-Coo-oong!
Not far away from Lee Sungmin’s location, there was a tremor from a collision.
Lee Sungmin stopped walking and looked ahead.
It was a collision of immense mana colliding against each other that Lee Sungmin felt, but he inwardly could tell that the forces colliding weren’t anything he wouldn’t be able to deal with on his own.
Lee Sungmin was still surprised by it. Perhaps it was Envirus who was fighting and causing it, but the power he felt earlier from Envirus could not compare to the level of magic he felt just now.
‘You were hiding your power?’ , Lee Sungmin stopped and thought for a second.
He brushed away the thought and started walking again, even though he felt rather estranged by it.
First of all, he thought that the first priority was to find Envirus and help him in whatever way he could since he’d rather not be stuck in this dreadful space any longer.
However, Lee Sungmin’s steps stopped once again before long.
It was because a man in a black robe suddenly appeared, blocking his way.
—-
Kim Jonghyun was deep in thought.
This was an unmistakable course of fate, he thought.
It was the same case in the north. Kim Jonghyun felt his fate tingling when he met Lee Sungmin in Travia.
The strong destiny that Lee Sungmin had, was protection from a being so strong and was known as the ‘Apostle of the End’.
Then following this course it had to be fate once more that Kim Jonghyun and Lee Sungmin met now, here in The City of Endless Night.
They had met in Behenger, the city of the Volcano Sect when chasing Solitary Blade Dokgo, and in northern Travia.
And once again… here.
It made it clear to Kim Jonghyun that whatever life he had lived in Lee Sungmin’s previous life, it was much different than what was going on in this one.
At least Kim Jonghyun thought so. Kim Jonghyun knew that whatever life he would have lived, it wasn’t for him to know as he had no way of finding out.
However, meeting with Lee Sungmin once more here, made Kim Jonghyun happy to see that he was moving in a different direction whatever his previous life may have led.
“……who are you?”, Lee Sungmin asked the robed man in front of him who was hiding his identity.
Kim Jonghyun lowered the hood of his robe, slightly nodding to Lee Sungmin but not revealing himself.
Inwardly, Kim Jonghyun wanted to respond and give his greetings to Lee Sungmin, but he had to turn his head away from him, because now was not the time to reveal his identity to him.
‘Woah…’, Kim Jonghyun suddenly was surprised by the power he felt from Lee Sungmin.
It was the case every time they met, every time Kim Jonghyun had met Lee Sungmin, Lee Sungmin’s power was exponentially more powerful than the last.
If you took his identity as a no-class into account, it was an understatement to say Lee Sungmin had long surpassed the limits of a no-class.
Not many people have reached the level of Lee Sungmin, that’s including the heirs with genius talents among the martial artist families that had monetary support and tutors since birth.
One can argue that the talent of martial artists in Eria were stagnant these days, but if you took away age as a factor and looked at all the fighters in Eria, only tens of people would be able to defeat him.
Kim Jonghyun smiled bitterly behind the hood of his robe.
“You can’t get past this point.”, he spoke stoically, and his voice was distorted by a magic device that made it difficult to identify the gender of the voice speaking.
Kim Jonghyun raised his hand when he saw Lee Sungmin’s face twitching slightly with irritation.
There was no need for a head-to-head competition. Kim Jonghyun was said to be borrowing the power of the devil himself through black magic, but even so, Kim Jonghyun is human and had not given up his humanity entirely.
To be honest, Kim Jonghyun was not confident of winning against Lee Sungmin, even if he pulled out all his hidden cards.
So the answer was to avoid having a fight. In the first place, Kim Jonghyun’s role here was to block those who tried to interfere with Arbeth’s plans, whatever they may be.
However, he had let Envirus go past him because he had something to aim for. But if Lee Sungmin got through somehow, his plans would be for naught.
When the mysterious wizard tried to start chanting a spell in front of him, Lee Sungmin rushed toward Kim Jonghyun without waiting any further.
But Kim Jonghyun aimed for it. The spell chant itself was a fake.
Kim Jonghyun suddenly stopped moving his lips with the fake chant and lightly lifted his left hand casually.
Whoosh!
A black light suddenly flashed across Lee Sungmin’s vision.
Lee Sungmin flinched from surprise and raised the window to counter the sudden flash of light blocking his vision.
Lee Sungmin squinted his eyes and suddenly felt his movements and senses become murky. He opened his eyes to see nothing but black, and it felt as if time had been skewed and stretched apart in a weird manner.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
The black world unfolded around Lee Sungmin’s surroundings like a sphere.
Lee Sungmin stopped the spear’s outstretched movement and looked around at the endless darkness flowing in his surroundings, as all of his senses were completely blocked off.
The discomfort that he was feeling was completely reminiscent of when Lee Sungmin had all of his restrictions placed on him in the Mountain of Mush.
Kim Jonghyun breathed in and out with a heavy breath. The black space he created to encapsulate Lee Sungmin was a seal that he placed beforehand that required immense mental strength to maintain.
Kim Jonghyun pressed down on his temples, feeling a slight dizziness.
Although it was a temporary seal, the level of the seal itself was incredibly high and difficult to maintain as it was meant to seal incredibly powerful beings.
The problem with this seal was that once Lee Sungmin was trapped, he could not interfere with anything Lee Sungmin did inside the seal, and he was rendered temporarily immobile while having to maintain it.
But it didn’t really matter as his goal was only to stall Lee Sungmin here.
In addition, Kim Jonghyun did not want to kill Lee Sungmin here even though he currently had the chance, since he had used a dirty trick to trap him.
‘Three hours at most…. No, maybe shorter than that.’, Kim Jonghyun thought to himself as he estimated the amount of time he could hold Lee Sungmin here with his unexpected amount of strength.
But that was enough time needed.
Kim Jonghyun turned around and floated up in the air to head towards Arbeth and Envirus’ location as he now had to finish his final plans.
—
Arbeth spread his hands out wide and blinked out of Envirus’ spell trajectory.
A little after Arbeth blinked away, Envirus’ magic completely destroyed the space where Arbeth once was.
It had been a long time since Arbeth last felt the unease of another existence, let alone human wizard.
Ever since he became an undead, and even more so as an Arch Lich, Arbeth had always been in a position of absolute power.
Because there was no fighting allowed between the other Elders of Predator or fighting with the organization, ‘Beyond the Heavens’, enforced by Yana. The current nervousness and unease he felt from fighting against Envirus was rather welcomed.
But even though he was pleased to have the opportunity to fight, it was still incredibly dangerous for Arbeth.
Arbeth glanced at the magic circle where Aine was trapped. The circle was eating away at the very mana and fear being emitted all over the city.
‘Frescan’s presence has disappeared. That fucking incompetent idiot must have died. Stupid bastard……!’, Arbeth cursed to himself, as even right now he wouldn’t mind borrowing a rat’s hand to deal with Envirus’ merciless onslaught.
It was that serious, Envirus’ level was actually much higher than Arbeth right now and it was becoming more and more apparent as they continued to clash.
Arbeth honestly felt a little bit of shame about it. Arbeth, who cast another succession of blinks, rose high in the air and became endangered once again after each blink from Envirus’ spell’s redirection.
It was extremely dangerous to spread the blinks consecutively for most people, but not for wizards who had control like Arbeth or Envirus.
Quaaaaaa!
Dozens of flame beads were materialized around Arbeth.
It was a hellfire that was considered the strongest and hardest spell among Flame Wizards to master, but Arbeth cast it as easily as a simple fireball.
‘His level…It’s higher than it used to be.’ , Arbeth was thinking about Envirus’ massive mana pool.
Envirus raised both of his arms. While Envirus was losing his sudden capacity as ‘Cain’, Arbeth continued to chant spells. (T/N : interesting… the author didn’t mention it earlier but it seems like Envirus can only temporarily restore his abilities on top of what he already has.)
Envirus lightly clicked his tongue. The runic characters on his arms writhed around and formed a new spell.
‘Wow’, Arbeth thought to himself inwardly surprised of Envirus’ spell mastery.
Dozens of layers of barriers were instantly cast to stop the hellfire bombardment. The collision caused a massive explosion, and the embers from the collision that fell to the ground melted the earthen rock down in a matter of milliseconds.
Envirus glanced toward the Magic Circle. he’d have to destroy that, but Arbeth didn’t give him a single opening to do so.
Arbeth saw Envirus glance for a split second and resumed casting another spell.
The ground beneath Envirus’ feet cracked open from Arbeth’s spell and a monster’s teeth along with a foul breath protruded from the cracked ends of the earthen plates.
Envirus quickly leaped up a few meters in the air and cast a spell making a quick bubble of air to float up with, seemingly light in terms of defense but, appearances were meant to be fooled.
The whole mouth of the monster froze suddenly from the foggy mist that shed out from the bubbly sphere around Envirus.
Envius flew up high to Arbeth’s location and spread his hands wide.
Krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
A light suddenly started to shine from Envirus’ hands and a bright bolt of lightning struck out and the entire surrounding beamed brightly. Then a second after the bolt flew out a deafening sound of thunder cracked out from the spell. (T/N : for the first time in a martial arts novel i am impressed with the author to realize the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound lol.)
Arbeth hurried back and moved his hands quickly to form a black barrier around him, but as fast as Envirus’ spell was at the speed of lightning, it was just as destructive as it smashed the barrier apart like glass.
Quasik!
As the barrier was smashed by the lightning and the brightness dimmed, Arbeth appeared out of the light and his left arm was turned to dust.
Ccreaaakk
There was no yelling of cries of pain from Arbeth, as an Arch Lich was an Arch Lich after all.
The body that Arbeth was inhabiting may appear to be human with flesh right now, but it was nothing more than a doll injected with Arbeth’s soul.Even if this body was destroyed, Arbeth would not die. But the loss of flesh made Arbeth quite angry.
Envirus rushed toward Arbeth, who was reeling himself farther away in the air.
The letters engraved on both arms wriggled and covered Envirus’ palms in a blue light.
Arbeth hurriedly unfolded more blinks before Envirus’ attack could completely destroy his body, leaving the space.
One-on-one magic fights were hard. Arbeth admitted it, though it was disgraceful to do so for his pride.
Then again they had no choice but to continue this fight that could not fully encapsulate each other’s talents.
Arbeth grabbed the stub that was remaining where his missing left arm used to be.
Thud thud!
His left arm started to artificially regrow back into place while Arbeth darted his lips.
As the chant began, an ominous darkness shook and formed around Arbeth.
The devil whom Arbeth had contracted, allowed a special power that only Arbeth could use and that power was a power of never ending corruption that could corrode anything in existence.
Arbeth’s prepared magic circles from beforehand, which were not used yet in the fight, began to unfold their stored spells.
Darkness raged and unfolded all of the city square in a black dim lighting. Inside it, there was a mixture of screams and howling cries of sorrow that sounded incredibly eerie, showcasing why black magic was indeed black magic.
Inside the black space dead corpses began to rise from the ground with a creaking noise..
The countless corpses Arbeth had taken and collected from the lives he slaughtered for the past hundreds of years took shape in the ground and became soldiers of the dead.
Arbeth’s specialty as a Dark Wizard was necromancy. He was at the pinnacle of mastery in necromancy in all of Eria, as no necromancer would even hold a candle to Arbeth.
‘If Bolander were here, it would be so fucking annoying.…!’, Arbeth gritted his teeth, thinking of one of his Death Knights he didn’t summon.
Unlike other summons, Bolander was a Death Knight of Arbeth’s that had unparalleled Power among his undead. However, his soul was too strong to be ruled down even as an undead, and hated Arbeth when he was alive. So naturally he never followed Arbeth’s orders and Arbeth couldn’t summon him even if he really needed him… like right now.
Envirus contorted his face in disgust when he saw the soldiers of the dead who had raised their bodies creakily.
Necromance magic is the most looked down upon paths of magic and was despised utterly as a taboo among taboos.
It was not only the lack of respect reviving corpses of the dead, but tying their souls down for eternity never being able to rest, having to obey the necromancer’s every whim.
The undead Arbeth summoned were different than most undead skeleton knights or skeleton magicians that most necromancers summoned.
He took every undead corpse he had and turned them into frightening chimeras. But unlike most corpses that had souls that were damaged and unable to think for themselves, Arbeth’s mastery over dark magic and souls was strong enough to have the chimera keep their memories and be able to think properly, making them absolute nightmares to deal with.
That is why it was rather powerful. Unlike chimeras that could not think while alive even with a brain artificially inserted, these could.
The winged chimeras flew up toward the airborne Envirus.
However, Envirus didn’t feel threatened by it. It wasn’t enough to even keep him in check.
Envirus waved his hand without hesitation and the chimera’s corpses exploded into flesh and gore in the air.
But as they were squashed, black poison spewed out from their blood.
The blood danced in the air and was controlled by Arbeth as they formed into needle like darts and flew at Envirus once more.
Arves started chanting once more when he saw the blood shooting twirling around Envirus.
He knew it was nothing more than a distraction for a master of Wizards like Envirus and it was indeed a drag in the end.
Gwa-a-a-ang!
The black-blood needles that swirled in the air and attacked Envirus caused a great explosion.
Before the sound of the explosion disappeared, Arbeth continued to prepare magic.
Of all the Dark Wizards in the world, which could use mana and black magic spells, the spell Arbeth was preparing was something only Arbeth could use.
In the explosion of black blood that was dissipating, Envirus felt a deadly and ominous presence.
Arch Lich Extinction Magic : Soul Corrosion ( 魂)
No matter how great a wizard may be, one cannot simply dismiss a magic that attacks the soul directly.
From behind Arbeth’s back, two dark-colored incorporeal hands sprang up.
The hands of the devil that Arbeth contracted that popped up from behind Arbeth, were able to corrode anything they put their hands on, and Arbeth made it so they directly were able to touch souls only.
Arbeth fired the two hands at Envirus, concentrating his hardest on this spell as it consumed a lot of mana and mental strength. The dark hands shot out and entered the smoke left from the prior collision
Whoosh!
The huge wind formed from Envirus’s body completely pushed out the remnants of the blast created by the blood needles and shot out at the black hands.
Just as Arbeth used a specialty magic only he could pull off, Envirus noticed the ominous presence and didn’t delay in using his own specialty magic.
The wind that pushed the corrosive hands took on a shape of a muscular incorporeal being.
“A Spirit!”, Arbeth shouted out in utter shock as he opened his eyes wide.
The grade of the spirit summoned was too high-level to be some nameless sprite from the spirit realm if it was able to block the demon’s soul-corrupting hands.
[Is that… Cain?], The Wind Spirit asked Envirus with an emotional undertone.
Envirus nodded slowly. Then the wind spirit laughed out loud solemnly.
[The queen must be sad…….], it muttered.
“I’ll think about it later.”, Envirus replied in a quiet voice
The Spirits of the spirit realm could not be destroyed even against the forms of extinction magic.
Thus, the wind spirit that Envirus summoned spread his arms wide and summoned a huge gust of wind.
Meanwhile…
Kim Jonghyun had already arrived at the square. He hid his presence from the clashing Arbeth and Envirus, crouching quietly.
‘Not yet…’ , he thought to himself.
It wasn’t the time yet.