Star Forge Titan

Chapter 54: The Battle of Mages

"War means death."

"Reap the evil of war!"

With the complete liberation of the soul power of the fourth-level extraordinary person, an unimaginable magical storm was stirred up on the spot.

Like his character, Gaius's 'poem of the soul, words of liberation' are unusually brief and powerful.

Mana, the basic magical factor existing in the natural environment, is like a group of migratory birds returning to their nests, creating a huge vortex in the sky formed by a large number of light particles.

"Old friend, I haven't seen you completely liberate your soul in a hundred years."

Lucius' voice was muddy and unclear, as if he was swallowing saliva, but it contained an insane joy as if he had been injected with a large amount of hallucinogens.

"That's right, that's it. Observing the world, understanding the world, and knowing the world—that's how mages establish methodologies and advance to higher levels. This is something I've never done before, but you succeeded a hundred years ago. I'm really... I'm incredibly jealous!!!"

Lucius seemed to feel no pain as he forcefully tore ten bloody wounds across his chest. His fingers quickly transformed into sharp claws, and a fleshy curved horn grew from his forehead. He became increasingly terrifying and hideous, completely transforming into a filthy demon with rotting flesh and sores all over his body, and bone spurs growing from his joints.

"Gaius, as a fellow soul who experienced the Great War between Humans and Demons and should have died long ago, what does the world look like in your eyes? Let me wait and see!"

Boom!

With a sudden explosion like thunder, a huge shadow about thirty meters tall instantly appeared behind Gaius.

Everyone's magic power has its own unique characteristics. This difference also makes the transcendent souls of different individuals different, and the difference in magic power makes different transcendent souls different in size.

Compared to the transcendent soul of only about three meters when Vero Dishia was initially released, at this moment, the shadow behind Gaius was like a giant standing tall!

The swirling magical storm in the sky was completely swallowed up by the giant shadow, and the ultra-large-scale super-spiritual doppelganger phenomenon completely occurred!

Immediately afterwards, the huge shadow quickly shrank, and at the same time became clearer and more condensed.

Finally, it transformed into a dark figure that was only two meters tall but seemed substantial.

It was a skeleton god of death wearing heavy armor and a tattered cloak on his back. Its armor looked like it had experienced millions of wars. Arrows and swords pierced it everywhere, and there were even broken spears and battle axes embedded in it.

The edge of the cloak behind him seemed to be burned by flames, tattered and full of holes, while still flickering with tiny sparks of residual fire.

In the hands of this heavily armored skeleton reaper known as the 'Evil of War', there is a handle made of vertebrae, at the end of which is embedded a skull with its jaws opened, revealing an expression of pain. From its mouth protrudes an arc-shaped sickle blade reflecting the cold moonlight.

"Yes, compared to innocent civilians and children, we, the slaughterers with our hands stained with blood, deserved to die in that war."

Gaius' eyes were cold, his arms hung naturally at his sides, his muscles bulged, and then he stepped forward with all his strength. Every step he took seemed to use up all his strength, and the ground was crushed piece by piece by the magical pressure.

Similarly, Lucius, transformed into a monster, stepped forward. His steps were also slow and powerful. The ground caved in and cracked, and the floating debris was directly crushed into powder by the pressure of magic, turning into gray mist that floated everywhere.

As the two approached each other, the entire Mage Tower trembled under their feet. All the mages and apprentices huddled in the room were terrified and in awe of this power.

"No, no matter how many others die, I will never die! I will never fall! I will never become a corpse to be gnawed by wild dogs!"

Lucius roared crazily, his eyes bloodshot as if emitting two rays of red light, blood vessels bulged all over his body, and his body surface seemed to be wrapped in a layer of black net, becoming more and more distorted and inhuman.

"Never! Ever!"

"Die!" Gaius' eyes widened, and his artificial eye shattered directly. Instead, a fiercely burning magic eye was embedded in the eye socket!

As a fourth-level crown mage, this indicates that he has begun to reshape his perfect and extraordinary body, and this is also the basis for moving to a higher level!

The crystal spear in his hand turned into a poisonous snake that suddenly stabbed forward. The evil of war behind him also rushed forward with a roar, and the spine sickle in his hand dragged a deep groove on the ground.

Ding!

Lucius, who had turned into a filthy demon over three meters tall, used his hands that had transformed into sharp claws to block the crystal spear and the spine sickle respectively, but the powerful impact still pushed him directly to the top of the broken wizard tower.

Gravity pulled the old wizard and the demon downwards, and the evil of war floating behind the former suddenly pounced forward.

The two seemed to merge into one, with Gaius wearing a set of tattered heavy armor and a cloak. The strong wind blew the tattered edges of the cloak, making a rustling sound. The spine sickle also merged with the crystal spear, and two magic crystals were embedded in the eye sockets of the skull that spit out the curved sickle blade.

The purple negative energy magic wrapped around the old wizard's body, and carried him directly to offset the gravity and float in the air, like a howling death god flying above the battlefield.

Instead, Lucius fell heavily to the ground.

Puff! There was a circle of metal fences surrounding the Mage Tower, and one of the sharp protrusions pierced his chest completely like a spear.

This kind of injury would have been fatal to anyone else, but this filthy demon seemed to not care at all and just pulled itself forward. The fence was corroded and broken, and the wound had already begun to heal.

"Hahahaha, see? This is immortality, this is the gift of God!" Lucius laughed wildly.

"What a troublesome guy." The old wizard narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Heh." Looking at Gaius flying in the air with purple magic light all around him, Lucius Sura snorted coldly, half-crouched and bent forward, and began to exert strength in all the muscles in his body.

"Mmmmm!"

With a crash, accompanied by an inhuman roar and the horrific sound of flesh tearing, a ball of black blood exploded from the back of Lucius, who had transformed into a filthy demon. Two rotten flesh wings covered with bone spurs broke out of his body and flapped to pull him up from the ground.

The second round of battle broke out suddenly!

"Gaius!" Shouting the name of his former comrade, the filthy demon's hands turned into claws, gathering a large amount of dark green twisted magic power, and then suddenly stretched forward.

With the spellcasting skills from the necromancer, Lucius violently released pure and terrifying light of death with twisted magic.

Boom! Two intertwined beams of destructive death light shot upward from below towards Gaius, who was flying in the air.

Seeing this, the old wizard grasped the sickle of the spine and swung it forward suddenly.

"Stop the war."

Amidst the whispers, the destruction and death filled with twisted magic stopped instantly like a frog frozen in ice.

This is the first time Gaius has used his soul power since the beginning of the game.

Its name - The Sorrow of Ending the War!

Chapter 55: The Battle of Mages (Part 2)

"You've become a coward, Gaius."

Seeing that his full-strength attack was easily blocked, Lucius Sura, who had transformed into a filthy demon, smiled.

He clearly remembered that the initial liberation that Gaius awakened during the Human-Demon War a hundred years ago was called 'The Evil of War', an offensive ability that ruthlessly strangled the enemy with the brutality and cruelty of war.

But now, the complete liberation revealed by the old wizard is a completely opposite defensive ability.

This means that he has deviated from the belief he had when his soul first awakened, which is why he has been unable to enter the fifth level in a hundred years and has even become weaker than before!

"A hundred years ago, your soul power wasn't something this wimpy!"

With a mocking expression, the filthy demon with wings on its back rushed straight into the dark night sky.

Magical power wove a noisy midnight armor around him. As a superior spell to Dark Armor, this deep purple armor, woven from negative energy, automatically absorbed the vitality of all living creatures within a large area near the recipient, strengthening their defenses while also causing damage.

Many apprentices in the Mage Tower who were only at the first level or even still in training vomited blood, and casualties soon began to appear.

Gaius Marius quickly realized this and, without caring about the intense consumption of magic power caused by using his soul power, he suddenly accelerated and crashed into the filthy demon that was over three meters tall.

The Spine Scythe was grasped by sharp claws, but the broken swords and weapons stuck on the surface of the Evil of War were like the spines on the back of a hedgehog, forcibly penetrating the Midnight Armor and stabbing into the opponent's body.

This caused Lucius to roar in pain, and dark green dirty blood gushed out, splashing onto the old wizard's body. Black spots of the plague infection quickly appeared on the surface of his skin, and strands of blood flowed from his mouth and nose.

After a short circle, he used his flexible battlefield fighting skills to get behind the filthy demon, and then used the long handle of the Spine Scythe to strangle the opponent's throat!

The two entangled creatures turned into flying meteors in the air, and the sky behind them exploded with circles of circular shock wave clouds, which was a special phenomenon caused by breaking the speed of sound.

"Are you crazy!?" Seeing the ground getting closer, Lucius' voice revealed a trace of fear. He felt that the other party not only did not slow down, but instead used more magic power to speed up the flight.

If it hits the ground at this speed, even a demon would be seriously injured!

"You have seen my cowardice, but have you seen your own escape?" Gaius roared, and the 'Evil of War' attached to his body became blurred due to the excessive consumption of magic power.

“Stop! Stop!!!”

Lucius bent his arms, roared, and hit Gaius Marius's back hard, but the old wizard had no intention of letting go. Instead, he tightened his grip on his neck even more!

With a loud bang, the low hill turned into a basin, and the mountain mixed with soil and rocks collapsed at the moment of impact.

Rocks the size of millstones rushed into the sky like flying birds, and the soil and gravel turned into mushroom-shaped dust clouds and flew high into the sky. The broken trees were burned into charcoal by the high temperature generated by the impact before they hit the ground, and when they fell to the ground, they looked like charred animal corpses.

puff.

Although there was an enemy as a buffer, Gaius still spat out a mouthful of dirty blood.

Lucius guessed correctly. At the end of the war between humans and demons, the deepest desire of his soul underwent a complete change because of some things.

As a result, an irreconcilable contradiction arises between the initial liberation form of soul power and the subsequent complete liberation form, these two super-spiritual dual states that should have been inherited from the same lineage.

At the beginning of the war, the bloody fighting made Gaius Marius feel the brutality and cruelty of war. Driven by revenge, the mage awakened a very offensive soul ability.

With the terrifying power of the 'Evil of Battle Formation', he continues to defeat his enemies, crush his opponents, and even destroy cities!

Until, together with the Elrond knights who had truly transformed into demons at that time, they used steel swords and magic fire to completely burn and ravage the border of Linde!

However, when he vented his anger and stood up from the pool of blood and looked around, he found that the war had not stopped.

Caught in a vortex of hatred, Elrond and Lind have been completely plunged into an all-out war. The strategies and tactics they used to achieve their goals have caused great harm to the people.

The extraordinary people were like living fighter planes, tanks and warships, fighting fiercely in the sky, on the land and even on the ocean, but their battlefields were surrounded by dead old people and children.

Gaius still remembered that when he fell to the ground due to exhaustion of magic power after barely killing the enemy, he unexpectedly saw some children with bulging bellies among the displaced people, holding mud and swallowing it with numbness on their faces.

There was no light in the eyes of those children. Their bulging bellies were as round as balls, but their limbs were so skinny that you could hardly see anything other than bones and skin.

The soil, which was not edible at all, was eaten bit by bit.

And then...some of them starved to death in front of Gaius.

At that moment, he could no longer tell whether the dead child was from Lind or Elrond.

The exhausted wizard stretched out his hands in vain, but he was unable to stop the disappearance of life. He could only watch those young souls gradually drift away in the air.

No angels descended, no demons appeared.

On the desolate battlefield, only Death is singing.

Looking at Lucius Sulla whose wounds were recovering quickly, Gaius Marius, who had internal injuries, actually had some pity in his eyes.

"Even as a noble, you've witnessed that horrific hell with your own eyes. After the war between humans and demons, do you want to experience a war like that again?"

The old wizard questioned in a deep voice, and slowly stood up with the help of his spine sickle. Blood kept dripping from his mouth, and the infected black spots on his skin were gradually expanding.

"Stop talking." Lucius growled, but the madness on his face was gone.

Hold down the broken legs and forcibly break the bones that have grown crooked due to the rapid repair speed.

He, who had turned into a filthy demon, looked up at Gaius who was vomiting blood, and his mind couldn't help but recall the scenes of the past.

At that time, I knelt in a pool of blood with my hands on my head, shivering with fear like a baby bird exposed to the cold wind.

Then, a hand patted his shoulder hard.

"We want to end this war."

At that moment, Gaius, known as the 'bloodthirsty war maniac', was enveloped in the golden sunset. Despite his belligerent nature, he spoke these words in a calmer tone than ever before.

However, the dark green twisted magic wrapped around his soul, and the scenes in his memory were instantly torn apart by Lucius. Fear and anger once again occupied his entire mind.

"The war between humans and demons is not over! The Linde people will come again! The war in my heart is not over yet! I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I never want to die!"

The momentary calm was broken again. Lucius Marius screamed and leaped up. His twisted body deformed again, and the magic power in his body turned into a dark green filled with evil. Even the space began to fluctuate.

“Stop! Do you want to open the gate of hell?!” Gaius’ eyes changed drastically. He realized that the other party was using magic to forcibly connect to a certain space.

"Hell?" Lucius sneered.

"A loser like me who can't even unleash soul power doesn't have the ability to cross the barrier and directly connect to hell."

"But..." The filthy demon paused, and the spatial fluctuations behind him became more and more obvious.

"But I can connect to my own workshop!"

Gaius, whose magic power had not yet recovered, only had time to open a layer of magic barrier before he saw the space, which was fluctuating due to the distortion of magic, being forcibly torn apart by some behemoth across a long distance.

A violent magical reaction came from there, a terrifying degree that ordinary humans could not achieve, and it was about to turn into a terrifying magic that destroyed everything and submerged everything.

Through the crack in space, the old wizard saw an incomplete skeleton giant. The gaps between its bones were filled with a large amount of flesh and blood processed by necromancy. The outermost layer of metal armor had not yet completely covered the whole body, and the internal skeleton was also incomplete in some places.

Even so, the slowly opening giant mouth was filled with magical power of unimaginable intensity.

Finally, what emerged from it was destructive light and heat.

"That is..." Before he could finish his words, a super-large-scale negative energy shock wave descended across space.

The deep purple light illuminated half of Avonmore. The knights, priests and other extraordinary people who were fighting against the Undead Cult all noticed it, but they were not the first to arrive at the scene.