The Golden Shadow Wizard was experienced; he had chosen his timing carefully.
When the Hossens School's outer ward shattered, its wizards would be forced into direct battle with Herland's. In the chaos of war, no one would have time to spare a thought for a single wizard trying to flee.
But all of this depended on one condition
that the ward truly broke.
No one knew Hossens had a second layer of protection.
Neither Emeraldwood City, nor the Herland School, nor even the Golden Shadow Wizard himself.
Thus, when Lyman tried to flee with his tower, he stood out starkly against the battlefield.
But the bow was already drawn; he had no choice but to release the arrow and pray no one noticed.
This time, fortune abandoned him.
On the Skywhale Fortress, standing within its core ward, the Herland Wizard narrowed his brow. The attack he had aimed at the Hossens stronghold bent mid-flight and redirected toward the Golden Shadow Wizard Tower.
Shhhht!
A blazing yellow beam ripped through the night, striking the tower's midsection and cleaving it in two.
Inside, the backlash of the strike tore at Lyman's half-healed wounds. His face went white, blood spilling from his lips.
There was no time to tend to it. His hands blurred in frantic motion, spiritual power flooding out as he tried to stabilize the tower's flight.
Boom!
He failed.
The Wizard Tower plummeted uncontrollably, crashing into the northeast quarter of Emeraldwood City, gouging a massive trench across the ground.
Buildings collapsed in a chain reaction. Those who couldn't flee in time were swallowed up, shredded to pieces. Blood and torn flesh painted the rubble a ghastly red.
From the wreckage, Lyman burst free as a streak of golden light.
Panting harshly, he knew his great work was finished.
He cast one last unwilling glance at his life's masterpiece, then swiftly tore out the most precious components. Without hesitation, he crawled from the wreckage, intent on escape.
But the moment he emerged, a pale-faced youth blocked his path.
The youth wore a robe patterned with serpent scales, flanked by four half-serpent monstrosities, who stared silently at him.
Lyman's expression hardened. His voice cut sharply:
"Serpent-walker! War has already begun. Why waste time blocking me instead of running for your life?"
The man was none other than Harin, the founder of Emeraldwood City's most mysterious faction, the Serpent-Walk Society.
Harin smiled, his tongue flicking in and out like a snake's. His voice was soft, almost apologetic:
"I'm afraid, Golden Shadow, Lord Herland doesn't want any wizard leaving here."
Before his words had even faded, the four serpent-creatures lunged.
Lyman froze, shock written on his face.
"You… you've pledged yourself to Herland School?"
Harin didn't answer. His eyes shifted round pupils twisting into vertical snake-slits.
All across Emeraldwood City, members of the Serpent-Walk Society revealed themselves, aiding Herland forces descending from the Skywhale Fortress in slaughtering and seizing control of the city.
Meanwhile, the Herland Wizard no longer spared a glance for Emeraldwood. His focus turned wholly toward the Hossens citadel.
Above the second, pale-green ward that had bloomed to life, the Hossens Wizard appeared.
His face was calm. Behind him, crimson thorn-vines surged upward, swelling to mountainous size, writhing in the snowstorm like monstrous serpents.
From afar, Lyman's gaze locked onto the Herland Wizard within the Skywhale Fortress, their wills colliding across the battlefield.
You dare to strike first, Herland. But what are you relying on?
That new second-rank wizard of yours? That Emerald Shadow…?
...
Meanwhile, at No. 74 Bluebridge Street, deep underground
Lynn set the final crystal into the power module.
A faint hum vibrated through the chamber. The Lambiel Skiff lit up with a soft blue glow.
Joy flickered across Lynn's face. He rose, turning to Elena and the others, who watched him with bated breath.
"It's finished. Hurry, we leave now!"
"That's wonderful!" Adeline cheered. Elena and Giggs both broke into smiles of relief.
Together, the three moved toward the skiff.
Lynn sealed the panel shut, then strode to the rear control core, laying his hand upon the crystalline sphere.
As his companions climbed aboard, Lynn triggered the Gray-Hand Mire array he had long prepared above the ceiling.
The ceiling blazed with runes. Solid earth turned to gray sludge, dozens of pale hands shoving it aside.
In the courtyard above, the ground split open in a vast fissure.
Moments later, the Lambiel Skiff emerged, glowing blue.
Through the rear porthole, Lynn cast a glance at the distant battlefield, then at the chaos consuming Emeraldwood. He exhaled, switched the skiff into silent mode.
Its glow vanished. Even sound itself seemed swallowed.
Shrouded in snowfall, the craft faded seamlessly into the night sky.
No one aboard spoke. Even their breathing grew hushed.
Without seats installed yet, they stood pressed together in silence.
"What's that?!"
A cry rose from below.
"It's a skiff!"
"Please, please take me with you!"
Lynn's face tightened.
Elena's eyes went cold. She slid open the window.
Light flared at her hand
The voices below cut off, replaced by muffled screams.
Lynn leaned to glance down, saw only coiling vines and dark-red stains spreading on the snow.
"I hope you won't blame me for slaughtering the innocent…" Elena murmured with a smile.
Lynn shook his head in mute exasperation, pushing the skiff to full speed.
Hissss!
A piercing screech tore through the storm from the western edge of the Hossens' domain.
Sickly green light erupted, illuminating massive trees as they toppled like matchsticks, something colossal crashing through them.
The glow burst free at the forest's edge.
A vast, undulating sphere of flesh, covered in writhing tendrils, leapt into the open.
Its aura was sickeningly familiar.
Lynn's heart clenched.
That's… Emerald Shadow?!
...
At the Hossens stronghold, Hossens himself stood calm, watching Emerald Shadow emerge from the Emeraldshadow Forest, lost in thought.
Inside the Skywhale Fortress, the Herland Wizard gave orders to the youth beside him:
"Leon, now sound the Horn of Unor, God of Worms. And those seeds we planted before… It's time to awaken them."
The young man nodded. From the aura radiating off him, it was clear he, too, was a Second-Rank Wizard.
So it was true: Herland School had gained another second rank!
Leon drew out an ancient, weathered horn. He did not blow it but instead poured his spiritual power into it.
"Wooooo"
At once, the horn released a strange pulse.
"Hissss!!"
Emerald Shadow, fresh from the forest, froze mid-charge as if hearing a command.
Its dark-red flesh shifted grotesquely, gathering into a vague, distorted human face.
The face opened its mouth wide, unleashing a shrill, drawn-out screech.
Green sigils spread with the sound, racing outward faster than mere noise could travel, washing across the entire Hossens domain and into the stronghold itself.
Inside, some apprentices blinked in confusion, their eyes suddenly glowing green.
Their dazed expressions hardened to ice as the Worm God seized control. One by one, they bolted for the ward's critical nodes.
Hossens remained impassive.
He made no move, yet powerful First-Rank Wizards surged forth, cutting down the traitors without hesitation. They had clearly been waiting for this moment.
From the first time Hossens sensed Emerald Shadow's influence, he had known some of his apprentices might already be compromised.
He had tried to root them out but failed. The parasite's infiltration was too subtle, even for him.
But he was not unprepared.
He had set up screening measures, quietly sending all the suspicious ones down the mountain under the guise of guard duty.
Now, only a handful of stragglers remained. Insignificant.
...
But not only in the stronghold.
Across Emeraldshadow City, countless eyes glowed green.
The faithful threw off their disguises, reveling in slaughter for their so-called Great One.
And other apprentices, civilians discovered too late they were already vessels for Emerald Shadow's parasitism.
Among them… was Elena.
...
Inside the skiff.
Time seemed to slow.
Giggs noticed first, his eyes going wide, a cry ripping from his throat.
Adeline recoiled in horror, her heterochromatic eyes constricting.
Lynn turned, his face hardening.
At the center of the cabin, Elena's once-gentle smile twisted into something grotesque. Her pale-green eyes burned with a chaotic mix of disbelief, awakening clarity… and an emerald fire writhing like living flame.
...
Back at the stronghold, the controlled apprentices were swiftly cut down.
In the Skywhale Fortress, the Herland Wizard sighed with faint regret.
"So… Hossens sensed it after all."
But the disappointment faded quickly. That ploy had only been a gambit, never the true plan.
He turned to Leon.
"Let the Worm God gorge itself on sacrifices. It's time to end this war."
In this world, where might made right, conspiracies were only ever minor tools.
The Herland Wizard had never counted on parasitism to win.
What he wanted was the Worm God's terrifying growth.
Leon nodded, sounding the horn again.
The abomination convulsed its massive spherical bulk, dissolving into a writhing tide of flesh that surged toward Emeraldwood City.
Herland's cultists and apprentices worked like shepherds, herding the city's helpless straight into the advancing tide.
Civilians, apprentices, it mattered not. Those touched by the flesh-wave were instantly consumed, assimilated into it.
The Worm God's aura swelled with every victim, climbing rapidly toward the level of a Second-Rank Wizard.
"Just a little longer," the Herland Wizard murmured coldly.
"When it reaches rank two, with three Second-Ranks on our side, let's see what trick Hossens can play."
...
In the northeast forest, the blue skiff had crash-landed, crushing trees in its wake.
Lynn stood before Elena, a wind-shield swirling protectively around him, eyes wary.
Moments ago, she had lashed out at him like a beast. Now she trembled, head bowed.
Suddenly, she raised her face, one eye still glowing green, the other startlingly clear.
"…I'm sorry, Lynn. I've wrested back control. Even just now, I held back. I didn't damage the skiff."
Her voice wavered.
"Go. Keep flying. Once we're far enough from Emerald Shadow, I can break free of its grip completely!"
She moved toward the skiff.
Whoosh!
A fireball shot past, exploding against her conjured vines.
Elena froze, eyes wide.
Lynn stood firm, voice low but unwavering:
"…I'm sorry, Elena. But I can't take you with us."
Lynn slowly backed toward the skiff, silver-arm sword in hand.
Razor-sharp currents coiled around the blade, distorting the air.
He couldn't tell whether Elena was pretending under Emerald Shadow's control, or whether she had truly regained her clarity.
But he couldn't take that risk.
Beside the skiff, Giggs and Adeline strained together, using vines to prop it upright.
At Lynn's words, the green fire in Elena's left eye flared violently. She squeezed her eyes shut in fury when they opened again, the glow had been forcibly suppressed.
Her voice came low, hard:
"Lynn, if you don't take me with you, then none of us are leaving this place alive!"
It wasn't an empty threat. She was a trained Second-Rank Wizard Apprentice of the School. Even with Golden Mist Form, Lynn wasn't certain he could subdue her in time, much less guarantee the skiff wouldn't be destroyed in the process.
As Lynn hesitated, his gaze shifted past Elena, his expression tightening with shock.
"Elena, that trick won't work on me," she began, only to freeze.
For she saw it too.
Between them, silver-white lines had flared into being strange, intricate patterns etched in the air.
Lynn's chest tightened. He knew these markings.
"…These are from those ruins," Elena whispered.
She had stumbled on them once, in an old School outpost in Emeraldwood City, ancient glyphs carved into stone.
Curious, she had copied them down and once even shown them to Lynn. Later, she discovered such ruins scattered in nearly every School outpost, all bearing the same marks.
Her colleagues had said they were relics of a long-vanished order called the Black Moon School.
She hadn't thought much of it since.
But now… those same sigils had appeared here.
...
At the School's stronghold, the second, pale-green barrier shuddered on the brink of collapse.
The Skywhale Fortress bore scars of the duel, its hull torn and battered under the array's counterstrikes.
Still suspended in midair, Hossens watched the strange patterns ignite across Emeraldwood City. His voice, calm and measured, carried like a lecture to new initiates:
"Few recall that, one thousand five hundred and forty-seven years ago, these lands buried deep in the Emeraldshadow Forest belonged to a School called Black Moon…"
Behind him, the massive blood-red thorn-vines writhed in precise rhythms, like titans dancing to some forgotten law.
The stronghold trembled. Buildings toppled, the earth split into yawning chasms.
"That School never rose above the Second Rank, but its wealth was immense, its power vast. At its peak, its territory in the forest dwarfed today's Emeraldwood City…"
"This city, this mountain, they are but fragments of Black Moon's dominion."
As Hossens spoke, the Herland Wizard scowled, unease gnawing at him. Across the battlefield, he could feel the magic saturating the slope intensify, swelling beyond reason.
"Leon!" he barked. "Overload the cannons now! We must shatter it before it awakens!"
Leon hesitated. "Overload? But the Fortress will"
"Do as I say!" Herland snapped.
Without another word, Leon joined him, both pressing hands to the crystalline core.
The Skywhale Fortress was, in essence, a specialized Second-Rank Wizard Tower.
With no proper master, it barely reached late First-Rank power, only able to unleash Second-Rank attacks by charging up.
Under a Senior Second-Rank's control, it could function at its full might.
And with two Second-Ranks together, it could unleash a single strike on par with a Third-Rank Wizard.
But the cost: total collapse of its weapon systems, crippling its energy core.
Above, the Fortress's golden horn flared, radiance building to a blinding spear of light.
Hossens watched it, and at last smiled.
"After Black Moon's fall, men remembered only its surface wards, those Second-Rank arrays. They never discovered the deeper one… the true heart of this land.
"And now fifteen hundred and forty-seven years later, Black Moon shall return."
Hossens laughed freely as the School's stronghold crumbled beneath him.
The vines tore open the slope, exposing the hidden Third-Rank Mana Vein buried deep underground.
A torrent of raw mana surged out only to be swiftly devoured by the ancient magical formation lying in wait.
Hossens intended to burn the entire vein as fuel, to awaken the colossal, ancient array beneath the mountain!
Shhhht!!
The Skywhale Fortress unleashed its charged strike, two Second-Rank wizards channeling as one.
The golden beam slammed into the pale-green barrier. For a heartbeat it held, then shattered, the ray continuing toward Hossens!
His face tightened. He drew the writhing thorn-vines before him, layering them into a wall.
The blast chewed through, vine after vine withering away, until only a fraction remained, just enough to snuff out the last of the golden light.
At that same moment, the Unorl Worm-God reached its peak.
In the heart of Emeraldwood City, the abomination shrieked to the heavens, its flesh twisting into a grotesque face, its aura surging as it ascended to Second-Rank!
In the Fortress, Herland's face lit with triumph. He and Leon launched themselves skyward.
"Hossens! Against three Second-Ranks, you have no hope!
"Submit, sign the slave's oath, and perhaps I will spare your life!"
Hossens chuckled softly.
"Three Second-Ranks… is that what you think?"
Across Emeraldwood, the strange silver-white sigils blazed brighter.
The next instant
Boom!
A flood of argent radiance erupted, dyeing the night sky pure silver, as if the moon itself had descended to earth!
At the same time, a tremendous pull seized every transcendent being within the array's reach, every life that had crossed the mortal threshold.
A cross-world teleportation array?!
Herland and Leon stiffened. They recognized the force at once and resisted instinctively.
Herland sneered:
"So this was your plan? To waste an entire Third-Rank Mana Vein on a useless teleportation trick…"
But before he could finish, Leon's face blanched. He turned sharply toward Emeraldwood.
"The Unorl Worm-God… It's gone!"
Herland froze, understanding struck like ice water.
The array's pull could be resisted… if you knew how.
But the Worm-God, mindless though strong, had no such knowledge. Its bulk had been snatched away, banished to another world!
Their three-to-one certainty collapsed back to two-to-one.
Hossens smiled faintly.
"I should remind you, this ancient formation does far more than simple teleportation.
"Herland, if you surrender and swear the slave's contract, I may yet grant you a way out."
Leon faltered, unease creeping into his young face.
But beside him, Herland's snarl cut through:
"Bluster! If the array truly had more power, you wouldn't have burned nearly the entire vein just to fuel a teleport!
"Even without the Worm-God, our side holds the edge. Enough talk. Leon kill him!"
...
Elsewhere
The silver radiance burst between Elena and Lynn.
He flinched, squinting against the glare too late.
The irresistible pull seized him.
The world spun, his body hurled into chaos, as though thrown into a broken washing drum. Sight drowned in blackness, his sense of self unmoored.
He had no idea how long the torment lasted.
At last, it ended.
Lynn slammed against hard earth, gasping, retching, forcing his eyes open
Above him stretched a sky of blood-red light.
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