Chapter 139

"Hohohoh! This is more than expected."

Said Merlin tearing dozens of books and fleeing to the sky while climbing them.

He looked down at the ground.

Huge darkness covered the icy land filled with white snow as if ink had spilled on it.

No, maybe it was more appropriate to say that there was a hole than ink spilled.

It was both surprising and confusing.

He had lived for more than a century, seen a lot, learned a lot, and even faced numerous strong enemies in foreign lands as a war wizard, but has never seen anything like this before.

His intuition and reason both screamed danger.

'One thing is certain. At that time, if I hadn't avoided it, I wouldn't have been able to resist and would have been overpowered.'

The time Merlin spoke of was the moment when Oliver took a puff of the Pilgeret.

Soon after the puff, his face fluctuated grotesquely and he extracted his emotions and used black magic.

This was the first time he had ever heard a black magic spell called Hell Summon.

Merlin couldn't tell if it really summoned hell like the name suggests or just a name, but he could be sure of one thing.

If his reaction was a little late at the time, he would have been eaten by the extreme darkness that covered the ground.

An Archmage like himself would have been eaten.

"Good thing he can't come up to the sky."

But this seemed to be an illusion.

The darkness extending to the horizon suddenly contracted and began to rumble– like water boiling in a pot.

The boiling darkness burst and the darkness stretched toward the sky like tentacles.

SWOOSH!

Merlin was sure– if he got caught, it was over.

So Merlin opened the book and summoned new books.

Five books popped out of the book and wrapped Merlin in all directions like the apex of a star.

Merlin controlled the books by concentrating mana on his hands.

PARAPARAPARA

PARAPARAPARA

PARAPARAPARA

PARAPARAPARA

PARAPARAPARA

The books spread out in the air, fluttered, and quickly moved, and several pieces of paper were torn apart.

The torn paper went to the spot designated by Merlin like a machine and formed a magic circle.

"Hmm…"

Merlin linked the spell written on the torn paper with stored mana and his own mana to create a huge magic shield in the sky.

It was a powerful defense magic that prevented even the bombing magic used by most military wizards.

BANG———!!!

The ominous tentacles extending toward the sky collided with Merlin's shield.

Fortunately, Merlin's shield was stronger.

The tentacles were blocked by the shield made of mana and could no longer come up…!!

"…What the?"

Merlin doubted his eyes.

But it wasn't a mistake.

The unidentified tentacles were slowly eroding Merlin's mana like poison.

It even ignored the protective magic to prevent encroachment.

Merlin saw the eroding magic and realized that these black tentacles were unstoppable and at best his shield can only buy time.

The only way out of this attack was to eliminate the cause of the attack.

At that moment, Merlin felt like being hit in the back of the head with a hammer.

The fight, which was just a test, had become quite a serious fight before he knew it.

It had been years since he had felt this way.

He really wondered if he could do this, but soon decided to put away his worries when he saw the tentacle that eroded more than half of the shield.

The fight had already exceeded the level that can be dealt with moderately.

Merlin, who made up his mind, loosened his posture and stretched out his hands.

With it, he scattered his mana into the sky, tightened his strength, and took control of the surroundings.

The gloomy clouds that covered the ice fluttered.

Not part of it, but all the clouds that touched the snow.

PACHIK PACHICK!

Huge blue lightning fluctuated inside the clouds.

The scene looked as if the sky was angry.

"Ha… Please don't die, mate."

With those words, Merlin waved his hand down.

At that moment, lightning, which was fluctuating inside the clouds, poured out all at once around the blackened land.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

Countless loud and small lightning struck with deafening and heart-wrenching roars.

The brightness and ferocious roars that would burn the looking eyes, pounded not only on the blackened ground but also on the whole area without rest.

Every time the lightning struck the ground, the ground peeled off, the ice caught fire, the ground overturned, and cracks occurred.

Literally a catastrophe.

But Merlin didn't care.

It was such magic in the first place.

[Wrath of the Sky], the highest rank spell of the Mjolnir School, which specializes in the Lightning series magic, was a bombing magic that artificially condenses and releases the power of mana and lightning in the air.

It was more of a disaster than magic.

The power was so strong that there was nothing one could do but designate limited targets for attack.

It was a magic that didn't distinguish between friends and family, and as a result, it was officially forbidden to use even in war.

And he used such magic on a young man who was just over twenty.

However, Merlin was not sorry or embarrassed.

That unidentified black substance scared Merlin that much.

BOOM BOO…

The lightning that was hitting the ground stopped before he knew it.

The sky, which had been gloomy the whole time, cleared, perhaps because it had exhausted its strength.

It was questionable whether the young boy would be alive as before.

And at that moment, Merlin saw something fluctuating in the snow dust that covered the land white.

"Don't tell me…"

Something huge and black appeared through the snow dust.

Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa! Eyaaa!

With an ear-splitting cry.... a baby appeared

A baby that was dark red and squishy as if made of mud, big as a mountain… and huge…

The overwhelming size evoked a disgust, and fear that brought an eerie feeling that he had not felt in decades.

The large, obnoxious baby who looked immature like a newborn reached for Merlin.

There was no cuteness that could be felt from a normal baby at all. Rather, it felt like something disgusting that looked like a baby.

Merlin tore dozens of sheets of paper from the book and threw them.

A huge explosion occurred moments later as the papers smashed into the huge baby's arm.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The baby's arm flew off.

EYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The baby literally cried, cried until the sky was torn apart as if it was painful.

Nevertheless, the baby did not fall down and kept reaching out to Merlin.

Surprisingly, the arm was recovering.

It recovered as numerous babies as small as ants protruded from the blown arm and started sticking together.

A creepy sensation rose up inside Merlin, who suddenly lost his composure and summoned numerous books and tore them to activate the magic.

Dozens of magic circles formed around the huge baby, and chains made of magic came out of the circle and entwined the baby.

CLING CLANG

CLING CLANG

BAM! BANG!

Soon, huge shock waves spread all over the place.

The binding magic, which can perfectly bind even two-dimensional creatures of the Spatial school, fluctuated as they could not properly restrain the baby.

The baby struggled with tears in the sky.

The chains made of numerous mana and complex formulas fluctuated to keep the baby from moving.

It was holding out now, but it was obvious that it was going to break soon.

Merlin took action immediately.

'Maybe I should use the wrath of the sky once again and extinguish it in one breath… But what is this feeling? It feels like I've felt this before. When was it?'

Merlin recalled a faint memory as he sprinkled his mana on the sky to bring back the clouds and unite them.

He couldn't help the lack of power in the sky as he had used it once earlier, but there was no problem.

The lack of power was enough to be replenished by his own mana.

Merlin drew mana from the mana heart.

Then, in an instant, the magic with power as before was prepared. No, more than that was prepared.

Merlin controlled it with one hand, then drew additional mana and put target magic on the giant baby, from head to toe.

The attack points were designated without any gaps.

"Sky's…"

-PING! -PUCK!

As the attack was about to be launched, something flew quickly and passed right next to Merlin's head.

Thanks to the books serving as shields, he lived, if not his head would have been blown away.

Merlin looked in the direction of the attack.

There was something inside the huge, chubby baby's mouth.

It looked like a human doll covered with black armor all over the body.

It was so black that even Merlin felt like it was something that does not belong to this world.

BANG BANG BANG

The black human doll lifted its finger and shot bullets of hate at Merlin.

Merlin tried to block it by spreading a shield with a book while trying not to let down his guard like before.

Nevertheless, he could feel the attacks eating away at his defense.

An ordinary attack was nibbling away the magic contained in the book of the previous Archiver. A thing he never thought would happen unraveled in front of his eyes.

'Counterattack… Counterattack…'

As soon as he tried to counterattack, the black human doll appeared in front of him by tearing the book's shield with a quarterstaff, leaping a distance that he never thought would be possible.

"Mate, is it you?"

The black human doll did not answer Merlin's question. Instead, it got close to Merlin, grabbed his hands, and then disrupted the flow of mana, incapacitating the piece of paper he was stepping on.

"FU*K."

Spouting a single word, Merlin fell down to the ground, caught by the black human doll.

The black human doll, which he believed to be Oliver, seemed to laugh even though it had no eyes, nose, or mouth.

Merlin tried to get away from the clutch of the ominous being, but it was futile.

It wasn't that Merlin lacked power, it was just that the power of his opponent was way out of common sense– someone who could stop his breath with a snap if wanted but didn't.

"You really… surprise me, mate."

Merlin said as he saw Oliver taking away the control of his magic.

The sky rumbled, fluttered, and soon blue lightning came down like a snake and fell on the black human doll and Merlin who were falling at the same time.

[Blessing of the Lightning God]

With those words, a brilliant flash like the sun's light broke out on the ice at the end of the world, where there was no one.

Along with a terrible sound that cannot be heard by human eardrums, the two fell apart and fell on the ground.

Nothing was heard in the place as if the whole world went deaf.

In the midst of such a disaster, someone staggered up.

It was Merlin.

Thanks to the Lightning God's protection, he was able to stay safe, but that didn't reduce the damage.

"Ah…"

Merlin looked at the clear sky and the unevenly turned ice ground and exclaimed.

He remembered where he felt this kind of feeling before.

They say that you lose your memory as you get older, but he never thought he'd forget that.

Merlin was astonished at his stupidity.

'I might have to do it seriously…'

At that moment…

As he turned his head toward the place where he felt some movement, the black human doll appeared from the white smoke.

His whole body was burned, his shoulders dropped, his arms were loose, and his legs were broken, to the extent that Merlin wondered how it was standing.

However, as if saying that was nothing, the body recovered on its own with a clicking sound and approached Merlin.

Merlin took a stance, as if he was facing someone who was stronger than him.

HALT.

The black human doll stopped at the same time as it fully recovered.

Merlin couldn't understand what was going on, he just watched the scene with his eyes wide open.

After a while, Oliver showed his face, tearing the black material covering his face.

He looked very tired.

"Elder…"

"...Yes, mate?."

"I'm at my limit, I'm sorry, but can we stop here? I really want to rest now. I lost."

Merlin looked at Oliver with startled eyes.

After a short pause, Merlin replied.

"Yeah, let's do that."

At the same time, the black substance that covered Oliver's body disappeared, and Oliver, who was in a mess, fell to the ground.

He fell asleep, and Merlin who looked at it, fell down to his seat as if he was tired.

"Ha… I guess the last days of my life won't be boring."