Another Veria
And thus the next destination has been decided: Victasia city, Nehltaya Kingdom.
It was going to be a simple mission, just need to go there and destroy everything. At least that was what Iledoya had expected.
Victus suddenly jolted in alarm, inviting everyone's gaze towards her. Panic could now be seen along with her expression. With it she brought news "This is bad. Spatia, can you teleport them to Victasia?"
"Of course I can" Spatia answered. "But what happened? Judging from your expression, I guess something bad happened?"
"Something very bad!" Victus shouted. Not only panic, she's now very restless. "Those brats from the Hall are terrorizing the city!"
With that, Spatia held back any further questions he had. Without even warning Iledoya and Nicholas, they were both teleported.
"Why didn't you teleport us as well?" Sinov protested. "Wouldn't more people on hands be better? If they are really terrorizing the city, we should help!"
Lord Grun nodded in agreement. "Even though I'm the City Lord of Ruteshia, It should be fine to help out as well. After all, no matter how strong they are, there are bound to be some things that power cannot do alone without the numbers"
With Iledoya and Nicholas already teleported away, Victus has regained her calm. After hearing Lord Grun's words, she shook her head. "What you said was right. There are sometimes where numbers are more necessary than power. But the thing is…"
.
.
.
"He has both" Chronotia said, finishing the words of Victus that is on the 'other side'.
"Oh? How so?" said Spatia who was laying down in boredom after Chronotia kicked him out of the nice spot he found.
"Future me saw how he will make Hall of Origin bite the dust." She then remembered something and said "Wait. You also saw how his soul was doing in Death's Plane. You should know as well."
"Yeah I do know. I just asked because it was unnecessary of you to finish Victus' sentence when we both know. What is even the point of you saying that?" Spatia answered honestly without holding anything back.
"..." Chronotia went silent. "I… just had a weird impulse…"
.
.
.
"So what if he has both? He's but a single mage! Just how much manpower can he even provide alone for you to say that?" Sinov rebuked Victus.
"Hmm… about…" Victus did a little mental calculation before answering "maybe 100,000?" She turned towards Spatia and Chronotia and asked for their opinions "What do you think?"
Sinov, Nelits, Lord Grun, and Rutehom was stunned from hearing Victus' estimation. At this point, Charfania has already went inside to take a nap so. Spatia and Chronotia's guess came in and it stunned them even more..
Chronotia guessed "Hmm… I'd say 500,000?" while Spatia had a higher estimation "No no no… 1,000,000 should be possible for him yes?"
"How is that possible!" Unexpectedly, Lord Grun was the one who rebuked this time. "That is pretty much the size of an army already!"
"Precisely." Victus said. "How about having Spatia open a portal to see how things are going?"
"That's not a bad idea." Spatia agreed. Thus, he opened a portal somewhere up in the sky above Victasia to see how things are going. Through it, Sinov and the others saw the horrifying state the city is in.
Victasia was a huge city. It had a population close to 300,000 people in it. It "had" though. The city was built in a circular shape with the main roads making it look like a wheel from high up in the sky. But after the attack it received, some parts of it are only left with ruins. Only Victus could tell how much has died with it. Other parts are either turning into ruins, or just filled with chaos.
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Meanwhile, at Victasia.
"So they hired mercenaries? Why would they do that?" Nicholas was fighting off some of those mercenaries that he just mentioned.
Iledoya at the moment, was left with a head rolling on the ground. "I don't know really. I could feel from the magic in the air that they somehow turned the whole city into a ritual area" Iledoya was attacked by one of the mercenaries upon arrival, but he just let them. Seeing his head still talking after being sliced off scared most of them away so it was useful in a sense of way.
"What do you think they're planning to do with the city?" Nicholas asked whilst splitting someone in twine with a dimensional slice. Ever since he reached the Grand grade in Space Magic, his fighting power reached a level where simple mercenaries like the one in front of them just couldn't handle.
"Obviously it's for their Immortality process thingy. Or whatever. We should capture one of their members for more information" Iledoya said. But then he remembered something "Actually I can do it alone"
After he said that, his head died.
"Eh?" Of course, this confused Nicholas. "Iledoya? Where did you go?" He said casually while continuing to slice people that still courageously approached him. Sadly, Iledoya didn't respond.
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Back at Rutehom's hut.
"Right, are your spies joining in the attack?" Victus asked Nelits. Because it would definitely be bad if they were.
"They shouldn't be." Nelits of course wouldn't like it as well if they did. He then felt a tug at his heart "Oh? It seems like there is a report coming in" He sat down in a lotus position and went silent.
After a while, he smiled and stood up. "They did not join the attack. They sneaked away when they heard the order and are on their way back." Nelits said, being very satisfied with their action.
"That would be for the best. It looks like Iledoya is invading the souls of the members present there, so it would be bad if they happened to be there." Victus said. "By the way, how did the report came in?"
"A soul link. It allows for communication through long distances, but since I am not capable of Death Magic, it only works one way." Nelits explained.
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As Victus had said, Iledoya was invading the souls of the members of the Hall of Origin that were present one by one.
But that didn't go on for long. After about 5 souls, he got the information he needed. Going back to his dead body, it wasn't too hard for him to regenerate a head. But he was surprised to find himself in a metallic room with Nicholas.
"Where are we?" Iledoya asked.
"Inside my tank." Nicholas answered. "Not the kind of tank that stores liquid though. Go up the ladder there and see for yourself."
Following Nicholas' instruction, Iledoya left the tank and looked at it from the outside. All he could understand from it was that it was a moving piece of metal.
He shouted to Nicholas "Prepare the special weapon of yours. Once I make sure there are no more innocent, I'll come back to tell you to launch it."
Nicholas only responded with an "Okay!"
Now once again, Iledoya began his long pondering. 'What would be the easiest way to remove people from a city?' he started thinking.
Iledoya just shrugged. 'I really shouldn't take my time thinking about this. Let's just use the first method that comes to mind' Iledoya decided. For this method of his, everything would be just him using his mana manipulation capabilities. Which means all that he's about to do would all be done while sitting down.
"Step 1: Marking the innocent civilians" For this step, Iledoya extended his magic sense to cover the whole city. While doing so, he realized he should combine the second step with the first.
"Step 1: Marking the innocent civilians *and* giving them armor." This time, as he extends his magic sense, he is also extending out his own magic to cover the whole city. The "giving them armor" part of the step is simply Iledoya conjuring an armor made from his magic around all the innocent civilians he found with his magic sense.
"Step 2: ???" Iledoya didn't know what to do for a step 2. So he just redo the scan many many times. Just making sure he didn't get any mercenaries caught in and didn't miss out on any civilians.
"Step 3: Profit!" Iledoya then paused. "Wait no. Step 3: Evacuation" Step 3 was to merely control those who are armored to leave the city. He could do this easily with his armor.
As the grey-armoured people started marching like an army leaving the city, some of them were crying tears of joy for being saved despite being controlled like a puppet at the moment. Though the could only voice out their joy with their shouts like "THANK YOU, GREY MAGE!" that started reverberating throughout the whole city. They called him grey mage because of the grey armor he gave them.
Which of course, Iledoya happily used the chance by replying "Hahaha! Fear not any longer citizens" As he said so, he floated himself up in the air to reveal himself to them "For you all are now in the hands of I, the Immortal Mage!"
The marching grey armors cheered once again, shouting over and over "Immortal Mage! Immortal Mage!" With this, the foundation for the legend of the Immortal Mage has been laid down for Nehltaya Kingdom.
With such a success, Iledoya decided to enjoy his time a bit. He decided to enjoy some of his favorite fruits from his backpack tree. So he decided to enjoy his time while he flew towards Nicholas.
While Iledoya might be happy with the results, it is a given that the enemy would feel the complete opposite. Not only could they not kill anymore, they were only able to watch them leave. After all, the grey armor was made out of Iledoya's magic that is above Absolute Grade.
Even when they swing their swords or cast their spell, they couldn't harm nor stop the marching armors. They were practically immune to all attack with the armor covering their whole bodies.
So, when Iledoya claimed to be the one who protected the civilians, they set their target on him, since he wasn't wearing any of his magic armor.
When Iledoya was still flying towards Nicholas, he was intercepted with a shout "SO IT WAS YOU!!!!"
Before Iledoya could see who shouted, just when he turned around to see who shouted, the voice shouted once again "Absolute Sun Magic: Black Sun!" and thus when he turned around, all he saw was a huge black sun that was hurled towards him at a speed he just couldn't dodge.
The black sun hit him directly. It didn't really explode or anything. Iledoya was just absorbed into it. But nevermind just getting hit by it, even some of the subordinates of the caster had died from the heat. But whoever shot it, was apparently not satisfied. He casted again and again "Sun Magic: Solar Flare!"
With each solar flare casted, the heat of the black sun would increase and the color would begin to show tinges of dark red.
After casting solar flare so much, the final thing he casted was "Supernova" and with that, the black sun collapsed into itself, finally exploding. The size of the black sun was just right apparently, as the range of the explosion didn't went past the city walls.
Now, all that was left of Victasia was the somehow still standing temple at the center of the city. Even the subordinates of the caster had mostly been burned to death. Only some survived with the help of some magic tool that granted them protection. But of course, all of the armored civilians are safe as well.
The caster could now be seen. His hair was like burning black flame and he had sharp intimidating eyes. He walked and approached what remained of Iledoya, which looked like a lump of charcoal wearing clothes and a backpack. And that backpack… is now missing a tree…
"Hmph! Now you know what happens when you mess with us, the strongest and most feared bandits in the continent, Dying Stars!" the caster said.
Now, everyone had slightly different feelings in them.
Nicholas who was in the temple at the center of the city was shocked to see the city suddenly flatten.
Victus was despairing when she saw the flat city.
Sinov felt indifferent since she had first-hand experience with Iledoya's power.
Lord Grun and Rutehom was speechless to see the extent of power an Absolute Mage wielded.
Both pair of Spatia and Chronotia didn't really have much of an expression since it's nothing really new to them.
The space in Death's Plane was shaking uncontrollably. But Death, who was in Death's Plane, laughed madly like a maniac.
Death then said "HAHAHAHA, I don't know what's going on, but I have a feeling that another is following the path towards Me, that was laid down by Veria!"