Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 127
Chapter 127
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“Meisa-!”
Seeing the barrage of lightning raining down from the sky, Kadram shouted loudly.
Only Arabion nobles could scatter such powerful lightning from the sky.
It was a natural assumption that this must be the work of an Arabion bloodline mage connected to Turan, and none could be as powerful as her.
Yet contrary to expectations, her figure was nowhere to be seen in the sky.
Even though lightning magic could be initiated from a distance, it would still be difficult to remain completely invisible like this.
As everyone was momentarily confused by this, Turan, who was on the ground, also took action.
“Hmm!?”
“What is this…?”
He opened the lid of a large bottle that seemed to appear from nowhere, and a transparent liquid spread out in a fan shape.
The surrounding nobles were surprised by this incomprehensible sight, but they weren’t particularly wary.
After all, unless pure water was used to overwhelm with sheer mass, it wasn’t a particularly effective method of attack.
And poison was out of the question.
Only a few cautious individuals quickly retreated from their positions to avoid contact, while many simply frowned and covered their faces with their hands.
Of course, they would soon pay the price for this mistake.
“AAAAGH!”
“It burns!”
“Water, water! No-”
The effect of Death Water, deployed in actual combat for the first time, was truly remarkable.
If he had used Fire Soul or another attack magic, there would have been a high risk of harming the hostage with excessive firepower, but with this, as long as the liquid itself was properly controlled, there was no possibility of the attack spreading.
While several who had been caught off guard screamed in agony as the Death Water melted their flesh, Turan quickly infiltrated and snatched up the fallen Melo.
Kadram and those beside him had already stepped back significantly, so there was no one to interfere.
“Catch him!”
Before Kadram’s order could fully leave his mouth, the mages forming the encirclement unleashed their magic.
Perhaps they thought that since Meisa had appeared, it no longer mattered if Melo and Turan were killed?
The attacks flying toward them were all deadly serious, as if they didn’t care whether their targets lived or died.
In response, Turan embraced the unconscious Melo, activated his Guardian magical device, and deployed a green shield.
A powerful defensive magical device obtained from a Baraha noble in the past, which automatically moved to block fatal attacks.
The shield immediately spun around in the air, deflecting lightning from the two Arabion elders and then magic from various upper-rank mages including Kadram, before returning to Turan’s arms.
But even after successfully withstanding the attack, he couldn’t simply laugh it off.
‘No, what a magical power consumption…’
As his power was heavily drained, a dizzying sense of exhaustion washed over him.
At this rate, it might have been better to take a few hits directly.
Of course, if he had done that, Melo, whom he was carrying, would have died, so this level of sacrifice was necessary.
As Turan retreated, lightning struck again from the sky, incinerating three knights and one noble from a vassal family.
Only then did those who had formed the encirclement realize that they weren’t facing just one enemy, and they began to panic.
“Where is Meisa, where is Meisa!? Even if we lose that fellow, we must capture Meisa at all costs!”
Kadram shouted toward a noble beside him who was holding a large stone tablet.
It was the detection magical device that Meisa had used during the dark elf subjugation, which showed the presence of living beings in the vicinity.
They must have detected Turan’s approach with that device.
“S-something is flying in the sky… but judging by the red color of the dot, it’s not a person but a magical beast!”
“What?”
“Moreover, according to the position shown by the magical device, we should be able to see it from here, but nothing is visible!”
Just as he said, what was flying in the sky and dropping lightning bombs was not Meisa but Bije.
The Arabion nobles apparently couldn’t imagine that there could be a mythical-level magical beast that could remain invisible while dropping lightning from the sky.
At that moment, the noble holding the stone tablet shouted again:
“Two more are coming!”
[UOOOOOO-!]
A mighty roar from far away.
Solif invaded the battlefield like a massive magical beast, smashing through all the trees blocking his path.
The mages’ eyes widened at the sight of the halo that appeared on his back.
“No, why is Baraha-”
Before they could be surprised by the sudden appearance of a Sun bloodline mage, Meisa, who had silently approached from the opposite direction, stretched her sword toward one of the Arabion elders.
“Kuk-!”
“Block it!”
With a thunderous boom, an invisible shock wave sent half a dozen nearby mages flying through the air.
This long, thin thrusting sword she wielded was made by reforging a Zahar noble’s magical device, capable of generating shock waves through stabbing and slashing motions.
It was an item specifically created for Meisa, who primarily used lightning and lacked physical attack power.
“Kuk!”
“The other side is also an extraordinary expert! Don’t let your guard down!”
Ridiculously, the Arabion nobles failed to immediately recognize Meisa’s identity even while looking directly at her face.
The gap between her former skeletal, emaciated appearance and her current looks was so vast.
The urgency of the current situation was also a factor.
They had suddenly gone from encircling to being encircled, and were now being unilaterally attacked.
In response, Kadram amplified his voice using wind magic and shouted:
“…Don’t retreat! We still have the advantage in terms of combat power!”
In their minds, Turan was at best a Zahar noble at the upper or highest tier.
Even adding two unknown highest-tier nobles and one mythical magical beast wouldn’t tip the scales in the other direction.
How many mages had they gathered here, and what magical devices did they possess?
Having regained their morale, the mages attacked Solif and Meisa who had revealed themselves, and the battlefield descended into chaos.
“Kuk, you bastard…!”
With a growling sound, a snow leopard suddenly appeared and lunged at Solif.
Slightly larger than a tiger, this creature possessed hand-to-hand combat abilities roughly equal to Solif’s.
A mythical-level magical beast with power equivalent to a highest-tier noble.
When a Nagin family treasure and a highest-tier noble joined forces to assist it, the battle quickly reached a stalemate.
Solif moved nimbly, killing one or two attacking nobles and knights at a time, but with each kill, his body gained a new wound.
Meanwhile, Meisa skillfully flew through the sky, devastating enemies with lightning and shock waves… At that point, several nobles who had identified her identity cried out in shock:
“Miss!?”
“Could it be!”
Though her appearance was completely different, there weren’t many upper-tier Arabion mages with reddish-brown long hair, especially women.
Moreover, their leader Kadram had just mentioned her name.
Some nobles from vassal families who believed Meisa had been kidnapped were confused by the shocking reality that they were being attacked by someone they were supposed to rescue.
Amidst this confusion, Kadram glared sharply at Turan, who was escaping from the battlefield with Melo.
“That bastard…!”
A bastard son born to some Zahar noble, a nobody trying to use a treasure containing the power of the now-extinct Mimic to seduce a great family’s daughter for advancement.
That was all he had thought Turan was, so the current situation was deeply shocking.
What was that acid-like substance he had just displayed, and where had he found such a powerful Baraha noble?
And why had Meisa grown so much stronger?
‘Could it be-‘
Just as he began to recall the Giant Sea Serpent that had recently turned the Northern Sea upside down, Kadram’s thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Meisa dominating the battlefield.
Now was not the time to think about such things.
‘First, I need to subdue that. Just obtaining that alone would accomplish our original goal.’
Meisa was now overwhelming the two Arabion elders, deflecting attacks from dozens of mages below.
She had surpassed her former status as the “strongest heir” and reached a level where she could now put up a good fight against the weaker heads of great families.
And where her previously pitiful appearance had gone, replaced by such beauty…
‘How enviable.’
Though he currently inhabited a male body, after living for centuries, the distinction between male and female had long been forgotten.
Kadram imagined not possessing Meisa as a man would, but acquiring her body for himself.
If such a beautiful and powerful body became mine…
But this was a desire he was not permitted.
The owner of that body had already been decided.
Considering the time and effort invested in it, there was no possibility that ownership of that body would revert to him.
“Tsk.”
As Kadram, who had clicked his tongue in regret, extended his hand, Meisa, who had been flying through the sky, suddenly felt a sense of danger and turned her head.
Although Kadram was certainly one of the most powerful mages within Arabion, there were several practitioners of comparable skill present here.
Nevertheless, a powerful intuition told her that this gesture could not be ignored.
“Ugh!?”
At that moment, a green light erupted from Kadram’s hand and surged toward Meisa.
Its speed exceeded even that of sound.
Fortunately, she quickly flipped her body once to avoid a direct hit, but her grazed arm and leg burned and began to bleed.
If she had been hit directly, she clearly wouldn’t have survived.
‘God’s magic…’
The special power used by the fallen gods.
This was why they had been training in soul magic as well—to gain such power.
Though they hadn’t yet figured out exactly how to use it themselves.
Meisa maneuvered evasively and quickly dropped lightning on Kadram, but surprisingly, he simply stood still, taking the lightning strike with a smirk.
With a crackling sound, the lightning that struck circled around his upper body and was absorbed.
“Could it be-”
As Arabion’s heir, Meisa knew the identity of this power.
The Guardian of the Sky.
One of the Holy Relics that Arabion prided itself on—the Legacy of the Thunder Lord.
Originally, only the family head could use such an item, but it seemed he had specially brought it for this occasion.
Realizing that lightning was blocked, Meisa gritted her teeth and continued her evasive maneuvers, successively avoiding Kadram’s attacks.
Of course, while doing so, it was impossible to simultaneously deal with attacks from other mages.
Even trivial fire magic from knights or mediocre nobles accumulated damage as she continued to be hit.
‘This is harder than I expected…’
She briefly glanced aside to see what Bije was doing and found her engaged in an intense aerial battle with four Arabion nobles.
They had placed orbs of light to illuminate the night sky, preventing invisibility, and constantly pursued her, forcing a war of attrition.
Although Bije’s flying speed was much faster, giving her the initiative, being driven away from a position where she could overlook the battlefield was tantamount to losing her ability to intervene.
‘At this rate-‘
Just as she thought it was dangerous, a sound like an explosion roared from far away.
Hearing this now-familiar noise, Meisa breathed a sigh of relief.
She stopped her evasive maneuvering and looked down to see a gap in the encirclement, as if it had been cut by a giant blade.
* * *
After escaping with Melo using the opening created by Meisa and Solif, Turan first checked his health condition.
“Melo, are you alright? Can you regain consciousness?”
Whether from being beaten or tortured, Melo was quite injured and hadn’t regained consciousness.
His cheeks were sunken as if he had been starved for several days.
Fortunately, his life didn’t seem to be in immediate danger.
After quickly flying for a few minutes to hide Melo in a safe cave, Turan returned to find the battle still raging.
Solif was engaged in a fierce fight with a snow leopard that Turan hadn’t noticed before, taking hits from dozens of mages, while Meisa was being chased by two Arabion elders, desperately trying to avoid attacks from Kadram and other mages.
Judging by the power emanating from Kadram’s body, which had reached the highest tier among the highest, slightly stronger than Meisa had been in the past, he too seemed to be fully utilizing his power as a vessel.
Instead of immediately jumping into the fray, Turan maintained his invisibility and searched for the noble with the detection magical device.
‘Where… there he is.’
He was desperately shouting something toward Kadram, but Kadram, fixated on targeting Meisa, failed to notice.
He was probably trying to report that Turan had returned.
Turan immediately created a wind path and threw an ordinary stone, blowing off the head of the noble holding the stone tablet.
Given the chaos of the battlefield, his death went unnoticed.
Of course, if such attacks continued, they would eventually catch on, being far from stupid.
He needed to achieve the best results in one strike while hidden in darkness.
‘That happens to be my specialty…’ Turan took out a massive steel ball the size of a human torso from his pocket.
Among the steel balls made by Meisa, this was the only one designed not for anti-personnel use, but for anti-magical beast or anti-army purposes.
It was a formal version of what they had hastily created during the battle with the Giant Sea Serpent, and naturally, it required a special sling that had been prepared in advance, as the standard sling couldn’t handle such an item.
‘Trajectory… good, here it is.’
Since his attack wouldn’t automatically avoid allies, he needed to design it to avoid Solif and Meisa while placing as many enemies as possible in the line of fire.
Of course, the ultimate target was the commander, Kadram, who was threatening Meisa with an unknown magic.
After completing all his calculations, he created a wind path and fired the steel ball, activating Fire Soul.
First accelerated by the sling, and then again by the pressure of the explosion from the enormous amount of Fire Soul contained within the ball, the steel ball tore through the center of the battlefield.
“What-”
Although Zahar’s invisibility magic had the power to conceal the caster’s actions, there were limits.
The flash from the explosion momentarily drew the mages’ attention to Turan, but by then it was already too late.
The steel ball, filled with Turan’s magical power through dozens of rotations and accelerated by Fire Soul, tore apart everything in its path.
Even a fairly powerful highest-tier Nagin noble who possessed a defensive magical device capable of blocking at least one of Turan’s normal sling attacks.
However, when the steel ball that had dismembered more than a dozen mages in an instant reached Kadram, a golden flash erupted from his upper body.
An enormous amount of electricity exploded outward, and after a moment, Kadram, completely unharmed, sighed.
“I thought I was going to die…”
Turan didn’t know that one of the functions of the Guardian of the Sky was an electric charge barrier, which instantly melted the metal steel ball.
He could only see the immense power emanating from the armor Kadram wore on his upper body through his Mimic Holy Relic.
Turan quickly approached Kadram while checking his inner self.
As expected, beside the Storm bloodline he had confirmed earlier, there was now an additional symbol that hadn’t been visible before.
‘Stream… and is that an unfamiliar bloodline?’
One of Kadram’s symbols resembled two water droplets mixing together.
Clearly a different form from the Stream bloodline that took the shape of a flowing river.
And the cloud that should have been intertwined with lightning was separated, pouring rain.
While observing this, Kadram, who had also noticed Turan’s presence, spoke with a sharp gaze:
“Originally, I planned to kill you, but now I have many questions to ask after capturing you alive. How exactly did you perform alchemy, and what was that power just now?”
“That’s the same for me. Unpleasantly so.”
The two looked at each other like predators eyeing prey and smiled.