The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 50

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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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50
Chapter 50. The Fortress of Distortion
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The landscape flashing past the window was utterly ordinary.
The Old Urban Residential District, nestled in the heart of G City, lay drowsy in the afternoon of a weekday.
Between low-rise red-brick villas, the hiss of steam from a worn laundry drifted out, while tangled power lines strung from pole to pole divided the sky like a spider’s web.
All I could smell was the muted aroma of miso soup wafting from someone’s kitchen and the stale mustiness of dust.
A hundred meters away, the sharp cries of children echoed from an elementary school playground.
A solid veil called everyday life draped the entire city.
“It was hidden here?”
A cold laugh slipped unbidden past my lips.
I’d expected an abandoned factory far from the city center, or some desolate hillside unmarked on any map. My anticipations now seemed absurdly naive.
The blinking red dot on the crudely modified Mana Detection Device pointed with precision at the dense residential heart where people slept each night and woke to ordinary mornings.
“This is… astounding. Even seeing it with my own eyes, I find it difficult to believe.”
Kim Dae-han descended from the driver’s seat, his expression darkening as he surveyed the surroundings. He loosened his necktie roughly and swallowed hard.
“This district is among the highest population-density zones in the entire city. If the containment were to fail here, there wouldn’t be time to evacuate. Tens of thousands would become prey to the Gate without ever understanding why.”
Instead of answering, I checked the device’s readings again. They’d reached critical threshold. Yet the surrounding air felt not merely quiet, but profoundly silent.
It was evidence that the alien mana flux had been thoroughly suppressed.
“It’s here.”
I cut off Kim Dae-han’s words and moved forward. The device pointed to an old four-story commercial building.
The first floor housed an antiquated print shop; the second and third appeared vacant, their windows caked with dust.
I climbed the external emergency stairs along the building’s side to avoid drawing attention, moving swiftly toward the roof.
An iron door creaked open, and the roof that lay exposed was utterly ordinary.
Abandoned air conditioning units hummed and belched heat; broken flowerpots and corroded junk crunched underfoot. Yet I could see it.
At a specific point in empty space, the air was refracting microscopically.
Like heat shimmer rising from scorching asphalt, space itself was twisted into something grotesquely warped.
Kim Dae-han cautiously extended his hand toward that specific point in empty space.
“——!”
His fingertips halted mid-air. As if struck by an invisible, rigid pane of glass, something unseen rejected his advance and repelled him.
I grasped the hilt of the Dragon Head Sword at my hip. I drew up every last drop of Aura pooled in my Dantian and channeled it into the blade.
I found the seam in the invisible veil—the most vulnerable point where the magical structures overlapped. Without hesitation, I traced a Clean Cut, all artifice stripped away.
Shing!
A piercing shriek, as if enormous reinforced glass were shattering all at once, tore across the rooftop.
The Perception Blocking Barrier shrouding empty space shattered into geometric fragments and scattered.
As the barrier’s fragments evaporated into the air, hidden truth revealed itself.
A vast, churning vortex of blue that seemed to swallow the shabby rooftop landscape around it.
Growing a deeper black toward its center, the vortex resembled the gaping maw of a ravenous beast. Unmistakably, it was the mouth of a Gate.
The reason such a colossal time bomb could be concealed here in the heart of the city was abundantly clear.
High-level barrier magic had been layered upon itself—both to physically block the system’s warning and to seal the mana wavelengths radiating outward.
“I’m going in first.”
Without looking back, I pushed off the ground and hurled myself into the blue vortex.
My vision flashed white for an instant. An unpleasant sensation of weightlessness, as though gravity itself were inverted, swept across my entire body.
The city’s noise that had beaten at my ears and the hum of the air conditioning units were severed in an instant, cut off completely.
“——.”
What met my feet was not hard cement but rough stone.
The moment I entered the Gate Interior, I felt air that was cool and damp, piercing my chest. A strange mixture of forest scent and the reek of rotting moss.
Standing in place, I keenly traced the mana wavelengths rippling through the surroundings. This heavy, pressing weight upon my skin—roughly a C-rank Gate.
Yet I detected an artificial mana flow unlike that of an ordinary Gate.
Slowly, I lifted my gaze to take in the landscape spreading before me.
Beneath a hazy ash-gray sky, a scene lay sprawled as though an entire medieval European village had been bodily uprooted and transplanted.
Cobbled streets, dozens of houses constructed from timber and red brick, and at their center, a broad circular Central Plaza.
At first glance, it appeared to be a peaceful town.
I walked slowly along the cobbled street. Yet before I’d gone even a dozen steps, a strange unease began creeping up my spine.
Wrongness.
Not from anything grotesque or sinister. Quite the opposite. This town was ordered with sickening, absolute perfection.
The spacing of the houses lining the street was uniform down to the millimeter, as though measured with a ruler.
Even the size and arrangement of the cobblestones underfoot formed patterns so flawless they seemed copied and pasted.
Not a single broken tile, not one scattered handful of dirt was visible. The strange trees planted as street greenery all extended their branches at identical angles.
It was far too intricate to be the result of a naturally occurring Dimensional Collision.
The sensation of stepping into a diorama model meticulously constructed according to some vast blueprint, shaped by design rather than chance.
This was no natural chaos born from the collision of dimensional boundaries. It was a massive cage, deliberately constructed.
As I ventured deeper into the village, a towering warehouse building appeared, opening onto a vast plaza.
And before it, the true purpose of this grotesque fortress came into view.
Thud, thud.
Dozens of monsters moved in a single file, their motions mechanical and relentless.
“Keee-eek! Keee-eek!”
Their forms were grotesque—a disturbing blend of canine and reptile. Their bodies were stunted, not reaching even the waist of an adult man.
‘Cobolds.’
The lowest-tier monsters of the otherworld. They hauled enormous baskets filled to the brim with chunks of Magic Stone Ore, each load heavier than their own bodies. With backs bent and gasping for breath, they dragged the baskets ceaselessly into the warehouse.
The cold brilliance of Magic Stones cascading from the baskets struck the cobblestone floor, scattering blue light in all directions.
Had this fortune been released onto the market, it would have fetched tens of billions of won.
‘Monsters for extermination?’
My hand was already moving toward the hilt of the Dragon Head Sword when I caught myself, tension draining from my fingers. Something was fundamentally wrong with their behavior.
The Cobolds I knew were nothing like this.
They were a cowardly, scattered breed—at the sight of gleaming ore, they’d snap at one another and slobber mindlessly, scattering in panic at the slightest disturbance.
Even in groups, discipline was entirely absent from their nature.
Yet these Cobolds didn’t even turn their heads, despite my closing to within mere dozens of meters as an obvious intruder.
Their eyes were dead, pupils utterly unfocused.
The soles of their feet were raw and bleeding from dragging the heavy baskets, black blood marking the ground in droplets, yet they felt nothing—mechanical automata, shuffling forward without pain or complaint.
I focused my vision, magnifying the back of their necks.
Each Cobold’s slender nape was wrapped layer upon layer in thick chains of spell-work, pulsing with blue light.
It was not physical restraint that bit into flesh. This was something far more terrible—a binding that crushed brainwaves and forcibly castrated instinct itself.
The flow of Mana directly suppressed their neural centers, erasing their sense of self.
A vicious brainwashing designed to efficiently harvest Magic Stones by completely pulverizing the minds of living beings.
I had never been sentimental enough to pity a monster.
Yet this precise, clockwork spectacle—oppressing the very essence of life, wringing Mana by force—was no pleasing sight to the eyes of a mage who sought understanding. It was abhorrent.
It was a desecration of nature, the ugliest possible application of magic as a tool.
Crack—!
“Keee-eek!”
Then, a sharp whistling sound tore through the silence, emanating from beyond the plaza.
“Move faster, you useless beasts! If you don’t meet quota, I’ll burn you all to ash!!”
With the sound of splitting flesh came the voice—hysterical, shrill, and unmistakably human—cutting through the empty village air.
My eyes cooled to a glacial calm. I turned toward the source of that whip crack and advanced toward the center of the plaza, my footfalls silent against the stones.
Or rather, I announced my presence boldly.
At the center of the plaza stood a colossal furnace.
Before it, a single human figure swathed in a deep black robe wielded a Leather Whip, its tip coalesced with blue Mana, striking the Cobolds mercilessly into compliance.
Each time the whip cracked across a Cobold’s back, flesh split and black blood sprayed, yet the brainwashed creatures barely shrieked, dragging their baskets onward.
From the robed man’s fingertips, thin filaments of Mana extended and connected grotesquely to the blue chains encircling the Cobolds’ necks, pulsing with an eerie luminescence.
It was a scene disturbingly reminiscent of Puppet Mastery.
I walked into the center of the plaza, my heeled shoes striking the wet cobblestones with distinct, measured taps.
The robed man’s whip faltered. He turned his head sharply at the unfamiliar sound, his irritation plain.
The moment his eyes—revealed beneath his hood—met mine, they widened in sheer shock.
“…What—what is this!”
This hidden fortress that should never have been discovered.
An unknown intruder had walked brazenly into its heart, and the man’s thought processes seized entirely—a natural response.
“How did a human get here… What about the outer Barriers? How did the alarms not trigger!!”
Rather than answer, I drew the Dragon Head Sword and advanced slowly, letting its tip trail diagonally downward.
With each step I took, a cold killing intent swept across the ground, licking at his feet.
The man sensed the threat. His hands shot upward in desperation.
A massive magical circle, burning crimson, began spinning frantically from his fingertips. Geometric patterns twisted through the air, drawing together an alien Mana.
“Kill it! Tear that intruder to pieces at once!!”
Thud-thud-thud—!
The ground trembled with crushing weight. Space before the man warped and split, tearing open a black portal.
From it emerged, reeking of acrid blood, a colossal figure—three meters tall, a mass of corded muscle.
Its eyes blazed crimson with bloodlust. Tusks of a wild boar jutted grotesquely from its mouth. In one massive hand it gripped a Steel Club the size of a man’s torso—a destroyer from the otherworld.
[Successor, that is an Elite Ogre!]
Airi’s voice rang from the shadows.
“I can see that.”
My gaze was already mapping the creature’s joints and vital points, analyzing its anatomy for the kill.
“Grooooaaaarrrr—!!”
The summoned Elite Ogre roared savagely at me, shaking the earth beneath its feet. The sheer pressure it radiated was heavy enough to dominate the entire Central Plaza.
The Robed Man, concealed behind that massive musculature, wore a contemptible smile as he rapidly began twisting the space behind his back.
Whoosh—
He’d used Blink, a short-range spatial teleportation spell. He meant to entrust his summon with dealing with me while he made his escape to call for reinforcements.
“A summoner versed in spatial magic.”
The fact that a sorcerer of this caliber held a position merely watching a Gate suggested something about the organization’s true scale.
The moment I turned my gaze to track his jump point, a massive shadow blanketed the crown of my head.
Boom—!
The Elite Ogre leapt high into the air. Hundreds of kilograms of steel club, pulled by centrifugal force, plummeted toward my skull with all its might.
A bone-chilling sound of air being rent shrieked through the air, nearly deafening me. This was the fatal impact of a mass that would pulverize bone and flesh alike if I did not evade—nothing would remain intact.
Yet I neither raised my sword to defend nor twisted my body to dodge.
I simply watched the creature’s crude club as it fell toward my head, my lips parting ever so slightly.
“Airi.”
[Yes, Successor!]
The moment the command left my lips, my shadow exploded outward in violent expansion.
Kaaaaang—!!!
An overwhelming metallic crack, as though a shell had collided head-on, slammed across the Central Plaza.
In the wake of the collision, hundreds of cobblestones beneath were sent flying in all directions, shattering the walls of surrounding buildings. Thick dust clouds obscured my vision.
“Wh-wha—?!”
The Ogre, shocked that its blow had been completely blocked, let out an eerie groan and staggered backward under its own massive weight.
Its two arms trembled pathetically from the impact.
As the dust slowly cleared, an overwhelming form materialized before me, standing in perfect defense.
Sleek, silvery-gleaming metal armor, smooth and aerodynamic.
The surface of the creature that had caught hundreds of kilograms of steel club with a single left arm, without yielding even an inch, bore not a single scratch.
Rather, the Ogre’s crude steel club, struck with the full force of its own impact reflected back upon it, split with a sharp crack and scattered shards across the ground.
A mirror-bright silver barrier. The same entity that had once brought despair to countless test-takers at the Hunter Examination Hall.
An incarnation of absolute defense, reflecting all physical blows and magical attacks back with power equal to or greater than the original.
‘The Mirror Golem.’
Not just any Mirror Golem. A specialized specimen customized by Choi Seon-a, the examiner who had been a summoner, who grafted her own Mana structure into it.
I had Synced with it right after the extermination, never imagining it would be deployed here.
Against the Mirror Golem’s silver armor, the ash-gray sky reflected coldly.
“Handle it. Don’t hold back.”
[I will serve with all my might, Successor!]
There was something almost excited in Airi’s voice.
Whether she enjoyed combat, or was simply thrilled to prove her usefulness to me, I couldn’t say—but it was not an ill sign.
I left the stunned Ogre to become the Mirror Golem’s prey, while I injected a heavy Aura into my lower body’s muscle fibers.
The muscles swelled and my nerves became acutely sensitized.
Spatial teleportation magic always leaves residual traces of Mana before and after the leap. I would not miss that trail.
Bang—!
The acceleration of Dash exploded outward, cutting through the air like an unseen arrow.
I tracked the Robed Man’s Mana wavelength with keen precision as he fled through his Blink, launching myself without hesitation toward the building where he had vanished.
The cold sensation of a blade’s edge was already pointing at the nape of his neck.

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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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