Chapter 84
Chapter 84: The Big One Is Coming!
The labyrinthine Magic Archive before her left Auréliane rooted to the spot in a daze.
But before long, a warm current slowly welled up from within her heart.
The feeling brought with it a sense of nostalgia.
She remembered feeling something like this when she was small.
Her father, the Emperor, had pointed to her heart and told her she possessed an extraordinary gift—that one day she would surely make the Empire even greater.
The young Auréliane hadn't understood what her father meant. In her mind, all she needed to do was what her mother had told her—to be a well-behaved and sensible child.
And so that was what Auréliane had always done.
From a young age she had followed the requirements of the Imperial family, rarely leaving the Imperial Palace, and with almost no contact with the outside world.
Even within the palace itself she maintained a thoroughly likable image—courteous and proper with her elder brothers, the First Prince and the Second Prince alike.
These were all things she was obligated to perform.
She still remembered the first time she had brought back the corpse of a Wild Ogre to the Imperial Palace.
Her father hadn't been frightened. He hadn't scolded her.
He had simply given her shoulder a pleased pat.
And said something that left her entirely at a loss.
"My child."
"I've kept you too well-protected."
Her heart gradually grew warmer, as though something within it had found a source of momentum.
As if driven by some unseen force, she reached out a hand toward one of the books floating in the air.
Flowing silver-white patterns moved slowly across the book's surface, assembling themselves drop by drop into a pair of eyes.
The instant Auréliane's hand made contact with the book, a wave of disorientation washed over her. When she looked around again, the Library scene from before was already gone.
Here, it was like a world of magic.
The ground seemed to have vanished. The sky was indistinguishable from anything else. 2 moons hung suspended—one above her head, one beneath her feet. Auréliane gently tapped the ground below her.
It was solid.
Yet when she looked down, there was nothing beneath her feet at all—as though she were standing on a faintly visible transparent bridge.
A voice that had been hidden for a long time slowly rose in Auréliane's ears:
"Welcome, child."
"This is the world that belongs to you……"
The voice faded back into silence. A flash of inspiration lit through Auréliane's mind, and within her consciousness, the form of a magic had already taken shape.
A magic that did not belong to any of the 6 natural elemental schools.
This powerful magic determined its potency solely based on the strength of its wielder's soul and will—bound by no tier or rank.
Auréliane stood rooted to the spot, her memory turning over this exceptional magic.
It was a massive blade that linked with its wielder's soul and dealt devastating destruction.
A Chaos-attribute magic beyond the 6 natural elemental schools.
Its name—
"Moonlight"
The massive jade-green body continued to writhe through the void, scattering waves of intense pollen and ceaselessly summoning those bizarre creatures.
The waist-high wildflowers and grass had long since been swallowed by flames, as roaring fire blazed through the air.
As though trying to burn away every last drop of the overflowing natural energy.
The green vegetation seemed to begin pushing back against the man standing before them—the one carrying the scent of a Calamity. 2 opposing environments occupied the same stretch of void at once.
On one side, world-ending flames surged upward, consuming everything in their path. On the other, thick natural energy drove countless plants into riotous, unrestrained growth.
Viktor's entire body was encased in a layer of Lava armor, fire light threading through every groove and pattern. The eyes that had surfaced on his Coat blazed with a radiance as scorching as the sun itself.
A massive wave of natural energy came crashing toward Viktor.
"So it's here, is it?"
Viktor murmured.
A faint jade-green glow radiated from Druga's body as it slowly opened its enormous maw. All 3 pairs of compound eyes were swallowed by white.
Dozens of green rings began to emerge from behind it—as though a rippling lake had materialized from nothing within the void.
"Thousand Lances Barrage."
Viktor named Druga's most troublesome skill aloud.
Over a thousand green spear-tips slowly emerged from within the ripples, every single one aimed directly at Viktor.
In an instant, the thousands of blades burst forth—piercing through the void. The moment they entered the scorching terrain, those towering flames were punctured as though they were nothing more than fragile sheets of white paper.
Viktor drew Ulruste and held it horizontally before him, his lips moving in a low incantation. A wall of flame rose before him. The thousand lances struck the dense barrier like spears driven into solid rock—they pierced through, but could not break past.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
As the wall was pierced again and again, it grew increasingly unstable.
Then all at once, Weija seemed to sense something. She stood on Viktor's shoulder without moving.
But her Mental voice had already begun communicating with Viktor.
'Viktor, that little girl you brought along has gone into some strange place.'
Weija had kept a spare eye on Auréliane precisely so she could check at any moment whether Auréliane ran into any danger.
"Don't worry about her."
Viktor responded to Weija while fending off the skills raining down from every direction.
He calmly continued constructing new walls behind the wavering one, sealing every attack out.
"That's something she's earned."
Auréliane's Eternal Furnace was an absurdly overpowered talent.
It meant that as long as she had witnessed a magic being used, she could learn it.
Because of this talent, she was even capable of learning magic outside the 6 natural elemental schools.
This was something no Player could learn through ordinary means.
"You'd be that generous? I find that a little hard to believe."
Viktor swung his staff and continued conjuring powerful fire magic to incinerate the small Magical Creatures before him.
Several lances cleared the towering fire walls—but Viktor moved his body as casually as someone out for a stroll, perfectly evading every one of those that slipped through.
He even found the time to reply to Weija with calm indifference:
"I was paid."
Payment for services rendered was Viktor's principle as a Power Leveler.
Though there was 1 point that was, admittedly, as Weija had suggested.
Bringing Auréliane to the Mage Council to strengthen herself was something beyond the scope of the original commission.
In truth, without a special class change, Players genuinely could not learn magic outside the 6 natural elemental schools through normal means.
But.
If an NPC who had already learned magic beyond the 6 schools was willing to teach you—
Then Viktor only needed to spend a certain amount of materials and Geo.
Though no one else was aware of this.
"Look forward to it—to how much useful magic she'll be able to learn."
He had high hopes for Auréliane.
After all, this was someone who had ascended to the throne at 18 and been called the Eternal Witch.
Auréliane's talent naturally couldn't be measured by ordinary standards.
After blocking the final volley of flying lances, Viktor pivoted his body and sidestepped the natural energy that followed close behind, then redirected his full attention back to the Calamity of Wood before him.
They had been fighting for a long while now, and Viktor had continued relying entirely on the Fire-attribute elemental suppression magic of the Calamity of Fire.
And yet Druga, sustained by its continuous regeneration ability and its outrageously massive HP advantage, had stubbornly prevented Viktor from inflicting any substantial damage.
At this rate, even forcing Druga into its 2nd phase would seem extremely difficult.
Viktor's voice sounded mildly:
"Heim, Cocotte."
The 2 behind him—who had been watching this epic battle in stunned silence—jolted as though waking from a dream, and simultaneously began thinking at high speed:
Why had Viktor suddenly called their names?
"Reinforce the barrier a bit more."
"Isn't reinforcing it to this level already enough!?"
Cocotte shouted back in a hurry, and then Viktor's voice followed calmly:
"At least to the point where it can hold against War Magic."
Heim and Cocotte both went blank at the exact same moment.
"What did he say!?"
In an instant, countless blue potion bottles flew into their hands.
These potions were entirely different from the ones Viktor had sold before.
The bottles were somewhat larger, and the color of the magic potion inside was noticeably deeper.
Because these were 【Magic Potion (Intermediate)】.
A batch Viktor had freshly crafted after leveling up his Crafting level.
"If you run low on Magic Power, drink these."
"If you can't hold on, what becomes of Endymion is no longer something I can answer for."
At that, Heim nearly exploded. Gone was that gentle smile—after swallowing 1 bottle of Magic Potion, he unleashed a torrent of abuse at Viktor:
"What the hell! Viktor!"
"If you blow up Endymion, I'll—I'll……"
But his Magic Power had surged back to well over half in a sudden rush, leaving Heim frozen in place.
Cocotte glanced at him from the side, and said in a tone that was practically a provocation:
"You'll what? Go on, say it."
"Psh. And here I thought you were so brave."
Heim swallowed his humiliation and once again sent out countless identical Phantom Doppelgangers flying off in every direction around the barrier, continuously channeling energy through them.
What could he do?
Could he beat Viktor?
No. Then compliance it was.
Cocotte chose to trust Viktor as well, drank down a blue potion, and recovered a measure of Magic Power.
With no time to marvel at the potion's effects, she extended her slender hand and traced a lazy pattern in the air. In an instant, an overwhelming surge of natural energy erupted from within her and shot toward the dome above.
The moment the natural energy made contact with the barrier, an enormous green tree descended slowly from above, planting itself before Cocotte and bracing against the constantly shuddering barrier.
Before long, both of them understood why Viktor had asked this of them.
All at once, a force began to rise from the scorching terrain—like a flame that would punch through the very dome itself, it erupted from the ground upward.
In this moment, Viktor was like a raging beast, letting the Lava armor on his Coat thrash wildly behind him.
The black Coat grew longer and longer, larger and larger, wreathed in layer upon layer of flames, transforming into an enormous blazing cloud that swallowed the sky itself.
Like a blazing sun, it covered him completely.
Terrifying pillars of lava utterly transformed the void—roiling columns of fire thousands of meters high churning through every inch of the space.
Weija watched the scene before her with boundless anticipation.
"The big one—is coming!"
【Blazing Severance—Wrath of Extinction】
A torrent of lava—as though it would submerge the entire space entirely—erupted from the void in an instant, bearing the force of something that could shatter a thousand meters of solid rock, and came crashing toward Druga.
The heat warped and twisted the void, the surrounding darkness seeming to squeeze out droplets of lava that fell onto the dense jungle below, burning enormous scorched hollows into it in moments.
In that instant, Druga sensed a wave of acute crisis. All 3 pairs of compound eyes snapped wide open. An extraordinarily dense concentration of natural energy gathered within its serpentine maw—the surrounding lush vegetation was stripped of its energy in the blink of an eye, withering utterly.
The vast lava transformed into a colossal dragon and charged toward Druga. The immense natural energy transformed into an enormous python that came surging forward like a wave to meet it head on!
BOOM!
The colossal scorching shockwave generated by the mighty explosion swept through everything. Blinding white light swallowed everything around it, and the entire space plunged into a prolonged silence.
***
A Carriage slowly came to a stop before the gates of Clavena Manor.
Leah descended from the carriage at a leisurely pace, surrounded by Servants.
But the moment she looked up, she found a line of guards holding long shields standing before the gates of her own Manor.
Leah's face went completely blank.
Only the Imperial family commanded that kind of retinue.
What on earth was going on?
Was the Princess here in person?
She quietly skirted past the guards and made her way into the Manor.
A Servant opened the front door. Leah dropped herself onto the sofa with a flop and stretched out lazily.
After a moment's thought, it occurred to her that Viktor would usually be in the Study at this hour—and those guards outside had been nagging at the back of her mind.
She made her way slowly up to the 2nd floor, intending to say hello to Viktor.
"Viktor, those guards outside……"
She stopped in her tracks.
An unfamiliar female guard stood in place. She glanced at Leah. Leah glanced back at her.
"……"
A few seconds of silence passed. Leah pulled the door firmly shut, then reached for the Magic Crystal at her waist—the one that allowed 2-way communication.
Before long, a voice came through the Magic Crystal.
"Leah? You're back?"
"Gwen, don't say anything yet. Don't do anything rash either. I have something to tell you."
"……Hmm?"
A puzzled sound came from the other side. And then Leah's voice followed—addressed to the other end of the Magic Crystal with complete seriousness:
"The Princess seems to have come to spend the night with Viktor."