Chapter 39

He took two steps forward, his boots crushing scorching gravel beneath them. "Better make it remember this lesson."

Blue light erupted once more.

This time, three streams of light shot toward them in a crisscross pattern, sealing off any room to dodge left or right.

The instant the beams struck the ground, the street seemed to be plowed apart. The asphalt melted away, revealing dark red earth beneath.

A wave of heat rushed toward them, whipping up hems and strands of hair.

Yet, just as the streams were about to swallow the figure, they bent again in an eerie arc, as though they had struck a transparent curved surface, ricocheting off in three different directions.

One punched through the storefront window across the street, one buried itself in the middle of a building to the side, and the last shot diagonally into the sky, vanishing beyond the clouds.

A mechanical hum of overload came from inside the warship.

The blue light at its bow flickered a few times before abruptly going out, replaced by clusters of crackling sparks.

Its massive body began to wobble and slowly tilt to one side.

Hulk leaped up from the stern and landed on the edge of a neighboring rooftop.

He looked back toward the street, baring his teeth in an expression that barely qualified as a smile.

Then he jumped again, pouncing toward another approaching warship.

Kamidar let out a breath, only then realizing that he had been holding it. "They... don't seem that scary?"

"Just tougher shells."

Zhao Yu looked up at the warship as it slowly lost power and fell.

It scraped against a building, tearing away large chunks of its exterior before crashing heavily into an intersection, making the ground tremble.

Smoke and dust billowed up like a grayish-yellow mushroom cloud.

Before the dust settled, Zhao Yu had already turned around. "Let's move somewhere else.

"Standing still too long makes you an easy target."

They moved through the shadows of the streets and alleys, their footsteps drowned out by the distant explosions and impacts.

Before turning the corner, Zhao Yu gave the stranded giant warship one last glance.

Its hull was cracked in many places, exposing a complicated network of internal pipes. Faint blue energy fluid gushed from the breaches, pooling on the asphalt in glowing puddles.

Several small aircraft rushed frantically out of hatches along its side like a startled swarm of bees, quickly disappearing between the buildings.

The metal structure before him looked very much like the muzzle of some kind of ship-mounted main cannon.

The thought finally settled in his mind—no wonder even Thor, who could withstand stellar energy head-on, had been forced into such a sorry retreat by that warship.

With firepower on this level, even the Hulk would probably get hurt.

Still, using this thing against him was wishful thinking.

"Ring of Raggadorr."

Zhao Yu spoke those syllables.

Buzz—

A heavy tremor exploded through the air.

A red shield, dozens of meters tall, appeared out of nowhere before them.

Sharp breaths came from behind him.

The mages were all stunned.

"Th-This is also called the Ring of Raggadorr?"

Usually mild-mannered, Kamidar blurted out a curse.

He had seen Zhao Yu use spells he had never encountered before, and he could still convince himself that they were special techniques taught by the Sorcerer Supreme. It was normal for him not to understand them.

But the Ring of Raggadorr? He knew it too well. He could draw it with his eyes closed.

This was nothing more than an enhanced Magic Shield, one of the most basic defensive spells.

Could someone please tell him why something so basic had turned into a giant wall three stories tall in Zhao Yu's hands?

Kamidar stared at the shield, dazed.

He suddenly felt as though he had spent the past several decades learning magic for nothing.

It would have been one thing if he could not compare to advanced spells, but even with an entry-level technique like this, the gap was this enormous.

"Wow, that's the Ring of Raggadorr? That's amazing!"

"Why is Zhao Yu's different from what my teacher taught me?"

"That shield looks so huge... When will I be able to cast one like that?"

"My teacher said he would teach me the Ring of Raggadorr too. Does that mean I can become this powerful someday?"

Several apprentice mages crowded together at the back, chattering away.

Kamidar's mouth twitched.

The thing you learned was also called the Ring of Raggadorr?

At the other end of the block, a thunderous blast erupted, and a shockwave carrying rubble crashed outward.

The building more than ten stories tall collapsed amid the deafening roar. The sounds of snapping steel and concrete mixed with rolling dust as they surged into the air, and the entire street was swallowed by gray smoke, reducing visibility to nothing.

Yet the scene across the street was completely different.

It was as though an invisible barrier had separated the two sides into different worlds. One was a chaotic ruin of debris and dust, while the other remained spotless, even the gravel on the ground left untouched.

Kamidar stood there with several mages behind him, every one of them frozen as still as stone.

Their eyes were fixed on Zhao Yu. No one blinked. No one even breathed.

Only one thought echoed repeatedly through Kamidar's mind—this was absurd.

What kind of human method was this? How could a shield produce destruction on this level? The force of that impact was already comparable to a spell cast jointly by multiple people at Kamar-Taj.

Even those mages with advanced titles would have been turned into chunks of flesh mixed with rubble if they took a direct hit.

But Zhao Yu? He had blocked such an attack with nothing but the Ring of Raggadorr.

Was this guy even human?

Kamidar felt his understanding of the world being crushed beneath some incomprehensible fact.

With magic, once the area increased, the intensity naturally dropped. That was basic common sense.

The same amount of magical power

Dozens of meters? It was not as though Kamidar could not expand that shield to such a size if he went all out.

But if he actually did it, the shield would probably be unable to block even a stone casually thrown by an ordinary person.

Yet the shield before him was not only that large, it could also withstand an attack powerful enough to collapse a high-rise building.

Was this really magic, or something else entirely?

Why could the ring in Zhao Yu's hand endure such an impact?

Kamidar stood frozen in place, his gaze nailed to the barrier—this was absolutely not power that an ordinary mage could wield.

The residual energy still screamed through the air, but Zhao Yu had already looked away.

"Ding."

A notification sounded in the depths of his mind.

The Ring of Raggadorr has resisted a high-intensity impact.

Talent activated: the power of subsequent attacks of the same type is reduced by half.

His shoulders stiffened slightly.

Just as he thought.

This ring had never been merely a shield.

At the other end of the battlefield, shadows pressed down from the sky.

Whale-shaped warships hung like monsters stranded among the clouds, openings constantly splitting across their bellies as Chitauri soldiers fell like iron-gray raindrops.

The moment they touched the ground, they raised their weapons. Energy beams formed a dense web, but every one of them shattered against the flowing golden curtain of light without causing even the slightest tremor.

Invaders?

A chill flashed through Zhao Yu's eyes.

With a turn of his wrist, a slender golden chain appeared in his palm.

It looked only slightly thicker than hemp rope, utterly unremarkable.

Several Chitauri soldiers let out muffled roars as blue light gathered at their gun barrels again.

A cold smile curled from Zhao Yu's lips.

That "rope"

suddenly came alive.

It shot into the air, stretching into a moving golden line that wound through gaps in the smoke and falling debris, so fast it left afterimages behind.

It felt as though time itself had been violently scraped away from the ground.

A buzzing roar suddenly exploded—as if some engine had started inside their skulls.

Everything instantly froze.

More than a hundred Chitauri soldiers stiffened in place, locked in their attacking postures.

The whale-shaped warship hovering in midair seemed embedded in amber, completely motionless.

Crack.

A faint sound of breaking came from above.

Spiderweb-like cracks spread across the surface of the giant warship, and then its entire structure began to collapse.

As if some invisible switch had been flipped, the massive vessel turned into countless metal fragments and pipes, spilling down with a clatter and kicking up choking clouds of dust.

The soldiers on the ground also came apart at the same time.

Reeking slime and shattered biological tissue splattered everywhere, covering the street.

The entire street fell silent.

Only Zhao Yu remained standing.

"Ding."

The system notification sounded by his ear.

The number of targets killed in a single use of Vishanti Chains has exceeded one hundred.

Vishanti Chains has leveled up.

Zhao Yu's lips curved into his usual, slightly reserved smile.

But the mages behind him could no longer remain on their feet.

Several young mages collapsed directly to the ground, their fingers digging into the cracks between the bricks until their knuckles turned white.

They had never witnessed a battlefield firsthand, much less slaughter so swift and decisive.

Their eyes were unfocused, their lips trembling, as though their souls had been ripped away by what they had just seen.

Kamidar was in slightly better condition.

He had, after all, experienced battle and seen bloodshed.

Even so, cold sweat seeped down his back.

Zhao Yu's methods were too violent, too efficient.

He was like a storm sweeping through everything in its path.

And if he had not seen wrong, Zhao Yu had not even used any complex or lengthy incantation.

The binding spell of Vishanti had condensed into form in the air.

Those silver-white energy chains should have wrapped around their targets, yet now they extended straight as blades tempered in fire.

Kamidar remembered why Mage Hamir had created this spell—to restrain and capture multiple enemies, sacrificing single-target destructive power in exchange for wider coverage.

But the sight before him completely overturned everything he knew.

Mirror-smooth cut surfaces reflected a cold gleam across the hull of the Chitauri landing craft.

That was spacefaring alloy, a material that many civilizations' main cannons could not leave marks upon. Yet now it separated as neatly as grease sliced by a hot knife.

More than a hundred chains pierced through the ship at once, and the shriek of tearing metal even drowned out the sounds of the battlefield.

Kamidar's fingers clenched unconsciously.

He smelled ozone mixed with molten metal, while the unceasing sounds of collapse battered his eardrums.

Was this really the same kind of magic? What exactly had that young man poured into it?

A scene from training suddenly surfaced in his memory.

When Zhao Yu first tried this incantation, the chains had lasted only three seconds before collapsing into specks of light.

But now, after piercing their targets, those silver-white bands of light did not dissipate. Instead, they slowly swayed in the air like living tentacles, searching for their next prey.

"The names in history..."

Kamidar heard himself murmur softly.

He thought of the great mages recorded in ancient texts, those who could, by themselves, sweat had somehow seeped into his palms, and the fabric against his skin felt icy cold.

At the other end of the battlefield, that figure did not even turn back to inspect the results.

The chains drew in with his movements, trailing flowing streaks of light behind him.

The remains of Chitauri soldiers fell from midair, striking the ground and stirring up dark red dust.

Kamidar suddenly realized that he was trembling.

Not from fear, but from something deeper—a reaction like the one his body instinctively produced when standing at the edge of a cliff and looking down into an abyss.

Among all the apprentices he had taught, no one had ever pushed a basic incantation to this extent.

Vishanti Chains should have been a tool for binding, but now they had become blades for cutting.

"Maybe it's time to return to the snow mountains."

The thought surfaced abruptly.

He imagined himself packing away those ancient scrolls, the empty cushion beside the stove, mornings when no one came seeking guidance on the structure of spells.

A strange relief mixed with loss rose in his heart like winter fog.

The distant figure began moving again.

The chains spread out once more. This time, they did not thrust forward directly, but interwove in the air like a spiderweb, forming a complex array.

Kamidar held his breath.

He watched the bands of light begin to spin, faster and faster, until they became a silver storm.

The sound of metal being shredded was like torrential rain hammering on a tin roof.

Kamidar stared at the faint spark at his fingertips. It flickered for only an instant before going out completely, unable to leave behind even a wisp of smoke.

The distant ** sound made his eardrums ache—it was power unleashed by someone else, as though it could tear the sky apart.

And his? He could not even make the air tremble once more.

The shadows of two massive warships pressed down upon the city once again, like steel whales cruising beneath the clouds.

On the deck of one, a green figure was violently pounding the metal hull. The dull impacts could be heard even from far away, yet the ship did not budge.

The other was entwined in blue-white lightning. The light was dazzling at first, but it quickly dimmed, as if something had swallowed it.