Chapter 21

Striking the casing that held the mana stones and herbs, Noah felt himself falling back to the ground towards the black fire alongside the entire stack of mana stones.

'Make me proud, Skadi.'

'Heh, I'll try.'

Grabbing one of the mana stone, Noah gave full control of his body to Skadi. With the mana stone in hand, Noah planned to cause mana explosion by continuously absorbing and utilising spells, overloading his mana capacity.

Although he knew this method had its own risks, he couldn't think of a better way to escape his current predicament.

Just as Skadi was about to land an offensive spell, she could feel a strong presence from the black flames behind Noah. Changing the spell mid casting, she redirected the spell towards the flames while creating a barrier behind him.

Just as she guessed, the black flames burst after absorbing the mana stones. The flames grew exponentially stronger, breaking the chamber and everything around before shooting towards Noah.

As the two forces collided, the entire lab started shaking. With flames covering the floor and ice forming in the ceiling, the energies broke free from the underground lab to the sky.

With the aftermath from the explosion causing even the ground to cover in ice and black flames, the people that were present in the ground could only prepare barriers in haste.

As the priests from the ice temple quickly prepared barriers to protect the expedition of mercenaries and other villagers. They could hear the earth shake once more as a loud roar escaped from the centre of the explosion.

===

"Fuc$ Fuc$ Fuc$," the lead scientist could only keep cursing as he thought about the boy in the chamber.

Although most of the scientists were able to escape with him before the explosion, the damage done was astronomical.

As the Altar had to maintain a low profile, they had to pick a place which was not too far off from cities while not too close either to avoid getting unwanted attention. Slowly as the years went by, they were able to find a few places to set up their labs and bases for operation. Aruk village being one of them, the duty fell on him to ensure confidentiality of the location.

From the loud explosion, he was sure that most of the villagers would have heard it.

Calling out one of the black knights, the lead scientist ordered, "kill all the villagers who sees us. Whoever they might be. We'll disguise it as some kind of accident of goods."

Although most of the experiment data would have been lost from the explosion, he was sure that the experiments kept in the secret vault would've survived.

The scientists and the black knights finally reached ground level through the emergency escape route. Unfortunately, what was in front of them was a sight even worse than what they saw earlier.

Knights, priests and mercenaries surrounded them with an ice barrier as if expecting them.

===

"Ah damn it. I feel like this is becoming somewhat of a routine for me now.. " holding his head, Noah got up slowly.

Looking around, Noah could see himself in the familiar snow mountain where he first met Skadi.

Although he didn't know why or how he had entered his domain, he felt relieved as being inside the domain meant that he was still alive outside.

Climbing up the mountain, he could see Skadi looking towards the horizon. Following her gaze, he could see a long black scar in the otherwise blue sky on one side and a white dragon on the other side roaring uncontrollably in pain.

Unlike the dragons he had seen through full dive in his past life, this dragon was noticeably smaller.

"Master didn't tell me he was from the Wyte family."

"How did you know.."

Pointing at the obvious, Skadi looked at Noah in the eye.

"Well, I didn't know for most of my life either… Anyway, what is going on? What is it doing here?"

"Hmm…," seeing Noah totally clueless about the situation, Skadi started to explain. "Not all spirits are born after a legend passes. There are few spirits that are born with the elementalist. The little dragon over there for one, he seems to have just been born… Perhaps due to the huge flow of mana."

"Okay… didn't know that either. Then the black scar?"

"If I had to guess, it should be from that black fire earlier…"

As if to answer for her, a loud cry came from the black scar followed by a large bird covered in black flames with two large curved horns on its head.

With each flap the large bird made, black flames fell from its wings to the ground.

"A phoenix with black flames, huh, never thought I'd see such a sight."

Noah could instinctively feel his life draining slowly after the large bird entered his domain.

"But strangely, it seems like a new born as well."

"How can you tell?"

Skadi turned around to look at Noah in pity as if he had asked a stupid question.

"Come on, master needs to greet the impolite visitors." Grabbing Noah by the waist, Skadi held him like a log of wood, before jumping from the ridge.

Before Noah could yell, both of them were free-falling to the ground. Only at this moment did Noah realize that the size of his domain was much larger than earlier. If it was the size of a city earlier, it was definitely at least three times that now.

Creating a huge impact on the ground, Skadi continued rushing towards the dragon at full speed.

Noticing the new born dragon roaring, the phoenix also set out towards the dragon as if it had found its prey.

Circling around the dragon, the phoenix marked a boundary around it with black flames with it's breath.

The dragon finally snapped out of its frenzy, ready to engage against the phoenix.