Raising a life does not have a universal guide Pt. 05

The rain became heavier and faster. People's clothes were soaked and heavy.

The crowd carried the rubble out of the site and settled it in the street—only the pieces that could be carried by hand.

It took five minutes before word of the accident reached the guardhouse. Now that the guards were notified, the mages hurried over to the site. Very few flew by air, using wind or explosive magic beneath and behind their body to propel themselves upward and forward, allowing them to lift off the ground and control their aerial movement. They were the first to arrive. Their flowing, loose beige robes and the tight gray clothes they wore signaled to everyone on site that their efforts were no longer needed. The people could now rest at ease and step back from the site.

And the people did just that, though some had to be guided away by shouting—people were not always willing to follow orders.

Han searched the ruins in the time between the tower's collapse and the mages' arrival. He found one body—crushed beneath the weight of the building. It was the man who had just spoken to him minutes ago. His body was pulp, dark red, with bones out of place. The legs were folded in wrong direction, his knees crushed. His face was unidentifiable; only his clothing indicated who he was, though now it was soaked in both blood and rainwater. Han was so shocked by the sight that his breathing became labored, his lungs crushing against his ribs from the inside out as he gasped for air. The corpse in front of him had its ribs completely flattened, now just a vessel of mangled flesh where a human had once been.

Han stood before the body in disgust. He fell onto all fours, vomiting onto the ground. He had lived for fifty years yet had never witnessed such a grotesque scene firsthand. Death was common in this world—he knew people died all the time in strange ways. He had heard stories and thought himself immune to the terrifying images they conjured in his mind. He had seen dead bodies before, but they had died of natural causes or were hanged in public. But this… this massive chunk of flesh in front of him—this couldn't even be called a human corpse anymore.

And worse, this man had been Han's closest employee—the one he trusted most, the one he relied on. Han respected him for his discipline and unwavering mental toughness. He had even felt a twinge of jealousy toward those traits. But he had never disliked him. In fact, he admired him. And now, the person he had shared such a close connection with was dead. Tears streamed down his face.

"Hey, are you a worker here?"

Han was crying on the ground, unable to hear the guard speaking to him. The guard shook his shoulder back and forth, raising his voice.

"Hey! Hey, do you hear me?"

"They're all dead… It's all my fault."

"Get a grip. I'll have to take you in for questioning. Come on, stand up."

The guard locked arms with him and pulled him up. Han's legs were weak, and he nearly collapsed several times while walking to the carriage, but the guard did not allow him to fall. Then, another guard arrived. Together, the two carried him to the carriage and sat him inside.

The debris from the collapsed shrine had been flung onto nearby rooftops and walls, carving holes into the surrounding buildings. Some bystanders had been heavily injured.

The rain was hindering the mages, so two wind mages used a spell meant to clear dust and rain. Though the dust had already settled, the rain remained a problem. This spell was a variation of the hurricane spell. A normal hurricane spell would fill a cylindrical area with raging winds capable of cutting through flesh and trees. But this variation did the opposite—it made the cylindrical area devoid of any "raging" atmosphere. In other words, it pushed raindrops at the top outward to the sides of the cylinder while expelling dust to the edges of the spell's area.

There were two C-rank wind mages at the site. They stood far apart but directly facing each other, forming an imaginary circle when viewed from above. Reaching their arms out to their sides as if embracing a massive bear, they began forming a circular current of wind at their palms. At first, it was a mere dot, then it grew to the size of a palm, then larger and larger until the edges of the circle filled with vertical, spiraling wind. The two mages' spells clashed, merging into a half-sphere—a smaller version of the hurricane spell.

Inside the sphere, the rain was pushed to the edges, creating a wall of water surrounding the mages. The rain wall stood behind them. Then, at a silent signal, they lowered their arms before raising them again, as if lifting an enormous boulder. The roof of the sphere was forced higher, extending all the way up to the clouds. A hole formed in the clouds above, allowing no more raindrops to fall into the cylinder.

The roof then opened at the top, creating a direct connection between the air above the clouds and the space inside.

With the rain cleared from the area, the other guards rushed inside and began clearing debris, searching for survivors.