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Winning or losing had never truly mattered to him. What unsettled him was simply the fact that someone could defeat him in such a way.
"Listen to me." Merlin's voice carried both gravity and reluctant admiration. "I bear no prejudice against Dark magic. But you must restrain yourself from delving too deeply into such sinister tricks."
For a boy to rise, a thousand years into an age fated to wither into decline, and still carve out a legend for himself, that meant this child could, perhaps, walk as his peer. A fellow traveler.
Merlin wanted to guide this gifted prodigy back onto a righteous path.
"I do know some normal magic," Ian replied, noticing that Merlin's hostility seemed to waver. He raised his wand and flicked it forward.
"Incendio."
A dragon of flame roared to life, curling skyward and painting the desert night in crimson fire.
Merlin tilted his head back, gazing silently at the blaze. His silence was not awe, nor was it approval. What weighed on him was the unmistakable aura emanating from those flames, an aura far too close to the hellfire of Fiendfyre.
"You call magic that burns souls and feeds on them 'normal'?" Merlin's tone was strange, caught between exasperation and disbelief.
Ian's face was earnest. "All my fire spells… carry that trait. I can't help it."
His explanation, however, earned him no understanding, only another stretch of Merlin's heavy silence.
At last, the old wizard muttered, half to himself: "Do you carry the bloodline of creatures from the Underworld? A soul-reaping fiend?"
Ian blinked. "You mean… Dementors?"
Merlin's conjured sketch confirmed the match. Ian nodded quickly.
"No. I'm a pure-blood human wizard." He spoke with perfect honesty.
"But," Ian added brightly, "I do keep a Dementor as a pet. It's very obedient. Even helps scrub my back when I bathe. Did you know their mouths can actually blow bubbles?"
The boy's cheerful remark dropped into the silence like a stone into a still pond.
"...???"
Merlin's mind stalled.
Countless wizards had branded him eccentric, a madman even. Yet standing here, facing this boy, Merlin could only let out a long, ragged sigh.
"All this time, they called me insane. But compared to you… I've been far too normal."
Within the oasis, the lament of the King of Legendary Wizards lingered like a mournful wind.
Meanwhile, at the site they had left behind.
"Why hasn't Teacher returned yet?"
Young Morgan stood at the heart of what had once been a lush forest. Now it was nothing but scorched wasteland. The earth beneath her feet had cracked open like sun-baked clay. The air was thick with the stench of burning.
The trees were gone, reduced to ash. The once-shimmering lake had evaporated into nothing, its dry bed split into gaping fissures as though the earth itself were crying out in pain. And this, this devastation, was only the collateral of their battle, the faintest ripple of power unleashed.
This was the might of legendary wizards. To call them "walking nuclear weapons" would not be an exaggeration in the slightest.
"…I'm worried," Morgan whispered at last.
She glanced down at her palm, where a shadow-creature writhed like a living blot of darkness. It trembled faintly, as though grateful to have survived such destruction.
"What are you worried about? Those are two legends… creatures that are nearly impossible to kill outright. If they'd kept fighting here, we wouldn't even have ashes left."
The voice of the shadow-creature still carried a tremor, the lingering aftertaste of fear.
"Just what is your teacher, really?"
It tried to pry information about Ian from Young Morgan. But Morgan gave it nothing. No answer, no hint. Only silence.
"Take me to them." Her tone left no room for refusal, her eyes boring into the shadow-beast as though she would force its submission by will alone.
The creature shuddered. Its reply was edged with terror.
"Are you insane? That kind of battle isn't a show to watch, it's a massacre! One wrong move and you'll die. You're just a novice, if you go, you're walking straight to your grave. Mortals don't watch clashes of that scale. Mortals perish in them!"
"They're not mortals anymore."
The fear in its voice deepened, but Morgan struck back without hesitation.
"And neither are you."
The words landed like a killing blow. The shadow-beast faltered, speechless, and that was when Morgan raised the wand Ian had conjured for her, making her threat clear.
"You're going to take me to them."
She wasn't worried about Ian losing to Merlin. In her eyes, the wizard who had penned the Dark Bible left that so-called King of Wizards sung of by bards in the dust. What troubled her was something else entirely: she had already spent her precious gem, yet hadn't gotten to witness her teacher's victory. To miss the chance to observe the rhythm of magic in a true clash between legends, that would be the real loss.
The shadow-beast let out a low, mocking laugh.
"Threatening me? Do you even know what wolf-blood means? A gray wolf never bows to threats!"
It clearly thought Morgan's magic too weak to harm it and so put on airs of defiance.
But Morgan's eyes narrowed. "My teacher dotes on me. If I tell him you bit me, he'll make sure you suffer for it."
Somehow, wicked little girls always had the knack for shameless lies.
And Morgan, even at her young age, had already mastered the art of weeping on command. Her pitiful, tear-brimmed expression could have outshone even the most celebrated stage actors.
The wolf of shadows froze.
"…You're framing me!" Its voice cracked with panic.
It had felt Ian's terrifying grip when bound in his hand. It didn't know how or why, but one thing was certain: that cursed boy had more than enough power to torment it. He was a legend, after all.
"Yes. I'm framing you." Morgan nodded with perfect seriousness, an admission that chilled the creature far more than excuses ever could.
"Damn it, black witch! I should never have taken this quest. I thought watching over some brat would be easy… and now I'm caught in a nightmare like this!"
"I'm just a wolf!" Its voice dripped with bitter regret.
But Morgan ignored it completely. The little black witch's eyes gleamed with unflinching menace.
"…You win."
The shadow-beast finally broke. Its body blurred, became ghostlike, and in the same instant Morgan herself began to fade.
The next heartbeat, Girl and wolf were gone, swallowed by a phantom passage into another realm.
"This is… a spatial passageway?"
Morgan's eyes widened, glittering with wonder. Beneath her feet stretched nothingness, yet a strange, unseen force cradled her, allowing her to stand as though on solid ground. Around her, the scenery shifted in rapid succession. She realized she was floating within a current of flowing brilliance, as if the world itself had become a river of light.
Colors twisted and melted into one another, dazzling in their beauty, like a phantasm ripped straight from a fairy tale. The radiance was so overwhelming, so exquisite, it felt almost suffocating.
"This is the Rainbow River that winds through the pages of old tales," the shadowed beast murmured, its voice low and strange. "Only creatures born of story and myth can set foot upon it." Perhaps, just perhaps, it really was the "big bad wolf" it claimed to be.
"We're tracing the path your teacher and Merlin left behind. But mark my words, child, if you die along the way, don't you dare blame me. A battle between legends makes bystanders the first casualties."
It cast its warning at Young Morgan.
"Will we make it in time?" Morgan asked, her eyes burning with one simple desire: to witness her teacher's glory.
"Of course," The shadow replied with something like a scoff. "When wizards of equal standing clash, their battles can rage on for hours… sometimes even days." Almost grudgingly, it seemed to be educating her.
Morgan's chest swelled with anticipation.
(To Be Continued…)