Chapter 43
Chapter 43: Magic Power Storm
The change that occurred in Annie made even the fiend grow wary. As the temperature dropped, the magical pressure she emitted grew stronger and stronger.
From Annie, it suddenly sensed a peculiar emotion—fear.
Impossible. How could a servant of fear itself feel fear!
The fiend did not hesitate any longer. It let out a furious roar and lunged straight at Annie!
Annie coldly watched the charging fiend. She raised her right hand and lightly pointed her index finger upward.
“Swish!”
A cluster of ice spikes burst from the ground without warning, slamming viciously into its jaw!
“Roar──”
The fiend cried out in pain, its body lifting upward, but Annie’s assault did not stop!
One after another, ice crystal spears radiating cold condensed in the air behind her, hovering in place.
“Whoosh whoosh whoosh!”
Multiple ice crystal spears dragged blue afterimages as they shot toward the fiend, which had yet to steady itself!
The fiend hurriedly gathered its magic. At the last possible moment, a black barrier spread out. The ice crystal spears crashed against it in a barrage of crackling impacts, sending shards of ice and sparks flying like shrapnel.
At the same time, the fiend twisted its form. Its shadow flickered and shifted, instantly transforming into Sibyl’s appearance as blades of wind slashed toward Annie one after another!
Annie remained calm. With a gentle wave of her hand, a thick ice wall instantly formed before her, the wind blades leaving only a few faint white marks upon it.
Seeing that it could not break through her defense, the fiend transformed again into an unfamiliar wizard. Wielding a staff, it traced a circle of crimson hexagram runes in front of itself!
“Flame Stream!”
The crimson torrent of high-temperature fire illuminated the entire stairwell. Under the continuous assault of the blazing flames, the surface of the ice wall rapidly melted, fine cracks appearing across it.
Annie suddenly brought her hands together before her chest. Two blue ice walls instantly closed in on the fiend from the front and back, about to crush it into a pulp the next second.
“Clang!”
The fiend transformed yet again. It became a tall witch, conjuring two massive iron pillars that firmly propped up the converging ice walls!
Sibyl stared at the battle between the two in shock. This was already a level she could not possibly interfere with.
Their strength was at least at the level of a C-rank witch—if she intervened, she would only make things worse!
Just as she was about to leave the stairwell and return to the entrance to call for reinforcements, a loud explosion from the herb garden and the chaotic fluctuations of magic made her breath hitch.
Not good—Sariel’s side had also encountered a fiend!
…Damn it, just how many of these monsters had infiltrated this small town!
No, I have to do something…
Right, Lina seemed to have mentioned that Plant had no vision—they perceived the world through magic.
In other words, if she could interfere with its judgment of magic, she might be able to render them temporarily “blind”!
Sibyl touched her storage ring and thought of the portable teleportation crystals she had purchased from the magic item shop.
What she had bought were top-quality teleportation crystals. A single one cost as much as ten gold dragons, each sealed with a B-rank spatial teleportation spell.
And she had five of them in total!
If she activated all of them at once, it would be equivalent to casting five B-rank spells simultaneously!
It’s just… no idea where I’ll be teleported if I shatter all five at once…
Gritting her teeth, Sibyl swiftly took out all five crystals and infused them with magic at the same time!
Buzz!
An unprecedented surge of magical turbulence erupted from Sibyl as the center, sweeping through the entire academy like a storm!
In the herb garden, the fiend battling Sariel suddenly froze. The chaotic storm of magic instantly overwhelmed its senses, completely crippling them—like being hit head-on by a flashbang—leaving it clutching its head and howling in agony.
Sariel, rich in combat experience, naturally would not miss this opportunity. Lifted by the wind, she leapt in a single bound to Plant’s front, one hand grabbing its head:
“Die, scum!”
A violent hurricane instantly poured into Plant’s body, destroying every inch of it from the inside out!
This kind of exceedingly cruel magic had never been used by Sariel on humans.
Tiny wind blades would seep into the enemy’s body through every inch of skin—slowly, precisely, and thoroughly destroying every single cell, impossible to dispel, until the enemy completely vanished from this world.
But against fiends with tenacious vitality, this magic was an exceptionally effective killing move.
Like throwing away trash, she cast aside the fiend whose life force was steadily fading, and Sariel quickly rushed toward the teaching building.
……
An ice lance pierced through the fiend’s body, pinning it firmly to the wall. Clusters of ice crystals grew and spread along its blood vessels, and as its body temperature steadily dropped, its life force gradually dissipated.
Annie lowered her arm. The snowflake imprint in her pupils gradually faded. Her body swayed once before collapsing in front of the fiend’s corpse.
At the final moment as its life reached its end, it saw the fading snowflake mark in Annie’s eyes.
“Komodos——!” its final voice vanished into the bone-chilling cold.
---
In the basement, Lina swung her staff, once again using Fireball to precisely deflect the shadow lance hurled by the fiend.
The entire underground space had already been devastated beyond recognition, scorched marks and blade scars scattered everywhere.
The fiend’s black hide was covered in wounds, dark purple blood flowing out. One of its eyes was blind, and one of its forelegs was twisted into an unnatural angle.
It stared fixedly at the witch before it. The confidence it once held at the beginning was now shrouded in fear.
What kind of monster is this?!
Clearly her magical attribute was fire, yet she could use dark-attribute spells and blood magic of the blood race!
Its attacks all seemed to be precisely predicted by her—almost every exchange left it with new wounds.
Her magic power was clearly far below its own, so why was it the one being pushed into such a passive position?
At this moment, Lina’s condition did not seem good. Her brand-new witch robe was torn in multiple places, revealing the fair skin beneath, and her stockings had been burned through in several spots.
Her magic power was nearly exhausted. Even though she had already adopted the most cautious fighting style, the vast disparity in total magic power was still impossible to ignore.
With the fiend’s recovery ability, without a means of delivering a fatal blow, the one who would lose could only be her.
Just then, a powerful tide of magic swept across the entire academy in an instant, and the fiend’s movements suddenly slowed!
At the same time, a golden figure fell from above its head, landing squarely on top of it!
Then the fiend let out a short “gak” and fainted on the spot.
Lina’s mouth fell open as her gaze met Sibyl, who was sitting atop the unconscious fiend’s head, equally dumbfounded.
“Th-this… what just happened?” Lina suddenly thought of something and quickly asked, “When did we meet at the alchemy shop?”
“This morning,” Sibyl also let out a sigh of relief. She stood up, took a few steps forward, and supported Lina. “Looks like this time it’s real…”
“Where’s Annie? Weren’t you with her?” Lina didn’t stand on ceremony. She put away her staff, leaning part of her weight onto Sibyl, while one hand quickly took out a recovery potion from her storage ring and gulped it down. “Gulp… judging from your tone… you ran into another fake me earlier?”
“Yes. Just now, I activated all the teleportation stones…” Sibyl turned her head to glance at the fiend she had knocked unconscious. Its eyes had rolled back, its tongue lolled out from the corner of its grotesque mouth, and its limbs twitched from time to time. “Looks like they were indeed disrupted. Let’s hurry and find Annie!”
“You’re saying Annie was dealing with a Plant alone?!”
“Yes… but she seemed to have the upper hand.”
The upper hand?
Lina frowned, falling into thought.
That girl’s magic power was terrifyingly vast, but she only had a half-baked attack spell. How could she possibly be a match for a C-rank fiend?
Could it be… something happened during this time that I don’t know about?
Filled with doubt, Lina, supported by Sibyl, made her way toward the staircase above.