Cough cough…
High-tier Mage Rector Cavendish slowly woke from his coma, and what appeared before his eyes was the Mages’ Tower, now reduced to a pile of ruins.
“What is this situation…”
He tried to move his body, but found that his arm was firmly pinned under a massive stone, rendering his entire body immobile.
He then attempted to grope for his staff, but aside from a heap of rubble nearby, there was no sign of that expensive staff.
“Damn it, what rotten luck.”
Rector cursed weakly.
“Teacher, is that you?”
A somewhat hoarse young voice rang out from the other end of the ruins.
Rector’s spirits lifted immediately. “It’s me, it’s me… cough cough…”
Halfway through his words, he couldn’t help coughing again.
But his goal was achieved.
The young speaker confirmed it was Rector’s voice and slowly approached, stepping over the rubble and gravel.
Upon seeing that it really was Rector Cavendish, obvious joy appeared on the young man’s dust-covered face.
“Teacher, you’re not dead!”
Rector had originally been somewhat pleased to encounter a familiar face, but the young man’s words nearly made him faint from anger all over again.
“Nott Cain!” He said through gritted teeth.
“If your mouth keeps being so insolent, believe me, I’ll make sure you’re a mage apprentice for the rest of your life!”
In the past, whenever he issued such a threat, the young man would immediately shrink back like a quail.
But this time, he saw the young man’s eyes dim only for an instant, with no further reaction.
“Teacher, the Mages’ Tower no longer exists. Whether I remain an apprentice for life or not, such things don’t matter anymore.”
The young mage said in a low voice.
Rector suddenly felt a chill on his scalp. He finally remembered what had happened before he lost consciousness.
An unprecedented black beam of light pierced through all their spells, including attack spells and defense spells—even the ninth-tier permanent defense spell personally cast on the tower by the kingdom’s grand mage only held for a few seconds before completely collapsing.
Then, the Mages’ Tower, facing that black beam head-on, crumbled.
“How did it come to this?”
He lamented.
“What kind of monster was that thing? Why have I never seen it in any records?”
“Teacher, that might be some ancient demon.” Nott reminded him.
“But it hasn’t launched any more attacks now; it’s just circling in the sky.”
“Possibly… those two attacks consumed a massive amount of its demonic power as well.” Rector guessed, frowning.
“Right, I remember a bunch of demons falling out of that monster’s mouth. What’s the situation in the city now? Has support arrived?”
The young mage lowered his head.
“Alright, I guess it’s not much better.” Rector recalled that dense swarm of demons and sighed again. “What about Aen and Elex?”
“All the teachers are already dead, Teacher Rector.”
Rector stroked his face with his unpinned hand.
“Alright, I know.”
Although he usually didn’t like those old guys much, after a sudden assault like this, realizing he was the only one left inevitably filled Rector with a wave of desolation.
But now wasn’t the time for sentiment.
He tried moving again but still couldn’t pull his arm out from under the massive stone.
“Teacher Rector, do you need my help?” Nott asked with some concern, pulling out his own staff.
“No need.” Rector glanced at him.
“With your half-baked spell level, forget about moving this massive stone—not smashing me to death would be a miracle. Alright, stop the nonsense and give me your staff.”
The young mage scratched his head and obediently handed over the staff in his hand.
Rector took it, chanting incantations in a low voice as a faint glow emerged on the staff.
“(Incantation) HIGH-LEVEL LEVITATION.”
The massive stone slowly floated up, and Rector successfully retrieved his arm.
His luck wasn’t bad; although this arm couldn’t move for the time being, the bones inside should still be intact.
For an injury of this degree, recovery was simple—either down a bottle of life potion or ask someone from the church to cast a healing divine art on him.
But his surroundings obviously didn’t look like a place where he could find a life potion, so he could only pin his hopes on the church.
“Where are the church people?”
Rector stood up, asking gravely.
“From the start to the end of the battle, I didn’t see them helping with divine arts.”
“They’ve all died too.” Nott supported his teacher as he answered.
“I heard from a nun who escaped from there that the bishop seems to have been assassinated by someone. The Grand Cathedral was hit by that black beam amid the chaos, and most of the monks inside didn’t survive.”
Bad news.
Rector’s expression instantly grew even uglier.
This was clearly a long-planned assault.
Those demons knew full well the importance of the church and the Mages’ Tower, so they destroyed these two key resistance points right at the beginning of the battle.
Now, in the entire royal capital, there probably weren’t many forces left capable of resisting.
Rector fell silent for a while. He was thinking about what to do in the current situation.
Organize the remaining personnel to counterattack the demons?
That would be hard to achieve. The mages had suffered heavy casualties, the church people were nearly wiped out—were they supposed to rely on those adventurers to deal with the demons?
After thinking it over, Rector couldn’t find an immediate way to drive the demons out of the city.
So now, only two choices lay before him.
Either gather the remaining personnel as much as possible, resist the assault until reinforcements arrived, and then drive out the demons in one go.
Or use some special means to save the lives of the people still alive in the city.
If he chose the first, his chances of survival would be much higher, but those ordinary people probably couldn’t hold out under the demons’ assault until reinforcements appeared.
As for the second…
“Nott, how long has it been since the assault began?” Rector suddenly asked.
“About an hour or so, Teacher.”
“An hour or so… not too long yet.” Rector murmured.
“Teacher, what should we do now?” Nott asked. “Should we escape the city?”
“Escape?”
Rector rubbed the handle of the staff and shook his head.
“I won’t escape. This is my hometown; I’ll fight for it until my mana burns out.”
“But!” The young man anxiously tried to dissuade him. “Even you can’t possibly defeat so many demons—they’re like bugs in the sky, too many to count!”
Rector’s hand clutching the staff slowly opened, then tightly gripped it again.
“Nott, of course I know that.”
His voice was terribly steady.
“But we still have one last method.”
The young man showed a stunned expression.
Rector didn’t explain further; he just squatted down, groping the ground with his good hand.
“Nott, did you know? The year I first became a high-tier mage, I once proposed an idea to the Mages’ Association.”
“Although it was ultimately rejected due to safety concerns, I still secretly researched it for a while and achieved stable results.”
Rector finally cleared away the gravel on the ground, revealing the stone slab beneath. Etched on it were patterns strikingly similar to those on the Mages’ Tower.
“That is, the random spatial teleportation spell.” When Rector said this term, his face carried extreme pride and arrogance.
“Teacher, the effect of this spell is…” The young mage asked hesitantly.
Rector stood up, intending to clap the dust off his hands, but since one hand still couldn’t move well, the action got stuck midway, and he could only switch to wiping his hand on his clothes.
“Just as the name implies.” Rector looked at the young man.
“It teleports people within a selected range to a random location within another selected range at an approximate distance. In terms of success rate, as long as they don’t resist excessively, this spell is basically guaranteed to succeed.”
The young mage’s eyes slowly widened. He understood his teacher’s meaning—Rector intended to use this unheard-of teleportation spell to transfer all the surviving humans in the city out!
“But th-this would surely require a m-massive amount of mana; how could your mana possibly…” The young man realized, stammering.
“Nothing is impossible, Nott.” Rector smiled easily and smugly.
“The consumption of this spell isn’t as terrifying as fixed-point teleportation, and I just confirmed that although the Mages’ Tower has collapsed, the ‘ley lines’ part is still somewhat intact. By borrowing its amplification ability, I only need a small portion of mana to expand the spell’s range to the entire royal capital, and the excess mana can be used to distinguish demons from humans—it’s easy to tell, after all, no human grows wings and flies in the sky.”
The young man nodded dazedly.
“Wait, Teacher.” He suddenly realized a certain problem.
“Even if this is really feasible, what about you? What will you do? For stability, teleportation spells generally can’t be cast on oneself, right?”
He received no answer.
Rector had already turned away.
This genius mage in his thirties began chanting a string of obscure and lengthy incantations alone.
Faint light spread along the staff, gradually extending to the ground, then diffusing like a spider web.
At this moment, if a mage were to look down from high above Hilos City, he would see that with the Mages’ Tower as the center, a thin flow of mana slowly coursed over the ground of the entire city until it completely covered the city.
“…(Incantation) RANDOM SPATIAL TELEPORTATION SPELL.”
With the final incantation chanted, Rector finally breathed a sigh of relief.
He turned around, looking at his terrible student with tears streaming down his face.
“Nott, from the first time I came into contact with spells, I’ve always wanted to do something for my country with my own hands.”
“And now, that time has finally come.”
“There’s nothing to be sad about; this is the path I chose myself.”
This high-tier mage smiled one last time, more dazzling and brilliant than any in Nott Cain’s memory.
He tossed the staff in his hand back to Nott.
“Remember what I said: nothing is impossible.”
“Live well, my worthless student.”
Light burst forth from beneath the young mage’s feet as he caught the staff.
“No, Teacher—”