Chương 93: Eliminated

It had taken Ryland longer than he'd have preferred to find where Ophelia had gone. A minute or two at most, but even that was far too much time. Nevertheless, he had found her, and he had immediately stepped in as soon as he appeared. Just before she—and Viren—were killed. The Mage Knights had put up a fight. Ryland had to give them credit for that. Despite being outnumbered three to one, they had fought tooth and nail. They hadn't given a single fingerbreadth of ground without first bleeding for it.

Without first expending every bit of magic they had developed. Case in point, Mage Knight Ophelia had unleashed as much of her manasoul as she was capable of just to peg back a clearly superior opponent. Even if the end-result was a foregone conclusion. Even if that result was fatal. Well, not fatal on Ryland's watch. His arrival had the battle coming to a grinding halt. They got wind of him almost instantly. Of course they did.

These were mages straddling the edges of whatever peaks they had reached, all vying for goals they were clearly willing to give their lives for. So, perceiving Ryland—sensing the gulf between them all and Ryland himself—they all froze. For self-preservation was a powerful force indeed." [Translocate]," he incanted. The forearm of the exoskeleton carrying Viren and the last of Mage Knight Ophelia's magic fell off the rest of the body, then disappeared into a second rift that he created.

They reappeared next to the fallen form of Ophelia. Ryland joined her. Both she and Viren were in terrible condition, so he wasted no time casting [Immortal Rejuvenation].

"That's him!" one of the assailants said in Androvian." Again." Hmm. They had been running while he had been absent. Bursting through everyone on the academy grounds with no regard for everyone else's wellbeing. It was only at Ryland's arrival that they had teleported away using their Relic. Sadly for them, they hadn't travelled far enough.

"What are you all waiting for?" growled Viren's kidnapper. He had already healed up where his forearm had been lopped off in a mirror of his amethyst construct. Maybe he thought switching to Kurin would make his statements indecipherable to Ryland, but he was sorely mistaken.

"We need to kill him now that you idiots didn't take the Relic far enough!" All thanks to the efforts of Ophelia and her fellow Mage Knights. Ryland would need to express his gratitude to them. Wasting no further time, the assailants decided to switch targets. They attacked him." [Translocate]," Ryland incanted." [Eternal Bastion]." His rifts swallowed up the recovering Ophelia and Viren, while also capturing both of the other Mage Knights.

They were all deposited safely a few hundred handspans to the right, well away from the battlefield about to erupt with devastating magic. Ryland would need some proper space to act. Of course, [Translocate] wasn't just for him.

The first mage attacking him, his body enveloped in a spiky aura as he attempted to slam a glowing fist straight at Ryland, faced the full brunt of the rift magic.

"What—what is— argh!" he screamed. Ryland had basically performed the same trick he had used on the mobsters a week or two ago. The ones that had tried to "teach him a lesson" for daring to conduct an investigation in the dark bowels of Arcoryx City. A dozen different pieces of the man floated all around the places, each one connected to the rest of the body through Ryland's rifts.

He was far too terrified of what had happened to him to even begin to figure out how to control himself, much less actually remember to continue attacking his adversary. The rest of his companions, who had been busy preparing their own follow-up magic, had all stilled. Their faces were frozen in expressions somewhere between shock and horror.

"Great Gods," one of the Knights muttered. Despite the distance, his words were clear as crystal thanks to Ryland's Tier [23] Glyph of Detection.

"Don't be afraid," one of the attackers shouted in Kurin.

"He's just one mage. Destroy him!" With a roar, they attacked. Ryland was actually impressed at the sheer scale and power of magic they had immediately started throwing out. It seemed these people had been told to hold nothing back when the situation called for it. And this situation seemingly did. Ryland didn't even bother trying to read their Glyphs or listen in to all the spells they yelled out. He simply noted what occurred and went about his business.

One opposing mage had flung herself far back, where she had created a gargantuan beam of green and gold energy. It was filled with so much power, the air around it cracked with a shockwave while the ground was ruptured at its passage even when it was over ten handspans above the earth. Then the beam passed through a different mage's oversized spell circle. It turned from a gargantuan blast to titanic horizontal pillar of broken power that could probably have pulverized a castle.

Ryland just created a rift in front of him, one big enough to swallow a warship with ease." [Translocate]." It ate the lasering blast the size of a mountain before a second rift opened right on top of the mage that had cast the devastating magic. Her eyes widened briefly in fatal fear, but then, the purple exoskeleton had popped up around her, quickly shielding her against her own tremendous power. Ah, that was a second construct. The mage with the reattached forearm was indeed strong.

Not that the beam was Ryland's only distraction.

Another mage far off to his left had summoned a rocky golem big enough to use a citadel as a throne. It had ripped off enough of the ground to basically throw an entire cliff at Ryland. So dramatic." [Alchemic Reconstruction]," he incanted. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. All the earth reconstructed itself at Ryland's bidding.

The rocks making up the golem, the enormous cliff-sized chunk of land it had just thrown, all of it reformed under the direction of his Soul Glyph of Energy targeting the material at its particulate level to turn the entire thing into a mountain. Just to add some insurance, Ryland's spell pulled up about another league's worth of matter from all around his targeted spot to create an actual mountain—a jutting pyramid of rock stretching skywards. Hmm, had he just created a new fascination for Climber Mages?

Whatever the case, the entombed assailant wasn't coming out anytime soon, going by the look of things. Eventually, yes. That golem proved the mage had enough strength to do so. But for now, he was occupied. Several other attacks came at him at once. He [Translocated] away to leave his opponents flabbergasted, then decided to try out his newest Glyph. With a flash, the Glyph of Banishment erupted into being right in the face of one of the assailants. One whose clothes were torn enough to reveal a familiar insignia.

Ah. Eliminator Mages. From Kurin too, going by their choice of language, though it could be something they had spoken to throw off those on their trail. The man affected by Ryland's newest Glyph screamed for a fraction of a heartbeat before he simply disappeared. Well, that was both powerful and disappointing. More attacks came in. Ryland was starting to feel as though this was turning into a long, long day. Nevertheless, he was glad for the exercise his magic was getting." [Infernal Meteor]!"

one of the last mages shouted. He had rudely violated Ryland's intention of not giving an ounce of importance to whatever spells they might be casting. And he wasn't alone, either. Another mage slammed both hands to the earth, then yelled, " [Ocean's Iceblight]!" A tidal wave covered the entire land with a stormy sea, rapidly washing away the entire area. And if that wasn't bad enough, the water started turning to ice and began shooting freezing droplets straight upwards, like a reversal of typical rainfall.

Well, two could play the meteor game." [Ender of Worlds]," he incanted." [Disintegration]." The first spell was aimed at the fireball that had grown big enough to consume a small town. Ruddy light from the violent flames now shaded the entire world in burning crimson. A rift opened, edged with crackling gold, and from it emerged an apocalyptic meteorite.

Its appearance immediately overtook the titanic fireball's light, turning the whole world cerulean instead of scarlet, a blue so bright that several people cried out at the searing heat and light.

Ryland's summoned meteorite burned and streaked through the air with far, far greater momentum than the fireball. So even when the mage threw it with tremendous force at Ryland, the meteorite simply punched right through. The explosion rocked the world, its brilliant flash blanketing everything in bloody red, even repelling all the rising water trying to clasp Ryland. Said water was also getting hit by his second spell.

With the Soul Glyph of Energy as [Disintegration]'s Centreglyph, Ryland tore apart every ounce of water at an integral level. The enormous flood of water and ice broke into a sea of tremendous energy, setting off a world-ripping detonation that rivalled and perhaps even surpassed the collision of the meteor and the fireball. As the world returned to normal, as dust and debris slowly but surely moved away, Ryland landed back on the ruptured ground. Right in front of the stunned kidnapper of Viren.

"You…" There was no sneering and gloating in his voice now. Just plain, pale fear.

"I still need to figure out where exactly your companion went when I banished him," Ryland said.

"So I'd appreciate if you waste no further time of mine and simply surrender." The man growled. Whether at the threat, or whether it was at the tone directed at him, Ryland couldn't quite tell and didn't quite care.

"You are fortunate that I merely seek to capture you and do nothing worse," Ryland said.

"After what you did…" More growling, but he eventually seemed to realize that he had no other option but to comply with Ryland's demand. His compatriots were in no state to assist him. The few who hadn't been dealt with by Ryland's spells directly were too terrified to do anything further. There was only so much training one could undergo before even that failed in the face of despair. Somewhere farther off, the man Ryland had separated into a dozen small chunks still wasn't tired of screaming all the time.

"Alright," the Eliminator Mage from Kurin said.

"I surrender."

"Excellent." Ryland paused to consider.

"I suppose I didn't need to go through this rigmarole of asking for your permission."

"Then why…?"

"Emphasizing your defeat and letting you rue your utter failure while you rot in your ineptitude is perhaps the least that you deserve. [Broken Realm]." The spell flashed, empowered by his Soul Glyph of Rift, and essentially trapped every single one of the surviving Eliminator Mages in the torn-apart battlefield. [Achievement Recognized: Eliminator You have defeated a group of opposing Eliminator mages, including a Primordial-ranked mage, despite being merely Adamantine-ranked. Rank up from Adamantine [83] to Adamantine [95]. Reward: Glyph of Elimination. Evolved form of the Glyph of Elimination, Glyph of Obliteration, found. New evolution acquired: Glyph of Annihilation.] Ryland frowned a little at the Glyph. It wasn't one he'd need when he already had the Soul Glyph of Sundering for most use-cases. But he supposed a backup wasn't bad. For certain situations. For now, he rifted to where he had set down the Mage Knights and Viren. Viren awoke to the world ending. He didn't quite mind it.

In fact, it helped him face his shame. He had fainted when he had executed his utterly idiotic plan to burn himself in an effort to get away from his captor. Just before losing consciousness, he had realized that he had failed. He had surprised the assailant for certain, but that hadn't been enough to free him. The shame had made him wish he hadn't woken up.

So, when he pushed himself off the rocky ground and found magic of incalculable scale exploding over his head, he figured the end of the world was a good-enough excuse for his failure.

"Are you alright?" asked a familiar voice. He turned to see Mage Knight Ophelia looking at him in concern. Even though she really ought to be concerned about herself with how beaten up she looked.

"Erm… what's going on?"

"Ryland came to rescue you after you got kidnapped." She winced.

"And after we were defeated." That was such an apt summary, Viren didn't need any other contextual information. Instead, he decided to stare as a man got buried inside a mountain that formed out of nowhere in just a few heartbeats. Someone just disappeared. Yet another person got a meteor shot at them. Also, a summoned sea somehow turned into the most violent explosion Viren had ever seen. It took a moment, but Viren realized that the level of magic Ryland was capable of was… apocalyptic.

He appeared before them after petrifying all the assailants in place.

"Viren," he said. His voice was so soft. So kind. Not at all the sound of someone who had buried someone alive under a mountain.

"How are you feeling? Are you hurt or in pain anywhere?"

"I'm alright, sir." He looked down at himself, his embarrassment at the state of his clothes overwhelmed by his amazement at how he didn't even have any scars.

"Thanks to you."

"Hmm," was all Ryland said in turn. It appeared he either didn't believe Viren or didn't think he was fully correct in his assessment. Ryland turned to the other Mage Knights.

"I can help you as well."

"We're fine, er…" the stocky Knight said before coming to a faintly embarrassed pause.

"Sub-Academ Marionys Ryland," Ophelia supplied.

"Right. I'm Sir Bruten Hargard. Thank you for everything, sub-Academ. We're grateful for your assistance and indebted to you." The other Mage Knight grunted and nodded. Sir Bruten glanced beyond Ryland at where the assailants were now trapped.

"I assume you have some sort of plan regarding them."

"Oh, not really," Ryland said without any hesitation.

"I have no clue what the correct procedure is. However, I have negotiated their surrender so you're now free to do with them as you wish."" Negotiated," Viren muttered.

"Indeed. I believe my negotiation skills are quite convincing."

"They really are, sir." Viren decided to stop being a deadpan brat and stood straighter.

"Um, thank you again, sir. I've lost count of how many times you've helped me now, but I suppose I can add this to the list." Ryland smiled.

"We all must help each other when we can, Viren, in our own ways. It's how we all get ahead together."

"Then how about we get ahead to the academy, sir."

"Good idea. Let's get going. [Dimensional Lock]. [Translocate]."