Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 125

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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 125
Liriope’s perception wavered for an instant, and doubt seized her.
Could her mind already be corrupted, conjuring up something impossible?
Shadows cannot speak—she had made that declaration to Caliona with absolute certainty, convinced all sound was merely an auditory hallucination born of corruption. Yet the voice she had just heard felt different from the typical side effects of taint.
[No, I heard it too with my own ears—this is no illusion! And look at this.]
[55,120/84,678]
The Mana reserves Od displayed for the shadow.
It bore vast reserves of Mana—far too much for a creature of corruption, possessing instead the depth one would expect from a human mage of considerable discipline.
Swoosh!
“Aah!”
In the moment Liriope froze from the shock, the shadow stretched out its arm and pulled her close.
Almost simultaneously, slender thorn-like projections erupted from the shadow’s forearm, which rippled like melting tar. They surged toward Liriope and Caliona without hesitation.
Caliona’s instinctive reflexes flared to life. She wove Body Enhancement and Speed Magic through her legs—techniques Cassel had mastered—and leapt away with practiced swiftness.
Then she vaulted over the Banquet Hall’s railing and began her flight from the shadow.
“Wait—hold on! We have to capture that shadow!”
“What?”
Liriope cried out urgently to Caliona, who was carrying her in her frantic sprint.
That shadow cannot escape. A monster bearing the traces of magic on its body, speaking in human voice.
Instinct whispered that she must seize it now, uncover its truth.
Caliona’s eyes widened with disbelief at Liriope’s words from behind her.
“That’s suicide! How are we supposed to fight something like that?”
“It’s possible! There’s only one shadow, and it has no intention of killing us outright!”
The shadow made no move to chase after the fleeing prey. It clearly regarded them as rats trapped in a jar.
“Still—”
“We can manage. We were supposed to have ascended beyond the fiftieth floor by now anyway!”
Caliona faltered at Liriope’s firm rebuttal.
“I know you were worried about me and deliberately delayed us staying in the forties. It wasn’t that we lacked the ability to progress. So if we join forces, we can do this!”
Moreover, as Liriope had observed, the Dimensional Space was connected to the shadow.
Even if they could not kill or capture the shadow entirely, dealing enough damage would shatter its magic and free them from this place.
Tension had already soaked the back of Caliona’s neck with cold sweat.
As her unsettled heart was laid bare by the encounter, Caliona’s Purification Magic released a torrent of Mana far more potent than necessary.
She uttered a conflicted moan that seemed to boil up from her gut. Then, finally, she turned back and began running as Liriope had urged.
“Over here, you monster!”
Moments later, the shadow sensed the killing intent infusing her Mana and swept its arm sideways.
Boom!
Caliona’s magic collided with the shadow’s form, detonating with tremendous force.
Black thorns pierced through the turbulent ripple of Mana and drove downward in an instant. But they struck not Caliona’s body—they burrowed into the floor instead.
In that same moment, as if the first attack had been a trap, a Mana Snare wove itself up along the thorns and bound the shadow’s arm.
The shadow lurched forward, momentarily thrown off balance by the powerful pull.
The Mana Snare’s form was simple, yet its power was formidable.
Caliona gritted her teeth and channeled Purification Magic through the snare.
-…!
The shadow convulsed violently for the first time.
Shadows corrupt everything they touch into blackness.
High-Tier Shadows especially—their very breath corrodes all life in an instant, draining vitality wherever they pass.
Black, viscous liquid began streaming from Caliona’s eyes once more.
Such a shadow could only be encountered in the Defiled Holy Ground during the Flooding Period, so even the mages above the fiftieth floor struggled to acclimate to such potent venom.
For Caliona, except in early childhood, this was her first genuine confrontation with a shadow.
The shadow shrieked something contemptuous, but Caliona did not hear it.
As Liriope had said, it was all just noise in her skull. Sharp sounds clawed through her mind as if her brain would burst, yet still she persevered, using all her will to keep the shadow pinned before her for even one more second.
Whooooom!
It was then that she sensed a tremendous surge of Mana that could not be ignored.
The shadow suddenly raised its head.
In that moment, magic descended silently as a soundless typhoon, spreading brilliant light across the shadow’s form.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Five layered Magic Circles released enormous Black Stakes that fell to encircle the shadow.
The Stakes, which produced effects identical to the guardian stones of the Defiled Holy Ground, immediately began to absorb the shadow’s venom.
-Ngggh, ahhh…!
Hundreds of bloodshot eyes bulged outward as if they would burst from its form.
Unprepared for such a turn, the shadow released a shriek that seemed to tear eardrums asunder.
As the black monstrosity thrashed to break free, it splattered black ichor across the floor, deepening the corruption around it. The venom it exhaled was so thick breathing became nearly impossible.
Yet the shadow did not yield easily.
A tense tug-of-war unfolded between Liriope, Caliona, and the shadow.
Rumble!
And gradually, the space surrounding them began to tremble. Impossible as it seemed, it was proof positive that shadow and Dimensional Space were bound together.
Then abruptly, the shadow’s hundreds of eyes snapped open savagely.
In the next instant, a bizarre Magic Circle began to unfold from the corruption-blackened floor.
Liriope gasped in shock as she watched the shadow weave magic before her very eyes.
“Gasp!”
And when the dim, black Mana swept over them, the woman who had fallen and been left behind by the shadow began to writhe in agony and scream. Caliona too released a cry of pain.
“Sister!”
For reasons she could not fathom, only Liriope remained unaffected.
[Liriope! Another shadow is coming!]
As if misfortune had redoubled, the advantage they had barely seized began to slip away.
A sinister presence approached rapidly, and she felt it closing in.
There was not merely one shadow in the Dimensional Space.
Moreover, this approaching shadow radiated an aura far more massive and virulent than the one before them.
The moment it revealed itself in her sight, white lightning erupted through Liriope’s mind. Her Core’s Mana convulsed violently. As if she had tumbled into the belly of a living, writhing beast, the air shuddered, the earth shuddered, the world itself shuddered.
Liriope felt her mind being corrupted and gasped sharply, drawing breath in desperation.
The second shadow wielded its Mana with practiced ease. In the moment Liriope’s magic wavered, it drove its attack through the gap with surgical precision.
Crash!
The Black Stakes encircling the first shadow shattered and scattered.
Boom!
In that instant, Liriope triggered the Magic Circle she had prepared in advance as a contingency.
The flow of air froze instantaneously.
The vivid world drained into monochrome.
All except Liriope were suspended in that arrested time like insects in amber.
Tick, tick.
Only the Pocket Watch in her pocket sang its silent song to the stillness.
Within that frozen moment, she read the second shadow’s Mana.
A realm beyond Liriope’s current comprehension.
She analyzed the Magic Circle the first shadow had invoked.
Cannot be decoded.
Cannot be broken.
Defense uncertain.
A secondary strategy was required.
Calculating the magic’s range.
Searching for a flaw in the weakened Dimensional Space.
And then, mercifully close, she felt a welcome Mana signature.
Liriope immediately traced a new Magic Circle.
And so, when the frozen world resumed its pulse, Spatial Transfer Magic activated around Liriope and Caliona.
In the final instant, Liriope’s gaze met that of the second shadow, which radiated overwhelming presence.
But the magic’s activation was faster than the black monsters’ pursuit.
Liriope shifted in an instant through the fissure in the Dimensional Space and seized with all her strength the familiar Mana signature that had been signaling to her all along.
And in the next moment, she tore through the Dimensional Space and escaped into the world beyond.

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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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