A Talentless Mage Devours a Disaster-Class Future - Chapter 36

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 36

Aion stared down at the crudely forged note he’d never sent, a thin, mirthless laugh catching in his throat.

‘Such a pathetic little game.’

His mind began to work through the problem with rapid precision.
A trap that cunningly exploited the fact that he’d been watching and guarding Cael.

Who could know such a thing?

In that instant, a figure flashed through his thoughts.
Inspector Raven—the one who’d casually asked him in the midst of the crowded Academy Courtyard to keep a careful eye on Cael Pyrrhon.

— “Don’t you think it’s risky discussing something important right here in the middle of the pathway?”
— “Why would it be? They’re just students who’ve barely lost their down feathers. Besides, I haven’t actually uncovered anything concrete yet. What’s the worry?”

‘Damn it.’

Aion was now paying the price for the Inspector’s carelessness.

‘Who was nearby at that moment?’

He tried to reconstruct the memory, but the courtyard had been crowded enough that there were far too many who might have overheard.

Aion shelved his mental censure of the reckless Inspector for later and moved on to the next piece of the puzzle.

Someone with a motive strong enough to go through all this troublesome orchestration just to lure him into some dark, secluded space and eliminate him.

‘…Could it be the arsonist from the fire incident?’

Was the true culprit behind that horrific Hazel District arson—suspected to be an inside job—now sensing the investigation closing in, trying to silence both of them?

But that too remained mere speculation for now.
Aion settled quickly on the most practical possibility instead.

‘Otherwise… it’d be Renar and his crew.’

The faction he’d recently clashed with.
Marc de Senell and the Renar Faction—the very people Dorothy had warned him to avoid if possible.

‘Bold move, pulling off something this daring right here in Excyon.’

But the true motive behind this action remained unclear.

‘Still…’

Aion’s cool gaze swept past the flickering flames toward the angry Cael.
Even if he himself was a target, the fact that they’d deliberately dragged this proud young noble of the Pyrrhon Family into some remote Breeding Facility seemed decidedly strange.

‘Has he genuinely been caught up in this?’

Watching the youth fume, Aion kept his suspicions about Cael close to his chest.

Just then, Cael ran a hand irritably through his hair and clicked his tongue.

“I’ll be trapped in this place for another thirty minutes, won’t I.”
“…Thirty minutes?”
“Did you miss the sign when you came in?”

Aion recalled the moment he’d entered the Third Breeding Facility.
There had definitely been a placard beside the entrance, and he remembered the text written on it.

“Right, that one. It said external access was restricted until the next guard rotation.”
“So how did you get in?”
“…It wasn’t locked. Whoever lured us here probably released the mechanism. …Tch, we walked right into it.”

Aion fixed Cael with a cold gaze and laid out the truth plainly.
A trap laid by someone with malice. And a sealed room from which rescue was impossible for the next thirty minutes.

‘Trapped here for thirty minutes? Is that all…?’

No. There was definitely something else.
It was the exact moment Aion’s dark premonition sent out its warning.

Screeeech—

A bone-chilling metallic shriek tore through the darkness of the breeding facility’s depths.

Clang!

Like the heavy iron gates of a blood-soaked arena slowly grinding open.

At that low, ponderous sound, both Aion’s and Cael’s bodies froze in unison.

“That sound… you don’t think…?”

At Cael’s question, Aion kept his head still, only shifting his gaze toward where the sound had come from.

Thump—

Thump—

Heavy vibrations transmitted through the ground.
He could feel it in his bones—something massive was moving slowly toward them from the darkness beyond.

The size of the monster, encountered in a sealed room with no escape, was beyond imagining.

An overwhelming terror so complete they couldn’t even draw breath.

Rustle—

Beyond the veil of pitch darkness, two crimson eyes blazed to life.

Cael murmured, his voice trembling.

“Why…!?”

The startled Cael was gathering mana instinctively, trying to kindle flames at his fingertips—and in that very instant—

Whoooosh—!!

Before Cael’s flames could grow.
The beast in the darkness erupted first, spewing crimson fire across its entire body with explosive force.

“Grrrrowl….”

In an instant, the entire corridor blazed bright as midday—no, bright and scorching as the interior of a roiling furnace.

“Screech…!”

The sudden flash and heat drove Aion and Cael to shield their eyes instinctively, stumbling backward.

As their vision cleared, the owner of those crimson eyes came into focus—a massive, truly colossal lizard. Or could such a grotesque monster, lava bubbling and dripping between its scales as it shrieked, really be called merely a lizard?

Yes, this was almost like…

【Flame Magic: …A Salamander.】
【Water Flow: This—we’re in trouble?】
【Life: Aion! Run!】

Confronted by a monster whose very existence made his own Flame Magic seem trivial, Cael stood frozen, utterly overwhelmed.

Screeeech—!

Aion shoved hard against Cael’s shoulder, shouting.

“Run! Now!”
“Damn it!”

Both of them spun around and bolted.

Boom—!

Cael, clearly fighting a monster of this size for the first time, showed visible panic as he sprinted after Aion.
Naturally, they were not heading toward the Breeding Facility’s exit, but deeper into its depths.

‘The entrance is already sealed shut with five layers of iron gates. Going back would be suicide.’

Aion’s judgment was ice-cold.
The corridor they ran through was a narrow, endless passage lined on both sides with massive beast pens—the interior of the Breeding Facility stretched before them in a single straight line.

Wide enough for a column of armored cavalry to gallop abreast, the passage was still nothing but a cramped alley to the creature pursuing them.

No corner to hide in, no junction to turn through—just a straight corridor reaching into darkness.

Their only chance lay in running forward with all their might, their backs exposed to the thing behind them.

“Aaaaaaaaah, heeeeelp—!!!”

Crash—!!!

A deafening explosion erupted from behind, tearing at their eardrums.

The Salamander.

The brute—massive as a freight wagon—was smashing through the corridor, barreling down on them with terrible speed.

“Kssssshhhh!”

As it flicked its tongue, releasing heat so intense it could scorch bone, the thick iron bars on either side of the passage—the ones they’d just sprinted past—glowed an angry red.

Sizzle…

“Keee! Keeeeee!”

The low-grade monsters trapped in the pens couldn’t endure the predator’s presence or its flames; they huddled in corners, shrieking in terror.

Whoosh!
Slash!

A terrifying wave of heat swept across his back without warning.
The massive salamander bore down on them with intent to devour, and its distance to Aion and Cael was shrinking by the second.

‘It’s faster than I thought!’

The salamander moved slightly faster than other monsters of comparable size.
That fractional difference was enough to keep Aion and Cael from shaking it off.

“Kiiiii!”

Outrunning the beast’s explosive charge with only their legs, as it thrashed forward in mindless fury, was beyond their means.

Whoosh…

The heat washing across his back grew so intense that it had begun to singe the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Gasp, huff…! The… the distance isn’t…!”

Cael’s footsteps behind him grew noticeably heavier.
Whether from fear or exhaustion, Cael’s strength seemed to be reaching its limit.

And misfortune, as always, arrives at the worst possible moment. Cael’s foot caught on the lip of the boundary marker that jutted up from the ground.

Thud!

“Ugh!”

Cael tumbled hard to the ground, losing his balance. Before he could even brace himself, the salamander’s enormous shadow, its crimson maw gaping wide, plunged toward the fallen boy’s head.

【Flame Magic: The bastard’s done for.】
【Life: Aion!】

In that moment, a thought crossed his mind.
Whether it was right to willingly put himself in danger to save Cael.

Perhaps Cael was in on this trap from the beginning—complicit with whoever had lured him here.

Was saving someone like that the right thing to do?

‘I’ll save him.’

That doubt flickered through Aion’s mind only for an instant.

Breathe in!

Aion spun around, reached out, and pulled.

Whoosh!

Boom!

His Celestial Movement Technique seized Cael’s body and wrenched him free from the salamander’s strike.

Cael’s body scraping against the ground, he was dragged in an instant toward Aion’s position.

Crash!

It was a matter of inches.
The Salamander’s enormous jaws snapped through the empty air where Cael’s head had been, slamming into the stone floor.

Crimson saliva, thick as lava, sprayed in all directions, sizzling and melting the ground beneath.

“Gasp—! Wheeze—!”
“Get up! Run!”

Aion seized Cael by the collar with brutal force, hauling him forward as he bolted ahead at full speed.
Cael, unwilling to squander the life he’d just reclaimed, pushed himself even harder than before, his legs pumping frantically.

“Shrieeeeek—!”

The enraged Salamander pursued them, its roar so fierce it seemed ready to incinerate the very air at their backs.

Even as danger pressed in from every side, Aion’s eyes swept the corridor ahead.

‘There—a fork in the path!’

Within moments, two passages branched out at the corridor’s end.
Aion made his choice in a heartbeat and shoved Cael hard down the darker tunnel to the left.

Clang!

“What are you—”
“That way! Move!”
“What about you?”

Aion ignored the question, tearing a fragment of metal from the ground and launching it with the Celestial Movement Technique.

Whistle!

Crash!

The metal shard struck the Salamander’s body, heated white-hot by its flesh before ricocheting away. But the creature, displeased, locked its vicious gaze on Aion instead.

“Ssssss…”

Now the target of the Salamander’s fury, Aion sprinted down the right corridor—away from where Cael had vanished to the left.

‘There!’

At the end of the passage, a vertical ladder emerged from the breeding facility’s lower level, climbing toward the administrative zone above.
Without breaking stride, Aion launched himself at the ladder and began scaling it with desperate speed.

Whoosh!

He’d barely gripped the rungs when—

Boom!

A searing thermal projectile, spat from below by the Salamander, engulfed the space around him.
The steel ladder’s lower rungs glowed crimson and began to melt like honey beneath his feet.

“Nngh—!”

A perilous dance—the rungs disintegrating two seconds after each footfall.
Aion threw himself onto the iron floor of the administrative zone above, narrowly escaping the inferno.

Hisss—

Below, the sound of an iron ladder melting away completely echoed through the shaft.

“Hah… hah… shook it off….”

It was the moment before relief could escape his lips.

Thud-

Thud.

An alien vibration that sent ice down his spine. The moment Aion turned his head, his brow furrowed.

A massive salamander was crawling up the vertical wall with its adhesive, grotesque feet planted flat against the surface.

“Damn it!”

Without hesitation, Aion spun around and bolted forward again.

Crash—boom—boom—boom!

In the next instant, a thunderous roar erupted as the entire floor of the administrative corridor was torn away behind him.

What Aion plunged into was a narrow passage where thick Mana Pipes inscribed with runic markings were tangled together like a spider’s web.

Without a moment to marvel at the precise, cutting-edge technology that Magical Engineering had achieved, Aion focused entirely on running.

Crack—snap!

He wove through the labyrinthine piping with acrobatic grace, but the feral creature, lost to reason, cared nothing for obstacles.

Crunch!

Crash!

Steel pipes crumpled like paper and tore away with each lunge of the beast.

‘At this rate, I’m caught.’

Aion rounded a corner in desperation. But ill fortune had arranged a long, straight passage ahead—no place to hide.

The trap closed exactly as he’d feared.

“Shrieeeeeeeek!”

The moment Aion instinctively glanced behind him.
A murderous heat bore down from his back. The salamander was already wedging its vicious head into the narrow passage, forcing itself forward.

Deep in its gullet, crimson magma bubbled and churned—the sight unmistakable.

In this inescapable, narrow straight corridor, the thermal projectile the salamander was about to unleash meant certain death.

【Life: Aion—!】
【Flame Magic: That won’t happen!】

Death stood inches away, in this moment of absolute crisis.

“…What…?”

Crash—boom—boom—boom—boom!

The Salamander’s head snapped back as it slammed into the wall with sickening force.

Screeeeeech—

The power that sent the Salamander flying across the chamber.

A figure materialized in Aion’s vision—metal coiled around one arm.

“Keep moving! Don’t stop!”

It was Cael Pyrrhon. He should have fled down the opposite corridor.

The Talentless Mage Swallows a Catastrophic Future — Episode 36

Author
Mochi Wang
Publisher
Daon Creative
Planning / Editing / Production
Yeon
Cover Design
Dalli

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260706063.0036

© 2026. Mochi Wang

※ This e-book is protected under the copyright law of the Republic of Korea.
No part of this work may be reproduced or modified in any form without the permission of the author and publisher.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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