The dead silence deep within the mine was shattered by the Old Sorcerer’s hoarse voice, like a dull blade scraping over bone.
Beside him, Aescher stood with empty eyes, exuding an ominous aura like a puppet on strings.
“Attack!”
Kaili was the first to react, her combat instincts overpowering all doubts.
She shouted, and the Knight’s Longsword flared with golden brilliance once more, transforming into a streak of light that stabbed straight at the Old Sorcerer who seemed to control everything.
Almost simultaneously, Jocelyn launched forward, Heavy Armor thundering like a steel war chariot as she charged at Aescher, trying to restrain this unstable “Puppet” first.
Li Qiuchen gripped the Blue Crystal in his left hand, while the fingers of his right danced in the air, chanting an incantation.
A pre-prepared Binding Array burst from the ground like vines, wrapping around the Old Sorcerer’s feet.
Uncle Wright swung his Magic Staff to boost morale.
“Maa ni si · de fen de · nuo si!”
White light radiated outward, instantly sweeping away the exhaustion from facing the Bat Army moments ago, invigorating the other three.
Though it was their first time fighting together, the four displayed rare coordination.
For a moment, Li Qiuchen’s thoughts drifted—he suddenly remembered a team that had almost been wiped out in their first mission due to poor cooperation.
The Old Sorcerer let out a scornful laugh.
Facing their assault, his withered palm simply clenched.
A dazzling Magic Strike was instantly dissipated by Li Qiuchen’s Counterspell from afar before it could even form.
He murmured, “Path of Law Magic…”
Then his right hand gripped the air again.
The magic swirling before him solidified like an invisible wall.
Kaili’s sword light struck it as if hitting a barrier, unable to break through!
Aescher broke free from Jocelyn’s hold, moving like the wind to the Old Sorcerer’s side, blocking Kaili’s sword.
Relying only on the sticky magic in his palms, he showed no fear of the Long Blade wrapped in golden light.
Palm and sword collided, producing a metallic clang.
Jocelyn’s Heavy Armor punches landed on him but felt like mere scratches.
Meanwhile, Li Qiuchen’s Binding Array melted away the moment it touched the Black Qi swirling around the Old Sorcerer, like snow meeting the sun.
“Just a petty trick.”
From the shadow beneath his hat brim, a mocking smile seemed to curl.
He didn’t attack the rampaging Kaili, nor the powerful Jocelyn.
He simply manipulated the seemingly numb Aescher to entangle both women.
He even ignored the greatest threat among them, the Path of Law Magic spellcaster Li Qiuchen.
His gaze, cold as a serpent, instantly locked onto the one who looked most like a “soft target” among the four—the man holding a Magic Staff with an ordinary Long Blade strapped to his back, Wright.
Quickly reducing enemy numbers is the best way to seize victory.
“Let’s start with you, troublesome old man.”
The Old Sorcerer’s figure blurred into a shadow, moving with unnatural speed straight at Wright like an arrow loosed from the string!
Those claw-like fingers lunged for Wright’s throat, magic condensing into a deadly blade at the tips.
This was not a spell, but a killing instinct honed over years.
Kaili and Jocelyn couldn’t reach in time.
Li Qiuchen’s magic was still forming.
Wright was moments from death—
In that split second, Uncle Wright’s seemingly clumsy body moved with impossible agility—twisting, dropping his shoulder, and reaching out!
“Bang!”
A dull crash echoed, followed by the crack of bones.
But it wasn’t Wright who was struck.
Instead, the Old Sorcerer’s charging wrist was caught in Wright’s calloused grip!
Shock hadn’t even fully appeared in the Old Sorcerer’s eyes before overwhelming force surged through his arm.
The world spun!
With power from his waist and abdomen, Wright executed a textbook-perfect over-the-shoulder throw, flinging the overconfident Old Sorcerer like a sack and smashing him against the mine wall.
“Boom!”
Stones tumbled down.
A human-shaped crater was blasted into the rock.
The Old Sorcerer collapsed in the pit, black robe in tatters, hat askew, revealing half a shriveled, horrified face.
Uncle Wright slowly straightened, patting his clothes.
“I started as a Scout, then learned magic.”
With that, he drew the Long Blade from his back in a reverse grip.
His eyes turned sharp as a hawk’s.
His entire being became a drawn blade, exuding the killing intent of a veteran, and he charged at the Old Sorcerer sliding from the wall, slashing down without hesitation.
Closing in with overwhelming speed, he clearly refused to give the enemy a chance to cast magic from afar.
“Bastard!”
The Old Sorcerer shouted in anger and fear.
Magic erupted around him, barely blocking Wright’s heavy blow.
The two instantly clashed, blade and Black Qi colliding violently.
This sudden reversal left Kaili and Jocelyn, still entangled with Aescher, momentarily stunned.
Li Qiuchen, however, frowned deeply.
His Perception had caught a subtle but strange anomaly when the Old Sorcerer attacked.
At the same time, his left hand clutched the Blue Crystal, rapidly drawing mana into a quietly forming Spell Model.
At this point, he was a chess piece outside both battlefields.
The Blue Crystal in his hand only held enough power for one threatening attack.
This move had to be decisive.
Uncle Wright was struggling.
The Old Sorcerer’s martial skills weren’t weak, and with magic amplifying him, Wright was accumulating wounds—defeat was only a matter of time.
Meanwhile, Kaili and Jocelyn were still pinned by Aescher.
“Ugh!”
Wright grunted in pain.
The Old Sorcerer’s fingers severed Wright’s left hand at the wrist, sending blood flying.
“Number Four, now!”
Li Qiuchen shouted suddenly, thrusting the Blue Crystal forward.
Jocelyn nodded without hesitation, slamming her palm at Aescher as if to break free and rush to Wright’s aid.
Aescher, instead, pressed closer, unleashing dense black mist to try and envelop them both, desperate to hinder their rescue.
In that instant, Jocelyn’s motion toward Wright shifted sharply.
Her iron arms snapped shut like giant pincers, locking Aescher from behind and immobilizing him!
She urged the Valkyrie beside her.
“Kaili!”
Though uncertain, Kaili had come to trust Li Qiuchen and Jocelyn’s judgment.
Her sword spun, golden Holy Light raging down like a storm upon the unmoving Aescher.
At that moment, Li Qiuchen’s spell reached completion.
He thrust his right hand forward.
“Blade Spell: Triple Strike!”
Three semi-transparent short blades, formed from highly condensed magic, screamed through the air—not at the Old Sorcerer dueling with Wright, but precisely at Aescher, arranged in a triangle.
As the Black Qi blocked the blades, Li Qiuchen’s fingers twitched.
The short blades spun like drills, pierced through the magic, and drove into Aescher’s chest, temporarily pinned!
“Uaah—!”
Aescher, who had been as lifeless as a corpse, suddenly shrieked with an inhuman wail.
His body convulsed violently, and the surrounding Black Qi shattered.
Almost simultaneously, Kaili’s Knight’s Longsword erupted with pure Holy Light, a beam of Divine Judgment piercing directly into the center of Aescher’s forehead!
The golden-blazed sword shattered the black mist, driving through his skull.
“Why…?”
A hoarse, twisted voice, filled with disbelief, escaped from Aescher—whose chest and forehead had been pierced through.
Across the field, the Old Sorcerer, who had gained the upper hand, suddenly stood frozen as if his soul had left his body.
Wright kicked him over, pressing the Long Blade to his chest, and with all his remaining strength, drove the blade through the shriveled heart.
“Tell me… why?”
Aescher asked again.
His body was near collapse.
Kaili, in the midst of casting a purification spell, glanced at Li Qiuchen.
Her tone carried a natural trust.
“We listened to him.”
Li Qiuchen’s face was even paler from the massive mana drain, but his eyes were razor sharp as he spoke coldly.
“Your disguise wasn’t very clever. The magic the Old Sorcerer used at first was nowhere near the level of a real Magic Strike. It’s as if he already knew my Counterspell would interrupt him, so he didn’t put in full force. But this was supposed to be our first encounter.”
He let the Blue Crystal in his left hand crumble into white ash, letting it scatter on the ground.
After a pause, he pointed to Aescher, whose body was twisting from Kaili’s purification spell.
“Such an error is hard to avoid. Once you know something, it’s almost impossible to return to ignorance. More importantly, you suppressed your own magic to the utmost, pouring it all into this ‘Old Sorcerer’ shell, making him look overwhelmingly powerful, like the main threat.”
“But I could see—the magic within your ‘Puppet’ body was far deeper and vaster than the shell you made.”
“So the truth is,”
Li Qiuchen enunciated,
“It was never the Old Sorcerer controlling your remains. It was you—Aescher. You hid in the shadows, manipulating this corpse, putting on a ‘Puppet as master’ performance, trying to draw all our attention to the ‘Old Sorcerer’!”
“Heh… Hahahaha…!”
Aescher, skull pierced through, let out a wild, hollow laugh from his throat, unable to form words.
At the same time, the “Old Sorcerer’s” form wavered violently, dissolving into ash, as endless magic flooded back into Aescher’s body.
Seeing this, Kaili quickened her chanting of the Temple of the God of War’s highest purification spell, striving to erase the remnants of Aescher’s soul and magic completely.
But another change erupted!
Aescher’s body didn’t turn to dust under the Holy Light.
Instead, as if unable to withstand the internal pressure, it exploded outward!
Bones splintered, flesh flew, and a shockwave beyond imagination burst forth.
“Clang—!”
Kaili’s Knight’s Longsword, caught in the blast, snapped in two!
She herself was hurled back by the force.
Jocelyn grunted as her iron arms, locking Aescher, were torn apart by the massive strength, the weight of the Destruction Armor sliding her backward, carving deep trenches into the ground.
Amidst swirling smoke and magic, a mountainous figure slowly rose.
It retained the basic form of a Mankor tiger, but its body was a grotesque fusion of shattered bone and writhing flesh, its surface clad in shadowy scales.
Where once a fiery tail blazed, now a jet-black tailbone extended.
On its head, Aescher’s twisted, maddened face was set into the beast’s forehead like a gem.
“Truly… a splendid deduction. Ellen would be proud of you in the afterlife.”
Aescher’s voice, now a mix of beastly roar and maniacal glee, echoed through the empty mine.
His beastly eyes, burning with Soulfire, fixed on the four, full of mockery and the urge to destroy.
“This body, this power… were never meant for pests like you.”
He raised a mountain-sized claw, magic swirling around it, his tone tinged with irritation at the disruption of his plan.
“So now, you’ll be the first to taste it.”