The Runic Alchemist

The mage used his wave to defend himself this time instead of attacking, but Damian had already reached him and launched his own flames, shooting out of the flaming spear, overwhelming in both size and intensity compared to the smaller black flames.

The two fires swirled around them in a circle as they flew in the middle of the inferno. The mage, panicked, brought his hand forward and tried launching another spell. A mixture of red, blue, and yellow runic circle formed before him, but Damian had enough playtime. Launching a hidden air blade right beside the mage's raised arm, Damian cut it off clean at the elbow.

The mage could not believe his eyes. It took a second to register what the hell had happened before he broke out into screams of pure agony.

"How!? How is this possible!?"

Damian had not muttered a single word while casting twice the number of spells as the mage had. He didn't even let him process his confusion as he launched another two spells, binding both the mage's arms and legs with attraction runes pulling in four different directions. Holding his flaming-hot spear near the mage's throat, Damian asked again,

"You have thirty seconds. Explain this bullshit or die in this miserable place.."

The fear in the mage's bloodshot eyes was clear, but there was something more—passion. Resistance. Acceptance of death, but not obedience. Something like this was only possible when a man had been brainwashed with a misguided purpose, following a cult.. or was truly insane, believing his own fucked-up bullshit. The attack had been too coordinated for it to be the work of a single person.

An organization.. One that had infiltrated Highswords? Who in the hell had the balls to mess with so many Third Rankers?

"You cannot chain the unbound," the man said, his crazy eyes alight with madness.

"Who do you work for?" Damian demanded, pressing the spear deeper, scorching his throat slightly.

The blabbering continued without pause.

"Chaos remembers, even if I am forgotten."

"In ruin, I remain defiant."

Damian just shook his head and drove the flaming spear through the crazed man's throat, activating his arm armor pieces to enhance the power behind the weapon with his black aura. Flames from the spear also surged into his transcendent body, powered by a massive amount of mana, killing him within seconds.

Damian felt the slight increase in his senses but he ignored it. This wasn't over yet.

The spellsword was just coming back to his senses. As Damian landed beside the man, before he could even get up, Damian launched another laser—much bigger and far more intense this time—aiming straight for his head.

Another one dealt with.

No rush of new levels came this time, though. He must have hit Level 100 with just one Third Ranker. The extra experience would be stored for more levels once he advanced to Second Rank.

Damian flew up, taking the fallen mage's spatial accessories. Dreamlight held steady above the second-rankers, while Lucian, Sam, and Einar fought alongside the others to keep them at bay and reach out to Kamisen's group. The battlefield there had grown calmer than before, but the fight was still far from over.

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The Highsword situation, however, had become even stranger. It was now clearer who had attacked and who had been ambushed, but both sides had suffered losses.

Runefather, Worldscribe, the two women from the Neutral Section, Mindseer, Hellseeker, Silverspell, and Windcarver were on one side—the ones desperately trying to reach the cage and activate the waygate. Opposing them were Sunkeeper, Shadecaster, Bloodedge, Gravebreaker, and three other Highswords Damian didn't recognize.

Then, suddenly, Damian caught sight of Thunderclaw running towards the chaos in the distance.

That guy had been unconscious for a whole day! And the first thing he did after coming to his senses was join the fight? He was clearly not on the side that wanted Land Breaker back.

The Runefather's side was slightly winning, but if Thunderclaw entered the fray, the outcome would be uncertain.

Damian glanced at Dreamlight and his friends. They were handling their end well enough. They didn't need him.

Without a second thought, Damian powered his flying spell even further and shot straight toward the running pugilist in the distance. He was almost there.

As Thunderclaw reached the chaotic fight, he made a wide leap from atop a sand dune, aiming to punch Mindseer—who had been warning her side about enemy attacks and telling them where to dodge. She was so focused on others that she didn't notice her own body was about to be attacked by someone outside the battlefield.

Future sight! That had to be it. No other skill could predict attacks so clearly.

Damian ignored everyone else and cast his wormhole spell directly in the path of the mid-air Thunderclaw. The man was too distracted by the battle to sense Damian's approach. Even if he had, the spell had been cast from quite a distance, with the exit positioned precisely beside it.

With wide, shocked eyes, Thunderclaw entered the wormhole chest-first, and Damian canceled the spell instantly.

For a second, everything stopped. Everyone took a second to check what the hell had just happened.

A waistless, bloody torso and head fell beside them. Thunderclaw couldn't even speak as blood filled his mouth before he could utter his last words.

The next moment Damian landed beside the corpse, as everyone's attention was drawn to Damian's entrance, he quietly opened another wormhole beside Windcarver, who stood in the very back—away from everyone's line of sight. The other end of the wormhole opened right at the entrance of the metal cage.

Mindseer saw what he was doing before he even finished and immediately grabbed Windcarver's attention, instructing him to go.

Windcarver hesitated for a second but, after a firm nod to Mindseer, jumped into the wormhole and immediately ran inside the metal cage. His mana pool wasn't as vast as Lifewarden's, but it would do.

Damian had already told them how to lock the waygate's target during the meeting.

Suddenly, Windcarver's mana output surged, activating the waygate.

Everyone's attention snapped in his direction—half filled with joy, half with dread—as they all realized what the hell had just happened.