A Rain of Fire Across the Sky (3)
“Rrrr…”
Glut, a gnoll warrior of the centurion rank, growled uneasily.
Everything in the sky above was filled with hostility.
A barrage of crossbow bolts from archers and explosive stones hurled by catapults.
And even higher up, a rain of fire pouring down from the dark clouds beyond the cliffs.
A subordinate, in the midst of throwing a grappling hook, was engulfed in flames as he tried to dodge an arrow.
His brother, born of the same mother, was leading the battering ram when he was torn apart by a burst of holy power.
‘There’s no escaping those things on the ground.’
Watching his fellow gnolls fall, Glut thought.
But retreat was not an option.
Their leader, commanding an army of over five thousand gnolls, was still alive, rallying and urging them on.
Though he couldn’t see the leader amidst the chaos of battle, the gnoll’s spirit, bound by a special bond, could feel the leader’s burning resolve against the paladins.
Even now, deep within his chest, he felt the leader’s fiery determination.
“Grgh…”
Glut pondered.
Every attempt to breach the fortress walls ended in death.
How could they win this battle and feast on the flesh of those filthy humans?
The primitive mind of a gnoll arrived at a simple solution.
’…Under the ground. We need to go beneath the walls.’
Awooo!
Glut let out a long howl, a call to gather his subordinates.
As they quickly assembled, Glut ordered them to start digging.
He instructed them to dig a deep and sturdy tunnel, sloping towards the fortress walls.
The gnolls, trained to obey without question, began to dig.
Thud! Thud!
In no time, the entrance to the tunnel was completed, thanks to the gnolls’ superior tunneling skills, honed by living in caves carved into the cliffs.
Glut swiftly led his subordinates into the tunnel.
Compared to the deadly chaos above ground, the tunnel felt remarkably safe.
No more falling fireballs or flying arrows to worry about.
A little deeper, and even the explosive stones would be blocked.
With his subordinates’ tunneling skills, breaching beneath the fortress walls seemed imminent.
“Grgh.”
Glut chuckled.
Those wretched paladins wouldn’t expect us to emerge from behind them.
The thought of tearing into their unsuspecting necks and being drenched in their spurting blood made his mouth water.
Grrr…
Then it happened.
The tunnel walls trembled slightly.
Had a stone imbued with the power of a terrible war god exploded nearby? Just as Glut was about to order deeper digging, it happened.
Rumble…!
The ground beneath shook violently. It wasn’t just the floor.
Sand trickled from the ceiling, and the solid earthen walls began to crumble.
Rrrr…
The tunnel was collapsing. Earth poured down from above, and stones blocked the way.
“Grgh! Run!”
In the primitive gnoll tongue, Glut shouted to flee.
He turned and dashed towards the tunnel entrance.
But that shout became the centurion’s final words.
The ground, which had been shaking, suddenly opened wide, swallowing all the gnolls within the tunnel.
“Whew.”
Felber sighed.
Atop a particularly tall spire of the fortress, he formed a hand seal while looking down at the ground below.
It wasn’t a complex seal.
Simple gestures, drawing a few lines and connecting them in a circle.
Yet the magic that manifested at the end of that seal was powerful enough to shake the valley floor and bury the gnolls tunneling underground.
And with his hands, he had already buried well over a hundred gnolls.
“Master, congratulations! You’ve finally reached a new level!”
Beside him, Tommy, who had been crafting and launching large stone spears, exclaimed.
His face was full of joy.
The sight of magic, conjured without a single incantation, moving and overturning the earth multiple times.
It was proof that his master had broken through a long-standing plateau and reached a higher level, even in his old age.
”…Yes.”
Felber barely lifted the corners of his mouth.
He raised his thin, bony hand and patted the head of his much taller disciple.
The lukewarm response filled the disciple’s face with confusion. He asked.
“Master, aren’t you happy?”
“No. I am happy. How could I not be?”
Felber consciously lifted the corners of his mouth a bit more.
His disciple was right. He had broken through, and it was something to be happy about.
In his mid-thirties, he had created a small domain and was hailed as a genius from all sides, a time when he was arrogant.
After becoming the youngest elder wizard of the Elgaia Tower, he had been stuck for decades, unable to take a single step forward, a despair that was incomparable.
As a last resort, instead of breaking through, he chose to maximize the utility of his current power, becoming an authority in the application of earth magic.
‘Mastery isn’t just about reaching higher; it’s about expanding sideways as well.’
He had declared this repeatedly in front of his fellow professors and juniors, rationalizing and eventually settling into his stagnation in his later years.
In the process, he relearned the virtues of humility and patience that he had lost in his youth, but the fact remained that he had forgotten how to move forward.
He would have likely ended his days like many other elders of the tower, had he not met a certain extraordinary individual by chance.
‘Dalen.’
Felber looked up.
The sky beyond the rift was filled with dark clouds, and a rain of fire poured from them.
A warrior who, even after casting a massive spell that dominated the battlefield, had plunged into the enemy’s heart, slaying hundreds of gnolls alone.
Faced with such superhuman prowess, Felber suddenly recalled their first meeting.
‘Back then, we were just a client and a mercenary.’
It was a time when he was desperately searching for a missing disciple, following the trail of an exiled senior.
Gawain, the silent captain of the Bronze Guard, had recommended a mercenary, and without hesitation, Felber had put in a request.
He had been skeptical, but when his disciple was returned to him in no time, he was astonished.
Curious about the identity of the person responsible, he requested a meeting, and soon after, he met Dalen at the tower’s branch.
And once again, he was surprised.
The power of the domain he secretly unfolded out of curiosity revealed that the mercenary’s veins flowed with dragon’s blood.
‘To think that was less than half a year ago.’
In the few short months since, the warrior had acquired more titles than one could count on one hand.
Not only had he slain the leader of a cult and vanquished a demon in a labyrinth, but he had also ended a witch’s life and was recognized as the wielder of the holy sword, a warrior of the gods.
Now, he was even hailed as a dragonslayer who had saved the paladin order.
Coincidentally, it was the very day Dalen severed the dragon’s head that Felber himself broke through his long-standing plateau.
‘They say the threat of death pushes people beyond their limits.’
On that day, as he single-handedly fended off the special unit’s assault with his spells.
Having exhausted most of his magic, Felber was struck by Everlock’s blow and hovered between life and death for days.
Fortunately, the paladin order’s healing prayers and advanced medical techniques succeeded in fully restoring his body.
However, the shock of the near-death experience was no less significant for him, who had grown accustomed to the stable life of the tower.
And sometimes, only such a shock can create a breakthrough.
The landscape of his domain, stagnant for decades, underwent a rapid transformation as he hovered on the brink of death.
Wooong…
With just a flick of his fingers, the magic trembled.
The manifestation of his will became one with the wind of magic.
The ascent achieved at the end of the path between life and death was the supreme state all wizards dreamed of.
‘A great domain.’
Felber had finally reached the standard commonly referred to as an archmage.
“Master! There’s a support request from the 11th district wall! Elle—Baladum!”
Seeing the flag waving in the darkness, Tommy hastily cast a spell and formed a seal.
Creating nearly ten stone arrows with a single spell, he skillfully provided support fire where needed.
Behind the young wizard, who had recently grown remarkably and was now more than pulling his weight, Felber, with just a flick of his fingers, matched his actions and slowly closed his eyes.
Beyond his imagination, the size of his domain had expanded.
‘Elle—Memento Elegus.’
Murmuring an incantation with only his lips, so that no one could hear, a ripple spread from beneath his feet.
An imperceptible ripple, so faint that even those who had mastered their domains couldn’t detect it.
In an instant, this ripple swept across the entire battlefield, imprinting the presence of thousands of lives into Felber’s mind all at once.
A paladin gasping for breath, gripped by fear.
A gnoll cavalryman aiming a spear at that very paladin.
A hand axe slicing through the air like lightning, splitting the gnoll’s head, wielded by a determined warrior.
Felber’s gaze, as if he were a god surveying the earth, perceived all these beings simultaneously, unbound even by the present moment.
The past of each life unfurled before him like thousands of panoramas, and from these pasts, their destined futures were drawn.
This was not merely the reading of the earth’s memory, but a power that teetered on the edge of something far greater.
Though not omniscience, it was a power that touched the fringes of such divine knowledge.
“And perhaps, it could even go beyond that.”
Felber thought, no, he was certain.
The power he had achieved was not limited to merely observing past and future.
Yet, he wondered if his aged and frail body could withstand the true potential of this hidden power.
Felber knew the answer to that as well.
The moment he wielded this power, his journey would end there.
A warm liquid trickled from his nose. Felber discreetly pulled out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood, careful not to alert his apprentice.
“Heh… not that it matters much now.”
A few weeks at most. Half a year if he was lucky.
Felber chuckled silently, calculating the days he had left.
“Still, it’s a shame. Just when I’ve finally grasped this power.”
It was inevitable.
Though he had achieved a sudden surge in mastery in his twilight years, the power was too much for his aging body to contain.
Even if the domain was a vessel for power not meant for mortals, the body serving as its conduit was just as crucial.
Even without actively drawing on the domain’s power, it would seep into reality through his body, like water overflowing from a brimming cup.
And if his body was too old to even handle that small portion, it was only a matter of time before it broke down.
“If I’m destined to meet my end, I might as well make it meaningful.”
Felber turned his gaze.
In the midst of the gnoll army, there was a conspicuously empty space.
A mercenary had carved out that void, single-handedly slaughtering hundreds of gnolls and now facing their leader.
By some stroke of luck, Felber’s fragment of omniscience had revealed a glimpse of this mercenary’s mysterious past.
“I found it odd there was no memory of him in the earth. I never imagined he was a regressor.”
What Felber saw was a tapestry of lives.
Not just one life, but the beginnings and ends of countless existences.
There was an old man with the face of a sage, and a mercenary much like the current Dalen.
Felber witnessed lives that varied in gender, age, and direction, each starting from the same point and ultimately meeting a heroic end against the apocalypse.
“I saw dozens, but there must have been hundreds more beyond my sight.”
The only explanation for such a multitude of lives in one person’s past was the phenomenon of regression.
A soul seemingly born to thwart the apocalypse, endlessly repeating the same point in time under different conditions.
And from what Felber could discern, no other cycle had ever come as close to staving off the apocalypse as this one.
“In a life with a set deadline, what constitutes a meaningful end?”
Felber murmured the fleeting thought without realizing it.
His apprentice turned, puzzled by the words, but Felber merely chuckled, offering no explanation.
Instead, he patted his apprentice’s shoulder and pointed toward the clearing in the battlefield.
“Ah! Finally…!”
Tommy exclaimed, following the direction of Felber’s finger.
The elder mage’s eyes, glowing with magical light, reflected the same scene the young man saw.
The gnoll army’s formation began to stir with murmurs and commotion.
In the center, amidst a mountain of gnoll corpses, a warrior stood, holding aloft the severed head of the enemy commander with a sword that glowed a brilliant blue.
The battle was over.