Unbelievable

The scene fell silent in an instant. Everyone froze where they stood, staring in terror toward the source of the roar.

Ronan's expression turned grave. He lightly pressed a hand against the hilt of the One-Handed Sword beneath his robe, pushed through the crowd in front of him, and hurried toward the front of the group.

Before he could get close, the bushes ahead suddenly shook violently. Two figures came scrambling out one after the other, rolling and crawling in panic.

They were clearly wizards fleeing for their lives as well. Their robes were tattered, and they were covered from head to toe in dust and grime.

When they saw the large crowd that had suddenly appeared before them, they froze, overwhelming delight immediately appearing on their faces. But in the next second, panic overtook them again. Pointing behind them, they shouted, "M-Magic beast! Run!.."

Before their words had even faded, an incredibly strong stench of rot and blood drifted over from ahead.

With the sound of large swathes of undergrowth being crushed beneath its feet and a gale rising around it, a terrifying creature the size of a wild bull rapidly appeared before them.

It had the form of a crawling beast, with reddish-brown skin covered in scales and many black, dagger-length spikes growing from its back.

Its long forked tongue flicked in and out. Altogether, it looked like an enormous lizard.

When those pale golden beast eyes swept over Ronan, he almost felt as if he were meeting a human's gaze.

Beneath the monster's cold, cruel, Bloodthirsty nature, it perhaps possessed intelligence no weaker than a human's.

"Careful!"

Old Wells had somehow arrived behind Ronan, leaning on his cane. In a grave tone, he quickly said, "It's a Two-Headed Magic Lizard!"

"Then why does it only have one head?"

"Once it truly grows two heads, it becomes a first-rank magic beast. Only official wizards can deal with it..."

Ronan let out a soft breath, nodded, and focused all his attention on the magic lizard before him.

In truth, faced with this legendary magic beast, Ronan was not as nervous as he had imagined he would be.

The warning signals from his intuition were not particularly strong, proving that this Two-Headed Magic Lizard with only one head was merely average in strength. What made Ronan more uncomfortable was its grotesque, terrifying appearance and the foul stench that kept washing over him.

"Buzz—"

Without the slightest hesitation, Ronan uttered the incantation. The Spiritual Power in his mind thrummed like plucked strings, resonance forming as large amounts of free energy particles gathered under his control. A huge blue-black sphere of light materialized out of thin air, then, at Ronan's pointing finger, howled toward the Two-Headed Magic Lizard directly ahead.

"Boom!"

A tremendous explosion rang out, and the ground beneath everyone's feet shuddered violently.

Old Wells and the others who had seen Ronan fight before were fine, but the other wizards seeing Ronan's strength for the first time were startled by the unexpected commotion and stumbled backward several steps. The way they looked at Ronan changed instantly.

They were all low-level wizards and junior apprentices, but it was not as if they had never seen intermediate apprentices fight before.

Could a mid-tier zero-rank spell really be this powerful?

More importantly... how could he cast so quickly?!

Quite a few people stared at the massive crater left by the exploding light sphere, swallowing hard with expressions full of shock and confusion.

Damn it!

Ronan cursed inwardly.

His spell had missed! The instant he fired it, he sensed the Two-Headed Magic Lizard's figure disappear.

That thing was too fast. Ronan's Spiritual Power had only caught a fleeting black shadow before losing its lock on the target.

This was the first time Ronan had ever missed with an Energy Missile!

...Eye of Truth-Seeking.

Ronan swiftly recited the spell in his mind. He cast the proficient-level Detection Spell, and a faint layer of white light covered his lake-blue eyes.

The muscles throughout his body tensed slightly as he searched all around for the Two-Headed Magic Lizard's trail.

The Energy Missile seemed to have grown a little more powerful again. That attack had nearly drained a quarter of his Spiritual Power.

Good news... and bad news.

Ronan could clearly sense that Energy Missile was closer to breaking through to a level beyond expert, but if the next three Energy Missiles failed to end this fight, he might have to grab a bucket and run.

"Found it!"

The Detection Spell quickly caught the traces of foreign energy particles lingering in the air. Magic beasts, born with bodies naturally attuned to energy, had nowhere to hide under the Detection Spell.

"Buzz—"

Ronan fired another Energy Missile directly at a patch of bushes.

This time, he played a small trick. Throughout the casting process, his eyes remained fixed in another direction, and when he fired the missile, he deliberately pointed his finger elsewhere.

"Boom!"

"Roar~—"

The results proved that his little trick had indeed worked.

The second Energy Missile struck the Two-Headed Magic Lizard that had been lurking in the shadows with perfect accuracy. Ronan heard a miserable, furious roar mixed in with the explosion, and then the Two-Headed Magic Lizard fled!

"It really is smart. It knew it couldn't win, so it ran immediately."

Ronan walked over to where the second Energy Missile had landed. Seeing a small, bloody Severed Tail left beside the crater and the mottled blood trail stretching off in one direction, he could not help clicking his tongue in amazement.

His heart was still pounding wildly, and he had not fully emerged from the state of battle just yet.

The battle had come quickly and ended just as fast, greatly exceeding Ronan's expectations.

Carrying back the half of the Severed Tail left behind by the Two-Headed Magic Lizard, Ronan was met by a sea of reverent gazes.

The Wandering Wizards who had previously been restless and considering slipping away had, after witnessing Ronan's formidable strength, all abandoned any thoughts of leaving the group.

Fear was one reason. Another was their desire to build a good relationship with a powerful Wizard Apprentice like Ronan—ideally, to cling to his coattails.

Especially since Ronan looked so young. Those with quicker wits had already come forward voluntarily, offering to carry things for him.

Ronan's expression softened slightly. No one disliked being admired and feared by others, especially not someone his age.

Just as Ronan casually moved to toss the Two-Headed Magic Lizard's Severed Tail to an especially attentive Wizard Apprentice, an unprecedentedly intense sense of danger pounced from behind him like a beast and savagely sank its teeth into his heart.

"!"

Time seemed to slow at that instant. Ronan only had time to bend backward.

The results of his daily grueling Ascetic Body Forging manifested at that moment.

Every muscle in his body tensed. In a posture that nearly defied the laws of physics, he arched backward with his spine suspended in midair, supported entirely by his feet without falling to the ground.

And in the very next instant after he made that movement, a dense shadow spread inch by inch across his face.

In Ronan's widened eyes, a massive, decayed black blade appeared in an instant. Soundlessly, it swept forward past the tip of his nose.

The Wizard Apprentice with a beaming smile, both hands extended to receive what Ronan was handing him, was swept by the black blade beneath the shadow. His body silently separated at the waist, blood erupting in a column, while the ingratiating smile remained on his face. "Bang!"

Ronan slammed a hand against the ground and, like a fish struggling desperately, rolled and shot rapidly to one side.

When he regained his footing with a grim expression, all he saw was a skeleton over two meters tall standing silently in the distance.

Wisps of black vapor coiled around its body. It wore shattered, decaying armor, and held a rusty longsword and shield in its hands.

Green fire burned within its hollow, fleshless eye sockets as it stared quietly at Ronan.

At that moment, a soft click of the tongue sounded from behind the skeleton.

A black-robed figure strolled out.

He was a short-haired man with an unremarkable appearance, his bloodless pale skin covered in scarlet tattoos.

He looked at Ronan with obvious surprise. When he smiled, he resembled a corpse that had just crawled out of a grave.

"Truly unbelievable. You actually survived."