Massacre

As the massive explosion between the bear and Mystara subsided, the battlefield fell silent. The only sounds were debris tumbling down.

Suddenly, the dust hovering over the battlefield was disrupted. With a swoosh, the dust and smoke were swept away, revealing the figures of a beast and a human wizard.

The beast was in terrible shape, having lost right-half its body and with the remaining parts riddled with wounds. On the other hand, Mystara was... naked. Yep, not a single piece of clothing on him. But aside from that, he was completely unscathed.

Seeing Mystara like this, the Frostfire bear was stunned. "HoW!?" The explosion that had pierced through all its defensive spells and its nearly indestructible body, enhanced by his ancient sigil, hadn't left a single mark on the human.

Not only that, but the human hadn't employed any kind of domain, which was a signature ability of a level 3 human powerhouse. A domain's defensive prowess was almost on par with the concept incarnation body of a magical beast, so it would have been somewhat reasonable for a human to endure the explosion with a domain. But to withstand such an explosion with just a human body? That seemed impossible. Yet, the human before it had accomplished just that.

The beast laughed weakly in sheer disbelief. "Gra-hahaha," then the laughter turned maniacal. "GRAHAHAHAHAHA. Me DeFeAtEd bY a HuMaN," it mocked itself.

Throughout the beast's breakdown, Mystara just stood there, naked, watching the beast.

Zack hovered in the sky, speechless as he watched the bizarre scene between the beast and naked Mystara. He thought he really needed to make an indestructible bag for Mystara and Gandril to store extra clothes, just in case this kind of situation happened again. Since they didn't have the consciousness of living beings, they couldn't use storage rings, despite being able to manipulate mana.

Zack sent a mental instruction to Mystara, "Mystara, use lightning armor. Don't just stand there buck naked." After a moment, he added, "Don't kill the bear. Let me handle it."

Then, Zack guided the clone he was controlling down from the sky and landed in front of the bear.

"AnOtHeR WiZaRd?" the beast muttered.

Ignoring it, Zack pointed a finger to the sky. Instantly, a massive, intricate spell pattern appeared above his head. A gigantic [Thunderbolt] materialized. 'Goodbye,' Zack thought as he moved his finger downward.

But suddenly, he sensed a strange fluctuation in the bear's mana signature. Normally, he would ignore it and attack immediately, not wanting any variables, especially during these tumultuous times. But he instinctively felt he needed to let the fluctuation complete.

This instinct came not only from his strange subconscious, which he suspected was linked to fate manipulation, but also from his genuine wizard intuition. So, he dispersed the [Thunderbolt] and retreated to Mystara's position, activating his [Invisibility] once again.

Meanwhile, the bear's face twisted in agony, its massive body convulsing as if in a seizure. "[Little Monkey!! You dare to betray me!! The others won't forgive you!]"

Suddenly, Zack sensed a wave of mana emanating from the beast. He was surprised to realize he could understand the content of the mana signal. 'Hmm... this seems to be how they communicate,' he thought. He doubted the beast was intentionally directing this signal at him, as it was broadcasting everywhere while in deep agony.

After a few more seconds of the bear's struggle, it suddenly stopped. Its expression shifted to one of calmness, and its eyes closed. When its eyes opened again, it spoke calmly, "[Greetings, Wizard.]"

The bear used the same signal it had unconsciously used earlier, but this time it was directed at Zack intentionally. There was something strange, though—the bear's demeanor was completely different from before.

Zack signaled to Mystara to respond. Mystara opened his mouth, "Who are you?"

"[Does that matter? You can call me anything: friend, sir, you, nameless one—anything you want. It doesn't matter. I came here to deliver a message.]"

Ignoring the bear's answer, Zack sent another message to Mystara with the words he should say.

"Should I call you little monkey?" Mystara said.

The bear went silent for a moment before sending another mana signal, "[Haha, as expected from someone who managed to defeat Bjorn. You figured me out quickly.]"

"[Anyway, I just want to say, don't get too smug. Don't you feel it? The concentration of mana on the continent has increased,]" continued the bear—or, more accurately, the "little monkey" controlling the bear.

Zack, listening to the conversation, nodded. Yes, this was something he had noticed months ago. From the first sign of the fate turbulence, he observed that the concentration of mana inside the tower had increased. He had mentioned it to Sir Cedric, thinking that perhaps Sir Cedric had improved the tower's formation, allowing it to absorb more mana from outside.

However, Sir Cedric had not changed anything. He suggested that maybe the outside mana had increased. This occasionally happened once or twice a century when the circulation of mana on the continent caused a large amount of it to flow past the tower, leading to more mana being absorbed by its formation. But Sir Cedric also noted that this phenomenon was usually short-lived, with the concentration returning to normal in a few days.

Instead of decreasing, though, the mana concentration continued to rise, slowly but steadily. At this point, the mana concentration inside the tower was four times its usual level. Considering the tower was absorbing several times the mana from outside, it meant that the external mana had increased by at least twice. A twofold increase in mana across the entire continent was astounding. However, due to the pressing issue of the mutation of magical beasts, the tower hadn't paid much attention to this phenomenon.

Recently, when Zack's clones managed to venture outside the tower, he confirmed that the mana outside had indeed risen drastically.

Not seeing any reaction from Mystara, the little monkey continued with a tinge of frustration in its voice, "[This increase might be beneficial for the human race, but the magic beasts will benefit the most. You've noticed the mutation of the magic beasts across the continent, right? With these mutations, they can absorb mana from the atmosphere more efficiently. More and more powerful magic beasts will emerge faster than the human race can produce powerhouses to fight them. Do you get it?]" The little monkey paused, allowing the weight of its words to sink in.

"[ The human race will eventually fall! What you're doing now is only delaying the inevitable! HAHAHAHA!]" With that, the little monkey burst into maniacal laughter.

Mystara just stared blankly at the possessed bear, with his ever-present insincere soft smile. Then, he opened his mouth and continued saying what Zack had instructed, "What does that matter? That will be in the far future. As it stands now, you magic beasts are losing, losing so pathetically like the lowly animals you are."

"[YOUUU!]"

"You what? The magic beasts you sent to the Fulminar Empire were pathetically beaten down. The ones you sent to the Holy Empire and the Southern Tribal Alliance also failed. You've failed miserably and yet you dare to be so smug?"

Mystara's words hit hard because they were true. Zack had sent clones to the Holy Empire and the Southern Tribal Alliance to provide backup plans. He had a feeling that since there were level 3 magic beasts targeting the chosen babies in the north, there was a chance they were also aiming for the chosen babies in the Holy Empire and the Tribal Alliance. So, Zack sent his clones just in case the Grand Paladin and the Great Warrior failed to fend off the beasts and rescue the babies.

From his clones, Zack observed the battles between the Grand Paladin and the level 3 magic beast, as well as the Great Warrior's fight. He was amazed at how much the Grand Paladin had grown over the past five years, nearly reaching the power level of the Pope. But the most surprising was the Great Warrior, who had hidden his strength all this time, fooling the entire continent. Both level 3 human powerhouses not only fended off the level 3 magic beasts but thoroughly killed them.

Pushing these thoughts aside, Zack continued to watch the bear's face, now twisted in fury. 'Heh, it was only fake calmness after all,' Zack thought. He realized that the little monkey possessing the bear's body was just a sore loser, trying to provoke Mystara for a small satisfaction after the defeat of the magic beasts by humans.

"[Heheh-HAHAHAHAHAhA! Don't think you've won, wizards. No matter how strong you are, you're still pathetic human weaklings in the end. During the fight, you always waste energy protecting the worthless weaklings among you. Do you think I didn't notice the barrier you erected in front of Kirchein? You might have protected this city, but can you protect the others?]" the little monkey mocked.

Zack was shocked. He quickly dispelled his [Invisibility] and shouted at the little monkey, "Don't you dare!"

The little monkey seemed surprised by Zack's sudden appearance but continued, "[HAHAHAHAH, too late. Enjoy my present!!]"

Suddenly, Zack felt massive mana fluctuations in the distance. He soared high into the air and cast [Eye of Ra]. Instantly, his right eye was surrounded by a large, intricate spell pattern, and his right eyelashes, eyebrows, and pupil turned golden.

Locating the source, he activated [Triple Enhancement] and covered hundreds of kilometers in a few moments. But by the time he reached the source—the city of Lenheim, with a population of two hundred thousand, in the western part of the Fulminar Empire—the fluctuations had subsided, leaving behind a dead and silent city.

"It can't be!" Zack muttered with a trembling voice. He observed the city; all the people inside had fallen down, their eyes closed, appearing as if they had only fallen asleep. But Zack couldn't detect any life signs from any of the bodies in the city.

Thinking his mana sense had malfunctioned, he descended to a random street in the city and felt for the pulse of a man slumped in a chair in a shop. To his horror, he couldn't detect any heartbeat from the man. However, the man's skin was still warm, indicating he had recently died.

Zack's pupils trembled as he checked another person's pulse manually, and then another, and another. With each confirmation, his heart sank even further. Just as he was about to check another person's pulse like a maniac, he felt a sudden jolt as his cheek was slapped.

SLAP!

Some of his consciousness returned to his main body in the Lightning Desolation.

"Teacher! Snap out of it!" Fannie shouted after slapping Zack's cheek.

Zack simply held his cheeks in a blank stare, deeply shocked by the mass death he had just witnessed. The event had triggered a trauma he thought he had overcome, causing his mind to malfunction. Fannie's slap brought him partially back to his senses, and some light returned to his blank eyes as he looked at her.

Fannie held both of Zack's cheeks and locked eyes with him. "I know this is shocking, and you must feel incredibly sad. I'm devastated too. But right now, you need to focus on what you can do—track down the culprit. You can do it, Teach! You can do it!" Her eyes were bloodshot, tears streaming down her cheeks, but her gaze remained firm.

With Fannie's words, Zack fully regained his senses. "You're right, Fannie. It seems I'm still nothing without you." He held Fannie's hands against his face with his own.

"Just give me a moment; I'll be right back," Zack said with a reassuring smile to Fannie.

He then abandoned the clone in Lenheim and directed all his attention to Mystara's body. "Sorry, Mystara. I need to take over your body for a bit."

"With pleasure, master," Mystara replied. Zack had made a rule for himself not to possess Mystara, Gandril, and Arcanis' bodies, as he wanted them to develop their own consciousness. But now, he couldn't dwell on that; he had more pressing matters to attend to.

With the descent of his consciousness into Mystara's body, Zack also transferred as many cores as possible into Mystara's body, replenishing its mana back to its maximum state. However, this process expelled all of Mystara's original mana.

"[HAHAHAHAHAH! How do you like my present, wizards? Don't worry, I let them experience a painless death. Isn't that a great mercy from me? In any case, they would experience much more painful things if they continued to live. So dying painlessly now would be better for them! HAHAHAH!]" The little monkey boasted its nonsense as Zack opened his eyes.

Immediately, Zack cast a spell on each of his eyes. A luminous golden spell pattern surrounded his right eye, while a sky blue pattern surrounded his left. As he opened his eyes, they transformed into a breathtaking pair. His right eye was comprised of golden eyebrows, eyelashes, and pupil, while his left eye held sky blue features.

"[God Series] - [Eye of Ra]!" This enhanced his right eye's ability to see the physical world to its extreme.

"[God Series] - [Eye of Horus]!" This imbued his left eye with the sixth sense of a level 2 or 3 wizard, allowing it to perceive the movement of the concepts that drove the world in intricate detail beyond human capability.

But it wasn't enough! Upon noticing another being possessing the bear, Zack attempted to search for the mana connection between the bear and its possessor. However, despite using his mana senses and the sixth sense of a wizard that comprehended a concept, he couldn't detect the connection, no matter how hard he tried.

As Zack surveyed Lenheim, the now dead city, he noticed that many people had died without apparent reason. It was as if their bodies had suddenly ceased to function. This led him to speculate that perhaps the other being responsible for this incident had comprehended something so incomprehensible that no wizard had managed to touch—the concept of "Soul"!

The concept of "Soul" was something only level 3 powerhouses barely managed to grasp due to their realm. Even then, they could only protect their own souls within their sigils; they couldn't control them, let alone control the souls of other living beings.

However, from the actions of the "little monkey," Zack deduced that it could control souls or that its concept was somehow related to the soul. Otherwise, he couldn't explain what he had witnessed.

To perceive the souls of others, Zack realized he needed more than just [Eye of Horus] and [Eye of Ra]. Using the enormous computational power of thousands of cores, he devised a temporary spell that could combine the effects of both eyes. Due to the limited time available, he couldn't create a new spell from scratch, such as developing an entirely new eye spell. However, combining the effects of already cast eye spells seemed feasible.

In the middle of his eyebrows, an unassuming spell pattern began to appear. It was much less conspicuous compared to the golden and sky blue patterns on his right and left eyes. Yet, the moment it materialized, a connection formed between the left and right patterns and the middle pattern.

The little monkey seemed uneasy as it watched the wizard before it cast a spell with a serious demeanor. However, it couldn't conceive of anything that could harm it, since it was only remotely controlling the bear corpse. It stayed, intending to mock the wizard's futile effort once the spell was complete.

"HAAAAAAAAAAA!" Zack roared, knowing he had only one chance before the little monkey caught on to his plan.

Underneath the middle spell pattern, a slit appeared. As it began to shine with mysterious light, the brilliance of both of Zack's eyes suddenly dimmed. The golden right eye turned increasingly gray, as did the sky blue left eye.

Once the color in both eyes faded completely, the slit in the middle of Zack's eyebrows suddenly opened, revealing a mystical purple eye that seemed to contain the entire galaxy within it.

[Zack's Makeshift Spell - The All Seeing Eye]!