Adrian didn't respond. The light passing through the dark red curtain cast a somber, hazy shadow across his face.
Hogg continued, “This barrier never drained the cultists' mana to begin with. Those people collapsed on the ground earlier weren't drained by the barrier; they exhausted themselves through over-sacrifice—it has nothing to do with this light curtain.”
Tyris opened his mouth as if to say something, but no words came out.
“But this doesn't change our objective.” Hogg withdrew his gaze. “There is still one node left. Regardless of whether the barrier has weakened, if the intelligence is correct, destroying all seven nodes should have an effect. We will break all the nodes first, and then everything will become clear.”
Marcus led the way toward the seventh node. It was located on the ground floor of an abandoned old bell tower in the northeast corner of the academy, a place normally used to store discarded tables, chairs, and teaching equipment. The iron door was slightly ajar, and a faint, dark red glow seeped through the gap.
Tyris walked at the front and kicked the door open, his staff already raised—only to freeze at the entrance.
The space on the ground floor of the bell tower was small. A magic crystal was functioning in the center, and several staffs, longswords, and a few neatly folded red robes were scattered on the surrounding open ground. There was no blood on the red robes, no signs of a struggle, and no evidence of internal sabotage. The cultists guarding this place had already retreated before they arrived—or rather, they had never intended to station anyone at this node from the start.
“No one's here?” Tyris turned back to look at Adrian. “Your Highness, this—”
He stopped mid-sentence. Adrian was standing outside the door, staring at the solitary, functioning crystal with a deep frown.
Hogg walked into the bell tower, circled the magic crystal once, and then walked back out. The expression on his face was even grimmer than before he entered.
“Six nodes destroyed, plus this one—seven out of seven broken. By all logic, the barrier should have collapsed by now.” His voice wasn't loud, but every word struck the eardrums of everyone present. “Moreover—the rate of mana loss hasn't slowed down; it's actually accelerating.”
Everyone was stunned and immediately closed their eyes to circulate their mana and check. Setis was the first to sense the change, her face turning pale. The residual mana in her body was already less than ten percent, and in the time it took to speak those few sentences, a large portion of it had vanished. The others were in no better shape—the fire-element lecturer dropped to one knee, supporting himself with his hand on the ground to keep from falling. The female ice-element teacher's staff slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor, her limbs trembling.
“My mana is at rock bottom.”
“Mine too.”
“I can't even draw it up...”
Hogg's gaze fell on Adrian. He said nothing, but the scrutiny in his eyes was palpable even to Setis standing nearby. At that moment, a slow, rhythmic clapping sounded from the open space outside the bell tower.
“Congratulations, congratulations. You have completed the task of removing the mana nodes—but there is no reward.”
Ignatius walked out from the corner of the main road, the tall mage still by his side. Behind him followed a dark mass of at least thirty Blood Moon Cultists. These people's mental states were completely different from those guarding the nodes earlier—they stood straight, and the staffs in their hands all glowed with steady magic. Their deathly mana fluctuations merged into a single wave, spreading out with a nauseating intensity.
Thirty against sixteen, and the enemy was in perfect condition with superior numbers.
Among the sixteen people on Hogg's side, aside from himself, whose mana was still relatively abundant, almost everyone else was in a state of mana depletion. Hector forced himself to take a step forward, but his calves visibly trembled. Marcus's hands still gripped his axe handles, veins bulging from the backs of his hands all the way up his forearms, holding on through sheer physical strength.
Ignatius shifted his gaze from Hogg, scanning Adrian and Setis in turn, the curl of his lips widening slightly.
“It seems everyone is here. Good—it saves me the trouble of searching for you one by one.”
Hogg stepped forward, holding his staff horizontally before him. Four-colored magic patterns lit up on the staff's body, but this time they weren't as dazzling as before—though his total mana was sufficient, the maximum he could mobilize for any single strike was still locked at Rank 7.
“Second Prince.” He didn't look back, his voice lowered so only those behind him could hear. “Take your people and everyone else toward the Second Teaching Building. I'll stay behind to hold them off.”
Setis's hand tightened around her staff. “But—”
“No buts.” Hogg's tone left no room for argument. “You can barely protect yourself now; staying here is just throwing your life away. Take them out of here. That's an order.”
Adrian looked at Hogg's back, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he simply nodded.
Ignatius tilted his head, as if watching an interesting play.
“Truly touching,” he said, his staff already raised. The wind-element mana gathering at the tip blew the surrounding dust aside. “However, no one here today is leaving.”
He pointed his staff forward, and three highly compressed 【Wind Fang Pierces】 shot through the air, aimed directly at the crowd behind Hogg.
Hogg swung his staff at the same instant, and an ice wall rose from the ground. The three wind needles slammed into the ice wall and exploded into a flurry of ice shards. The impact knocked Tyris and two students at the front to the ground. Simultaneously, the thirty cultists behind Ignatius raised their staffs at once, and fireballs, wind blades, ice spikes, and dark projectiles poured down like a torrential rain.
In just one encounter, Hogg's side's formation was shattered. The female ice-element teacher was grazed by a wind blade on her shoulder, let out a muffled groan, and slammed against the bell tower wall. The fire-element lecturer shielded a student while retreating, a large patch of his back scorched by the aftershock of a fireball explosion.
Hector swung his sword to parry ice spikes, but the layer of ice forming on his blade grew thicker and thicker until it finally snapped in two with a loud crack. He was pushed back six or seven steps by the force before he could steady himself. Marcus stood at the very front, his twin axes crossed to protect his vitals. After enduring several magic attacks, he dropped to one knee, his physical strength reaching its limit.
Ignatius made a gesture, and the tall mage flanked from the side, a greyish-white beam of 【Soul Erosion】 shooting straight for Hogg. Hogg turned to block, wind and lightning mana exploding from his staff simultaneously to deflect the beam—but in that split-second opening, Ignatius had already blurred past him.
His target was Setis?! Hogg was horrified.
A Rank 7 wind mage's speed was too great. Setis couldn't even see how the opponent appeared in front of her; she only felt a bone-chilling wind pressure rushing at her face. Ignatius raised his staff, the wind blade at the tip compressed to its absolute limit—【Extreme Wind-Rending Slash】. This was a strike delivered with his full power.
The mana in Setis's body was completely gone; she couldn't even cast a basic 【Flame Impact】. She only instinctively reached for her chest, her fingertips touching that warm piece of paper—
Golden light erupted from inside her collar once again.
Rate on N.U.
