Chapter 846: Are You Accusing Me?
His fighting style was almost identical to Kempes: the same overwhelming strength, the same terrifying speed.
Thunderous power enveloped the tip of the Thunderbolt Spear, forked lightning crackling outward from its tip. At the very center was a blinding white light—the strongest point, packed with a horrifying ability to tear through anything.
A fleeting afterimage flashed by; Daryl was already in front of Leon. Leon conjured a Fire Elemental Avatar, casting a mirror image as his body darted sideways to evade.
Daryl’s body pierced through the mirror image like an arrow through paper—effortless. In the same instant, he twisted, gripping the Thunderbolt Spear’s tail, and lashed out viciously at Leon on the flank.
A blinding arc of lightning burst from the Thunderbolt Spear, transforming into a whip of thunder over ten meters long, snapping toward Leon. The crackling light filled the air with the stench of scorched ozone.
The next second, Leon vanished from his original spot. The raging thunder whip ravaged that ten-meter stretch, leaving the ground charred and blackened.
At the same moment, Leon emerged from beneath the earth dozens of meters away. His Fire Elemental Avatar had already shifted into an Earth Elemental Avatar, his body now sheathed in stone.
Glancing at Daryl in the distance, Leon knew that the traps he’d used against Kempes would be useless here. Daryl, though reliant on brute force, controlled his power far better than Kempes ever could—the Devouring Mire wouldn’t fool this guy.
That meant he’d have to rely on sheer strength and fight head-on.
Cracks suddenly split the surface of the Earth Elemental Avatar, threads of fire flickering through the fissures. In an instant, the stony exterior was engulfed in flames, which then faded, leaving the avatar’s surface slowly morphing into flowing magma.
The fusion of Fire Elemental Avatar and Earth Elemental Avatar—this was no simple dual transformation, but something further: the composite Lava Avatar!
The powers of Fire Elemental Avatar and Earth Elemental Avatar melded perfectly, their abilities merging into something far stronger.
This was the evolved form of the elemental avatar. Leon had only mastered it recently, after steadily growing stronger. His research into the endless spells within the Spellbook of Ages had sped up the process many times over. Without the Spellbook, Leon was confident he could master it before reaching Sky Rank, but not before becoming an eighth- or ninth-rank Title Archmage.
In the blink of an eye, Leon became a five- or six-meter-tall lava giant, magma streaming across his body. Flames ignited in the air around him, the scorched ground glowing red, and the surrounding ten meters rapidly transformed into a field of molten rock.
This was one of the Lava Avatar’s abilities: reshaping the environment to his advantage. In a volcano or by a river of magma, the Lava Avatar was basically invincible against anyone of equal rank—and even if not, escape was easy.
Yet, as Leon cast Lava Avatar for the first time, he frowned slightly—the spell devoured mana at a shocking rate. Even for him, with mana reserves that bordered on infinite compared to ordinary mages, he could feel it burning away. Just activating it had already consumed one percent of his total mana.
A quick estimate: his full reserves would only last for half an hour of fighting. After that, he’d need to replenish his mana.
Still, it wasn’t much of a flaw. With a Natural Semi-Plane at his back, mana consumption was no longer a real problem for Leon.
Daryl watched Leon transform into the lava giant, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. "Druid?"
He hadn’t realized this was the Lava Avatar, but after a flicker of surprise, Daryl’s body blurred into another afterimage and vanished.
Blinding lightning erupted in front of Leon, with the Thunderbolt Spear close behind. The Arcane Wheel spun slightly behind Leon, and three stacked Magma Shields materialized before him.
Daryl’s Thunderbolt Spear tore through the first Magma Shield with ease. It slowed a little against the second, and the third managed to hold for the span of a blink.
When he’d fought Kempes earlier, that guy had shredded Magma Shields like tearing through paper.
With Daryl, three Magma Shields were still just three sheets of paper—no challenge at all. But now, they actually resisted for a moment.
Leon immediately understood: this was the Lava Avatar’s effect, directly boosting the power of spells like Magma Shield.
If it could hold for even a blink, the Magma Shield’s rank must have increased by at least one tier!
Leon’s body dissolved into magma, reappearing ten meters away as molten rock burst from the ground.
A flash of light danced along the Doombringer Staff, and in an instant, dozens of magma spheres slammed into Daryl’s back.
Magma splattered everywhere, and the stench of scorched flesh wafted from Daryl’s back.
Roar...
With a furious roar, Daryl spun his Thunderbolt Spear like a whirling top, blocking every jet of magma.
After two seconds, Daryl was finally forced to retreat—the magma carried not just searing heat, but tremendous force. Even his Thunderbolt Spear was starting to grow hot.
Daryl retreated swiftly, resuming his rapid movements. The spear in his hand flicked about like a scorpion’s tail, appearing at all sorts of tricky angles.
Whenever the Magma Shield was pierced, Daryl would instantly appear somewhere else, unleashing a barrage of rapid thrusts.
Leon kept flashing through the field of magma, both of them moving so fast they blurred from sight. Daryl conjured a dozen afterimages, his Thunderbolt Spear leaving more than a hundred phantom strikes, while Leon’s body repeatedly collapsed and reformed, blinking through the shifting magma pool.
(Irrelevant line about reading the next page; skip translation.)
In less than thirty seconds, the surrounding thousand meters had been devastated—everything scorched and blackened.
Blinking out again, Leon drew the Death Tome. The Lava Avatar was powerful—his spells could even injure Daryl, whose magic resistance bordered on absurd for a Caucasus Battlemage. But the magma pool beneath his feet was only ten meters wide, which was a real limitation.
If the magma pool had been hundreds or thousands of meters wide, half a minute would’ve been enough to kill Daryl.
Caucasus Battlemages had formidable defenses—not just the magic-resistant runes etched into their skin, but heavy armor and bodies as tough as orcs. But that didn’t mean these brutes could fight in magma.
Leon sighed inwardly. Having a nearly equal opponent to test the Lava Avatar’s effects was useful—the results were powerful, but the flaws were obvious. For now, Lava Avatar’s power was mostly limited during real combat.
Alright, experiment’s over. Time to end the fight...
Daryl leapt and darted about, always just a hair’s breadth from breaking through Leon’s defenses. Every time, he felt he was just a little short—if only he were a bit stronger or faster, he could pierce this damned mage’s body with the Thunderbolt Spear...
But he had no idea he was just a convenient sparring partner, there solely to help Leon test his new Lava Avatar...
The Death Tome fluttered open on its own, turning to the Elemental Chapter. Four-colored light shimmered, and Leon’s spellcasting speed and power surged instantly.
The magma spheres, originally less than half a meter wide, instantly swelled to over half a meter in diameter. Dozens of empowered magma spheres overwhelmed Daryl.
The number of magma spheres jumped from forty or fifty to over seventy. The added pressure abruptly halted Daryl’s attack.
That terrifying speed vanished the moment he began to defend; only by pouring nearly all his strength into it could he barely hold out.
Leon’s speed, on the other hand, was unaffected—if anything, it doubled now that he didn’t need to defend. Flames erupted around Daryl, and the hundred-meter radius turned into a sea of fire, with Leon blinking through the inferno.
Daryl roared, thunder crackling across his body, his hair standing on end. The Thunderbolt Spear in his hand was now completely sheathed in lightning, and his aura suddenly grew wild and violent.
Just as the battle reached its frenzied peak and Daryl began to rage, the Caucasus Seer—who had been silently observing from afar, seemingly a neutral outsider—suddenly intervened.
A massive bolt of lightning, more than a meter thick, crashed down from the sky, instantly tearing through the force barriers between Leon and Daryl. The surrounding flames, thunder, and magma were all violently ripped apart.
With a deafening boom, the lightning struck between the two, blasting a crater over ten meters wide into the ground. Terrifying cracks, like a spider’s web, spread outward from the crater’s edge.
Both Leon and Daryl instinctively retreated from the clash.
Leon frowned, watching as the Caucasus Seer approached.
Daryl shouted angrily, "Seer Droy, what are you doing? Why are you stopping me? Damn it, I knew it—your heart is always with these damned Auckland mages..."
Daryl had just gathered all his strength for a counterattack, only to be forcibly interrupted by Seer Droy. The two combatants were forced apart, and as they watched the lightning still writhing like a serpent in the massive crater, it was clear to everyone how powerful that bolt had been.
Facing Daryl’s furious roar, the old Seer—who had seemed harmless and gentle—suddenly radiated an aura of authority.
Seer Droy gazed at Daryl calmly, wisdom in his eyes suddenly replaced by a commanding presence.
"Seer Droy, are you accusing me?"