Chapter 42

As he walked down the hallway he didn’t see anything strange about it, but the foreboding feeling was still there. Like this he walked for several minutes in a rushed pace, trying to save some more time.

Not long passed until he came to the end and saw another wooden door, although a bit larger than the previous one. Taking a look just in case with his Mana vision, he luckily noticed that there seemed to be another ambush behind the door, and this time there appeared to be some mages mixed in as well.

Thinking about what to do, Ariel came to the conclusion that it is better to just do it how he always does. Casting the usual ice shield, he carefully opened the door. However he didn’t expect that the people behind the door wouldn’t even talk with him before ruthlessly attacking him.

The mages at the back each cast a spell of theirs, creating a barrage of magic attacks coming straight towards Ariel. Choosing the only option he could, Ariel used the ice wall spell several times to create a layered defence. The ice walls rose up in a second, just in time to block the incoming spells, nullifying the attack with only some visible damage. Unfortunately quantity sometimes beats quality as the large amount of mages continued their attack, destroying one wall after another in a short amount of time.

Ariel was left in a deadlock not knowing what to do since usually mages would quickly use up all of their Mana by now, but due to his special eyes Ariel could see that the enemy mages keep drinking something with large Mana concentration that restores their own Mana pools.

At first he felt befuddled, but soon he understood what those were, the only things which restore Mana and could be bought in large amounts were Mana potions. They were equivalent of health potions, but a lot cheaper since only mages use them, who are a bit scarce, compared to warriors.

Unfortunately Ariel didn’t have any of those since there weren’t times he would need them. Because of this, he knew he would lose if this battle of attrition continues further. Racking his brain, there was only one thing that came to mind which could help him in this situation.

That thing was the spell which he is working on and is yet to master completely so right now is a bit hard to use. However he didn’t have much of a choice and decide to at least try. First step he had to do to use it, was to have surface under his control near the enemy, in the other words, a place he could lay his Mana veins down at.

Thankfully none paid mind to the ice which was slowly covering the ground all around the room and even the mages concentrated on casting spells. Due to this, the preparation quickly came into their places and now he could try casting his spell “Ice spike”.

It is truly as simple as that, the premise of the spell is to manifest an ice spear out of any surface surrounding the enemy to kill him, truly a very simple yet effective way if attack. Of course he had to succeed at it first. Just like that he calmed his heart and slowly started casting with all of his hope on the line.

A moment has passed and Ariel’s eyes suddenly got coloured by excitement, the spell succeeded perfectly this time and was ready to cast. Looking in front, he could see that there was only a single ice wall left, but Ariel only felt satisfaction instead of fear from this and calmly activated the spell.

The mages didn’t even understand what happened and neither did the vanguards that stayed out of the way to not get hit by the spells. Spikes made entirely out of ice suddenly emerge from the ground and pierced the bodies of those using the spells to attack, easily killing them.

When the last Mana source at the back disappeared, Ariel understood that he had properly killed all of them, not leaving any other mage that could attack him. Since there were no mages left, he casually pulled own the ice wall in front of him and fearlessly looked towards the remaining warriors.

The people in question felt a chill go down their spine, seeing the devastation that Ariel caused in a single second they couldn’t, help but become scared. Slowly they started to back away in fear, unfortunately for them, Ariel wasn’t about to let them go, and so another massacre began just like that.

All of the warriors were quickly dispatched by Ariel’s spells which either, pierced, crushed or sliced them, there were quite a few ways Ariel could go about killing them. Soon they were all dead and the chicken slaughter ended.

However Ariel didn’t let down his guard yet as he heard slow clapping coming towards him form the side and a voice speaking in an amused way which accompanied it. “Impressive, variants truly live up to their name, so powerful.” Looking towards the place where the sound was coming from, Ariel could see a middle aged man with black hair and eyes simply standing there.

Though Ariel wasn’t surprised at this since he had noticed him a long time ago and just didn’t want to call out to him, and fight against him and the other people at the same time. However what did catch his attention were the clothes the man was wearing, a black gown just like the other person who was making the deal about the slaves before.

He understood that they must be connected trough the same organization, but he also didn’t think that this person will willingly give him any information if asked. While he was thinking, the man continued speaking. “I would like to invite you to join our church since your power would be absolutely valuable. What do you say?”

The man was obviously quite confident in himself and the previous ambush was probably his idea, but Ariel saw that the man was on the same level as him, a late stage elite so there shouldn’t be much of a power difference between them. That’s why he immediately refused to join the shady church. “I have to decline, my apologies. I dislike being associated with trash like you.”

Ariel’s reply seemed to hit a nerve, as the man didn’t seem as calm as before and now had a glint of savagery in his eyes. “If it is so, then I won’t be leaving you any time to regret it.” Finishing his words the man instantly attacked. Apparently it was either joining them or death, but Ariel wouldn’t take it as easily as that.

From the very start Ariel knew he was a mage and the spell that the man used for his first move, was some kind of bolt made entirely out of darkness. So most likely he was a darkness mage, but Ariel didn’t let down his guard in case he was a dual mage.

In retaliation, Ariel started using his own spell to deflect the enemy’s, creating a stalemate due to their equal levels. As they continued their “game”, Ariel seemed to slowly gain an advantage due to his spell control. Although their power was the same, Ariel could do things like changing the trajectories mid air and using one spell to block two, making the black clothed man a bit powerless, more so considering that Ariel wasn’t using chants.

Soon however, Ariel’s mysterious opponent seemed to have enough as he began speaking again. “You brat, you might be happy to be pushing me back but I will show you the mage duels never go as planned.” Ending his sentence, the man retreated and started chanting something which looked to be extremely dangerous.

Fortunately this was also part of Ariel’s plan and he just smiled inwardly as he activated his trap. When he was slaughtering the warriors, at that time he shot several frost bolt, but didn’t activate them to hide their power, and several of them landed exactly where the black clothed man was currently standing.

While his opponent was concentrating on casting his spell Ariel activated the frost bolts, making the shard fly out towards his enemy. The man barely managed to react and tried dodging them quite unsuccessfully, and had his right arm pierced by several of them, it didn’t end there, Ariel soon cast ice spike from right behind him where he was about to land which pierced the man’s left leg, which was a bit risky.

Before, he was quite careful and avoided the ice around him, but now he didn’t have time to look and entered Ariel’s zone of control. Seeing his own predicament, panic appeared on his face, but he soon sent a resentful look towards Ariel and quickly started chanting something.

Not knowing what he was doing, Ariel was a step too late and the man completed his spell. Suddenly an evil looking gate appeared from the ground, leaving Ariel dumbstruck. He had heard about this and saw several illustrations of it in books, so he knew what it was. A demon gate, black magic used for either summoning or transportation.

Ariel was still dazed while the man stepped into the portal and said his last words to him in a low tone. “When we meet again, I will definitely kill you. The church will not forgive you for this.” Only when the gate finally closed did Ariel get his wits back together.

However it is not surprising, black magic is forbidden and extremely rarely seen. Black magic and darkness magic are two different concepts as darkness magic is basically using pure darkness to attack and defend, black magic however, is several forbidden branches of magic in one, like necromancy, curse magic, or even blood magic.

He didn’t know about what kind of church the man was talking about, but he will have to inform some one about it soon. Right now however, he had to quickly find Erna, unfortunately he had little Mana left, so he first decided to run up to the bodies of mages he killed and drink some Mana potions they have.

Luckily there were still plenty of them and his Mana was fully restored, he was about to continue his search of the manor, but suddenly he notice a letter on the ground, coming closer and getting a better look he saw a strange symbol on it, a gate with a skull in the middle of it which was being chained.

It was quite strange and Ariel was about to open the letter to read it, however the next moment he heard a loud scream, and a familiar one at that. Undoubtedly it was Erna’s voice, coming directly from bellow him, Ariel stopped paying mind to the letter and started to franticly run towards where the scream came from, in his mind praying that Erna would be fine.

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