There was a reason why the black-robed wizard from the Department of Mysteries failed to find Ian and the Fallen God where the Ancient Spirits had been destroyed.
Originally, that had indeed been their battlefield.
However, something unexpected had happened during the fight.
…
Ten minutes earlier… The air was thick with the pungent smell of smoke and scorched magical energy, mixed with the ever-present corruption emanating from the Fallen God itself.
"This guy's divine magic... I can't tell which pantheon it comes from." Ian's breathing was slightly hurried, not because of fear, but due to the strain caused by high-intensity magical output and mental combat.
Even so, the wand in his hand remained perfectly steady. The tip of the wand flickered constantly, shifting through different colors as it adapted to various forms of attack.
"Why can't you simply accept your fate?! Your resistance is blasphemy against the gods! We protected your kind for so long, and now we merely ask for your life in return! What right do you have to resist?!"
The thing was actually preaching while fighting.
The Fallen God, its twisted humanoid body floating amidst the shattered remains of the passageway, burned with greed and fury in its crimson eyes.
Its fighting style was direct and savage.
Every movement unleashed waves of corrupted Divine Power that crashed relentlessly against Ian's layers of defenses.
"Touch of Decay!" The Fallen God roared.
A gray-black beam of energy shot forward like a venomous serpent.
Wherever it passed, even light itself seemed to be devoured and reduced to decay.
"Protego - Multiple Reinforcement!"
Ian's wand flashed. Several magical shields instantly materialized before him, each glowing with a different elemental hue: deep blue frost, crimson flames, earthy yellow stone, and several others.
Seven layers of colorful, magical barriers stacked together.
This was one of Ian's innovations.
Drawing inspiration from the games he had played in his previous life, he had developed elemental defense systems that went beyond conventional wizard magic.
Reading plenty of fantasy novels had its advantages.
When it came to magical innovation and creative thinking, it provided excellent inspiration.
BOOM!
The Fallen God's attack struck with overwhelming force.
The gray-black energy beam slammed into the shields, producing a nauseating sound of corrosion.
The outermost flame shield dimmed and shattered almost instantly. Yet the inner layers of frost and earth shields stubbornly endured the impact.
Cracks spread across their surfaces, but they did not completely break.
"Soul Wail!" The Fallen God opened what appeared to be a human mouth.
What emerged, however, was the collective scream of countless vengeful souls.
The invisible sonic attack bypassed physical defenses entirely and pierced straight toward Ian's soul.
"Muffliato - Mental Isolation!"
Ian had anticipated this as his wand swept beside his ear.
An invisible psychic barrier formed around him, functioning like the finest soundproofing material imaginable.
Most of the direct soul attack was weakened and dispersed. At the same time, his indomitable will stood firm like an unshakable mountain, preventing the fragments of negative emotions that slipped through from influencing his mind.
When it came to mental defense techniques, Ian was among the best even within the Legendary realm.
The magic he had inherited from that troublesome woman, the Legendary Dark Witch Morgan, made his mental defenses exceptionally powerful.
Even a god at the height of its power would have struggled to overwhelm him psychologically.
A powerful Legendary being truly possessed the qualifications to contend with a god.
This was one of the reasons why gods in certain eras had feared Legendary wizards.
Perhaps, it was also one of the reasons Legendarys had gradually vanished from the Human Realm.
They were simply too powerful.
Their adaptability and upper limits seemed to transcend ordinary constraints.
Just look at Ian.
He had only recently entered the Legendary rank, yet he was already capable of standing against an ancient god from an unknown age through magic alone.
Granted, this ancient god was clearly not at its peak.
Still, its Fallen power was actually more destructive than its original divine authority.
Yet even so, it had been unable to defeat Ian.
That was what it meant to be Legendary.
To achieve the impossible within the mortal world.
BOOM! BOOM!
Magic and Divine Magic clashed repeatedly.
The battle entered a temporary stalemate. Relying on intricate spell combinations, vast magical reserves, and flawless control of combat rhythm, Ian continuously neutralized the Fallen God's relentless assaults.
He was like a master surfer riding through a raging storm.
Amid the monstrous waves raised by the Fallen God's Divine Power, he moved with incredible precision.
The situation looked perilous. Yet he always managed to find the narrow path to survival.
"This can't continue forever."
However, Ian understood the reality of the situation. If things continued like this, he would eventually lose.
The Fallen God's Divine Power seemed inexhaustible. Meanwhile, despite his rapid magical recovery, Ian's magical reserves were still being steadily drained.
His magic power appeared limitless, but in truth, that was only because his recovery rate was extraordinarily fast.
There was still a finite total amount of magic he possesed.
If consumption continued to exceed regeneration, a moment would eventually arrive when portions of his magic power would lose their activity.
When that happened, Ian would no longer be able to effectively control his magic and that would be the beginning of the end.
More importantly, Ian could sense that the Fallen God was not fighting at full strength.
Or rather, it seemed to be constrained by some invisible limitation, preventing it from fully unleashing its terrifying power.
It was probing. It was wearing him down.
Like a cat toying with a mouse.
"I'm not Captain America. I can't fight this guy for three days and three nights."
A sharp light flashed through Ian's eyes. He could no longer remain on the defensive.
It was time to break the stalemate.
Just as the Fallen God began gathering another mass of corrupted Divine Power, preparing to unleash a new large-scale attack, Ian suddenly pointed his wand at the ground rather than at his opponent.
"Earth Veins Surge - Stone Spear Piercing!"
Drawing on his affinity with the element of earth and combining advanced transfiguration with summoning magic, Ian activated the spell.
Instantly, the ground between them erupted violently.
Countless razor-sharp stone lances, glowing with a yellow-brown magical radiance, burst from the earth like bamboo shoots after rain.
They shot towards the Fallen God at astonishing speed.
These were no ordinary rocks.
Each one was infused with Ian's pure magical power and had enough force to pierce steel.
"Mere magic. A discarded relic, abandoned by our kind long ago."
A trace of disdain flashed through the Fallen God's crimson eyes. Clearly, the divine system to which it had once belonged had also originated with wizards.
This matched Ian's own conclusions.
Nearly every god had once been a wizard. After mocking magic, the Fallen God did not even bother to make a significant movement.
The corrupted divine power surrounding its body rippled slightly.
It was like an invisible force field.
The incoming stone lances began to decay the moment they touched it. The solid rock rapidly weathered and crumbled.
In the blink of an eye, the deadly spears had become loose sand and dust.
They scattered harmlessly to the ground. Not a single one managed to harm the Fallen God.
"Pathetic struggles of an insect!" It roared mockingly, but was that really the case?
In truth, Ian had never intended to injure it.
The moment the stone spears were destroyed, transforming into a cloud of dust that obscured the battlefield, he moved.
Like a phantom, he merged into the shadows.
Rather than retreating, he used the dust cloud for cover and charged towards the Fallen God's rear flank, towards the strange gate behind it.
Yes.
His objective had never been to confront the Fallen God head-on.
His goal was to break through.
He intended to enter the realm from which the Fallen God had emerged.
He needed to find out exactly what the Fallen God was.
What identity it possessed.
Only by uncovering that information could Ian rely on his extensive knowledge and vast learning to identify its weakness and ultimately defeat it.
"Trying to run?!" The Fallen God immediately detected Ian's intentions.
However, it had clearly misunderstood.
It seemed extraordinarily sensitive to Ian's attempt to enter the lower level. In fact, there was even a trace of… panic.
The Fallen God spun around abruptly and clawed through the air with its withered arm.
"Spatial Imprisonment!" A tremendously powerful force descended instantly.
The power of divine spatial laws engulfed the area before Ian. The air itself seemed to transform into transparent amber.
Space was forcibly solidified.
The entire structure of reality froze in place, attempting to trap Ian mid-stride.
"Apparition - Short-Range Breakthrough!"
Ian had anticipated this.
At the final critical moment before the Spatial Imprisonment fully took effect, he cast an extremely difficult short-range Apparition spell with pinpoint precision.
His figure blurred and distorted within the frozen space. By the narrowest of margins, he pierced through the invisible barrier.
A moment later, he appeared directly in front of the mysterious gate.
Ian had never been the type to fear dangerous places. He had already entered the Bronze Gate before.
Compared to that experience, this gate clearly seemed less perilous.
Confident in his abilities and bold by nature, he fully intended to go inside.
However, the aftermath of the Fallen God's furious attack had already caught up with him.
A destructive shockwave infused with both Decay and Spatial Rending slammed into his back.
BANG!
"Pfft!"
A mouthful of blood burst from Ian's lips.
Even after being weakened by magical shields and his powerful physical body, a god-level attack still inflicted significant internal injuries.
But he endured the pain.
Without hesitation, he pointed his wand toward the ancient barrier covering the gate. The restriction was covered in archaic runes and radiated immense energy fluctuations.
"Myriad Law Analysis: Restriction Pause!"
Ian condensed his vast mental power and magical energy into countless microscopic probes. Like the world's finest locksmith, they instantly analyzed the structure and energy nodes of the restriction.
This was not brute-force dismantling. It was the search for a fleeting flaw within the barrier's operational cycle.
The massive luminous barrier rippled where Ian's wand touched it.
Like a stone dropped into water.
A circle of ripples spread outward.
For an extremely brief instant, the barrier's radiance dimmed, and its operation stalled.
The gate was activated.
It began to open.
"Now!"
Summoning the last of his strength, Ian transformed into a streak of lightning. Before the restriction could recover, he charged through the opening and plunged into the pitch-black darkness beyond the gate.
The moment it opened, he disappeared inside.
"Damn it! Stop!" The furious roar of the Fallen God echoed from behind him.
However, the Fallen God seemed somewhat wary of the restriction itself. It did not immediately pursue Ian through the gate. Instead, it gathered even greater power and began launching furious attacks at Ian's position, attempting to forcibly stop him.
Ian immediately turned around and rapidly tapped his wand.
One restriction after another was layered onto the gate.
Although he knew they could never truly stop a god, they could at least buy him some time.
Then his figure vanished completely into the darkness beyond the doorway.
It was as though some kind of transportation magic had been activated.
Everything fell silent.
At last, Ian had a moment to observe his surroundings.
This place… looked nothing like a prison constructed by the Ministry of Magic.
Beneath his feet lay enormous stone slabs worn smooth by countless ages. The cracks between them were filled with moss that emitted a faint bluish glow.
On either side stood rough-hewn stone walls.
Their surfaces were covered with ancient murals, so weathered that most details had long since faded away.
The artwork depicted incomprehensible rituals and scenes of worship in an extraordinarily archaic style.
The air was cold and damp.
It carried the scent of earth and the accumulation of countless years.
Everything here felt completely different from the orderly, artificial coldness of the magical structures above.
The ceiling soared high overhead, disappearing into darkness.
Its true structure was impossible to discern. The entire space was immense, stretching endlessly ahead and to both sides.
Massive stone pillars, each requiring several people to encircle with their arms, rose throughout the cavern. Covered in the scars of weathering and time, they resembled silent giants supporting the underground world.
To be honest, rather than a prison, this place resembled a forgotten ancient tomb buried deep beneath the earth.
Or perhaps the ruins of a lost civilization. The African Ministry of Magic had built its most advanced prison in a place like this?
Or perhaps they had merely discovered these ruins and chosen to make use of them.
Questions flooded Ian's mind.
But there was no time to ponder them. The violent tremors coming from the restriction behind him, along with the Fallen God's furious assaults, reminded him that the danger had not disappeared.
Wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth and suppressing the turbulence within his body, Ian scanned the ancient, shadowy expanse with sharp eyes.
He searched for the deeper secrets hidden within this forgotten land.
Behind him, the barrier was already groaning under the Fallen God's relentless attacks.
Its luminous surface flickered violently, as though it might shatter at any moment.
"What kind of place is this?"
Enduring the waves of pain radiating from his injured back and the disorder within his magical power, Ian quickly began examining the unfamiliar environment.
The first thing he did was cast a detection spell.
Invisible ripples of magical energy spread outward like the tentacles of a jellyfish, probing the surrounding structure and depth.
Originally, he had suspected he might have stumbled into the hidden realm of some minor divine pantheon.
However, the information that returned made his heart tremble.
This place was still directly beneath the African Ministry of Magic.
But its depth… far exceeded his expectations.
The data returned by his detection spell was vague and distorted, as though some force were interfering with it.
Even so, his rough estimate was shocking. The location was likely dozens of kilometers beneath the surface.
Possibly even deeper. It had nearly pierced through the continental crust itself.
It was approaching the upper mantle.
"How is that possible...?" Ian muttered in disbelief.
His face was filled with astonishment.
An artificial ruin of this scale existing at such a depth?
What kind of terrifying technology and power would have been required?
Modern magical civilization might be capable of constructing deep underground fortresses. But creating a ruin of this magnitude near the mantle and maintaining its structural stability across countless ages was practically unheard of.
"Just what is the African Ministry of Magic hiding...?" Ian was not particularly familiar with Africa's wizarding society.
Whether from his own magical experiences or from the worlds depicted in Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,
Africa had always remained largely absent. Few wizards from developed magical societies were willing to come here.
The region was considered chaotic and dangerous. Most people's knowledge of it extended only to its abundance of potion ingredients and magical creatures.
Aside from that, the only widely discussed characteristic of African wizards was their ability to cast spells without visibly wielding wands.
Very few people knew anything else about Africa's magical world.
Within all the magical stories Ian knew, it was practically an afterthought.
Even its most famous trait, wandless casting, had attracted surprisingly little interest or research within Western magical society.
Of course, Ian already understood the underlying principle behind African wandless casting.
It was not because their magical system was inherently superior.
Rather, it was because they incorporated wand materials directly into their finger bones.
Once he had learned that, the Western world's lack of interest became perfectly understandable.
After all, African wizards still used wands.
Their wands were simply forged differently. For people accustomed to traditional wands, there was little appeal in permanently modifying their own finger bones.
Especially because bodily modification was considered forbidden research in the Western magical world.
Viewed from that perspective, it became obvious why the technique had never spread.
Different cultures simply had different preferences.
(End of Chapter)
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