Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 518

Kiiiiing…!!

The ultra-long-range snipe of Inertia Bias, swirling and rising from the darkness.

Ivelyn’s technique, which chills the nape of the neck with just one shot, flashes more than three times, surpassing the sensory perception and rushing through the air.

Three arrows, imbued with the extreme essence of Inertia Bias, changed direction as if leaping through space, drawing distant trajectories.

Ku-gwa-gwa-gwa!!

Each shot was a near-certain hit, a bombardment with destructive power and speed comparable to a missile.

The moment he dodged with Blink [a teleportation-like skill], the trajectory changed on the spot, covering different spaces and eliminating the options themselves.

It was a skill that killed the escape route itself, impossible without perfectly grasping the distance, casting speed, and overlapping frequency of the Blink technique used by Lenok.

Not to mention a direct hit, even a graze would turn Lenok’s body into pieces, like the train car that had just exploded.

However, even while certain of that fact, Lenok brought his magic power closer to the arrows that were closing in.

Confirming the black-green flash filling his vision with magic power detection, he activated the Archangel’s Compassion [a defensive skill] just before the moment of impact.

Ka-ga-gak!!!

A strange noise, as if space itself was being gnawed away, echoed, and the barrier that erupted around Lenok rotated and glowed.

He forcibly removed the arrows that had reached the point of penetration with spatial transfer, deflecting their trajectory.

The arrows that had been deflected around Lenok and Logier’s body, which was moving behind him, smashed into the high-rise buildings of the satellite city and exploded.

Kwaaang!!!

The spatial transfer that Lenok, who had increased his understanding of space manipulation through the battle with Amrita, was using.

As much as he handled the Archangel’s Compassion ability, which only worked on inanimate objects, as if it were his own, it was also possible to forcibly transfer the arrows.

However, the reason Lenok started using this ability from the point where he had gained some distance was because there was a possibility that Ivelyn’s will contained in the arrows would interfere with the spatial transfer.

The arrows fired by activating the microcosm Inertia Bias. The microcosm’s essence contained within it could suppress the spatial transfer ability itself.

As the distance increased and the will contained in the arrows decreased, that possibility would become smaller.

From the beginning, Lenok had assumed that and was focusing only on distorting the trajectory of the arrows by activating spatial transfer only around his body.

Du-du-du-du!!!!

Through the intervening dust and sandstorm, Lenok’s figure fearlessly clung to the magic threads and sped away.

If he didn’t move forcibly now, with his sense of balance paralyzed, there would be no second chance.

The moment he quickly passed through the high-rise building area and escaped to the city’s outer terminal.

A black pillar that had fallen vertically from above was crushed and transformed into a huge sphere.

Kwaaaaaa!!!

The huge sphere made of black magic power devoured and rotated the surrounding space, pulling everything in all directions.

A collection of gravitational forces so powerful that it made his spine tingle.

Lenok also realized how Ivelyn had used her ability and hardened his expression inside his mask.

“Unbelievable. She’s converting inertia itself into gravity…!!”

It wasn’t simply gathering non-existent gravity and using it as an attack method.

The inertia and repulsive force that Ivelyn had gathered while drawing her bow and firing arrows.

She was gathering the inertia of the force generated between them, putting it into the arrows, and firing them after amplifying it to the extreme.

The power of the Inertia Bias that had burst out in that way condensed the power that Ivelyn herself had chosen and detonated it with a power close to a tactical weapon.

Ku-gwa-gwa-gwa!!!

A powerful storm of gravity that seemed to grab and crush Lenok and Logier’s bodies whole.

If a specific force could be amplified with Inertia Bias, it could produce much more powerful force than this, but what was the meaning of choosing gravity to tie them down?

Even at this point, Ivelyn must have been holding back to some extent, trying to capture the two alive.

If that was the case, there was still a possibility left.

Lenok thought so and unleashed all the remaining Blink techniques.

He accurately pinpointed and passed through the equilibrium point created by the repulsion inside the swirling sphere of gravity.

He used the power of his magic eye to find a faint connection point to escape from inside the sphere of confinement that Ivelyn had detonated and forcibly broke through it.

Kwak!!

Lenok’s body, which had succeeded in escaping from inside the black sphere, staggered forward and tumbled.

Due to the influence of the gravity that was rushing in from all directions, all sorts of objects and debris were floating aimlessly in the air.

Signs that should have been attached to the walls of buildings, broken car bodies, and the debris of signs and traffic lights were dancing wildly and being smashed and distorted in all directions.

The moment he was about to drag Logier’s body, who had frothed at the mouth and fainted, and escape the city.

“Got you.”

“…!!!”

Ivelyn, who had landed next to him, swung her hand as if she had been waiting.

Whoosh…!!

A single black arrow held in her hand, reverse-grip.

Lenok, sensing the overflowing power of the microcosm within it, pulled up his magic power with all his might and threw his body back.

The moment the two figures crossed and diverged, a tremendous amount of shockwave erupted around the battleground.

Pa-a-a-a-ang!!

Ivelyn, who had pressed down her fluttering hair with one hand, her eyes shining strangely.

“You blocked that?”

“…”

Around the single arrow that had been thrust towards Lenok’s forehead, dozens of magic threads were wrapped like a ball of yarn and stopped.

Kki-gi-gik…!!

Using the tension and reverse rotation of the threads to the extreme, he was able to withstand Ivelyn’s strength and speed up to the very last moment, a feat of power control that was close to divine.

Suppressing the power of Inertia Bias contained in the arrow in almost every direction was a feat that even Lenok himself had unconsciously succeeded in.

“I thought your techniques were unique, so you’re a dual-trait mage after all.”

Ivelyn smiled as she pushed the arrowhead straight towards Lenok’s mask.

“It’s the most unique talent I’ve seen lately. So you’re not just all talk.”

“Hoo, hoo…!!”

Kkiiiiik…!!!

The magic threads wrapped around the arrow were trembling so tightly that they seemed about to break at any moment.

In the meantime, Ivelyn’s arrow shaft, which was bound, was pushing away even the tension of the magic threads and falling right in front of his head.

It was a moment of desperation, but what was worse was the fact that the effect of the painkiller that Lenok had taken to move his body was rapidly wearing off.

His sense of balance, which he had forcibly paralyzed, was returning, and his body, which had been tossed around, was properly protesting.

His stomach was churning like crazy, and his head was spinning.

Even in the midst of all that, he was just holding onto the magic threads with his unwavering magic manipulation ability.

His body was reaching a point where it wouldn’t be strange if he collapsed at any moment.

Ivelyn shook her head as if she had guessed Lenok’s condition.

“Just give up. You knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t work, didn’t you?”

“Ugh…!!”

“In a situation where you have no chance of winning even if you run away alone, you’re trying to escape with a burden?”

Kkiiik!!

Ivelyn, who had instantly tilted the arrowhead and made it touch Lenok’s mask, smiled coldly.

“To gamble like this even though you know me. You’re quite greedy for a member of Pandemonium [a criminal organization].”

The obsidian mask that Myung had given to Lenok was sturdy, but it was not enough to protect his face from an attack by a strong person like Ivelyn.

If he allowed a direct hit, the mask would probably be shattered in one go, and his face would be revealed.

Should he quickly chant a transformation spell now to prepare for such a situation?

Lenok thought so, but he squeezed his churning stomach and let out a laugh.

“Until it’s over, you never know…”

“Even after seeing this, you’re still saying that?”

There was no need to explain it in words.

It was a clear fact that Lenok had virtually lost in the two people’s chase that had quickly followed.

Lenok had used the psychological advantage of knowing Ivelyn’s abilities in advance and the spatial transfer through the Archangel’s Compassion to withstand Ivelyn’s snipes a few times and create some distance.

However, as soon as Ivelyn noticed that Lenok’s response was unusual, she immediately changed her pattern and quickly subdued Lenok.

At the point where she realized that the snipes using Inertia Bias were not working, she deployed a focused fire that pushed the microcosm to the limit.

She detonated the sphere of gravity gathered by inertia manipulation to buy a moment of time and immediately closed the distance to attempt close combat.

The judgment to cleanly resolve the current situation with a single preemptive strike against Lenok, who had escaped from the sphere, was truly sharp.

If Lenok had decided to face Ivelyn head-on, things would not have gone this way.

Conversely, it was only possible for a skilled person like Ivelyn to catch Lenok, who was trying not to fight head-on, and corner him in one go.

However, even while feeling the weight of the cold arrow touching his mask, Lenok forced himself to appear calm and retorted.

“You should watch out for your head in the back.”

“Ha, is that all you could come up with, such a shabby-”

The moment Ivelyn scoffed and tilted her head to one side, a car license plate and a sign that had flown from behind her head collided.

Kwaang!!

The moment Ivelyn immediately raised her head and tried to force the arrow into Lenok’s mask.

“…?!”

Her eyes widened and she stopped moving for a moment.

Lenok, not missing that gap, used Blink and escaped.

Paat!!

“This…!!”

Ivelyn, who was furious, immediately sharpened her senses to track Lenok.

Kiiing!!

The intuition of an archer and a hunter. She manifested her sixth sense, which was close to spirituality, to the extreme, and grasped the opponent’s movements and intentions in an area beyond prediction.

“There…!!”

Ivelyn, who had disappeared in a streak of black light, traversed the collapsed debris of the street as if she were looking three moves ahead and grabbed the shadow.

Thump!!

The shape of a black glove faintly shaking at the end of the robe.

The appearance, which was difficult to recognize at first glance, was a custom-made product made by the Black Palace Workshop, and it was now discontinued and difficult to obtain.

It was one of the few traces of the opponent that Ivelyn had been paying attention to from the beginning.

Ivelyn, who had grabbed his wrist with the glove on, pulled her hand straight into the shadow robe and grabbed the opponent’s vital point.

The archer’s body, which had grabbed his neck, bent at a right angle, and all the joints hidden inside the robe were twisted.

Udu-du-duk!!!

With a terrible noise as if bones were twisted and shattered, the figure in the robe rotated in a gentle arc.

It crashed straight into the ground, shattering the asphalt all around and setting off aftershocks.

Kwaaaaang!!!

A direct blow that relied purely on senses and combat sense.

However, Ivelyn’s face had been faintly frowning from the moment she had successfully landed the attack.

“Wait a minute, the fact that a valid hit came out at this point means…”

She opened the robe and checked the face inside.

What was revealed inside was not a masked mage, but the face of a werewolf who had collapsed with his whole body bound by magic threads.

“Hehe, hehe…”

In his appearance, drooling and laughing with crossed eyes, there was no trace of intelligence left.

Ivelyn’s green eyes cooled down.

‘My senses weren’t wrong. I definitely caught him, but how?’

The moment Ivelyn checked Logier’s wrist, an inspiration flashed through her mind as she confirmed the existence of the glove on Logier’s right hand.

The sight of a pencil broken in half and stuck in his wrist entered her vision.

The Five Fingers of Enacfil [an artifact]. An item used to evacuate the user in an emergency.

The opponent had activated spatial transfer at the moment he was caught by Ivelyn.

Instead of moving his own body or running away, he had transferred the Five Fingers of Enacfil to Logier and switched their positions.

He had transferred it at such an exquisite moment that even Ivelyn was confused for a moment, switching the target to Logier.

‘Wait a minute, these items are…!’

The gloves from the Black Palace Workshop. The Five Fingers of Enacfil.

A combat style that was strangely bizarre and unique.

A series of information that was too coincidental to be intentional was mixed together, and the face of a certain mage came to Ivelyn’s mind.

The moment she stopped for a moment, everything was already one step too late.

Pa-a-a-ang!!

The bright light of a cross-country train passing over her head at the same time.

The moment she felt the movement, Ivelyn, who was about to board the train, smiled helplessly and swept her hair back.

“…Was that what you were aiming for?”

Why was he holding his ground there? He must have been aiming for the brief moment when the transcontinental train passed through the outskirts of the city.

Once she had lost track of his presence, Ivelyn could not know whether he had boarded the train or not.

Even if he had boarded the train, if the opponent had not boarded the train with that in mind, the pursuit would end there.

The opposite was also true, so Ivelyn was in a situation where it was difficult to chase them any further.

It was also impossible to destroy the train itself, as there were many civilians on board.

He must have been creating distance, drawing attention, and waiting for time from the beginning for this.

“Should I call this my mistake, or should I call it good luck…”

Ivelyn, who smiled awkwardly, turned her gaze to the glove that had fallen at her feet.

The opponent had abandoned Logier without any regrets and escaped, but just by looking at the werewolf’s expression, Ivelyn could sense that the operation had failed.

He couldn’t even speak properly and was just mumbling incomprehensible groans.

All the memories in his head had already been neatly reversed and faded long ago.

The valuable information that was in Logier’s head must have been collected and taken away by the masked mage long ago.

She had no way of knowing how he had manipulated a Saint-level physical ability user to cause his essence and memories to go berserk, but she had been completely defeated.

Perhaps even the time she had been fighting Ivelyn was to buy time to extract all of Logier’s memories.

Ivelyn stared at the glove she had taken off Logier’s hand with a strange gaze, then put it in her arms and turned her head.

“…It can’t be, right?”

The combination of artifacts she had just seen reminded her of someone she knew.

Nevertheless, Ivelyn knew in her heart that the possibility itself was very low.

In the first place, the electric mage she knew was not the type to enjoy this kind of hand-to-hand combat or chase.

There was virtually no possibility that her friend, who had gone into seclusion for a long time due to the news of a major injury, would have gotten involved in this kind of thing.

Although they were unusual artifacts, it was not strange for a high-level mage to have one or two of them.

Rather than suspicion or doubt, it was an emotion closer to coincidence or bewilderment.

What was lingering in Ivelyn’s mind was closer to self-mockery for having hesitated for a moment with just that thought.

Ivelyn, who chuckled and shook her head to forget it, immediately took out her cell phone.

“Pallad? I failed. I’ll go back first.”

Ivelyn, who had taken her ear away from the noisy voices that were coming from the other side of the phone, spoke indifferently.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not an agent anymore, so what does it matter? If you’re going to say that, then reinstate me first and then talk.”

-@#$@#%@!!

“I can’t hear what you’re saying~ Oh, it seems like the connection is bad, I’m hanging up now!!”

Kwaang!!

Ivelyn, who had vaguely glossed over her words and hung up the phone, smirked as she watched the white pillar erupting from beyond Bairutz.

Although she had joined this operation as an external force, she was just an old hag she had never met.

There was no need to pay much attention to a warrior who was close to a battle maniac who was overly obsessed with the match against Maiya Renslit.

Ivelyn, who had turned her back without a trace of regret, slowly disappeared.

* * *

“…Did she leave?”

[It seems like she did.]

Clunk, clunk!!

At the end of the junction of the transcontinental train.

Lenok, who was sprawled out between the partitions that were not even properly visible, quietly breathed out and leaned his back against the door.

Through the window, the scenery inside the cabin came into view along with the warm warmth, but he didn’t have the strength to get up, open the door, and step inside.

“Haa… My head is throbbing so much.”

Lenok, who let out a deep sigh and slumped down, grabbed his spinning head and groaned.

Davi popped out of his arms and curled up on Lenok’s chest, saying.

[It will take a night for the side effects of the medicine to wear off. It’s a new drug made by processing the side effects of antibiotics developed for seriously ill patients, so the stability is somewhat lower.]

“So, I’m stuck in this state until I arrive in Vulcan…”

However, there was no better medicine for paralyzing Lenok’s terrible sense of balance, which made his stomach twist even with the slightest movement, and for forcibly manipulating his body.

Lenok, who took out a cigarette from his arms with trembling hands and put it in his mouth, muttered.

“Still, it’s a relief that the trick I used at the end worked. If it hadn’t, I might have had to face off there for dozens of more minutes.”

At the last moment when he was cornered just before being caught by Ivelyn.

Lenok had thrown Logier as bait and made a gamble to avoid Ivelyn’s pursuit, and he had succeeded by a hair’s breadth.

[It was reckless to think of finishing the fine-tuning while running away in the first place. If it hadn’t been for that, you wouldn’t have been cornered that far.]

“But if I hadn’t done that, it would have taken much longer than now.”

Fine-tuning to organize Logier’s memories, preserve them in the crystal sphere, and then erase all the memories remaining in his head.

Lenok had processed all of that complicated process while escaping from Ivelyn, and then used the useless Logier as bait to escape.

The reason why he was able to deceive Ivelyn for even a moment in the process was because Lenok had generously thrown away a pair of gloves from the Black Palace Workshop and the Five Fingers of Enacfil as bait.

After putting the gloves on the hands of the now-feeble Logier, he used the Five Fingers of Enacfil to transfer space to match Ivelyn, who was tracking Lenok himself.

At the same time, he activated the Five Fingers of Enacfil on himself, forcibly switching the positions of Logier and Lenok.

Ivelyn, who had recognized the gloves from the Black Palace Workshop, realized that something was wrong immediately afterward.

But what Lenok needed was that brief moment of leeway.

The Five Fingers of Enacfil, which had a completely different operating principle from the Blink technique that Lenok had used so far.

Lenok had saved the Five Fingers of Enacfil until the very end in order to exploit the gap in that difference.

The gamble he had thrown, timed exactly to the arrival of the transcontinental train heading to Vulcan, had worked, and he was able to safely escape Ivelyn’s pursuit.

He didn’t know why Ivelyn had given up faster than expected, but it was close to divine luck that he had escaped this crisis with just a pair of gloves and a few disposable artifacts.

That was how difficult Lenok knew it was to escape from Ivelyn without revealing his identity.

Lenok, who had been reminiscing about the battle just before, moved his hand with a stagger.

“My head hurts a bit, but while I have time, I should start right away.”

[…Are you going to look into the memories already?]

“The fine-tuning was finished somewhat hastily, so the stability will be low.”

Lenok said so and took out the crystal sphere, which was shining with a black glow, from his arms and held it in both hands.

“I need to check it as quickly as possible to fully confirm Logier’s memories.”

Paat!!

The moment he poured magic power into the crystal sphere, he felt a sensation of Lenok’s consciousness slowly sinking into it.

Lenok muttered as he felt the scenery of the swaying train gradually changing into something different.

“The memory that remains the most intense and fatal in Logier’s inner self. Now is the only time to fully confirm it.”

[Haa…]

No sooner had Davi’s sigh ended than Logier’s memories began to unfold before Lenok’s eyes.

Hwaaaak!!

A city that had been completely ruined as if a war had ended.

In the ruins that had left only traces of a brilliant civilization, most of which had been buried deep underground.

Logier was lying flat on his stomach, carefully peeking at something.

‘…

Is this how the most intense memory that exists in his inner self begins?

The moment Lenok replayed the memory with a somewhat dumbfounded feeling.

The scenery left at the end of the ruins began to appear at the end of Logier’s gaze.

[…]

A landscape that was as empty and distant as if the end of the world was visible.

The ground ended, and the unfathomable sky was scattering thick fog like an abyss.

At the end of it, the existence of two people standing facing each other.

A black-haired young man with an ordinary impression and an unknown figure covered in noise.

‘This is…’

Lenok forgot that he was beyond Logier’s memories and stopped breathing for a moment.

Two people who were called monsters of a different standard even in the Demon Realm.

The Commander and Myung were standing facing each other.