Chapter 297 - 290: Mopping Up
Chapter 297: Chapter 290: Mopping Up
Victor stood in the half-collapsed hall of the workshop.
Dust drifted down from the vaulted ceiling.
The Level 4 Golem, the "Tieyan Judicator," lay amidst the ruins, now nothing more than a useless pile of scrap metal.
Fear and helplessness squeezed his heart, forcing him to use his Mechanical Mind to block out the feelings.
That Second-level Black Wizard and the Mechanical Tyrannosaurus Beast were simply beings they could not hope to contend with.
There was still no reply on the comms channel.
Victor stared at his personal terminal, not daring to call Allen himself.
He was terrified of hearing that Allen was dead, which would mean he was next.
BEEP.
The comms channel flashed with a green light.
Allen’s voice came through, his tone level.
"Victor, the crisis is over."
Victor froze. He lurched closer to the terminal.
"What did you say? The Black Wizard..."
"Dead," Allen’s voice came through, crystal clear. "Along with that Tyrannosaurus of his. They’ve been reduced to scattered remains."
Victor shot bolt upright, his exhaustion vanishing in an instant. He burst out laughing, completely forgetting his aristocratic decorum.
"Haha! Well done, Allen!"
Victor’s laughter echoed through the half-ruined workshop. "I knew it! I knew I wasn’t wrong about you! You’ve more than lived up to my expectations as an ally, Victor Iron Flame’s chosen partner! This is absolutely... the very limit of what a Level 1 Golem Wizard can achieve! No, you’ve surpassed that limit!"
He paused, his tone growing emotional. "With your strength, you’ve proven that it’s not just bloodlines and powerful families that can produce a true genius. To be able to kill two Second-level Wizards... you are, without a doubt, the strongest Level 1 Golem Wizard in the history of the Seven Towers Alliance! Bar none!"
Victor meant it when he called him the "strongest Level 1 Golem Wizard." In his eyes, it was the highest praise he could possibly bestow upon Allen.
Allen nodded. ’He had to admit,’ he thought, ’he really had been badass this time.’
"It’s a shame I didn’t get to see the fight. But the workshop is severely damaged and all the production lines are down. I have to start on the repairs immediately."
Victor quickly steered the conversation back to what concerned him most. He winced, a pained look in his eyes. "That damn Black Wizard destroyed my ’Tieyan Judicator,’ too. Still, since he’s dead, we can start everything over."
After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Allen ended the call.
He glanced around. The landscape was a scene of utter devastation.
Having lost their power supply, the Golems had shut down en masse, becoming rows of cold, steel statues.
Allen walked up to one of the Peacekeepers and reached out, stroking its cold, metal shell.
"You all did more than enough."
Now, it was his turn.
Allen closed his eyes.
Within his Sea of Spirit, the Core Matrix unceasingly generated a surging tide of Magic Power.
He held up his right hand. On one finger, he wore a trophy from a past battle.
[Ring of Fleeting Shadow]
[Effect: Allows for one directional spatial jump up to 500 kilometers away. Cooldown: 10 minutes. Uses: 3 per day. Absorbs ambient Magic Power to self-recharge.]
Coordinates set: One hundred kilometers due west.
A ripple spread through the air, and the dizzying sensation of spatial displacement lasted but an instant.
Allen’s right foot was already touching down on different soil.
A wave of heat washed over him.
Before him was an immense crater, ten kilometers in diameter. The inside of the basin was filled with a pure white, crystalline powder.
On the stony desert surrounding the basin, over a hundred aberrant Synthetic Beasts were still gathered.
These Magical Beasts had been charging alongside the Mechanical Tyrannosaurus Beast.
The Black Wizard’s sudden death had severed the mental control he held over them.
They had now descended into a frenzy.
Several giant, three-tailed lizards were tearing into a heavily wounded, black-armored rhinoceros.
The blatant spatial fluctuation drew their attention.
Over a hundred pairs of crimson eyes fixed on Allen at once.
Roars erupted from all sides.
The pack abandoned its infighting. The beasts charged toward Allen, their pounding limbs making the ground tremble violently.
Allen remained expressionless.
His feet left the ground.
He activated [High-level Flying Magic].
Allen’s body rose at a steady pace, stopping fifty meters above the ground.
His black Apprentice Robe whipped about in the hot wind.
Allen gazed down at the tide of beasts surging toward him from below.
Seven mental sub-threads began running at full power simultaneously.
Threads one, two, and three.
[Craftsman’s Hand].
Six enormous, invisible hands made of Force Fields materialized in mid-air.
Allen’s current Magic Power output allowed the hands to expand to a size of ten meters each.
One of the giant lizards at the front leaped into the air, opening its massive, fang-filled maw to snap at Allen.
A Force Field hand descended from above.
It precisely gripped the lizard’s head.
The five fingers of the Force Field hand closed.
CRUNCH.
The sickening sound of cracking bone echoed out. The giant lizard’s skull and cervical spine were crushed instantly. Its body went limp. With a casual flick, the Force Field hand hurled the corpse into the pack behind it, knocking over three or four other Magical Beasts.
The other five Force Field hands shot into the pack.
A black-armored rhinoceros with extremely tough defenses was in mid-charge.
A Force Field hand clamped down on the rhino’s back, its terrifying strength gripping the spinal column directly before yanking it upward.
The entire spine was brutally ripped out, killing the rhino instantly.
Another Force Field hand formed its fingers into the shape of a crane’s beak, pierced straight through a demonic wolf’s chest, and crushed its heart.
Threads four and five.
[Magic Missile], [Magic Energy Burst].
Pure, azure Magic Power coalesced around Allen.
Dozens of missiles, double their usual size and incredibly dense, shot out with a whistle, leaving glowing trails in their wake.
None missed their mark.
Each missile struck a Magical Beast squarely in the head.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!—
The rapid-fire explosions blended into a continuous roar.
The skulls of the Magical Beasts were utterly fragile before the missiles, each one condensed from an immense amount of Magic Power.
Gore flew through the air. Headless bodies stumbled forward a few steps on pure momentum before collapsing heavily to the ground.
Thread six.
[Magic Pulse].
Invisible ripples radiated outward from Allen in concentric circles.
Several mutated venomous snakes with cloaking abilities were lurking in the shadows, attempting to draw near.
The pulse swept over them.
Red dots immediately lit up on Allen’s retinal display.
He activated [Directional Magic Pulse].
Magic Power was compressed into high-density singularities.
Several beams of pulsed energy shot from Allen’s fingertips, instantly piercing the snakes’ heads. They left several deep, charred holes in the ground that seemed bottomless.
Thread seven.
Maintain [High-Level Magic Shield Technique].
Several ranged Magical Beasts spat out ghastly green balls of acid and dark red fireballs.
The attacks struck the triple-layered Magic Shield protecting Allen’s body.
The surface of the shield rippled faintly.
The damage was completely absorbed.
A massacre.
This was a one-sided slaughter.
Allen floated through the air, flying slowly. His hands made no unnecessary movements.
His eyes were cold and focused.
The terrifying power of multi-threaded spellcasting was on full display.
Control, single-target instant-kills, area-of-effect coverage, reconnaissance, and defense.
Five different types of operations were being executed simultaneously, with no lag or conflict between them.
The pent-up frustration he had suppressed for months was slowly being purged from his body with every outpouring of Magic Power.
His breathing remained steady.
But with every burst of Magic Power, another twisted life was extinguished.
「Ten minutes later.」
The stony desert had fallen deathly silent.
All one hundred twenty-seven modified Magical Beasts had been reduced to mangled corpses.
Streams of red blood pooled and seeped into the arid earth.
Allen slowly descended.
He landed on the blood-soaked ground, the soles of his shoes making a sticky squelch.
He paid the corpses no mind.
He walked straight toward the crystalline basin ahead.
A few kilometers west of the basin’s center was the spot where the Second-level Black Wizard and the Mechanical Tyrannosaurus Beast had died.
All matter there had been turned to dust by the power of the Crystal Bomb.
It was impossible to tell which pile of dust had once been the Second-level Black Wizard whose name he never even learned.