Fight to the Death, Never Retreat

"I have one last question, Wizard Raymond."

Dago took a light breath and said, "Doesn't the Academy have the inheritance of Formal Wizards? Why did you go to such great lengths to scheme for Vissel's inheritance?"

Raymond burst into laughter after hearing that. There was not a trace of joy in it, only surging madness.

"You think the Academy Recruitment Order really provides the guidance of Formal Wizards? It's a lie to trick those idiot hired wizards into risking their lives. I've been at the Academy for a full thirty years, and I'm still only a Half-Step Formal Wizard. Do you really think the Academy would give out the inheritance of Formal Wizards?"

"Thirty years. How many thirty years does a person have? If you don't become a Formal Wizard, you're nothing but an ant. Even that old ghost, the Academy headmaster, is merely a lackey of Emerald Life."

"So I have to become a Formal Wizard and see the view above. That thought has been eating away at my soul like poison every day, driving me mad."

Raymond's cold gaze fell on Dago, as though he were delivering a final ultimatum.

Dago pondered for a moment before saying, "There's a saying in my hometown that's quite right: villains die from talking too much."

With that, he fired the ice sphere at the tip of the Ice Crystal Wand at Raymond.

Seeing this, Raymond shouted, "You're courting death! Then I'll grant your wish, Dago!"

He hurled the fireball he held aloft at Dago.

The ice sphere and fireball collided explosively in midair, instantly erupting into a spectacular clash of ice and fire.

The ice sphere, condensed from ice energy, gleamed a ghostly blue, its surface wrapped in fine frost. The instant it struck the fireball, the flames surged three feet high.

In the end, the ice sphere shattered into countless ice crystals beneath the unceasing heat, while the fireball dimmed under the erosion of cold air, turning into a skyful of sparks that fell amid a rain of shattered ice.

The instant cold and heat canceled each other out, a great deal of white mist and vapor spread out.

Dago raised the Ice Crystal Wand in his hand. His gaze pierced through the white mist as Detection Technique firmly locked onto Raymond's position.

The next second, the air and light at the tip of his wand began to distort.

A large amount of gathered ice energy and air formed fierce winds around him, blowing the cloak behind Dago upward.

An ice crystal shell the size of a basketball condensed into shape.

Aim, fire—done in one smooth motion.

The terrifying ice crystal shell shot out, tearing through the white mist and kicking up huge swaths of snow and soil along its path.

Boom!

The spinning blue-black ice crystal shell slammed straight into a Flame Wall before Raymond and was completely melted away.

Raymond held up an entirely red wand, his expression somewhat ugly. The power of that move had clearly shaken him enough that he had no choice but to draw his wand and fight.

Dago's Detection Technique gave him a piece of information: Flame Wall. A thick wall of flames rose before the caster. It could not only block physical attacks, but also burn away elemental energy that came into contact with it.

A safe zone would form behind the wall. The flames released heat only outward, while inside, they were as gentle as warm light.

Dago's expression darkened. The ice crystal shell had basically failed, and he kept calculating his next move.

In terms of experience, could Raymond's thirty years as a wizard possibly be inferior to his? In terms of strength, a Half-Step Formal Wizard was several times stronger than him.

But he also had his ultimate trump card, the Flame Core Air Bullet. The charging time was too long, though, making it practically impossible to cast.

If he wanted to win, he had to make use of the environment.

With that thought, Dago took a bottle of purple Mental Potion from his storage pouch and drank it.

Then he used mental power to compress trace amounts of air beneath his feet, activating Jumping Man Mode.

Dago leaped several meters away at once, heading toward the vast fields between the town and the forest.

When Raymond saw that Dago wanted to flee, pale violet-blue rings flashed in his eyes. His body actually rose from the ground, hovering a meter above it as he chased after Dago.

Dago looked back and was instantly horrified. This damn Half-Step Formal Wizard can fly!

Raymond flew one meter above the ground while Dago bounded through the broad fields. The distance between them continued to shrink.

Red energy began to gather at Raymond's wand, forming fireballs that he started bombarding Dago with.

Dago had no choice. Gritting his teeth, he could only increase his mental power and compress more air, using the resulting air blasts to send himself farther.

But that meant he could no longer maintain a stable landing posture, and the strain on his feet would worsen.

Like this, Dago was bombarded by Raymond across the open fields for more than ten minutes. Several times, he nearly got struck in the back, escaping only by the narrowest margins.

The cloak on his body had long lost its original appearance. It had been torn into countless strips of ragged cloth, like a tattered battle flag hanging from him, its edges curled and blackened by fire.

A foot-long gash had been cut across his shoulder, exposing the bleeding wound beneath. The torn cloth stuck to his skin with blood, trembling faintly with each breath.

His sleeves were even worse, with only half of them left. His exposed forearms were covered in scratches, and the Cleansing Runes once embroidered on his wizard robe had long since dimmed.

That tattered wizard robe carried more strength than any magnificent decoration.

Every tear was proof that he had escaped death. Hidden within every charred scrap was an unbroken backbone and an edge that refused to admit defeat.

Dago stopped. He turned to look at Raymond, who calmly watched him from the air more than ten meters away.

Raymond sneered. "Run. Why did you stop running? This game of hunting rats has been quite fun."

Dago replied calmly, "Wizard Raymond, haven't you noticed something? I've actually been jumping around a circular area the entire time."

"Oh? To a hunter, what difference does it make whether a rat runs straight or in circles?"

"Of course there's a difference, Wizard Raymond. Next, it's my turn. I hope you can take it."

The reason Dago had been wounded during his constant escape, without the protection of ice armor formed from pale skin, was because he had been continuously using mental power to bury dormant ice elements in the fields.

Like a diligent old farmer planting rice seedlings, it was now time for him to harvest.

He chanted the spell for Ice Crystal Technique, continuously gathering ice elements in his palm to form a huge blue energy sphere.

Raymond thought he would launch an attack at him, so he began chanting as well, gathering a fireball at the tip of his wand.

Dago shouted, "Bloom, Ice Crystal Flower!" Then he pressed the blue energy sphere into the ground.

Ice energy raced across the snow-covered field, connecting the dormant ice elements Dago had buried beneath the snow and forming dense veins of ice beneath Raymond.

Raymond swiftly turned the fireball at the tip of his wand toward the field and fired it, but before such immense ice energy, the fireball was like something thrown into the ocean and snuffed out in an instant.

Crack, crack, crack. The crisp sound of splitting was especially piercing in the dead night sky, as though something were breaking free from underground.

At first, tiny ice spikes pierced through the frozen soil, their tips glowing with ghostly blue cold light. Then, more and more ice spikes erupted wildly along the veins, shooting upward at a visible speed and stabbing toward Raymond.

These ice spikes were not smooth pillars, but were covered in savage barbs and sharp ridges. Every inch carried an ancient cold that never melted, their surfaces covered in frost-like ice crystals.

Countless ice spikes rose from the fields, ultimately supporting a dense, crisscrossing forest of ice within this frozen purgatory. Their pointed tops pierced the gray heavens, and cold air flowed along their veins, dropping the temperature of this entire hell by several more degrees.

They were like countless hands reaching from the abyss—cold, sharp, and carrying an irresistible force—trapping everything that had wandered into this place within a prison of ice spikes where warmth would never exist.

As Raymond was trapped in this cage, he smiled at Dago and said, "Dago, do you think this can kill me? You're underestimating a Half-Step Formal Wizard."

But the next second, he was scared out of his wits. Dago raised his wand high, and a Flame Core like a tiny sun shone at its tip.

Raymond shouted madly, "Impossible! Apex of Sorcery! This isn't something someone your age can comprehend!"

Then he looked at Dago pleadingly. "Please, Dago, we can discuss anything. Don't release it at me. For the Academy's sake."

Dago's face was deathly pale as he replied with a cheeky grin, "It's not up to me. Go talk to my little Flame Core."

Boom—

Without warning, an explosive roar tore through heaven and earth, forming a ring-shaped shockwave of flames. Wherever it passed, rocks melted, vegetation turned to ash, and even the forest of ice crystal was instantly vaporized.

A mushroom-shaped fire cloud rose from the center of the explosion, a white-hot core of flame churning within it. Raymond had already turned to ashes in the first instant.

The flames he had once controlled became the most violent destroyers, carrying his ashes as they swept everything within a hundred meters into this scorching catastrophe.

When the firelight finally faded, all that remained was a charred crater more than ten meters wide. Unextinguished sparks still lingered at its bottom, and the air was filled with the smell of sulfur and scorched earth.

There were no remains, no traces—only that completely incinerated land as proof.