanhaegyeong secretly rejoiced at the fact that Samir had sent a firebolt not only at her, but at Yasin as well.
[What are you doing here? How utterly pathetic.]
The smell of sulfurous flame wafted over them, and Samir’s voice rang out as if stabbing directly into their minds.
“Lord Samir. Please forgive me.”
“We were wrong. Please, have mercy……”
As the two lay flat on the ground and begged for forgiveness, an image abruptly unfolded before their eyes.
What entered their vision in the dark forest was the scenery of a dazzling city. Seoul’s nightscape.
People were running down streets lined with forests of buildings, screaming.
Wondering what was happening, they looked closer and saw a bizarre life-form appearing in the middle of a broad road.
At first glance, it looked like one gigantic monster. They thought an enormous creature, like a sperm whale breaking through the water’s surface, had burst up through the earth.
But upon closer inspection, it was a mass formed by countless small life-forms clumping together.
The life-forms moved as they gathered and scattered, and each of them was amorphous, like an amoeba.
‘Who created those life-forms?’
‘Whose doing is that?’
The first thing that came to Yasin and Nasanhaegyeong’s minds was the question of the identity of the one who had made the bizarre life-forms.