Chapter 852: Trap
Gold-red flames form the mage’s staunchest guardian. The Flame Barrier is formidable against spells, but offers little protection against a swordsman’s greatsword. In contrast, the Frost Shield stands strong against blades, yet is vulnerable to spells—especially fire magic.
The Blazeguard Shield, conjured from golden-red flames, materializes as a shield so tangible it rivals reality. Not only does it drastically boost resistance to spells, it even matches the defensive power of a seventh-tier shield against physical attacks.
Beneath Leon, fire surged up and carried his body like a wave, swiftly propelling him to the side.
Where Leon had just stood, a flash of lightning erupted. In the next instant, a lightning spear struck the ground, unleashing massive bolts like blinding blades. These thunderous arcs, each as long as ten meters, rampaged across a hundred-meter radius, slicing everything in their path.
A dozen thunder blades tore and shredded the earth in a frenzy. In an instant, the solid stone ground within a hundred meters was reduced to rubble.
The earth trembled, shockwaves radiating outward. In less than a second, those waves—leaving terrifying scars in the air—swept up shards of debris and exploded across hundreds of meters.
In a flash, Leon was overtaken by a hail of fragments, as countless as arrows. The Blazeguard Shield spun wildly around him, transforming into a massive golden-red sphere that sealed him inside.
Ding...
Shards and shockwave force crashed against the Blazeguard Shield, producing a piercing, continuous screech. The moment the fragments touched the shield, they were incinerated to smoke.
In an instant, a thick column of smoke—seven or eight meters wide—shot skyward above Leon’s head.
As the first and fastest shockwave was ending, Leon rapidly chanted an incantation. Behind him, the phantom of the Arcane Wheel burst forth with runes.
The moment the shockwave faded, Leon finished his chant. Flames surged around him, and as he retreated, he left behind a fiery mirage in his place.
Having invoked the Fire Elemental Avatar, Leon concealed himself ten meters away.
Even after casting the mirage, Leon didn’t pause—he uttered three notes in quick succession, and the Arcane Wheel behind him spat out a torrent of flame runes.
Countless flame runes hid within the fire, snaking along the ground to appear beneath the mirage’s feet. Violent flames erupted, yet the fluctuations of these runes were perfectly concealed.
Once Leon finished all this, Daryl reappeared. After unleashing that devastating strike which destroyed over a hundred meters of terrain, he now shot down like a released arrow, gripping his lightning spear and plunging it through the mirage.
The sheer force left the mirage with no chance to resist, and the impact instantly scattered the flames across the ground.
But at that very moment, as the flames were blasted apart, a gold-red alchemical array appeared across the ground within a ten-meter radius.
Flame runes danced at the critical nodes. As Daryl completed his strike, the alchemical array was successfully activated...
A dreadful aura spread out. Daryl could clearly see that outside the ten-meter-wide alchemical array, everything seemed twisted—distant mountains stretched into warped lines, and the once-flat earth was scrunched into abstract shapes, as if by a mischievous child.
Daryl was startled, instantly realizing it wasn’t the outside world that was warped, but the very space here. The heat surged at an unimaginable rate.
He wanted to dodge, but it was already too late. The array activated at the exact moment his attack landed—perhaps even a split second before.
It meant he could neither stop the array nor escape its effect.
Daryl sneered. If he couldn’t dodge, he’d simply destroy the alchemical array by force.
Gripping the end of his lightning staff, Daryl swung it hard at the ground.
Boom...
A thunderous crack split the air—a fissure over a meter wide raced forward. In an instant, the earth was torn open for more than a hundred meters, and a distant hill seemed to reel from the impact.
Countless cracks spiderwebbed across the hill. With a deafening explosion, the hill split in two, and massive chunks—three or four meters wide—flew skyward like weightless leaves.
The ground beneath Daryl shattered like porcelain, breaking into stones no larger than half a meter.
That terrifying blow shattered the earth supporting the alchemical array; every rune and gold-red pattern collapsed.
But before Daryl could even savor his triumph, a massive pillar of fire—over ten meters thick—erupted from the ground. Gold-red flames spun up like a tornado, instantly wrapping Daryl in its center.
The fire column soared two or three hundred meters high, forcibly dispelling the poisonous mist around it. Within the swirling flames, bolts of lightning crackled, and thunder rumbled in a continuous roar.
Leon sneered. Daryl’s speed was impressive; even Leon himself couldn’t track the trajectory of that explosive charge.
But there was no need to see the process—knowing the origin and endpoint of Daryl’s attack was enough.
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That fool really thought it was an alchemical array?
Wrong. That was a Summoning Circle—a spell to call forth Hellfire. Strictly speaking, such a circle doesn’t need a physical vessel, though with one, the Hellfire’s eruption lasts longer.
But if the Summoning Circle is destroyed right after completion, there’s only one result: the summoning time for Hellfire collapses into a single second. All its power is compressed and unleashed at once.
A spell meant for sustained damage becomes an instant burst—boosting its power by at least a full tier.
In this era, few can summon Hellfire—the casting time is too long. Low-level mages can’t use it, and high-level mages rarely need it. Outside of massive battlefields, it’s almost never seen.
Likewise, when facing this spell, everyone thinks only of dodging. No one can destroy the Summoning Circle after Hellfire starts but before it erupts—the window is far too short.
Nor can anyone imagine the power of Hellfire compressed into a single second.
This casting technique is simply unknown in this age.
Leon dug the pit, and Daryl jumped right in—meeting Leon’s expectations by destroying the Summoning Circle just before the Hellfire erupted...
Watching the terrifying Hellfire spiral skyward, Leon’s feet were lifted by flames, carrying him in a rapid orbit around the fire. A torrent of notes spilled from his lips, and the Arcane Wheel behind him unleashed endless runes.
Leon’s left hand: the Death Tome flipped open on its own. The Elemental Chapter shone with four colors, which instantly merged into crimson—every elemental enhancement became a boost for fire magic.
At the tip of the Doombringer Staff, flames burst forth.
Around the Hellfire pillar, deep blue flames flickered. The heat was so intense, the air itself seemed to burn.
Flames carried Leon around the pillar in a single second, and in that moment, more than a hundred deep blue fireballs coalesced in midair.
Over a hundred enhanced Detonations!
Each blue fireball, trailing a blue tail, hurtled toward the fiery pillar.
Just as the hundred-plus enhanced Detonations were about to strike the Hellfire pillar, the Hellfire finished its one-second burst and vanished...
At the heart of the pillar, a figure shrouded in lightning—Daryl’s eyes blazing with fury, hair burned away, the tip of his lightning spear glowing red, black smoke rising from his armor, and his skin covered in blistering burns.
Leon was startled by Daryl’s appearance, marveling at the Caucasus Battlemage’s spell resistance. With all that reinforced armor, even sixth-tier spells were half as deadly.
Now, even after taking the full force of Hellfire’s one-second burst head-on, Daryl suffered only minor injuries—a testament to the Battlemage’s strength.
If it were an Auckland mage, even a ninth-tier Title Archmage would be gravely wounded or killed by this trap.
Leon wasn’t concerned—he’d known Hellfire wouldn’t kill Daryl, so he launched his next attack the instant the flames erupted.
As the flames faded, Daryl saw that the hundred-plus enhanced Detonations had already surrounded him...
Daryl’s eyes widened. With a furious roar, he gripped his lightning spear and stabbed wildly at his surroundings—instantly, he seemed to become a porcupine, with dozens of spear afterimages flashing around him.
In the next instant, Daryl was engulfed by more than a hundred Detonations...
Boom boom boom...
A barrage of explosions erupted—over a hundred enhanced Detonations detonated within meters, unleashing terrifying power.