-Gaze
I turned toward the scream and saw a mage being sucked into the red maw of a sandworm.
There was no time to delay.
Still floating in the air, I immediately activated four magic nooses and sent them flying toward the sandworm.
They seized its gaping mouth from all sides, keeping it from closing.
“Get out, now!”
At my shout, the mage whose body was half caught in the sandworm’s mouth hurriedly jumped down.
The sandworm’s blood-red mouth was horrifying just to look at, but fortunately it had nothing like sharp teeth, and the rim was slick with mucus, so the mage did not seem to have been injured.
Though, in his frantic effort to escape, he had fallen straight down without even activating magic, so his legs might have been broken. Still, at any rate, his life had been saved.
Since the sandworm was as tall as several floors of a building, the very top, where its mouth was, was quite high.
I had no time to worry about the mage who had fallen below.
Holding the nooses binding the sandworm’s mouth in one hand, I then activated lightning magic.
First, I had to finish this thing off.
Shiiik! Crackle!
A scorching bolt of lightning plunged straight into the sandworm’s open mouth.
The enormous sandworm began to thrash.
Just as Han Dosu had said, driving lightning into its belly through its open mouth was an effective method.
The fire magic cast beforehand was merely an aid.
Their hides were extremely tough, but it seemed their insides were not.
The sandworm, thrashing violently as the lightning burned through its body, soon went limp.
Only then did I withdraw the noose magic, which had already been destroyed.
I found myself thinking it was fortunate sandworms were insectoid creatures that did not know how to scream. Otherwise, an unbearably loud shriek would have tormented our ears. That was how violently it had thrashed.
“Disgusting things. And there are so many of them.”
Floating back into the air with propulsion magic, I continued moving while looking down below. Hundreds of sandworms had swarmed into the intersection.
The mages up front were holding them off with organized attacks, so they had not yet surged in all at once, but if we kept taking them down one by one in four-person teams, we would soon be forced onto the defensive.
The mages had already been driven quite far toward the center. At this rate, they would end up surrounded by sandworms.
I had intended to move far outward and attack the rear of the sandworm horde, but it did not seem like there was time for that.
‘I’ll have to take them all out at once after all.’
Blocking them with flames and finishing them off with lightning was a simple and effective method, but moving in four-person teams left us outnumbered and took too much time. Of course, there was no way to eliminate the entire horde at once that way.
After thinking for a moment, I immediately began constructing a magic circuit. If I wanted to collapse the horde quickly, raining attacks down from the air would be efficient.
I considered pouring lightning down like rain, but decided to use my specialty, freezing magic. I would send countless ice blades plunging down from above, blades capable of piercing even their hard outer shells.
However, if I wanted them to attack only the sandworms instead of falling indiscriminately, I had to weave the circuit with precision.
There was no problem distinguishing them. I did not even need their DNA.
A gray aura clung to the sandworms, and engraved within the circuit of that black magic was Samir’s infinite pentagon mark.
It was a mark I knew well by now. I only had to designate that mark within the circuit of my freezing magic.
‘Done.’
Once I had completed the magic circuit, I quickly rose higher into the air again and looked down at the intersection.
The mages were definitely being pushed more toward the center than before.
As the space grew narrower with everyone crowded inward, I could see the other races gathered in the middle of the intersection preparing for battle in their own way.
A dozen or so sandworms had fallen, but behind them, hundreds more were wriggling forward, pushing the ones in front along.
‘It would be better if all the sandworms gathered in Seoul were right here.’
If I could wipe out all the sandworms that had appeared in Seoul in one stroke, everything that came afterward would become much easier.
In any case, I had to take care of the ones in sight first.
I gauged the mana inside me. The newly replenished mana was flowing vividly. I stretched both hands forward and drew out a wave of mana.
Then I aimed my hands downward and activated freezing magic.
‘Ice blades, pour down like rain! Pierce the bodies of the sandworms bearing the mark of the infinite pentagon!’
Arctic cold suddenly swept through the street where the sharp morning sunlight had been pouring down.
As everyone below flinched and looked up at the sky, frost-like cold swirled, and ice blades formed at my fingertips poured down like rain.
“Ah! What is that?”
“What? When did he get up there?”
“Is that freezing magic?”
Only the mages stopped even the magic they were casting and cried out in shock. As expected, though the sandworms moved as if terrified and tried to avoid it, they had no way to scream.
Of course, they could not avoid it properly either.
Papapapapapapapat!
The sharp ice blades rushed straight into the red mouths opened toward the sky, and down onto the long, dark-red bodies stretched out below.
The instant they touched, the sandworms froze white. At the same time, they were pierced through.
Impaled by countless ice blades, the sandworms collapsed without even having time to thrash.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The sandworms were not the only ones shocked.
The people who had not expected the ice blades raining down from the sky to choose their targets instinctively hunched down and tried to dodge.
Then, realizing that the ice blades were attacking only the sandworms, they finally relaxed and let out long sighs of relief.
Soon, cheers burst out.
“Whoa! All the sandworms went down at once!”
“We did it! The raid is over now!”
“No, how is this even…? Ah, right. It’s possible for Mage Oudin.”
The mages could not hide their admiration either, but the ones cheering most fervently were the elves and dwarves.
Having thought they were certain to be swallowed by the sandworms, they raised both arms high and waved them, cheering from the joy of survival.
“As expected of a hero!”
“Thank you!”
“Mage Oudin finished them in one blow!”
“That was truly incredible!”
In truth, the space magic I had used earlier to sweep away and annihilate all the sandstorm and sand dust was a far more impressive spell, but at that time, everyone here had been busy carrying out their own roles and had not been able to watch properly.
This scene, however, they had all seen clearly.
They had seen the sight of hundreds of sandworms being finished off in a single breath. On top of that, freezing magic looked more visually impressive than space magic.
So, to ordinary people who were not mages, the sight just now had been a moving scene they could cheer for to their hearts’ content.
I slowly descended and looked around.
By now, morning had fully brightened.
People had not been able to approach the area around the intersection where the sandworms had been rampaging moments before, but in the distance, I could see cars moving.
There were people who had seen the sandstorm subside during the night and come outside to begin their day.
I was thinking that we had to hurry and clean up the scene when Gil caught my eye.
While the mages and the other races were distracted by their joy that the operation was finally over, Gil was moving around alone, casting restoration magic.
“You’re cleaning this up by yourself?”
I quickly approached Gil’s side and spoke.
“If we don’t hurry, the buildings might collapse.”
“Right. Good thinking. Let’s do it together.”
When we began casting restoration magic together, several mages joined in.
They were mages sharp enough to understand the situation and use restoration magic without needing to be ordered.
Then the remaining mages began clearing away the sandworm corpses.
Yoo Jaeseon and the Management Bureau staff ran around, shouting for the bodies to be gathered in one place.
Because the corpses were enormous, three or four people had to work together using propulsion magic to move each one, but there were quite a few mages, so the street was cleared quickly.
Aside from a few, the corpses were immediately burned with fire magic.
Before long, large trucks from the Management Bureau arrived and loaded up the sandworm corpses to be taken away for investigation.
“It looks like things are more or less cleaned up now.”
Since the restoration and cleanup seemed to be finished, I approached Yoo Jaeseon and spoke.
“Yes. I’m glad the operation ended earlier than expected. We’ll need to inform the citizens that it’s safe to come outside now.”
“Some impatient people already seem to have come out and started moving around, though?”
“That’s true. There are always impatient people. In other districts, people are probably already all outside and going about their day.”
“There’s nothing unusual, right?”
“Not so far.”
Yoo Jaeseon said with a bright expression.
Not only him, but the other mages also seemed to think the terror attack was over now, and were preparing to go home with light hearts.
Of course, there was no particular reason for them to remain any longer.
But for some reason, I felt uneasy.
“Then can I tell everyone to withdraw now?”
Yoo Jaeseon asked, studying my face.
I nodded.
“Yes. For now, everyone must be tired after staying up all night for the operation, so tell them to go home. But please ask them to keep an eye on their communications, since we don’t know when they might have to deploy again.”
“Understood.”
Yoo Jaeseon used a loudspeaker to announce the withdrawal to the mages.
I looked for my team members.
Cheon Danbi and Ren seemed to have grown close to the elves in that short time and were exchanging particularly heartfelt farewells.
Gil was also greeting the freelance mages he had worked with during the operation.
Seeing that, I thought this large-scale joint operation had been a good experience for my team members.
It had given them an opportunity to step outside the limited domain of our team and interact and work within a broader sphere.
Gil, in particular, was being recognized as a skilled mage.
“Let’s go home now.”
“Ah, I’m tired. I want to hurry back and sleep. But I feel a little sorry that I’m tired when I didn’t really do much.”
After finishing their farewells, my team members approached me.
“What are you talking about? Why would you say you didn’t do anything, Danbi noona? You worked hard sharing vitality and potions.”
“Thanks for saying that. Still, the mages worked harder.”
“That’s right. Mages really are amazing. Whenever a terror attack happens, they’re always the first to rush in without hesitation.”
“Especially our hero mage!”
Gil, Cheon Danbi, and Ren chatted about their impressions of the operation, but I was lost in thought and did not properly hear them.
No matter how much I thought about it, I could not understand why the Magic Tower was so quiet.
Of course, it was not that the Magic Tower had done nothing. Sending the sandworms this way must have been the Magic Tower’s doing.
But the fact that they had stayed completely still, without any response, until we had taken down all the sandworms was strange no matter how I looked at it.
Why had Samir still not shown himself?
Unable to shake off that unsettled feeling, I activated my golden sight once more before leaving the scene and looked toward the Magic Tower.
At that moment, I felt a gaze.
Someone was watching me.