Hogg moved again, his body hurtling like a cannonball toward the stout mage on the far right. The stout mage immediately activated 【Rock Armor】, a thick layer of stony plating covering his entire body.
Hogg’s staff flew from his hand, carrying the full weight of his lightning mana as it shot toward the stout mage’s face. The mage instinctively raised his own staff to parry. When the two staves collided, lightning exploded outward.
The real killing blow came afterward.
The moment the staff left his hand, Hogg’s right hand condensed an ice-blue short blade—the 【Frozen Blade】. Using his momentum, he closed the distance and drove the ice blade upward through a seam in the rock armor.
The blade pierced the mage’s robe and sank deep into his flank. Frigid mana poured into the wound, freezing the blood inside his body into dark red shards of ice.
The stout mage’s eyes widened, a short gasp escaping his throat. He tried to swing his staff in a counterattack, but his arm dropped halfway. He collapsed backward, his rock armor shattering into countless pieces as blood quickly pooled beneath him.
The sound of whistling air came from behind. The thin mage seized the opening in Hogg’s defense, firing a highly compressed 【Shadow Thrust】 toward his heart. Hogg twisted his body to avoid a fatal hit, but the shadow energy still slammed heavily into his back. His robe was torn open, and his flesh hissed as the dark mana began to corrode it. He let out a muffled groan and stumbled forward, but he used the impact to spin around, condensing another ice blade mid-turn and hurling it backhand at the thin mage.
The ice blade traced an arc through the air. The thin mage had just finished casting 【Shadow Thrust】, and there was a gap of less than half a second before he could channel mana again—but in that half-second, the ice blade was already upon him. The shield he hastily deployed couldn't withstand Hogg’s ice penetration. The blade pierced the shield and sank into his thigh; frost rapidly spread upward, numbing the entire leg.
The thin mage slumped to one side, barely supporting himself with his staff.
Before he could regain his balance, Hogg had already reached him. His staff had returned to his hand at some point, and the violet-blue wind patterns at the tip lit up—【Sky-Rending Slash】. A wind blade, compressed into a thin sheet, whipped out from the tip, slicing toward the thin mage’s neck at point-blank range.
The thin mage tried desperately to tilt his head, but with his leg frozen, his range of movement was severely limited. The wind blade sliced diagonally through his collarbone, carving a massive wound across his chest. He stumbled back several steps, looked down at the wound, and opened his mouth as if to speak. Then his legs gave out and he knelt, his upper body swaying twice before he collapsed onto the stone pavement, motionless.
From the moment he dropped his shields to the moment the two men fell, barely five or six breaths had passed.
But there was a price. The wound on Hogg’s left ribs had torn further during the rapid movements, and blood was dripping from the hem of his robe. The area on his back corroded by shadow energy throbbed with excruciating pain; with every breath, he could feel the mana burn spreading.
Three people remained opposite him. The warrior had raised his shield again, and the tall mage still stood in the rear. Ignatius didn't even look at the two corpses on the ground; he simply continued to clap.
“Impressive,” he said, his tone genuinely sincere. He lowered his hands and raised his staff. “You traded for two lives—but what happens next?”
Hogg didn't answer. His mana was still plentiful, but his breathing was becoming heavy. The wounds on his ribs and back were steadily draining his stamina.
The warrior was the first to charge, the earthen-yellow patterns of 【Earth Impact】 glowing on his shield. Every step he took on the stone slabs kicked up a cloud of dust. Hogg swung his staff to meet him head-on, channeling both fire and lightning mana into the shaft—【Blazing Thunder Strike】. Flames wreathed in lightning poured from the tip, crashing into the shield.
With a thunderous roar, a larger chunk was blown out of the warrior’s shield, and the impact forced him back, his feet carving two deep furrows into the ground. But the moment Hogg clashed with the warrior, two attacks silently closed in from the sides.
The tall mage finally made his move, firing a greyish-white beam from his fingertip—【Soul Erosion】. It wasn't elemental magic but a mental attack designed to corrode perception. Anyone hit by this beam would lose control of their body for a short time. While not lethal on its own, a momentary loss of control in a battle of this level meant certain death.
Simultaneously, Ignatius’s wind blades sliced in from the other side—three blades in a triangular formation, sealing off all avenues of escape.
Hogg heard the wind whistling from both sides and instinctively made the most logical choice—dodge the wind blades first. He kicked off the ground and shifted left, evading two of the blades while the third grazed his right arm, leaving a shallow cut. Then, mid-shift, he forcibly twisted his body and swung his staff to cast 【Frozen Barrier】. A wall of ice rose before him.
The ice wall blocked the greyish-white beam—but the moment the beam shattered the ice, tiny shards exploded outward. Several shards, propelled by the impact, flew toward Hogg’s face. He instinctively closed his eyes and turned his head, the shards leaving a few small bloody scratches on his forehead.
In that split second while his eyes were closed...
The warrior had used the momentary loss of vision to charge back into range. He swung his shield aside, his right fist encased in stone-like mana—【Rock Fist】—and punched toward Hogg’s chest.
Unable to dodge in time, Hogg held his staff horizontally across his chest to take the hit. The fist slammed into the staff with a metallic thud. The impact transferred through the staff into his chest, knocking him back several steps as a metallic, bloody taste rose in his throat.
But he didn't stop. Using the momentum of being knocked back, he dropped to one knee and slammed his right palm onto the ground. Ice mana exploded outward from him, and his 【Glacial Domain】 instantly froze the ground within a dozen meters into a layer of slick ice.
The warrior’s footing suddenly turned to ice, causing his forward-charging body to stumble. Hogg had been waiting for this exact moment. He leaped from the ground, swinging his staff with the lightning at its base exploding at close range—【Lightning Spear】.
The warrior raised his shield in a panic, but his movements on the ice were half a beat too slow. The lightning bypassed the shield’s frontal defense and pierced the warrior’s shoulder blade at a sharp angle. The warrior groaned as his entire right arm lost strength, and his shield clattered onto the ice, sliding far away. Hogg gave him no room to breathe; the 【Frozen Blade】 in his left hand followed immediately, sinking into the warrior’s waist.
The warrior dropped to one knee, clutching the wound with his left hand as he tried to stand again, but his legs no longer had the strength.
Ignatius frowned and raised his hand, firing three 【Wind Fang Pierce】 spells. The tall mage’s second 【Soul Erosion】 shot out at the same time. Hogg didn't have time to pull out the ice blade; he twisted to dodge. One wind needle grazed his shoulder, while another pierced the outside of his thigh. The greyish-white beam struck his left shoulder, and his left arm instantly went numb, losing all sensation.
He gritted his teeth and jammed his staff into the ground behind him to prop himself up, refusing to fall.
“I can still fight,” Hogg said with a grin, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Ignatius looked at him and spoke unhurriedly. “To be honest, you’re even more of a headache than you were fifty years ago. To be suppressed to Rank 7 and still take down three of us... what can I say? As expected of a Heroic Spirit-rank archmage.” He paused. “But you’ve just about reached your limit. No matter how much mana you have, it’s useless if you can’t bring it to bear.”
Hogg pulled his staff from the ground and settled back into a fighting stance.
“You’re welcome to come and try for yourself.”
He then smiled and looked provocatively at the two men, saying word for word:
“Just because I’ve become weaker doesn't mean you’ve become stronger... right?”
Rate on N.U.
