“Wait—Earth Magic?! How is this possible?!”
Cassim’s mind reeled with fresh shock,
his thoughts racing a thousand miles a second as a horrifying realization dawned on him.
“Damnation! She’s been hiding her true power this entire time! She is not merely a Fire, Light, and Neutral Affinity mage at all!!”
BOOM!!!
The tremors rocking the earth around him grew more violent by the second,
and a crushing gravitational force tugged at his body, yanking him relentlessly upward toward the surface.
“Cursed fate! Am I truly going to be defeated by a child?!”
He could not bring himself to believe it—could not accept such a humiliating end.
“I will not fall to you!”
A desperate resolve hardened in his heart.
“You leave me no choice!”
The Demonic Transformation Potion had been his magnum opus, a project he had spearheaded long before rising to Gulos’ high command. It was the early success of this very research that had catapulted him into the upper echelons of the organization,
and upon mastering his augmented power, he had claimed his title as the Faith Pillar of Gulos’ Three Pillars.
Yet the potion was a flawed creation. At its core, it wielded an alien, corrosive power—one that warped and twisted the mortal body to unlock greater strength,
and corruption always met resistance.
For the stronger one’s power and will, the harder the potion was to take hold. It could even backfire catastrophically on those of unyielding spirit.
In its earliest iterations, the potion only worked on those below the rank of High-Rank Adept; useful, but ultimately insignificant.
High-Rank Adepts seeking to undergo the transformation were forced to rely on cumbersome rituals—hardly practical for battle.
Only in recent years had they perfected a stable version for B-rank adepts, a breakthrough that had proven its worth time and again.
And as for an A-rank variant... Cassim held a single vial of the Prototype in his grasp.
It was a prototype for a reason: its true power had never been tested.
Testing an A-rank variant required an A-rank subject,
and such trials were fraught with peril—from the risk of catastrophic loss of control to the sheer impossibility of finding willing test subjects. The research had stagnated, leaving nothing but an untested prototype, its effects shrouded in uncertainty.
But for Cassim, trapped and broken, uncertainty no longer mattered.
He had no other choice but to gamble everything on that slim chance.
“...”
Hovering high in the sky, Hulim Heyerar’s brow furrowed faintly, her senses pricked by a sudden shift below.
Her gaze remained fixed on the churning earth, her perception locked onto Cassim’s mana aura—he had no hope of escaping her sight.
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In a few short seconds, he would have been dragged kicking and screaming to the surface.
But at that exact moment,
Hulim felt his mana aura twist and mutate, warping into something unrecognizable.
A mage’s mana aura was like their identity—an indelible signature, unchanging and unique.
To alter it meant to alter one’s very self, to become something other than what they once were.
Cassim was undergoing such a transformation now.
“This foul, corrupted mana......”
She knew that feeling all too well.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, her calm voice cutting through the rumble of the earth:
“So your research has advanced far enough to affect even A-rank adepts, has it, Gulos.”
BOOM——!!!
The ground erupted in a cataclysmic explosion.
A pitch-black figure shot into the sky in a blur of shadow and rage, his form warped beyond recognition.
Hulim never lost sight of him, her gaze unwavering—
yet she quickly noticed something was terribly wrong.
“This transformation... it is not right.”
The Cassim before her was undeniably stronger, his mana aura surging with the amplified power of the Demonic Transformation, but his form was nothing like the other corrupted mages she had seen.
Shadows coiled around his body like solid black steel, writhing and lashing out with countless unruly Shadow Tentacles sprouting from his back.
Worst of all, Hulim could sense it—his body was unraveling, his flesh and magic dissolving away with every passing second.
“Your transformation... it has failed.”
Hulim stated flatly, her tone devoid of emotion.
She did not know if he still retained his human consciousness, nor did she care. It was a mere observation, spoken aloud for no other reason than to state the obvious.
“......You are correct. It has failed.”
A ragged, gravelly growl escaped Cassim’s lips, his voice no longer human.
“But not entirely.”
He slowly raised his hands—
hands that had faded into pure shadow, and the shadow tentacles on his back twitched in unison, rising with them.
“The price is my life...... but in return!”
His fists clenched, his corrupted eyes blazing with a deathly malice as they locked onto Hulim,
“I have seized the power I craved——!!!”
BOOM——!
Without a shred of warning, Cassim lunged forward in a blinding ambush.
Several colossal magic circles blazed to life before him in an instant,
and a wave of mana far more overwhelming than any of his prior attacks surged forth.
But on the opposite side,
Hulim responded with equal speed, her own counterattack unfolding in the blink of an eye.
Hum! Hum! Hum......
An identical number of magic circles materialized before her, mirroring his own.
BOOM——!!!
Their attacks collided head-on in the sky, unleashing a shockwave of apocalyptic power that rippled outward in all directions.
Wherever the aftershocks swept across the forest below, trees and earth alike shattered into dust, the ground collapsing into jagged chasms.
Not even the tiniest insect could have survived such a tempest of raw magic.
Yet for the two mages locked in combat, this was nothing more than a casual exchange.
Fifth Circle spells erupted from their wands in an unbroken barrage,
and the terrifying aftershocks of their clash spread farther and farther, centered on their battlefield.
Countless creatures dwelling in the Monster Great Forest fled in abject terror at the sensation of that overwhelming power,
their panicked stampede sparking a full-blown Beast Tide across the woodlands......
The cataclysmic commotion did not go unnoticed by others in the forest, either.
“Hm—something is happening over there!”
An A-rank teacher of Manacos said sharply, his gaze fixed on the distant glow of clashing magic.
The three figures beside him all tensed, their senses pricked by the familiar mana signature.
“It’s Cassim!!!”
Grisa ground his teeth, his voice thick with rage and resolve.
“There is no mistaking it—his aura is twisted, but this is undoubtedly him!”
“If what Teacher Grisa says is true, then our quarry is there. Let us move out.”
“Right, Headmaster!”
The others replied in unison.
The four figures streaked toward the battlefield at blinding speed.
A few short minutes later......
Whoosh!
Four silhouettes materialized at the edge of the devastated forest,
pausing cautiously, unwilling to charge blindly into the fray and risk disaster in the chaos.
“T-This is impossible——!”
Their voices trembled with unbridled shock as they beheld the scene before them.
The land was torn asunder, the forest reduced to a wasteland of cracked stone and smoldering ash.
The sky itself was stained a sickly blend of black and white light, a roiling vortex of primal chaos.
At the heart of the storm, Fifth Circle magic blazed and clashed in a relentless storm of power,
so intense that one might have sworn an army of A-rank adepts was locked in battle.
But the cruel reality was far more astonishing.
All of this destruction had been wrought by two people alone.
And their clash had grown so ferocious that the mana field at the absolute center of the battlefield had unraveled into pure chaos—
a maelstrom of power that obscured their forms completely, leaving the onlookers unable to see who held the upper hand.
