End of the Magic Era

“I… I don’t understand what you are talking about!”

After Lin Yun said the true name, Syudos, the Flame Spirit’s voice became more flustered. And not only was it more flustered, but it quickly began to feel endless fear and despair. “No… No! Fuck! What do you think you are doing? Stop, now!”

Unfortunately, no one could stop the Blood Binding once it started…

Lin Yun slightly cut his left wrist, letting blood drip on the hallway’s floor as he chanted a long incantation in Nesser in a deep and hoarse voice. It sounded like an ancient ritual.

“Impossible… How could you know my true name!” The Flame Spirit’s voice wasn’t as arrogant as before. He had already stopped caring about the battle against the Frost Elementals, only keeping up a few basic defensive spells as they swarmed over him.

Because these Frost Elementals were no longer his most threatening opponent.

Even if they drowned him, he would only have to return to the sealed array. There was no difference between a millennium or ten thousand years to an immortal Flame Spirit. But if the Blood Binding was successful, he would have no opportunity to get free.

As he recalled the effects of a Blood Binding, the Flame Spirit started struggling frantically.

With an explosion, Dylan’s silhouette disappeared, turning into a clump of raging flames. Blazing mana fluctuations spread out and a few Frost Elementals around him instantly evaporated, transforming into a white mist. It felt like lava was flowing down the entire hallway as the flames spread everywhere, sharply elevating the temperature.

Facing the threat of the Blood Binding, the Flame Spirit almost burst with full power, rousing the fire elements to a boil, making it seem like even the air was burning.

Unfortunately, half of the Blood Binding had already been completed.

The dripping blood on the floor had turned into a scarlet mist, outlining some sort of complicated mana pattern in the air. As Lin Yun’s incantation progressed, that mist turned into blood-colored chains, coiling around Syudos one after the other…

“How could I know your true name? Simple… I guessed.”

“…” Syudos, who had already returned into his Flame Spirit Incarnation form, nearly fell down when he heard that.

‘Guessed… Guessed…’

Fortunately, Syudos was already a Flame Spirit Incarnation, or else he might have spat blood. Dylan spent decades, three people from the council spent a few hundred years, Rudolph spent a thousand years, but none of them managed to find out his true name… but the person before him had guessed it!

‘Is there any fairness in the world?’ he thought.

“This is impossible, this is impossible!” Syudos was completely unable to accept such a cruel reality. He frantically struggled amidst the Frost Elementals and the blood chains, but unfortunately, no matter how much he struggled or roared, it was all for naught. It was like he was stuck in quicksand; the more he struggled and roared, the faster he would sink.

“I guessed right.” Lin Yun smiled, not explaining. He only urged the blood shackles to tighten around Syudos.

Lin Yun wasn’t toying with him.

He really had been guessing what Syudos’ true name was.

Syudos couldn’t believe it because he still didn’t know. 20,000 years later, Noscent would progressively suffer from mana exhaustion, and at that time, even the Upper Rank Elemental Spirits would be unable to keep surviving on their own. They had no other choice but to attach themselves to a master, hoping that their master would supply them with the mana they needed to keep existing.

Lin Yun clearly remembered that in Noscent’s history, there had been about 500 Upper Elemental Spirits with known true names. Out of those spirits, about four hundred appeared during that period.

The appearance of a large amount of Upper Rank Elemental Spirits gave the mages an opportunity they had never dared to think of before: studying the Upper Rank Elemental Spirits’ system. Thus, one true name after the other had been analyzed. The distinctive traits, the abilities, the timeframe, and what matched with the Upper Elemental Spirits’ true names. And in the end, they completed an – Upper Rank Elemental Spirits Compendium –, greatly simplifying the capture of Elemental Spirits.

Naturally, this book was stored in the decaying library.

Why was Lin Yun talking so much to Syudos?

It was in order to probe Syudos…

Changing into Dylan explained that this Flame Spirit had a shapeshifting ability at the very least. Burning Rudolph’s corpse showed that this Flame Spirit’s flames could reach a shockingly high temperature when they burst out. After gradually going through the process of elimination, there were few Upper Rank Flame Spirits left. And from the way he spoke, it seemed that he had already reached some sort of agreement with Dylan, and thus he would have probably been unable to escape the Ash Tower even if he was able to escape this Demiplane.

At that time, he had narrowed it down to only three true names.

If Lin Yun still couldn’t find this Flame Spirit’s true name at the point, then he might as well jump off the plane.

From start to finish, it took him only took a few minutes to find Syudos’ true name.

At that time, the situation was already decided.

In fact, Syudos wasn’t completely unprepared for that attack. After turning into his Spirit form, Syudos’ strength had risen up one whole level, being infinitely close to the Archmage level. But at that time, the siege of the mass of Frost Elementals, along with the bane of Elemental Spirits, the Blood Binding, formed a pincer attack that Syudos couldn’t handle. Although he burst out with power a few times, evaporating dozen of Frost Elementals, the blood chains on his body were getting tighter and tighter. Moreover, there were only two or three at first, but now, there were no less than twenty blood chains coiling around his body from which blood energy leaked out and infiltrated his body. When that power completely infiltrated his body, he would be finished.

The haughty Upper Rank Flame Spirit finally gave up.

“What… What do you want in the end?”

“Syudos, acknowledging me as your master is your only choice.”

“Okay…” After a short silence, Syudos loosened his expression for the first time. “I can serve you, but only for a hundred years!”

“No no no, Syudos, you still haven’t understood me. I don’t want an Upper Rank Flame Spirit that can betray me anytime, that would mean nothing to me. I’d rather break your true spirit. Like that, you could still become a magic material. I feel that this kind of magic material could be crafted into a peak Spiritual Magic Tool. It might even evolve into a True Spirit Magic Tool with sufficient good fortune…”

“Fuck, Are you blind? I’m only worth a peak Spiritual Magic Tool? Do you know what Upper Rank Spirit Elementals are?” Syudos flew into a rage.

“A Spiritual Magic Tool wouldn’t burn down its master’s corpse…” Then, Lin Yun continued with a cold snort. “You know what I want…”

Lin Yun was excited, sure that the answer was coming.

But after grunting in dissatisfaction, Syudos didn’t say anything else. Lin Yun waited for a long time, and when he lost patience, he urged power into the blood chains. In a flash, a hundred blood chains tightened around Syudos, like a wide net. The blood energy surged in his body like a tide, continuously corroding him. The originally dazzling flame had already turned into a faint scarlet layer.

“Two hundred years… No, three hundred years. Moreover, I swear to not betray you!”

At this time, Syudos didn’t dare to remain silent and offered three hundred years instantly.

“Too late.” Unfortunately for him, Lin Yun didn’t relent, and the final blood chain coiled around the spirit. Lin Yun chanted the last part of the incantation and the blood chains lit up with a scarlet light. Syudos, who had originally been spread out like a sea of fire, was compressed into a small ball by the hundreds of blood chains.

“No!”

Syudos was only able to let out a desperate shriek before being turned into a ball of fire and dragged back to Lin Yun’s body.

When Lin Yun pulled the ball of fire within his body, his five Magic Arrays began to rotate frantically. Several thousand runes formed an inescapable cage to lock Syudos in the middle of the five Magic Arrays.

‘As expected of an Upper Rank Flame Spirit…’ After making sure Syudos couldn’t struggle, Lin Yun wiped the sweat off his forehead. It looked like Lin Yun had controlled the outcome of the previous confrontation all along, but Lin Yun himself knew how dangerous the situation had been.

It could be said that ever since he decided to use the Blood Binding, Lin Yun had been walking on the edge of a cliff.

Even when the Blood Binding successfully caught Syudos, Lin Yun still wasn’t out of danger. But fortunately, Lin Yun had no lack of Magic Arrays and set several thousand runes in motion to build a cage that could tie Syudos securely. Otherwise, if Syudos broke out, wouldn’t Lin Yun follow after Rudolph’s fate and become a pile of ashes?