-Pure White Light
“Uwoogh! What is this! Augh! Over here! Uwoooah!”
The closer I got, the more the sound I heard resembled the howl of a wild beast rather than a human voice.
Of course, it was Thor’s voice.
“Thor!”
“Over here, over here! Uwoogh!”
I brightened my golden vision to its utmost.
It was partly to secure my sight in the dark forest, but also because Thor’s bizarre screams made me think he was fighting some unknown enemy.
Sure enough, Thor was flailing about alone, swinging his hammer through the air.
I tried detecting mana waves.
In that instant, I could tell that Yasin was still in this forest. The magic circuit of an infinite pentagon was clearly being detected.
‘No wonder the traces were so distinct…….’
But even when I looked around, I couldn’t see Yasin anywhere. Thor was simply swinging his hammer around helplessly by himself.
Looking closely, I saw something like a transparent swamp spread out around Thor.
It wasn’t a real swamp like one might find on the forest floor, but a swamp suspended in midair in the shape of a whirlpool.
“Thor! Don’t move!”
Wrapped in the swamp’s transparent mud, Thor couldn’t even open his eyes properly, and his hammer, too, was caked in mud and unable to function as it should.
Judging by the shape of the swamp swirling like a vortex, the more he struggled, the deeper he would sink.
Of course, if he stayed still, he might suffocate as he was, but right now, Han Dosu and I were both running to save him.
“A transparent swamp spread out in the air, I see. Thor, wait just a moment. I’ll save you soon.”
Han Dosu, who arrived in front of Thor one step ahead of me, calmly began casting magic.
When it came to elemental magic, no one could rival him. He would surely find something to dissolve the mud’s components in no time.
In the current situation, that would be faster than analyzing the magic circuit and breaking it apart.
“Uwoogh! There must’ve been some kind of trap here…… Uugh!”
Even with the mass of mud swirling and continuing to pounce on him, Thor apparently had no intention of shutting his mouth.
“Keep your mouth closed and stay still. You can explain later.”
Han Dosu said.
At the same time, with his right hand, he sprayed water, and with his left, some unknown solvent, mixing them in a spiral before pouring it onto the aerial swamp surrounding Thor.
Gradually, the vortex subsided, and the swamp thinned out.
In the meantime, I traced the magic circuit of the infinite pentagon.
Beyond the dense undergrowth behind Thor, the mana waves were growing stronger and stronger. With flames rising from my fingertips, I slowly approached in that direction.
I smelled blood. It seemed Yasin had been hiding while injured. Then he must have noticed Thor approaching and attacked.
“Yasin!”
When I shouted, instead of an answer, I heard a sound like a beast growling. But I still couldn’t see Yasin.
Pushing through the dense undergrowth, I advanced toward the direction the sound had come from. When I passed through a gap between rocks, I saw bloodstains on the stone.
Rather than droplets of blood that had fallen from a wound, they looked like blood he had suddenly coughed up from his mouth.
‘Looks like he suffered internal injuries. Good. This is a chance to catch Yasin.’
Even without extending detection magic, I could tell the direction where Yasin was hiding. But the forest was too dense, putting me at a disadvantage as the pursuer.
In order not to recklessly burn the sacred forest, I protected the outside of the flames with freezing magic. Then I refined the magic circuit delicately so that it would attack only the target with precision.
“Yasin! Is that you? Show yourself!”
The moment I shouted again, a shadow shot up above a large tree in front of me.
Branches and leaves came raining down, and at the same time, blood dripped down as well.
I fired a fireball in the direction the shadow had surged.
Whoosh!
But it failed to find its target. The fireball, having lost its destination, fell downward. Since I had wrapped it in freezing magic, the flames soon went out.
“Brat mage. Do you think you can attack me?”
From up in the tree, a hoarse voice spoke, forcing strength into its words.
When I looked up, there was only darkness. Even while fleeing, it seemed he still had enough mana left to conceal himself with a barrier.
But in any case, he was fleeing.
Back when he attacked me on the Han River bridge, he had been powerful enough to shake a car with long-range magic.
Yet now, he was running away from me.
He had clearly suffered quite a serious injury.
“I don’t think you’re in any position to be calling me a brat right now.”
I drew up my mana again and provoked Yasin.
“What nonsense. Just because I’ve suffered a bit of an injury doesn’t change the fact that you’re a brat. Heh heh…… Cough!”
Yasin was barely managing to bluster. Then he immediately broke into coughing, spitting up blood.
I carefully watched the spot where the drops of blood fell.
Blood was running down the trunk of the large tree. It seemed Yasin was up at the top of the tree.
As I was readjusting my target point, I heard Han Dosu’s voice.
“Oudin! Have you found the enemy?”
It seemed he had just finished rescuing Thor from the transparent swamp.
Thor’s voice followed right after.
“Where is that bastard? Who the hell fed me all that mud?”
The tip of the large tree was swaying faintly. Without taking my eyes off it, I answered the two behind me.
“It’s Yasin. He’s up in that tree. He’s activated concealment magic, so you probably won’t be able to see him.”
At that, the two of them quietly came up beside me.
Yasin was injured, and there were three of us. This time, I thought we would surely be able to catch him.
“Where is he? Can’t you confirm it with detection magic?”
“There’s no need. The top of that tree is shaking.”
While Han Dosu and I were talking, a strong wind suddenly began to blow.
The tree’s shaking grew even more violent, and branches snapped off one after another. Leaves flew in every direction.
“Kraaaaaaaaah!”
Yasin was letting out a monstrous roar.
Then everything around us turned pitch-black. The forest had already been nothing but darkness, but now, a blackness so deep it even blocked my golden vision came surging in.
The magic circuit of the infinite pentagon stretched out in all directions. That alone was clearly visible.
‘Is this the power of a black mage?’
It was a sight like the exhalation of the breath of darkness. A fierce wind swirled, and the life force of the tree was being sucked away.
As though he had unfolded the aerial swamp again, an invisible suffocation was flowing down from the top of the tree.
The tree was choking to death in real time.
A violent vortex rose, and in an instant, dried leaves flew about like a sandstorm.
Rustle. Rustle.
Craack! Craack! Craack!
The tree twisted as though screaming. It felt as if I could sense the tree’s pain.
“Damn it. The vortex is getting bigger and bigger! It’s that swamp again!”
“Fall back!”
Thor and Han Dosu shouted.
Without retreating, I spread out a force field that broadly enveloped the tree.
“This won’t do. The tree has already been damaged, so even if it gets destroyed, I’ll use magic. You two, attack the upper part of the tree from there!”
I had tried to use magic in a limited way so as not to damage the sacred forest, but with that, we couldn’t catch Yasin.
Yasin being injured was no reason to let my guard down. Even while coughing up blood, his mana was still considerable.
A thick mass of mud was expanding its range outward from the large tree in every direction.
The air grew dense. It had the density to suffocate everything nearby.
The swirling swamp spun at terrifying speed.
“Got it. I’ll target the treetop with lightning magic!”
Thor shouted.
Then Han Dosu spoke as well.
“I’ll try diluting the swirling swamp!”
Their voices were nearly buried in the sound of the wind. The wind grew stronger and stronger. The vortex howled.
First, I wove the force field tightly so that Yasin could not use the vortex as cover to escape. I spread the force field widely over the surrounding trees and undergrowth as well.
The problem was what to use for the attack.
Because of the mud swamp, fire magic seemed useless. The mud’s density was too high to freeze it solid, too.
‘Should I use air magic to eliminate the air in the area and quiet the wind?’
If I did that, the tree would die in an instant. Not only the tree, but the surrounding forest might die as well. That couldn’t be helped.
But Yasin, too, would be unable to endure without air and would die.
I wanted to catch Yasin alive. There were many things I wanted to ask him. Killing him was not my goal.
I raised my mana waves. To stop the vortex, I needed a great amount of mana.
In the meantime, the two of them activated their magic first.
As before, Han Dosu sprayed a spiral of water and solvent toward the tree.
Where the magic touched, the mud swamp seemed to open a gap for a moment, but the violent vortex swept in and quickly filled that gap again.
Even so, Han Dosu continued to cast elemental magic. It seemed he believed that if he could pierce through even a little, Thor and I would have an opening to attack.
“Thor’s lightning!”
Thor cast lightning magic.
It was difficult to shoot lightning through the mud swamp. So he gathered electrical charges in the atmosphere from above the sky and drove a bolt of lightning down into the top of the tree.
The sky flashed.
Crack! Bzzzt!
Fizzle……
The lightning magic seemed to have succeeded, but once it came down, it soon faded away. It seemed the mud swamp was thickly blocking even the top of the tree.
“That damn bastard! He sure loves swamps, doesn’t he!”
Thor spat out curses. The man who had seemed so innocent burst into anger.
At that very moment, a monstrous roar that drowned out Thor’s curse rang out as if to tear our eardrums.
“Kroooooooar!”
It seemed Yasin was wringing out even the last of his strength.
Soon, the swirling swamp grew even larger and surged toward where the three of us stood at a maddening speed.
‘Now! That bastard is trying to leave the vortex behind and flee.’
With an intense intuition, I swiftly activated magic.
‘Atmosphere, coil inward!’
Instead of eliminating the air, I altered the direction of the atmosphere. I made the vortex curl inward. It was a climate-altering magic that consumed a great deal of mana.
The mana waves I extended fluctuated violently, tightening inward from outside the force field.
The mud swamp swept toward the large tree. The tree had already suffocated. Yasin, too, would soon be unable to endure and be forced to burst out.
“Ghhh……”
Yasin’s groan could be heard. The tree, tossed about by the vortex, shuddered and began to collapse.
I watched it, expecting Yasin to come flying out.
But then, suddenly, a pure white light swept over the surroundings.
It was an infinitely bright and vast light, as if it would blind us.
The darkness of the forest that had been wrapping around us in pitch black vanished in an instant.
Nothing but light.
Pure white light.
We could not move an inch.