Dark Magus Returns

Chapter 1759  The Illusion of Power

For the battered Pagna warriors and the Crimson Crane who had been desperately fighting against Idore up until this point, staring death in the face, seeing Raze finally arrive brought an overwhelming, suffocating wave of relief.

Why? Because every single time they had seen him in the past, every time he arrived at the eleventh hour to save them all, he had succeeded. He had ruthlessly taken down whatever impossible enemy had stood in front of him. When the times were impossibly hard, when survival seemed like a mathematical impossibility, Raze had been their sword. That absolute, unwavering trust was exactly why they had blindly decided to jump through that dimensional portal into Alterian in the first place.

Regardless of whether they lived or died on this floating fortress, they wanted to help Raze fight against the ultimate enemy standing in front of him. Even here, in an entirely different dimension facing a literal god of magic, they found themselves doing the exact same thing again: standing by their leader.

Initially, seeing Raze’s overwhelming power, they thought they would just get in his way. But as they watched the chaotic crossfire of the elemental vortexes, they realized there was a crucial way for them to help without hindering his assault. They had figured out some of Idore’s spatial tricks. They had gained a amount of physical strength through their grueling trials, and they were only alive right now because of Raze. So, they would stop the flanking attacks any way they physically could. They would be his shield.

“Raze, just charge straight ahead!” Rayna shouted, her voice cutting through the roar of the elemental magic. “We’ll cover anything that comes from your sides and your back! You just focus entirely on what’s directly in front of you, and take that bastard down!”

Raze didn’t have to be asked twice. The longer he stood around analyzing the field, the higher the chance there was for Idore to successfully calculate a lethal attack with his God Eyes. He gripped his swords and charged forward.

But Idore had already acted.

From the five vortexes of magic that he was still supplying with ambient mana from his own body, he utilized his golden God Eyes to continuously throw dense, lethal strands of raw magic curving through the air toward Raze’s blind spots.

True to their promise, the allies threw themselves into the line of fire to block the strikes. Alba had already activated the unique effect of her specialized weapon again. As she did, she violently swung her blades, perfectly intercepting a jagged bolt of lightning and hitting the magic harmlessly away into the sky.

Rayna, stepping into the path of a condensed strand of fire magic, was getting severely burned. The heat scorched her armor, but aggressively using her refined Qi and digging her special-tier boots deep into the stone platform, she made absolutely sure that she didn’t get pushed back a single inch. She was going to stubbornly stay exactly right there to intercept the attacks. The others were doing something strikingly similar, forming a protective, living corridor for their leader.

This unshakeable loyalty allowed Raze to focus his entire mind. He didn’t worry about the others or look back to ask whether they could take the punishment or not. Instead, he knew they were sacrificing their bodies doing this for him. So the only acceptable thing he could do to honor that sacrifice was to push forward, push faster, and take out Idore.

Raze continued to move like a blur, swinging his twin swords heavily covered in suffocating darkness. It was almost as if he was using a continuous, flowing variation of the Abyssal Strike. But rather than a single, amount of dark magic pouring out in one blast, he was just continuously, rapidly swinging, swatting the frontal elemental attacks away as he carved his path forward.

Idore could clearly see that Raze was getting closer and closer. Despite the Grand Magus’s use of more and more condensed magic, the sheer density of Raze’s dark aura meant the frontal attacks were having absolutely no effect on him any longer.

Panicking slightly, Idore decided to rapidly redirect the streams of magic that were heading from the flanks and aggressively funneled all of them directly toward the front to crush Raze under the sheer elemental pressure.

“RAZE! CATCH!” Kizer shouted at the top of his lungs.

Stepping out from the defensive line, Kizer violently threw his own heavy sword through the air.

Looking up, Raze instantly understood the tactic. He threw his own dark weapon backward, handing it to Kizer for the time being, and then reached out and caught the , flying blade. It was a legendary weapon that Raze had personally crafted for Kizer—a cursed weapon that exponentially grew stronger dependent on exactly how many enemies the wielder was currently facing in battle.

Because the , apocalyptic war was still actively going on down on the surface below them, the weapon registered thousands of hostiles. The moment Raze’s fingers wrapped around the hilt, he could feel an instant, explosive boost in his physical and magical strength. The heavy drawback was due to the weapon’s curse: if its ultimate skill was used, it could never be used again. It would be permanently dormant.

That was perfectly fine, though. This was the endgame.

Raze lifted up the empowered sword and swung it down, performing a supercharged Abyssal Strike. A tidal wave of absolute darkness erupted forward, completely consuming every single elemental attack in front of him. The sheer force of the dark wave forced Idore to cross his arms and physically protect himself, blinding the Grand Magus and causing the elemental attacks to stop for just a brief, vital moment.

As Raze rushed forward through the fading darkness, he could see a glint of metal in the corner of his eye. Another sword was being thrown directly his way from the backlines.

In a flawless, practiced response, Raze threw the now-dormant heavy sword back to Kizer, knowing his ally might need it more than him for the rest of the fight, and reached out to catch the new blade spinning toward him.

The sword in question was the unique, slender blade he had originally crafted for Beatrix.

As he closed the final few meters between him and the Grand Magus, Raze knew exactly how to use its hidden effect. Channeling his Qi into the hilt, he activated the weapon’s phasing ability. As Raze lunged, his physical body essentially became intangible, violently transversing reality and passing right through the invisible, absolute spatial barrier that protected Idore.

That was the fatal flaw of the Grand Magus’s special item. It was just an external barrier. Once an attacker successfully bypassed the threshold and was physically on the inside of the loop, its spatial redirecting effects could no longer protect the user.

Idore’s golden eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing horror as Raze materialized right in front of him.

Without a second of hesitation, Raze slashed the phasing sword diagonally downward. The blade cleanly cut through Idore’s enchanted robes and deep into his chest, hot blood splattering violently into the cold air.

“Take away all the legendary items you hoard! Strip away everything you built! Pluck out even those stolen God Eyes!” Raze roared, his voice dripping with venom as the Grand Magus stumbled backward, clutching his bleeding chest. “Underneath all of this grand illusion, you’re not strong, Idore! You’re weak!”

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