Ignatius narrowed his eyes.
He could not see through this man—there was a complete void where power should be. No mana fluctuations, no traces of combat techniques, not even the aura an adventurer or professional should possess. Based purely on sensory feedback, the man standing before him was no different from an ordinary civilian.
However, he knew full well that a truly ordinary person could not have appeared in this dead zone shrouded by a barrier without anyone noticing.
The man was either a fool or a powerhouse far beyond his level.
Ignatius exchanged a look with the tall mage. The tall mage understood immediately and, when Li Yuan was about ten paces away, suddenly raised his hand. A gray beam of 【Soul Erosion】 shot silently toward Li Yuan’s heart.
“Watch out!” Setis finally squeezed out a hoarse cry.
The gray beam pierced through the air and struck the stone slabs on the ground, kicking up shards of rock.
Li Yuan’s figure vanished without a trace, and in the next instant, he appeared behind Ignatius. He reached out and gently tapped Ignatius on the shoulder with a light force, as if reminding a distracted friend.
“I suggest you answer my question first, sir.”
Ignatius’s back stiffened instantly. The instincts of a Rank 7 wind mage made him detonate wind mana beneath his feet without a second thought. He used the force to dash forward over ten meters before spinning around abruptly, raising his hand to fire three 【Wind Fang Pierce】 spells in a triangular formation.
“Everyone! Kill this man!” His voice had lost its previous composure.
More than thirty Blood Moon Cultists turned their staffs simultaneously. No one cared about Hogg or the wounded anymore—compared to a group that had already lost their fighting capacity, this young man who appeared out of nowhere and silently bypassed all defenses to reach their leader was the true threat.
Wind, fire, ice—magic of all kinds poured out from over thirty directions like a torrential rain. The roar of explosions merged into one, and the rising dust and flames completely swallowed the spot where Li Yuan stood. Ignatius hovered in mid-air, his staff continuously releasing wind magic compressed to the limit. Every strike was accurately blasted into the center of the dust cloud without the slightest restraint. The tall mage beside him repeatedly cast Soul Erosion, sending gray beams one after another into the thick smoke.
Ignatius cast spells for dozens of seconds before finally stopping his staff. The dust slowly dissipated, revealing a shallow crater several meters wide blasted into the ground. The stone slabs had been pulverized into dust, and the edges were still emitting scorching smoke.
Li Yuan stood right where he had been, completely unharmed.
There wasn't even a single wrinkle on his cyan robe. The surrounding rubble was glowing red from the high heat, but the small patch of stone beneath his feet remained perfectly intact. He was looking up, calmly watching Ignatius hovering in the air, before raising his right hand and pressing his palm down gently.
“Boom.”
A muffled, heavy thud echoed. Ignatius slammed down from the air like a puppet with its strings cut, embedding heavily into the stone ground. The slabs beneath him shattered into a web-like pattern, with cracks spreading several meters outward from his position. The tall mage and the thirty-plus Blood Moon Cultists were also slapped to the ground at the same instant by an invisible force, their staffs and weapons scattering everywhere.
A deathly silence fell over the area.
No one dared to move, or even breathe. Hogg’s hand holding his staff slowly lowered. His eyes, which had seen two hundred years of turmoil, stared straight at Li Yuan, his mouth hanging slightly open without a word. Adrian remained equally silent. Setis leaned against the corner of the wall, her lips quivering for a long time. Only one thought remained in her mind—was this still the same Li Yuan she had treated as an ordinary person?
Li Yuan withdrew his palm and walked unhurriedly to the embedded Ignatius. With a flick of his finger, a mote of spirit light dragged Ignatius out of the rubble, suspending him in the air. Ignatius’s face was flushed deep red, the veins on his neck bulging, and his staff was nowhere to be seen.
“I’ll ask one more time—did you order someone to blow up my tea shop?”
“No... I have no idea... what tea shop you’re talking about...”
Ignatius managed to squeeze a few words out of his throat.
Li Yuan tilted his head slightly, dissatisfied with the answer. He tapped the air lightly, and Ignatius’s suspended body was lifted a bit higher.
“Then who ordered it?”
At that moment, Hogg’s voice came from behind.
“It was him.”
Li Yuan turned to look at Hogg. Supporting himself with his staff, Hogg walked two steps forward, his gaze fixed on Ignatius. “He is the head of the Blood Moon Cult in the capital. Every action taken by the cultists was planned by him—the explosions in the Outer City, the attack on the academy, this barrier—everything. Your tea shop was in the Outer City. Those who bombed it were either directly ordered by him or acted with his tacit approval. The ultimate responsibility for all the cult's actions lies with him.”
Ignatius’s eyes widened, and his lips quivered as if he wanted to argue. But Li Yuan had already retracted the spirit light, causing him to fall to the ground with a thud. He struggled to prop himself up, but his elbows gave out halfway.
Li Yuan crouched down and pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from his sleeve, spreading it out before Ignatius. It was a list of items written in neat handwriting.
“Since responsibility has been established, let’s talk about compensation. This is the list of losses for my tea shop—reconstruction costs, replacement of tea sets and furniture, loss of tea stock and books, and losses from business interruption. The preliminary estimate is approximately twelve thousand gold coins—let's round it up to fifteen thousand.”
Ignatius’s eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. The muscles on his face twitched uncontrollably, and his mouth opened and closed several times before he squeezed out a raspy response. “Fifteen thousand—you, you’re simply...”
“By the way, my tea shop was already closed and preparing to cease operations because of the curfew,” Li Yuan added, his tone still polite, as if he were recommending a tea to a guest.
“So, logically speaking, even if it hadn't been bombed, there wouldn't have been much business during this period. However, the business records from the past two years are enough to prove the profit potential of that shop. If you have doubts, you can send someone to the Tax Department to check the shop’s consumption records. I took an average from the past two years; it’s very fair.”
Ignatius took a deep breath. Various emotions swirled in his pale gray eyes—anger, resentment, humiliation, and a certain kind of resolve that only a complete madman has when pinned to the ground.
Then, he suddenly began to laugh. He laughed until he was out of breath, his shoulders shaking as if he had suddenly lost his mind.
“Fifteen thousand—gold coins—”
He repeated those few words while laughing. At the moment he collapsed, a hand quietly reached into his robe. No one noticed the movement—Hogg was looking down at the spread-out list, Setis was leaning against the wall with her eyes closed to catch her breath, and the others were either slumped on the ground or bandaging each other’s wounds.
Ignatius suddenly pulled a dark red magic crystal from his chest.
The crystal was irregularly shaped, its surface covered in fine cracks, with dark red light flowing deep within. Wind mana poured from his fingertips into the crystal core, activating it. It began to expand rapidly in the air, its color turning from dark red to a piercing blood-red.
“Blood for the Blood God, embrace eternal life!”
He practically shrieked the words.
As soon as he spoke, a series of muffled explosions echoed from various parts of the academy—those were the bodies of the Blood Moon Cultists remaining in the school, whether alive or dead, exploding one by one. Blood, mana, and vitality—everything was absorbed by the barrier overhead the moment it surged out of their bodies. The dark red light curtain suddenly brightened, its flow speed increasing several times over as the entire dome emitted a low hum.
Ignatius held up the crystal core, a nearly crazed smile flashing across his face.
“Fifteen thousand—you think I would care about that?” He looked down at the flesh on his chest that was merging with the crystal core, then looked back up at Li Yuan, the corners of his mouth stretching nearly to his ears. “The Blood Moon God will eventually descend—and the kingdom shall wait to endure the god's wrath!”
With those words, the crystal core fully submerged into his chest.
Rate on N.U.
