Advent of the Archmage

“Master, are you okay?” That was Nana. Her voice was the calmest as if everything that had happened was normal.

“Lord!” That was the Magicians and Warriors of Ferde. They stared at Link with reverence. Worship was written all over their faces.

“Duke, how are you?” That was the Red Dragon Warriors. The dragons were known as the Legendary Race, but they’d been shocked by Link’s performance.

This was the first time in Firuman’s recorded history that someone could remain unharmed after facing a divine punishment!

Link also let out a sigh of relief. The earlier clash had been thrilling to the max. Even though he used the Level-17 Legendary spell, he’d had to use extreme effort to stabilize the spell and restrain the Saint.

During this process, any flaw would allow the Saint to break free and ruin everything. He would still be killed.

Thankfully, he’d succeeded.

At this time, the crowd suddenly fell silent and parted to the side. Celine walked over. Her eyes were slightly red, and there were faint trails of tears on her face. She’d been crying.

Link could obviously guess why. Without speaking, he walked up and hugged her. They embraced silently. The surrounding people kept silent too.

After a long while, Celine whispered, “After going back, I’m going to study Soul magic! I want to get stronger! Even if we fail in the end, it’ll be a failure after we worked together. I don’t want to watch from the side anymore.”

Celine’s voice was calm, but Link could hear a determination that hadn’t been present before.

Link was too familiar with Celine’s personality. She would either not do something or use her whole heart and keep going even at a dead end. She wouldn’t stop even if she was defeated.

In the game, she didn’t want to become her father’s slave, so she went from hiding to doing everything to attack. During this process, she’d experienced unimaginable pain and torture. Her personality had even become twisted, but she still kept going.

Since she’d decided, Link wouldn’t disagree. He would do his best to help Celine get stronger so she could take less wrong turns in this process.

Patting her back, Link murmured, “Okay, that’s my girl.”

There were many people watching. After the initial outburst, Celine calmed down. Seeing all the people, her cheeks turned hot. She tried not to act abnormally and pretended to be composed as she broke free from Link.

Link looked up at everyone and smiled. “Alright, the danger is over. Our airship is destroyed, but the magic material inside is still good. Let’s recycle them and then go to the crack.”

“Yes, Lord!” No one objected.

Everyone turned to the ruined airship. Link walked in the crowd, but his mind was on the Jogu in his spatial ring.

He now had 309 while he needed 300 to completely fix the crack. He could summon Travel Magician Aisenis now.

I’ll summon him after we get inside the crack barrier, Link decided.

Just as they were cleaning up the battlefield, Glyn and Molina regrouped at the border between the Golden Plains and Hengduan Mountain Range.

Molina was in bad shape. Her face was horribly pale, and her breaths had a bloody smell. At closer inspection, one would see that her bare skin had cracked, covered with web-like fissures. They were extremely deep and revealed red flesh.

This was the side effect of divine power forcefully entering her body. Earlier, the Saint had used her body.

Glyn was in bad shape too. He’d forcefully used transmissions under the interference of the outside world. Even though he’d succeeded in the end, his internal organs had moved. He wasn’t hurt on the surface, but his internal injuries weren’t any better than Molina. He was a demon, but he was also a Magician. His body was weaker than demon Warriors.

When the two regrouped, they stared at each other speechlessly. Even something as extreme as the divine punishment couldn’t kill the Ferde lord. What more was there to say?

After half a minute, a sudden eagle’s caw broke the silence. Glyn coughed softly and asked, “Priestess, how are your injuries?”

“I’m alright. I can recover after some rest. How about you?” Molina was embarrassed. She’d embarrassed her master today. In order to hide the awkwardness, she had to say this nonsense.

“I’m alright too.”

After that, they were silent again.

The wind blew past. After another pregnant pause, Glyn spoke again. “What happened today was actually an accident. The Ferde lord must have been prepared. That’s why he could fight against the divine punishment. His background probably isn’t that simple either.”

“What do you mean?” Molina asked.

“The humans say that he’s the God of Light’s chosen one…”

Molina froze and then shook her head. “I don’t think so. My master hasn’t seen the glory of the chosen one on him. He never prays to the God of Light or contacts the church either.”

“Uh…” Glyn didn’t know what to say. He obviously wasn’t as familiar about religion as the priestess. But he had his own reasons. “How do you explain his last move?”

The huge with a huge figure, the tone of the figure… Everything looked as if a god had come to the mortal world.

Glyn had been far away. To him, the fight between the Ferde lord and Molina had seemed more like the representatives of two gods fighting rather than divine punishment.

“No, no, no. That was only a spell,” Molina explained. “He just made it fancier. It was around the pinnacle of Level-17 and didn’t contain any divine power. I could feel it.”

This shocked Glyn even more. “Pinnacle of Level-17? He’s already at the pinnacle of Level-17? This…”

Reaching Level-17 using divine power and reaching it on your own were two totally different concepts.

The former was like a regular person getting a magic fire gun. They could easily kill a regular person. Even a strong figure might not be their match. But their weakness was obvious too. They couldn’t use the spell to the max.

The latter was like a person with strict training who had a magic fire gun. Their combat ability could make someone feel hopeless! A Level-17 Magician was someone who could make others feel despair. Glyn had Level-16 power in the Abyss, but he could only look up to someone at the pinnacle of Level-17. He could only worship those in Level-19, just like how he worshipped Nozama.

If there really was this powerful of a human, there was no point in the war anymore. The Army of Destruction should just disband, the demons returning to the Abyss, Nagas retreating, Dark Elves back to the Dark Hell, and High Elves back to the Isle of Dawn. Everyone should hide and try not to get destroyed, waiting painfully until this Legendary figure died.

Glyn suddenly felt the urge to go back to the Abyss and never come back to Firuman.

Molina shook her head. “No, he isn’t that strong. I could feel that he used some divine gear to temporarily reach that strength. It can’t be maintained, and he must pay for it somehow. I could feel some unknown chaos enter his body. Of course, he is still a force to be reckoned with.”

Glyn was slightly relieved, but he still wasn’t sure. “Really?”

Molina nodded lightly. “Yes! God gave me power and also blessed me with superhuman perception. Right now, the Ferde lord should be at the pinnacle of Level-12. That is power, but not undefeatable. There will be a way to deal with him. Even if we can’t, Princess Ellie will be able to. She’s very strong.”

Glyn finally relaxed. He was really mentally scarred from seeing Link’s performance against the Saint. After thinking, he said, “But that guy is truly strong. In the windstorm, he could even dodge my sneak attack and attack immediately. He almost killed me. No, my wound is too serious. I must rest for a while.”

He had to report the princess’ situation to his master. Nozama had been missing Princess Celine; he would love this news. He had to report today’s battle too so his master could be prepared.

With that, his body vaporized into black fog and disappeared into the mountains. Even Molina didn’t know where he went.

Seeing Glyn leave, Molina cursed, “Tricky bastard. You run fast, huh.”

She couldn’t stay here any longer either. After a short rest to recover a bit, she ran towards the Black Forest. Princess Ellie should learn about the situation.

There was still a lot of divine power within her. After a while, her wounds were mostly healed, and she’d sped up too. Traveling like this, she reached the Skeletal Fort in the north of the Black Forest by noon of the next day.

After finding Princess Ellie, Molina reported the battle in detail.

At this time, Eugene had been reading in the Skeletal Fort. After listening to Molina, his body shook in disbelief. “Even the divine punishment was useless?”

Molina didn’t answer. After all, this humiliated the God of Destruction.

Eugene tapped against the bone table and fell silent. A few minutes later, he asked, “You said that Link was hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Can he recover soon?”

“Probably not. These injuries pertain to the power of the principles. The Ferde lord isn’t that strong.”

“Oh.” Eugene fell silent. A few minutes later, he asked again, “So can we do a divine punishment again?”

Molina froze, her expression darkening. “Your Highness, please watch your language! We mortals should be humble before the gods!”

This divine punishment had used up so much divine power, but this person wanted to do it again. Did she think that a god could be used like a tool? This was blasphemy.

If they really did it, Molina would punish her first!

“Okay, okay, we won’t talk about that. I’ll think of something else,” Eugene quickly said. She knew that fervent believers had no logic. They would throw away all logic for their religion.

Squinting her dark eyes, Eugene’s thoughts whirred. Finally, her gaze landed on Morpheus, the Shadow Walker in the South.

That guy is an upstart, but he’s still powerful. Maybe I can borrow some power from him.

At this time, Eugene didn’t know that Link had finished cleaning up the ruins and reached the crack barrier. Link was also thinking something similar.

…

Very good, Army of Destruction. I can’t be fooled by you every time. This time, you can taste my power!

With that in mind, Link started contacting Aisenis.