Well-Trained and Friendly Fire

To Wong, killing had almost become instinct.

He was forty-eight. He had entered Kamar-Taj at fourteen, and at eighteen had handled the first cultist sacrifice of his life. For the Mages of Kamar-Taj, there was no such thing as a pure researcher or academic.

—One of their duties was to kill.

And among those duties, there was one point that mattered most.

Efficiency.

Like now.

With a thought, his body, enhanced by speed mode, erupted with formidable power. The index and ring fingers of his left hand curled, and his magical pathways completed the task of channeling magic in an instant. The engraved spell was released at once. The figure in black-and-white armor flickered and appeared in midair, ghostlike.

The next second, chained lightning burst through the monster horde. Against creatures of flesh and blood, fire and Thunderbolt would always be the best methods. They were powerful, fast-acting, and most importantly, the aftershocks of the spells often served perfectly to conceal what Wong planned to do next.

He pressed his hands together, and tendrils of mental power tugged at the lightning that had yet to fully disperse, making it burrow beneath the ground as if it possessed a will of its own. Magic continued to flow, and in the next second, he completely altered the nature of the lightning. The corner of Wong's mouth lifted slightly. Since long ago, this had been his favorite move.

The ground bulged, and the monsters let out uneasy roars. They trampled over the scattered, broken corpses of their companions and pounced toward Wong, but they could not touch him at all. Tendrils of mental power swatted them back down to the ground one by one, and a huge pale-purple magic array appeared around them, enclosing the entire Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Wong took a