The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 12

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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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12
Chapter 12. The Mirror That Reflects Despair
***
I dropped my gaze downward.
I concentrated my awareness on the soles of my feet.
The contraction and release of muscle fibers—I forced Aura through those minute gaps.
Squeeze—
The ground compressed like rubber putty beneath me.
The moment the condensed force crossed its threshold.
Pop—!
My body shot through the air as though launched by a spring.
A sound that threatened to split my eardrums.
Nothing like the Teleport I’d used as casually as eating before the Regression.
The air screamed as it wrapped around me.
This wasn’t mere running.
It was closer to low-altitude flight, pushing hard off the ground.
‘Blazingly fast.’
Trees streamed past like rain.
The landscape blurred at the speed.
Yet my vision remained crystal clear.
My Dynamic Vision kept perfect pace with my body’s velocity.
The vibration traveling through my knees and lower back was minimal.
The recoil that once felt like my bones would shatter at Level 1 now registered only as a pleasant hum.
A Level 10 body, augmented by a Rare Grade Artifact.
Like a well-oiled gear, everything meshed and turned in flawless rhythm.
‘This will do.’
A faint smile spread across my lips.
The textbook approach to Gate conquest.
Time to show what that meant.
Crash! Crash!
Dull explosions erupted in succession ahead.
The smell of gunpowder and acrid smoke choked the forest.
I didn’t slow my pace—I leapt.
I kicked a tree trunk with a foot wrapped in Aura.
Rising above the canopy with the nimbleness of a thief, I secured a vantage point.
The scene below was chaos.
‘A trap zone.’
Crude pits and tripwires—the sort goblins might lay—blanketed the ground.
Yet their force was anything but crude.
Mana-sensitive mines.
Step on one and your foot is gone.
‘They fell for it.’
Several members of the advance party who’d rushed ahead were flailing in the pits.
A tuition fee for the impatient.
I vaulted across the trap zone using branches as stepping stones.
Crawling along the ground is for amateurs.
The real path runs overhead.
Kwooooom—!
A massive explosion thundered from the left side of the forest.
These weren’t simple mines. Chain reactions.
I turned my head, and an almost unbelievable sight unfolded.
“Trust only me and follow! Stop and you’re done for!”
A green training suit.
It was Lee Seong-chan.
With two Shields held in both hands like a bulldozer blade, he was charging straight through the trap zone.
Boom! Crash!
Shrapnel flew and flames erupted, but he didn’t stop.
A blue hexagonal barrier of energy had formed across his Shield’s surface.
‘Holy Shield?’
A signature Skill of the Paladin class.
It’s a technique that coats the Shield with Aura to maximize defensive coverage and durability.
Usually it’s deployed when you’re standing your ground in defense.
The stamina drain is brutal otherwise.
But that man is maintaining it constantly while sprinting at full force.
‘That’s insane.’
His body had to be screaming, yet the effect was undeniable.
Thanks to him carving a path, the Hunters from Team C behind him were passing through the trap zone without a scratch.
“Ugh! Hyaaaa!”
Lee Seong-chan’s face had turned crimson with effort.
Less a technique than brute physical force—a crude, direct breakthrough.
But sometimes that crudeness becomes the answer itself.
A willingness to become a bulldozer for your comrades. True self-sacrifice.
‘Interesting person.’
I leaped over the trees and overtook them.
Lee Seong-chan’s method was novel enough, but it wasn’t mine.
***
We’d been running for about ten minutes.
At the point where the trap zone ended, the forest’s air shifted.
The metallic reek of blood. And the clinging stench of terror.
“Kyaaaah!”
“Back! I’m telling you to go back!”
“What is that thing—what is it?!”
“Don’t push! We’re falling!”
Anguished screams pierced my eardrums.
These weren’t cries of mere surprise.
They were the voices of people watching death walk toward them.
Boom… boom…!
The ground trembled.
Something massive was advancing.
I stopped on a branch and looked down.
The Clearing where the forest ended.
The survivors of Teams A and B, who had arrived first, were clustered together in retreat.
Their eyes were fixed on one point.
From the forest’s shadow, an overwhelming white form was emerging.
Zing—
The light was blinding.
Despite the overcast sky, its body was absorbing all surrounding light and reflecting it back.
It was like watching a cliff of mirrors walk toward us.
Five meters tall.
A sleek, streamlined armor polished to perfection.
An unknown metal, carved flawlessly without a single seam.
With each step it took, the earth caved inward.
“…Hell.”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Before the Regression, this was the creature that had become infamous in the Hunter exams.
The Newbie Cutter—the thing that could wipe out even D-Grade or C-Grade Hunter parties.
A Mirror Golem.
Unleashing such a monstrosity on freshly awakened rookies.
It made me wonder if they had any intention of selecting Hunters at all in this exam.
An Artificial Lifeform equivalent to 3 Circles.
It required the collaboration of at least two 4-Circle or higher Alchemists and Summoners to create.
That’s what a Mirror Golem is.
Its nature is unmistakable.
True to its name—a ‘mirror.’
Without knowing how to counter it, you can never defeat it.
The problem is that those down there don’t even know its name.
“No, damn it! What are you doing?!”
The blonde-haired mage who’d been mouthing off at Lee Seong-chan earlier screamed out.
Bravado to overcome fear.
From his hand, a 2-Circle spell—Fireball—flew forth.
‘I’m going to die.’
I clicked my tongue. The Fireball struck the golem’s chest.
Or rather, it appeared to strike.
Whoosh.
There was no explosion.
The moment the Fireball made contact, the golem’s surface rippled like water.
The flames didn’t detonate.
Instead, they were drawn inward.
As if swallowed into a mirror.
Soon the golem’s white gauntlets began to glow red.
It seemed to be slowly churning the heat it had just consumed from within.
“What…?”
The yellow-haired warrior’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Why isn’t the magic… why isn’t it working?”
A brief window of confusion opened.
In that instant, the swordsman with the Greatsword lunged forward.
“Move!”
He gritted his teeth and shouted.
“If magic won’t work, we’ll tear it apart with steel!”
The warrior threw himself off the ground.
The Greatsword gripped in both hands rose above his head.
Then he brought it down hard toward the golem’s shoulder.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Screech—!
It was like a Flash detonating.
A blinding light tore from the golem’s surface.
The Flash technique—absorbing the absorbed magical power and converting it into light energy to release.
“Argh! My eyes!”
The warrior screamed, covering his face.
Defenseless in mid-air, his vision stripped away.
The golem’s massive arm swatted him like a fly.
Thud!
A dull, sickening impact.
The warrior’s body flew like shredded paper, slamming into a gnarled tree trunk.
The crack of his spine carried all the way to me.
He’d probably survive—but whether he’d ever overcome the trauma was another question.
Chaos erupted in seconds.
The formation collapsed.
The Hunters, seized by terror, turned and bolted.
But the golem showed no mercy.
The armor plate on its chest swung open.
Condensed red Mana churned within.
The energy from the Fireball it had absorbed moments earlier.
A Counter—amplifying it and returning it.
“Grooooooo—”
With a mechanical roar.
Boom—!
A fan of red flame erupted outward.
A wave of searing light crashed down across the backs of the fleeing Hunters.
“It burns! I’m on fire!”
“Help! Somebody help!”
The screams tangled together.
It was impossible to tell who was calling for whom.
One person fell, another tumbled over them, and the flames seized every gap.
Fire. Light.
And a crumbling defense.
Team A and Team B were wiped out.
In just three minutes.
***
Acrid smoke hung thick in the air.
The smell of burning flesh and blood hung thick in the air.
Whoosh—
Red Signal Flares shot skyward.
Ten, no—more than twenty.
A surrender.
Drones that had been waiting on standby buzzed through the air to film the scene, and rescue personnel who had been hidden in the forest burst out to evacuate the wounded.
I watched it all from my perch in the tree, unmoved.
This was reality.
No one comes to save you inside a Gate.
You die by your own ignorance and arrogance.
That’s a Hunter’s end.
They were fortunate enough to face it in a test arena—at least their lives were spared.
Thump—thump—
The Mirror Golem stood motionless, as if its work was done.
A white giant with its head bowed, silent.
It was far more unsettling this way than in motion.
‘Time to make my move.’
I was drawing up my Aura and preparing to drop down when—
Crackle.
A sound from the forest behind me.
Ragged breathing. Heavy footfalls.
“Huff… what…? Kim Do-jin!”
It was Lee Seong-chan again.
He emerged through the trees with his Shield strapped on.
His entire body was caked in dirt and ash, but his eyes were alive.
A handful of survivors from Team C stumbled behind him.
“You got here already! That’s incredible.”
Lee Seong-chan caught his breath and gave a thumbs up.
He’d broken through that brutal trap field and led his team here without losing a single person.
No mere brute.
“Do-jin, what’s the situation? Can you fill us in?”
Lee Seong-chan gestured toward the Clearing.
I pointed with my hand at the carnage below.
“Complete annihilation. One of those things did it.”
“Wh… what is that.”
Lee Seong-chan’s face hardened.
His eyes darted between the fallen Hunters and the Mirror Golem looming among them.
Then he stroked his chin, lost in thought.
“A Golem-type. But it’s no ordinary one.”
Just then, one of Team C’s mages who had followed behind stepped forward with his Staff.
“Golems are weak to magic. I’ll draw its aggro.”
The exact same play as the yellow-haired mage from before.
Did they have no capacity to learn from what they’d seen?
I was about to stop him, but Lee Seong-chan was faster.
He gripped the mage’s shoulder firmly.
“Wait. Don’t.”
“What? Why? Its cooldown should be up—there’s an opening right now…”
“Look. The scorch marks on the ground. And that thing’s surface.”
Lee Seong-chan pointed his Shield at the Golem.
“Its surface is smooth. Magic could ricochet off it. That explosion we heard earlier—if you cast without thinking, you’ll get hit with a Counter. They wouldn’t put a simple Golem in a test like this.”
A precise read.
He’d intuited the danger on instinct.
No flashy knowledge, but his survival instincts were honed razor-sharp.
‘Good judgment.’
I nodded inwardly.
Most novice Hunters fixate on textbook matchups.
Fire is weak to water, Golems are weak to magic—that kind of one-dimensional thinking.
But real combat is full of variables.
The wisdom to tap a stone bridge before crossing it.
That’s what separates a Hunter who survives from one who doesn’t.
“So what do we do? Looking at it, I don’t think physical attacks will even work…”
The other Hunters murmured anxiously.
Their gazes naturally turned toward Lee Seong-chan.
Lee Seong-chan bit his lip, as if he too had run out of answers.
I understood. The Mirror Golem was still a new type of monster whose strategy hadn’t been cracked at this stage.
“What should we do?”
The female mage holding the Staff had her fingernails in her mouth.
Time was slipping away.
If this continued, our team would end up exceeding the time limit or wiped out.
We had to pass the test, so it was time to make a choice.
‘Should I just do it?’
It’d be nothing for me to step in and sweep it away myself. Ten seconds, tops.
But I hesitated.
Lee Seong-chan’s judgment wasn’t poor.
He had the mental strength to not crumble even in crisis, the sense of responsibility to look after his allies.
That kind of potential wasn’t common.
Before the Regression, humanity’s defeat hadn’t been because the Blade was weak.
It was because we lacked allies we could trust our backs to—comrades with whom to fight were desperately scarce.
And the Sword Saint, Kang Tae-yun, didn’t exist in this world.
War against the Demon God Dragon wasn’t a battle I’d fight alone.
These raw diamonds had to grow and pull their weight for there to be any chance of victory.
Which meant my role now wasn’t to be a bus driver, but a guide.
A senior’s meddling, and an investment in the future.
Give them a nudge in the right direction, and they’d break free of their shells on their own.
They hadn’t moved yet, after all.
I adjusted my grip on my sword and stepped forward in front of them.
“That thing is a mirror.”
All eyes focused on my voice.

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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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