Chapter 24

“I finally found you, you little shit!”

The playful smile and composure he had were gone. His face was twisted with rage, and a dangerous, hostile glint full of killing intent shone from his eyes. His hands trembled as he gripped his staff tightly and shook it toward the ground.

Ring.

The shadows under his feet wriggled and widened as wriggling black tendrils came out of them, accompanied by black smoke. Following another shake of his staff and the chime of the bells, those black tendrils stopped wriggling and stiffened, pointing at us at the same time.

“Eww, disgusting. As expected of a Demon Worshipper.”

“Be careful of those tendrils, Lirael. Those things can move very quickly.”

“So the cause of the hole in your shoulder was that?”

“Yeah.”

“By the way, Hwi.”

“What?”

“Why is he so angry?”

I was about to answer her, but the Dark Mage, who was standing there while huffing and trembling with rage, cut in.

“You bastard… How dare you… HOW DARE YOU BURN MY FACE!”

“…You burned his face?”

“Yep. Took him to the ground when he let his guard down, mounted over him, and blasted a Fireball inside his mouth.”

“Crazy bastard. No wonder he’s pissed.”

“Thank you for the compliment. More importantly, can you still use Arianrhod’s leftover power?”

“I can, but purifying and healing you already took most of the traces of Lady Arianrhod’s power.”

“And we can’t escape either.”

The only entrance to this cave was through the path behind the Dark Mage. Even if we somehow managed to get past him, I would need to crawl to get out of this cave because the area around the entrance was small.

“There’s no other choice but to take him down here, then.”

“Hoooohh…”

I took a deep breath through my nose and slowly exhaled through my mouth, trying to calm myself and prepare for what was about to come. My body tensed as my feet shifted into position, and mana began to circulate through my body.

‘My body has fully recovered, my mana is replenished, and I got even stronger after Lirael’s purification. Also, unlike before, someone is here to back me up.’

“Let’s do this!”

“DIEEEE!!”

Ring!

Black tendrils shot toward us.

“Skate!”

Lirael dodged to the left, and I quickly dodged to the right, attempting to pincer him from both sides. The tendrils missed us and smashed the stone altar into pieces.

‘If I use fire inside the cave like this, I will risk getting suffocated.’

“Rock Bullet.”

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

I kept skating around him, using the rocks and pillars for cover as I repositioned myself and continued pressing my attacks.

Ring!

The Dark Mage’s black tendrils bunched up into a protective wall, blocking my Rock Bullets. Then, thin beams of silver light shot at his back.

The Dark Mage immediately used his tendrils to block them, but to no avail. The beams pierced straight through and grazed his waist.

“Tch, I missed.”

Even though her attack missed, it created an opening. The Dark Mage looked visibly shocked as his black tendrils were pierced through so easily.

“Rock Bullet!”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Another bunch of black tendrils rose up and blocked my attack.

‘Damn it, he blocked my attack so easily.’

I could attack freely, but the Dark Mage could defend against my attacks easily. On the other hand, Lirael’s attack, using the last traces of the Moon Goddess Arianrhod’s power, was effective, most likely because of its unique property of dispelling and purifying demonic power. But it seemed that Lirael couldn’t use it freely because there wasn’t much of it left.

‘Then I need to somehow make an opening so Lirael can finish him in one go.’

I continued to skate around him, shooting Rock Bullets whenever I found an opening, but he blocked every attack with ease.

“Is shooting rocks all you can do, you brat!?”

‘He’s getting used to my attacks.’

‘That’s good.’

I couldn’t help but smirk a little. The more he got used to my attacks, the better. I could use that.

‘For now, I need to break his stance.’

I stretched both arms toward him and circulated my mana faster than before.

“Gust!”

FWOOOOSSHH!

A powerful gust of wind slammed into the Dark Mage from the side.

He staggered and was pushed back several steps, but several tendrils immediately stabbed into the ground, anchoring him in place.

‘Even this doesn’t work, huh?’

‘That’s fine.’

I immediately skated toward him.

“Rock Bullet!”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Three Rock Bullets shot toward him, but this time, I changed their trajectories.

Instead of flying straight, they curved toward his legs.

Ring!

The tendrils instantly shifted from protecting his body to blocking his legs.

‘Fast.’

Not only were the tendrils fast, but the Dark Mage’s reaction speed and control over them were impressive.

All three Rock Bullets were blocked.

“Annoying little shit!”

I skated past him and fired another Rock Bullet at his back.

BANG!

More tendrils rose to block it.

Then—

SHIIIIING!

A silver beam shot at him from his blind spot.

The Dark Mage twisted his body just in time, narrowly avoiding a fatal hit, but the beam still grazed his arm.

“Tch! You damn bug! Don’t interfere!”

Several black tendrils shot toward Lirael, but she easily dodged them while flying around the cave.

‘Nice. He’s getting even more pissed off.’

The more someone lost their composure, the more likely they were to make mistakes. That fact was true no matter who you were.

With Lirael and me pincering him, he had to choose between defending against my attacks or hers. I couldn’t pierce his defense, but I could keep him occupied by being, borrowing his language, an annoying little shit.

And then I noticed something.

‘The wounds from Lirael’s attacks aren’t healing.’

When I blew up a Fireball inside his mouth and burned his face, the Dark Mage almost immediately regenerated.

But the wounds from Lirael’s attacks remained. Even the shallow grazes weren’t healing.

‘So he noticed it too.’

His attention shifted toward Lirael, and that was exactly what I wanted.

“Mist!”

Fwooooosh!

A thick cloud of mist quickly filled the area around the Dark Mage, blocking his vision.

“You think this trick will work again, you bastard!? Gust!”

FWOOOOSSHH!

The Dark Mage immediately cleared the mist with his own Gust.

“You think mere beginner magic could stop me!?”

The moment he looked back at me, I was already waiting.

My right arm was stretched toward him.

Mana circulated rapidly from my heart.

A massive, cone-shaped Rock Bullet had already formed in front of my hand.

WHIRRRRRR!

It spun faster and faster, producing a high-pitched screech as the surface of the rock began to blur.

The Dark Mage’s expression changed.

“ROCK BULLET!”

BANG!

The projectile shot forward, producing a shockwave.

“Tch!”

The Dark Mage gathered his tendrils and formed another wall.

Ring!

The black tendrils wrapped around the Rock Bullet, stopping it in its tracks.

But he didn’t know.

This wasn’t the same Rock Bullet I had been firing all this time.

It was the improved version of the spell I used when I sparred with Master Elara back at the Cheon Clan, a Rock Bullet with a Fireball sealed inside. I had simply made the rock shell bigger and harder, giving me more room to pack a Fireball inside, then spun it as fast as possible.

The Dark Mage’s tendrils tightened around the projectile.

“HAHAHA! You really think making it bigger will—”

“Explode.”

His eyes widened.

KABOOOOOOM!

A huge explosion shook the entire cave the moment my Rock Bullet struck his black tendrils. The Dark Mage’s figure was blown away toward the other side of the cave by the sheer shockwave created by the explosion.

“Now, Lirael!”

“Die, you creepy Demon Worshipper!”

SHIIIIIIIING!!!

Lirael quickly gathered as much power as she could and shot a silver beam of moonlight at the Dark Mage. It struck him directly in the chest, blasting a hole twice the size of my fist through him.

Silence filled the place. Both Lirael and I kept quiet, keeping our eyes on the Dark Mage until the dust settled.

“D-Did we do it?”

“Don’t say that. Don’t you know that it’s bad luck, Hwi?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a superstition among the spirits that if you say something like that after you’ve just defeated your opponent, your opponent will only get back up and turn stronger. Activating their final form.”

“What the hell kind of nonsense is that?”

Lirael opened her mouth to answer, but a movement from the Dark Mage’s body immediately turned our attention back to him.

“…Did you see him moving, Lirael?”

“Yeah.”

Cold sweat ran down my face as my eyes remained fixed on the Dark Mage’s body.

The hole from Lirael’s attack was still there in his chest, with blood continuing to flow from the wound.

‘He shouldn’t be able to survive this.’

Even a graze from Lirael’s beam had been enough to prevent his wounds from regenerating. There was no way he should still be alive after taking a direct hit through the chest.

THUD.

The Dark Mage’s body moved, and both of us fell silent.

Slowly, the Dark Mage’s body pushed itself back up from the ground.

“…”

Lirael and I kept staring at him.

The movement of his body was so strange. It looked like someone who had never played with a string doll before was trying to control one for the first time. Every movement was completely unnatural, like something else was controlling his body.

‘What the hell?’

While I was wondering what was happening, black mist started appearing around the Dark Mage’s body, and the black tendrils rose once more from the shadows beneath his feet.

Only this time, I could feel that the tendrils were thicker and stronger than before.

The tendrils began to move.

Some of them wrapped around his arms. Another wrapped around his neck, while others coiled around both of his legs and his body.

The tendrils basically turned into armor.

A disgusting-looking armor.

Once the tendrils finished covering his entire body, they started releasing even more of that black mist.

FWOOOOOSH…

Then a panicked voice came from Lirael.

“Hwi! Get away from that mist!”

“Got it!”

I immediately jumped backward, making sure I was out of the black mist’s range. I didn’t know what it was, but my instinct told me that it was dangerous.

“Lirael, what is that mist?”

“Miasma. When demonic power gets thick enough, it can be seen as that black mist.”

Just a bit of that energy had already poisoned me and worsened my injuries before. If the concentration of demonic energy was thick enough to be seen by the naked eye like this, then this was very bad news.

“Here it comes, Hwi.”