"Alice, please light the rope on fire with magic," Arthur instructed.
Alice nodded, raising her hand. A soft incantation slipped from her lips, and a small flicker of flame leaped from her fingertips, igniting the end of the rope. The fire took hold, and the rope began to burn.
Arthur watched intently, anticipation building in his chest. The gathered knights and mages leaned in slightly, waiting for something to happen.
However, as the seconds dragged on, Arthur’s excitement started to wane. The rope burned—but painfully slow. The flame crawled along the fibers, barely making any progress toward the barrel.
Klein frowned, crossing his arms. "Uh… Your Majesty, is this supposed to take this long?"
Arthur didn’t answer immediately, his gaze fixed on the slow-burning rope. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized his mistake—a regular rope was a terrible fuse. Unlike proper slow-match fuses, which were treated to ensure a steady burn rate, this rope smoldered unevenly and threatened to extinguish before reaching its target.
A few knights shifted uncomfortably. Some even glanced at each other, stifling small chuckles.
One of them coughed. "I, uh… don’t mean to question you, Your Majesty, but should we… do something?"
Alice’s laughter spilled out, sharp and mocking. "Arthur," she managed between gasps, "do you honestly have any idea what you’re doing?"
Arthur clenched his jaw, frustration creeping in. He had the knowledge, but his execution was flawed. He had overlooked something so simple yet so crucial.
Taking a deep breath, Arthur turned to Klein. "Klein, can you go back and fetch more black powder?"
Klein hesitated, his brow furrowing. "More black powder?"
"Yes," Arthur confirmed. "I’ll explain later, but hurry."
Though still doubtful, Klein nodded and jogged off.
Arthur turned his attention back to the rope, only to find that the fire had already died out. With a sigh, he motioned for a knight to retrieve it.
Aaron, who had been quietly observing, finally spoke up. "Arthur, you’re trying to ignite the black powder inside the barrel, right?"
Arthur nodded. "Yes, that is my plan but I forget to account for the rope being a bad fuse."
Aaron thought for a moment before offering a suggestion. "Why not just have a mage shoot a fireball directly at the barrel? Instructor Helen has enough accuracy to hit it from this distance."
Arthur considered it for a moment before shaking his head. "That won’t work. The barrel is too thick. Even if the fireball is strong enough to ignite the black powder, the explosion I wanted won’t happen. The barrel would break open first, scattering the powder. Without confinement, the black powder will just burn, not detonate."
Aaron frowned, still unsure why confinement was necessary, but chose not to press the issue.
Minutes later, Klein returned, carrying another barrel of black powder. He set it down next to Arthur. "Alright, here it is. What now?"
Arthur’s eyes gleamed with determination. "Now, we make a better fuse with just black powder."
He knelt down and used his hands to draw a line in the dirt, marking a clear path leading from their position to the barrel. Then, he instructed the knights to carefully pour a continuous trail of black powder along that line.
Klein, watching with uncertainty, finally asked, "What exactly are you doing, your majesty?"
Arthur smirked. "As I said creating a proper fuse."
One of the mages, still puzzled, asked, "Your majesty, how does laying out black powder act as a fuse?"
Arthur glanced at them and explained, "When we ignite the powder trail, the fire will rapidly travel along it, acting like a fuse and igniting the barrel at the end."
Satisfied with the simplified explanation, the mage nodded, though some of the gathered knights and mages still looked doubtful.
Arthur turned back to watch as the knights carefully spread the black powder, ensuring there were no gaps. The thin black line stretched across the training ground. However, as the knights neared the end of the barrel, Arthur noticed a problem—the black powder ran out 30 meters short of the target.
Arthur frowned. He briefly considered sending Klein to fetch another barrel, but he quickly dismissed the thought. He had already wasted one entire barrel earlier, and he wasn’t eager to waste more of the precious resource.
Seventy meters should still be safe, Arthur reasoned to himself. The wood from the barrel might splinter and fly outward, but it shouldn’t have enough force to kill or cause serious injury. Besides, most of the people gathered here are mages and knights so they are much stronger than a regular person.
Turning to the group, he raised his voice. "This will be enough. Everyone, step back further just in case."
The knights exchanged glances, still uncertain about how dangerous this really was, but they obeyed. Slowly, the gathered crowd moved back, leaving Arthur, Alice, and a few of the more curious knights closer to the edge of the fuse line.
Arthur took a deep breath and looked at Alice. "Alright. Light it up."
Alice nodded and extended her hand. With a soft chant, a small flame flickered to life at her fingertips. She stepped forward, crouching slightly, and touched the fire to the powder trail.
The reaction was immediate.
Whoosh!
A bright streak of flame raced along the ground, devouring the black powder in seconds. Sparks danced along the trail, illuminating the tense faces of the onlookers as the fire sped toward the barrel.
Arthur’s instincts screamed at him. He had seen destruction before in movies and knew what was about to happen.
"Everyone, lay down on the ground and cover your ears!" he bellowed.
Some of the mages and knight immediately obeyed, dropping to the ground without question. But Klein, Alice, and several other mages and knights hesitated.
"It’s still seventy meters away," Klein muttered, arms crossed. "No way it’s that bad."
Alice glanced at Arthur, her brows furrowed. Could it really be as destructive as he claimed?
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Some of the knights exchanged doubtful looks but remained standing.
Then—
BOOM!
The explosion ripped through the air like a violent thunderclap.
The shockwave hit first. A brutal force slammed into those still standing, throwing some backward as if struck by an invisible giant.
The fireball erupted a second later, swallowing the remains of the barrel in a flash of orange and red. A column of smoke and debris shot skyward, thick and choking, while splintered wood and scorched dirt were blasted outward in every direction.
The ground beneath them quaked, sending loose dust and rubble scattering. Those who had followed Arthur’s warning only felt the pressure shake their bodies, but those who had remained standing weren’t as lucky.
Klein staggered as the blast wave struck him, the shock from the explosion made Klein lose his balance for the first time in years. His ears rang painfully, and the world around him blurred for a moment.
Others were worse off, Alice shielded her face, gritting her teeth as the force of the explosion shoved her backward and fell to the ground. Several knights and mages stumbled, some outright falling as they were buffeted by the wave of air.
The explosion was nothing like a mage’s fire spell. It wasn’t controlled. It wasn’t shaped by mana. It was raw, unrelenting, and utterly indiscriminate. Unlike magic, which obeyed the will of its caster, this was chaos given form—destruction without restraint.
Even though some mages could wield magic far more powerful than this, none of their spells had ever unleashed a force like this. And it had never been this deafening. Even from over seventy meters away, the explosion roared like a wrathful beast, its fury rattling bones and leaving ears ringing with a sharp, agonizing whine.
For the first time, those who wielded magic found themselves confronted with a force they never seen, a power that didn’t bend to mana or skill—only fire, confinement, and destruction.
As the dust settled, Arthur slowly rose to his feet, brushing dirt from his clothes. He turned to face the others.
Klein remained on his feet, though the blast had thrown him off balance. His ears rang, and his heart hammered from the sheer force of the explosion. On the ground, Alice, groaning as she pushed herself up, wiped dirt from her cheek and looked at Arthur. Her usual sharp tongue failed her.
The knights and mages who had doubted Arthur’s warning were left speechless, their faces pale with shock. Those who had been knocked down struggled to their feet, their movements unsteady, as if the very ground beneath them had betrayed them. They exchanged glances filled with awe, fear, and a dawning realization—they had underestimated this power.
One knight, still on his hands and knees, gasped for breath before shouting, "What… what in the hell was that?!"
But his voice barely registered. The explosion had left a lingering silence, not of stillness, but of deafness. Their ears rang so violently that only muffled sounds reached them, as though the world had been drowned in an invisible storm. Words were lost in the aftermath.
Only Arthur and the few who had followed his warning—covering their ears tightly and lying flat—could hear him slightly clear. Arthur exhaled, watching the stunned expressions around him. He had expected disbelief, but what he saw now was something more profound. This wasn’t just fear. This was the realization that they had witnessed something beyond their understanding—something that didn’t require mana, incantations, or skill. Just fire, powder, and the right conditions.
Before anyone could fully recover, the heavy thud of boots against the dirt filled the air. Over a hundred knights and mages, who had been training elsewhere in the grounds, came rushing toward them, weapons half-drawn, eyes scanning for an enemy. They had heard the explosion from afar, felt the ground slightly shake beneath them, and now saw the thick plume of smoke curling into the sky like a signal of destruction.
An knight instructor among them stepped forward, his face tense. "What happened here?!"
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