Chapter 187: The Necromancer’s Frustration.

Llewellyn, the pirates’ second-in-command, stood at the bow of a large assault boat with a blade of grass between his teeth. At the sight of the big cargo ship protected by a shield of light, he scoffed.

“Maiza’s useless. He can’t even stop one cargo ship. What’s he afraid of, a few low-level mages?”

He spat out the grass and gave an order to the lackey behind him. “Pass the word. All boats are to surround it. Ready the fishing spears and break through its defenses.”

“Yes, sir!”

The lackey raised a horn and blew hard. “Wooo—”

Different notes signaled different commands. At the sound of the horn, the assault boats shifted formation and surrounded the cargo ship from both sides. Three-pronged fishing spears shot toward it like a rain of arrows. More than a thousand struck the shield of light at once, making it flare so brightly it hurt to look at.

Unhurried, Angel raised his magic staff and reinforced the shield.

This time, he cast at the level of a Senior Mage. Ace and Sperien were busy discussing how to deal with the necromancer, after all. They had no time to watch what everyone else was doing.

Heh heh heh.

The Little Fairy chuckled to himself.

As long as no one noticed, he could adjust the strength of his magic however he pleased.

And if someone asked? He would play dumb.

With Angel’s magic sustaining it, the shield held firm. Every one of the pirates’ spears failed to get through.

“Hey, more boats! Watch this—”

Dixio eagerly cast a fireball spell. He rattled off the incantation, and fireballs streaked toward the large assault boats like meteors.

The pirates’ best fighters had experience dealing with mages. Their boats were fitted with defensive arrays inlaid with magic stones. They activated the mechanisms, and the arrays stopped the fireballs.

“Huh?” Dixio stared. They had blocked his attack? Damn it!

“Hahaha!” Budeno laughed at him. “Dixio, can you do it or not?”

Dixio made a face at him and poured more power into his attack. He refused to believe he could not break through the pirates’ defenses.

A much larger fireball slammed into an assault boat. Boom! The defensive array shattered, and flames spread rapidly.

The pirates immediately changed formation, steering clear of where the fireballs were falling and circling toward the stern.

Kumandi had been waiting there. Without a trace of expression, he unleashed wind magic even more powerful than Dixio’s fireballs upon the assault boats.

The pirates who thought they could attack from behind were caught by a sudden gust. Boats overturned, men went flying, and the river filled with still more flailing pirates.

“Here we go!”

Amanda and Budeno joined forces. Whirlpools and waterspouts appeared together, throwing the Itongli River into turmoil.

Standing atop his skeletal magical bird, Oguta watched the Graves family cargo ship with cool detachment, assessing the seven mages. They were young and poorly equipped, yet their attacks were remarkably powerful. He frowned deeply.

By their appearance alone, the seven youths were plainly Mage Apprentices. But the spells they cast were far beyond the level of Intermediate Mages. Perhaps they were stronger still.

Were they disguising themselves?

Oguta’s face darkened, malice flashing in his eyes.

Whoever they were, they had dared to run wild in the pirates’ territory. He would make sure they never left.

He would turn those reckless mages into living specimens.

Oguta glanced at the assault boats, more than half of which had been lost, and cursed their crews as useless. If he had not needed more subjects for his experiments and money to fund his research, he would never have bothered working with them.

“Lipo, down. Get close to that cargo ship,” he ordered his skeletal bird.

The creature gave an eerie shriek, partly folded its wings, and dived. As it neared the cargo ship, it stretched out its talons and struck the shield of light.

Bang!

A deafening blast sounded above the ship, as though something had exploded. The hull rocked violently. Belowdecks, the sailors huddled together, trembling with fear.

Shu Li steadied himself and turned to the blond boy. “The necromancer’s attacking! Ace, let’s go!”

“Right.” Ace raised his magic staff and began an incantation for flight.

Shu Li followed. As their spells took effect, wind gathered beneath their feet and they shot into the air.

“Kumandi, you’re in command of the fight aboard the ship!” Shu Li flew toward the stern to hand over command. Kumandi signaled that he had heard. Shu Li and Ace then flew beyond the shield of light and climbed into the sky to confront the necromancer on his skeletal bird.

Oguta narrowed his eyes as he looked them over with contempt. He took in their poor-quality staffs and the Mage Apprentice badges on their chests, then sneered. “I thought those old men at the Central Court had sent mages to cause trouble. So it’s just a pack of apprentices who don’t know their place. Boys, surrender quietly if you have any sense. Otherwise, you’ll find out what it feels like to become puppets.”

Shu Li looked the arrogant, sinister necromancer over without fear.

White hair, a face full of wrinkles, vicious eyes, and a deathly air. He wore a black mage’s robe and held a high-grade staff. His whole body, like the skeletal bird beneath him, gave off a dense aura of dark magic.

To tell the truth, what Shu Li had gone through as a cub had left him with the tiniest bit of a fear of necromancers.

When he learned before their departure that one was backing the pirates, he had wondered if he might lose his nerve. Now that he was facing Oguta, he felt no such fear.

Clearly, he had grown stronger. His fear of necromancers had faded.

“Hey, old man. Are all necromancers as ugly as you?” Shu Li asked in an innocent voice, his gaze guileless. “Your whole face creases up when you smile. Is that what happens when your skin gets loose with age?”

He finished with a broad smile that showed off a neat row of white teeth. It was enough to make anyone furious.

“You little brat! You’re dead!” Oguta stamped his foot. His skeletal bird shrieked and charged Shu Li, enormous talons aimed straight at his head.

Shu Li was ready. The whirlwind beneath his feet turned, carrying him nimbly out of the way. He raised his staff and smoothly recited a wood magic incantation.

“Great Wood God Oroman Pass, gather the elements of wood for me and bind this poor skeletal bird with your strongest vines!”

He skipped the customary introduction. As he waved his staff, he tossed seeds with his left hand. Green light enveloped them, and they instantly grew into thick, tough vines that lashed fiercely toward the skeletal bird.

Oguta sneered and steered the bird aside. But on his other flank, the blond Mage Apprentice had already cast a wind spell and sent deadly blades of air toward him.

Attacked from both sides, Oguta remained unmoved. His skeletal bird climbed sharply, and he began casting dark magic.

“Dark God Miloga Hodehe, grant me the power of darkness to devour my enemies’ souls. Let them fall into hell forever and become—”

Before he could finish, the vines he had dodged changed direction as though they had minds of their own. They caught up to the skeletal bird, wrapping around it and squeezing with enough force to crush bone.

The bird lurched sideways and lost its balance. Caught off guard, Oguta’s incantation broke off.

Shu Li and Ace exchanged a glance and seized their chance. Wind blades whistled through the air like knives, striking the skeletal bird without mercy.

The fifth-rank creature was torn apart under their combined attack. Its bones shattered into countless pieces and scattered.

It happened so quickly that Oguta did not react until the bird was gone beneath him.

He roared in anger and pointed his staff. “Bind!”

With no time for a full incantation, he could only issue the brief command. The spell was much weaker as a result.

Shu Li knew the weakening effects of dark magic well. He cast a light spell and easily broke the bindings on himself and Ace.

Oguta seethed.

That black-haired boy could use multiple kinds of magic... No. The strength he had shown was beyond any Mage Apprentice!

His instincts in battle and the power of his spells were far greater than an apprentice should possess.

Without his skeletal bird, the necromancer could not fly. He began to fall. He pulled another skeletal bird from his storage pouch, saving himself from being dashed against the river.

Shu Li had suspected Oguta possessed more than one puppet. The sight of the second bird confirmed it.

“Be careful, Ace!” he warned his human classmate.

“I will.” Ace kept fighting alongside him.

Shu Li gave him a signal, and they tried the same tactic again: Ace attacked with wind blades while Shu Li threw seeds that sprouted into vines to entangle the skeletal bird.

Oguta sneered and tossed out an attack spell scroll.

The scroll unfurled, releasing a cloud of black mist that surged toward Shu Li and Ace.

Shu Li had to change tactics. He drove the wind beneath his feet and escaped the mist’s reach.

While they retreated, Oguta began another incantation. “Dark God Miloga Hodehe, grant me the power of darkness to devour my enemies—”

This time he had barely reached the middle of it when the skeletal bird beneath him suddenly caught fire.

Oguta’s expression changed. He had no choice but to leap from the bird and watch it burn to ashes within seconds. Once again, he had nothing to stand on and plummeted toward the river.

Shu Li, who had silently cast the fire spell that destroyed the bird, flew over to Ace and gave a little cry of feigned surprise. “Oh! This necromancer is terrible! His skeletal bird caught fire all by itself!”

Ace nodded in agreement. “It seems the Goddess of Luck is on our side.”

“Of course! We’re the good guys!” Shu Li grinned. “Come on—let’s catch him while he’s down!”

Oguta had never suffered such humiliation in his life. His enemies had interrupted his incantations twice. Worse, the two magical bird puppets he had painstakingly raised were gone: one torn apart, the other inexplicably reduced to ashes.

He surfaced and glared darkly at the two boys hovering above him.

After those exchanges, he was certain they were no Mage Apprentices.

They were stronger than he was. If he fought them head-on, he would be the one to suffer.

Oguta valued his life. If he could not win, he would find a way to escape.

As long as he survived, he could think of a thousand ways to take revenge.

As for the pirates being routed around him... they could die for all he cared.

Oguta sank beneath the surface and swam under an overturned boat. In the small pocket of air beneath its hull, he quietly recited an invisibility spell.

His body turned transparent.

Now invisible, he left the shelter of the boat, avoided the fighting, and swam toward the bank.

Shu Li and Ace flew down over the water, only to find that their target had vanished. They extended their senses across that stretch of river. They detected pirates everywhere, but no necromancer.

“He escaped!” Shu Li said in surprise.

Ace glanced in one direction. “He is an Intermediate Magister, after all.”

Shu Li pressed his lips together. “Right. Good thing we got the upper hand straight away and made him think twice about fighting us.”

“Since he’s fled, the pirates have lost their strongest ally,” Ace said. “Our priority now is to get the cargo ship safely into Duke Derek’s territory.”

“Right!” Shu Li hesitated no longer and flew back to the ship with him.

The other members of the Light Squad breathed sighs of relief when they saw the two return unharmed.

From the deck, Shu Li saw that his friends had wrecked most of the pirates’ large assault boats. He called out, energized, “Everyone, let’s finish this lot and get out of here!”

“Yeah!”

“Got it!”

The Little Fairies and the young dragon fought with growing enthusiasm, flinging spells as though magic cost them nothing. The unfortunate pirates had barely managed to climb back aboard their boats when they were thrown into the water again.

The Itongli River heaved like a stormy sea. However strong the pirates were as swimmers, many could not survive it.

Maiza and Llewellyn, the pirate leaders, abandoned their men amid the devastation. Each scrambled for shore as fast as he could and fled, stumbling over himself in his haste.

The pirates had been cleared from the Mora stretch. Bodies and the wreckage of assault boats floated everywhere.

With nothing left to stop them, Shu Li gave the order. The cargo ship raised its sails and set off again. Wind and water magic drove it swiftly out of that deadly stretch of river, leaving the destruction behind.

The sailors on the ships behind them, who had witnessed everything, were stunned. One captain recovered quickly and urged his crew to row hard and pass through the blockade.

The steel-bladed barrier had been broken in one place, leaving a gap wide enough for a large ship.

The captains of the other ships saw their chance and followed suit.

If they did not flee now, when would they?