Chapter 312 : Chapter 312
Chapter 312. Some Things You Only Understand by Seeing
A land lined with rows of charred trees.
Crackle.
From branches where the fire had not yet gone out, sparks flew.
They fluttered aimlessly before falling onto the damp ground.
Hiss.
Scattered across the ground where the sparks died were broken and twisted weapons.
Swords, spears, shields, knuckles, gauntlets, staves.
Countless weapons lay embedded in the earth, abandoned by their owners.
Lillian Merchent’s world.
Her Unique Magic had transformed the stage into a battlefield.
And that was not all.
-This is…?
The dragon lifted its head and sniffed the air.
There was a smell.
Though it was clearly a created world, the air felt different from before.
The stench of something burning.
The scent of rusted weapons.
Only a handful of mages could recreate space with such realism.
It resembled the phenomenon that accompanied a demon’s descent upon the world.
-Is this your domain?
Amid the thick black smoke, Lillian stood.
“Welcome to my battlefield.”
She smiled brightly at the dragon.
***
“So she has brought out Song of the Battlefield.”
Arteo spoke as he stepped onto the sticky ground.
Radel looked around in fascination.
Magic that twisted time and space through sheer will.
Every sensation he saw and felt was real.
“I have never seen a wide-area spell of this scale.”
“Of course not. There would be no need to kill students.”
Arteo looked up at the dark crimson sky.
As the Second Prince, he himself had once been Professor Lillian’s student, just a few years ago.
He recalled the day he had first witnessed this magic.
It had been when Arteo was still a second-year.
A large-scale magical beast subjugation in the Marcellent mountain range.
Magical beasts had descended from the mountains and attacked Marcellent.
Cyclopes, orcs, goblins, even ogres.
To stop their horde, the mages of Marcellent had willingly taken up their staves.
At the time, Arteo had been in the Marcellent mountains together with Academy students.
Most of the battles had gone smoothly, but there had been many dangerous moments.
There was even a time when they thought they had been completely surrounded, with no way out.
‘Your Highness!’
‘You must evade!’
At that desperate moment, Professor Lillian appeared and swung her staff.
Song of the Battlefield.
The land where the magical beasts stood was stained crimson.
With a mere gesture of her hand, they screamed and melted away.
-Kraaah!
-Kiiik!
The club held by an orc.
The dagger held by a goblin.
Their bodies collapsed, and their weapons tumbled onto the ground.
Only then did Arteo understand the scenery Professor Lillian had summoned.
Countless abandoned weapons scattered across blood-red earth.
They were the weapons her defeated foes had clutched until their final moments.
Remembering that day, Arteo murmured,
“That spell is made of killing intent.”
Radel also recalled the killing intent Professor Lillian had shown them.
On the first day of Combat Magic class, the killing intent she had directed at her students.
She had not recited a single spell, yet the atmosphere of the classroom had changed instantly.
Professor Lillian could move the surrounding mana merely by deciding to kill.
Gulp.
Radel swallowed unconsciously.
What kind of realm did one have to surpass to become a mage of that level?
As Radel tensed, a dry voice reached him.
“Watch carefully.”
It was Leon.
He was focusing all his senses on the dragon and Professor Lillian.
To the naked eye, it looked like the two were simply facing off.
But to someone with ‘Dragon’s Blessing,’ it appeared entirely different.
Within the suffocating silence, the mana of the two beings was swirling like a raging storm.
Flinch.
The tips of Leon’s fingers trembled slightly.
The dragon’s Magic Power he had sealed away was stirring.
‘Go back in.’
Leon forced his Magic Power down with all his might.
He had no intention of releasing that ominous thing.
That resolve only hardened after seeing the dragon.
If he lost control of his Ability and went berserk, he would lose himself and end up like that monstrosity.
‘Do you think I would allow that?’
Losing one’s self meant death as a mage.
Such a trivial ending was not what he desired.
He had not yet seen the end of magic.
‘I, Leon Silvert Cretian, must survive here.’
And to do that, that detestable man behind him had to grow stronger.
Leon tossed out a curt remark.
“You need to know to see, but some things you only understand by seeing.”
Radel was momentarily speechless.
“Leon, you…”
Giving magical advice without even being asked.
It felt like just yesterday he had said he would kill him…
Radel could not help but feel moved.
“So you are finally going to look out for me now?”
Radel looked at Leon with shining eyes.
To Leon, it was a gaze that sent chills down his spine.
“…Shut up and watch what is in front of you.”
Leon spat the words out and turned his gaze forward.
For a brief moment, the raging flow of mana tilted to one side.
It was Professor Lillian gaining the upper hand.
Not missing the fleeting opening, she parted her lips.
“Come down.”
Her voice echoed across the battlefield.
At the same time, her finger sliced downward through the air.
Rumble.
From above to below.
Rain began to fall.
Shhhhhh.
Arteo recognized that dark crimson rain.
He had seen it before.
Hiss!
-Kraaah!
The dragon roared.
Holes opened wherever the raindrops touched.
Rain that erased existence.
The ground was dyed blood-red.
***
‘Lord Leviathan!’
Leviathan’s servant, Kier Iern, sensed his master’s peril.
He wanted to rush to him immediately, but enemies blocked his path.
Kier twisted his sword and blocked the attack from the right.
Clang!
An apprentice holy knight of the Supreme Deity Order deflected his blade and retreated.
But the enemy’s assault was not over.
The moment Kier fended off Gusto, he raised his left hand.
In it was a shield formed through sorcery.
Whoosh!
Flames flying in from the left were blocked and extinguished by the shield.
“Not bad.”
It was that troublesome princess with the irritating Ability.
While blocking the torrent of flames, he quickly looked up at the sky.
By now, the sky should have been completely shrouded in Lord Leviathan’s demonic energy.
Yet everything had gone wrong.
The demonic minions he had summoned by sacrificing executives were being erased by the principal, Cromwell, and the Inquisitors.
Now even he himself was in danger.
‘Now even Lord Leviathan is in danger.’
From the beginning, it had been an incomplete descent.
A ritual forced through without gathering all the Keys of Seal.
They had succeeded in corrupting the Fourth Princess, but far more sacrifices were needed to fully seize control of the body.
For now, Lord Leviathan was trapped within it.
Unable to use the dragon’s power, unable to use Lord Leviathan’s own power.
Clang!
“Why not give up and surrender?”
“That is right. Do not waste your strength. The plan has failed anyway.”
At the words thrown out by Gusto and Inette, Kier ground his teeth.
“It is not over yet.”
Seeing the bloodshot fury in Kier’s eyes, Inette stepped back in disbelief.
“Why are you going this far? Do you not know what happens when you summon demons?”
This was Inette’s first time truly fighting heretics.
Demon worshipers.
Those who had abandoned being human.
They would not hesitate to offer even those around them as sacrifices.
For power.
Or for authority.
Yet all that awaited them in return was hell.
Why go that far?
It was only natural for Inette to wonder.
“When you die, you go to hell as payment for selling your soul. Is that really what you want?”
“Hoo…”
Kier suppressed the rage surging within him.
Losing one’s composure in battle dulled judgment.
Still, he could not resist saying something to this ignorant princess.
“What would someone like you possibly know?”
Yes, what would she know?
Estina’s face flashed through his mind.
He had approached her to offer her as a sacrifice, yet no one in this world understood Estina better than Kier did.
“An emperor for a father, a wise mother, a powerful Ability, a strong family, endless wealth. Is there anything you lack?”
As Estina’s follower, Kier had seen the circumstances of the other royals.
For someone like Inette, the Seventh Princess, there was nothing lacking.
“There are people who are wrong from the moment they are born.”
Even as he said it, Kier felt a bitter taste rise within him.
“People for whom living itself is hell.”
Living was hell.
To him, life was no different from hell.
A child born from his father’s affair.
His very existence was a sin, and his being alive was someone else’s sorrow.
Kier thought,
Being born is a sin.
If life itself carried sin, then that sin was him.
An existence whose death would make no one grieve.
That was who he was.
So he wished for the world to end.
“What?”
Inette’s expression stiffened.
Gusto’s, however, grew calmer.
“No one is wrong from birth.”
He had heard such words countless times.
That life given by the Supreme Deity carried no sin.
But what had his reality been?
A laugh escaped Kier’s lips.
“Heh.”
And the laughter spread across his face.
“Khahaha!”
Kier reaffirmed reality.
Yes, the world truly deserved to end.
And he possessed the power to make it so.
A power he had obtained with his own hands.
The only thing he possessed.
The power he gained by selling his soul.
Only the resurrection of Lord Leviathan, who had granted him that power, could bring him a new world.
Kier hesitated no longer.
Clatter!
He dropped his sword.
Thud!
Then he drove his hand into his own heart.
It happened before Gusto and Inette could stop him.
His still-beating heart was clenched in his hand.
“Leviathan.”
As he recited the chant, the contract sigil hidden on Kier’s abdomen shone.
The emblem of Leviathan.
“I offer myself as the sacrifice.”
He squeezed his heart and whispered,
“Descend upon this world.”
Inette screamed,
“No!”
***
Smoke rose from the tattered body of the dragon.
-Grrr.
Its torn wings drooped limply, and its horns were broken.
“Huff, huff.”
Professor Lillian gasped for breath after completing the spell.
It was magic finished by pouring out every last drop of her Magic Power.
She had acted confident before the dragon, but even for her, casting Unique Magic was an enormous gamble.
Still, the spell had succeeded.
As a single mage, she had staked everything to fight the dragon alone.
“This should be enough, right?”
Lillian whispered to herself.
But the peace did not last long.
Saaaah.
The ground, soaked in dark crimson rain, began to darken further.
A dark abyss.
Black energy spread across the land, undulating.
“…This is.”
Lillian looked down.
She was now standing atop a black lake.
Leviathan’s domain.
From the abyss, waves arced upward and reached the dragon.
Squirm.
The dragon moved.
Watching the scene, Radel whispered toward the rear.
“Now.”
Nod.
Everyone who had been waiting for this moment moved at once.