Old Grudges

"Ha, I'll give you a chance. If you can slip away with your tricks, then that's your skill."

With a loud laugh, Guk waved an arm.

Accompanied by a powerful sensation of weightlessness, an immense force hurled her into the air, then smashed her into a shell crater rippling with blood.

Blood-mixed mud mottled her fair face. She fumbled about in a daze, only to find that the sword in her hand had vanished.

The Wizard immediately rolled to her feet, but failed to find any weapon nearby.

Human corpses torn apart by bullets and explosions lay scattered around the crater, their features unrecognizable.

"Mm..."

That convulsing agony struck again. She bent over and realized that the power of the Vast Ocean had begun pouring into her body of its own accord, unstoppable.

She was a Wizard of the Badger School, and her use of power was more focused on the body. Her school had always taught her to hold fast to her true self, because the power of the Vast Ocean never came without a price. One careless mistake, and it would demand back a hundred or a thousand times what it had once given.

"Guk... you... killed my grandfather and father..."

But now, before the temptation of this power, the young Wizard finally opened her body and soul, embracing Hanan's tides.

"...You... die!"

The rubble around her rose into the air, while the blood beneath her feet gradually began to boil.

The power of the Vast Ocean surged through her entire body, but at the cellular level, horrifying mutations had already begun destroying her.

"Hmm?"

Guk frowned, sensing that things were not so simple. He raised his right arm and lightly crooked a finger.

WAAAAAAAGH!

The nearby guards immediately understood the order. They swarmed forward, intending to hack