Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 189

Plant (4)

SHWIIIIK-!!

In an instant, Dominic’s presence vanished as his figure was obscured from all sides.

If you react after realizing it, it’s already too late.

As soon as Renok registered the familiar sensation with his magic detection, he flung himself to the side, deactivating his shield.

He anticipated a compressed attack aimed at his lower abdomen.

At the same time, Dominic appeared directly in front of Renok, swinging his fist with all his might.

KWAAAAANG!!

His fist, deflected by the angled shield, slammed into the ash-filled ground.

A massive shockwave erupted, shaking the ground violently, and the settled dust billowed up and scattered in all directions.

In the now gray world, Dominic looked back at Renok and grinned.

“Not bad. Let’s see how long you can last?”

“If that’s all you’ve got, there’s nothing more to see.”

Even while sweating profusely, Renok smirked.

He summoned a long, fiery spear into his hand and muttered.

“I’m sick and tired of dealing with monsters who are just strong.”

Before he could even finish speaking, the two streams of magic collided once again.

The magic power overflowing from his tightly clenched fist became so concentrated that it formed a huge cluster of light.

And the dozens of fireballs that Renok summoned lit up the two of them like lamps from all directions.

DU-DU-DU-DU-DU!!!

Before they could even catch their breath, dozens of attacks were exchanged.

The explosions of Dominic’s iron fists, launched at blinding speeds, and the fireballs that Renok detonated overlapped, causing chaotic shockwaves to echo all around.

As the dust and ash scattered due to the violently fluctuating magic power, they penetrated the two men’s airways.

“Cough!”

Even as he bent over from the involuntary cough, Renok did not lose his focus.

He gathered all the explosive energy from the fireballs and used it to create a new wave of fire, pushing it towards Dominic’s throat.

He stomped his foot to create a shockwave, flipping the ash and covering Dominic with it.

KWAAAAANG!!

He gathered the residual magic power from the fireballs that had exploded above Dominic’s head and created a huge sword of fire, plunging it down.

He then grabbed with both hands and created a huge ring of fire, once again encircling Dominic’s limbs.

“KRAAAAA!!”

But Dominic let out a bizarre sound that was neither a scream nor a laugh, nullifying all those attempts and forcefully kicking out his leg.

A simple forward kick.

But the leg strength contained within it pushed the air at subsonic speed, even disrupting the flow of magic.

PAAAAAANG!!

A kick that could have severed his body if he had been hit head-on.

But Renok managed to evade the brunt of the impact by gliding as if he were sliding on the ground.

The ash and dust were thickly spread under his feet.

Just like he had done in the desert before, he manipulated the movement of the particles with powerful magic control to secure his mobility.

The hem of his coat at his feet turned to dust and disappeared, instantly leaving his clothes tattered.

The start was always from deploying small fireballs.

Without letting a single strand of the fire energy he had already deployed escape.

At the same time, he constantly added new small fireballs, replenishing the flames and continuously increasing their scale.

At first, the two men’s exchanges seemed overwhelmingly one-sided, but as Renok’s flames gained momentum, they became more equal.

“Ugh…!!”

Conversely, Renok’s complexion began to turn pale.

The price for pushing his body and mind without rest in the series of events that had followed the drug lord’s declaration of a state of emergency.

Until now, he had somehow managed to resolve the fatigue by using drugs, but from the moment he disguised himself as Weizen, he hadn’t even touched a cigarette for fear of arousing suspicion in the young man.

On top of that, he was engaged in a series of fierce battles against opponents with different styles.

He had deliberately chain-smoked and even taken the painkiller Defiler to endure this moment, but the burden Renok’s body was feeling was not easily disappearing.

Instead of pain, a strange stiffness climbed up his bones from his pain-free body.

Dominic was simply swinging his limbs freely and showing off his power, but that brute force was by no means something to be taken lightly.

Each strike, tearing through the air and launched at speeds comparable to sound, forced Renok to focus all his energy on evasion and defense.

At the same time, he was still bound by the restriction of having to disguise Weizen’s magic pattern and deceive his eyes by using only fire-type unique magic.

Any ordinary mage would not have been able to imitate even one of the performances that Renok was carrying out simultaneously and would have had their head blown off in the first exchange.

The fact that he was somehow managing to maintain this precarious balance was proof of the capabilities that Renok had built up.

DU-DU-DU-DU-DU!!

Even as he was burdened with worries and pressure, the exchanges grew more intense.

Dominic’s stance, who was only known as a drug dealer, was much more plausible and well-structured than Renok had expected.

Not only did he possess martial arts talent, but it was also at a level that would have been impossible if Dominic himself had not trained his senses for this moment.

That was why he was able to handle that monstrous body, which far surpassed ordinary humans, without much trouble, even though he was stumbling slightly.

Renok, too, had made up his mind.

“Hoo…”

Renok, who had wiped the ash from his mouth, took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Even amidst the fierce barrage of attacks that could tear flesh and muscle with just a graze, Renok did not hesitate.

He followed the answer illuminated by his extensive combat experience and sharp intuition.

No matter how much he tried to plan an evasion route against an enemy who believed in their physical abilities and charged forward like that, he would eventually be cornered.

The important thing was to take a step forward, risking the precarious moments of narrowly avoiding death.

SWHEEEEEEEK!!

The heavy shockwave fired from the front had already surpassed the level of simply swinging a fist.

He mixed the remaining shield with the flames of magic, deflecting the aftermath and narrowly closing the distance to within reach.

SHWIIK!!

The ash and dust under his feet slid smoothly, perfectly assisting Renok’s clumsy evasive movements.

In that one moment when their breathing was subtly out of sync.

He crossed the distance that his combat senses had recognized long ago but his athletic ability could never reach.

His pale palm pressed precisely against Dominic’s solar plexus.

An ultra-close-quarters battle where there was no distance between them.

Renok’s palm was touching him. In that close gap where there was no space left, the compressed flames swelled up.

And then, they burst out towards Dominic’s body.

Fire-type unique magic property change.

[Ignition]

KWAAAAAAAANG!!

“AAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

A terrible sensation of all the organs in his body turning to ashes.

Even though he had obtained a body that could not feel pain, Dominic screamed at that bizarre experience he was feeling for the first time.

At that moment, wings made of bone burst out from both sides of his back and struck Renok.

THUUUUNG!!

He deployed the shields he had barely managed to restore on both sides of his ribs.

He avoided a direct hit and retreated, but the pressure caused his internal organs to be crushed, and he vomited.

“Ugh…!!”

Even the slightest stimulus caused Renok’s body to react violently, eating away at his remaining stamina.

‘I need to buy time until Grisha is ready…’

As Renok’s plan was nothing more than an improvisation, it was impossible to expect smooth communication between them in this situation.

Moreover, if he felt even the slightest sense of danger, the drug lord would immediately cut off the link with the homunculus [artificial human] and flee.

That was not what Renok wanted.

To inflict a fatal wound on Dominic Cabaro that was close to death in this battle, and furthermore, to completely retire him from the drug industry on this continent.

Wasn’t that why he had decided to take a gamble instead of running away until the barrier ended, seeing that possibility?

Even while fighting desperately, he had to leave a reasonable chance of victory and induce the drug lord to focus on the battle.

Of course, doing all of this while disguised as someone else and using only fire magic was extremely difficult…

But wouldn’t he be able to catch a big fish like the drug lord if he cast such a carefully crafted net?

KOO-OO-OO-OO…!!

Perhaps he hadn’t expected that Renok, a mage, would attempt a melee fight.

Dominic’s entire body, who had allowed Renok’s [Ignition] due to a moment of carelessness, now looked difficult to call human.

A bizarre figure with sticky black oil dripping from his entire body, flames burning fiercely, flesh melting and flowing down, and bones exposed.

And the huge bone wings that had sprung up behind his back.

As his consciousness began to properly settle into the homunculus’s body, the ‘functions’ that were originally built into his body were emerging one after another.

Flesh transmutation created using his own body as a material.

The secret art of alchemy where the alchemist directly operates the powerful regenerative power of the homunculus, which regenerates no matter how much it is injured or cut into pieces.

That was why the homunculi created by the alchemists of WORLD 1.0 were known as powerful summons and the most effective clone creation technique in the game.

If that skill, which he had only seen through the monitor in the game, were to be brought into reality, perhaps that would be the manifestation of Dominic Cabaro.

But what if all those things were not just a simple game?

What if the game knowledge that Renok had been so engrossed in could help him for the first time?

The secret art of alchemy. The weaknesses that the homunculus had would also exist normally.

Physical manifestation through the materialization of consciousness.

It was certainly a powerful technique that transcended distance and incarnated another body, but there was a very significant meaning in taking the alchemist’s consciousness as a whole, materializing it, and inserting it into the homunculus’s brain.

If he could completely crush the homunculus’s hard skull and hold onto the homunculus’s consciousness until he smashed its brain.

The alchemist’s spirit, which had been materialized, would also suffer severe damage.

In the game, it was depicted that if the link with the homunculus was not cut off in time and the homunculus died, the alchemist would suffer damage close to death.

But what about in reality?

The basis for the gamble that Renok could make was right there.

WHIRRRR-!!

Even while his whole body was burning, Dominic’s movements did not stop.

Once he had succeeded in transforming his body, he seemed to have nothing to fear, and he stretched the muscles of his left arm to create a huge shield.

KOOONG!!

A bizarre sight of squeezing his muscles to the point where a shield much larger than his own body was created.

It looked like a bad move that made it difficult to even move from his spot, but Renok realized what Dominic was thinking right after and clicked his tongue.

[HOOOOOOOOOO…]

As he breathed out lowly and took a deep breath, Dominic’s entire body began to swell up like a balloon, rapidly increasing in size.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!!

A terrible sound of all the muscles and hip joints in his entire body being shattered.

However, he did not feel any pain, and the side effects arising from the rapid growth of his body were compensated for by his powerful regenerative power.

Renok quietly looked up at the sight of him swelling his body to the point where the huge shield he had raised on his left arm looked small.

His body, which had truly surpassed humans and reached the realm of giants, was still burning fiercely with the flames of Ignition that Renok had inflicted.

A majestic size reaching 10 meters in length. The flames that were flying from that massive body alone caused ash to scatter in all directions, dyeing the sunset sky gray.

The giant, who had grown so large that he could look down on the floating island, looked down at Renok while burning his entire body.

[Did the stuffy Ivory Tower also raise monsters like you?]

He spoke, his voice returning from a human tone to a booming telepathic voice.

[I am impressed. The magic power you possess was not yet at the level of the monsters I know… but the judgment and combat ability you showed in the previous battle were at a level that I cannot reach.]

“…”

[Did the withered old trees of the magic tower occasionally produce such works? It seems that you will not just stand idly by in the upcoming war.]

Renok, who had heard words that could not be ignored, coughed dryly and asked.

“War…?”

[Before long, a great chaos will arise that will engulf the entire continent.]

Dominic’s eyes blazed.

[While they are holding a feast with the monsters descending from the sky, the hegemony of this world will be overturned. While the abominable transcendents remain silent, we will change everything… I will be with the victors of that filthy history.]

Pandemonium.

It was only called an international criminal organization, but at least the direction of the organization’s resolution was not simply about profit and loss.

He felt that the countless thoughts that had been close to speculation were gradually turning into a strong conviction.

They were ultimately planning to use the monsters that would break through the outer sea and descend to overturn the existing order.

Dominic Cabaro was directly assuring Renok that the moment that had only felt vague was gradually approaching.

KWAAAAANG!!

The giant’s right arm stretched out and then transformed into an axe as large as its size.

There was no need to explain how powerful the homunculus’s ability to create that massive mass in an instant was.

[The remaining duration of the barrier is one day.]

The giant muttered as he slowly walked towards Renok.

[Even if it is not enough to burn everything in Philemon, it is enough time to search the autonomous territory like a fine-toothed comb… the location of the lighthouse that you are so desperately hiding.]

[I will make sure to take this opportunity.]

“Hoo… Aren’t you overestimating your abilities too much?”

Renok smiled weakly as he gasped for breath.

“I know you’re intoxicated with the joy of obtaining a perfect homunculus, but if you were that confident in your plan, you should have been more careful.”

At that moment, Dominic’s eyes burned even more intensely, as if he had guessed something from Renok’s words.

[Wait, you… do you know about this body?]

“The forgotten art of alchemy… It seems that you accidentally got your hands on its secrets while joining forces with Pandemonium, but that’s not how you use it.”

WOOOOOOOOOONG!!

At that moment, a huge shadow fell over the two of them.

As the giant looked up at the sky, Renok smiled.

“Your consciousness and that body. I’ll take the entire art of alchemy with me.”

[Th, this is…!!!]

Dominic, who had realized the identity of the huge shadow that had fallen over the 3rd floating island where the two had been fiercely fighting just moments ago, involuntarily took a step back.

Even if he was not familiar with the autonomous territory, there was no way he could not know that shape.

An island floating in the air, covered with soil and vegetation that covered the entire sky.

The 2nd floating island, one of the largest floating islands in the autonomous territory, was floating right above their heads.