Chapter 471
Episode 132: Annihilation, and Something Strange… (5)
What Midor Elner pulled out looked like a cube slightly smaller than a clenched fist.
His face was alight with eager anticipation as he stared at the object. A faint blue glow, tinged with a sinister aura, shimmered around the cube.
“Finally… I can avenge Brother Myuron…!”
Myuron Ziphl.
The memory of his brother’s death, silenced by a scream, surged painfully in Midor’s chest.
For the longest time, Midor couldn’t understand why Ziphl hadn’t taken proper revenge, even though Runcandel—the one who killed Myuron—was thriving openly.
Snap, click…!
As Midor infused the cube with magic, the blue light deepened, shining so brightly it stood out even beneath the storm of black spirit spears piercing the air.
“What is that blue light?”
From a distance, Jin observed the cube’s eerie glow.
“It doesn’t seem like magic… could it be an artifact?”
The black spears obscured a clear view, but even at a glance, it was clear this was a type of artifact Jin had never seen before.
A bad feeling gnawed at him. The sly, almost mischievous expression on Midor’s face was unsettling.
That was the look of someone hiding a trump card—an expression that always appeared just before they revealed it.
Murakan furrowed his brow at Midor’s demeanor.
“There are always fools who rush death ahead of time, no matter the era.”
“Puhuh, kuhahaha!”
Suddenly, Midor threw his head back and laughed. The cube in his grasp hovered in midair, its faces fully open.
“Runcandel’s 12th Cavalry, the true Runcandel, and the Black Dragon Murakan! I’ve waited for this day. The day I can soothe Brother Myuron’s soul with your filthy blood…!”
“I won’t allow it. You’ll disappear.”
Roar!
Murakan unleashed a fierce breath toward Midor and the Ziphl mages.
It was a breath filled with raw emotion and rage—stronger than the one that had wiped out the White Wolf tribe’s greatest warrior, leaving only his ankle behind.
The breath’s path was littered with spirit spears, turning the area into a battlefield the size of a shrunken mountain range.
Only Murakan himself and Jin could possibly withstand such a breath alone.
As the breath swept over Ziphl’s forces, Midor and the surviving mages could only stare wide-eyed in shock.
“Ah, it’s still opening!”
“We have to block it…!”
The elders shouted desperately, but before they could finish, the breath engulfed them, reducing them to black particles.
Other mages summoned all their strength to raise protective barriers, but it was hopeless. Murakan’s breath mercilessly tore through Ziphl’s defenses.
It was like a war chariot rolling down a steep hill, smashing dozens of houses before finally stopping.
Murakan’s breath pulverized thirty elders into dust and shattered the shield right before Midor, only then coming to a halt.
The excited grin that had filled Midor’s face vanished.
He blinked, his pores tingling with cold dread. The confidence he’d felt activating the cube was already fading.
“…Was this breath really unleashed without any warning or preparation?”
A sharp intuition stabbed at Midor’s heart—he had miscalculated.
Even when the black spears first fell, he’d felt a nagging doubt.
Was today truly the right moment to exact revenge?
But it was too late to recalculate. Murakan’s anger only deepened when he saw Midor still alive after the breath—his pride wounded.
“Block it? Block it? Are you crazy? You’ve lost your mind, haven’t you? Ha, this bastard… so annoying.”
Murakan’s usual composed tone slipped into something more unhinged, which only made him more terrifying. A powerful being whose mood wavered unpredictably was always dangerous.
Huuup!
This time, Murakan took a deep breath, gathering his strength to unleash another breath.
The spirit spears that had silently rained down suddenly ceased. The energy fueling the spears was now channeled into the breath.
The ground beneath, once pocked with spear impacts, looked like a desolate testing ground for magical bombardment. Not a patch of flat earth remained; only scattered remains of bodies, reduced to dust, littered the floor.
The Biment troops barely held their composure, regrouping, while Kinzel’s beastmen had lost all control, weeping and soiling themselves in despair.
Only Midor and a handful of elders remained on Ziphl’s side, trembling.
Ahead of Jin, Sandra Ziphl was slowly regaining her human form, healing herself.
The clicking and whirring of gears sounded noticeably slower than before.
“Looking at this, I’m starting to think it might actually be more powerful than the power of time itself.”
Time’s power was formidable, but Jin knew that even with it, recovering from damage that amounted to certain death was impossible. Even Quikantel couldn’t restore a body broken down to the cellular level.
“The power of the demon stone and the bio-golem… It’s clear both are being used. If Ziphl can keep creating beings like Sandra…”
A memory from his past life suddenly surfaced.
The Mirror, the Source of Magic.
In his previous life, after obtaining that cursed relic from Colon, Ziphl mass-produced seven-star mages without rest. These mass-produced mages solidified Ziphl’s dominance.
But Sandra’s regenerative ability far surpassed those mass-produced mages.
Could this be a change brought on by Jin’s return?
Had his reincarnation influenced Ziphl’s research direction and results? Could it be that Runcandel was now at a disadvantage compared to before?
Jin shook his head.
“No, even with mass-produced mages, Ziphl couldn’t have dominated so thoroughly. Even if several had seven-star magic, they couldn’t handle true nine- or ten-star mages.”
Those mass-produced mages were likely just test subjects or materials for creating weapons like Sandra.
“Back then, the mass-produced mages were propaganda tools to showcase Ziphl’s dominance, while beings like Sandra were secretly mass-produced for combat.”
Since Jin’s current life hadn’t obtained the Mirror, bio-golem research probably lagged far behind his past life.
Even so, Ziphl’s bio-golems had already reached this level—bodies that could be broken down dozens of times and still return.
“And I have a feeling the secret of Ziphl I’m about to witness today isn’t even the whole story…”
The cube’s blue glow burned intensely.
What exactly was this thing that made Midor so confident?
Though the breath had dampened his momentum, Midor remained resolute.
“This… ki… un, bastard, damn it… just… wait…”
Sandra, her face partially restored, was the first to speak.
Midor heard her clearly. The silence left by the halted spirit spears was so complete that even their breathing could be heard.
But Midor ignored Sandra’s command, steeling his fear.
Yes, we can win. No fear. Today is the day we’ll drink our enemies’ blood from a cup of pure gold.
With his brother by his side, there was no reason to fail.
Kneeling, Midor raised both hands respectfully, as if invoking a deity.
This was his own ritual, unrelated to the cube’s “complete activation.” A ceremony to welcome and honor his long-lost brother.
Whoosh!
From the fully opened faces of the cube, light flowed like water. Waves of glowing energy rippled through the air in all directions.
Dark, gloomy blue beams painted the space like a canvas.
Except for Ziphl, even Murakan—who had lived three thousand years—had never seen anything like this.
The lights are forming something… h-how insane.
Jin watched the cube’s light take shape, barely suppressing a curse.
The first thing the light formed was a person.
Myuron Ziphl.
“Brother, welcome back…!”
Midor looked up at Myuron with eyes shining brightly.
By now, Myuron had taken on a tangible form, with texture and weight—no longer just light, but substance.
However, unlike when Jin had met him in Colon, this was not the image of a fully living man.
His skin was a dark, bluish black like an ancient corpse, peeling in places to reveal bone, teeth, and organs. His eyes were dark and vacant, making him look like a moving corpse.
But the cube’s light had formed more than just Myuron.
Behind him, a ship.
Ziphl’s ultimate weapon, a flying warship symbolizing the calamity from the skies.
A vessel resembling Kozek hovered behind Myuron, fully formed.
The deep blue ship was even larger than Kojek’s, its sheer size alone radiating an imposing presence.
Inside the vessel, countless mages—beings formed from pure light—were aboard.
In other words, out of nowhere, Ziphl’s ship and army had materialized right in the middle of the island.
The shock of this sight left everyone struggling to find words, their minds reeling.
Even Jin was at a loss for words, blinking in disbelief.
“Such fresh air, Midor,” Myuron finally spoke, his voice calm yet commanding, carrying a gentle authority. Midor’s face lit up with emotion, on the verge of tears.
Now, with his older brother by his side, he could finally take revenge and earn their father’s recognition…!
That certainty sent a shiver through his entire body, trembling uncontrollably. For a moment, he felt foolish for ever doubting the power his brother and their fleet possessed.
“And it’s been a while, Jin Runkan…” Myuron added.
“Ugh, I was just watching to see what was going on, and then this nonsense pops up. Seriously? What rotten luck!” Jin grumbled.
Then, it happened.
Murakan unleashed the breath he had been gathering.
KRAAAASH!
A surge of dense spiritual energy, far more concentrated than the black spikes that had been raining down moments before, rushed toward Myuron and his army.
Neither Midor nor Myuron had even considered that this breath could destroy the ship.
They had only planned to defend once, then follow up with words and attacks that would leave Jin and his group trembling.
But in the next instant, the massive ship formed by light was torn apart with shocking ease.
Like a torch setting fire to dry paper, Murakan’s breath pierced straight through the center, utterly shattering it.
CRACK, CRUNCH, SCREECH!
BOOM, BANG! RATTLE! TING! TAT-TAANG!
Myuron and Midor could hardly believe their ears as the ship broke apart. To the brothers, the sound was so unreal it felt utterly bizarre.
“Those worthless bastards just took up space, that’s all. Damn it, they’re asking to die,” Murakan sneered with a mocking laugh.