Chapter 234: Battle Mage!

(Extra update, I shall provide a larger one tomorrow if no major incidents occur.)

"Gulp."

Through the breach torn into the subterranean prison, the girl leapt into the pitch-black corridor below. During her descent, she did not hesitate to consume the Transcendence Perception Potion she had kept in reserve.

The unstable liquid, vibrating at a high frequency with minute amplitude, entered her mouth. Upon contact with her palate, it sublimated instantly, transforming from a physical substance into a state of pure energy. It diffused outward, forming a cloud-like mass of energy that enveloped her entire frame.

The Transcendence Perception Potion, also known as the Psionic Manifestation Agent, is a concoction designed for spellcasters to drastically enhance the intensity of their mental power and the reaction speed of their souls.

When utilizing this potion, one’s mental power gains the ability to directly interfere with the material world based on the strength of the user’s soul—in other words, telekinesis.

Simultaneously, the potion, having transformed into energy within her body and permeating her flesh, replaced her natural nervous system. This allowed the mage’s relatively fragile physique to keep pace with her hyper-sensitive mental perception, ensuring that her body could react the very instant her mind registered a threat.

"Snap!"

A faint fluorescence flickered in her pupils; the Magic Lens and the Seeker’s Eye—one a spell, the other a sorcery—had already been cast and layered over her eyes.

The entire world began to be supplanted by flows of void energy and magical fluctuations. The world the girl beheld was now entirely different from what the naked eye could perceive.

Sorcery: Obscure Starlight.

With a gentle snap of her fingers, a star radiating "black light" ignited above her head, casting darkness in every direction.

Void energy warped reality, causing light to be stripped away and annihilated wherever the star’s power touched, leaving only absolute blackness in its wake.

Yet, to Elvia, whose vision was already replaced by flows of magic and void energy, these dark rays were indistinguishable from true light.

Void energy coated the surfaces of all matter, revealing their forms to her; the pitch-black prison corridor was as clear as day.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

The sound of rapid footsteps, the clatter of leg armor against stone, echoed into her heightened senses.

"Eliminate them quickly. Prison guards. Their state is peculiar—likely part of an autonomous defense system akin to puppets. They are not the primary threat."

Powerful tentacles of mental energy probed forward, bringing every detail of the approaching figures into Elvia’s view. They were armored soldiers with the strength of mid-tier formal knights.

Yet, for some reason, she could detect no mental fluctuations from them. In a sense, these creatures were merely shells possessing the physical prowess of knights.

A small rift tore open in space, from which the girl pulled a short-handled wand. She began to chant at high speed, while her mental power communicated with the void, coating her wand-wielding hand in energy, poised for release.

Mixed Casting: Crown of Crimson Light.

The squad of prison guards, sensing the intruder, had just rounded the corner when they saw a blinding orb of light flying down the corridor at a moderate speed. Its temperature was immeasurable; merely by passing, the walls on both sides of the corridor began to melt into a molten, glowing state.

The armored soldiers, whose expressions were rigid and puppet-like, reacted with surprising speed, retreating rapidly to distance themselves from the terrifyingly potent orb.

"Clack!"

However, the girl’s casting range was now defined by the reach of her mental power. Having consumed the Transcendence Perception Potion, her direct spellcasting range had exceeded thirty meters.

As the knights retreated to avoid the orb, they found that the corridor behind them had been blocked by an abruptly manifested wall of stone with a metallic sheen, sealing their path of retreat completely.

"Clang!"

A longsword drawn from a waist sheath struck the sudden wall, sending sparks flying. Yet, the strength of mid-tier formal knights only managed to carve two deep gashes into the meter-and-a-half-thick, metal-reinforced earthen wall; breaking through in such a short time was impossible.

"Hum!"

With no other option, the mid-tier knights shifted their formation. In squads of eight, three stepped forward to confront the slowly approaching, searing orb, channeling their battle qi and activating their inner potential.

Several ethereal chains manifested from thin air, converging upon the orb and slowing its advance further.

Fine specks of light descended from above, adhering to the surface of the orb. As these specks multiplied, the orb’s magical reaction began to wane, and its explosive, manic temperature was partially suppressed.

Two of the knights had already utilized their inner potential, while the third’s approach was simpler and more direct: a rigid shield filled the corridor, blocking the orb’s path. The trapped guard squad decided to weather the mixed spell head-on.

Of course, they did not even know where the attacker was; they only knew an intruder existed, yet they had failed to locate the girl who remained hidden in the darkness, masking every trace of her presence.

"Ding!"

The orb’s power seemed to diminish under the dual suppression of their inner potential, nearing the shield raised by the knight. At that exact moment, the girl, hidden and monitoring the battlefield, snapped her fingers lightly.

A spatial rift appeared in front of the orb, opening its maw to swallow it. Under the gaze of all the knights, the orb simply vanished.

Then, behind the knight holding the shield, another spatial rift opened, spitting the searing orb back out. It bypassed the defenses of the three knights and appeared directly in the center of the eight-man squad.

"Boom!"

The orb, internally saturated with destructive, volatile fire elements and externally warped by void energy that reshaped the environment to favor the spread of flames, erupted—the mixed spell known as the Crown of Crimson Light.

Serpents of fire ejected from the dazzling orb. Void energy guided the internal fire elements to concentrate, exploding outward in several streams of converging flame.

The extreme temperature instantly melted the brick and stone floor into a lava-like substance before the flames even touched it.

The eight formal knights were struck immediately. The shockwave, trapped in the narrow space, intensified, blowing the knight who had raised the shield backward.

One of the searing, solidified streams of flame pierced his sturdy shell, entering from the back and bursting through his chest, leaving a horrific, charred hole.

The remaining knights attempted to dodge and defend, but the space was too cramped. Distracted by the shockwave of the Crown’s eruption, almost no one managed to evade it entirely.

Their battle qi defenses fared poorly against the dense, spreading streams of flame, melting through in an instant. The flames pierced their armor and seared their flesh, leaving gruesome, charred wounds. In a heartbeat, the patrol squad was thrown into utter chaos.

The girl, having utilized a delayed-explosion spell, had ample time to prepare her next move.

A small, pitch-black orb circled the hand not holding the wand, with purple electric arcs dancing across its surface—a manifestation of void energy.

The light rings in her pupils flickered slightly. The girl caught the moment the fire elemental power began to wane and flung the dozen black orbs forward.

Mixed Spell: Chaos Crush.

The black orbs seemed to possess a rudimentary intelligence, flying independently to avoid the erupting flames and homing in on the bodies of the knights still in disarray.

In truth, the trajectories of these gravity-enchanted void orbs were all meticulously planned by the girl’s vast mental tentacles. Her surging mental power allowed her to push the strength of "perception" to its absolute limit.

The orbs streaked past the erupting Crown of Crimson Light, purple arcs dancing as they slammed into the knights' bodies.

Instantly, a formidable force centered on the orbs acted upon everything nearby, dragging them toward the center with immense gravitational pull, causing them to collapse inward.

"Cackle, cackle...!"

The armor on the knights' bodies was instantly twisted and shredded. Metal armor proved incredibly fragile against the warping power of void energy and the gravitational pull, being ripped open and shattered; the fragments were sucked into the orbs and crushed into infinitesimal dust.

Beneath the armor was flesh. The staggering attraction made it impossible for the knights to react flexibly while facing both Chaos Crush and the Crown of Crimson Light.

Those who tried to break free from the pull were instantly pierced by a stray stream of flame.

Those who dodged the flames were forced into contact with the gravity-bound black orbs.

Immediately, their bodies tore and shattered under the incomprehensible force, leaving behind massive, gruesome craters of flesh. Even their bones were bent and snapped by the sheer power, pulverized into fragments.

The final straw came from the collapsing ceiling of the corridor. Driven by the girl’s mental power, out-of-control earth elements were injected into the prison ceiling above the knights.

Suddenly, cracks proliferated and vibrations shook the air. In the next instant, the entire ceiling collapsed, burying the knights under a massive weight of earth and stone.

Perhaps this debris alone would not have killed knights of such formidable constitution, but combined with the Crown of Crimson Light and the Chaos Crush spell buried with them, it was more than enough to claim their lives.

"These guards, acting so mechanically, are merely processed puppets. Wang Yu’s location... is on a lower level. Taking the stairs is too slow. I shall go straight down."

Light flickered in her pupils for a few moments. With a resolute expression, the girl gathered magic in her hand. Earth elements manifested from thin air, and a cubic block of brown stone appeared on the floor before her.

More earth elements converged, and the block grew larger. The void began to warp reality, while gravity magic and sorcery altered the block’s mass.

The floor began to crack under unimaginable pressure. The moment the block’s weight exceeded the ground’s limit, it crushed through, carrying Elvia with it as she plummeted toward the lower level of the prison.

"Bang, bang, bang!"

The block gained speed during its descent, and its terrifying "weight" made its destructive, piercing power all the more formidable. It smashed through several levels of the prison, carrying the girl downward in a continuous, unstoppable breach.

“!”

The girl’s psychic tentacles abruptly brushed against something, her pupils contracting sharply. The hourglass of time-regulation above her head began to spin, slowing the flow of time to one-eighth of its natural pace, allowing her to keep up with the blinding speed of the ambush.

A spear, flying at supersonic speeds, shot from the side of the corridor, its metallic shaft etched with countless arcane runes.

In a fleeting instant, she caught the signatures of several suppression and destruction enchantments: piercing, rupturing, shattering, and spatial locking. The weapon was lethal in the extreme.

Space had been temporarily sealed by one of the spear’s enchantments. As the projectile hurtled toward her chest, it was already within reach during the brief window it took for her to react and trigger the hourglass. Unable to cast spatial spells immediately, the girl’s life hung by a thread.

“Hah.”

She exhaled in her mind, softening every movement of her body to prevent it from overloading and rupturing under the high-speed acceleration. The twenty minutes of power within the hourglass, which could be converted into accelerated time at any ratio, were pushed to their absolute limit.

One thirty-second of the normal time flow—this was the limit of what Avia could manage without her physical form collapsing or her psychic power failing to keep pace.

The slowing of time forcibly stretched the brief moment of the spear’s impact into a duration she could react to.

Cast, cast, cast—with the fastest speed possible. Rock Will: Modified, Earth’s Protection, Breeze’s Blessing, Fading Rhythm, Charged Fury...

Over a dozen spells and sorceries were unleashed in a heartbeat, all of them buffs, and all of them focused exclusively on enhancing physical defense, strength, and speed.

Light flickered across the girl’s body. The massive overlap of mana circuits would normally cause these buffs to conflict and collapse in an instant.

But Avia performed a micro-adjustment: she accelerated herself, but not the buff spells on her skin.

The thirty-two-fold slowdown allowed her to truly receive the full benefit of every buff simultaneously before they could conflict and shatter.

For a brief moment, her physical strength was equivalent to, or even surpassed, that of a high-ranking formal knight.

Wielding her staff, the girl—whose physical capabilities had been elevated to a level unimaginable for a mage—ended the time dilation and smashed her staff directly against the lethal spear.

“Bang!”

The spear shattered, reduced to twisted, broken shards of metal by the blow. The staff in her hand, forged from an incredibly hard, mana-affinity alloy she had crafted herself, remained unscathed.

This was Stone-Wielding Magic: Physical.

Her body recoiled slightly from the impact. The dozen buffs collapsed as they conflicted, and a line of blood trickled from her nostril, while red, bloodshot veins appeared in her eyes.

Driving her body to such extreme intensity was still too much for a mage.

“Avia Dofen, is it? I’m surprised, truly. I never imagined you would go this far—using Zig’s dragon form to crash into the palace, creating an opening to rescue that wretch. It’s... tsk tsk, I almost envy your bond, don’t you think?”

“The anti-magic spear meant for mages failed to finish you off. Both you and the one trapped here have something special about you. I’d love to study you properly, but today will have to do. I can imagine how furious the royal family will be. Killing or capturing you—that is my duty.”

Rudolf’s voice drifted from the end of the corridor, reaching Avia with a tone of mock admiration and sneering amusement.

“...”

She offered no response, briefly confirming her surroundings. Yes, this was Wang Yu’s level.

“An Archmage? It will be difficult, but I must do it. The hourglass has fifteen minutes left. This relic is my only chance to bridge the gap. Avia, save Wang Yu, at any cost!”

With intense vigilance, the girl pondered. A brief touch of her psychic tentacles gave her a rough estimate of Rudolf’s strength: he was, at the very least, an Archmage.

Her own strength was roughly that of a high-ranking formal mage, but between a formal mage and an Archmage lay a chasm that most people spent decades trying to cross. The difference in rank was only one step, but the difference in power was worlds apart.

“Boom!”

Before she could finish her thoughts, Rudolf’s attack arrived. The space around the girl was violently torn asunder, and a giant fist of earth and stone erupted from the rift, aiming straight for her.

Wind elements whistled, and the girl dodged the exaggerated blow in the wake of the storm, the massive fist smashing the wall beside her into rubble.

The earthen fist suddenly exploded, revealing what Rudolf had hidden within. Fire elements, masked by the earth, burst forth. Scorching, manic flames engulfed the girl’s silhouette, the shockwave shaking the dungeon to its core.

“Clatter...”

Flames rose, the fire elements lingering on the ground and covering the corridor in a raging inferno. A figure tore through the wall of fire, flying toward Rudolf at high speed, the whistling airflow constantly boosting her momentum.

“Unwise. Having defended against that surprise attack, you should understand how foolish it is to approach an Archmage.”

Rudolf’s voice rang out, and the speeding figure suddenly froze in mid-air, as if blocked by something.

And so it was. An invisible web of solidified gas had formed a net, stopping the figure dead in its tracks.

“Click-clack-click-clack!”

A multitude of stone spears, mixed with green liquid, erupted from the corridor walls, piercing the body of “Avia” until it was riddled with holes. The next moment, the form shattered, exploding into a mass of scattered void energy.

“Oh! A Void Decoy. Very realistic. Is your sorcery level this high as well?”

It was still Rudolf’s unhurried voice.

The true girl appeared within a suddenly expanding barrier of wind, which completely cleared the surrounding flames.

The staff in her hand was already glowing with a dazzling azure brilliance. The intensity of the mana fluctuations spiked, and a powerful attack spell was completed in an incredibly short time, aided by the eight-fold acceleration of the hourglass.

Fifth-tier Non-Elemental Magic: Alice’s Magic Cannon.

A spell that was relatively simple to cast for a fifth-tier technique, yet possessed top-tier destructive power. A pure torrent of mana capable of shattering any spell or physical entity in its path. A destructive spell that required charging was forced out by the girl at near-instant speed.

“Rumble!”

A thick, azure beam of light erupted from the glowing, mana-overflowing staff, piercing the entire corridor and aiming straight for Rudolf at the other end.

“Impressive. Launching a fifth-tier spell as a high-ranking formal mage, and nearly instantaneously at that. I underestimated you—or perhaps you borrowed something? Hmm, that casting speed... the strategic-grade relic that went missing after being lent to Marquis Enkai.”

“It seems you know more than I thought. Good. Dealing with you and recovering the relic should be enough for me to petition the royal family to let me dissect Wang Yu. This creature with such an abnormally strange body—I’m so curious what makes him special.”

Facing the thick, destructive torrent of mana arriving in an instant, Rudolf merely spoke, trying to provoke Avia and make her lose her composure.

He waved his staff, and several mana circuits were drawn in the air out of thin air. The ability of an Archmage: even without a medium, he could briefly create tangible mana circuits.

Deflection, Attraction—a few extremely simple mana circuit structures were created before Rudolf. Simple circuits, under the power of an Archmage, produced unimaginable effects.

The moment the thick beam of mana touched these magic circuits, it was split into several strands and deflected into the surroundings. Though it reduced the environment to a mess of ruin, it didn’t touch Rudolf at all.

This was the difference between an Archmage and a formal mage; the control over mana was simply too vast.

“Oh, spatial magic? A Phase Gate? You actually mastered this technique—a spell with higher priority than my Spatial Lock. However, the weakness is too obvious. The person you want to save is the reason for your death.”

The mana torrent vanished, and Rudolf’s perception, previously interfered with by the beam, once again covered the surrounding space. But Avia had already vanished. With a soft, laughing whisper, Rudolf’s own figure disappeared into a spatial rift.

Avia, having jumped through several Phase Gates, had now approached the location of the dungeon where Wang Yu was being held, as indicated by Edward’s informant within the palace.

She hadn’t confirmed Wang Yu’s location by sensing him—truthfully, she couldn’t feel him at all. A Wendigo was confirmed to be opposite Wang Yu, and by sensing its position, the girl was able to pinpoint Wang Yu’s location.

She held two inverted Star Tarot cards in her hand, an inevitable surge of excitement rising in her heart. Touch Wang Yu, trigger the cards, and then...

“Are you looking for him? Heh.”

Rudolf’s amused voice drifted into Avia’s ear from behind. She whipped her head around, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks.

Rudolf stood behind her, dragging a body that was gaunt and withered, covered in ruptured, festering wounds. One arm was missing, eyes were tightly shut, and from one of those eyes, a trail of dried crimson blood extended down to his chin. This creature, looking like a dead dog, was Wang Yu.

“...”

The girl stared fixedly at Rudolf, the staff in her tightly gripped hands trembling slightly. The person she had come to rescue had become her greatest weakness.

“Ah... don’t be impulsive. If you make a move, I’ll kill him. Though, he’s already a wreck—all his battle aura is gone, and his body has collapsed entirely because it lost the support of that aura. If you save him, you’ll only be saving a complete and utter cripple.”

Rudolf looked at the tense girl, finding it somewhat amusing.

“Why don’t you commit suicide? If you do, I’ll let him go. I must admit, you are a difficult existence to deal with. With the hourglass and the Phase Gate, it’s hard for me to keep you here. It’s so frustrating. He’s very important to you, isn’t he? Are you willing to trade your life for his? Even though I might be lying to you.”

Rudolf spoke as if it were nothing, having completely severed the girl’s lifeline. The ultimate goal of Avia’s assault on the royal family was now firmly in his grasp, and she was left with no options.

Either flee and watch Wang Yu die, or gamble her own life on whether Rudolf would actually release him if she took her own.

As for snatching a hostage from the very grasp of an archmage, it was nothing but a fever dream, a dead end, all paths leading only to ruin...

"Hm?!"

Rudolph suddenly sensed that something was amiss; his collar began to move of its own accord, the fabric of his mage’s robes abruptly driven by a force he could not detect, pressing violently against his throat.

An immense pressure instantly brought the sensation of suffocation upon Rudolph’s fragile spell-wrought body.

"What is happening? Where is this attack coming from? I haven't detected a thing!"

Rudolph was struck with terror; he could not comprehend what was occurring, for he had been keeping his eyes on the girl, and even monitoring Wang Yu, who stood but a hair’s breadth from death, with his psychic senses.

Yet the force had descended upon his neck without warning, utterly undetectable, and the feeling of asphyxiation grew ever more intense, his frail mage’s frame unable to withstand the crushing weight.

"Damn it, I must get away from here..."

Rudolph immediately intended to trigger the instant spatial teleportation sigil embedded in his staff, but the moment his consciousness reached out to the artifact, he was stunned.

The staff in his hand had been violently pulverized into a heap of scrap, an invisible force having twisted the very matter of the staff, destroying it and the magic crystal within completely.

In that split second of distraction, in a fleeting moment, the hourglass of time above the girl’s head accelerated beyond all limits—sixty-four times the speed, a rate that threatened to shatter her very soul.

At any cost! Save Wang Yu!

The world became crystalline before the girl’s soul; sixty-four times acceleration allowed her to accomplish so much in that singular instant.

Phase Gate activated, snatching Wang Yu from Rudolph’s grasp.

Her psychic senses swept over him, detecting the several magical traps Rudolph had left upon Wang Yu’s body.

With a flow of mana, she dismantled every one of those traps.

Arcane energy surged, pouring into Wang Yu’s body without reservation.

The acceleration ended.

A piercing agony tore through her brain; her soul had suffered grave damage from pushing past the limits, and blood flowed from her seven orifices. Her body grew weak, swaying uncontrollably to the side before being caught by a hand.

"I'm glad you're here..."

A calm voice, under Rudolph’s grim and heavy gaze, echoed in the girl’s ear.

Avia’s arcane power had brought this fellow, Wang Yu, back to full strength.

And surging around his body was the power of Wang Yu’s inner essence—the Chariot; this was the same force that had just gripped Rudolph’s throat and crushed his staff to ruin.

"Together."

The girl struggled to steady herself, standing behind Wang Yu as they faced Rudolph.

The man had locked down the space, rendering Char’s long-distance teleportation useless, which meant there was only one choice left...

Kill him.