LXI: Dark Magic.

Magic is interesting, and although it is widespread in countless stories, it is little understood by the casual observer. Magic is not just waving your wand, saying a few Latin phrases, and waiting for something to happen, no, magic is a subtle control of reality through certain intricate mechanisms. 

Sure, magic may seem unscientific at first, but you know, the best magic we read about is based on science, or wouldn't it be cool if that wimpy magician suddenly rubbed a sun on his hands just because he didn't skip physics class? That's why John loved magic, and even the somewhat weird magic of his world had deep foundations behind it.

The Dark Wizard's heritage was more a collection of magic based on manipulating nature to unleash powerful attacks, and that inspired him greatly. Science may be slow to accomplish something extremely amazing, but for science, all you need is an idea, energy, and good research before you can cast some pretty powerful spells. 

That's where the laser-like spells that John casts come from, and that's where he understood that it was 100% in line with his template, that he didn't need anything more to push himself to the limit, that what he had was enough. That's how he took his "black magic" further and further, and like a good fictional character, he wanted to test his discoveries in the only way fictional characters seemed to know, by fighting. 

Although he liked to fight, he did not like war very much, so he was a bit apathetic about the current situation. However, he never neglected his duties and carried out the missions entrusted to him with zeal, since his dislike was no reason not to help or give the best of himself. But the best missions were undoubtedly the sieges, which were the perfect testing ground for him.

"Hellstorm++" John shouted as he hovered 100 meters above the ground. In front of him was a huge tree with a crystal-like texture, a transformation the elves did to trees to turn them into war fortresses. 

Above his head, a red glowing magic circle appeared, and then countless flashes of light erupted from it, flying upwards at incredible speed, leaving a crimson trail behind them. The air began to heat up, and John licked his parched lips as he controlled the massive amount of lightning that gradually accumulated in the sky, transforming into tiny balls of fiery magical energy.

Soon, as the magic circle disappeared, the sky above it seemed to glow red from the exaggerated amount of orbs of light stationed there, and then, with a wave of his hand, all of those orbs shot together toward the tree.

The mages in the fortress had already prepared, a dome of magical energy covered the tree, defending against the initial attacks. The orbs that touched the barrier burst in a terrible explosion, and so the forest was filled with the continuous sound of thousands of exploding magic orbs. 

The magic barrier held up quite well, not only using the magic power available in the fortress but also gradually absorbing magic power from the ground and air to not only strengthen itself but also disrupt the enemy's magic casting. John had encountered such a strange mechanism before, so he flew backward to avoid suddenly falling from the sky.

The first time, although he already knew about this situation, he was caught off guard and almost became John 2D, so he didn't want to repeat that 'exciting' feeling ever again. Under his control, the explosions happened so that they propelled each other, so the shock waves didn't cancel each other out, which increased the pressure the barrier had to withstand, but it didn't even wobble.

"Well, that's not a good spell for breaking strong defenses, but for siege and harassment, well, let me write it down," the mage said carelessly as he made a light screen appear in his hand and wrote down his findings on it, not worrying about being attacked by the elves. 

A siege was not something that could be done quickly and easily, especially a magical one, let alone by one person, so he always used these moments to cast his spells, see their effects, and make notes. He wasn't worried about the elves coming out to attack him, they were probably very nervous now in case he made such an attack again, so they wouldn't come out after him for a few hours. 

So John just flew off into the distance, becoming a black dot in the elves' vision and then disappearing, causing some of them to sigh in relief.

"That guy, he's been using our fortress as a testing ground for three days now!" an elven woman complained grumpily, her companion next to her replying with a rather annoyed Tino.

"The worst part is that it's a different spell every day! The first day, it made the earth spit out these horrible seeds that turned into monsters, if it wasn't for our good fire mages, the outside would be full of carnivorous plants, hungry for our flesh and blood. 

On the second day, it was worse, a terrible poisonous mist was created, but God, what a damned stench! The stench was the real poison! So we learned that the barrier can protect us from poisonous gases, but not from bad smells... I ended up throwing up my lunch because of it.

And today, those weird fireballs that were super hot... AND THEY

 EXPLODE! Don't you know how hot it is in the forest, does the bastard want to start a forest fire?" the elf complained rather loudly, uttering several very rude curses and 'blessing' John's ancestors for bringing him into the world. 

Unfortunately for our poor elven friend, John returned the next day quite healthy and ready for another of his spell tests. Not that they didn't try to attack him to stop his very annoying and rude actions with the local population, but none of the spells or arrows they threw at him could touch him, so they could only watch in resignation as the dark wizard went back to his misdeeds.

The innocent elves watched in horror as a huge fire-covered meteorite left a white trail as it flew straight toward the fortress barrier, hitting it squarely. 

"Meteorite + rock throwing, a basic human skill, nothing beats it," John scoffed as he watched his huge flaming rock hit the magical barrier full on and send it reeling, but in the end, it was the barrier that prevailed and maintained its integrity.

"All right, let's do a Madara reference," with a few mudras and gestures, John's magical power boiled up and rose into the sky like a huge pillar of pure and powerful blue light, terrifying the elves below.

"If one can't handle you, how about two, three, hundreds...?

Meteor shower," John whispered, a little exhausted from what he had just done, but quite happy for the great view in front of him.

Like a 90's disaster movie, hundreds of space rocks began to fall towards the barrier of the fortress, some were small, some were as big as the first one that fell, and some were extremely huge, but just as fast. 

Regardless of the magic of the elves or the fortress, the meteors struck mercilessly at the already thin layer of magical power protecting them, until it simply wore away, allowing hundreds of angry rocks to fall from the sky. 

Before John, nature had shown the young mage why a meteor was the one that killed the dinosaurs, though, well, it wasn't quite like that, but details. 

All that remained were potholes and dense clouds of dust and debris that reached incredible heights. John wrote down his findings on a holographic screen and even took some pictures with magic, he knew what to use to impress Monic.

John would never deny his feelings for the Umbra Witch, so he actively pursued her without any shyness, which made Monic laugh, but she never stopped him, so John gradually began to be bolder, though not annoying or rude.

"Hmm, are there any survivors left? Honestly, the elves call us bugs, but they must have cockroach DNA in them, right? Fuck, they put up with too much," John complained briefly before doing several mudras and casting a new spell.

"Hellstorm++" Soon the spectacle of exploding bullets echoed through the dust clouds again, filling the whole area with black smoke and an acrid smell, but that was no problem for John, he simply detected the remaining life.

Finding no more signs of life, he simply snapped his fingers and his body disappeared, teleporting away from the place. He knew it was likely that those elves had called for reinforcements and he didn't want to stay and fight any longer, so he decided to leave while he could. 

An hour later, a group of elves arrived at the site, but all they could see was wreckage and a raging fire, in addition to the dust that had not yet settled. A red-haired elven woman waved her hands, and the dust began to gather in one spot until it compacted into a ball that fell heavily to the ground.

The fire was extinguished by water spells cast by her companions, leaving a terrible scene. It was a horrible sight, and though they had seen ugly or horrible things in war, they had never seen such deliberate destruction, as if whoever was doing it had no respect for the environment they were destroying. 

A somewhat portly elf crouched near one of the potholes made by a meteorite, put his hand inside, and felt the residual heat, as well as the remaining pieces of stone and metal, sensing their specific nature. Then he looked up at the sky and realized something.

"Some of the destruction here was caused by meteors... not by magic, but summoned from space itself and accelerated by spells. The interesting thing is that there are no such meteors in the planet's vicinity, so they were summoned from a considerable distance, and possibly space magic was used to bring them into orbit.

A delicate spell that requires preparation, any trained elven mage could do it, but with the speed and possibly the ease with which the attack was made, there must be strange factors I have not considered," the elf said, causing his teammates to tense at the news.

Elves are long-lived, and they have explored space either through magic or spells, they have even visited planets close to their own, but they never expected that what destroyed this outpost and many of their compatriots would come from there, from a place as distant and cold as space.

The red-haired elf nodded, then made several gestures to her companions, who spread out in the area, searching for survivors, or at least the remains of their companions. They noticed that a cruel fire-based spell had been unleashed after the meteors, ending the lives of any survivors they might have been able to save had they arrived sooner.

They knew from the fire that the perpetrator should have unleashed at least some fire magic, or at least the meteors would have started the fire they encountered, but now they knew the truth, and they were angry. 

Fun fact, elves are very, very emotional beings, but at the same time very cold, they are beings full of contradictions like humans, but believe me, you never want to see angry elves, unknowingly, John had angered a group of elves who would follow him and connect him to other sieges that had happened before by various human teams, knowing that he would at least be in those groups that had missions of this type.

Elves are smart, never doubt that, even if they didn't know what he looked like because he was always covered, they at least knew what he looked like, and because of his methods, they gave him a nickname.

The Black Magician.

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AN: Sorry, I overslept yesterday because I took a syrup for the flu, I fell asleep until the next morning. But today I will upload this and two more chapters to finally catch up! Please read, comment and give me stars to keep this story going!