"The world is so unpredictable…"Ominous magic crawled out from the shadows. After combining with evil intent that took tangible form, this magic transformed into the black mist of death from h.e.l.l itself. All this black mist gathered upon my fingers, twirling and condensing itself into an ominous physical representation of death.
"Kill him!"
"Don"t let him finish that spell!"
Just this magic and black mist combining already created a roaring skeleton head. This magic was so threatening without having even completed the spell? This was something ordinary people couldn"t understand.
The Swift Sword gang"s boss didn"t even need to give this command. Even an ordinary bandit would know what to do when witnessing such a terrifying scene.
The tall one-eyed bandit ranger leader swiftly grabbed his arrows. The armed bandits didn"t even speak as they roared and desperately charged at me. There was even a sly bandit who used a hostage as a meat s.h.i.+eld. All of them made their own decisions as they were faced with a life-and-death crisis, yet I merely sighed silently.
"…Although the world is filled with the unexpected, at the very least, everyone is equal in front of death. Open, h.e.l.l"s Door."
The black light gathered together while the skeleton head of black mist continued to roar behind it. This scene appeared just like some Dimensional Door opening up. Obviously, the spell was nearing completion.
The aura of death started spreading. The cowards among the bandits were so scared that they dropped their weapons, and even the more vicious bandits had distorted faces filled with fear as they, too, could sense the aura of death.
Only the one-eyed bandit leader kept concentrating fully on aiming his arrows. He knew that there would only be one chance to deal with an archmage"s sudden appearance. If he missed his one chance, he would never have a chance again.
*Thwick*
He let his arrow loose with an almost imperceptible sound that no ordinary ears could detect. His enchanted mithril arrow arrived in front of me almost instantly, at a rate which I estimated maybe even surpa.s.sed the speed of sound. This bandit leader had likely reached Legend in the ranger job cla.s.s.
"Cat s.h.i.+eld."
With simply a thought, I gave a command that my magical pet was forced to obey. A white cat jumped out of a shadow and perfectly blocked the arrow. But judging from how she glared at me in dissatisfaction afterwards, it seemed that she wasn"t happy to do so… But weren"t magical pets supposed to take hits for the master?
"d.a.m.n it!"
s.h.i.+nk, the former team captain and ranger of the Brave Swift Sword mercenary group, who was now the boss of the Swift Sword gang, had an expression of disbelief upon seeing that his attack had actually been blocked by a cat. He knew better than anyone the force of his own arrows. That had been an armor-piercing arrow that would shatter any heavy armor. Even if someone blocked the arrow, it was more than powerful enough to pierce right through the body and slay the weak mage hiding behind.
The arrow"s tail was still on the cat"s body, yet the arrow head had completely vanished. And then, the cat twisted itself where it had been shot and devoured the arrow. The injury actually vanished completely, and the end result was that the megvaluable enchanted mithril arrow disappeared.
Yet, s.h.i.+nk could only be forced to acknowledge the unmistakable result. That armor-piercing arrow, which could pierce through heavy boulders, had mysteriously vanished into a seemingly ordinary house cat"s body. That white cat even burped as if it had eaten a delicious meal.
"Monster!"
s.h.i.+nk"s a.n.a.lysis wasn"t wrong at all. The house cat before him was indeed a monster pretending to be an ordinary cat. But, the moment he shouted, the cat"s glare focused right on him.
"Monster…"
s.h.i.+nk repeated the same word again, but his earlier shock and anger had now turned into fear and helplessness.
With just a single glance, he felt as if he had been devoured by a vicious beast. His entire back was soaked in cold sweat.
s.h.i.+nk was someone who had already experienced countless battles in his time as a mercenary. Yet, he had never felt this close to death before. Just how many people could this monster have possibly killed to acc.u.mulate such a strong killing intent? He knew instinctively that this was a monster that he couldn"t possibly deal with.
Should I escape? No, I can"t abandon my last few remaining brothers-in-arms, but if I don"t escape, the only result will be…
The bandit leader was still debating with himself whether to run and abandon his comrades or to stay behind and meet almost certain doom. But, the now completed six-circle magic spell h.e.l.l"s Door made the decision for him.
The next instant, a flying fairy was born from the door. This black fairy which was only the size of a palm giggled in the air, leaving behind black mist and crystal-clear laughter.
"Heehee!"
This magically created fairy was just like a living creature. Her clear wings kept fluttering, and black gem dust kept scattering from her wings, leaving behind a glorious artificial trail as it flew. Suddenly, the fairy glided downward and fluttered amongst the bandits. Even their swords were unable to stop her giggling as if she was just playing a game.
"The spell failed? Is that black-robed mage not an enemy?"
The bandits were just beginning to rejoice when the situation changed yet again.
"h.e.l.l, has opened its door." The fairy giggled in the air and spoke in a strange and soft voice. Yet, everyone was able to understand her words even with her strange voice.
Suddenly, the fairy"s entire body exploded, and transformed back into black mist, which reformed into a maniacally laughing skeleton head, but this time it was three meters tall, and seemed physical in nature.
The skull"s eyes seemed to be laughing as its widely open mouth began to devour the light like a black hole. This was h.e.l.l"s Door, the darkest abyss which devoured souls.
The bandits had just been "playing" with the fairy, but the next instant, they all collapsed on the ground with blank stares. The life had gone out of their eyes... because they had all just lost their souls!
As if it discovered that it no longer had any "food", the skeleton head door closed itself, and transformed back into a fairy that giggled at me before vanis.h.i.+ng into shadow.
"This magic spell seems filled with evil intent. Is it your personal interest?"
"Not at all, I only created it based on simple logic. I don"t know why it took such a form. Perhaps h.e.l.l"s own power has a special nature, or perhaps the h.e.l.l G.o.ds themselves have such a personality since I"m borrowing power from them."
The death magic h.e.l.l"s Door. If one a.n.a.lyzed the workings of this spell, it actually wasn"t that complex at all. This spell simply connected to h.e.l.l and opened up a small portal to use the power of h.e.l.l to attack an enemy. Or, in simpler terms, this power of h.e.l.l would steal away any mortals" souls.
Obviously, this was a spell that required the h.e.l.l G.o.ds" approval. It was a new type of magic that was somewhere in between Divine Arts and magic. Still, its foundational logic was quite cliché.
The Order G.o.ds" Divine Arts had spells like Heaven"s Light, while the Chaos demons also had Divine Arts such as Chaos Rain. The former spell was a Dimensional Door that could connect directly to the upper planes, using the positive energy of the upper planes against undead, demons, and so on. The latter spell was exactly the opposite, connecting to the lower planes to use the power of Chaos. The power of Chaos would be highly effective against mortals of all sorts, and have all sorts of special effects against Order creatures like angels.
However, even though this spell used common magical logic, it was still completely different when it involved h.e.l.l. First of all, the lowest-level Heaven"s Light was merely a three-circle Divine Art, while h.e.l.l"s Door was a far more difficult spell between six and seven circles. It was a spell that only Legends and above could cast. Still, even though it was a spell with far greater requirements, it also had much stronger effects. If you looked at the spell"s logical workings, this was the most efficient AOE instant death magic of all.
I nodded in satisfaction at the pile of bandit corpses before me. The effect was even better than I"d antic.i.p.ated. It would seem that this spell"s formula could now be fixed. Afterwards, I could just give it to the Mage Country for safekeeping.
The Order G.o.ds had their own Divine Arts, and Holy Light was one of the types of positive energy. This was the most natural power of Order.
Originally, the power of death was pure negative energy. Yet, after h.e.l.l was successfully constructed, the power of death now gained the Concepts of Judgement, Death, Reincarnation, and Salvation. This became a brand-new power—the power of h.e.l.l.
"We, we"re fine?"
The villager hostages that were also within the spell"s AOE radius found to their astonishment that they were completely uninjured. They were overjoyed to find that the bandits next to them had all collapsed.
Previously, the power of death would be like a torrential flood. Instant death AOE magic spells had tremendous killing power, but it would be impossible to differentiate allies and enemies. However, the power of h.e.l.l was like the quietly flowing River Styx. It appeared calm on the surface, but possessed the power to even kill an angel. Yet, the power of h.e.l.l itself was harmless as long as one obeyed its rules. The power of h.e.l.l could also be controlled.
Flowing silver sand moved between my hands, glittering black and s.h.i.+ny like valuable gems. This was the power of h.e.l.l, which had evolved from the power of death. After h.e.l.l reconnected to the mortal plane of Eich, the power of h.e.l.l had now become one of the fundamental natural laws of Eich.
Countless mages and priests (especially undead mages and Evil G.o.d priests) were researching this new power. As for me, I was in a new Gold rank job cla.s.s called Messenger of h.e.l.l, which was now mostly mature enough for me to spread to others.
Note that although the power of h.e.l.l was an evolution of the power of death, ordinary mages and priests could also learn to utilize the power of h.e.l.l—even if they previously didn"t have any way to use the power of death. Priests could directly establish a connection with a h.e.l.l G.o.d, while mages would have to accept the Concepts of h.e.l.l. However, it wasn"t necessary to become an undead mage filled with negative energy to use the power of h.e.l.l.
The might of a new magic type would be the best type of name card. Even though there weren"t many researchers for the h.e.l.l magic, h.e.l.l"s index of h.e.l.l magic spells already contained more than thirty new spells. There were quite a few spells that would surely leave their mark in history. Only two spells among them were personally created by me.
"You dare to brag about creating two spells? If it wasn"t for me, you wouldn"t have completed a single spell until ten years later."
Alright then, I was forced to admit that the silly cat, who was staring at me right now, was far more naturally talented at magic than I was. Not only had she already invented seven of the new h.e.l.l spells, my two new h.e.l.l spells had mostly been created with her a.s.sistance.
As for why my AOE h.e.l.l magic spell only killed the bandits, but not the villagers? That was because of the red light of Judgement on the bandits" bodies, and the Judgementor Thor who was currently a.s.sisting the villagers.
Law Incantation: Judgement. Originally, this Law Incantation could only be used in combination with other Law spells to improve other Law spells" effectiveness. But now that the G.o.d of Law was the same as the ruler of h.e.l.l, these two magic types could naturally be used in tandem with each other.
The power of h.e.l.l itself contained the Concept of judging evil sinners. Now, Law Incantation: Judgement would judge everyone here for their recent crimes, acting as a targeting spell. If it hadn"t been for Law Incantation: Judgement giving targets, then h.e.l.l"s Door would have still likely been an indiscriminate AOE death magic spell.
This was a test of life and will. I didn"t know before trying this out if it would successfully kill all the bandits, but the villagers would have definitely died otherwise. And now, the white light that represented the innocent was their best s.h.i.+eld of all.
"If the power of Law can be considered a s.h.i.+eld of protection, then the new Divine Arts and spells of the power of h.e.l.l will probably become the sharpest weapons of all."
And after I confirmed the results of my new experimental spell, I found to my surprise that there was a single bandit who actually survived.
The one-eyed ranger bandit leader was now unconscious rather than dead. It would seem that I had obtained a nice experimental subject.