Episode 188: Starlight Jellyfish (2)
“As I feared, Hedoniac got here first.”
Damian sighed inwardly upon hearing the report. The very thing he had been dreading had come to pass.
“They’re ahead of schedule.”
The arrival was a full day earlier than the time he had extracted from the tortured dark wizards.
Whatever the reason, there was no time to ponder. He needed to act swiftly.
“No choice. I’ll have to handle this myself.”
If Damian’s hunch was correct, the master class dispatched by the Order would be nearby.
He planned to stall Hedoniac until the Order’s master class arrived.
“And if they don’t show up?”
He’d have to resort to his hidden measures, though he wasn’t thrilled about it.
With his mind made up, Damian rose from his seat. While his family was distracted by the starlight jellyfish, he slipped down to the hotel lobby.
“Right, I need to keep my identity hidden.”
Damian intended to confront Hedoniac outside the city.
To stop those two, he’d have to use dark magic.
Even outside the city, there might be passersby. He needed to conceal his identity.
“Hey, where are you off to, young master?”
He ran into Victor on the lower floor, who was holding a peculiar mask.
It was wooden, painted black, and large enough to cover an entire face.
“And what are you up to? What’s with the mask?”
“Oh, this? I bought it from a merchant. They said wearing masks during the festival is an old tradition.”
Damian recalled the people on the streets. Not a single one wore a mask.
It seemed Victor had been duped into buying it.
“Perfect timing. Let me borrow it for a bit.”
Damian reached for the mask, but Victor quickly pulled it back, alarmed.
“No, you can’t! This is a valuable item!”
Instead of snatching it, Damian pulled out a gold coin from his pocket.
Victor’s eyes widened at the sight of the gleaming coin.
“Take it, by all means!”
Without hesitation, Victor handed over the mask. Damian placed the coin in Victor’s palm.
“Here, take a few more.”
Damian added a few more coins to Victor’s hand. Victor looked puzzled.
“Why are you giving me more?”
“Consider it a name fee.”
Victor looked even more confused.
Leaving Victor behind, Damian headed out of the hotel.
A location far from the bustling festival city.
“That’s the city, right?”
Three figures appeared on a low hill.
“Those sparkling things must be the starlight jellyfish,” Sukle said, pointing to the sky.
Hundreds of starlight jellyfish floated above the city, creating a mesmerizing and beautiful sight.
A man sidled up to Sukle, casually draping an arm around her shoulder.
“Sukle, my sweet little kitten. Isn’t it beautiful? I wanted to show you this…”
“Where are those idiots? They should’ve come to greet me by now.”
Sukle shrugged off the man’s arm and scanned the surroundings.
But there was no one else around, just the three of them.
“Letting them run wild for a while seems to have made them forget their place.”
Sukle chuckled darkly, clenching her fist. The man looked troubled.
“Sukle, my delicate kitten. It’s not nice to use such harsh words. Always be beautiful and…”
“Wingstone, shut up unless you want a beating. I’m already in a foul mood. Stop spouting nonsense.”
Wingstone’s shoulders slumped at Sukle’s irritable response.
“Those fools… They better have drawn the magic circle in the city as I instructed. If they haven’t, I’ll make sure they pay. At least an arm each should be burned.”
Sukle’s eyes gleamed with a chilling light. Wingstone nodded.
“Sukle, even when you’re angry, you’re like a cute kitten. Do as you please…”
“By now, everyone in the city must be having a great time, right?”
Sukle murmured softly.
“With such a beautiful sight, they can’t help but be happy, right?”
“Like our clever little kitten. Who wouldn’t be happy at such a grand festival?”
“Right? I thought so.”
A wide grin spread across Sukle’s face.
“Let’s blow up the city. Bring down the buildings. Burn the people.”
With each word, Sukle folded a finger.
“Show them their families’ bodies charred black, make everyone scream.”
As her words grew longer, Sukle’s eyes turned dreamy.
“Let’s turn the happiest moment of their lives into despair. Turn everyone’s joy into misery.”
Sukle shivered with excitement. Wingstone quietly wrapped his arms around her neck.
“Do as you wish, my kitten. Everything in this world is for you.”
“Ha, you only say things I like at times like this.”
Sukle’s lips curled into a wicked smile.
“Then let’s activate the magic circle.”
Dark, viscous magic oozed from Sukle’s body, like thick oil.
The dark magic dripped to the ground, forming a magic circle.
Standing at its center, Sukle brought her thumb and forefinger together.
“Now, let’s begin.”
Snap.
The sound of her fingers snapping echoed crisply.
In that moment, Sukle’s anticipation soared. She watched the city with her mouth agape.
But nothing happened. No explosions, no flames.
“What the…?”
Sukle frowned and snapped her fingers a few more times. But the result was the same.
”…Damn it!”
Her face twisted with rage as she cursed.
“What the hell is going on? Why isn’t the magic circle activating?”
Sukle stomped her feet in frustration.
“Those idiots! What were they doing in the city if they couldn’t even finish the task I gave them?”
Unlike Sukle, Wingstone gazed at the city with cold eyes.
“Strange… They wouldn’t ignore orders.”
The Yomak brothers had always completed their tasks as Sukle’s assistants.
They had never failed a mission before. Something was off.
“Pigler?”
Wingstone wiggled his fingers, and a middle-aged man hurried over.
“Y-yes! What is it?”
“Something seems to be going wrong. Go to the city and find the Yomak brothers.”
“Understood!”
Pigler dashed toward the city.
He wasn’t an ordinary person; with each step, he leaped several meters.
Then it happened.
A flash of light cut through the darkness. Pigler’s head was severed in an instant.
His head fell lifelessly to the ground, and his body collapsed.
The sudden turn of events left Sukle and Wingstone frozen.
Someone emerged from the shadows.
Tall and with a confident stride, the figure’s gender was uncertain due to the strange mask covering their face.
“And who are you?”
Sukle asked, her voice dripping with menace. The masked figure spoke.
“Victor.”
A deep voice.
“Victor the Woodcutter.”
The masked figure replied calmly.
”…Victor?”
Sukle closed her eyes and tapped her forehead with her finger.
“I’ve heard of you. You’re the dark wizard the Order once searched for, right?”
“My clever kitten. What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember? The Holy Order… those hypocrites had a branch wiped out. The dark wizard who killed the culprits and vanished was named Victor.”
Sukle looked at Damian with interest.
“I was curious about the fool siding with the hypocrites… Didn’t expect to meet them here.”
She gestured to Pigler’s corpse.
“So why did you kill our man? Don’t tell me you also killed my assistants in the city?”
“If you mean the Yomak brothers, they’ve long been dead by my hand.”
Sukle let out a derisive laugh at Damian’s words.
“Is this guy insane?”
“You were the ones who trespassed on my territory first.”
“What?”
“I had my eyes on that city first. So back off.”
Sukle scoffed at Damian’s words.
“After killing three of my people, you want us to back off? That’s not happening. Besides, I’m quite interested in that city myself.”
A menacing aura radiated from Sukle.
“I’m curious about who you are and why you’re doing this… but I’m in a bit of a rage right now.”
Sukle summoned her dark magic. The black energy rose high, using her as fuel.
“Wingstone.”
“Yes, my angry kitten?”
“Stay out of this! I’ll deal with this bastard myself!”
At Suclay’s shout, Wingstone merely shrugged.
“If our brave little cat says so, I suppose there’s no choice.”
Suclay stepped forward, while Wingstone retreated.
“Refusing to fight alongside us? That’s a foolish decision,” Damian remarked, a hint of disdain in his voice.
Suclay scoffed. “Foolish? Are your eyes just for decoration?”
She spread her arms wide, and the dark magic she summoned traced a sigil in the air. Flames erupted around her, rising high.
“I can handle the likes of you on my own.”
The flames coalesced, taking shape.
A giant.
It towered over three meters tall, with horns protruding from its head. Its teeth were jagged like saw blades, and its massive hands bore grotesque claws.
Damian’s eyes widened at the sight.
“An anti-spirit?”
Spirits were beings of immense power, coveted by many. Yet, they only formed pacts with elves, lending their strength exclusively to them.
Occasionally, however, dark sorcerers managed to bind spirits to their will. It wasn’t a pact so much as subjugation, corrupting the spirit with dark magic to force a contract.
“Handling a mid-level spirit… you’re more dangerous than I thought.”
Spirits were pure entities, nearly impossible to corrupt. Yet Suclay had subdued not a low-level, but a mid-level spirit.
This was proof of Suclay’s extraordinary abilities as a dark sorceress.
“Could it be… you’ve completed the Vision?”
The Vision—a term for the ultimate spell that grand dark sorcerers aspired to master. Completing it granted power rivaling that of a master class sorcerer.
“Who knows? Don’t dig too deep,” Suclay sneered, raising her hand. The mid-level spirit opened its maw wide.
“Glemy, incinerate him.”
In an instant, the fire spirit unleashed a torrent of flames upon Damian. The inferno didn’t stop at him; it engulfed the entire plain.
Everything touched by the flames vanished in an instant, not merely burning but evaporating entirely. The ground and rocks melted, turning into flowing lava.
The fire spirit continued its onslaught, and Suclay laughed with delight.
“Ahaha! Glemy, you’re the best! No one else can create such magnificent flames…”
But then, Suclay noticed something strange.
The flames were parting, as if blocked by an invisible barrier.
At first, she thought her eyes were deceiving her. But soon, she realized the truth.
“Wait, that’s…!”
Through the flames, Damian Haxen stood, surrounded by a shield as black as obsidian.
“Impossible!”
Even corrupted, Glemy was a mid-level spirit. How could anyone so easily withstand its flames? It defied everything Suclay knew.
Inside the barrier, Damian Haxen calmly removed a bracelet, releasing a surge of dark energy.
“Pitch Black.”
An ancient dark magic that crushed and obliterated everything in sight.
There was no need for incantations or sigils. The magic was complete with a mere movement of dark energy.
The sky turned black, erasing all starlight and moonlight.
“Crush.”
Damian pointed downward with his finger.
The flames vanished in an instant, and the entire field was flattened.