Chapter 32

“Run, you idiots!!” were the last words to leave Eric’s mouth before the mage bolted.

Not everyone heeded his wise advice. The first ring of mages surrounding Yan, eager to avenge the fallen Mich, rushed to attack.

A dozen streams of fire tore toward the rogue at once, hot enough to melt even the stone slabs beneath his feet.

But they failed to leave so much as a scratch on their original target.

Viktor walked out of the flames as though they had never even touched him. And then a bouquet of black spikes erupted from the mages who had cast the spell at him, turning their bodies into bloody hedgehogs.

“We need to run. Come on, Lekh, Mekh!” Julius shouted to the adepts, pointing toward the exit. “That’s not our Yan anymore!”

“Sovt! Get the hell out of here!” Khad roared meanwhile, running up to the knight with a stunned Chadun already tucked under one arm, still unable to believe that all his jokes about Faraday had turned out to be true. “He’s way out of our league!” the gorilla shouted.

The Master of the Blue Paths decided to listen.

They ran. Ran with everything they had, while the guest hall behind them descended into absolute Hell.

“Art of Evil,” Viktor rasped, suddenly appearing right in front of another mage. “Breath of the Cursed Soul.”

Black-and-yellow lightning erupted around Yan’s arm. With one strike, he smashed through the first mage’s rib cage. Tore the legs off the second. The arms off the third. The heads off the fourth, the fifth, and another half-dozen after them.

Magic came flying at him again. Torrents of water, shards of earth, stalactites and stalagmites, blazing boulders.

And everyone who used those spells… blossomed.

With black buds of blood.

While Viktor tore the sorcerers around him to pieces, the rest of the company reunited in one of the corridors. And now they were all running outside together.

“What is happening?!” Sovt asked, trying to maintain his former composure, though his voice was trembling. “What the hell even is this?!”

“This hell is Yan Di Wonderwalk,” Khad replied, knocking every gawking mage out of his path. “We thought you knew what you were getting into when you hired him.”

“Me?! I had no idea! Someone told me to hire him in the first place!”

“Who?!” the Amressa brothers blurted out simultaneously.

“One of the Colored Witches! We ran into one completely by accident in one of the worlds where we were searching for Zolotoros, before we ever came looking for Yan!”

“Colored what?” Chadun asked from beneath the gorilla’s arm.

“A Colored Witch?” Julius asked fearfully. “What did she look like? Can you describe her?!”

At last, they made it out of the main hall and into the open air. They escaped at the very last moment, just before one of the building’s outer walls ceased to exist—and then the entire structure began to collapse.

“Gods of Concepts…” Sovt cursed. “What the hell is that now?”

Zaur Lime came tumbling out of the ruined building. His body slammed into the nearest fountain, bringing him to a stop, and he vomited blood.

The archmage tried to stand. Tried to use magic. But Yan was already standing over him.

“Art of Evil!” he exclaimed, grabbing the sorcerer by the scruff and staring directly into his eyes. “Trifasal Visage of Terror!”

Zaur Lime squealed like a pig. Outwardly, nothing was happening to him.

Nothing—no sudden wounds, no abrasions, no peeling skin or rotting bones.

He simply screamed like he was being cut open. His limbs began flailing from side to side like those of a scarecrow stuffed with straw.

And he screamed so loudly that everyone around him felt as though their eardrums were being torn apart.

No one knew what Zaur had seen in Yan’s eyes. But everyone could see the consequences.

The supreme earth mage went limp and died.

An agonizing death.

“Don’t stop!” Julius ordered. “We need to run! Preferably as far away from Aradeyn as possible!”

The group moved again.

“I’d settle for just getting out of Triverd!” Sovt snapped, looking around. “Wait, where’s Zolotoros?!” the knight cried in horror.

“Going back now would be suicide!” Julius replied.

“But we can’t leave him behind!” Sovt insisted, scarcely believing his own words. “Yan would never do that!”

“If we go back now, we definitely won’t be able to help him once we’re dead! If Zolot has even a shred of brains, he’ll manage!” Khad snapped. “Viktor Faraday always chooses mages as his first victims. But he can’t tell whether someone is a mage or not until they start casting magic.”

They turned left onto a winding road. They raced beneath the bright moonlit sky while screams and shrieks rang out around them and magic flashed through the night. Along the way, they passed little squares, lawns, and tall observation towers gleaming gold in the darkness.

And then one of those towers suddenly took some kind of invisible blow. Something crashed into it from above, and the tower rapidly began to collapse. A moment later, a veritable rain of stone came pouring down. And along with it came a mage named Sapphire Ivashtat.

“TORRENT OF THE WATER DRAGON OF THE BLUE DEPTHS!!!” the mage roared, pointing his staff somewhere overhead. A moment later, magic of monstrous power burst from his hand. Magic in the shape of an enormous water serpent—as large as the very tower now collapsing toward the ground.

The magic, shaped into the form of a monster, surged upward and crashed into a tiny black speck somewhere against the starry sky.

“Art of Evil…” Viktor hissed, a mad, bloodthirsty grin spreading across his face. “Black-Brown Flame.”

Before the water dragon, a portal into literal Hell opened wide. And black-brown flame came crashing down as though from the heavens themselves, engulfing not only Sapphire, but everything around him.

“Take cover!” Julius shouted. “If even one spark touches you!..”

And at that very moment, as though demonstrating the unspoken ending of his sentence, the earth mage nearest the group turned into a handful of ash the instant the black-brown flame so much as brushed his robe.

As for Sapphire…

Sapphire was already gone. His remains had been scattered by the night wind and the wailing screams.

“Move it!” Julius shouted again once everything had more or less settled down.

They ran on. There was almost nothing left between them and the Academy’s main gates. Other Academy mages joined the group here as well. Apparently, some of them still possessed a survival instinct.

Better to run than become the victim of a furious anti-mage.

“COWARDS!!! FIGHT BESIDE YOUR LORDS!”

Not everyone agreed.

Not everyone had retained their sanity.

Ibige Svono was one of them.

He unleashed a stream of fire at the gates—their only path to safety—with such force that the stone arches and towers were reduced to molten rubble.

Driven mad, the archmage had sealed off their last route of escape.

“FIGHT, YOU COWARDS!” he screamed from the middle of the central square. His face was red, foam spilling from his mouth.

And then a monstrous wave of wild energy swept across the entire square, making everyone—including Svono—freeze in terror.

Every gaze turned toward him…

Toward Yan, slowly descending the marble steps toward the fire mage.

His face had twisted. His body radiated darkness and red flashes.

“What in the otherworldly shit…” Chadun finally muttered. “Next time I call somebody Irre Faraday, please cut out my tongue!”

“There may not be a next time,” Julius remarked. “We’re trapped. We could try getting out through the southern gates, but he won’t let us. We simply won’t make it in time.”

Meanwhile, Yan kept approaching Svono. The mage continued hurling spell after spell at the rogue like a madman.

All while continuing to scream at everyone around him:

“FIGHT!”

Viktor couldn’t have cared less about the magic. Sometimes it simply did no damage at all. Sometimes it bounced off him like a ball. Sometimes it reflected straight back at whoever had cast it.

And finally, Yan reached his target. As we know, Svono was a demi-human. Exactly what kind of blood ran through his veins was unknown, but it was thanks to that blood that the mage towered over absolutely everyone present.

He enjoyed his height. That little “advantage” granted to him by nature. It reflected the very essence of his rotten character. He looked down on everyone.

Always.

Everywhere.

Under any circumstances.

Like inferior creatures. Like worms writhing in the dirt.

And now Yan stood before Svono. At first, the archmage tried to hold his ground, but then a monstrous force crushed him downward, forcing him onto his knees.

“Art of Evil,” Viktor said quietly. “Scarlet Star of Midnight.” He raised his left hand toward the sky. At that very moment, a mass of red-and-white energy formed in his palm and instantly took the shape of a cross-shaped spear.

The rogue leaned over Svono.

“Congratulations, Ibige Svono Aradeyn,” Yan said, staring contemptuously into his terrified eyes. “Your vaunted magic is a useless piece of shit… Die knowing that.”

Viktor brought down the hand holding the energy spear, driving it straight through Svono’s body. He screamed while the furious energy tore through his flesh and boiled his blood.

Screamed exactly as the unfortunate letter mage had half an hour earlier.

And then collapsed to the ground as a hideous, faded-gray corpse.