The Wizard Has A Biochip

Chapter 46: We are being invaded. Enemy acolytes.

The mercenaries were completely focused on the Demon Babies advancing through the undergrowth.

None of them seemed to realize what was truly happening behind their own formation.

Then something changed.

"SHOOOZZZZ..."

A deep humming sound swept across the battlefield.

My helmet automatically magnified the image.

I saw a black sphere, roughly the size of a human head, appear among the mercenaries.

It spun rapidly as it flew through the air.

A thick trail of dark smoke lingered behind it.

It didn’t look like fire.

Nor wind.

It was an energy that seemed to consume the very light around it.

The sphere crossed dozens of meters in less than a second.

Then...

It landed directly in the center of the largest concentration of Demon Babies.

My Biochip reacted immediately.

["Energy anomaly detected."]

["Dark energy concentration exceeds normal parameters."]

The next instant...

"BOOOOOOOM!!"

The explosion shook the entire clearing.

The ground beneath my feet trembled violently.

A wave of darkness spread in every direction.

There was no red fire.

No golden flames.

Everything was black.

Dark flames consumed trees, bushes, and creatures within a radius of roughly ten meters.

More than twenty Demon Babies vanished instantly.

Those closest to the center simply ceased to exist.

Nothing remained but ashes.

The survivors rolled across the ground.

Their tiny bodies burned slowly as they screamed in a mixture of pain and hatred.

— AAAAAAAH!!

— It burns...

— It hurts...

— Kill...

My heart began to race.

That...

Wasn’t ordinary magic.

A fire spell?

I frowned.

No.

Not exactly.

There was fire.

But that dark element intertwined with the flames made it something completely different from conventional fire magic.

My gaze quickly swept across the mercenaries’ formation.

That was when I found those responsible.

Three figures.

Dressed in long black robes.

Their hoods completely concealed their faces.

Their clothing even covered their hands.

Judging solely by their builds...

I would say there were two men.

And one girl.

Acolytes.

My mind immediately began forming hypotheses.

Shadow Acolytes?

What were they doing here?

Could it be...

That Arcangrove Tower was under attack?

No.

I shook my head.

That theory immediately fell apart.

If a true Mage were involved...

None of those mercenaries would still be alive.

A single spell from a Mage would have been enough to turn the entire clearing into one massive smoking graveyard.

Then...

What were those three trying to accomplish?

Hunting some creature?

Carrying out a secret mission?

Or simply gaining experience?

None of the answers seemed convincing.

Without wasting any time, I discreetly took out the scroll I had received with the mission.

I touched its surface with two fingers.

The inscribed runes began emitting a faint glow.

Transmit report.

Small glowing characters appeared across the scroll.

I briefly reported everything I had observed.

The presence of the three acolytes.

The abnormal number of Demon Babies.

The black explosion.

The approximate coordinates.

When I finished...

The runes vanished.

The message had traveled through the magical link back to the Tower.

If something went terribly wrong...

At least someone would know what had happened here.

But the battle was far from over.

After suffering such heavy losses, the Demon Babies let out a unified chorus of shrieks.

— SNIIIIIIIIFFFF!!

— SNIIIIIIIIFFFF!!

Immediately afterward...

Something answered.

From deep within the forest.

The Wandering Souls.

My entire body tensed.

Hundreds of translucent silhouettes began emerging from between the trees.

They didn’t walk.

They floated.

They resembled distorted human shadows.

The lower halves of their bodies dissolved into gray mist.

Their upper bodies were more clearly defined.

Human faces.

Empty eyes.

Expressions frozen in eternal suffering.

["Spiritual lifeform identified."]

["Class: Wandering Soul."]

["Status: Conscious spiritual entity."]

["Physical composition: None."]

["Alternation between ethereal and material states confirmed."]

Which meant...

Ordinary physical attacks were practically useless.

The creatures continued advancing.

Then they began to whisper.

— The living... must die...

— The mud rejects no one...

— Flesh rots...

— But guilt... remains...

— Listen...

— Listen... to what you buried...

An intense chill swept through the forest.

The mercenaries felt it immediately.

— Spirits!!

— Damn it!!

— Protect the formation!!

Too late.

The Wandering Souls simply passed through the steel shields.

Like ghosts.

The swords sliced straight through them without producing any effect.

They plunged directly into the human bodies.

Some tore through flesh with spectral claws.

Others...

Entered the mercenaries themselves.

The men began to tremble.

Their eyes turned completely white.

Then...

They turned against their own comrades.

The defensive formation collapsed within seconds.

It was exactly the opening the Demon Babies had been waiting for.

The little creatures charged once more.

They leaped.

They clawed.

They cried.

They unleashed curses.

The mercenaries lost their minds.

And then the grotesque feast began.

The clearing was transformed into a living hell.

Only then did the three acolytes finally abandon their anonymity.

They slowly lowered their hoods.

My Biochip immediately magnified the image.

The first was a muscular young man.

Long black hair fell to his shoulders.

At the center of his forehead...

A single black horn emerged from his skin.

It didn’t look like a deformity.

It looked...

Natural.

He wore an exquisitely crafted suit of black armor.

Strapped across his back was an enormous sword.

Far too large for any ordinary warrior.

Simply looking at it made my shoulders ache.

Beside him stood the second.

He wore elegant clothing.

Black.

With subtle embroidery.

He looked like a nobleman.

But his head...

Was the head of a serpent.

Black scales.

Vertical pupils.

A forked tongue slowly slipped from his mouth.

As though tasting the scent of the surrounding air.

And then...

The third figure.

She was small.

Short.

She looked like a young girl.

Or at least...

Her size resembled that of one.

But there was no flesh.

Only bones.

A tiny skeleton holding a delicate wand.

Inside her empty eye sockets burned two small blue flames.

Unlike the mercenaries...

She was smiling.

She watched the carnage like a child visiting an amusement park for the first time.

The elemental particles surrounding the three of them were unbelievably dense.

Even hidden dozens of meters away...

I could feel them.

They were elites.

Far above the average acolyte.

Even wearing my armor...

Facing all three of them together?

The thought never even crossed my mind.

This place... officially belonged to Arcangrove Tower.

It was a resource-gathering zone controlled by the family of mages that had governed the Tower for generations.

Only authorized acolytes were permitted to enter in order to complete missions, gather ingredients, or conduct training.

Outsiders were not welcome.

Much less an entire group of mercenaries accompanied by three unknown acolytes.

Then...

An especially large Wandering Soul broke away from the massacre.

Its face was horribly deformed.

Its eyes occupied nearly its entire head.

It dove straight toward the three acolytes dressed in black.

Neither the muscular young man nor the little skeleton girl reacted.

But the serpent-headed man moved.

His jaws opened.

Then...

"XLASHHH!"

Something green shot out of his mouth.

It wasn’t saliva.

Nor was it conventional magic.

It resembled a liquid arrow formed from highly condensed venom.

It pierced straight through the Wandering Soul’s ethereal body.

For a fraction of a second...

Nothing happened.

Then...

"BOOOOM!"

A corrosive explosion illuminated the forest.

The mist of magical energy forming the ghost evaporated instantly.

At the center of the green explosion, I caught sight of something dark.

A tiny black crystal.

The Resentment Core.

The creature’s true heart.

The venom had struck the core directly.

The crystal cracked.

Then melted completely.

That...

Wasn’t a spell.

No magic circle appeared.

No incantation was spoken.

The attack had been fired directly from the man’s mouth.

A biological ability.

A racial trait.

Or perhaps...

A magical bloodline.

Before I could even finish analyzing it...

He fired again.

"XLASHHH!"

Another venomous arrow.

Another explosion.

Another Wandering Soul vanished.

Then another.

Another.

Another.

"XLASHHH!"

"XLASHHH!"

"XLASHHH!"

The projectiles were fired at an absurd speed.

They resembled bursts from a machine gun.

Every single arrow struck the Resentment Core hidden inside a different spirit with pinpoint accuracy.

Not a single shot was wasted.

Within mere seconds...

Several Wandering Souls had disappeared.

My Biochip discreetly projected an estimate.

["Impact accuracy: greater than 97%."]

["Probability of racial ability: 91.6%."]

Interesting...

Very interesting.

Meanwhile...

The little skeleton girl finally decided to act.

A Demon Baby crawled out of the bushes.

Dragging its enormous umbilical cord behind it, it lunged straight at the three of them.

Its cry echoed across the clearing.

— Snifffff...

The curse spread like invisible waves.

But...

The little girl merely tilted her head.

The tiny blue flames inside her eye sockets seemed to dance with amusement.

She smiled.

She pointed at the Demon Baby.

She made only the slightest gesture.

Then...

The Demon Baby’s body shuddered.

It stopped completely.

Like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

The next instant...

"SPLAAASH!"

The little demon simply exploded.

Its entire body burst into a cloud of blood, shattered bones, and torn flesh that sprayed across the bushes.

I blinked slowly.

Not even my Biochip was able to determine exactly what had just happened.

["Analysis incomplete."]

["Unknown phenomenon."]

["Probability of conventional spell: less than 5%."]

...

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