The Return of The Mythical Archmage [EN]: Chapter 365

The Mythical Archmage’s Rebirth-366

Just above the underground level of the building where Shin Ha-yul was suppressing the Red Dragon.

Destroyer and Roper were struggling.

‘Damn it all.’

Destroyer’s face was flushed red.

His anger was reaching its limit, on the verge of exploding.

‘You… you cowardly bastard!’

It wasn’t just because the battle situation was unfavorable that he was angry.

If it had been a fair fight, and he had been overwhelmed, Destroyer would have been smiling instead.

The reason Destroyer was currently angry wasn’t because he was being pushed back, but because he didn’t like the way the battle was unfolding.

‘Cowardly, you say…’

Seeing Destroyer grinding his teeth, Ji Soon-chan sneered coldly.

A conceited and arrogant expression that didn’t seem like Ji Soon-chan at all.

A sarcastic smirk was a permanent fixture on his lips.

‘That’s high praise indeed.’

It was the expression of Aslan Polohamruin.

‘If you’re a man, fight like a man, fair and square!’

Destroyer clenched his fist and kicked off the ground.

He threw a punch with the intent of smashing the head of the arrogant man looking down on him from the sky.

‘Since when did the word ‘fair and square’ mean fighting by your rules?’

Ji Soon-chan, no, Aslan, extended his right hand forward and swung it to the right.

As if reacting to that action, the air shimmered and opened.

Whooosh-!

Destroyer’s fist flew into the space that had opened.

Clang!

Destroyer’s fist collided with the intangible space and shattered it.

Destroyer’s ‘Destruction’ mana had broken Aslan’s space magic.

‘Die!!’

Amidst the shattered remnants of mana.

Destroyer clenched his other hand and swung his fist.

‘Your vocabulary is so poor, it’s beyond poor.’

No, he was about to swing it.

‘With every attack, all you can say is ‘die’?’

If a new space hadn’t opened in the air, he would have swung his fist.

‘Next time you attack, I hope you’ll come prepared with different words.’

Faster than Destroyer, Aslan cast a new space magic.

A space opened not for defense, but for movement.

It was a simple act of connecting a space of about 10 meters, so it didn’t take much time to prepare.

‘You son of a bitch!’

The space swallowed Destroyer.

And a moment later, Destroyer reappeared in the place where he had been standing before kicking off the ground.

‘Aaaaargh!!’

Destroyer stomped on the ground.

As if unable to suppress his anger, as if he had to release his rage somehow, he destroyed the ground indiscriminately.

‘Even your way of releasing anger is trite.’

Looking down at Destroyer, Aslan sneered again.

‘Even the act of releasing your anger is trite. At this point, it would be more fun to fight a wild gorilla.’

‘You… you bastard I could chew up and swallow whole…’

‘Oh? That insult was a bit better. So you do have the intelligence of a three-year-old, it seems?’

The battle was a repetition of the previous pattern.

Destroyer attacked to defeat Aslan, who was controlling Ji Soon-chan’s body.

Aslan deflected Destroyer’s attacks and used simple space teleportation magic to return Destroyer to his original position.

He wasn’t fighting properly, just sending him back to his original position whenever he approached.

For Destroyer, who preferred a fight where fists spoke, there was no greater stress than this.

‘Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!!’

What was even more stressful was that there was no way to break this stalemate.

‘I hate to admit it, but my fists can’t break through his defense.’

Destroyer’s attacks and Aslan’s defense were evenly matched.

Destroyer couldn’t break through Aslan.

‘And… I hate to admit this too, but his speed in preparing the next attack far surpasses mine.’

He couldn’t break through with the first strike, and he would lose for sure on the second.

There was no way for Destroyer to break through Aslan at the moment.

‘Of course, it doesn’t seem like he has a way to break through me either…’

Of course, Aslan also had no means to land a decisive blow on Destroyer.

Unless it was the real Aslan, the current Aslan was using Ji Soon-chan’s body.

With his current immature space magic, he couldn’t break through Destroyer’s strong physique.

‘He doesn’t need to break through me.’

But that wasn’t a big problem.

Aslan didn’t necessarily have to land a decisive blow on Destroyer.

‘…This won’t do. This won’t do…’

Conversely, Destroyer had to break through Aslan no matter what.

‘I have to find a way somehow… before Roper falls…’

Destroyer bit his lip and looked at Roper, who was fighting in the distance.

Unlike Destroyer, Roper was truly dying.

Currently, Roper was being helplessly overwhelmed by the combination of Shin In-hyuk and Adela.

If time passed like this, Roper would fall, and Shin In-hyuk and Adela, who would be free, would join Aslan and launch a combined attack on Destroyer.

Even Destroyer wouldn’t be able to withstand that.

That’s why Destroyer had to break through Aslan somehow.

He had to break through Aslan’s guard, join Roper, and create a new variable.

This situation shook the positions of the two people who should have been equal.

Destroyer was currently in a subordinate position, and Aslan was in an overwhelmingly dominant position.

‘But how…?’

He couldn’t think of a way to break through Aslan’s guard.

He couldn’t break through with a full-power attack.

And he couldn’t exploit the gap afterward.

‘I can’t ignore him either…’

As a mage who manipulates space magic, ignoring him was impossible.

No matter where he tried to move, he would appear in that location, stop Destroyer’s acceleration, and return him to his original position.

‘What should I do…’

A dead end.

Could there be a situation that suited that word better?

Destroyer’s impatience grew even more.

‘Wait.’

At that moment, an idea struck Destroyer’s mind.

‘The reason it takes me so long to prepare the second strike is because I put all my power into the first strike.’

The biggest problem in the current battle was that it took too long to prepare the second strike after the first strike.

If he could somehow solve this, the rest would be manageable.

‘Then, what if I reduce the power of the first strike and use it as bait to take the initiative with the second strike?’

Destroyer cheered inwardly.

‘Yes. That’s it.’

A deadly second strike using the first strike as bait.

With that, he could defeat that cowardly bastard.

Destroyer clenched his fist tightly.

Whoosh-!

The mana of destruction began to gather in Destroyer’s fist.

Only 30% of the mana he had gathered so far gathered in Destroyer’s right hand.

‘I’ll carefully gather the rest and concentrate it on my left hand.’

The remaining 70% was secretly prepared in his left hand.

With this, the preparations were complete.

With this stance, he could launch the second strike before that guy could prepare his space teleportation magic.

‘You pathetic bug. I’ll crush your skull.’

Destroyer’s lower body was filled with spring-like elasticity.

The muscles bulged as if they were about to spring out.

Crack!

The ground where Destroyer was standing cracked like a spider web.

Using that shock as a reaction, Destroyer flew like a bullet.

‘Die!’

Destroyer swung his fist using his right hand, which contained 30% of his power.

‘Hmm.’

Aslan, as before, raised his right hand and swung it.

The air opened again with a crack.

‘Got it!’

Seeing that space, Destroyer was sure of his victory.

If he launched his left hand at the same time that space shattered, he could smash that damn bug’s head.

With that conviction, he swung his fist.

Just before his fist and the space collided.

‘What I said earlier. I’ll correct it.’

Aslan sneered.

‘I said you had the intelligence of a three-year-old. I’ll correct that.’

Aslan’s right hand bent at a right angle and pointed upwards.

‘Your intelligence is now less than that of a newborn baby.’

The space magic that Aslan had deployed changed.

‘Such a bad move.’

Until now, he had intentionally collapsed the space, making it collide with Destroyer’s attack to cancel it out.

That was because there was no other way to block Destroyer’s ‘Destruction’ mana.

‘You fool.’

However, that premise was broken at this point.

The mana of destruction contained in Destroyer’s fist was insignificant now.

He could easily block that much mana.

Crack-!

The space split open vertically.

A scene like a monster living in the cracks of space opening its jaws.

Destroyer’s right hand entered the monster’s jaws.

‘Swallow it.’

Then, the monster closed its jaws.

‘Kaaaaaak!’

Destroyer’s right hand was severed.

As if cut by a sharp blade.

The lower part of his forearm was completely gone.

‘My, my arm!’

Destroyer screamed, clutching the severed part of his right arm.

‘In this era, there’s a saying, ‘pearls before swine,’ isn’t there?’

A space opened next to Aslan.

Destroyer’s severed arm popped out from within.

Aslan held the arm in his hand, tossing it up and down.

‘I don’t know who made that saying, but it’s a very well-made saying. It fits this situation perfectly.’

Destroyer’s mana was a great ability, so good that it could be called fraudulent.

To waste such a good ability like that.

It was literally pearls before swine.

‘Did you really think I wouldn’t notice that you only put that much mana in your fist and that it was bait?’

It was so absurd that he couldn’t even scoff.

To think that it would end so anticlimactically.

‘I didn’t expect you to be the one to end it first.’

Shin In-hyuk approached Aslan.

‘Of course you wouldn’t know. I didn’t know either.’

‘……’

Aslan chuckled and replied.

Shin In-hyuk’s brow twitched.

He didn’t feel good about being spoken to informally by Shin Ha-yul’s friend.

‘And speak properly. It’s not like I ended it first. I just inflicted a fatal wound.’

Adela approached from behind Shin In-hyuk.

‘Weren’t you the one who ended it first?’

Adela walked over, step by step.

Over Adela’s shoulder, Roper could be seen, bound by thorny vines.

A body without the slightest movement.

Roper’s bodily functions had completely stopped.

‘Good work.’

Aslan offered words of encouragement to Adela.

To be precise, it was a word to Elena, who was residing in Adela’s body, not to Adela.

‘You did a great job.’

However, it was not Elena but Adela who answered.

She politely put her hands together and bowed her head to Aslan.

‘……’

Aslan showed a surprised reaction to that sight.

‘……It wasn’t Elena?’

‘Huh?’

Adela tilted her head, puzzled.

She had a look that said, ‘What are you talking about?’

Aslan let out a small, hollow laugh.

‘……Indeed.’

He had naturally assumed it was Elena.

Because the forest magic that Adela used was so perfect, he naturally thought that it was Elena using Adela’s body to cast the magic.

But to think that it was Adela herself who had used the magic.

‘I told you, she’s not just a genius.’

At that moment, Elena, who had been hiding her presence while linking senses with Adela, revealed herself.

She had a triumphant expression.

It was the expression of a parent boasting about their child.

‘I understand. She’s definitely beyond the realm of common sense.’

Aslan’s eyes narrowed.

‘I understand why Ji Soon-chan thinks of himself as a dullard. I understand it very well.’

It was probably because he thought of Adela Stert and Shin Ha-yul as ordinary geniuses.

Compared to those two, anyone would become a mediocre or dullard.

‘What I learned today, I’ll have to reflect on in future training.’

Aslan’s gaze, which had been sparkling with interest, instantly turned cold.

Destroyer, who had been slowly backing away while the three were talking.

Aslan turned his gaze towards him.

‘I’ll give you credit for your spirit that doesn’t know how to give up.’

And then, he swiped his right hand horizontally.

Swoosh-!

Destroyer’s neck was instantly severed.

Having lost his right arm and fallen into a state of mana imbalance, Destroyer lost his life without any resistance.

‘Now, is the only one left the dragon?’

Kugugugugu-!

The ground was still shaking.

The tremors of mana felt from underground were extraordinary.

A fierce battle was still going on.

‘Then, since this situation is over, let’s go support…’

Just as Aslan was about to suggest going to support Shin Ha-yul.

Kwaaaaaaaang-!

With an explosion like a missile, the ground exploded, and soil, stones, and asphalt flew like a fountain.

Kwoooooooo-!

The dragon soared through the ground.

‘It seems like support won’t be necessary after all.’

The situation had entered its final act.