Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 129
Chapter 129
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What should have been a quiet forest at night had become a nightmarish place filled with light, fire, blood, and lightning.
The forest animals had long since fled, leaving only deeply rooted plants as sacrificial victims to this overwhelming violence.
Kadram, one of the orchestrators of this festival, deflected the wind blades with a wave of his hand.
He then launched a translucent sphere as a counterattack, which exploded and created a vacuum by annihilating the surrounding air.
“Huff…”
Taking advantage of this brief respite, Kadram exhaled deeply.
Despite Turan gaining a new ability and Ymir’s departure, the overall battle situation wasn’t particularly unfavorable for Kadram.
After all, discovering the secret of combining symbols didn’t suddenly heal the wounds Turan had suffered until now.
The problem was that his mind, which should have been fully focused on the battle, was now filled with all sorts of complicated thoughts.
‘Using combination techniques with soul magic—could someone have taken over his body? I didn’t sense anything when we were talking earlier.’
They had existed in this world for thousands of years already.
Of course, there were periods when they rested without occupying physical bodies, and they had been separated for so long that it would be difficult to say they had known each other for exactly that amount of time.
But when they met directly and conversed, they could usually recognize each other’s existence.
Their unique personalities, the mindset of those born and raised differently from others, naturally revealed themselves through speech and behavior.
Additionally, using techniques with the power called the Storm bloodline was equally astonishing.
Such abilities couldn’t possibly be recreated with the Mimic bloodline or an object containing its power.
This meant either that Turan’s body possessed four bloodlines including the Storm bloodline, or that some unnamed spirit residing within him could use the Storm’s power.
‘There are almost no souls with Windmaster or Thunder Lord types engraved on them? And even fewer with both combined…’
Could it be that someone believed to have perished long ago had returned to life?
Like how Otas had reportedly returned from death?
No, that seemed unlikely given how obviously unskilled he was in using the technique.
Despite being proficient in wind manipulation magic, his combined Storm techniques were clearly novice-level—the look of someone who had just succeeded in combining Storm-type powers and was trying out any technique.
“Ugh!”
Kadram’s thoughts were interrupted by a burning sensation in his ankle, causing him to groan.
A platinum-colored whip that wriggled like a snake as it withdrew.
While launching wind blades like before, Turan had subtly closed the distance and concealed the Light of Judgment beneath, launching a surprise attack.
Had he been properly focused, he wouldn’t have fallen for such a trick, but his excessive thinking had proven detrimental.
‘Damn it…’
He hastily used flight magic to soar into the sky, trying to minimize the loss of his ankle, but just like before, Turan used wind magic to disrupt his flight, making this difficult as well.
The technique of sending wind magic to various bodily extremities like arms and legs with different forces and directions…
As he had felt earlier, this fellow’s magical talent was at a level that was hard to believe could be born by chance.
It was like the story of garbage thrown into the sea assembling into a light aircraft on the shore after being battered by waves.
While Kadram was admiring him, Turan was shivering from hypothermia due to excessive bleeding, carefully gauging the handles in his mind.
This one’s for vortexes, this for wind blades, this for wind barriers.
At first, he had been like a child handling a complex tool, grabbing whatever he could reach, but gradually he was getting a feel for each handle.
This handle was too heavy to pull right now, that one contained wind-attribute power, and so on.
Naturally, he deliberately avoided touching the ones using lightning power.
If that armor was the “Guardian of the Sky” that Meisa had mentioned, lightning attacks would only serve to recharge its power.
‘I didn’t expect my experience in the dueling arena to be helpful like this.’
Maintaining proper thoughts amidst the pain of a mangled body was no easy task.
Even the bravest person would rarely experience confronting death directly.
But Turan had been wounded even worse while fighting Meisa and Solif.
Experiences that would have become nightmares for ordinary people.
Yet Turan had used these to forge his mind even more firmly.
‘Next is this one.’
Click. As he pulled an unfamiliar handle, his body accelerated.
A feeling completely different from the thought acceleration of lightning magic—his body itself seemed to move faster.
Mixing flight magic, Turan charged across the ground half-flying, maintaining an appropriate distance from Kadram while spraying large amounts of Death Water.
The opponent’s Holy Relic, the Guardian of the Sky, detected and instantly evaporated the harmful substance, but even the vapor of Death Water was extremely toxic.
“Kuhak, kuk…!”
Having inhaled the toxic air, Kadram quickly tried to dispel it with wind magic, but Turan had no reason to let him.
In terms of skill between wind magic users, Turan had the overwhelming advantage.
As the toxic vapors returned despite attempting to escape from his body, Kadram eventually had to hold his breath and limp away on one foot.
‘Indeed, it seems that technique for stealing control of magic can’t handle this type of attack.’
Afterward, Turan continued to spray Death Water, creating toxic vapors while driving Kadram into a corner with wind blades and vortexes.
Since direct attacks aimed at the head or body were usually avoided or deflected, he targeted extremities like arms and legs one by one.
A few Arabion mages who realized their leader was in danger tried to help, but after one lost his head with a single gesture, the others dared not intervene.
Having eyes, they recognized that the battle between these two had transcended the realm of ordinary mages.
So it continued for one minute.
At the end of the pursuit, Kadram, with one arm and both legs severed, rolled helplessly on the ground.
Turan looked down at his incapacitated opponent.
“…If I asked about your identity, you wouldn’t tell me, would you?”
“Of course not.”
After giving this brief answer, Turan noticed that despite the defeated look on his opponent’s face, there wasn’t the slightest trace of fear or despair characteristic of those whose lives hung in the balance.
“Are you not afraid of death?”
“Well, who knows?”
Kadram mimicked the ambiguous manner of speaking that Turan had been using earlier, with a somewhat mocking expression.
An immortal who had lived for thousands of years and would continue to do so.
To him, the death of this body was merely a single failure.
Presumably, Ymir’s attitude earlier, departing because his “time was up,” stemmed from this same sense of leisure.
If it had been a battle they truly needed to win, if a single victory had been desperate, he would have fought while conserving even his final breath.
Turan genuinely disliked that composed attitude based on such confidence.
He and his companions were fighting with their one and only lives, while these beings could swap bodies like changing clothes, making dozens or hundreds of attempts.
Now it was time to change that.
“Then I’ll make you afraid.”
Before Kadram could ask what that meant, a wind blade extended from Turan’s hand and severed his neck.
* * *
In his spinning field of vision, Kadram internally sighed at the stinging pain.
‘Tch, so I died.’
He had hoped that perhaps he would be kept alive to extract information, but no such luck.
Well, with the battle still ongoing, there was hardly time for leisurely hostage-taking.
As Kadram felt his soul gradually leaving his body, his first thought was of the reprimand he would receive from his superior.
Once an equal, even slightly superior colleague, but now someone he dared not defy.
This failure would probably force him to endure a lower status among his peers for some time.
Of course, if he found a body with suitable compatibility and talent, he might get another chance, but it was likely that the power to control an entire great family as he had now would be given to someone else.
‘I’ll have to work hard for a while. And shift some blame onto Ymir…’
As he was thinking about future matters, Kadram noticed that the speed at which his soul was flying away seemed unusually slow.
No, it felt as if someone was holding onto him—
[Where do you think you’re going?]
Along with an unfamiliar spiritual voice, his soul form was suddenly dragged somewhere.
Kadram then realized that Turan was before him, having also extracted his soul form from his body.
Turan’s soul form, having left its nest inside the brain and taken human shape, looked quite different from an ordinary human.
While the basics like hair, facial features, and body shape matched his physical form, his back had two wings, and deer antlers adorned his head.
Being well-versed in soul magic, Kadram knew that these represented the Storm bloodline.
The deer antlers symbolized the lightning-wielding dragon, and the wings represented birds cutting through the wind.
Unlike in reality where such traces remained hidden, when the complete soul form was revealed in the spiritual world, traces appeared in this manner.
The problem was that his transformations weren’t limited to just those two.
Vertical slit pupils like a snake, and black dust floating around his body.
These two were clearly characteristics of the Pursuer and Hunter.
‘Four characteristics…’
Of course, the fact that Turan’s soul form displayed four traits wasn’t particularly surprising in itself.
He had already suspected that Turan’s identity was one of “those who had crossed over,” and their souls invariably contained four powers.
However, what Kadram couldn’t understand was the composition of this combination.
Thunder Lord and Windmaster, Hunter and Pursuer?
The traces left on the soul would be completely separate from the bloodline of the possessed body, meaning that his very essence was combined in this bizarre manner.
Surely none among them had such a strange combination—
[This is where you belong.]
With these words, Turan’s soul form reached out, creating an immense pulling force that sucked in Kadram’s consciousness.
The source of this pull was the small jewel box that Turan’s physical body was holding.
Kadram realized that this was an item created by his leader, one specialized for capturing and constraining soul forms.
[How!]
Surely this item must have been lost when Ymir had tried to use it?
Only then could Kadram be certain that Turan was one of those unidentified figures who had claimed to be descendants of Otas back then.
‘Could it be, truly Otas? No. He died. But then, what is this—’
Before he could complete his thought, Kadram was forced into physical combat with Turan’s approaching soul form.
Naturally, the outcome was overwhelmingly against Kadram.
Unlike him, who had lost his body and become little more than a spirit without foundation, Turan, though severely injured, clearly had a living, breathing body as his base.
Soul-to-soul combat also consumed a type of resource, so naturally, the one with an intact supply source would be stronger.
No, to be precise, it wasn’t just that.
Turan’s soul itself, its so-called “weight class,” felt superior to Kadram’s.
Just like when Kadram had carried the Dominator and Beast Handler bloodlines in his body…
[Wait, spare me—]
Finally feeling a sense of crisis for the first time, Kadram desperately cried out, but Turan’s soul form ignored this and continued to beat him.
A soul’s stamina is its willpower.
After impacts that would have knocked out teeth and broken bones had he been alive, Kadram’s consciousness began to fade.
Shortly after, Turan’s soul form stuffed the tattered Kadram into the jewel box that existed simultaneously in both the real and spiritual worlds.
* * *
“Arrrgh!”
“R-run away! It’s a monster!”
After launching a spear of flame at the fleeing Arabion mages, Solif groaned softly at the pain he felt.
His battered, slashed, and pierced body was screaming in protest.
“Ah, I’m seriously going to die…”
After kicking away the snow leopard that had just died from a broken neck, he saw Meisa in the distance, thrusting a sword into the body of an Arabion elder.
Beside her, another figure who appeared to be an elder lay half-turned to ashes, suggesting that battle had been decided as well.
Looking for someone to help, his gaze turned to Turan.
For some reason, Turan was standing next to Kadram’s corpse with his eyes closed, holding a jewel box, while Bije sat on his head, eyes gleaming as she kept watch for enemies.
“Oh, did you win?”
Perhaps feeling good about winning a four-against-one battle, Bije simply nodded in response.
At that moment, Turan opened his eyes brightly and closed the lid of the jewel box.
“I caught him.”
“Caught what? Don’t tell me, Kadram?”
“Yes.”
Turan, having emerged victorious from his first soul-to-soul battle, could finally smile.
“Surely Kadram won’t harm the librarian or anything like that?”
“It’s fine. I’ve separated the spaces inside.”
Turan, who knew little about soul magic when he first received this jewel box, could barely use it, but after awakening his spiritual perception, he learned several more ways to operate it.
One of these was dividing the space inside the box for various purposes.
Using this, Turan designated the area where the librarian resided as a “guest room” that could be freely exited when the lid was opened, and created a separate “prison” for constraining Kadram and any other gods he might capture later.
Of course, there was also a separate “storage” for the soul fragments of Ymir that he had previously obtained.
“That’s fine, but let’s treat our bodies first. We’re in terrible condition.”
“True…”
Turan took out the recovery potion magical device from his pocket, infused it with magical power, and gulped it down.
Though dramatic recovery was no longer possible with this item, it could at least replenish strength lost due to bleeding.
Meanwhile, Solif and Meisa captured the Arabion mages who had survived and either couldn’t or wouldn’t flee.
Since they seemed prepared to capture Turan and Meisa, they had plenty of magical devices suitable for restraint and capture.
“…Please, at least spare my life.”
“Miss Meisa, do you remember me? We dined together that time—”
“Traitor! Filthy whore!”
“How dare you abandon your family and join hands with outsiders!”
The dozen or so survivors showed a variety of reactions.
Some desperately begged for their lives, while others expressed outrage.
Seeing those who condemned her, Meisa’s eyes grew cold.
If Turan hadn’t instructed her to keep them alive beforehand, she probably would have killed them all.
“Just a moment, I ask everyone to be quiet.”
When Turan stepped forward and spoke, everyone fell silent.
The battle had been so intense that they hadn’t fully grasped the situation, but one thing everyone knew:
The combined power of Kadram Arabion and the Nagin nobles accompanying him had been truly formidable, yet Turan had faced them both and emerged victorious.
Of course, Ymir had self-destructed after using power in an incompatible body, but they didn’t know that detail.
After a brief silence, a noble from a vassal family with the Frost bloodline growled, grinding his teeth.
“…I know who you are, Turan Zahar. A mere Zahar puppet who drove a wedge between our heir and spirited her away? Whatever you say, I won’t be persuaded, so kill me if you’re going to! My family will avenge me!”
As expected, it seemed Kadram and the Arabion upper echelon had prepared their subordinates with this kind of narrative.
After all, these weren’t mindless puppets without thoughts of their own—they wouldn’t have accepted orders to station themselves in such a forest without proper justification.
Turan looked at them, carefully selecting his words mentally.
Though he had prepared something in advance, he felt the need to review it once more before speaking.
‘First, revealing the existence of gods to them would be inappropriate.’
There was no need to explain why the fallen gods kept secret the fact that they were living by stealing human bodies.
If this truth were revealed, mages destined to have their bodies stolen, like Turan’s group, would revolt.
But conversely, for those who worshipped the gods, this would actually strengthen their legitimacy.
After all, they were the great saviors of humanity and ancestors of mages, weren’t they?
Therefore, Turan had planned a false accusation to pin on them.
A deception created by mixing information he had encountered in Ravitas.
“Do you know that the Arabion upper echelon has been occupied by white elves since ancient times?”