Fireball and Sun

Whether Tang Qi's music could truly inspire people in battle was another matter.

Black Snake no longer dared let him open his mouth.

He was terrified Tang Qi might sing another infuriating lyric that would make him want to turn around and stab his own teammate.

"Stick flowers in it"—was that even something a human being would say!?

Meanwhile, the two-headed troll took advantage of the chaos to roll across the ground, already extinguishing the flames on its body.

Dragging this out with it any longer was absolutely not a wise choice—

"Run!"

As the former captain of the party, his thinking was clear.

"Lead the troll into the camp, then escape in the confusion!"

He shouted as he turned, intending to warn Tang Qi as well.

But when he looked back—

That Poet had already run eight zhang away.

"Fuck you!"

Black Snake cursed and immediately took off running.

The two-headed troll followed close behind. It could not even be bothered to pull the short blade from its head as it stomped over the ground with unsteady strides, shaking the leaves and mist and instantly drawing New Star's attention.

"You two bastards, don't lead it over here!"

"You said we'd pay a price for it. Well, the price is here now—you're responsible!"

Before Tang Qi had even finished speaking, he pulled an exquisite little bottle from his pocket and drank the transparent liquid inside in one gulp.

The instant the potion entered his stomach, he suddenly felt his vision become incomparably clear.

The thick mist that had filled his sight quietly receded beyond the corners of his eyes.

When he raised his head to gaze at the canopy of the forest, he could even glimpse, in the far-off heavens, a long Milky Way winding through the clouds, gathered from stars that filled the sky.

[True Sight Eye Potion], reveals illusions, lasts 8 hours.

It was not Twilight Forest that had produced hallucinatory mist.

Rather, the entire forest itself was shrouded in illusion.

"Enough! Stop them—stop it!"

Seeing the two-headed troll about to charge into the camp along with those two bastards, New Star could not help breaking into a run as well—

At a time like this, whoever fell behind became the meat shield.

"Clean up the battlefield. I'll deal with that thing!"

Fortunately, Explosive Wolf, freed of pressure, had the leisure to notice the movement in the camp.

He sprinted in great strides, covering dozens of feet in just a few breaths. His greatsword trailed naturally behind him as he planted one foot and stopped at the troll's flank.

In craftsmanship alone, this greatsword had been forged by a Dwarf craftsman from Nordic Steel of the northern mountains—fierce yet resilient, superbly made to standard.

Yet correspondingly, it weighed more than twice as much as an ordinary greatsword.

An average Warrior would likely struggle even to hold it.

But in Explosive Wolf's hands, the long, massive blade was as light as a handy stick.

As his lead foot braked against the ground, the momentum of his mad dash seemed to pour into his legs. His center of gravity pressed forward, his pelvis tilted, then his torso and arms exerted force in turn, channeling all his strength into the greatsword in his hands.

"[Upward Slash]!"

A roar burst from his rough throat. The blade gleamed, flashing with cold light.

Within the dense mist, a crescent slash suddenly cleaved forth—

The first half was milky white as snow; the latter half, scarlet with blood.

Even clad in plate armor weighing dozens of kilograms, the strike still carried Explosive Wolf's body upward with it.

Thick blood sprayed from the torn flesh across Explosive Wolf's face, making him look all the more savage.

Rising until he barely skimmed over the troll's head, before it could react, the greatsword raised behind him swung down in another crescent, and he fell with it to the troll's feet.

"Pfft—"

The two slashes, delivered in the space of a breath, left the troll drenched in blood and tilting to one side.

The sword wound bloomed from its waist all the way to its left ear.

Amid the spilling blood, tiny crimson flesh buds seeped out, attempting to cling to one another and stitch themselves together.

"[Flame Arrow]!"

A chant rang out abruptly, and a streak of fire landed on its wound, burning the newly grown flesh buds until they withered.

The troll howled through the pain and forcibly straightened its body. Its club swung out, smashing Explosive Wolf into a nearby tent.

The charred wound peeled from its skin, tumors of flesh sprouted, and they began slowly knitting together.

And its round belly grew ever more shriveled:

"Hungry, hungry!"

A plump fireball, swift as a flying arrow, struck its arm again, scorching its fur.

This most direct and effective cantrip had always been widely praised among Spellcasters.

According to statistics, it had consistently held the fine ranking of "the second most useful spell in the wizarding world."

When the spell slots at hand were stretched thin, it would be a Spellcaster's handiest weapon.

And with only one troll remaining, there was no need for him to use his last spell slot.

Once Explosive Wolf got back up to stall it, and the mercenaries beside them finished dealing with the ambush, it would only be a matter of time before they surrounded and killed that two-headed creature.

Then he would make sure to teach those two bastards a proper lesson...

Hm?

Where were they?

As far as New Star could see, he could not catch even a trace of those two prisoners.

Looking around, he finally spotted the two of them silently and sneakily running toward the edge of the camp:

"Two idiots. Can they even recognize the way in an illusion?"

Just as he was about to laugh at them, he quickly noticed something was wrong.

"Damn it, isn't that the direction of my tent?!"

He had never imagined that the two of them were planning to raid his camp.

Thinking of how, aside from that black blade, his dimensional bag was also inside the tent, New Star feared those two bastards might quietly make off with it and hurriedly shouted:

"Stop—"

The instant the words left his mouth, everything before him suddenly turned stark white, making him squint instinctively.

The dampness of the mist still clung all over his skin, yet it carried a faint dry heat.

Such phenomena were not uncommon.

At least, sixteen hours earlier, when they had entered the forest, they had already experienced two cycles of day and night...

He suddenly realized something was wrong.

"Wasn't it because night had just fallen that we decided to make camp and rest?"

Since it was only midnight, then what was this "dawn," this dry heat!?

New Star abruptly opened his eyes. Only then did he see clearly what hung above the forest canopy—the thing that had burned away the white mist and lit up the dawn—

"If Flame Arrow is the second most popular spell, then what is the first?"

When he had just become a mage apprentice, he too had been curious about that question.

Until he heard a saying in the circle:

"There's nothing in this world that one Fireball can't solve. If there is, throw another. Or cast one at a higher circle."

So, when he learned his first cantrip and flung the sparks bursting from his hand at a target—

He happily shared it all with his mentor:

"Look, I finally learned Fireball too!"

In his eyes, that cantrip which scorched the straw target—a sphere of orange-red flame streaking like an arrow—surely had to be the "Fireball" everyone spoke of.

After all, the spell's name looked so plain and unadorned.

And his mentor had always been proud and distant.

He did not take New Star's sharing as childish. The same mocking curl sat at the corner of his mouth as he sneered:

"If that counts as Fireball, then those violent mages who only know how to memorize Fireball would probably all lose their jobs."

"But what I threw out was clearly shaped like a fireball too, wasn't it?"

"When your talent truly surpasses mine, and you're qualified to dabble in third-circle spells, you'll know just how ridiculous you are."

His mentor had been too lazy to explain, yet he had failed to extinguish New Star's curiosity.

Curiosity was what drove a person to learn and improve.

Yet in the years since he had truly stood shoulder to shoulder with his mentor, resolved to leave the ivory tower and set out on adventures, he had rarely seen anyone use a third-circle spell.

Spellcasters of that level were mostly already somewhat renowned and capable of standing on their own; they would not form a party with a "New Star" like him.

As a result, he had never been able to glimpse the true nature of this "Fireball."

But now—

As he gradually felt his skin searing, and saw beneath the vault of the sky above him a brilliant point of light like a meteor tearing through the darkness, smashing apart the mist, and plunging downward—

He finally seemed to understand what "ignorance" meant.

If what he held in his hand counted as a "fireball,"

then what he was seeing now was, in all likelihood, the sun.

Raging flames roared low as they bored through his eardrums.

Brilliant points of light blossomed, burning into a sea of fire amid dazzling splendor—

"BOOM!!!"