Advent of the Archmage

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Back in the game, Ariel was the most promising magical prodigy among the new generation of High Elves. In the later stages of the game, she was even on par with the most gifted character in the game, Eliard.

Feeling that something was off, Ariel quickly produced a tree seed in her hand. This was the seed of the High Elves’ strongest combat puppet, Golden Tree Spirit.

The Golden Tree Spirit, commonly known as the vine devil, and the Black Gold Tree Spirit were two sides of the same coin. Though they were both formed from barbed vines, their colors were different.

The Black Gold Tree Spirit was, as its name implied, black and usually used offensively. Its barbs were highly poisonous. On the other hand, the Golden Tree Spirit was golden and used defensively most of the time. Its barbs were extremely solid and could interlace with one another to form a defensive mesh.

At that moment, Ariel did not know where her enemy would strike from. Instinctively, she decided to go the defensive route and took out the Golden Tree Spirit’s seed.

Legendary-level Nature Power flowed into the seed. When jade green light shone out from the seed, she quickly threw it down to the ground. When the seed hit the ground, it began taking root immediately. Shortly after, countless barbed vines broke through the seed’s husk.

The vines intertwined with one another, forming a tight net around the three High Elves. Due to the urgency of their situation, Ariel had left the other members of the Army of Destruction out in the open to deal with whatever was out there.

At that moment, a black shadow sprang out from a clump of grass nearby.

A fiery red light swirled around the figure’s body as it appeared. It let out a roar as it swung its dark red sword down at them.

“Die, High Elves!’

It was the Beastman King Avatar!

Avatar was able to get up close enough to them to execute an ambush while they were distracted by the moonlight that Link had produced.

With all his strength, he came at them with his unique skill: Wild Battle.

In an instant, the blood red dazzle from Avatar’s blade bloomed like a lotus flower in all directions, with his body as its center. All three High Elves and the others were immediately enveloped inside the burst of light!

The light was akin to the plow of a Grim Reaper, violently loosening the soil it touched. Destructive damage would be inflicted upon those standing on the soil it touched.

The attack had caught them all by surprise.

With their lives on the line, the only thing Katyusha, the fallen angel and Stormlord Parmese were able to do was to block the attack with all their might. They were unable to dodge it; they had already missed their chance to do so.

Sounds of metal clashing against one another rang out in quick succession. Energy rippled out from the points of impact, which blew up a powerful storm and uprooted the grass around them.

The clash of weapons and the resulting storm were so intense that they would blow away an ordinary adult standing a few hundred feet away from the vortex.

Dust flew about in the air, blocking out the starry night sky and moon. Everything went dark in that moment.

However, when the storm was about to hit the caravans nearby, it mysteriously died down.

In front of them, the wind howled like restless phantoms. However, the wind was no more than a quiet breeze as it reached the caravans a few feet away from the action. The only thing that everyone could see from there was the occasional rumble of thunder and flashes of lightning produced by the clash of weapons.

Shallie was first to notice this. She shouted, “The God of Moonlight must be protecting us!”

“Lord, thank you for your protection!” shouted someone in response.

This time, no one doubted a single word Shallie said. Way too many things had happened tonight. This deity had evidently performed miracles to protect them from all manner of misfortune. This much was irrefutable.

On the other side of the plains, the battle raged on.

Even at their full strength, Katyusha, the fallen angel, and Parmese could not entirely block the Beastman king’s onslaught. At that moment, their wounds had only begun to heal, and they had not even regained their strength completely. In their currently weakened state, their chances of coming out of this alive grew ever slimmer.

Katyusha was now covered in cold sweat and screaming inwardly at the hopelessness of her situation. She did not even have the time to activate her Thorn of Fate skill. She sensed that she would be done for at any moment.

As the storm raged on, she saw the fallen angel from the corner of her eye desperately trying to block Avatar’s attack. His chest had already been slashed open. Blood poured out profusely from his wound.

Katyusha suddenly leaned to one side and retreated behind the fallen angel.

The fallen angel was too busy deflecting the rapid glimmers from Avatar’s sword that he did not notice Katyusha retreating behind him. He began to retreat as well while blocking the incoming attacks, but before he could even take half a step back, he sensed that something was wrong. There was someone blocking his way behind him.

Katyusha did not deliberately block off his retreat. But under such circumstances, a moment’s hesitation could mean life or death.

He reacted immediately. “Get out of my way, Naga!”

At that moment, the fallen angel was caught between the storm of sword glimmers in front of him and Katyusha, who had blocked off his retreat behind him. The only thing he could do was continue keeping the sword glimmers of death away from him as long as he could.

As long as he continued blocking the attacks, there was still a chance he would be able to make it out of this alive. Otherwise, he would be cut to ribbons.

He tried to block off the attacks with all his might, but reality was a cruel thing. In the span of a second, the fallen angel had blocked at least 30 attacks from Avatar. However, the sword glimmers did not let up, and he had already exhausted most of his strength.

An instant later, the sword attacks sliced through the fallen angel’s body, turning it into mincemeat.

Stormlord Parmese met the same fate as the fallen angel. With his nimbleness greatly affected by his injured leg, Parmese’s body was instantly chopped to pieces by Avatar’s onslaught.

The whirlwind of sword glimmers lasted for three minutes. Two Legendary masters of the Army of Destruction had been torn to pieces in it. On the other hand, Katyusha had hidden behind the fallen angel and was able to escape with her life.

The three High Elves fared better than the rest of their party.

With the power of the Golden Tree Spirit’s seed, Ariel was able to erect a sturdy vine barrier, but the barrier only lasted for one second.

In that one second, the sturdy Golden Tree Spirit was instantly ground to fine dust by Avatar’s sword glimmers. However, before the attacks reached them, Ariel and the others were able to set up a powerful magical barrier.

Under the magical barrier’s protection, the three of them scattered, safely evading Avatar’s attack.

Avatar had used up all of his strength in his attack. He had faced six Legendary masters on his own and was able to slay two of them. This was a feat worthy of recognition throughout the continent.

But his enemy had no intention of leaving him alive even after accomplishing such a feat.

After managing to survive Avatar’s ambush, the three High Elves and Katyusha proceeded to carry out a counterattack against him.

In an instant, Katyusha’s Thorn of Fate, Ariel’s World Impaler, Elovan and Sonya’s Black Gold Tree Spirit all came at Avatar at the same time.

All four them surrounded the Beastman King, blocking all his escape paths.

The Beastman was simply terrifying. His sword attacks had made everyone fear for their very lives. After escaping his onslaught by the skin of their teeth, their first reaction was to kill the Beastman immediately before he could do any more damage.

However, Avatar was laughing.

He made no attempts to defend himself. The Beastman King simply remained in place, laughing at the attacks that inched closer and closer towards his body by the second. As he laughed, a white light suddenly engulfed his body. He then faded away like a mere mirage.

A moment later, all four attacks converged on the same spot at the same time, but their target had vanished into thin air.

Ariel shouted urgently, “Careful, it’s an extremely powerful teleportation spell. The one who’s not yet revealed himself is a Spatial Magician!”

She then began to readjust her body, ready to intercept the Spatial Magician’s attack.

At that moment, she did not know that the Spatial Magician was Link himself. Due to the fact that the power she had sensed was different from Link’s, Ariel only assumed that it had come from some unknown master.

Just as she shouted her warning, the Magician’s attack came towards them at a frightening speed that they could barely even react to it.

All four of them had come at Avatar in unison a moment ago, ready to kill him where he stood. Though they had sensed the Magician’s attack, they were unable to pull back their attacks and readjust their bodies in time.

To a Legendary master, the length of time to readjust one’s body in anticipation of an enemy’s attack was usually no more than a tenth of a second. It was a skill ordinary people could not hope to master. Even among Legendary Magicians, it was extremely difficult to grasp as Legendary spells required time to prepare.

Logically speaking, their enemy could not possibly follow up a teleportation spell with such a powerful offensive spell so soon.

But the person they were up against was Link. Though his spells never hit hard, they were fast.

“Not good!”

Warning bells were now ringing in her head. Without hesitation, Ariel cast Moonlight on herself. She would not be able to survive her enemy’s attack. Her only option now was to flee.

But her movements were still too slow. Avatar was indeed frightening; his flurry of slashes back then had given them no room to execute a counterattack. But the person they were now facing was a hundred times more frightening than Avatar.

Just as her Moonlight spell’s protective layer began to take shape, a seemingly normal steel sword appeared behind Ariel out of thin air. With a swift stroke, it pierced directly through her heart.

Ariel’s body trembled. Her eyes widened. Her heart had been stabbed. At that moment, her internal energies were in a state of chaos, unable to put up any resistance against foreign energies.

Shortly after, a rush of spatial power spread from her wound across her entire body. She was instantly turned into a spatial statue, frozen completely on the spot.

At that moment, she was neither dead nor alive.

The sword then disappeared. It reappeared in another corner and struck Katyusha. She trembled at the moment of impact. Her heart was also stabbed, and her internal energies were sent into disarray.

Spatial energy flowed out from the sword and easily locked her in place.

Seeing that Ariel and Katyusha were immobilized by the sword, Elovan and Milose quickly tried to escape by dissipating into flashes of light.

But the two of them were no match for Link.

With two short hums, two sword tips appeared out of thin air and stabbed the High Elves’ light forms at the same time. Elovan and Milose were forced to return to their physical forms. They fell out of the sky and landed on the ground, throwing up blood.

As they were in their light forms, there were no visible wounds on both High Elves. Still, the integrity of their bodies was damaged. For a short period of time, they would not be able to fight back.

Link had landed the finishing blow on all four of them as they came at Avatar. Though his method was a bit underhanded, it was still a means to an end. The High Elves had a long history of fighting dirty anyway, so Link had no reason to feel shameful for his actions.

Once Link had subdued all four, he strolled out of his hiding spot towards them.

Elovan and Milose were still conscious. When they saw Link, their eyes went wide like saucers. They had no idea the one who had ambushed them was Link himself since the power they had felt from him before was so different from the Magician who had attacked them.

Despite knowing that there was a Magician hidden somewhere in the vicinity, they had decided to attack Avatar in full force.

A normal Magician’s attack was usually preceded by some obvious sign. It would also not come as quickly as a Warrior’s. At that moment, all four members of the Army of Destruction were confident that they would be able to react to it in time.

They did not expect to be ambushed by a Master Magician who was also well-versed in the martial arts.

Elovan asked, “Link, do you really want to start a war between Ferde and the Isle of Dawn?”

Milose added, “If you kill us here, are you not afraid that the Isle of Dawn and the Army of Destruction will join forces against Ferde?”

Link smiled faintly. “Of course I’m scared. That’s why you three are still alive.”

The two High Elves looked at each other. Link had admitted that he was afraid of the Isle of Dawn’s retaliation, but still the smile did not leave his face. He did not look at all afraid. Anyone looking at him then would be chilled to the bone.

Remaining silent for a few seconds, Elovan finally asked, “What do you want?”