"Quelina, I'm warning you—get that damned, ugly, disgusting parasite of yours away from me, or I'll kill you."
Hearing the third one, Quelina only laughed louder. "Kill me? Laru, who gave you the courage to say a thing like that to me? Hmm?" The monster growing out of her palm felt its master's mood and began to tremble violently. Then it dove into the earth, bursting up again and again beside him, trying to bite him.
The third one's expression changed drastically. He chanted a spell at furious speed, and dark-green radiance gathered around him. "Clark, don't you want to stop her? She's insane. She'll ruin every one of our plans. If we fail this time, none of us comes to a good end—not even you."
Clark was the fourth, the one who had not made a sound. He was the temporary leader of these four Magefoe apprentices. Hearing Laru, he spoke mildly: "Enough, Quelina." That flat voice carried startling force; all three of them showed expressions of pain at once, and Quelina, taking the brunt of it, actually screamed aloud in discomfort.
"We've dragged this out long enough. Mordo Tower isn't strong, but if it truly decided to deal with us, one full-fledged Mage would be enough. We must kill every apprentice in Blan Town as fast as we can, then collect their souls and flesh." He glanced at Quelina. "Once the collection is done, I don't care what you do. But right now you obey me, or I kill you. You know I can."
Quelina pressed her lips together and drew the parasitic monster back into her palm. She stroked the mouth left exposed on her skin, and after a moment broke into a giggle again. "Of course, Lord Clark. I'll be obedient. Just like those little dogs."
Clark paid her no more attention and asked the first one: "Fone, how are your preparations coming?"
Fone patted the wolf king's enormous body and hissed, "Give me a few more hours. The drug hasn't fully taken hold. Right now I can't control enough wind wolves."
Clark nodded. "Then we wait until night..."
"Grrr..." Just then the wolf king beside Fone let out a low growl, and surprise crossed Fone's face. "An apprentice has walked out of Blan Town alone."
Blan Town was sunk in gloom.
From what Zach and Thomas said, no Magefoe had been sighted in the morning's beast assault. Only a little over a hundred wind wolves had come to attack. But whatever means the Magefoes had used, every one of those wolves threw itself at the knight order and the runic barrier in suicidal, death-defying charges. If not for the two senior apprentices inside Blan Town, they would not have lasted past morning.
But even holding out, the knight order was now wounded to a man. Knights who had lost an arm or a leg had no strength left to fight; the ranks could only be filled from ordinary townsfolk who had a knight's physique but no combat training.
Not one of the townsfolk fled—not because they didn't want to, but because they didn't dare. The bloody lesson of the past few days had taught them that stepping outside the barrier alone meant only death. If they wanted to live, they could only fight to the death.
But the apprentices wanted to run.
In a concealed corner, William and the other two were gathered, talking something over.
"Let's run. Magefoes—things that terrifying, how could we possibly handle them?" Riley's face was full of alarm; the magic staff in her hands turned uneasily against the ground, scraping out an irritating noise.
Terry clasped his hands together, the interwoven vines giving off a sound like metal. "We're just rookies. We haven't even learned a handful of spells. This isn't a fight we can handle. Let's leave, William."
William was not as naive as the two of them. By now he had sensed that something had been off about the whole journey. Now that the Magefoes' presence was confirmed, the only reason the three of them had reached Blan Town safely was that the Magefoes had allowed it. He would stake his life on it: the moment the three of them dared to leave Blan Town, they'd be crushed in the first instant.
"Wake up. We can't leave." William flatly rejected the idea of running.
Riley came apart on the spot. "No—how can that be? We can leave. Terry, right? We can leave, can't we?"
Unbidden, William thought again of what Adam had said about the alliance of the weak. Sure enough, the union of the weak was worth nothing. At a time like this the only thing that could save him was his own strength. Failing that: We latch onto the strong. We have no other choice—we can only hope the senior apprentices hold out until support from the tower arrives.
Thomas and Zach were pouring everything into recovering mana. Even the cracked ether crystals they normally treasured and could never bear to use had been brought out. Seeing William, Zach said, "If you want to leave, I won't stop you. But I'm warning you: outside the runic barrier it only gets more dangerous."
William shook his head. "Is there anything we can do?"
Thomas glanced at him. "You're not quite as stupid as you look. But honestly, there isn't much you can do. A fight on this scale is beyond rookies." Thomas thought it over, then said, "There are four of you. Split into two pairs and operate the runic weapons."
Runic weapons worked on much the same principle as magic items, but they needed an apprentice's own mana as fuel—which was why Thomas had put them in pairs.
To his surprise, William's face stiffened. "Mr. Thomas, Adam has already left."
Adam had indeed left Blan Town. He had learned from the townsfolk the scale of the morning's beast attack and the casualties Blan Town had taken, and with his eye for such things it was easy to conclude that the town could not possibly withstand a larger beast tide. In other words, if support did not arrive in time, Blan Town was finished.
Unlike those townsfolk and apprentices who lacked the strength, Adam could come and go as he pleased. He was certainly not going to choose to shut himself up in a dead city and fight to the death for people who had nothing to do with him.
He had noticed that the egg had become strangely excited ever since they entered this region, as though something in the ambient energy drew it. Adam was now dragging the egg toward the source of that energy.
The magical beasts along the way did not attack him; they kept falling back. Adam knew these beasts were under someone's control, and were probably relaying word to whoever was behind this.
Adam did not stop them.
He was different from the other human apprentices. Seeking advantage and avoiding harm was only a low-priority mode of thinking for him; exploring the unknown was his instinct. Out of a vast interest in the Magefoes, Adam had chosen to go out alone and hunt for their trail.
Adam was a Mage born, and Mages were devout researchers. When researchers met knowledge that interested them, they would set life and death aside for a time.
Best if I can take one alive. If not, a corpse is acceptable. Worst case, I get a look at their magic. Adam said to himself. As for the possibility that he lost and died—the odds were very low. So long as there was no full-fledged Magefoe present, with the astonishing support of psychokinesis, escape should be no problem.
Adam advanced at an even pace toward the energy source. The further he went, the more beasts there were; crimson eyes flashed in swarms through forest so dense it blotted out the sunlight. Here Adam grew careful as well. Psychokinesis covered his whole body in a thin protective layer, mana churned inside his Mage Armor, ready to trigger a spell at any moment.
Swoosh!
From the shadows to Adam's left, a dark-green arrow-shaped spell shot at him at tremendous speed, piercing several beasts on the way through without losing the slightest force—indeed, eerily devouring the beasts' flesh and blood to strengthen itself.
Adam raised a hand to trigger a spell, then felt a craving come from the egg in his other hand. Without hesitation he withdrew the spell and used psychokinesis to move the egg into the spell's flight path.
A dreadful laughter rang out, shot through with pain. The spell landed on the eggshell and was swallowed by seething evil energy, then faded to nothing.
"Oh?" The enemy in the darkness was startled. "An abyssal creature's egg? You actually have something that fine? Hand it over, and Lord Laru will grant you a quick death."
Adam automatically tuned out the garbage and said quietly, "Magefoe?"
"You know the word? And knowing it, you still dared walk out of Blan Town alone—are you looking down on Lord Laru, you fool raised in sunlight!" The enemy in the darkness flew into a rage, a rage with no cause behind it; to Adam it was like facing a mental patient.
So this is a Magefoe? A lunatic? Adam stood where he was, frowning.
Identical spells came flying from every direction. Adam raised the egg and blocked every one with perfect accuracy; the emotion inside it shifted from delight to pain—plainly it could not digest so much.
The enemy did not seem in any hurry, and kept goading Adam with words: "You've never been in a real fight, have you? Do they even give you a duel ground at that academy, where you bow to each other and then use magic? Hahahaha! Fools, fools! Trash who grew up in a greenhouse—what gives you the right to enjoy the sunlight?"
The enemy in the darkness kept moving ceaselessly through the dense forest; from the beginning until now, no two consecutive syllables had come from the same direction. The Magefoe clearly knew the arts of combat. Seeing Adam stand motionless, he naturally took him for a rookie, never guessing that Adam was utterly certain of pinning down his position the instant he needed it—that he stood still now only because he had no need to move.
Another spell came flying. Adam extended his right hand, wrapped it in layer upon layer of psychokinetic protection, and caught the spell barehanded.
The spell was corrosive, as expected. It ate through the psychokinetic layers one by one and only dispersed at the eighth layer of protection. Adam sighed, then said, "Only seven degrees of power?"
Each layer of protection Adam condensed could withstand a spell of one degree of power. So long as a spell's power could not exceed his defense's limit in a single instant, Adam would take no injury. He had deliberately set out to gauge the Magefoe's spell power, and was thoroughly disappointed.
Judging by the spell's properties, it had to be a branch of some kind of curse magic. No wonder the mainstream Mages had cast it aside. Sure enough, it's very weak.
But here Adam had it wrong. Curse magic had never been any good at fighting an enemy head-on in the first place. Laru had come out to hunt Adam partly because he looked down on the mainstream Mage apprentices the academies turned out, and partly because he could no longer stand another minute in Quelina's company.
Adam's interest guttered out. He had none for the curse school at all; since the mainstream had cast this branch of magic aside, there was no value left in studying it. He said mildly, "Is this all you've got? Or are all Magefoes the likes of you?"
Laru was dumbstruck. The caution he'd felt when Adam caught the spell barehanded was flung from his mind in an instant. He roared, "Trash! What did you say! You—you and those soft little lambs—you dare look down on the great Magefoes?"
So he really is a lunatic, Adam thought. Is it years of suppression that's twisted his mind? Or does the practice of ancient magic carry a madness-inducing side effect?
"Corrosive Arrow! Corrosive Arrow!" Laru kept bellowing, loosing one identical spell after another at Adam.
Adam noticed that Laru's shouting a spell's name before casting seemed to be not merely a habit but a way of using the syllables to key his mana. He nearly laughed aloud. He could not imagine how this pack of arrogant, conceited Magefoes had gone on surviving in the Mage Plane. Did the senior Mages take them for a protected species?
"How boring," Adam said softly. The words had barely left his mouth when a blaze of radiance burst out of thin air, lighting the dark forest until every hair's breadth of it stood out. Even the controlled beasts shrank back from the light—and as for Laru, he was utterly at a loss.
"Found you."
Adam lifted a finger and triggered the spell stored in a thread: High-Pressure Water Line.
High-Pressure Water Line was among the more complex spells Mordo Academy opened to its apprentices; its rune group required eleven runes. Water appeared out of thin air before Adam and in an instant was compressed, gathering at his fingertip into a thin stream that spun at high speed. With a motion of Adam's hand it shot toward Laru at a speed the naked eye could not follow.
The high-pressure water line collided with the Corrosive Arrows and shattered them without effort; the energy spent doing it was negligible. By the time it reached Laru, its force had not diminished in the slightest.
Laru's eyes nearly burst from their sockets. He did not doubt for an instant that this spell could slice him in two as easily as breathing.
Laru frantically triggered his life-saving magic scroll. The defensive spell stored inside formed a lightless shield before him that neutralized the water line. That Lightless Shield had to be a spell of considerable tier: after taking Adam's High-Pressure Water Line head-on, it showed no sign of dissipating and still stood steady in front of Laru.
Terror and heartache mingled on Laru's face into a ridiculous expression. He roared at Adam, "My Lightless Shield! The life-saving spell a Lord Mage bestowed on me! You've ruined it! Ruined it!"
Laru might be deranged, but he was no fool. Sheltering behind the Lightless Shield, he fled at top speed into the depths of the forest. From the offhand ease with which Adam had loosed such a powerful spell, he could tell Adam was more than he could match, and regret boiled in his heart.
But there is no such thing as knowing in advance in this world. Adam looked at the broken scroll at Laru's feet with some regret—it was actually a defensive magic scroll made by a full-fledged Mage's own hand. Whole, it would have been worth a startling sum. Now it was useless.
"Come and go as you please? It's not that easy." Adam shot up from the ground and gave chase at a speed far beyond Laru's, psychokinesis working at full power, ceaselessly catching and compressing the air. Adam turned himself into a mobile artillery platform, hammering a dense, continuous barrage of wind blades at Laru.
Laru fled in wretched disorder, not even daring to split off an avatar to look back. The Lightless Shield was not fixed in place; it circled nimbly around him and took every spell.
Adam accelerated again, overtook Laru, and came down a few dozen meters in front of him. He lifted a foot and tapped it lightly against the ground. Laru's instincts screamed and he leapt aside—an instant later, a keen earth spike rose out of the earth.
It was not over. Every dodge Laru made was followed by another earth spike. He scrambled away from them and found them coming faster and faster; worse, all manner of "low-level spells" flew at him from every direction, leaving him nowhere to run.
"Damn it, damn it! This monster—are his spiritual power and mana limitless? How is that possible?" Laru took the air compressed by psychokinesis for spells Adam had cast as well, and the sheer total of Adam's spiritual power filled him with terror.
Crack.
Over more than ten minutes of pursuit, Adam wore down the Lightless Shield's mana without pause. At last, after six earth spikes struck it in quick succession, the shield gave a sharp crack and dissolved, and despair spread over Laru's face.
"A mere lamb, and you can defeat the great Magefoe..."
Adam cut him off without ceremony; he had no interest in hearing an enemy's drivel. "Magefoe isn't what you call yourselves, is it?"
Laru froze and answered on instinct: "What?"
"Taking the name your enemies give you as your own name—how ridiculous. A pack of gutter rats, and you dare call yourselves great?"
Laru roared, "You damned—"
Adam flicked a wind blade between his legs, shearing one of Laru's legs away, and said, "You're not alone, are you?"
Laru rolled on the ground clutching the wound, writhing in agony. He had never imagined Adam would simply cut his leg off like that. Shouldn't he have interrogated me first?
Adam walked toward him and stopped ten meters away. Psychokinetic tentacles bound him fast, and then Adam tossed a small fireball onto the wound—instant cauterization, immediate results.
Laru nearly passed out from the pain. He rasped, "You'll regret this. I'll make you wish you were dead!"
"How did a beaten dog dare threaten the victor?" Adam did the same to the other leg, then asked again, "Answer me."
Laru stared at him with hatred, but his eyes suddenly turned to pleading. He wormed his way toward Adam an inch at a time on his arms, whimpering, "Let me go, please don't kill me." A little closer, just a little closer—I'm finished, but I'm taking you with me!
Adam of course gave him no such chance. Curse magic was a type he had never come into contact with; though he had confirmed it was useless against a full-fledged Mage, he was still only an apprentice and could not guarantee he wouldn't fall for Laru's tricks.
"Hopeless." Adam threw out two wind blades and cut Laru to pieces, then tossed the abyss egg over onto the remains; the egg swiftly devoured every scrap of Laru's flesh and blood.
Through his spiritual power Adam sensed that once Laru was truly dead, a thick aura of negative energy rose from the corpse. The egg swallowed it straight down, and judging by the feedback from the creature inside, it was delighted.
So this is how Magefoes cultivate? Destroying life to draw in a special energy aura? Adam said to himself, and walked on deeper into the forest.
Back on that same open ground, Clark's expression abruptly changed. He drew from his robe a contract made from the skin of some unknown creature; Laru's name on it had turned gray, and then vanished.
"Laru is dead," Clark said in a low voice.
Fone, leaning against the wolf king and fiddling with a vial of horrifyingly colored potion, and Quelina, whispering alone with her parasitic monster, both looked up at once.
"Laru is dead," Clark repeated.
"Hee hee hee, is there anything strange about that idiot dying? Only a pity—my little darling so wanted to eat him."
No one paid Quelina any mind. Fone said, "Killed by a tower apprentice who walked out alone? By those fools who don't even know what combat is?"
Clark said, face dark, "Fools? No. Laru had been gone less than half an hour. To be killed in that short a time—whoever's come is no weak opponent."
"Mordo Academy still has someone that strong alive? I thought Monte Carlo's full-fledged Mages had killed them all." Fone had sensed something wrong as well, and spoke gravely.
"Laru was stupid, but his magic was very good at contaminating runic barriers. Without him, breaking Blan Town will be much slower." Clark stood up abruptly. "We can't wait any longer. We attack at once. Fone, it's up to you."
Fone nodded, then smashed every potion vial on the ground. A hallucinatory vapor spread on the breeze; the wolf king beside him lost its reason in an instant, savage red light flaring in its eyes.
"Quelina," Clark said.
Quelina raised her head and gave him a flirtatious smile. "What is it?"
"The apprentice is yours. Kill him, or keep him busy. Don't let him near Blan Town."
Clark was unmoved. He knew better than anyone how mad this woman was; even a man thinking with his crotch wouldn't be interested in her.
The parasitic monster grew out of her palm, swelling larger and larger, until at last it became a serpentine, hideous monster crouched on the ground. Quelina mounted it and vanished at speed, leaving a single sentence drifting in the wind: "Your will, Lord Clark."
Clark and Fone turned and walked into the darkness. A bad premonition had settled in Clark's heart: this harvest might not go so smoothly after all.
"Fone, if things turn bad, drop the plan and leave at once. If it comes to it, you stay behind and hold them off."
Fone's face was wholly hidden in his black robe. At those words he grinned soundlessly and answered, "Of course, my master."