Chapter 80
Pzzt.
The sound of hundreds of lighting spheres exploding all over was overwhelming.
Joshua hurled Lugia at the incoming Rune Flare, which was a 4th Circle spell.
Swoosh.
While Lugia was flying through the air, Joshua's muscles creaked and cracked. He bit his lips, endured the pain, and focused on his one and only goal: defeating Jack.
Jack was astounded. He could have never expected that Joshua would throw his weapon away.
After all, a knight losing their weapon was worse than losing their life.
Jack stared at Joshua. It seemed like dust was swirling around Joshua, highlighting his tremendous potential.
Crack.
"...?"
Amazing things kept happening one after the other.
Joshua forcibly shattered Jack's Rune Flare. In addition, Lugia, which should have become a weapon devoid of mana after leaving its owner’s hand, seemed to have its own mana.
Jack noticed that and exclaimed, "B-Blink!"
Krrk.
Setting aside the destroyed Rune Flare, Jack immediately blinked to the safest spot he could find because Lugia was still flying toward him.
Jack reappeared five meters away from his original spot.
"...!" However, he immediately took a step back when he realized that Joshua was standing right in front of him with a cold look.
Unfortunately, his reflexes failed him this time.
Thrust.
Something seemed to have shattered as Jack quivered. He had failed to take another step backward, and his astonished eyes slowly looked downward.
A pure white spear had penetrated his heart, Jack muttered in a trembling voice, "Ugh… how?"
'I still have a lot of things to ask him…'
Unfortunately, his body wouldn’t move according to his will. His knees incessantly quivered, and his body turned cold.
"Hooh—"
Jack spat a mouthful of blood. His arteries supplying blood to all parts of his body were shutting down, and his blood pressure was dropping. Blood gushed out of him instead of circulating.
"What kind… of divine strength… is this…" Jack barely managed to squeeze these words out.
Joshua looked at Jack’s pale face without saying a word.
"Hoop!"
Jack struggled to grab Lugia with both hands, but the moment he made contact with the spear—
Bzzt!
The power of lightning that had been building up in Lugia engulfed him.
Jack stiffened, and his eyes slowly turned grey.
The death of Jack Steropes, one of the Seven Mages and the famous ‘Thunder Mage,’ was a tragic end one could hardly believe.
.
"Keugh."
Joshua started vomiting the blood he had been holding while Lugia was still impaled on Jack’s body.
He vomited dark, dead blood in contrast to Jack’s bright scarlet blood.
Joshua suffered internal injuries as a result of pushing his body past its limits.
'He was too confident and let his guard down…'
The strength of the hand holding Lugia started dwindling.
A javelin.
It was easy to throw a javelin, but maintaining one’s mana with the weapon once it was thrown away was a technique only Masters could use.
Of course, the javelin’s strength was based on Joshua's energy and strength.
Joshua's mana and strength were the driving force behind the spear. However, not just anyone could make a projectile fly in a straight line rather than in a parabola while making sure that the projectile wouldn’t lose its piercing strength over time.
'I threw Lugia away with all my might.'
The moments leading up to the throw had raised Joshua’s awareness to the extreme. Blink was a spell that teleported the caster to a location within their line of sight. As such, Joshua had to raise his awareness to the maximum and capture Jack’s figure as the latter blinked. It was only by doing so could Joshua make Lugia disappear into its own subspace while it was flying and pierce Jack where Joshua assumed he would reappear.
These events unfolded in a natural manner, similar to flowing water.
'I'm losing consciousness.'
Joshua staggered as his vision became increasingly hazy. He kneeled down and saw his bloodstained clothes.
He got lucky. Joshua knew that even if he had fully recovered today before fighting Jack, he might still have a chance of winning. But currently, the Seven Mages of the Magic Tower were not simple and easy-to-defeat individuals for him.
Jack Steropes’ death was the result of Joshua’s war experiences and a dash of luck. All of those factors combined to create an incredibly remarkable achievement for Joshua.
If it weren’t for those factors, he would have been the one lying deceased on the ground.
Crackle.
"...!"
All of a sudden, sparks started flying in all directions around Joshua.
The source of the sparks shone so brilliantly that it was distinguishable from the sparks.
The sparks were coming from Lugia.
Wait—no, it was coming from the heart that Lugia had pierced.
Mages stored the essences of their mana in their heart, and since the mana in Jack Steropes’ heart had just become ownerless, it was starting to run amok.
A current ran through Lugia, and it jumped onto Joshua.
Joshua couldn't do anything as his body erupted in sparks and smoke.
He didn't even have the strength to lift a finger.
Should he compare the sensation to sinking into the depths of the ocean?
‘I’m so tired…’
Joshua felt like sleeping for a few days straight. His eyelids were so heavy it felt like two fat horses were dragging them down.
‘But why do I feel like I will never wake up if I were to close my eyes like this and sleep?’
- The Magic Spear Arts… Hurry up!
'Who?'
As Joshua slowly sank to the bottom of his consciousness, he managed to hold on to a string from someone desperately crying out to him, begging him to get out of the water.
Joshua finally recalled the owner of the voice.
‘Lugia?’
- Hurry up and use the ancient mana technique! Urge Bronto to absorb it all before it blows up!
Joshua couldn’t hear Lugia’s voice anymore because there was only one thing on his mind right now—the ancient mana technique.
At that, Joshua slowly circulated his mana with the ancient mana technique as if he were possessed.
A few moments later, the skies and the earth were suddenly filled with a dazzling white radiance.
***
In the staff meeting room of the Avalon Imperial Academy…?
Professor Kane’s determined look stood out among the dozens of academy professors.
It had been twenty years since Count Syutain ain Albert became the Dean of the Avalon Imperial Academy. After seeing that the professors and related personnel were all present, he finally spoke, "I apologize for calling an emergency meeting. A bunch of things happened, and I had no other choice but to do this."
"President. Is it because of the issue concerning the cadets’ protests?"
At the magic professor’s statement, Dean Syutain nodded in response.
"I heard that cadets are protesting at the offices of our professors."
"If only it would stop at there. Unfortunately, there are some rumors that a family will file a formal complaint."
Dean Syutain smirked bitterly when he heard the words of the other professors.
"It has to be one of the Twelve Families."
“The Twelve Families have three representatives currently enrolled at the academy.”
"..."
Dean Syutain remained silent and cautiously looked around.
He saw that the majority of the professors had already heard of the rumors, and they had worried looks. However, some professors were tilting their heads as if they had never heard of any rumors.
"Excuse me, Dean. I haven't heard any rumors... so could you please explain?" The dwarf-sized history professor raised his hand and asked.
Dean Syutain replied, "I will explain more. The cadets are protesting about someone’s expedient enrollment. This is also the reason behind this emergency meeting."
The dwarf history professor asked with wide eyes, “Expedient enrollment?”
"It has just never be lay out in the open. You know we can accept students who want to enroll under a different name, so they could remain incognito, right? Well, it has been going fine so far since the Imperial Family is tolerating it," replied the magic professor.
"Unfortunately, this situation cannot be compared to the previous instances of expedient enrollment. The majority of noble children who chose the expedient enrollment route came from families that were particularly hesitant to divulge their children’s identities for various reasons. As such, they had never blatantly self-exposed their identity and get into a conflict with enrolled cadets…"
"As a result, even if their true family was exposed later on, the majority of cadets would simply close their eyes and move on. The other cadets didn’t seem to mind, so there was no reason for a fuss," Dean Syutain concluded.
The magic professor nodded as though she understood Dean Syutain’s words, and she said, "In other words, the cadets are now demanding the truth, regardless of the consequences. It’s all because the individual in question has to be a part of the highest noble family or even a member of a foreign country’s imperial family because they were capable enough of threatening the influence of the imperial family’s power here…"
At the magic professor’s words, the history professor’s curiosity was piqued, and he asked, “Who is that student?”
"...!"
The meeting room became quiet to the extent that one could even hear a pin drop.
It was obvious that several—if not the majority already knew the individual, but they were hesitant to divulge it because of possible retribution.
Dean Syutain answered with a sour smile, "The student in question is Ash pen Frederick."
"Never heard of that family, ever."
The history professor tilted his head and said, “I’ve never heard of that family. Never.”
At that, Dean Syutain explained, "He enrolled using a fictitious name. You couldn’t have heard of the Frederick Family because they had already fallen."
"Then?" the history professor blankly muttered, “Then?”
"His real name is…" Dean Syutain trailed off.
The other professors collectively gulped as Dean Syutain finally said Ash pen Frederick’s true name.
"...Joshua—Joshua von Agnus."
"Agnus…" the history professor looked stunned as he tried to recall where he heard the familiar family name. His jaw quickly fell to the floor right there and then when he realized it.
"T-The Agnus Family?!" exclaimed the history professor with wide eyes.
'Isn't there only one family with that name in all of Avalon?'
Duke Aden von Agnus—the Empire's pride and one of the Five Dukes—could already be considered a head of the state in Avalon. After all, Avalon was famous as the Empire of Knights. In addition, even the Iron-Blooded Emperor, Emperor Marcus, paid great attention to the Duke of Agnus.
"Oh my God…"
One could even hear a pin drop amidst the profound silence preceded by the history professor's gasp.
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