The Rebirth Of The Hero’S Party’S Archmage [EN]: Chapter 160

160.

Though it was midday, the sky was as dark as midnight, swallowed by black rain clouds. On this day of the new moon, when the sun sets and even the moon disappears, complete darkness would descend upon the world.

“Fire.”

At Tureina’s command, flames erupted from the fifteen pillars of the Bellachior Temple, where torrents of poisonous acid rain streamed down.

Once, these pillars had emitted flames more precious than gold, illuminating the world’s darkness. Not like the dark blue flames that now devoured the light.

The center of power was the Polantir Altar, where a baby dragon strained against its chains, a boy was trapped in ice, and the Veltar Divine Stone pulsed with cosmic colors.

“Aah, Out, Abuuut!”

From the center of the magic circle drawn there, ferocious darkness overflowed, soon spreading in all directions as if a dam had burst.

「Ah… Fate begins.」

As the darkness split and unfolded, following its racing trajectory, the rain-eroded ground crumbled and the forests melted away.

The power of the spell, directed towards the other three peaks, the wave of terror holding the damp chill of the tomb, the temples of the peaks trapped in the abyss, resonated with this, shooting an unknown darkness into the sky.

Gugugugugu….

As tens of thousands of crows soared blackly into the sky, the earth began to shake violently.

“The omen has begun…”

It was visible even to the trio leaping across the rain-slicked hillside. Valensidice narrowed his eyes, and Miria, who was pulling Lane up, asked,

“Omen?”

“Think of it as a rehearsal for starting the ritual exactly at midnight. In magical terms, it’s like an equation calculation.”

“No time to chat… Let’s go.”

The high-frequency noise emitted by the darkness piercing the sky gradually subsided, but soon explosions, shouts, and screams began to echo noisily from all over the mountain.

The power of the spell explodes, severed limbs scatter blood in the air, and the noise of magic, spells, spears, and swords intersect through the rain.

A bloody battle has begun on the three peaks, where their beliefs clash.

– The Seven Fiends will be guarding the three peaks.

Valensidice explained.

The Seven Fiends are mostly ‘buds’ rather than ‘roots,’ either former Archmages or those with Archmage-level skills, he explained.

Juliana pointed to a map detailing the mountain ranges.

– Rivendell will take the northwest branch peak, the Feyqueria Brigade the southeast Yeomgyeong Peak, and the Musinyeon and the Witch Association will take the south Hwayeon Peak.

– Where do we go?

– The center of the magic circle, Sinhwa Peak. Ascend the Thousand Steps to retrieve the remains of the True Dragon. And meet Tureina.

The Thousand Steps were not just a thousand steps, but a staircase with a thousand landings.

Knowing this alone was enough to guess the height of Sinhwa Peak, which was twice as high as the other peaks.

Following Miria’s lead, they assassinated the guards and advanced quietly, but there was a limit to this progress.

“Intruders!”

From beyond the dark staircase, the outlines of countless pointed hats appeared, and soon the power of spells converged into numerous sources of light.

“Get out of the way…!”

Before that power could become power, before the ability could take shape. Before the sound came out of his mouth.

“…Bell Querious!”

0101010001, the incantation turned into a painful scream as it transformed into a blaze of hellfire within his mouth.

He couldn’t kill them. Not as someone who hadn’t even steeled himself to kill Tureina.

Starting with the neutralization of the witches, corpses staggered out from both sides of the stairs.

The victims, mostly mountain villagers, had their hearts pecked out by carrion crows; there were also adventurers, soldiers, and even magical beasts.

And one witch in a dark blue pointed hat, exuding an unusual presence, stood at the very back of the defense line. It must be one of the Seven Fiends.

“I can’t understand it, Valensidice. Why you, who received the greatest favor from Her? As Friede said, you can’t trust men.”

Almost at the same time as those words ended, the high-speed incantation of a 3-star spell was completed without even time to interfere with Bell Querious.

“Regina is a troublesome opponent. I’ll take her. You go ahead.”

Then Valensidice stepped forward, unfolding his steel fan with a snap.

Forcibly changing the flow of the wind. The wind, forged into crescent-shaped blades, tore apart the flesh of the carrion crow hosts rushing in from both sides.

At that signal, the witches Juliana had assigned also responded to the waves of death attacking from all sides, and as flashes and explosions erupted, I was running forward.

‘Let’s go together until the end,’ there was no time to exchange such sentimental words.

Because the abyss of darkness covering the sky above Sinhwa Peak far in the distance was gradually deepening.

‘I have to go.’

He desperately moved his feet in the rain and wind. The joints of his still-unhealed body creaked painfully.

‘I have to go to those guys.’

Seresia’s clothes fluttered wildly in the tremendous gale, and he nearly lost his balance more than once, but he didn’t stop his feet for a moment.

– Abuuut!

– Sabu-nim! [Master]

What if something happened to Aki’s body? It was close to zero possibility since she had to be offered as a perfect living sacrifice. What if they started the ritual sooner than expected due to the stronger-than-expected resistance?

‘Tureina.’

What if Feyqueria quickly conquered Yeomgyeong Peak with their overwhelming force and moved to the center of the magic circle, Sinhwa Peak, and killed Tureina?

‘Hurry, I have to hurry.’

Behind him, the crowing and the sounds of magic clashing gradually faded into the rain and became silent.

Shuaaaaaaaaa….

As if a hole had been torn in the sky, he couldn’t see even 5 meters ahead in the heavy rain.

At some point while running down the stairs through the rain, one of the pillars of darkness shimmering dimly beyond the rain curtain blurred rapidly.

Miria, who had much better eyesight than him, said.

“Southeast… Yeomgyeong Peak.”

“Yeomgyeong, Yeomgyeong, Yeomgyeong, Yeomgyeong.”

It was a signal that Milone Alter Gaumris had suppressed the mission area and neutralized the magic circle. As expected of Feyqueria… incredibly fast.

He had to hurry.

Heavy humidity pressed down on his shoulders, and body temperature rapidly escaped from his soaked body.

‘This damn Creation Chronicle… how much has it weakened my physical functions?’

Every time he blew away crows or witches blocking his path with pillars of fire, his thread-like stamina depleted even faster.

“Damn it, damn it….”

In a moment of blurred vision, his foot slipped on the stairs and he almost fell, but Miria immediately grabbed his arm.

“Just a little more! It’s not much further now!”

Meanwhile, in front of the Polantir Altar, the Veltar Divine Stone emitted light towards Tureina, who was watching the changing situation with a pipe in her mouth.

「Ru shi han ter… Continue the ritual of fate.」

“The sun hasn’t completely set yet.”

「Kirhak, the flesh will be formed unstably, but it is better to have it than not, so begin immediately.」

The crows of magic sitting next to Tureina fluttered their feathers and flew into the rain and wind, conveying her will to her confidants stationed throughout the mountain range.

“Isn’t it too early?”

The witch of the Seven Fiends, Mei, who was guarding the heights of the Thousand Steps, raised her eyebrows as she looked at the string of characters unfolded by the crow.

“Hmm…?”

Far below the stairs, dry explosions echoed one after another, and soon the source of the commotion revealed itself. Mei’s eyes widened.

─Dragon Guardian!

─Prevent him from approaching Sinhwa Peak!

The witches blocking his path either covered their mouths and collapsed when they tried to chant, or were hit by his staff and fell off the stairs and onto the mountain path.

“Mei-nim!”

“What happened?”

I heard he was hit by the Creation Chronicle.

But no matter how strong the power in their eyes, there was a limit called a blind spot in human vision.

As Mei raised her hand, a dark shadow fell over the area with a piercing cry. It was a three-eyed monster bird.

It was only a moment before the monster birds, stirring up strong winds in the air, swooped down on the boy.

“Get out of here───!”

As the boy gasped roughly and shouted, an intensely bright flame burst through the ground, instantly incinerating the monster birds’ bodies.

“…!”

Just one blow, to be able to create such an attack in an instant without even knowing when he finished calculating?

Even as she felt her eyes tremble, Mei smiled with satisfaction. The multi-chant of the 4-star spell, achieved in harmony with six witches, was over.

Just as she was about to unleash that intensely powerful force towards the boy, silver flashed in the corner of her vision and the witches screamed.

“What…?”

The swordswoman, who had slipped out of the shadows and subdued the six witches in an instant with nimble and silent movements, was Miria.

It was a perfect surprise attack that targeted the moment of vulnerability when the incantation was completed.

Mei, whose side had been pierced by the tip of the sword, spat out blood but did not let go of the control of the spell.

“I can’t let you ruin Her wish….”

She turned the wave of great destruction that was aimed at the boy right below, at her feet.

“───!”

One corner of the Thousand Steps, which had led humanity to the peak of God since the Age of Origin, began to collapse miserably with an earth-shattering rumble.

The ground, weakened by the erosion of the abyss, collapsed along with it, turning into a landslide and pouring down, stirring up a thick smell of soil.

He could have been swept away by that collapse. No, he would have been swept away. If the grappling hook Miria threw hadn’t wrapped around the boy’s arm in that instant.

‘The tree I’m holding onto can’t bear the weight of both of us….’

The tree, with its roots exposed on the weakened ground, looked as if it would be swept away by the landslide at any moment.

Realizing that, Miria immediately threw herself off the cliff created by the collapse. Shiiiiiing, using the principle of a pulley with the tree as its axis, she pulled the boy’s body upwards.

The boy, who had been thrown onto the stairs, looked back down in bewilderment, gasping for breath.

“Mi, Miria!”

“Never mind me, go to Aki!”

Amidst the chaotic downpour of pebbles, mud, dust, branches, and all sorts of large and small landslide debris, Miria pointed to her opposite hand.

“I’ll catch up soon!”

The other steel rope extending from her grip was tied to a rock that had not been swept away by the landslide. The boy swallowed painfully, got up, and ran.

He felt that the altitude had already reached its limit, and at the end of his distant vision, the Thousand Steps ended and the Great Fire Temple Bellachior soared up.

Moving his body, which had reached its limit, he let out a scream like a shriek.

“Aki───!”

Bellachior Temple, the moment Tureina recited the primordial spell, the yin energy that had been building the formation became so dense that it was suffocating, and the temple, no, the entire mountain range began to shake.

At the same time, the moment the Veltar Divine Stone rose, emitting an unholy light, the light intertwined like vines and clung like tumors to the body of the baby dragon and the frozen boy.

The moment the baby dragon cried pitifully, the gate of the temple, which had been surrounded by multiple barriers, was blown away into charcoal by the violently raging flames of annihilation… and from within those flames, a flame shot out.

“A-baaht!”

The flame, concentrated in the form of a staff, flew, leaving a red afterimage spinning in the air, and pierced the very center of the Veltar Divine Stone.

「Da ken ro… What is this…?」

On the surface of the divine stone, which could not be scratched even by the strongest steel, a crack appeared with an ominous rumble.

It was the next moment that the staff returned to its form as an ancient flame and blazed fiercely.

Then the Veltar Divine Stone, the formless, ominous spirit dwelling within the stone, roared wildly….

「Gu, gu guaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa……!」

Instead of retracting the deformed vines that had stretched into the real dimension, into the baby dragon and the boy’s ice block, it spewed out a repulsive poison as a whirlwind.

“No, it can’t be…!”

Her lifelong wish, her centuries-long desire, was now before her eyes….

As if trying to grasp the ancient power scattering into a handful of dust in the whirlwind, as if trying to maintain the power of the spell connected to the three peaks, the boy said, flailing his hands in dismay.

In the transcendent flames that fiercely blazed and burned away the poison gnawing at the temple, staggering as if about to fall.

“Tureina….”

In a desperately sad voice, he called the name of his first disciple, the name of the girl he thought he would never be able to call again, the name of the girl he had given up on ever hearing an echo of.

“…You stupid little brat.”