Rebirth of the 8th-Circle Mage

Chapter 227 - Debut (3)

Tzzzzz!

The lightning lasted for as long as two seconds. Given that lightning usually struck in the blink of an eye, two seconds was a very long time.

The lightning bolt swallowed the two peak-level knights. However, Henry's magic didn’t end there.

“Falling Giants!”

The next spell caused earthquakes. Henry swung his sword and struck the ground, and a huge crack appeared, shattering the ground where the two knights were standing.

His opponents fell through the cracks. Afterward, Henry continued to cast more spells, like the Wind Blades, Spears of Flame, and Hot Iron Spheres, ceaselessly.

It was an incredible bombardment of magic. No one would’ve ever imagined that a single wizard could cause this much devastation.

The magic bombardment continued for a while. Henry swung his arms during the entire time he was casting the spells to make sure that he was aiming correctly.

After a while, the bombardment stopped, and with a long, deep sigh, Henry stopped casting spells.

‘Ha...’

Henry felt dizzy from the massive amount of mana he had used to cast the large number of spells in such a short period of time. However, the sensation quickly passed.

Then, with a serious look, Henry went ahead and glanced inside the pit left by the destructive spells.

“Did I get them?”

Saying things like that was basically provoking the universe, but Henry still said it nonchalantly.

The pit was pitch black, just like the bottom of a well. Given that Henry had constantly cast offensive spells, it was only natural that the ground had been damaged like this.

Henry didn’t let his guard down, so he cast spells in both of his hands and peered into the pit.

“...”

However, no matter how long Henry waited, what he expected didn’t actually happen. He was getting curious, so he decided to check out the pit himself.

His fingers were tingling. He wondered if the two knights were trying to pull off some kind of trick, so he slowly and carefully peered into the pit, still keeping his guard up.

It was quiet.

Henry tossed a Light into the dark pit.

Whoosh!

The Light fell deep into the pit.

After a long fall, the Light illuminated the bodies of two knights, who had been injured, or rather, maimed beyond recognition by the magic bombardment.

“...They’re dead?”

Batz and Kinless had died, unable to withstand Henry’s magic bombardment.

* * *

“Let’s begin.”

Flying above the barrack, Alfred commanded his subordinates.

With cigarettes in their mouths, each of the one hundred high-level spiritualists summoned their contracted spirits and activated their spiritual skills.

Boom! Boom!

There were high-level spirits of all four main elements, which was a rare sight. Moreover, each spiritualist went berserk, unleashing their main skills.

“It’s an ambush!”

“Everyone, get in line!”

The entire imperial army fell into panic as the ambush began.

It was a successful preemptive attack. However, even though they were all high-level spiritualists, there were only one hundred of them. Realistically, a hundred spirits wouldn’t be able to overpower the imperial army of thirty thousand soldiers.

“Everyone, charge!”

At that moment, Yuha appeared with the ten thousand soldiers from the Sore Empire, ultimately resulting in a tremendous amount of power.

The spiritualists had been tasked to take control of the imperial army with their spirits, but it was Yuha’s job to add the finishing touches and ensure victory.

Yuha carried out his orders flawlessly.

The adjutants that were second in the command searched for Batz and Kinless, but unbeknownst to everyone here, those two had already been met with a terrible fate as they lay dead in a pit.

Thus, it was obvious what would become of an army without a leader.

It was a bloodbath. The imperial soldiers struggled for a bit, but they soon gave up on hope.

Seeing this, Yuha exclaimed, “This is our win...!”

The Sore Empire had won by a landslide. This was the kind of victory that only happened in books: the Sore Empire, the underdog of this story, miraculously defeated an army three times their size, and with almost no difficulty at that.

Yuha’s face lit up with joy.

* * *

“They’re actually dead?”

Unable to believe his eyes, Henry pulled the bodies out of the pit and examined them with a closer look.

No matter how much he looked, they were indeed the bodies of Batz and Kinless, as the imperial seal was clearly stamped on the armor they wore.

Henry chuckled in disbelief.

“How could two Imperial Ten Swords just die like that, unable to withstand the magic bombardment? Unbelievable.”

Henry was stunned. Because they were part of the Imperial Ten Swords, he hadn’t expected them to just die from a magic bombardment.

At any rate, the dead couldn’t talk, so Henry stopped thinking about this. He put their bodies into the Chest. Then, to shake off the awkward feeling he had after the anticlimactic end of the battle, Henry decided to review the brief fight he had just fought.

After contemplating on it for a while, Henry reached one conclusion.

‘Did I really get that strong?’

Henry noticed that his current state was quite different from when he was a 7th-Circle Archmage in his previous life. The most notable difference was the density of his mana.

‘I’m sure of it. I’m stronger now than when I used to be 7th-Circle in my previous life. I might, in fact, be many times stronger.’

Given that there were still no other 7th-Circle wizards besides himself, Henry couldn’t be completely certain of his theory, but he decided to go with it for the time being.

Henry’s lips curled into a smile.

“I should end this war soon.”

He had tested his strength against two high-level knights, and the results were unimaginable.

Henry wanted to end this war as soon as possible because only then would he be able to return to the Magical Spire and focus on training just like he had in the past.

Having made up his mind, Henry returned to the Sore Empire.

* * *

The sun was up.

The thirty thousand soldiers of the imperial army had all been slaughtered. Just like Henry had ordered, the troops of the Sore Empire hadn’t let a single enemy soldier escape.

The corpses of the enemy formed a mountain, blood flowing into a river at its base. The metallic, acrid smell of blood was everywhere.

Henry wanted to burn the corpses right away, but he hadn’t yet finished retrieving all the loot, like armor and other supplies, so he had to deal with the smell of blood for a few more days.

As soon as the sun rose, Henry made his way to the hall where the Taejae was. Alongside Hongwol, Yuha and the left minister also waited for him. All of them looked excited.

As Henry stepped into the hall, the Taejae was the first to greet him with joy.

“Archmage!”

“Good morning.”

Hongwol’s smile was full of happiness, and Henry felt rewarded by the look on her face; it washed away some of his worries and made him feel like his hard work was worth it.

Henry then greeted the left minister.

“Did you sleep well, Left Minister?”

“Haha, I managed to sleep quite peacefully, thanks to you, but before anything else, I’d like to thank you.”

On behalf of the Taejae, the left minister bowed.

Henry had saved the Sore Empire. If not for him, the Sore Empire would’ve faced destruction, so this kind of gesture was well deserved, which was why Henry didn’t act particularly humble.

“Well, this was expected, so I’m not surprised, but were you satisfied with the results, Commander?”

“Satisfied? I’m beyond satisfied. I’d also like to express my deepest gratitude on behalf of the Taejae.”

“Haha. I’m glad that all three of you are in good spirits. Anyway, I took a look around on my way here, and it looks like it will take at least three days to retrieve all the loot. I would’ve preferred to burn all of them at once, but because they’re so many of them, I think we’ll have to separate the weapons from the bodies, since the weapons won’t burn.”

Taking weapons from the dead enemy soldiers was one of the most basic procedures of warfare. In addition, armor and spears wouldn’t burn with the corpses, so they had to separate them.

Henry nodded in agreement to the left minister.

“I see. So, we can assume that’s how the retrieval is going to happen. I have some other good news for all of you.”

“What? More good news?”

Instead of answering, Henry smiled and snapped his fingers. Two familiar heads appeared on top of his hands.

“T-that’s...!”

“These are the severed heads of the two commanders.”

These were certainly the severed heads of Batz and Kinless. Because of the destructive magic bombardment, their heads had been severely deformed, their appearance grotesque and nightmarish.

Seeing the bloody heads, Hongwol squinted her eyes and looked away, her stomach turning.

“I apologize, Taejae, I didn’t think it would affect you like this.”

“No... no worries. I didn’t expect you to bring the heads of our enemies in such a short period of time... You sure are impressive, Archmage.”

“It wasn’t that hard to do. I used the right minister as bait to lure them out, and they took it right away.”

“You used the right minister as bait? Then is he...?”

“Yes, he’s dead,” replied Henry curtly and calmly.

Hearing that, the left minister and Yuha nodded with rueful expressions.

“I’ve known him for a long time, so I feel bad, but... He was a traitor at the end of the day, so there’s nothing I can do about it.”

As expected of the left minister; he acted rationally instead of being emotional.

Having delivered most of the news, Henry said, “Then we’ll burn all the bodies after collecting the loot. After that, will you join us at Zipan after reorganizing the army?”

“Yes.”

Since they had concluded the important matters, Henry had no reason to stay in the Sore Empire any longer.

The Taejae tried to offer Henry breakfast as a way to express her gratitude, but he politely declined.

“I appreciate the gesture, but let’s all celebrate our victory when the war is truly over.”

Having said that, Henry used Teleportation and headed toward where Alfred would be waiting.

* * *

Henry arrived on the outskirts of the Sore Empire in a cornered open area.

There was a group of drug-addicted spiritualists huddling under the shade of a large tree, smoking in silence.

Even though Henry had arrived, everyone continued smoking, their expressions blank, their eyes vacant.

Henry didn’t seem to mind their impassivity and proceeded to count all of them.

“No one died.”

Including Alfred, there were one hundred and one spiritualists. Among them, there wasn’t even a single injured person, which showed how easily they had won last night’s battle.

Henry then opened the subspace and took out a bunch of water and dry food.

“Alfred.”

“...Yeah?”

“I’m leaving a few days worth of food here, and I want you to make sure your subordinates don’t starve. I’ll be back in a few days to pick you up.”

“...Okay,” murmured Alfred before sitting back down under the tree and resuming smoking his cigarette. He had a blank stare, his lifeless eyes unfocused. He truly looked like a zombie.

However, brainwashed as he was, Alfred was still the continent’s greatest spiritualist, so Henry decided not to judge his pitiful state anymore.

“So there’s only Zipan left, huh?”

Henry had spectacularly defended Vivaldi and the Sore Empire, the first two targets of the Aenia Empire. Thus, all that was left was an all-out battle with the rest of the imperial army in Zipan.

Henry wasn’t particularly afraid, since this too was only a tiny sketch of the bigger picture he had envisioned.

“Teleport.”

He used Teleportation and decided to fill in the rest of the picture.