The storm of violet lightning raged.
Inside that storm were countless blades of lightning forged from pure mana.
A 6th-Circle lightning-element grand spell.
[Ten-Thousand Thunder-Blades that Sever the Clouds]
True to its name, ten thousand blades of lightning scattered in all directions, slicing the entire space to ribbons.
The ground charred black where the lightning struck, and some steel structures sagged and melted under the heat of the current.
The War Mages felt as if their sanity was slipping.
“Hold! Hold on!”
“Throw in everything you’ve got!”
Though only elite War Mages had been gathered, each had prepared artifacts that could preserve their lives in dire emergencies.
They huddled together, burning every last safeguard they possessed.
Even the resonance shield spell unique to New Mage Tower magicians was raised.
And still, cracks spread through the shields, blood gushing from their lips under the backlash.
‘Th-this monster!’
The 5th-Circle mage bit his lip hard against the tingling electricity that pierced even their wards.
‘That spell wasn’t even aimed at us.’
The man cloaked in shadow had cast a 6th-Circle grand spell as nothing more than a display.
Had he truly directed it at them, their crude defenses would never have held.
Rumble—!
When the storm of lightning blades finally subsided, what remained of Sector E-34 was a neat, flattened clearing.
The 5th-Circle War Mage looked around.
Every other War Mage had been taken out.
They still clung barely to life, but only because their enemy had allowed it.
“Y-you... who in the world are you?”
He forced the words out with a trembling voice, but no answer came.
Of course there wouldn’t be, not from someone hiding their identity. Still, was silence all he’d give?
‘Where in hell did such a monster come from?’
A 6th-Circle mage, here on this island?
A mage of that caliber would have triggered reports to the upper echelons the instant he entered.
And yet, he had heard nothing.
Then—could he be another New Mage Tower magician?
‘No... an opposing faction’s scheme to sabotage us?’
The New Mage Tower was one organization, but inside it fractured into countless factions.
His faction was the radical one—profiting from the war at any cost. Others criticized them, saying they should focus on keeping peace on the island.
Not an impossible thought, then.
‘I-I have to report up—’
But he realized he couldn’t.
All his artifacts had been destroyed in that one attack.
Grinding his teeth, he shouted at the black mages watching from afar.
“What the hell are you doing?! Just going to stand there?!”
The black mages scowled.
What were they supposed to do?
Fight something treated like a natural disaster?
And to be ordered so harshly, like underlings—it only stung their pride.
But to retreat now would be no less humiliating.
Voices clashed among them.
“Why not strike now?”
“Are you insane? Didn’t you see? He used 6th-Circle magic twice!”
“If he’s cast it twice, he must be drained. No 6th-Circle mage can keep hurling spells like that. He’s got nothing left.”
“Our own losses are massive. If we back off here, the other sectors will laugh at us.”
“So you want to charge now? Even those War Mages were flattened.”
“So what. Their commander is still standing.”
Their debate ended quickly, as a new presence approached.
From the distance, a mage wrapped in mana flew straight toward the battlefield.
Pomput, field commander, landed in the ruined center.
His sharp, irritable eyes locked on Ludger.
The man cloaked in shadow was unrecognizable, but the devastation spoke for itself.
“You. What faction are you with? Who sent you?”
Pomput asked, then let out a dry laugh.
“Not that it matters. You’ve come this far, so you’re ready to see it through, aren’t you?”
Ludger fixed him with a silent stare.
Through the beak-shaped crow mask, his blue eyes held nothing but faint curiosity.
Pomput, even seeing this carnage, looked not fearful but confident.
He must have had something to rely on.
The reason soon revealed itself.
Something black shot through the sky and slammed down beside Pomput.
‘What is that?’
It was a massive block of brass.
Mana ran through circuits carved along its surface—clearly no ordinary device.
Unfamiliar, yet somehow familiar in design.
A metallic clicking began within.
At first, the sound of a spring winding.
Then the clang of gears, mana thrumming, steel locking—until the cube split open like a blooming flower, unfolding into a massive form.
“A steam golem?”
It resembled the brass golems Brino had built for the magic festival.
Only, Brino’s were spherical. This one was cubic.
And far larger.
‘How many high-grade mana stones power this thing?’
Brino’s had needed only one. This one carried at least five.
And it was no ordinary golem.
Where its head should have been was an open cockpit.
Pomput climbed in naturally.
“Heh.”
Ludger let out a dry chuckle, recognizing it.
“These island mages really do build all sorts of things.”
What Pomput donned was a reinforced exoskeleton suit, based on a steam golem.
There had always been suits of armor crafted for Grand Knights, but this was something else.
Better to call it what it was—
A powered suit for mages.
“Consider yourself lucky. You’ll be the first to witness the Magia Giant.”
Pomput stood tall in the latest creation of magitech.
Its bulky upper frame dwarfed its legs, yet it moved with surprising ease.
The machine’s raw output, even aside from mana stones, was monstrous.
Clank. Clank.
Pomput clenched and unclenched the Magia Giant’s massive fists.
The steel hands mirrored his movements precisely.
Each one was bigger than a man’s torso.
One grasp would crush a human like dried parchment.
“It’s still experimental. But with a 6th-Circle opponent appearing, I should thank you for giving me the perfect test.”
Pomput’s eyes gleamed as he savored the chance to test his prototype.
Ludger simply raised a hand and pointed a finger at him.
A light probe to start.
A dart of light shot at Pomput’s exposed head.
The obvious weak point—worth a try.
But a mana field flared before Pomput’s face, swatting it aside.
“Did you really think I’d leave such an obvious weakness?”
Pomput spread both arms wide, bracing the Magia Giant to charge straight at Ludger.
‘Coming, is he.’
Just as Ludger prepared himself—
A violent burst of mana blasted from the Magia Giant’s back, propelling its massive frame forward like a cannonball aimed at him.
‘Fast.’
Ludger thought so as his body sank beneath the shadow, vanishing from sight.
The giant arm swept through where he had stood, missing as Ludger slipped away, then the Magia Giant hung briefly in the air, twisting, before landing lightly without issue.
“What was that magic?”
Ludger studied the Magia Giant with intrigue, while Pomput frowned at the spell Ludger had just used.
An attack that should have been unavoidable, dodged as though the ground had swallowed him.
Earth magic? No. Illusion? Not that either.
“You use magic I’ve never seen before. Which faction are you from? That spell... I want it.”
Pomput licked his lips.
Ludger’s intrusion had already caused massive losses—yet he saw in that spell a chance to make up for them.
Ludger, however, ignored his reaction, focusing instead on the Magia Giant’s movements.
‘So, low-altitude flight charges? Then those legs are for balance only.’
Those bulky legs weren’t for walking but for holding the frame steady.
Actual movement came from mana stones, ejecting energy to generate thrust.
A ton-heavy armored frame soaring through the air. Just how much output did it carry?
Five visible mana stones outside—but who knew how many more were hidden inside.
‘So it wasn’t a lie that they built this to fight a 6th-Circle mage.’
A machine built to counter the pinnacle of magic.
That magitech had advanced this far was shocking.
A powered suit for fighting mages, controlled by a mage himself—an irony not lost on Ludger.
It reminded him that the New Mage Tower, too, was far from clean.
He had once thought, seeing Lord Roteron, that it was freer, better than the old Mage Tower.
‘But anywhere people gather, it ends up like this.’
He could not dwell on the thought.
Pomput, his eyes gleaming with hunger for Ludger’s magic, moved the Magia Giant again.
Clank.
The massive shoulder hatches swung open, revealing built-in high-explosive warheads.
Gun barrels protruded from the open hatches and the backs of its hands.
“I’ll wipe you out in one barrage.”
The barrels roared. Specialized shells streaked out, trailing flame as they filled Ludger’s vision.
The firepower unleashed by a single unit rivaled that of an artillery battalion.
Ludger raised a hand calmly.
“Idiot! Even a 6th-Circle can’t block this kind of firepower!”
But Pomput’s smug expression didn’t last.
The missiles and shells that had been flying straight at Ludger all veered off midair, twisting away to crash elsewhere.
Some even spiraled toward the black mages watching in the distance.
BOOM!
Explosions and fire blossomed across the battlefield.
Pomput’s eyes locked on Ludger, still shrouded in a jet-black shadow amid the flames.
“Metal magic?”
He realized it then. Ludger had manipulated the very projectiles he fired.
Not shaping his own metal, but seizing theirs in mid-flight.
“Could he have... a Color Title?”
No. If that were true, the destruction would be far greater than this.
Besides, the shadow cloaking him was no mark of a single attribute mage.
The man before him was not bound to ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) one element.
“Wait, what’s this?”
Pomput noticed faint iron dust shimmering in the air.
“So that’s it.”
The dust had been scattered beforehand, clinging to the projectiles, twisting their paths away.
To an outsider, it looked like metal manipulation—but it was precision at the highest level.
‘Could anyone even create iron dust so fine with metal shaping magic?’
Which meant his control over mana was absolute.
Pomput felt a chill.
This wasn’t simply a 6th-Circle mage hurling raw power. His composure and finesse were unsettling. For a moment, Pomput wondered—was Ludger truly not a War Mage himself?
‘No matter. I’ll crush him here. With the Magia Giant, I can even defeat a 6th-Circle mage. If special munitions don’t work, I’ll end this with overwhelming magic!’
The mana stones of the Magia Giant thrummed violently.
Mana surged like a fountain, coursing through its intricate circuits and feeding the core.
Resonating stones amplified one another—not adding power, but squaring it.
Five external stones. Three internal.
Eight in total.
The Magia Giant’s output transcended reason.
But Pomput overlooked one thing.
Victory in battle was never decided by raw power alone.
He realized it only when a faint mist rose around him.
“What is this?”
Pomput tried to sweep the mist away with the Magia Giant’s mana.
It pushed aside the floating iron dust Ludger had spread—
But the pale fog clung to his face unhindered.
“Wh-what!”
The moment it touched him, Pomput felt his strength drain.
It wasn’t an illusion. His skin grew brittle, wrinkling in seconds as though he were aging decades.
“UAAAAH!”
Ludger stood silent, watching as Pomput collapsed screaming.
For this was not his doing.
He turned his gaze to where the white fog had come from.
There stood a figure in a black robe, a staff in hand, face hidden behind a mask of goat bone.
“You must be the black mage of the Ancient Curse School.”
Crow mask and goat mask locked eyes in silence.
