Chapter 72

Roger and Luther stood opposite each other, each trying to read other's strength, weakness, attack pattern and techniques they would use.

Roger was beware of the guy's weird attack which disrupts his spell model. In case it happens during the process of spell casting then there was a chance of his spell back firing. The more powerful one's spell was the more powerful will the backlash be in case of any failure in construction of spell.

Though Roger could do insta-casting he could only do Rank 1 and Rank 2 spells. Though it could be used as a normal attack if he ever wanted to succeed in defeating his opponent he would have to cast a Rank 3 spell.

Meanwhile Luther was aware of the opponent's new spell models and with a little deduction he guessed his opponent's background. As a battle mage information collection of their opponent was crucial and he was privy to many information about various sects.

'Sphinx' thought Luther. This was a deduction he had arrived after seeing his opponent casting what he considered to be a unique spell. Unique spells constructed by a mage himself will allow him to achieve very high compatibility towards it as opposed to constructing already available spell models.

This high compatibility will help a mage reduce casting speed of a spell, increases the power output generated from it to at least 1.5 times of normal spell models and last but not the least reduces the use of mental energy.

Knowing this Luther felt that the advantage of having fighting experience would probably get negated by the advantage of his opponents casting speed and power output. Roger took the initiative to attack. Without any chant he casted a fire based spell which had the shape of a snake having multiple head swirling around Luther and attacking from different directions at the same time.

Roger watched closely, ready for any moves made by his opponent and saw Luther being surrounded by head of fire snakes from different directions, each taking a bite on a particular body part, having them catch fire and ripping his body apart to shreds like a paper rather than a human made out of blood and flesh. Roger did not believe that he could finish off a Rank 3 mage with this move and payed attention towards all directions ready to defend against any attack.

Suddenly he felt a fluctuation from his left side and barely set a rock body spell on his left ribs, protecting him from a stab of a knife. 'That was close!!' thought Roger as his back was drenched in cold sweat. The move made by Luther caught him by surprise and was barely able to react due to his magic sense picking up a fluctuation.

'Did he just phase through the shadow. I seem to remember a spell of that property in the shadow domain. If I am not wrong then this was called shadow substitute spell which allowed magicians to create a proxy made out of paper figurine looking extremely life like while the user's main body phases through shadow to assassinate their enemies'.

Roger did not have much time to think as the next set of attacks were launched towards him. Without any space to breathe Roger maximised his concentration and extended his magical sense to a distance of 1 km around him waiting for the next sneak attack from Luther.

Suddenly green vines filled with thorns extended from Roger's leg making him escape by floating to the sky. The vines quickly extended and wrapped around the legs of Roger who calmly casted wind magic by the name wind blades to cut the vines.

However the vines were a bit different from others and were rough enough to withstand wind blades power and sharpness. The cut was ineffective and to the shock of Roger more vines sprouted and wrapped his legs and started climbing to his thighs.

Just as Roger was about to make a different move to get rid of these vines he felt sharp pain as if he was being stung at different parts of his body and worse of all he felt his blood being sucked. As his focus was on developing spell models he had to study thousands if not more existing spell models and with a little browse through his memory he identified the spell he was under.

'At first I thought it was just 'Earth Vine' but it seems like it is not. It's actually blood vine. To think this guy had such a powerful spell model. Fuck!! I have to quickly extricate myself from this situation or else I will start loosing more blood' thought Roger as he started whispering at a fast pace while his hand threw a powder like substance in the air and as if the powder had a life of its own it floated around Roger and as soon as he finished casting his spell his entire body caught on fire burning everything to ashes.

The powder was flammable powder which enhanced the fire element within the vicinity of the mage to enhance the power of their spell. Roger had finally shown one of his cards Flame teleportation which helps the mage in teleporting anywhere within 1 km radius.

Since Luther augmented the Blood vine spell with his shadow spell all he could do was look at Roger escaping as if he had tried to make any movement his shadow spell would have been broken making him a target to Roger's subsequent attack. But this was also an advantage to him as he had forced Roger in using a Rank 3 spell. Even though he had used flammable powder and had even used his own spell model construction a Rank 3 spell would still utilise huge amount of mental energy.

In a battle who has more cards hidden, who uses lesser energy than his opponent, who takes control of the pace of a fight all matters as these would ultimately decide a person's victory and defeat. Luther being a master at battle showcased his experience in fights at fullest extent and gained the initial advantage.

Roger reappeared once again and his face was pale as he had used up more than 1/3rd of his power. 'This is bad, the fight had just started and I was forced to use so much energy and still did not gain any advantage towards this guy. Fuck! I underestimated this mage based on his background. I so wanna escape from here. Fuck!! if I survive this I will fucking kill that motherfucker Voight' Roger cursed in his mind but was getting ready to make his next move.

With a single silent casting Roger turned the entire area of 1 km radius in darkness by having clouds cover the sun. This was in a bid to force his opponent out of his hiding place. For spells like hiding in shadows to work they need shadow to be present and too bright and too darkness would make them unable to hide as brightness destroys darkness making them unable to hide while in case of dark environment the domain of shadow expands making it one of the most unreliable and dangerous place to hide.

In a fight against equals no one would take such a disastrous route of hiding in shadow realm while in darkness and just like Roger had thought he had forced Luther out of the shadow and also saw his clothes were torn a bit and his face a bit pale.

'Though I have only heard about the dangers of shadow realm it is quite frightening that a Rank 3 mage would be reduced to this level by just staying in the realm for a few moments'.

Though there were no physical injury it was certain that Luther was rattled by something.

The two yet again stood opposite each other after these few moments of intense clash. 'I cannot drag this any longer. I'll try to finish him with this move and if it doesn't work I'll escape with all I have' thought Roger and extended his hand and started chanting in mysterious tongue after shouting t the two Rank 2 mages he brought with him asking them to keep his opponent busy.

Knowing that this could be the final move Voight's aid makes Luther did not intend to give him much time as he too extended his hand in a bid to extend his psyche to disrupt the opponent's concentration. As if it was whip made of thorns his psyche extended as an transparent energy and made its way to Roger.