Chapter 327: Chapter 324: Wrapping Up and Making a Getaway
"Huh?"
"I’m getting old. Casting a spell on an entire city is a bit difficult. I need a young man like you to lend a hand."
Sir Isaac began Casting. Rorschach felt a familiar sensation. The Black Cultivator back then had manipulated gravity just like the old Sir was doing now, but the Great Mage’s control was far more exquisite. He wasn’t releasing a Domain to affect objects directly, but was instead manipulating space-time itself.
"All things have gravity, and gravity is the folding of space. Matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move. But what about Magic Power? Is it matter, or is it energy?"
The old Sir didn’t chant while Casting. He just muttered to himself, then said to Rorschach, "This question has troubled me for a long time. Fortunately, even without a definitive answer, it doesn’t stop us from using it to interfere with the space we inhabit..."
With him at the center, the original distortions in space were smoothed out. He was driving Magic Power to move at high speed at the intersection of the Material Realm and the Symbolic Realm, generating gravity within a tiny area equivalent to that of a massive celestial body.
The resulting waves corrected the curvature of real space, and then even inverted it. In other words, within the range of the old Sir’s spell, the entire city block first lost its gravity, then began to float.
"This is my limit. Can you expand this spell, my proudest work, to cover the entire city?"
Under normal circumstances, Rorschach certainly couldn’t do it. But now, just by using [Arcane Vision], he could understand the mechanics of the old Sir’s spell and felt he could not only replicate it, but super-size it. ’This isn’t my power, it’s the Wise Man’s.’
Lifting the Royal Capital of Istani, one of the three great nations, was a feat that not even a veteran Great Mage like Isaac could accomplish.
But it was like weightlifting; while holding up the weight steadily might be difficult, Rorschach could use a clever trick—a momentary burst of power—to lift Storm City.
Mirroring the old Sir’s Casting, Rorschach manipulated as much Magic Power as he could, driving it to move at high speed between the Material Realm and the Symbolic Realm. But he created two rapidly spinning vortexes whose spatial fluctuations repelled each other.
"What you’re doing is..." Isaac was stunned for a moment, then his expression turned fervent.
The two vortexes accelerated to their limit, the movement of pure Magic Power becoming visible in the real world.
The residents on the ground looked up to see two dark purple vortexes revolving around the midpoint between their centers, spiraling toward each other, closer and closer, faster and faster...
They collided! Like celestial bodies spiraling into each other, their impact sent cataclysmic waves through space. In an instant, a tide of weightlessness swept over the entire city.
The material part, Storm City, was lifted up, successfully separating from the more ethereal Shadow City, which was less affected by the spatial fluctuations.
’Now’s the time!’ A moment later and Storm City would sink back down, or worse, fall completely into the Shadow Realm. Rorschach had no time to worry about the Wise Man’s Illusion in the Deep Diving Area; he decisively activated all the Magic Arrays he had set up.
The Magic Arrays, centered on Rorschach’s exclusive Rune, activated with a hexagonal pattern, then began to violently tear apart everything in the area. First was "Expulsion," which recoiled and kicked the Shadow City out of the real world. Buildings like the Inverted Church gradually faded away as they collapsed.
Next was "Decomposition." It wasn’t complete pulverization, but a shattering of the Shadow Land’s once-solid existence. This triggered a chain reaction. Starting from the most ancient Holy Land, the colossal statues shattered one after another, and the great stone gates broke apart into smaller pieces.
With the Deep Diving Area as their epicenter, they began to spin, gather, and collide.
Rorschach looked down through Storm City at the Shadow City below and let out a long sigh of relief. He didn’t know if it was thanks to the Wise Man’s Illusion, but in any case, they had achieved the best possible outcome: the Shadow City was successfully collapsing in on itself.
Mother Earth sensed the change. She did not awaken, but merely moved instinctively in her primordial form. Her tentacles now scrambled upward madly, but there was already a distance between them and Storm City, leaving them to wave futilely in the Void.
Subway lines collapsed and trains derailed. The residents of Storm City, the Knights, and the infiltrating Gray Elves all witnessed the city-wide tremor as the very foundation of Storm City—the earth it sat upon—tore asunder.
When the moment of weightlessness hit, Silsa happened to be facing down. Through a fissure in the ground, she saw the ruined Shadow Land and the wildly flailing tentacles of Mother Earth.
They were branching off, tearing at each other. Their surfaces burst open to reveal endless pus and gaping maws that let out venomous shrieks.
The overflowing hatred sent a shiver down Silsa’s spine.
The weightlessness lasted less than a second, as did the collapse of the Shadow Land. It was just that the violent spatial turbulence seemed to have distorted time itself.
Ordinary people, along with their surroundings, didn’t notice the anomaly on a spatio-temporal level. But for those with higher levels of Magic Power, there was a sense of dislocation between their Soul and body. That single moment of displacement seemed to last for a very, very long time.
Mother Earth was unwilling to let the "sore" leading to the real world shrink. She upped the ante, trying to use her own power to enlarge it, to tear open a rift and devour everyone who stood in her way. The Wise Man’s Illusion finally made its move. The fragments of the crumbling Holy Statue were linked together by a sacred radiance, and then...
A second great explosion, detonated by Rorschach, completely foiled the Mother Goddess’s attempt. In his [Arcane Vision], the Shadow Land was reduced to a vast expanse of white, which then continued to collapse until it became a single point of light.
Then, it went out.
An ancient voice echoed in Rorschach’s mind. "Thank you."
With that, the Wise Man’s Illusion vanished completely. Rorschach felt a wave of immense exhaustion wash over him. He still possessed power comparable to a Great Mage, but he could feel it unstoppably evaporating, fading away.
Caroline had already prepared the Teleportation spell. After this battle, the space around Storm City was exceptionally fragile. Caroline carefully opened a small gap and called to her weary student, "Let’s go."
Rorschach glanced at the old Sir. He was still gazing up at the sky at a 45-degree angle, as if the two vortexes Rorschach had created were still there, muttering to himself, "So it can be done like this... It can be done like this..."
He then looked at Storm City. It was as if it had been hit by an earthquake. Scarcely a street or building was left intact; cracks and rubble were everywhere. Rorschach sighed and used his last bit of surplus Magic Power to once again bring a great rain down upon the city. This time, however, the raindrops carried the Magic of "Healing."
Having done all this, Rorschach took Caroline’s hand and slipped into the rift in space.
...
"Where are we?" Rorschach lay sprawled on the beach like a starfish. Aside from his mouth, which was a bit stiff, the rest of his body was limp and wouldn’t move. The sea breeze was a little cold, but the sand beneath him was reasonably dry.
"Still in Istani. My favorite beach. It was also the limit of where I could teleport us to from a standing start." Caroline was drawing a Magic Array in the sand, enclosing both herself and Rorschach within it.
"Istani’s Royal Capital looks like it’s been plowed over," Rorschach said slowly, staring at the sky. "The casualties must be heavy."
"When the Kingdom chose to collude with the Sect, such a bitter outcome was inevitable." Caroline sprinkled crushed crystals onto the circuits. "If it had been left unchecked, the Shadow Land would have eventually become a gateway for Mother Earth to invade the real world. Your efforts eliminated the greatest hidden danger at the smallest possible cost."
"I was just a hired hand who got some benefits out of it. It was that mysterious Wise Man from ancient times. He sacrificed everything in the end, taking the Shadow City to the grave with him."
"Manipulating another’s Soul at will... that’s practically an Evil Mage." Caroline sounded a little angry. It was unclear if she was angry for the ancient Wise Man’s sake, or upset that Rorschach had put himself in danger and hidden it from his teacher.
She finished sprinkling the crushed crystals. The temporary Teleportation Array was ready. This one would take them across the ocean.
"Huh?" Caroline froze. The Teleportation Array had activated without her infusing any Magic Power. Understanding dawned on her, and she looked at Rorschach. "Do you know where it leads?"
"You drew it, and I trust you. That’s enough," Rorschach said. He could feel that Caroline was also exhausted. Forcing another Teleportation might push her past her limits.
Rorschach felt empty now because his power was draining away, but even so, he still had more Magic Power than Caroline. Perhaps the title "Middle Level Mage" could no longer describe the young man.
The two of them vanished from the wind-swept beach. The lustreless crystal fragments, now no different from grains of sand, were washed away by the ebb and flow of the tide, leaving no trace.
