Chương 31: Chapter 30: Kill Them All

"Out of my mind, am I?" Yuto asked flatly. The black mages' laughter echoed against the high ceiling of the banquet hall, where it scattered. To them, this city was an excellent source of negative ether—a goldmine for their kind. But to Yuto, this was the only place that still held the warmth of those he had loved.

"How dare you party in my castle without my permission?" he said. The two Void Hands that rippled behind his back produced a bizarre grinding noise as they fused into one. The lumps of inky darkness swallowed each other and elongated. Soon, it had formed an intimidating arc and taken the shape of a giant scythe. The black mages abruptly stopped laughing.

"What a... mysterious ability. You reckless child, answer my question. What Constellation chose you?" The black mages had no equal when it came to dark and chilling power. But that scythe behind Yuto's back had even these evil mages stiffening from how unsettling it was. Whatever that was, was not magic. They knew it on an instinctive level. This was not something humans could bring into being by consuming ether. It was a higher, superior power. A sovereign power. Only the Constellations had access to such things.

"Are you not going to answer my question? It can't be helped, then. I have no choice but to make you my prisoner, and then persuade you to be a little more honest." They had never intended to give Yuto an easy death. This unpredictable child, who had come from god-knew-where, motivated by something these black mages could not comprehend, had destroyed ten crystals installed in the ruins of Velkyne in less than half a day.

In the process, dozens of orc warriors that the black mages had hired with difficulty, and most of the humans that they had enslaved, had been killed. Dozens of their fellow black mages had also died. The crystals could always be replaced, for as long as Velkyne remained a cursed land. But someone would need to pay for these unpleasant losses with blood. Besides, their project was not that of Dark Star alone. Even the head of their organization was only an intermediary, hired by someone greater.

The black mages were scared to face the anger of their leader, but they were even more horrified at the prospect of displeasing the mysterious figure who was behind all these machinations. They would need to capture this lunatic at any cost. If they managed to find out everything there was to know about him and figure out where his mysterious power came from, they would at least have an excuse to provide regarding the losses they had suffered today. Indeed, if only they could kill Yuto, the project would not fail.

Afterward, they would reinstall the crystals and hire more men if necessary to replace the orc warriors. There were plenty more humans to be found when it came to slaves who could handle the drudgery. The bodies of the black mages floated into the air. Their staves emitted an unsettling light, and the will-o'-the-wisps that had floated around them slowly began to rotate. The magic circle, drawn with blood, rumbled and vibrated.

The stench of rotting flesh being burned wafted out from the magic circle, and soon bright red blood spewed out of it like a fountain.

"Blood Bind!" the black mage at the center yelled. Many chains shot from the rippling blood, aimed at Yuto. These chains would not only bind the body. Contact with them would instantly laden the body and the soul with a variety of curses. Yuto looked hard at the chains as they flew toward him but did not move. The scythe that floated behind him trembled. The darkness that comprised it shook violently and released an ear-splitting whine.

None of the chains ever made it to Yuto—the scythe intervened and cut them all in half. The black mages stared with wide eyes. The chains had been packed with curses of all kinds, but the moment the scythe touched them, their work vanished in the blink of an eye. The black mages were no longer smiling. These were skilled and crafty users of magic. They shared their thoughts and deductions through telepathy and discussed the dangers of the scythe out loud.

"That was not an ether-countering technique. It cut into the very ether that formed the spells and destroyed the magic in that way," said one of them. Everyone here was an elite member of Dark Star, seasoned by experience throughout the continent through their veiled activities. Their confusion and shock did not last long. A dangerous gleam entered their eyes. The person leading this group, who was an old man, raised his staff in the air. The others who floated around him scattered. They now had Yuto surrounded.

A single exchange of attacks had allowed them to figure out the weaknesses of Yuto's sovereign power. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. The scythe was powerful, yes, but its size meant it could only attack in large swings, and there would be an inevitable delay between attacks. In addition, something so powerful could not be cost-efficient. How much ether would a boy who looked to be around ten years old really have? If they let the fight drag on, he would soon run out.

"Scatter! Attack from a distance and chip away at his soul! Keep going until he has no more power left!" the leader commanded. Every swing of their staves caused the wisps of flame that floated around the banquet hall to produce explosions of black waste. This was a refined form of the polluted ether collected from these ruins, and it rushed at Yuto and his companions, releasing evil energy as it came. The gloop swept the marble floor, dissolving the stone and filling the air with nasty smoke.

Yuto used Void Steps to leap away, and Flokiro jumped from spot to spot and ran along the walls with Rivian on his back.

"The hell was that?!" yelled the leader of the group. Nothing they knew of magic explained how Yuto had just moved. As before, however, their bafflement did not last for long.

"We will capture you yet!" The puzzlement was gone, replaced by lust. The boy's sovereign power was unreasonably strong and rare, though they didn't know whose it was. One of the black mages figured out Yuto's location and transmitted it by telepathy to the others. The black mages instantly fell into formation. Three of them yelled at the same time, and a sticky barrier of darkness formed along the wall that Yuto was running on.

"Curtain of Silence!" Yuto frowned, and used Void Steps again, but the black mages were ready this time. They had secretly spread out ether like a spider's web around him—in fact, it filled the entire hall. When Yuto disappeared, the black mages knew exactly where he had gone. They swept their staves in an arc, and purple lightning shot from the tips, hurtling at Yuto. Yuto swung the Void Scythe again and split the bolts in half, but the black mages seemed to have anticipated this.

The blood that welled on the floor beneath him formed a pointed cone and darted upward. Yuto countered it with a downward stab of the Obsidian Dagger, but there was too much force behind the mages' attack. He was sent flying.

"Yuto!" Rivian screamed as she held on to Flokai's mane. Flokai was still running along a wall. She lashed out with her staff and uttered magical spells.

"Purifying Wind! Wall of Earth!" A refreshing breeze surrounded his body, and a thick stone barrier burst from the wall and blocked the magical arrows that would have pierced him like a pincushion. She had somehow protected him, but her face looked pale. She might have been one of the greatest students of the Maria Academy, but it was far too cruel a task to support Yuto all alone against ten elite mages of Dark Star.

The ominous ether that filled this hall, and the evil curses and magic that the black mages were spinning up left and right, consumed Rivian's sanity and ether by virtue of closeness alone. Flokai roared and leaped at one of the black mages who stood close to the wall, but they were far too smart. The black mage vanished into a black fog as if he had been ready for this. In his place popped out an undead golem made of rotten bodies sewn together. Flokai buried his teeth in the golem, which exploded instantly.

Flokai was sent reeling, bellowing in confusion. The white flames that surrounded his body had cushioned the impact of the explosion, but rotten flesh and poisonous juices had shot into his mouth and unsettled him.

"P-Purifying Dew! Purifying Dew!" she yelled, gasping for breath and flattening herself against Flokai's body. Blue droplets of water splashed onto Flokai's body, sank in, and drove out the poison.

"Ehehe! You Marigold girl. You are surprisingly skilled for a girl your age."

"We don't plan to kill you. If you beg us for your life, we will be merciful and let you live. You are worth more to us as a hostage who can be ransomed." The black mages glided around in the darkness like ghosts and laughed among themselves. Rivian bit her lip and looked daggers at them. Everything about this encounter terrified her, but she did not wish to submit to those evil mages for even a moment. Rivian's cold reason informed her that their word was worth very little.

These were the same men who were tormenting the souls of countless people of Velkyne for their own gain. There was precious little floor left in the banquet hall. The sticky blood that continued to gush out of the magic circle had doused most of the floor and filled the air with its stench. The black mages hovered above it and laughed out loud.

"You irrational little brat. Did you say you owned this castle? Well, look what we've done to it now! It's a real mess!" Yuto did not respond. He was standing on a portion of the floor that had not been overtaken by the blood. He clutched his chest and did not move.

"Brat! Have you given up already?"

"It's not too late to kneel and beg us for your life!" They mocked him with their loud voices. Yuto listened to it all. The black mages were laughing at him. His breath was ragged. The core near his heart pulsed as if it were out of control. He had taken countless resentful dead inside him at the Penalty Zone. And they felt for the poor souls bound to Velkyne and being taken advantage of. They were angry. Their dark thoughts and silent screams reverberated with the ether in Yuto's veins.

"Kill them..."

"Kill... all of them..." Thousands of voices played in his ears. Souls of the dead, left to rot by the Constellations, and the remains of his kingdom, trampled into the dirt by the stars and now being scraped for leftovers by the black mages. They consumed his thoughts, his reason.

"Shut... up..." Yuto muttered quietly. The laughter stopped.

"What did you say to us, brat? Has the fear truly driven you out of your mind?" asked the mage at the center of the magic circle, giving an evil grin and adjusting his grip on the staff. He saw the scythe behind Yuto begin to shake. He was now convinced that Yuto's ether was about to run out.

"I asked you a question, kid. Didn't you hear what I—""I said shut up, you insect," Yuto said, looking up. His eyes were now pure black, with no whites showing. The eyeballs had been completely swallowed up by an abyssal darkness that no light would banish. A fit of anger wouldn't do that to his eyes. It was as if something that shouldn't exist in the world was about to force its way into the mortal plane. The Void Scythe rose, thrumming unnaturally and expanding. The black mages were right.

He had drunk a potion earlier, but the battle in the banquet hall had him running very close to empty. What they didn't know was that Yuto had more than ether to power him. The spirits that comprised the core next to his heart were now showing their teeth.