What the hell is this now?

Just as Ludger and Velkat were thinking the same thing, a massive shadow burst forth between the two of them.

Forced apart, Ludger and Velkat instinctively widened the distance between them.

Velkat narrowed his eyes beneath his helmet as he looked upon the newly arrived figure.

“So you’re the master of this forest?”

It was an enormous stag with a mane of swirling white and sky blue.

Its grand antlers glowed with a golden hue.

Despite its colossal size—over ten meters—it flew through the air without wings.

Or rather, it was stepping upon the sky with its four hooves, as if the air itself were solid ground.

It was the guardian spirit beast of the forest, and the very one said to dwell within the Kasarr Basin.

Long considered a rumor—its existence unconfirmed until now—it had revealed itself before them.

The spirit beast’s eyes glowed with magical light as it fixed Velkat with a hostile glare.

In that moment, it clearly distinguished who was friend and who was foe.

Whoooom.

A strange wind blew out from the beast’s massive form.

Immediately afterward, a bluish mist began to coil around its body.

There was no mistaking what that signified: the release of mana.

Mana mist.

A phenomenon that could only occur when one possessed not just a certain threshold of mana, but also the control to manipulate it as if it were resting in the palm of their hand.

It was said to be a technique available to mages of at least the 6th Circle.

And yet here was a beast—not even human—displaying that power.

The swirling mana mist around the spirit beast condensed into a single point before firing a massive pillar of pure energy.

“Kh!”

Velkat reached out and activated a formation of steel cubes.

The cubes spun rapidly in a ring, projecting a shield.

KIIIIIIING!

The mana beam clashed with the shield.

Blocked, the beam split into countless strands that scattered in all directions.

However, the cubes that had formed the shield couldn’t withstand the heat—they glowed red-hot and began to melt.

“The output is absurd.”

Velkat, in that moment, reassessed the spirit beast’s threat level.

Its sheer mana capacity, combined with the output at which it was released, was enough to threaten even him—a 6th-Circle mage.

FWOOOOM!

The beast’s glowing eyes flared violently.

Immediately, spheres of mana floated up around it, and five more beams of energy launched toward Velkat.

They were just as powerful as the first.

Velkat spread his wings of steel wide and raised his defenses.

The mana beams twisted and shattered against his defenses, but even so, the sacred armor he wore—the Iron Thunder God's armor—was heating dangerously.

SSSHHHK!

Inside the armor, Velkat used ice magic to cool his body, then cast his next spell.

“You're just a beast in the end. Let me show you how we hunt.”

He assembled the cubes into a railgun.

It would have been excessive against a human—but against this thing, it was the perfect hunting weapon.

THOONG!

Electromagnetic energy rippled along the long barrel as the railgun lit up.

Knowing that even a spirit beast would be built tough, Velkat aimed to overwhelm it with sheer firepower.

But the terrifyingly fast railgun round never hit its mark.

The beast vanished, leaving behind only a streak of white light.

Velkat’s eyes widened within his helmet.

It dodged... from that range? A projectile faster than the speed of sound?

More shocking was how agile the spirit beast was—even while floating in mid-air.

Just for a moment, it had disappeared from his vision—its speed was beyond imagination.

“It’s enveloping its entire body in mana and using it as propulsion?”

A physique that large, moving like that?

And those pure mana beams—each one could be classified as a siege weapon.

Velkat summoned his magic beast—the Thunder Dragon—and at the same time, called his golden bird to engage the beast in aerial combat.

The spirit beast flew like a guided meteor, its body wreathed in mana and brimming with intent.

But Velkat was prepared to intercept even falling stars.

Countless collisions erupted mid-air between the golden bird, the Thunder Dragon, and the spirit beast.

Black, white, and violet streaks tangled through the sky like knotted threads.

Then, suddenly, the beast dove for Velkat.

A blinding white trail shot toward him, now just a few meters away.

Velkat had been waiting. He activated the floating cubes above him, releasing a network of stored electricity.

CRACKLE!

A web of lightning formed to halt the beast’s charge.

The spirit beast didn’t stop. It pressed through, unleashing intense mana in response.

The net stretched and warped, but it didn’t tear.

In fact, like flypaper, it clung tightly to the beast.

For just a moment, the spirit beast lost its mobility.

Velkat used his cubes to form weapons in midair.

Five identical weapons—Magnetta Swords—appeared, identical to the one in his hand.

But the transformation didn’t stop there.

KAGAGAK.

The five Magnetta Swords twisted and fused together like braided rope, forming a single massive lance.

“Fusion. Compression.”

Five swords, each weighing more than a ton, merged into a singular, monstrous weapon.

Velkat, clad in armor, took the lance in hand and raised it in a throwing stance.

Not even a spirit beast could survive this strike.

He was certain.

He hurled the weapon—

“......!”

But then, Velkat’s eyes widened.

Amid the chaos, he had failed to notice something critical.

Atop the beast’s back... was a boy.

A small-framed boy clung tightly to the beast’s snowy-white mane, staring through the electric net at Velkat with clear, unwavering eyes.

“You... you’re....”

Velkat recognized the boy—and stammered.

That momentary lapse was all Ludger needed to close the gap.

KANG!

Ludger’s swordstick struck the shaft of Velkat’s lance with a loud clang.

Velkat grit his teeth and jerked the lance, flinging Ludger off.

But then came a barrage of mana blasts from below, swallowing Velkat in pure magical fire.

BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!

An endless series of small, concentrated mana explosions.

Each one wasn’t powerful, nor particularly large—but they came in such numbers as to be uncountable.

All fired by the beasts on the ground.

The mana blasts shooting up toward the sky looked like a reverse meteor shower.

Ludger, watching it all while retreating back, was astonished.

The beasts—driven by pure instinct—were working together to drive Velkat back.

“Even the creatures of this land... don’t want to die.”

The Kasarr Basin held many mystical phenomena, but none compared to this—the awe-inspiring force of nature itself.

For a moment, Ludger thought... perhaps they could defeat Velkat.

But that was a grave underestimation.

“Hmph.”

Velkat gathered mana once more and released it in a massive burst.

A huge sphere of mana erupted, vaporizing every upward blast in its path.

Even for Velkat, the backlash from such a release was immense.

The once-pristine Iron Thunder God armor had broken in places, exposing his flesh.

“Haa... haa...”

Inside the suit, Velkat retrieved an ampoule and drove it directly into his exposed flesh.

As the contents were injected, thin red veins rose visibly across his skin.

“Graaah!”

The overwhelming power rushing through his body sent pain lancing through his nerves like lightning.

His brain felt like it might combust.

But he did not lose consciousness. He endured it all.

The agony swiftly faded.

The shattered armor regenerated—as if turning back time.

No—now it was even tougher, and its form had changed.

A horn sprouted from the top of his helmet, and the armor itself grew sharper and more grotesque.

What had once looked like a knight’s suit now resembled something demonic.

Ludger stared in disbelief.

“Velkat Benmark... what the hell did you just do?”

“What? Is it that surprising?”

Velkat’s eyes glowed from within his armor.

“Did you think you were the only ones fighting to the death, prepared to lose everything?”

He spread his wings wide.

What had once been metallic feathers now resembled the jagged wings of a devil.

The cubes in the sky shivered in response to his transformation.

“You’re not the only ones who’ve staked everything.”

The drug Velkat used was a special formula created by Victor Dreadpool.

But its components weren’t his alone.

It contained samples from the dead World Tree beneath the Exilion Empire’s capital...

...and even the remains of a demon that Victor had secured separately.

Mixed together, the resulting drug was something that no human should ever take.

Those who did either went insane from the pain or lost their humanity entirely.

Velkat had used it without the slightest hesitation.

Drip.

Blood-red tears streamed from beneath Velkat’s pitch-black helmet.

Inside the helm, Velkat murmured in a low, trembling voice.

“Magnetar Sword.”

A thousand blades.

The cubes gathered and forged countless swords in midair.

Even Ludger—and the spirit beast—paused at the sight.

The sword tips, forged of pure destruction, all turned downward toward the earth.

“Crush everything.”

With Velkat’s command, the swords in the sky began to fall in unison.

Ludger used magic to shoot them down, but there were far too many.

At that moment, the freed spirit beast rejoined the fray.

Each time the white comet cut across the sky, dozens of steel swords shattered into fragments.

And the beasts on the ground didn’t run.

They opened their jaws toward the heavens and fired mana projectiles at Velkat.

But the Magnetar Swords pierced through those mana blasts with ease and continued their descent without pause.

If this continued, the ground would be razed, and the barely stabilized leyline would rupture once more.

That had to be prevented at all costs.

Ludger’s body, still floating in midair, compressed into a pinpoint and vanished.

He reappeared on the ground—at the very center of the stabilized ruin.

He wrung out the last drops of mana in his body.

To stop those thousand swords from falling, he’d need one hell of a spell.

But Ludger’s condition wasn’t good.

He hadn’t recovered since the battle with Rimle, and now he’d been fighting Velkat nonstop.

Even the mana potions he’d brought just in case were completely depleted.

Even if he cast a spell with what little remained, how much could he really stop?

Just as that thought crossed Ludger’s mind, all the mana projectiles rising from the beasts halted in midair.

And then—he felt it.

Mana flooded into him.

All the beasts present were transferring their mana to Ludger.

Mana transfer.

A dangerous technique, even between mages, often avoided due to the risk of magical backlash.

But the mana from the beasts of the Kasarr Basin was so pure it was nearly indistinguishable from nature itself.

Ludger’s lips curved faintly.

“So... you want to protect this place too.”

Before he knew it, his depleted mana reserves were full again.

With this—he could do it.

Having made up his mind, Ludger activated a spell he had never once used in actual combat.

“Ater Nocturnus. I need your help.”

His magical beast, coiled around him as a shadow, responded to the call.

The shadow spread wide—massive wings unfurling outward.

So vast were they that they could cover the heads of every beast present with room to spare.

‘I can’t stop or deflect them one by one. So I’ll devour them all at once as they come.’

The wings began to spin, forming a double-helix spiral.

It was as if a massive vortex had opened in the air itself.

Unlike ordinary whirlwinds—light and narrow—this vortex grew wider the higher it rose, bizarrely expanding as it climbed.

From afar, it looked like a colossal black funnel.

6th-Circle darkness attribute magic:

[Dreaming Abyssal Twilight]

The thousand Magnetar Swords collided with the vortex.

No sound.

The moment they touched the black swirl, they vanished—as if devoured.

Darkness-attribute magic.

Alongside light, it was one of the rarest among the ten elemental attributes.

And even when used, it was typically limited to obscuring vision or inciting fear.

But the true strength of darkness lay in its gluttonous, all-consuming nature.

Just like this.

The sight of Velkat’s rain of steel vanishing into the void overhead was nothing short of awe-inspiring.

“Wha... what...”

Velkat hovered in the air, stunned, unable to finish his words.

When the steel rain ended and the black vortex disappeared, there was nothing left behind.

It was as if the magic had erased the fact that an attack had even occurred.

Ludger and Velkat’s eyes met across the sky.

“You should feel honored. No one’s ever seen this magic before.”

A spell that inflicted no damage...

But in return, devoured whatever magic was thrown at it—a supreme counter.

A spell that turned every battle into a draw.

“In the current situation, a draw is more than enough. Don’t you think?”

Ludger looked up toward Velkat in the sky and posed the question.

Velkat was burning away his life just to keep fighting.

Ludger, on the other hand, had regained his mana reserves.

The longer this dragged out, the worse it would get—for Velkat.

“...No. Not yet.”

Velkat stretched out his arm and summoned more mana.

Blood began to trickle from the seams in his armor.

“I... can still go. Because I... I...”

He muttered like a man possessed.

A thousand Magnetar Swords reformed in the sky once more.

Velkat clenched the outstretched hand into a tight fist.

“Compress.”

With that whisper, the thousand swords merged into one in midair.

A single, massive sword.

Twenty meters wide. Eight hundred meters long.

Though not as destructive as the 6th-Circle metallic spell [Skyfall Golden Jade], it held more than enough power to shatter the sealed leyline.

“Stop! Don’t hurt them!”

The boy riding the spirit beast shouted from its ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) back.

At the sound of his voice, Velkat froze for a moment.

“...”

From inside the helmet, Velkat’s eyes met the boy’s.

The moment was short—yet it felt endlessly stretched, like time itself had slowed.

Then, as if making a decision, Velkat released the massive sword.

Accelerating with magnetism, the enormous blade plummeted earthward at impossible speed.

Even Ludger didn’t react in time.

He hadn’t expected Velkat to push the attack even further.

The blade struck the leyline that had barely been sealed—burying itself all the way to the hilt.

This... was the end.

Velkat, too, was convinced.

But then—

The leyline where the sword had pierced the ground began to bulge.

At first, it seemed it might explode—but instead, the earth simply swelled.

Unnaturally. Enormously.

Only then did Velkat realize something was wrong.

And Ludger as well.

“...What the hell is that?”

A mountain was rising from the ground.