“Velkat! Why—why are you doing this?!”

Derrick still couldn’t comprehend it.

They hadn’t been particularly close, but they had known each other.

And from what he knew, Velkat wasn’t the kind of person to do something like this. Derrick simply couldn’t fathom what had driven him to these lengths.

Rimle’s motive had been clear—revenge for her daughter.

But Velkat?

Why go so far as to use the name of the dead Lesley?

Then suddenly, a memory from the past that Derrick had long forgotten came back to him.

“Wait... is this because you want revenge for your friends?”

“...Friends?”

Ludger asked what he meant.

Derrick kept his eyes on Velkat as he replied, his expression troubled.

“Isabella, Lesley, and Velkat—they were friends from way back. The three of them were inseparable, practically a single unit. Even after joining the Truth School, it was the same.”

Isabella—cheerful and optimistic in everything.

Lesley—clumsy and awkward, but more thoughtful and gentle than anyone.

Velkat—calm and collected, the one who played the role of the brakes.

Three completely different people, but together, they had formed a remarkably harmonious trio.

“But that bond fell apart... because of the accident that day.”

Ludger instantly understood which day he was referring to.

The day Isabella had gone to the Kasarr Basin and was caught in a mana storm.

That was the moment everything between the three had started to fall apart.

“Lesley wasn’t killed in the basin that day?”

“Lesley wasn’t there. He disappeared one year after Isabella’s death. Vanished without a trace. No one had any idea where he went.”

“So that’s why you insisted it was impossible.”

“But I couldn’t rule out the possibility completely.”

Derrick had assumed Lesley was the one orchestrating this.

That it was vengeance for his fiancée, Isabella.

But to think it was Velkat all along...

Derrick finally understood.

“Come to think of it, I remember hearing about that. There was a mage who claimed they could locate people who had gone missing in the Kasarr Basin. But most people thought it was nonsense, and it faded quickly.”

Of course it had.

Because the person making that claim disappeared a year later.

“Lesley went to the basin alone. And he never came back.”

Isabella died. Lesley died.

Of the trio that had once been inseparable, only one remained.

How must Velkat have felt, left alone after losing the two people he’d spent over a decade with?

“Velkat... is that why you’re doing this?”

Derrick’s eyes were filled with sorrow.

“To avenge your dead friends?”

They had never been close.

But they had once been classmates under the Truth School banner, and it was impossible not to feel grief at seeing someone who had fallen so far.

The dead are gone.

The living must find a way to carry on.

But Velkat said nothing in response to Derrick’s look. No denial, no excuse—almost as if saying, think what you want.

So this guy is the real First Order.

Ludger had assumed until now that Rimle was the First Order.

She was a veteran 6th-circle mage.

Anyone would have considered her a core force in any operation.

No one would have guessed she was just a disposable pawn.

“...Interesting.”

Velkat looked away from Derrick and fixed his eyes on Ludger.

“To think that he failed. I thought everything had gone according to plan after the mansion collapsed completely.”

Even now, Velkat didn’t act surprised to see Ludger.

In fact, he’d known Ludger was here all along.

And yet he’d given no warning, no interference.

Whether they were both First Orders or not, if Ludger was on his turf and interfered—he would’ve killed him without hesitation.

That was how Black Dawn executives operated.

Even among themselves, they wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate each other if it meant completing their mission—or just staying alive.

Even so, Velkat had sent Rimle a word of caution.

He had thought she could handle it.

But now, John Doe was standing before him.

Which could only mean one thing—Rimle had failed to kill John Doe.

“...So she’s dead.”

There was no grief in his voice.

Because right now, someone far more important stood in front of him.

He’s the one who defeated Rimle.

First Order [John Doe].

At first, he hadn’t paid much attention to the man.

John Doe, though a fellow First Order, had always pledged loyalty solely to Zero Order. He didn’t get along with the other executives.

He rarely kept subordinates and usually acted alone for that reason.

His strengths were infiltration, disguise, assassination, intelligence gathering.

He’d eliminate destabilizing elements, spread false information, incite conflict.

That’s how Velkat thought he’d continue to operate forever.

But once John Doe infiltrated Seorn as a teacher, he began to reveal the full extent of his power.

What he’d shown before had only been the tip of the iceberg. John Doe stirred up storm after storm.

Sometimes, even as a fellow First Order, Velkat couldn’t understand his choices.

But since Zero Order trusted him, no one said anything.

Now, John Doe had come to stop him.

There was no point in asking if he’d betrayed the Black Dawn.

Velkat had tried to kill him first.

Am I just getting sentimental because the Secret Garden is so close?

It didn’t matter anymore.

They were already far past the point of no return.

The only thing left was for one to kill the other.

You must think so too, John Doe... no, Ludger Cherish.

As if he’d read Velkat’s thoughts, Ludger returned his gaze with a cold, hardened glare.

Derrick shouted.

“Velkat! Stop this! You’re about to commit mass murder!”

“Derrick. Still playing the noble fool, I see. Do you think I’m standing here without understanding exactly what I’m doing?”

“Two ley lines are down, but there are still others left! And all your subordinates are dead!”

He wasn’t wrong.

The Second and Third Orders of the Black Dawn had fought fiercely but had failed to destroy the ley lines.

“The same is true on the other side. They attacked simultaneously, but only one went down. That means we stopped the other one.”

So surrender.

That was the warning Derrick gave.

But Velkat’s expression didn’t change.

“Do you know why I kept setting off explosions at the cliff?”

“Obviously to destroy the ley line!”

“That’s true, but not the full picture. It wasn’t only to destroy it. Sure, that would’ve been ideal—but this land isn’t that simple.”

Velkat stared blankly at the area scarred by the explosions.

“The ley line here runs beneath those jagged rock formations on the cliff. Unlike other places, it’s especially deep. Do you really think I was trying to rupture it with mere explosions? No... everything up until now has only been the beginning.”

“What...?”

“You think you’ve stopped me? But have you, really?”

Even before he finished speaking—

—the entire cliff began to shake.

Everyone at the scene felt it at the same time—something was rising from deep below.

From the various craters left by the explosions, a faint blue mist began to seep out.

It was high-density mana, leaking directly from the ley line.

Derrick’s expression grew grim, but then he realized something: the ley line wasn’t fully destroyed yet.

“This much is manageable. It’s not critical—yet.”

“Of course. But that cliff is on the brink of collapse. What do you think will happen if magic hits it now?”

“What...?”

“I’ve been conserving my strength until now, but there’s no need for that anymore.”

Velkat rose into the air using levitation magic.

Looking down at the fifty-odd knights and mages gathered below, he declared:

“From here on, I will use all the power I possess to destroy this weakened cliff.”

And it wasn’t just empty posturing—an enormous surge of mana began to twist and churn around Velkat.

“Let’s see if you can stop me.”

“H-Holy—!”

A 6th-circle mage’s full-force assault. Going up against someone like that was madness.

Sure, if all fifty people here worked together, they might stand a chance.

But the problem was the terrain.

Blue mana was already leaking from the cracks in the cliffside.

That meant the ley line here was in a very fragile state.

And now they had to fight a 6th-circle mage right above it?

They had to protect the ley line—whereas Velkat had nothing holding him back.

In terms of numbers, they were superior—but everything else worked against them.

They had to stop him.

As Derrick came to that conclusion and was about to give the order, someone acted first.

A flash of light surged into the sky.

It wasn’t just a blinding beam—it was a cannon, packed with searing heat, meant to pierce through anything.

Derrick’s eyes widened as he realized Ludger Cherish had fired it. Even more shocking was how Velkat, almost as if he’d been expecting it, blocked the attack with ease.

The massive beam collided with a shield and split into dozens of tendrils, shooting up into the sky.

As everyone stared at the dazzling light show, Ludger barked out:

“What are you all doing? Start pressuring him already!”

Snapped out of their daze, the mages quickly began preparing spells to attack Velkat.

But Velkat didn’t just stand there and take it.

Even while fending off Ludger’s continuous attacks, he was casting other spells simultaneously, surrounding himself with a field of magical energy.

Double casting.

He was already sustaining a defensive spell, so his offensive spells had to be simplified.

Velkat compensated for that by using raw mana—brute force.

Instead of forming a proper spell, he simply condensed mana into a dense sphere and dropped it.

And that single sphere contained a quantity of magic that would’ve taken most mages hours of squeezing to produce.

If that thing hit the cliff...

“Stop it!”

“Throw up a barrier, now!”

The mages waiting below hastily cast defensive spells.

Pooling their mana together, they created a large shield at the spot where the mana sphere would land.

Moments later, it collided with a thunderous shockwave.

A single man’s power against nearly forty mages—and astonishingly, the clash ended in a draw.

Both the shield and the mana orb vanished in the aftermath.

But the mages could feel it.

They were gasping for breath, barely holding on...

Meanwhile, Velkat looked completely calm.

That’s how massive the gap in their levels was.

“Don’t panic! If we back down now, we’re all dead!”

Valentina’s voice, layered with aura, rang out and echoed over the cliff.

Her words snapped the frightened mages back to their senses.

“I’ll handle him! Everyone else—focus on defense!”

Valentina charged at Velkat.

But he was still floating far above them.

There was no way she could reach him with a regular leap.

That’s when Derrick intervened.

He cast a spell, and a massive stone pillar rose diagonally like a ramp. Valentina dashed up it, rushing toward Velkat.

“An advanced knight, huh.”

Velkat could tell by the amount of aura in her voice that she wasn’t an ordinary swordswoman.

And that meant he couldn’t just meet her with a half-baked shield.

What made knights terrifying was the sheer power of their aura.

The stronger the knight, the more meaningless a mage’s shield became. Against them, even the finest magical barriers were like paper.

“But if I stop her before she gets close, that’s fine.”

Velkat cast another spell.

A huge metallic cube appeared in midair and plummeted toward Valentina.

It was a giant—three meters on each side.

Valentina’s sword, tinged with violet aura, slashed upward.

The metal block split in half with a clean, glowing cut, tumbling to either side.

But then—

A burst of electricity erupted from within the split cube.

“What the—?!”

Valentina reacted quickly, wrapping herself in aura and performing a backward flip to retreat.

The electric shock wave swallowed the stone pillar where she had just been standing.

And it wasn’t over yet.

Two metallic constructs began spinning through the air, emitting coils of high-voltage electricity as they bore down on her.

From behind, Derrick shouted:

“Watch out! Velkat is a master of metal and lightning magic! If you charge in carelessly, you’ll die!”

Even back when he was hiding under the name Lesley, Velkat had demonstrated incredible skill with those two elemental affinities.

In that field, Velkat could rival even higher-circle mages.

And now that it had been revealed he was actually a 6th-circle mage, the true power of his signature magic was beyond estimation.

That’s when Ludger moved.

While Velkat’s focus was momentarily drawn to Valentina, Ludger slipped in close and swung his mana-charged staff.

Velkat didn’t flinch.

He calmly extended his right hand.

Metal fragments floating around him rapidly coalesced into a sword.

Magnetar Sword.

CLANG!

The staff and sword clashed.

Ludger immediately tried to pull his staff back and cast another spell—but the weapon refused to budge.

It was stuck to Velkat’s sword.

“You shouldn’t swing metal around in front of me so carelessly.”

Without warning, dozens of metallic spears materialized around Velkat and fired toward Ludger.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Felix City, the closest city to the Kasarr Basin—

A string of strange phenomena had begun to unfold.

Carriages that usually ran smoothly came to a halt. The sky, often foggy in this region, had cleared unusually bright.

The citizens were alarmed by these odd occurrences.

Even more shocking was the change in the Kasarr Basin itself. The glowing white dome in the distance looked noticeably dimmer.

But none of that compared to what truly shocked the people.

“...Was ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) there always a mountain over there?”

Overnight, a mountain had appeared where none existed before.

And those with keen eyes might have noticed something even more disturbing—

That the mountain was still moving.