The red-robed mage on the right pulled a scroll from the inner side of his robe. The moment the scroll tore, ice-blue frost gushed from the tear, spreading rapidly across the lobby floor and freezing all the tables and chairs in its path into ice sculptures.
Several blue-robed mages also began chanting spells. The mana fluctuations of five people casting spells simultaneously surged through the lobby, whipping up a miniature elemental storm.
Wu Yao glanced at this group of struggling mobs and sighed.
She was genuinely pained by those items; seeing them squandered like this cut her to the heart.
Control first, then kill. Quick and clean.
Wu Yao touched the ground with her left hand. The frost released by that scroll was spreading wildly across the floor, cold air rolling along the ground. Wu Yao guided the water element to flow backward along the frost, causing the freezing energy to suddenly surge.
The blue-robed mages who were still chanting were the first to be hit, the surging cold pinning them directly in place. The two red-robed mages still wanted to cast, but unfortunately, the water element filling the entire area was a step faster.
She had to thank the red-robed mage who tore the scroll for creating this environment; without this frost-covered floor, she wouldn't have been able to release such a wide-range, instant-cast freeze.
Wu Yao tapped her right index finger in the air, and several gold blades shot out simultaneously.
A golden light flashed through the lobby, precisely slicing the throats of every mage present. Several health bars emptied simultaneously, and crisp kill notifications popped up one after another.
Until it sliced across the throat of the last blue-robed mage, and the sound of something shattering rang out.
It sounded like a crystal being crushed, or the hum of a gear snapping.
That blue-robed mage revealed a necklace hanging around his neck.
The pendant of the necklace was an irregular deep blue crystal. A fine crack had appeared on its surface, and a blinding blue-white light shone from within, as if some long-sealed power was frantically searching for an exit.
In the next second, the blue-white light exploded.
A fist-sized waterball expanded from the shattered necklace. Though ordinary in shape, its interior was an ink-blue color, deep as the ocean.
Tiny arcs of light constantly flickered on the sphere's surface—a phenomenon of mana oversaturation caused by the water element being compressed to a near-solid state.
The deep blue waterball lingered for less than half a second before suddenly expanding outward.
There was no sound.
Wu Yao only saw a ring of deep blue light expand from the blue-robed mage's chest. Wherever the ring passed, the air was vacuumed, sound was swallowed, and light was refracted into distorted fragments.
The tables and chairs swept by the ring were instantly crushed into fine powder, and the corpses left no trace either, leaving only a few faint gray ashes drifting in the air.
Ester's corpse, the corpses of the two red-robed mages, the corpses of the other blue-robed mages, and Darian, who was still bound in place, all vanished into nothingness within a few breaths.
Only two people and one cat survived.
The moment the ring expanded, Wu Yao sensed the abnormal riot of the water element. She had preemptively cast several layers of Wind Shields and gold shields around herself, barely blocking the aftermath of the ring.
Xuanmiao, inside her hood, showed no reaction at all, still fast asleep.
The other survivor was the owner of the necklace. He was wrapped in a faint, watery-blue film of light, and the deep blue ring bypassed him.
Wu Yao's face darkened.
The corpses swallowed by the ring—their robes, staffs, scrolls, magic-sealing stones, mana-storing waist pendants, amulets... all the loot she hadn't had time to put into her Inventory had turned to ash along with them.
“You—” Before she could even vent her anger, she saw something even more infuriating.
An eye suddenly opened within the crack of the necklace pendant on the blue-robed mage's chest, locking directly onto Wu Yao.
Prying. Someone was spying on her through the medium of the necklace.
Wu Yao instinctively shot a gold blade at it.
But the instant before impact, the blue-robed mage's body suddenly blurred, like a reflection on the water's surface being disturbed, and then his entire figure flickered and vanished into thin air.
The gold blade passed through where he had just stood, cutting through empty air and pinning itself to a stone pillar in the lobby, gouging out a sharp, dull thud.
【Target Darian Ken has died. Clue quest has failed.】
Wu Yao slowly exhaled.
She stood there expressionless, silent for a moment, before raising her hand to load her save without a word.
Time rewound to the moment she had just obtained the Tower Master's credentials. Darian was still blinking desperately at her from within the Binding Spell, her eyes rolling around with lively vitality.
Facing the incoming spells, Wu Yao chose to raise her hand and cast four Wind Shields and an Earth Wall around Darian, shielding her completely. “Stay there and don't move. Don't die.”
Darian sensibly shrunk behind the Earth Wall, not daring to say another word.
This time, Wu Yao remembered to leave the human bomb for last.
That stiff-necked human bomb was still squirming within the vines.
Wu Yao walked over, bent down, and grabbed his collar, lifting him off the ground like a sack of potatoes.
She dragged the frantically squirming blue-robed mage across the messy lobby and into a narrow, dark alley.
The night wind poured in from the mouth of the alley, carrying a crisp breeze that blew away the murky scent clinging to her robe.
Wu Yao threw the blue-robed mage into the corner at the end of the alley, casually adding two more layers of Vine Bind to ensure he couldn't move even a single finger.
Then, she commanded the elements to start stripping his gear.
The first thing she took was that unknown necklace that had caused the massive chaos.
Inside his sleeves were two wax-sealed rune scrolls, and a palm-sized leather amulet pouch containing three elemental amulets of different attributes. Next was the hidden pocket on the inner side of his belt, which held a small pouch of magic-sealing stone fragments and an unopened healing potion.
Tucked into an inner lining was a neatly folded piece of parchment. Wu Yao had thought it was some kind of treasure.
Unfolding it, she saw it was a letter of recommendation personally signed by Great Sage Theodore, with the seal of the Beacon Tower stamped at the bottom, and a note appended at the end: 'Please look after him, Tower Master Ester.'
No wonder he had so many good things on him; he actually had a backer.
She put away all the loot, made sure he had nothing else of value on him, stepped back two paces, and casually threw a fireball.
The moment the fireball left her hand, he suddenly snapped his head up, the look in his eyes turning into a near-vacant blankness, as if his consciousness had been sucked out from within at that exact instant.
Then, his face began to distort.
His cheekbones collapsed and then bulged, his jawline went from rounded to sharp, his lips thinned from plump, and even his eyes shifted from their original light brown to a murky, dark black.
Within less than a second, his entire face transformed from that of a pampered young man into a gaunt, unfamiliar visage.
Wu Yao didn't even have time to get a clear look at the full contours of that face before his figure dispersed silently like windblown smoke the moment his features settled.
【Killed Mid-Tier Mage Bort. Experience +316】
Bort?
Rate on N.U.
