Eastern Seaboard, Dulrak's Ruins.
Bodies lay lifeless on the red-painted ground inside a forest. Blasted sections of walls and columns littered around with green vegetation growing on top of them.
A foul stench permeated the area. It carried with it the aura of dread and death, instilling fear in everything that stood in its way.
Dartex and his undead legion have finally arrived.
"Come out, come out now! You damnable nobility and so-called guardians of Aludia, you stupid Creed cultists and rule-enslaved wizards!"
His harrowing voice echoed in the forest, alarming the innocent animals that were now fleeing to the distant safety.
Two golden-robed magi appeared a few meters from Dartex.
"Cardinal Lerga Sacramento, Magister Amos Linson. What a fateful reunion this is.", the latter laughed.
The other two put on dismal expressions on their faces.
"Dartex, stop with this madness right now! Surrender yourself, there is no need for spilling of blood today.", Lerga advised.
Embedded on his left chest was the glittering emblem of the Creed's symbol.
Dartex's dried mouth grinned, "Lerga, after all these years, that is all you could say.", before he secretly conjured six dark magic circles on his hidden left hand, "Spill not one blood… surrender thyself… Is your foul mind only capable of reasoning with this?", and sent out a dark beam towards the two.
"Star Shield!", Lerga countered. A golden star-shaped shield appeared in front of them, blocking Dartex's attack.
"Lerga, this is going nowhere. We should join forces and beat this mad-lad.", Amos suggested.
Lerga's golden eyes glinted in coldness, "You take point, Magister Amos. I'll support you from the back."
Amos was shocked, 'This despicable cardinal has the guts to plot against me on times like this?!'
His daze was interrupted when Dartex hurled a large fireball into them, blowing their surroundings into bits.
"What's the long face for?!"
Amos clicked his tongue in annoyance, 'I'll deal with the Creed later. For now…', he compromised and chose to take the lead instead.
Dartex slowly walked towards the two, "Lerga, Amos. You may have broken me once before, but I will not let you break something again today!"
They could feel the hate from his speech.
"You will not take another step in that dimension, or you will taint the holiness of the Heavenly Magic Academy with your foul minds! Attack!"
The undead legion roared in unison, charging with unstoppable momentum with the desire to tear off Amos and Lerga's existence out of this world.
Lerga used this chance to run towards the entrance of the ruins and block off the pursuing undead by closing the enchanted heavy stone doors.
A clergyman approached Lerga, "Cardinal Lerga, what's going on outside?"
"Prepare the teleportation magic array! We need to go now!", Lerga panicked.
"But it's not ready…", the clergyman weakly replied.
"Then make it so! I'm ordering you!"
The clergyman jumped in fright, "Ye-yes Cardinal Lerga!", hurrying off to inform the others about the changes in their plan.
…
Back outside, Dartex laughed at Lerga's cowardice, "And they call themselves the guardians of Aludia. How professional of them."
"It seems like your company has left you to die, Amos. You should've known better who to trust in the bitter end."
"Shut the fuck up.", Amos ignored Dartex's provocations and counter-attacked.
He conjured 7 light magic circles on his hand, "Wheel of Light!", throwing several discs of light that easily cut through the charging undead legion.
They spun quickly and warped the space around them, affecting a large area.
Amos gritted his teeth, 'This might be an easy solution… however…', it costed the lives of the humans who could've been saved.
Each being it decapitated hurt his heart more than the previous one.
Seeing the spinning discs converging to his location, Dartex grasped the air. 8 dark magic circles appeared below him.
"Tendrils of the Void!"
The ground quaked intensely as seventeen purple-colored tendrils sprouted and caught all of the spinning discs.
The tendrils suddenly bloated and 'pumped' their dark essence into the golden wheels, corrupting them.
Dartex circled his index finger, "Right back at you.", before pointing it to Amos.
His purple tendrils extended, throwing the corrupted wheels to its owner.
Amos shouted, "Guardian Bloom!", conjuring 9 light magic circles.
A golden sunflower rapidly grew in front of him and opened wide its 75 petals. The center of the sunflower turned hollow, becoming a strong vortex that sucked the incoming corrupted wheels.
Its roots wriggled underground, turning into countless legs like that of a centipede. It walked around and started swallowing all of the nearby undead into its bottomless hole.
The pulling force was so strong that even the heavy stone walls weren't spared.
The more it absorbed, the bigger it grew, quickly surpassing 10 meters and there weren't any signs of stopping. Stem grew out of the other roots, sprouting new golden sunflowers, and started sucking things in as well.
Dartex realized the danger of the situation. The suction that those golden sunflowers displayed weren't a joke. If he was caught by them, not even his tendrils could help him out.
And that was considering they weren't fully grown yet.
He extended both of his hands up high and conjured 10 dark magic rings, "Abysmal Descent!", his harrowing voice echoing to the top of the heavens.
Hearing those words, Amos' face turned pale. He recently just became a grandmaster magus and wasn't versed in any formula 10 magic spells.
'He's really the fallen genius, Dartex Deluminas!'
The reason for Dartex's title was how a genius he was when he was a law-abiding student, not until he decided to betray the principles of magical cultivation and used them to commit severe crimes instead.
'Abysmal Descent, otherwise known as The Death Realm's Call!', Amos stumbled on the ground fearfully.
Only the vilest of wizards could conjure such a spell. After all, one would communicate with the realm of death, a place where eternal suffering was the common experience, and far more nightmarish torture and mind-breaking sceneries existed deep within.
There was a saying in history that even the demonic creatures from the Otherworld hesitated to step inside such a suicidal realm.
Amidst his stupefaction, the sky above turned dark and time seemed to have slowed down to a great extent.
Space was torn apart and a large deteriorated skull peeked out from the other side of the crack. The red balls that inhabited the hollowed eye sockets looked below and glanced at Dartex's thin figure.
As if realizing what happened, the skull vanished and a dreadful aura leaked out from the large tear.
Amos could feel the earth crying in despair, the sound of death ringing in his sweating ears. Thunder rumbled and dark lightning flashed from time to time.
After a while, a group of horrendous ethereal beings flew out of the crack like swarms of bees flying around.
Their screams were loud and painful, their bodies were tall and unimaginably disfigured, and their thirst for life was dangerously high that anything they passed through decayed in the blink of an eye.
"Th-th-the slaves of death! Spectral glades!", Amos shouted.
The divine-like aura surrounding the golden sunflowers caught their attention, immediately heading straight towards them.
The golden sunflowers tried to absorb the spectral glades only to be responded with mocking laughter from its nemesis. Once the spectral glades were inside, sharp dark claws protruded out of their 'hands' and started tearing everything apart, including space itself.
The golden sunflowers squirmed in dismay. Its panicking roots flailed around, bringing even more destruction to the land.
It tried to suck in more but all was for naught as the spectral glades were faster.
Amos could hear their cackling even from a hundred meters away, "This is impossible! Dartex, stop this now! You should know better what would happen if these spectral glades start rampaging in this world!"
Dartex laughed, "Oh, Amos, the idiot. You should have known better on what to do before and after what happened that day…", red flames gleamed out from his dreary eyes, finally showing his full face to the outside world.
"Your ironic principles will sway me no more. The man who once stood on that path died decades ago!"
He ordered his tendrils to attack Amos at full strength.
Amos gulped, regret filling his heart.
Just as the tendrils were about to reach him, a long stretch of concentrated light bounded them in place.
"What?! Who's there?!", Dartex gasped.
The stone doors from the entrance were blown into bits. Inside the smoke were various silhouettes walking towards the exit.
The man leading them was no other than Eluard wearing a wizard robe he bought from the Sanctuary earlier. Behind him were a group of clergymen from the Creed and wizards from the League.
He was resting his left foot on top of the face of Lerga who fell flat on the ground, bound in ropes.
He raised his head proudly and assumed a pose.
"Mr. Kai, a disciple of the Heavenly Magic Academy."
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