A Talentless Mage Devours a Disaster-Class Future - Chapter 39

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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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Episode 39

Tick—

Tick—

“Let’s continue.”

Aion’s dry, arrogant provocation was enough to sever the beast’s fragile reason.

“Shrieeeeeeeee!!!”

Blood vessels bulged red across Salamander’s yellow eyes, and it came charging forward, demolishing the narrow corridor indiscriminately.

Crash-crash-crash—!

Aion extended his consciousness toward the scattered pipe fragments littering the floor—excellent ammunition that Kael had pried loose during his escape.

Whoooosh—

The power of the Celestial Movement Art surged forth, grasping the metal chunks suspended in the air.

Whistle-whistle-whistle—!

Crash!

The steel pipes carved through empty space, firing mercilessly at Salamander’s face and torso. But the creature didn’t dodge. Didn’t need to.

Sizzzzzzz—!

Before the steel pipes could even touch its hardened scales, they were engulfed in the extreme heat radiating from Salamander’s entire body, warping like taffy and melting away in grotesque streams.

【Flame: To Salamander, metal is nothing! You can’t afford to lose focus!】

There was no way to land a meaningful blow on the creature. But the objective had been achieved.

Make it hesitate for a moment, and draw out an unbearable rage.

“Kyshaaaa!”

As the molten metal splashed across its face, Salamander’s fury surged without end.

Whoooosh—!

The flames rising from its body burned fiercer, and the heat reached even Aion, who had put distance between them.

Pop-pop—!

Aion retreated steadily to match the creature’s pace, unleashing a relentless barrage of debris from the ground.
All the while, he obscured its vision and harried its attention with stubborn persistence.

It might have seemed purposeless on the surface. Salamander’s momentum hadn’t diminished one bit—if anything, it had grown more savage than before.

Pop—!

Yet Aion continued his assault steadily, never letting the creature slip beyond sight.

‘I didn’t anticipate this.’

Aion’s brow furrowed.

One unforeseen variable after another compounded the situation, and their escape grew increasingly dire.

“Shrieeeeeek—!”

The Salamander tore through the corridor in a brute surge of heat, leaving behind something closer to hell itself.

Pipes and steel beams warped and melted on all sides, acrid sulfur choking the air alongside billows of black smoke that made visibility collapse to mere inches.

In other words, he couldn’t track the creature’s position.

‘How much farther to the target point?’

It was the precise moment Aion divided his attention, calculating whether he’d drawn the beast to the desired location through the murk—

Slither—

The Salamander’s frenzied presence, wild in the smoke, vanished without warning as if it had never been.

It had—

‘Lost it—!’

Instinct screamed inside his skull.

And in the instant Aion wrenched his gaze around, from the right a pair of bloodshot, sulfur-yellow eyes cut through the dense black smoke like a blade.

“Shriekkkkkk!!”

It hadn’t come from the front. The creature had used the smoke to slip through his blind spot.

He’d braced for it, but the distance was too close.

Whoom—!

Aion barely hurled himself clear of the creature’s gaping maw.

But—

Thud-whoooosh—!

Crack-snaaaap—!

“—Gah—kgh!!”

The Salamander’s massive tail whipped across Aion’s torso with merciless force—a catastrophic impact like a boulder dropped from the sky itself at point-blank range.

Shrieeeeek—

His ears rang deaf for an instant,

Crash-booooom—!

Aion’s body flew through the air and slammed into the corridor wall. Had the pipes lining the surface not absorbed the impact, that single strike might have killed him outright.

‘My body…’

Agony tore through him—every bone screaming, his internal organs twisted and writhing.

For any ordinary first-year student, the impact would have been enough to knock them unconscious.

But Aion’s eyes were fixed on the black smoke where the creature had just emerged.

‘At least… no fractures.’

Still, the fact that he remained standing at all was almost miraculous. His signature trait of pain tolerance had done its part.

Whoosh-crack!

Screech!

Aion immediately tore off his cape and hurled it away.

The Salamander’s tail had grazed it, and flames were beginning to spread.

“Haah…”

He wiped the blood trickling from his mouth with the back of his hand, forced strength into his trembling legs, and reached his arm toward the dense smoke with every ounce of willpower he could muster.

The creature was hidden in that thick haze, invisible. But it didn’t matter.

‘I’ve made it.’

This was where he’d been sent flying and crashed down—mercifully, just before his target location.

Another stroke of luck: it wasn’t a dead end. The passage turned at a corner ahead.

Now there was only one choice to make.

Aion’s mind, frozen in calculation, ran through the possibilities.

Would the Salamander unleash a thermal blast like before, or charge forward in direct combat as it just had?

If heat came at him, he’d dodge, round the corner, and sprint at full speed to the next location.

But…

‘If it comes at me directly—!’

The instant the power of the Celestial Movement Art coalesced ominously at Aion’s fingertips,

Whooooom—!

The Salamander’s hulking frame, as massive as a building, tore through the black smoke and hurtled toward Aion as though flying.

“Kiiiiiyaaaa!!”

A full-body charge meant to crush Aion flat against the wall along with itself.

In that fraction of a second when death loomed before him, a cool smile spread across Aion’s bloodstained lips.

“…Got you.”

Ping, ping—!

The thick pipes running across the wall above where Aion had been standing shattered, torn apart by shards of metal moved by the power of the Celestial Movement Art.

Pipes unlike those along his escape route—unique ones that began here and stretched out ahead.

From within that pipe came a cool, blue radiance.

In a moment that seemed to freeze time itself, Aion heard Mado’s voice—confident and certain—echo through his mind from moments before.

【Mado: If what you saw is real, there should be a pipe leading to the Ultra-low Temperature Containment Chamber.】

The blue pipe connected to the Ultra-low Temperature Containment Chamber where they’d fallen earlier.

【Mado: It’s probably transporting liquefied Glacidium—the metal that freezes on contact. If it’s that, you can subdue him.】

―
…Glacidium?

【Mado: It’s the primary refrigerant used in this era. If you deploy that, you’ll have him.】

‘…Now!’

The instant Salamander opened its maw to crush Aion, Aion’s Celestial Movement Art twisted and tore open the seams of the blue pipe with perfect precision.

Fwoooooooooosh—!!!

Glacidium, compressed to an extreme within the pipe, cascaded down like a waterfall—directly toward Salamander’s face, carrying all the momentum of its charge.

“Screeeeeeeee!!!”

Thousands of degrees of superheated flame collided head-on with bone-chilling cold. Two extremes that could never mix slammed together.

Crackle-crackle-crackle—!!!

White steam erupted, violent heat shockwaves shaking the entire corridor.

Whoooooosh—!

‘Did it work?’

Aion staggered, his eyes straining to pierce through the thick clouds of vapor. But the mist obscured everything beyond.

Then it happened.

Splooooort—!

Through the steam, Salamander’s maw erupted with a scalding, viscous digestive fluid—thick as tar, searing red.

It sprayed toward the shattered pipe assembly. The moment those thousands-of-degrees sticky fluids touched the piping that had been releasing Glacidium—

Hissssss—!

Crack!

The digestive fluid cooled in an instant, hardening grotesquely like adhesive, becoming harder than steel in seconds—a perfect plug that sealed off the cascade of Glacidium completely.

‘Damn it!’

The creature still lived.
He couldn’t see how intact it was through the steam, but clearly it retained enough strength to resist.

He’d succeeded in cutting off its mobility, but his plan to strangle its lifeline had suffered a serious setback.

The real problem was that Kael couldn’t know any of this.

Before the battle began, Aion and Kael had discussed their strategy.

―
I’ll burst the pipe and freeze the whole thing solid with Glacidium.
―
Then I just need to finish it off while it’s helpless. That’s the plan, yeah?

Kael had answered Aion’s proposal with an arrogant laugh.

―Very well. I shall simply wait for that moment to deliver the final flourish.

“Die, you bastard lizard!!!”

Through the thick mist, a figure plummeted down onto the Salamander’s head. It was Kael.

“No! Kael!!”

Aion cried out urgently, but it was too late.
Against the plan, the creature still had fight in it, and from where Aion stood, visibility was zero—precise instructions impossible.

Kael descended from the air, his right hand wrapped in dense, heavy steel energy.

Metallic Stomp.

An enormous mass of concentrated iron plummeted downward, aimed straight at the Salamander’s skull.

But then—

Shriiiick—!

The Salamander twisted the unfrozen half of its musculature into a grotesque form, coiling its body like a serpent to slip past the blow by the narrowest margin.

Kraaaaaaash—!!

Kael’s Metallic Stomp pulverized the iron pipes beneath instead, crashing down without mercy. The impact shattered the floor, carving out a massive crater, but failed to land a proper blow on the Salamander.

“Damn it…!”

As Kael landed and jerked his head up in panic, the Salamander had already twisted its neck, looming over him.

Inside its maw, a brilliant crimson heat bloomed. The distance—barely a few meters. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. A death trap.

“…Yeah, there’s no way this goes according to plan.”

Despair flickered across Kael’s eyes.

Death.

At that very instant.

Crash—!

“Ugh!”

An invisible, immense hand seized Kael roughly by the scruff and yanked him backward with tremendous force.

It was Aion’s Celestial Movement Art.

It was purely instinctive action.

The steam made it impossible to gauge each other’s exact situation, but Aion pulled Kael toward him based on nothing more than a dark premonition that he was in danger.

In the same motion, he used the recoil to dash forward at full speed toward Salamander.

Whoooosh—!

In the instant Kael was yanked backward and Aion surged toward the beast, their paths crossed.

Kael’s eyes widened in desperation, trying by any means to warn Aion of the danger.
But Aion’s gaze never wavered toward him—not for an instant.
His eyes pierced straight through the steam, locked only on Salamander’s gaping maw.

As though he harbored not the slightest doubt that he might die.

‘Why…’

Aion’s words surfaced in Kael’s mind like buoys that would not sink.

―
Whether I’m present or absent. Whether skilled or clumsy.

He was moving now exactly as he’d said he would.

― There are things that must be done regardless of such concerns.

‘…That mad bastard!’

Kael’s eyes, still rebounding backward, began to burn with brilliant light.

What he could do.

That blue substance covering half of Salamander—yes, whether it was compressed coolant or whatever else, Glacidium was ultimately nothing but metal once exposed to air.

Metallo Distortion.

Kael’s hands twisted grotesquely toward the Glacidium coating Salamander’s face.

“Urrrgh!”

Screeeeeech—!

The liquefied Glacidium hardened on Salamander’s face was violently contorted by Kael’s magic, wrenching the beast’s head to the side.

Craaaash—!

Whoooosh…!

‘No—I hadn’t forgotten.’

Aion’s eyes flashed cold. The arc of his Meltdown traced past the Salamander’s jaw, then twisted downward in an unnatural curve.

Whoooosh—

His true target wasn’t the Salamander at all, but the narrow, deep crater that Kael’s Metallic Stomp had carved just moments before.

CRAAAAAAASH—!!!

Aion’s fist struck the ground. The heat of the Meltdown, pushed past its threshold, detonated within the deep pit and liquefied the surrounding terrain in an instant.

SHHHHRIEEEEEK—!!!

It was a calculated blow.

The crater’s floor sat directly above the ceiling of the Ultra-low Temperature Containment Chamber. Aion had confirmed its thickness the moment he ascended to this level.

Crack-crack-crack-crackle…!!

Vast amounts of pipe debris collapsed inward, and the Ultra-low Temperature Containment Chamber revealed itself once more.

Torrential cold unleashed all at once collided with the heat born from Meltdown, and the explosion tore up through the narrow fissure.

“Hack—!!”

Caught in the overwhelming shockwave that erupted vertically, Aion’s body was hurled upward and slammed violently against the corridor’s ceiling.

“KEEEEEE-SHRIEEEEEK—!!”

The Salamander, which had taken the full force of that explosion directly beneath its chin, had no chance to struggle. It was driven downward.

Whoosh…

Crackling…

Flames that had burned thousands of degrees froze solid and extinguished, and its massive form crashed hideously onto the lower landing.

Rumble—!

The railing, unable to withstand the impact of the fall, crumbled along with the Salamander, and it plunged headfirst into an abyss from which there seemed no bottom.

Slip…

Aion’s body, too, struck by the ceiling, could not overcome gravity and began to fall through the hole that had opened beneath him.

Pain dulled his senses.

In that instant, Kael couldn’t bear the weight of them both. He slid backward toward the precipice.

Crack!

Kael urgently covered his feet in metal, locking himself by force against the jagged lip of the collapsing passage.

Aion hung suspended in the void.
Through throbbing pain that felt like his head would split, Aion gazed up at Kael with hazy eyes, feeling the grip around his wrist.

Thick beads of sweat rolled down Kael’s forehead as well. Breathing hard, teeth clenched, he looked down at Aion and spoke.

“…You.”

His voice trembled, barely perceptible.

“That day, in front of the Small Auditorium… you saw me, didn’t you?”
“…….”

Silence.

Aion’s life, suspended in the air, hung entirely in Kael’s grip.
If Kael let go now, Aion would plummet into the abyss with the Salamander, leaving nothing behind to bury.

Yet Aion did not lie.

“…Yeah. About that… yes.”

Kael’s grip tightened.

“Then… why didn’t you tell Raven the truth?”

Kael’s eyes wavered.

“Did you cover for me?”

If he said yes, would the bastard feel grateful and pull him up?

Aion twisted his bloodied lips upward and let out a bitter laugh.

“Your terrified face, staring at nothing but my mouth… it looked too stupid to pass up.”
“…….”

At Aion’s answer, Kael said nothing.
Only their ragged breathing and the cruel wind howling from below filled the passage with a heavy, oppressive sound.

Whoooooosh…

A moment of silence.
Aion had already steeled himself for death.

Then it happened.

“Agh….”

Kael’s shoulders shook.

“Agh-agh-agh… ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

As though in disbelief, Kael burst into laughter like a man possessed, and with Aion’s wrist still clasped in his grip, he wrung out every last ounce of strength he had left.

“You know what? You’re seriously the most unlucky bastard I’ve ever met.”

Whoooosh—!

Kael pulled every last ounce of strength from deep within, wrenching Aion’s body up and out of the open air.

“Ugh….”

Thud—

The two of them crashed onto the corridor floor with brutal force, collapsing in a heap without so much as a glance at who hit first, both gasping for ragged breath.

“Haa… hahaha….”
“We’re alive. Damn… that’s impossible….”

Kael’s muttering continued.

“This is really… completely insane.”

Through Aion’s pain-hazed vision, a familiar and crystalline notification window materialized.

Ding—!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[!] Quest completed.
[!] You have escaped the Crossroads of Fate.
[!] Rewards are calculated based on all choices and outcomes.
[!] Rewards include the Extreme Point of the Water Element technique.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A Water Element technique included in the quest reward.

If he’d possessed this technique when facing Salamander… he wouldn’t be lying here in this wretched state.

Aion grumbled to himself, careful that Kael wouldn’t hear.

“Not even making this up….”

And so, Aion had obtained his second Extreme Point technique.

The Talentless Mage Swallows a Catastrophic Future – Chapter 39

Author
Wang Mozhi
Publisher
Daon Creative
Planning / Editing / Production
Yeon
Cover
Dali

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260706063.0039

ⓒ2026, Wang Mozhi

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