Chương 497: Chapter 495 – The End

The instant Gedrick entered his domain Damion sensed it. If the Alfar had been aware that one of the domains was Time, he was sure Gedrick would have stayed away. But it was now too late for him. With a thought, Damion froze time and moved to Gedrick, circling around him. Being frozen in time, the Alfar had no idea what was happening. After a few moments of searching, True Sight revealed Gedrick's grimoire. The artifact was attached to his belt at the small of his back.

The grimoire blended in well with his belt and if you were not looking closely it was easy to miss. If not for True Sight, it was entirely possible that Damion would have overlooked the small artifact. However, now that he had spotted it, and since Gedrick was still frozen in time, he reached over snatched the artifact off the Alfar. With a quick application of Shadow Mastery, the grimoire was torn to shreds.

With the Alfar effectively disarmed, he sucked as much mana from the area as he could, including Gedrick's reserves and then threw his opponent out of the combined domain. Gedrick crashed hard into a wall after being knocked out of the domain. Gedrick tried to muster his mana and his spells to catch himself, but he found he was strangely drained. One instant he was feeling fine and the next it was like he had been fighting for days without rest.

What was more worrisome for him was that he could not sense his grimoire. Somehow, the artifact seemed to have vanished. After crashing into the wall, Gedrick had to take a few moments to discern what had happened. His grimoire was not just gone, it was destroyed. Even if someone had manage to take it from him, he would still be able to sense his spells stored inside.

For a moment Gedrick could not believe the human had destroyed his artifact, but once he thought it through, he realized it was the most direct way to unbalance the fight. The two of them were just too close in magic power to be able to gain a significant advantage over one another. With Damion destroying Gedrick's grimoire, he had effectively cut the Alfar's offensive and defensive capabilities down to the point where the SSS Rank mage should no longer be a threat. Unfortunately for Damion, that was not true.

Gedrick still had one trump card, he just had to gather the mana to use it. Unaware that the Alfar was preparing a final strike, Damion lowered his domains and began to channel his magic into the seal. He did not like leaving himself vulnerable by removing his magic seal, but he had no choice. Domain spells altered all magic within their boundaries, in order for him to properly channel magic into the seals he had to lower the spells.

With his domain spells deactivated and his attention focused on the seal, Damion had no idea that Gedrick was planning something. As the channeled required mana into their specific sections of the seal each one glowed in turn. The pedestal the seal was on spun after each affinity lock was undone, as if it was a combination lock being opened. As Damion channeled his mana into the final seal the pedestal cracked open and for an instant a bright light shot up from it, filling the rotunda with light.

Just as fast as the light appeared it was then sucked back into the pedestal and vanished as the pedestal itself crumbled to dust. Even with True Sight's constant protection of his vision, the light from the pedestal had nearly blinded him. Not because of the intensity of light, but because of the intensity of the magic within that light.

In a brief instant of understanding, Damion realized what he had just witnessed was the core of the Mother World being released from the pedestal and it fleeing back into the depths of the world.

Ding {Quest Completed} [Quest: Learn the Truth of Magic 2 – Status: Complete – Reward: 1, 000 Experience, 1, 000, 000 Store Credits] Ding {Quest Completed} [Quest: Fix The Core – Status: Complete – Reward: 1, 000, 000 Experience, 10, 000, 000 Store Credits] As the rewards for the quest rolled through his mind, Damion realized that he now had plenty of credits to last him for some time.

Enough, perhaps, to even purchase put a dent in the amount of magic power it would take if he wanted to push himself all the way to EX Rank. Just as Damion was about to ask the Magic System if there was anything else he needed to do, he was suddenly thrown forward. Gedrick had launched a magic attack and hit him in the back, surprisingly though, Damion did not feel pain, from the surprise attack, instead he received a System notification. Ding {Bracers of Greater Reflection bonus effect activated. Magic attack reflected.} In the split second it took Damion to spin around and locate Gedrick, he saw the Alfar get struck by his own Spatial Blade. Because Damion usually avoided being hit by magic, the bonus effect of his bracers, which was now a 30% chance to reflect a spell back at the caster since they were SSS Rank, had never triggered before. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Gedrick's eyes went wide the moment before his attack struck him.

The Spatial Blade tore into his body and then expanded. The Alfar was ripped apart from the inside out and parts of the SSS Rank were splattered across the rotunda. After getting a bit of Alfar splatter on him, Damion activated his Belt of Purification and let the artifact give him a clean appearance. Looking around, for a moment he let out a breath. It was over. His great mission for the Magic System was completed.

'System, is it done?' {Affirmative. Thank you host. The Mother World is now rebalancing its magic and wild Realm Breaches are being reabsorbed to recycle the mana trapped within their pocket dimensions.}'What should I do now?'

"Damion!" Mage Veers shouted, interrupting Damion before he could get an answer. The Void mage, as well as Mage Parivar, Knight Straus and Visault rushed into the chamber to check on him.

"What has happened?"

"It's over, let me Portal us to Mage Fletcher and then I can head to Sostrad to put an end to the rest of the war." Mage Veers was not sure what to think, but he realized that if Damion had succeeded, they should put an end to the rest of the fighting as quickly as possible. A moment later the five of them stepped through the conjured Portal and arrived in Ardnet. Mage Fletcher was happy to see Damion and she quickly sent a message to Mage Levine at the front to alert them.

Mage Levine passed the message to the Iblis and after a few moments the Spatial jamming field was lowered, and a Portal was opened for Damion to head to Sostrad. When Damion arrived in Sostrad the fighting was still intense. The Iblis and human forces were entrenched and holding their ground, but if they tried to begin a withdrawal in the current environment, many would likely die.

Since he was an SSS Rank and there was virtually no chance of any of the Alfar being able to harm him, Damion decided to put an end to the fighting by showing his dominance. Summoning his Ice Sword, he flew above the Iblis defensive line attracting the attacks of the Alfar. After a few seconds, nearly every Alfar in the area was launching spells at him. While he floated there, letting the magic of his opponents strike him and dissipate, Damion cast Time Domain and expanded it as far as he could.

As the domain expanded, spells began to be frozen as they entered its field. Seeing their magic go from ineffective to being frozen in place, the Alfar slowly started to stop casting magic. Most of them had no idea where this human had come from or what he wanted, but it was quickly becoming clear that they were not his match. Among the Alfar there were only two that recognized Damion. Matron Jysella and Mistress Mirax were both dumbfounded when they saw him.

They knew he was a human true mage and they also knew he should have been down in the ancient ruins, being killed by Gedrick. How he was here and how he had suddenly surpassed them in magic power, they did not know.

"Gedrick is dead!" Damion shouted as the magic being cast at him ceased. With a thought, he caused the Time Domain to dissipate the spells caught in its freezing field, causing another shock to the Alfar as they helplessly looked on.

"I have undone the ancient magic seal and the Mother World is rebalancing its mana. There is no reason to continue fighting." On the Aflar side, there was a flurry of attempts to contact Gedrick and even one Alfar who opened a Portal to the ancient ruins to see for themselves. They found the seal and pedestal gone and only the exploded remains of Gedrick, leaving them to wonder if such a fate awaited them if they continued to resist this human.

Once it was confirmed that Gedrick, their greatest champion, had been defeated, the Alfar ceased to resist. The matrons and the mistresses knew that anyone capable of defeating Gedrick, would not be someone they could face. It was also true, that without Gedrick, there was no longer a point in raising the ambient mana level of the Mother World. He was the one that pushed for the higher mana levels so that he could continue to advance. The matrons flew out to float before Damion in the air.

A moment later, Visneer, Mage Levine and another SS Rank Iblis flew out to join him in the air.

"I will open a Portal so that the Iblis and the human forces can withdrawal from Sostrad," Damion told Matron Jysella.

"Then we can sit down and discuss a peaceful resolution to all of this." Matron Jysella and the other Alfar nodded their heads. Damion opened an enormous Portal a moment later. The Iblis, humans and even the damaged Iblis ships all went through the Portal. Once it closed Damion lowered his domain and flew down to a large square that had was not too badly damaged and cast Summon Earth. With the spell he crafted a table and chairs fitting for each of the people present and they sat down to begin peace talks.

Six Months Later Elicia was nearing her due date, and she could not help but be a bit apprehensive as to the gender of her and Damion's baby. She had been a few months pregnant with their second child when Damion left on the expedition, but she did not tell him, worried that the knowledge would change how he approached the coming conflict. Since he had returned, she kept him from using the Body Scanner artifact to reveal their baby's gender.

Now that the war was over, both Nerotath and the Mother World were settling into a new rhythm. Due to the Alfar focus on the Iblis during the battle in Sostrad, the majority of casualties had been on the Iblis side, with the humans suffering only a few injuries. Even the Iblis themselves had only a few deaths thanks to the presence of their warships that had shielded most of their forces.

Trade had been established between Nerotath and the Mother World, which unfortunately resulted in the noble houses and the other magic schools of learning about the existence of grimoires. However, because of that revelation, and the reveal that Damion had reached SSS Rank, the other magic schools immediately began to change their method of teaching, and the testing crystals had been banned.

Not only had this resulted in a great boost in popularity for Avalon among those who had yet to decide on which of the magic schools was best, but it also gave Damion the completion of an old quest. Fix the Flaw in Magic, rewarded him with another 1, 000 experience and 100, 000 credit for the Magic System Store. With the Mother World no longer creating Realm Breaches to bleed off excess mana, Nerotath was quickly becoming a safer place.

Old Realm Breaches in the wild had vanished and the Black Zones were now being explored by new groups of A Rank and S Rank mages that were quickly rising in Rank due to the Argentum labyrinth having unlocked SS Rank floors as well. Being content that all was well, Damion squeezed Elicia's hand as they welcomed their newest family member.