Chapter 264: Ilio’s Battle (Revised)

The three Grand Mages had thought themselves as good as dead. Never had they imagined someone would suddenly appear to save them.

Their rescuer had long, jet-black hair and wore a high-ranking white mage's robe. Gold ornaments adorned his forehead, shoulders, wrists, and waist, each set with high-grade wind magic stones. Together, they formed a set of top-tier magical defensive equipment.

In his hands was an unusually shaped golden longbow. A golden arrow, brimming with elemental power and crackling with green lightning, rested against the fully drawn bowstring, ready to fly at any moment.

"You... Your..." One of the Grand Mages, a man with light brown hair, finally got a clear look at their rescuer's face and gasped in astonishment. "You're Lord Ilio!"

"What? He's Ilio, the Saint Mage? But he's so young!" another Grand Mage, this one with dark brown hair, exclaimed in disbelief.

"Ha ha, I'm hardly young anymore." Ilio tilted his head, an easy smile gracing his handsome face. He winked at the dark-haired Grand Mage. "I'm at least a few hundred years older than you."

The Grand Mage looked thoroughly embarrassed, though his fear had diminished by half.

"Lord Ilio, please be careful! This necromancer's methods are exceptionally cruel!"

Remembering their two murdered companions, the Grand Mage was overcome by hatred and terror.

As investigators for the Mages' Guild, they frequently traveled abroad to fight the dark forces. They had encountered hundreds of necromancers over the years, but not one had been as sinister and unnatural as the one before them.

With nothing more than a wisp of black smoke, he could kill without warning. Not only did it devour his victims' souls, but it also tore their living bodies apart. The resulting carnage was horrifying.

Having witnessed the gruesome deaths of their two companions, the three Grand Mages had been forced to flee desperately, pursued all the way from three thousand meters beneath the canyon to their current position, one thousand meters below the surface.

It wasn't that they were afraid to die. They had to survive long enough to report what was happening in the canyon to the Mage Sovereign.

They had believed the crisis in the canyon was over. Never in their wildest dreams had they expected two such terrifying creatures to still be lurking there.

Their ten-member investigation team had split into two groups and fled in different directions. Two members of their group had already been killed. They had no idea how many casualties the other group had suffered.

Ilio raised one elegantly arched eyebrow and addressed the three badly wounded Grand Mages. "You three go ahead. Once you reach the surface, head north. Someone from the Magic Tower will be there to meet you."

"The Magic Tower?" The dark-haired Grand Mage brightened. "Has the Mage Sovereign arrived?"

Instead of answering, Ilio swiftly loosed an arrow, forcing the necromancer, who had been attempting another sneak attack, to teleport out of its path.

"Why are you still here? Go!"

With a thunderous shout, Ilio unleashed a tremendous surge of power. The golden bow in his hands transformed into a magnificent golden sword, which he swung at the necromancer with lightning speed. A cross-shaped slash tore through the black serpent lunging toward him.

It wasn't a real serpent, but a solid creature formed from black smoke, saturated with dark power and the aura of death. Its attacks were ferocious.

Yet even after Ilio's cross-shaped slash severed it into four pieces, the serpent didn't disappear. Instead, each section became a slightly thinner black serpent, and all four attacked him with hideous, snarling faces.

The three Grand Mages were horrified. Not daring to delay any longer, they tore open magical scrolls to replenish their magical power and teleported away.

"None of you... will escape."

The necromancer's voice was chilling. He waved the grotesquely shaped magic staff in his hand, and more than a dozen skeletons abruptly crawled out of the ground.

Surrounded by four black serpents, Ilio casually stuck his little finger into his ear and gave it a scratch.

"Hey, I'm your opponent. Don't let yourself get distracted!"

The moment he finished speaking, his figure flickered out of the serpents' encirclement and appeared before the skeletons. He swung his golden sword, unleashing countless flashes of white light.

The skeletons instantly crumbled into dust.

At last, the necromancer gave Ilio his full attention. He studied him with a sinister gaze for a long moment before saying coldly, "You're not human."

Ilio beamed. "Well spotted. No wonder you managed to become one of the Dark God's lapdogs."

The necromancer ignored the insult. Raising his magic staff, he declared viciously, "Whatever race you belong to, you'll become my puppet."

Just as he was about to begin chanting, Ilio suddenly raised a hand.

"Wait—"

The necromancer sneered. "What? Planning to get on your knees and beg for mercy? Too late!"

"No, no, no. Don't flatter yourself." Ilio put away his golden sword and replaced it with a high-ranking magic staff. The corners of his mouth curled upward. "I don't kill nameless nobodies. Tell me your name first, so I can carve it on your gravestone afterward. That way, your descendants will know where to pay their respects—assuming you have any descendants, of course."

That morning, Sperien had made a special point of reporting the situation at Woba Grand Canyon to him, and Ilio had naturally taken the matter very seriously.

A Demon Lord had been killed, only for a necromancer whose strength rivaled that of a Mage Sovereign and a nightmare demon that had spent at least ten thousand years parasitizing a human body to appear. This was no small problem.

To prevent those troublemakers from setting their sights on the Little Fairies, Ilio, as their elder, naturally had to step in and deal with the threat.

He had originally intended to act alone, but he couldn't resist the Little Fairy's request. As soon as his morning classes ended, he skipped lunch and hurried to the Magic Tower to find Danlov.

As luck would have it, Danlov was already troubled by the disappearance of several mages.

Two days earlier, the Mages' Guild had dispatched two investigation teams composed of Magic Instructors to Woba Grand Canyon to eliminate the lesser monsters created by the Demon Lord.

However, news had arrived yesterday afternoon that both teams had lost contact. The worst was feared.

Danlov had immediately dispatched another investigation team, this time consisting of ten Grand Mages, to venture deep into the canyon and search for the missing Magic Instructors.

By that morning, the Grand Mage team had also fallen silent.

Ilio's visit finally gave Danlov an explanation.

So a necromancer and a parasitic nightmare demon were wreaking havoc in the canyon.

Danlov made an immediate decision. Taking several Saint Mages with him, he accompanied Ilio to the canyon to resolve the crisis.

This time, they would eradicate the dark forces at all costs and ensure the canyon never became a hunting ground for monsters again.

Ilio preferred working alone, so he had gone on ahead, heading straight for the depths of the canyon. Unexpectedly, his luck had been rather good. He had managed to rescue three Grand Mages and intercept the necromancer.

This necromancer genuinely possessed strength comparable to that of a Mage Sovereign.

But he wasn't actually a Mage Sovereign.

And as long as he wasn't a Mage Sovereign, killing him would be easy enough.

Before that, however, Ilio needed to establish his identity so they could investigate whoever was pulling the strings behind him.

The fellow was wrapped from head to toe in a black hooded cloak, with a mask covering his face. He had deliberately suppressed his aura, completely concealing his true identity.

The necromancer flicked his fingers, launching a vial of poisonous powder that trailed green smoke.

"Once I've claimed your soul, you'll find out who I am!"

Ilio moved a finger, and a powerful gust of wind blew the poison straight back at its owner.

Throwing poisonous powder at a wind mage was a trick that was practically useless.

My turn to fight back.

Ilio raised his magic staff. Before he could even chant a spell, the wind elements in the surrounding air surged toward him like a rising tide. Sand and stones suddenly whipped through the entire area.

Surprise flashed across the necromancer's face as he stared warily at the black-haired young man floating in midair, supported by the wind.

He could shoot arrows, wield a sword, and cast magic, and his mastery of every form of attack was extraordinary. Add magical power on the level of a Mage Sovereign, and there were only two races capable of possessing such astonishing talent: Elves and Fairies.

What puzzled the necromancer most, however, was the strange feeling that he had encountered this young man somewhere before.

"Are you... a Fairy?"

Why did he suspect a Fairy rather than an Elf?

According to legend, the white Elves hadn't produced any newborns in several hundred years. Fairies, on the other hand, welcomed a new generation of cubs every ten years. Once they reached adulthood, they would disguise themselves as humans and travel the continent to gain experience.

Given the Fairies' extraordinary natural talent, it wouldn't be surprising for one to reach the level of a Mage Sovereign within a hundred years.

The necromancer's gaze grew increasingly fervent as he stared at the black-haired young man.

He wanted to capture this Fairy, humiliate and torture him mercilessly, and then, once he'd grown bored of playing with him, dissect him bit by bit. He would force the Fairy to watch as his own abdomen was sliced open and his organs removed, keeping him alive until the very last organ had been taken.

And even that wouldn't be the end.

He would extract the Fairy's soul and refine it into a puppet under his control. Then he would use that puppet to lure out the other Fairies hiding among humans and eliminate them one by one.

The entire process was sure to be spectacular.

He could hardly wait.

The more the necromancer thought about it, the more excited he became. He watched Ilio with the hungry, calculating gaze of a venomous snake.

"Ha ha! Wrong guess!"

Ilio chanted a simple spell and swept his magic staff through the air. Countless wind blades transformed into streaks of white light and hurtled toward the necromancer from every direction.

The necromancer immediately tore open a defensive magical scroll, summoning a defensive magical formation around himself to withstand the assault.

Crack, crack, crack—

In less than a moment, the wind blades shattered the formation with ease.

The necromancer's expression changed. He teleported repeatedly to evade the attacks, dodging in an increasingly desperate and undignified fashion.

Ilio gave him no chance to catch his breath. The wind blades kept coming, relentlessly pursuing him in a dense, unbroken barrage.

The situation had reversed in an instant.

The necromancer who had been slaughtering people at will was now nothing more than a target for Ilio's wind blades.

Several times, he tried to raise his hand and chant a high-level spell, only to be ruthlessly interrupted by another barrage. If not for the high-ranking defensive equipment he wore, the wind blades would probably have torn him to pieces already.

Clearly, battles between high-ranking mages didn't depend entirely on chanting spells. Their storage rings were also filled with a seemingly endless supply of magical items.

To eliminate the need for lengthy incantations without sacrificing a spell's power, mages had racked their brains and developed magical scrolls.

Magical scrolls were remarkably easy to use. Simply tearing one open released the magic stored inside, potentially saving its user from certain death in a moment of crisis. As a result, they had become essential equipment for countless mages venturing out into the world.

Unfortunately for the necromancer, no matter how quickly he tore open his magical scrolls, he couldn't match the speed of Ilio's wind blades.

Ilio waved his magic staff, gathering even more wind elements and increasing the force of his attacks, leaving his opponent absolutely no opportunity to retaliate.

Even taking a magical scroll out of a storage ring and tearing it open required a second or two.

And in those one or two seconds, the wind blades could strike hundreds of times.

For the first time in his life, the necromancer felt the threat of death looming over him.

He was furious.

If his opponent had been a water mage, he wouldn't have been reduced to defending himself without any chance to attack.

Wind magic was simply too fast. Even maintaining his defenses was proving difficult.

This young man is stronger than me!

Grinding his teeth, the necromancer roared, "Sahn! How much longer are you planning to sit there and watch?"

"Ha ha! It's not every day I get to see you humiliated. Naturally, I have to enjoy the show."

The mocking voice came from every direction at once, seeming both close enough to touch and impossibly far away. Its source was impossible to pinpoint.

Ilio swept his sharp gaze across the surroundings and diverted half his wind blades toward a nearby boulder.

Boom!

The boulder exploded into fragments under the impact.

As the shattered stones clattered to the ground, they revealed a figure radiating dark power.

"Ha ha! Looks like I've been found."

Sahn waved a hand in distaste, dispersing the clouds of dust with an invisible force. Then, with unhurried steps, he entered the wind blades' attack range.

Just as the blades were about to strike him, an immense force abruptly stopped them in their tracks. They couldn't advance another inch.

Ilio remarked, "Well, well. Finally decided to show yourself?"

He had noticed someone lurking nearby long ago. Since the fellow had been hiding and showed no intention of revealing himself, Ilio had temporarily ignored him and concentrated on killing the necromancer first.

Sahn raised his head and looked at the black-haired young man floating above him, an unsettling gleam in his eyes.

"You deny being a Fairy. Does that mean you're an Elf?"

Ilio remained perfectly composed.

"Take a guess."

Sahn chuckled.

"Sheen, step aside. I'll fight him."

Whether the young man was an Elf or a Fairy, Sahn was determined to have him today.

The necromancer snapped irritably, "Enough nonsense! We'll attack together and capture him alive!"

"Capture me alive? That depends on whether you're capable of it."

Ilio blinked, then turned his attention to the necromancer.

"Your name is Sheen? Sheen Pusen?"

The necromancer froze.

"You know me?"

That powerful, intensely unpleasant sense of familiarity surged through him once again.

"What do you think?" Ilio burst into laughter, his voice dripping with mockery. "A rat that lives in the gutter will always be a rat that can't stand the light of day. Three hundred years have passed, and you're still skulking around, hiding your face like a coward."

The moment he heard the word "rat," a long-buried memory suddenly surfaced.

Sheen's entire body shook.

"You're Al!" he cried involuntarily.

The adventurer who had hunted him relentlessly for an entire month, nearly driving him to a complete mental breakdown!

Three hundred years ago, Sheen had only recently become a necromancer. Desperate for fresh corpses to use in his research, he had hidden in a swamp and ambushed adventuring parties passing through.

That was until a swordsman named Al appeared.

The man had brutally destroyed every trap Sheen had laid and then pursued him with terrifying ferocity for an entire month.

If Sheen hadn't escaped into Wanaku and entered Dark Elf territory, he would almost certainly have died there.

That month had become the greatest humiliation of his life.

At the time, he had been so busy fleeing for his life that he had never gotten a proper look at the swordsman's face. All he knew was that the man's companions called him Al.

Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that, more than three hundred years later, they would meet again!

And what infuriated him even more was that he hadn't even recognized his old enemy!

"Ha ha! Don't say my name so affectionately. We're hardly friends. Oh, and that reminds me—"

As though Sheen's hatred wasn't already fierce enough, Ilio cheerfully added fuel to the fire.

"About a month ago, I ran into a necromancer near the Itongli River in the Dalia Empire. He claimed to be your disciple. Hmm, what was his name again? Oguta, I think?"

"Oguta! My only disciple!"

Sheen's eyes blazed with fury. Grinding his teeth, he let out a shrill, anguished howl like a cornered beast.

"You killed him!"