Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 67 The beam magic Solif had demonstrated—a fusion of light and fire—was a secret technique traditionally passed down only to the head of the Baraha family and their chosen heir.
It was much like the Arabion thought-acceleration magic that Meisa had once secretly taught Turan. The key difference was that while the latter could be used even without the Storm bloodline, the former strictly required one to be born with the Sun bloodline.
This was why Solif had been so bewildered when Turan first asked to be taught the technique back in the dungeon.
'Even if you understand the principle, you shouldn't be able to use it without the Sun bloodline.'
'I have my ways, so just teach me for now.'
'...Well, if you say so. First, you know that fire comes in various colors, right?'
The color of a flame changed depending on its fuel. A mage using ignition magic could manipulate the properties of their mana to adjust this color to some extent. These colors were determined by the wavelength of the light emitted. By precisely adjusting the wavelengths of both the fire and the light to match, the two could be fused into one.
The most ideal color for this fusion was the brilliant golden hue Solif produced.
Turan didn't fully grasp the exact physics of wavelengths or why matching them allowed light and fire to merge, but since Solif himself didn't understand the science behind his magic either, knowing the theory was enough.
'Let's see.'
Turan pulled a single lash of light from the halo spread behind his back and gave it a light flick. Perhaps due to a lack of experience, his movements felt clumsy and crude compared to Solif's.
Of course, the fact that he could use it at this level after only a few practice sessions in a dungeon was, to any ordinary mage, an absurd display of raw, unfair talent.
"Wha—What is this? How on earth are you using the Judgment Light?"
Countless thoughts raced through the mind of Rei, the Baraha noble, as he witnessed this. Had the heir managed to father a child of that age in the few years since he fled the family? Naturally, that was impossible.
If not that, was the enemy before him not a Zahar, but a bastard of the Baraha bloodline using a stealth magic device? But it was hard enough to guess whose child he could be, and that didn't explain the Earthkeeper bloodline ability he had shown moments ago.
With his thoughts in a chaotic tangle, Rei only snapped back to reality and scrambled to respond when the lash Turan had produced came hurtling toward him.
"Urgh!"
The sword of light extending from Rei's hand tried to parry the lash, but it was instantly severed, unable to withstand the heat. Had they been in peak condition, the result might have been different, but the mana reserves between Turan and Rei had already been reversed.
Though his Green Shield blocked the attack and saved his life once more, a massive chunk of his remaining mana was shaved away in the process. The only silver lining was that his opponent didn't seem particularly skilled at handling the Baraha secret technique, the Judgment Light. At that speed, Rei felt he could dodge it as long as he didn't let his guard down. In fact, if his feet and legs hadn't been injured, he could have dodged it with ease.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, the lashes of light Turan was wielding suddenly multiplied to four.
"I'm not used to it yet, so I can only manage about four."
With those terrifying words, the four lashes struck out at Rei simultaneously. They were exactly twice as fast as the previous attack.
*
By the time Turan finished off Rei and returned to the garden, Solif was at his limit, on the verge of being suppressed. Of course, the Baraha mages pushing him were also running low on mana. They had wasted a significant amount of energy keeping the area brightly lit, fearing the Zahar noble might reappear at any moment.
"Y-You…"
"How are you doing that?!"
Just like Rei, the Baraha nobles were struck with horror at the sight of Turan appearing with a halo at his back. And when they saw him sprout over a dozen lashes and wield them with practiced ease, they were left utterly stunned.
Despite the sudden reversal of the battlefield, they fought back desperately, but the scales had already tipped. While Turan had maintained nearly half of his mana even after defeating Rei, the Baraha nobles had exhausted almost all their strength trying to subdue Solif.
To make matters worse, the exhausted Solif used the last of his strength to take down one of the high-ranking nobles with him. Turan then used flight magic to hover leisurely over the garden, picking off the enemies one by one.
First, he scattered Soul of Fire and detonated it, blinding and deafening three of the weaker nobles. He cut down two of them in that state and killed the third with a sling as they tried to flee in a panic.
Wary of a counterattack like before, he only used Soul of Fire that once. He then systematically subdued the leader of the remaining Baraha nobles using the lashes of light, just as he had with Rei.
The leader fought back quite well, wielding a magic device in the form of a Light-Swallowing Cloth, but since his mana was nearly spent, it wasn't long before his limbs were severed, leaving him collapsed on the ground. Whether it was a mercy or a curse that the intense heat cauterized his wounds, preventing him from bleeding out, was hard to say.
"Just… just what kind of monster are you? From stealth to Judgment Light, flight, and even explosion magic… you handle them all so freely…"
The Baraha leader's eyes held the specific kind of terror one felt when looking at an incomprehensible creature. Unless a god of magic had descended, this made no sense. Even if the head of a Great House had attacked, it wouldn't have been this baffling.
Turan understood the sentiment, but what he needed right now were answers, not a conversation. He pulled a chain magic device from his high-capacity pouch. He intended to bind the man so he couldn't resist even after recovering his mana, then slowly extract information.
However, the leader's expression shifted at the sight of the chains, and his head suddenly erupted in flames. It was a staggering amount of firepower, as if he had concentrated every last drop of his remaining mana.
"Ah."
Normally, casting magic on a mage's body without proper causality causes a powerful backlash, but the only exception to this rule was casting magic on one's own body. Just like the noble before him, the leader had just blasted his own head with ignition magic.
Before Turan could react, the leader's head was charred black, killing him instantly. Turan looked down at the corpse for a moment, then clicked his tongue and put the chains back into his pouch. A man of that rank surely would have known something about the mastermind who manipulated Solif's life.
As expected, subduing a noble prepared to die was no easy task, even with the relevant magic devices on hand.
'Nothing to be done about it.'
There was no use lingering on what was already over. Turan left the leader's corpse and walked over to Solif, who was sprawled on the ground, and carefully helped him into a sitting position. Solif was in tatters; one arm was severed from the elbow, and a chunk of flesh had been gouged from his side.
"You look like a mess."
"Heh… but I held out pretty well, didn't I…?"
Solif's eyes were unfocused as he spoke. It was clear that if left like this, he would lose consciousness soon. And in this state, losing consciousness meant death. With the vitality of a top-tier noble, he might last a few more hours, but natural healing was out of the question.
Turan extended his senses toward the corpses of the fallen nobles until he spotted the silhouette of a glass bottle and pulled it out. Having heard a brief explanation of their magic devices from Solif during their strategy meeting, he knew this was a recovery magic device.
'He said if you inject mana, it produces a recovery potion.'
He guessed it was an imitation of a holy relic that produced an elixir of life capable of reviving the dead. As he injected mana, liquid began to slosh inside the empty bottle. Turan fed it to Solif.
Before long, color began to return to Solif's pale face. However, the effect of the potion was too weak to heal him in one go, and Solif was far too powerful an individual. Turan had to repeatedly convert his mana into the recovery potion and feed it to him. Having already used so much mana in the fight, the massive consumption now brought on a dizzying wave of exhaustion.
'Tsk, I guess the efficiency really is lower than a Healer bloodline…'
Then again, a magic device that could replicate a bloodline ability with perfect efficiency would be a holy relic in its own right. Even Turan's Guardian magic tool had poor mana efficiency in exchange for replicating the Guardian bloodline's power.
After several rounds of resting and creating more potion as his mana recovered, Solif finally sat up with a shudder. His severed arm didn't grow back, but his strength seemed to have returned significantly.
"Resurrection!"
"Yeah, now that you're resurrected, make some of this yourself…"
Solif, who had bolted upright, looked sheepish as he took the glass bottle from the deathly pale Turan and brewed some recovery potion for him. As Turan drank it, the stinging burns on his back began to soothe.
After they had stabilized each other by exchanging recovery potions, Solif used telekinesis to unbuckle the Guardian magic tool from his arm and handed it back.
"This thing is truly incredible. I would've been done for long ago without it."
"It's my treasure."
In terms of pure functionality, the Mimic Relic was overwhelmingly superior, but Turan was personally more attached to this item. After all, it was a gift from a friend—even if the thing Asiz had actually made was the set of clothes that were now in tatters from the fighting.
"So… are you going to clean up right away?"
"I need to go get Bije first."
"I should start tidying up, then."
"I'll do it, so just stay here and rest."
Even if they had foul intentions, these people were once Solif's family and comrades. Having to kill them must have been hard enough; Turan didn't want to force him to scavenge through their corpses.
"It feels a bit wrong to rest alone after we fought together."
"If your body were fine, I'd make you work even if you didn't want to, so don't refuse."
"If you say so."
Seeing Solif lean against a tree with a bashful expression, Turan immediately headed toward the place where he had hidden Bije. As he passed through the fortress and the village, he encountered no pirates or island residents. The pirates had likely fled on their ships in terror after seeing the fortress go up in flames, and the residents seemed to be hunkered down in their homes, waiting for the fighting to end.
He dug out the entrance to the small burrow, revealing the curled-up Bije.
"Bije, I'm back."
[Turan, are you hurt?]
Bije immediately wrote as soon as she saw Turan's face. It was a dark burrow where a normal person wouldn't be able to see anything, but Turan saw it clearly.
"I'm not hurt, just a bit tired. It's all over, so you can come out. I have a nice gift for you."
[A gift?]
"Something delicious."
The reason he hadn't brought Bije to this fight was that she was far too weak compared to him. She was strong for a magical beast, but a stray hit from a House Head-level mage could have been fatal. Someone like Rei, whom Turan had faced, could have killed Bije in a single blow.
But if she absorbed the mana from the corpses lined up in that fortress, the story would change.
*
'This is incredible.'
Returning to the fortress with Bije, Turan organized the corpses of the Baraha nobles and looted their magic devices. Thanks to the Mimic Relic, he didn't have to strip the corpses down to their underwear to search them.
He recovered a total of twenty-three magic devices. Ten were relatively common items, and seven were what one would call quite excellent. The final five were treasures that wouldn't lose out to Turan's Guardian magic tool—items that even a Great House would prize highly. If it became widely known that an individual possessed this many magic devices, dozens of noble families might rise up to hunt him down.
Turan first encouraged Solif to take back the magic devices he had originally owned.
"Is that okay?"
"The magic devices you originally had are optimized for you anyway. There's no point in me hoarding them if I can't use them properly."
A mage having two fire-breathing magic devices didn't double their firepower; they still had to consume their own mana to exert power. If there were multiple magic devices, it was more efficient to distribute them to comrades who could use them effectively.
With a slightly embarrassed look, Solif took back about a dozen items, including a backpack, a wooden staff with bells, and even some enchanted undergarments.
Afterward, Turan carefully organized the remaining magic devices, recalling their functions from the battle or confirming them with Solif. Since he had seen most of them in action during the fight, he could guess their uses.
'This is the one that guy Rei was using. Automatic defense… the performance is good, but the mana consumption seems too high. I'll keep it for now. This one probably overlaps with the Guardian magic tool, so I'll give it to Solif. Oh, and this is that cloth from earlier.'
Born with the aggressive powers of light and fire, the Baraha nobles hadn't brought many offensive magic devices. The closest thing to an offensive tool was the one Turan now held: the Light-Swallowing Cloth.
The Baraha leader had used this item, which, when unfurled and infused with mana, could absorb all ambient light. They had likely brought a magic device that was the natural enemy of the Sun bloodline specifically to hunt Solif. And a function that eliminated light was also incredibly useful for a Zahar mage like Turan.
'This is going to be really useful.'
Until now, he had been forced to flee or break his stealth whenever light was brought into play, but with this cloth, he could swallow the light and continue fighting while hidden. Perhaps Zahar nobles already used similar magic devices. The only time he had seen a Zahar mage fight was in the underground labyrinth, a place where stealth was meaningless anyway.
After folding the cloth and putting it away, Turan's eyes fell upon a translucent mask.
"Is this it? The mask that changes your appearance?"
"Hmm? Ah, right. Probably. Their faces changed when they put it on."
"You don't know the specific functions or side effects?"
"I don't."
Turan examined the mask from various angles before sending it into his high-capacity pouch as well. He planned to ask Asiz to appraise it later.
Once the sorting was mostly finished, the long-awaited moment of mana absorption arrived. Of the ten nobles who died, Turan had already absorbed one in the dungeon, leaving nine. Looking at the row of corpses, Solif spoke in a slightly trembling voice.
"This feels really strange. It's not my first time performing a 'funeral,' but…"
He likely never imagined the day would come when he would kill his own kin and perform their funeral rites. As Turan brought Bije to his side, Solif asked softly.
"Are you going to let that creature eat the bodies?"
"No, Bije can absorb mana the same way a mage does. I taught her myself."
"Oh, I heard there aren't many magical beasts capable of learning that…"
It seemed Bije was exceptionally smart, rather than it being a common trait. Relieved that the bodies wouldn't be desecrated, Solif reached out with a much calmer expression.
And so, the mana absorption began.
The first targets were the six nobles who were relatively weak, possessing the mana of an average House Head. Naturally, neither Solif nor Turan could expect significant growth from absorbing their power. At the very least, Turan gained the benefit of storing the Sun bloodline's mana within the Mimic Relic.
Seeing this, Solif clicked his tongue in disbelief.
"I still can't believe it, even seeing it again. To think a relic that absorbs mana to replicate bloodline abilities actually exists…"
He wasn't shocked, as he had already heard the explanation and seen the results in the dungeon, but it was still hard to wrap his head around. After all, no such item existed among current magic devices, nor was one ever mentioned in historical records.
Unlike the two top-tier nobles beside her, Bije was showing remarkable growth as she absorbed the mana of the six nobles. It was a natural result of absorbing six House Head-level mages when she was already slightly stronger than an average noble.
After calming Bije, who was fluttering about in excitement at her sudden surge in power, they proceeded to carefully absorb the mana of the three high-ranking nobles.
Solif didn't gain much from it, but Turan felt the joy of growth for the first time in a while as he absorbed the mana of nobles who were slightly stronger than himself. The sensation of his very essence—from flesh and bone to mana, mind, and soul—evolving into a more transcendent existence.
After exhaling that dizzying pleasure over several breaths, he opened his eyes to find that the world around him felt much clearer. As his mana grew stronger, his physical abilities improved, and his senses sharpened.
'At this level… I'm probably similar to Perga.'
His memory of Perga's exact strength was a bit fuzzy, so he couldn't be certain, but he felt he was roughly in that ballpark. Compared to Solif beside him, he was at about eighty percent. Considering that Perga was once considered a candidate for the Zahar succession, Turan had now become a powerhouse capable of rivaling the heirs of any Great House, even if he was on the lower end of that spectrum. And considering his magic devices and skill, he was likely even stronger.
As he placed a hand over his racing heart, trying to calm his excitement, Bije let out a sharp chirp and soared into the sky. She seemed overly excited by her even more rapid growth.
"Bije, I know you're happy, but calm do—"
Turan, who was about to restrain her, trailed off at the sight unfolding before him. In the pitch-black night sky, a vortex was swirling every time the golden eagle flapped its wings.
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