Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 824

The moment Songha gripped the handle of his katana and channeled his magic, a powerful sense of déjà vu washed over him, as if his entire perception was being split vertically.

Swoosh!!

The swordsman’s intent, overlaying the instant he gripped his sword, was unleashed simultaneously with the draw. The moment after a flash of light could be felt at the end of the scabbard, an edge that surpassed its limits became a slash, splitting the crematorium ruins’ pillar vertically.

Crack!!

The eerie sound of the blade’s friction lacerated Lenok’s body, going beyond mere sensation. A trajectory gleaming with a chilling silver light, sparkled like a star, accelerating as it descended. The mage’s figure flickered faintly, using Blink [a short-range teleportation spell] to move from the spot. However, he was pushed back as if repelled, sliding slowly across the crematorium floor.

Thud!!

“……!!!”

But it was Songha, not Lenok, who opened his eyes in surprise.

“You took that? I thought you’d dodge it for sure.”

“……That’s not wrong.”

Lenok, hearing those words, irritably rose to his feet. Although he had been pushed back and slid, the damage itself wasn’t significant. Songha’s sword strike was unbelievably fast, but if he had reacted properly, he could have somehow blocked it. The problem was, as Songha said, Lenok had tried to ‘block’ the strike instead of dodging it.

“You’re right. I should have dodged, not blocked. My judgment was mixed.”

“Mixed……?”

Songha’s eyes momentarily gleamed with interest as he echoed Lenok’s words.

“You’re more interesting than I thought.”

Clank!!

Songha gripped the handle of his katana tightly and tilted his head back. The moment his white hair fell back over his forehead, covering his face, an illusion arose, as if his senses were being sucked back into Songha’s fingertips.

“Now that it’s come to this, shall we play a bit more until you feel like handing over that papyrus?”

Whoosh!!

A line of white light sliced diagonally across the ruins’ wall, cutting through dozens of urns at once. A precise swordsmanship that cut through a gap as small as a fingernail. But what was surprising was that he was performing such swordsmanship with a katana that was much taller than himself. The moment he gripped the katana and drew it repeatedly, he sent his intent far along the extended blade. A slash containing explosive power, range, precision, and variation, rotated, targeting only Lenok.

Thud thud!!

Lenok focused on dodging and creating distance, using Blink in conjunction, rather than trying to block the barrage of slashes. However, seeing Lenok momentarily falter, Songha seemed to have gained certainty.

Thwack!!

He lightly pushed the blade aside, creating a small opening in space. Violent wind pressure surged around Songha, scattering the ashes beneath his feet. The swordsman’s figure, which had disappeared within the curtain of ash, appeared in front of Lenok in an instant, thrusting his sword.

Screech!!

“You’re not a proper mage, are you?” Songha asked, his katana blade resting on Lenok’s shoulder. “You keep trying to block what you can’t block, and trying to take what you can dodge.”

He held the katana in reverse, tapping Lenok’s chest with the tip of the blade. “It’s the reaction of a very seasoned warrior, not a mage. You’re trying to twist the situation, but your body isn’t moving.”

That wasn’t wrong. The reason Lenok had blocked Songha’s sword strikes a few times was because it wasn’t the response Lenok had originally intended. The power of the martial artist, forcibly acquired through the connection with the Guanglai Muhai Palace [a fictional martial arts school], remained in Lenok’s body and was reacting. Songha immediately noticed Lenok’s subtle reactions and realized where the discrepancy originated.

“Why a warrior like you has become so weak, why you’re learning special-type spells… I’m so curious.” Songha tilted his head and asked, “Did you put some kind of Geas [a magical binding oath] on yourself?”

“That’s what I should be asking you,” Lenok retorted, glancing at the blade resting on his shoulder. No matter how he looked at it, the reasoning and deduction abilities Songha was showing now clearly weren’t working according to the restrictions he had acknowledged.

“It doesn’t make sense that you can maintain that level of thinking even after dividing your intelligence into three. If you had the insight to do that, you wouldn’t use that ability like this.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“As if,” Lenok scoffed. “The fact that you can only understand my words like that is proof that your Geas isn’t completely under control.”

If intelligence were to be quantified, where would the standard lie? When does one begin to understand words, use language, learn characters, and engage in conversation? In this world where all sorts of oddities and monsters run rampant, such a standard could not exist in the first place, and even if it did, it would be useless. Nevertheless, Lenok was certain that the conditions under which Songha ‘restricted’ his own intelligence were different from what he thought.

“You entrusted the restrictions and adjustments for controlling your clone-type abilities to someone else,” Lenok sneered. “Without any contemplation or observation of your own talents, have you decided to live your whole life as someone else’s tool?”

“……I don’t know. I’m too dumb to understand that,” Songha muttered with a blank expression.

“Not a very interesting thing to say. I don’t want to hear it for long.” The moment Songha, muttering those words, put strength into the hand gripping his katana, a white coffin fell in front of Lenok as if it had been slammed down. A white coffin that appeared out of nowhere, falling with a loud crash.

Chik!!

The coffin’s door opened, and a figure covered in white light staggered out. The appearance of the body was cracked and shattered, and the shape of a white gauntlet on its right arm.

“It’s not a physical body, is it a ghost?” Songha muttered, frowning as he carefully observed the avatar. “I see…… It’s a type of Avatar. I’ve heard of this kind of spell.”

Whirr!!

From the body of the avatar that had emerged from the white coffin, dozens of magic threads surged, wrapping around its body. As the magic threads tightened and contracted, the avatar took a stance, guided by Lenok’s gestures. The form of the avatar that had resided in Do-rae’s body, no longer moving due to the backlash of being designated as an Apostle. However, if the avatar was forcibly stimulated using the priest’s authority, there were plenty of ways to use it in battle. The principle of manipulating the avatar like a puppet by attaching magic threads to its body. Lenok intended to test it out against Songha right here.

“Come to think of it, Ethan seemed to have said something similar,” Songha nodded and said, bringing his hand back to his katana. “Okay. Shall we see how powerful the avatar of the Military City is?”

Whoosh!!

No sooner had he finished speaking than a blurred, distorted sword strike fell on the avatar’s head. An overwhelming length that could have bisected not only the avatar’s figure but also Lenok’s figure, who was holding the magic threads. However, the avatar’s reaction was completely different from Lenok’s. It crossed its arms, pointing the gauntlets upward, and blocked Songha’s sword strike on the spot.

Clang!!

The shockwave from the collision of the blade and the gauntlets echoed all around, and the avatar’s body trembled greatly and scattered. Thud thud!! The avatar staggered, shedding fragments of its spirit body like a collapsing glass sculpture. However, the avatar didn’t care and twisted its body, which had lost its axis, to escape from under the blade. The avatar, which had rolled once and stood up, rushed towards Songha without hesitation. With two steps, the avatar’s figure accelerated in an instant. It swung its gauntlet and landed a direct hit on Songha’s face, whose expression had changed drastically.

Nine Heavens Return Martial Arts – Eight Forms

First Form

The Nine Heavens Return martial arts, learned from the battle with Do-rae, were explosively reproduced following the avatar’s movements. The dark afterimage that surged, wrapping around the gauntlet, swirled like a tornado, engulfing Songha’s figure.

Boom!!

The hollow of the crematorium ruins shook greatly, and ash and rock fragments flew everywhere. Amidst the acrid smoke, a sword light flashed, wrapping around the avatar’s figure. Clang clang clang!!! In all directions of the ruins, where smoke was swirling, the shadows of the avatar and the swordsman collided, crisscrossing. Scattered fragments of the spirit body and the sword energy of the katana danced erratically in the sky.

“So, that’s what it was.” Whoosh!! Songha, who had flipped his body in mid-air and gripped his katana, nodded blankly as if he had understood. “You were able to move like that, so that’s why you were acting so ambiguously.”

Boom!!

The pure white gauntlet was sucked into Songha’s solar plexus as he fell backward. However, instead of blocking the avatar’s fist, Songha twisted his body, forcibly changing his axis. A miracle of changing the direction and trajectory of his body in mid-air, where there was no support.

Spot!!

The moment Songha’s expression hardened coldly, and the intent emanating from his fingertips transformed into the form of a microcosm [a small, self-contained world or system]. He sheathed his katana, which was longer than his height, as it was.

[Return: Reverse Blade]

Not drawing the sword, but sheathing it. Not standing on the ground, but in mid-air, with his body flipped upside down. The moment the swordsman performed all the processes for wielding a sword in reverse, swoosh!! The sword strike surged out as if being pulled out from inside the avatar’s body, wrapping around Songha’s katana. A bizarre scene as if he was retrieving the sword strikes he had previously inflicted on his opponent. At that moment, the avatar could no longer move and slumped down powerlessly, shedding fragments of its spirit body.

Thud!!

“Hoo, hoo……!!” Songha, breathing heavily, coughed and turned to look at Lenok. His face had turned pale for a moment, perhaps from overexerting himself to quickly neutralize the avatar. “Excellent skill. But the avatar’s strength is too weak, so your judgment is a beat behind.”

“……”

“Since I mixed in a microcosm, it will be difficult to move for a while. I don’t know how the avatar works, but-” Clank!! Songha, drawing his katana and pointing it at Lenok, said, “Papyrus. I’ll have to take it.”

Lenok’s reaction had been to thoroughly avoid combat with Songha. Now that the only one capable of melee combat, the avatar, had been dealt with using mental power, there were no allies to protect him. Moreover, the opponent was a physical ability user with a high enough rank to use a microcosm in a clone’s body. However, even knowing that, Lenok raised his gaze. Lenok muttered, confirming that the crack above the ruins’ ceiling was slowly increasing in size. “This should be enough.”

“What?” Thud!! At that moment, the ceiling and walls of the ruins cracked, and water began to pour down. It had started as a small crack, but the ceiling and walls of the crematorium ruins cracked, and water began to pour down. Songha, who immediately recognized the aftermath and the cause, opened his mouth blankly. “Uh…… Did I do that?”

The cracks in the ruins, which had been cut by Songha’s sword strikes, had been forcibly widened and damaged. Thud thud thud!!! As the crematorium ruins were located deep below the river, the water pressure pouring into this place was also explosive. In the blink of an eye, the pouring water reached below his neck, filling the ruins and submerging them.

Glug glug!!

Songha looked back at Lenok with a surprised expression in the water. Lenok, also submerged in the water, faced Songha and slowly clasped his hands together. Whirr……!! At the same time as he channeled his magic, a chilling cold emanated from Lenok. A cold magic that could be felt on Songha’s skin through the river water. Songha immediately gripped his katana and channeled his magic, but Lenok’s magic, which had finished its incantation, was one step faster.

Unique Ice-Type Magic

Environmental Shaping: Freezing

Weighted Incantation

[Cold Domain Binding Realm]

Crackkkkk!!!

The water around Lenok instantly froze, stopping the water flow where Songha was located. A radius of tens of meters around the ruins where the two were located froze, turning into a huge block of ice.

“Ah, cold!!” Songha channeled his magic to break free from the ice that had trapped him. But before that, the avatar grabbed his body from behind. “……!!!” Was creating the ice prison a scheme to close the distance with the avatar so naturally that it wouldn’t be noticed? He intended to use the avatar to cast the spell instead, directly embedding it into Songha’s body at point-blank range. “Try it if you can,” Songha gritted his teeth and said, tightening his stomach. “I can withstand destruction spells or curses!” The idea itself was very ingenious, but if he could withstand this once, he could cut through the ice and grab Lenok right away. Given the types and power of spells that could be used at this point-blank range, he should be able to withstand it once. “I suppose so,” Lenok smiled. “But what about amplification spells?”

“What?”

Unique Lightning-Type Magic

Amplification-Type Property Change

[Residual Lightning Body]

[Four Auspicious Three Extremes]

Zzzzzzz……!!!

A sharp, flashing, intense intent fell like lightning on the top of Songha’s head. An amplification spell that activated physical abilities and reflexes, increasing reaction speed. The third revision of the amplification magic Lenok had developed before, Four Auspicious Three Extremes. The first magic he used on Songha was an incomprehensible act of using an amplification spell that enhanced his abilities.

“Wait……!!” However, Songha’s reaction to the amplification magic was more violent than any attack he had seen so far. The swordsman’s eyes spun wildly as he shook his head and shouted. “Stop it, what is this!!” “It’s an amplification spell that increases reflexes and thinking speed, and it seems to have a particularly violent reaction when used on a clone ability user,” Lenok chuckled as he looked at Songha. “Perhaps it’s because the basic conditions are different from other clones, making it difficult to maintain the ability any longer.”

“Stop, damn it!!!” “If you lay out these kinds of tricks in the right places, you can easily neutralize them without having to put in a lot of effort.” Lenok tilted his head back, spread out his magic threads, and threw them above his head. “I don’t know if you understand what I’m explaining.” Lenok had experimented with Residual Lightning on Armand, a clone ability user who worked in the City Council, and had identified several side effects. Among them, Lenok remembered that the third improved version of Residual Lightning, Four Auspicious Three Extremes, destabilized the existence of clones. Instead of destroying or killing Songha’s clone at the last moment, he chose to pour buffs on him, shaking his existence instead.

“Ugh……!!” Crack crack crack!! The ice block rapidly rose, and the atmospheric pressure changed explosively, shaking and overturning Songha’s clone. At that moment, the ice block surged from hundreds of meters below the river, bursting a huge pillar of water above the surface.

Boom!!!

* * *

“I believe I have already explained it sufficiently.” Jorta, the Military City. The Great Tribunal, located on the first basement level. A vast hollow now used as a prison to hold special-type mages of Pandemonium. Naimel, in place of the absent Lenok, sat there, handling the tasks she was originally supposed to handle. Now that the spirits of the Soul Reapers had left their posts, causing problems with the city’s external affairs, her job was to deal with external forces coming from outside Jorta.

“Jorta’s position on this matter remains unchanged,” Naimel said, quietly bowing her head to the person on the other side of the mirror. “We will prohibit the entry of outsiders visiting the city, and we will not announce an official position until we have grasped the details of the matter.”

[It seems like you’ve been going around in circles for a while now,] a rough female voice echoed loudly from the other side of the mirror. [I’m saying that there’s no reason to wait for that position, Spirit Naimel.]

“……”

Sitting on the other side of the mirror was a middle-aged woman in military uniform. With a half-burned cigarette in one hand, she sat askew, looking at this side with a murderous expression. The scars haphazardly etched on her face gave off an atmosphere like that of a rough soldier.

[This isn’t a request for permission or cooperation, it’s an order. I’ll say it one last time,] the woman in military uniform said, putting the cigarette to her mouth. [Our Dead Rise 4th Corps Eastern Garrison will deploy troops to resolve the chaos in Jorta and stabilize the city.]

Naimel, who had already gathered information on the warlords and forces around Jorta, already knew who the other party was. The Dead Rise 4th Corps. A part of a military corporation that was stationed in various parts of the continent outside the central front, spreading its influence. And the woman on the other side of the mirror, chewing on her cigarette, was the general who led the entire 4th Corps and a veteran commander who had gone through countless battles.

[We will send landing troops to cross the Headrain River and build a bridge, and deploy mobile troops first. We will send in troops sequentially to investigate the situation.] The woman’s yellow eyes stared intently at Naimel. [I’ll hear any objections after stationing troops in the central district of Jorta and meeting directly with the leadership.]

“……” Before Naimel could answer, she pinched the bridge of her nose with a tired expression. The corps commander, who was relentlessly pressuring her, was also a difficult opponent, but the problem wasn’t just her alone. Forces that had received news that the memorial tower had collapsed and an ancient spirit had awakened would be heading to this city in a similar manner. The spirits who had taken over the city’s authority had to continue this power struggle against the external forces targeting Jorta. But what was important right now was to somehow reverse the decision of this commander who had gone through all sorts of hardships. The moment Naimel thought that and was about to slowly open her mouth, thud!! The barrier on the first basement level shattered as if it had been split in two, and someone walked in from the outside. A shadow robe soaked to the bone. The presence of a mage wearing a transparent obsidian mask. Naimel, who had hurriedly turned her head, frowned as she confirmed Lenok’s appearance.

“I don’t think I told you to return in such a noisy manner.”

“That’s not my concern,” Lenok retorted, throwing the ice block he had dragged behind him. “More importantly, I caught this at the bottom of the underground river, check it out.”

[Are you the Pandemonium mage who caused that ruckus in Jorta?] The 4th Corps commander laughed, puffing out smoke from the other side of the mirror. [That’s interesting. What reason do the spirits of Jorta have to let you roam free like this instead of capturing you-]

Thud!!

The moment Naimel flinched at the sight of Songha, who was soaked and slumped, Lenok answered nonchalantly. “He said he was a general of Dead Rise. A clone ability user who calls himself Songha.”

[……Songha?] At that moment, the 4th Corps commander’s expression, who was looking at the scene from the other side of the mirror, changed strangely. [General Songha?]