Throne of Magical Arcana

The illusions were broken, and countless black bats spluttered out, filling the whole hall. All the knights and werewolves felt so tired that they simply wanted to lie down and have a good sleep. Those illusionary bats were mostly gathered around the grand knight with the blood power of frost giants and Duda Duda.

Right when Katrina broke the gate with ‘Lucien’s Fireball’, Duda’s body started to change. His brawny body that was almost 1.9 meters tall was further stretched, and his muscles bulged out with black scales. His eyes turned entirely bloodshot, as if he had lost all his sanity and had the purest dire of slaughter and destruction left.

“Demon bloodline!” Enshrouded in the intense bloody mist from the altar, Yakov, Anna and the other mercenaries saw the scene in their dizziness. Alarmed, they were more or less refreshed.

The bloody air around Duda blocked the illusionary bats. Two wounds that reached the bones appeared on his back, from which a pair of black wings grew out. As the wings flapped, he ascended from the ground and looked down at the hall and the altar.

That was exactly the advantages of the demon and devil bloodlines. They could fly and claim the commanding heights even though they were mere grand knights!

Suddenly, a crazy wind was blown at the intense bloody mist and soon cleared it up. The mercenaries felt that their heads were clear, as if they were never woken up from the nightmare until right now. They couldn’t have been more afraid by the feelings of slaughter and hate they had just now. If it had continued, they would’ve turned into demons who killed their partners!

“Sister Katrina!” Anna exclaimed in shock, because it was exactly Katrina who was confronting Duda in the hall. She stood in midair on nothing, and her long gold hair danced crazily in the wind. She was also holding a staff with translucent gems in her right hand, from which a vague fog was spreading out.

The fog quickly spread out, unaffected by the wind.

After seeing the incredible scene, Anna felt that she was still in a dream, which had been visited by the powerful sorcerers in the bards’ tales. They could fly with nothing, they could control the weather, and they could create fire and ice. They were the mysterious and horrifying sorcerers!

As the fog spread out, except for where the mercenaries were, the hall was soon drowned in the haze.

The werewolves and knights who lunged at Katrina were stunned. Their eyes lost color, and they let out meaningless syllables, while they drooled beyond their control.

They seemed to have been deprived of the ability to think, and they only had a shell left.

The horrifying werewolves and knights in her eyes had been reduced into idiots by nothing but the fog. Anna raised her head and looked at the ceiling in shock, “Sister Katrina is a sorcerer? And a very powerful one?”

Katrina’s current appearance fit her imagination of sorcerers, except that she was not as cunning and vicious.

“Mind Mist? A middle-rank sorcerer… Katrina was the terrifying sorcerer I met the other night…” As an experienced mercenary, Yakov had learnt many things about magic through various channels. After he became an official knight, he also received more files from Count Calcate, which gave him a new, more detailed understanding about sorcery. Furthermore, he had collaborated with an official sorcerer before, so he was able to tell what the magic was based on its performance. But of course, his knowledge was limited to the common spells.

Looking at Katrina’s gold hair in midair, the transparent magic runes that surrounded and protected her, and the black fireballs launched by Duke Duda to be absorbed by the runes instead of causing explosions, Yakov felt that his head was completely blank. He was both shocked and frustrated, and he could barely sense anything.

Hooooooo!

The grand knight who had the blood power of frost giants expanded. Surrounded by snowflakes, a frigid halo spread out and exiled the ‘Mind Mist’ around. However, a shadow emerged behind his back, who had a pair of fair and long hands as well as coldly-glittering fingernails. Then, as if he were playing the heptachord, the shadow extended the hand and cut the throat of the ‘frost giant’.

Vague black air flashed, and the thick ice at the throat of the ‘frost giant’ melted without a sound.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

The ‘frost giant’ screamed in pain, and blood poured out of his throat. He waved his giant swords back, only to break an illusion. Viscount Carendia had appeared in another direction. He licked his right hand and said, “The blood tastes not bad at all, and it is not toxic.”

Such perverted behavior was performed so gracefully and naturally as if he were really tasting the cuisines that the host treated him with.

The frost giants had terrifying strength and were good at ice spells, but those were only useful if they could hit the enemy. Faced with Viscount Carendia whose speed and agility far exceeded level-five grand knights, he was like a helpless kid who got scratched now and then. Viscount Carendia even had the time to take down the werewolves who had been stunned, because he truly detested their smiles.

Looking at the handsome, strong man below and Katrina who was casting the most brilliant spells up above, Anna thought to herself, her fear and concerns gone, “Sorcerers and vampires truly deserve to be the eternal combination of villains in the bards’ tales. They are so awesome!”

“Thank god Sister Katrina is here, otherwise…”

She patted her chest, feeling lucky. She also admired Katrina’s performance.

While Duda was a level-five grand knight and had demon blood power, he was unable to carry out his strength at all in front of a well-prepared sorcerer. He was affected by the spells and closer and closer to failure. His every attack was either deviated by illusions or blocked by Douglas’s Absorbing Wall and Stone Skin, achieving no results.

“This cannot go on…” Because he only had the demon blood power, Duda managed to keep the ability of thought in the battle. Seeing that the frost giant was about to be taken down by the vampire, he began to consider ways to get out of the situation.

Anna, who was slightly relieved, Yakov, who had complicated feelings, and the other mercenaries, who did not know what was going on, observed the battle. Suddenly, they saw that Duda snatched his left arm with his right hand, tearing it off and roaring astoundingly.

“What’s he doing?”

“Demons’ special ability?”

In their shock, they saw that Duda’s left arm exploded into splashing flesh and blood, which neutralized the vague mist and dispersed them.

The Mind Mist was gone, and the remaining werewolves and knights were back to normal. Some of them attacked Katrina with bows or semi-spells, and some charged at the mercenaries with swords, hammers and sticks, hoping to distract Katrina and Viscount Carendia.

The mercenaries were horrified by the ferocious werewolves and knights. They could barely hold their weapons tightly.

While Duda had no time to bother with him, Yakov managed to recover part of his knightly strength. He stood before everyone, holding his longsword, while he calmed the other mercenaries who were panicked. “Don’t be nervous. I’ll block them. As long as we can persist for one minute, Katrina will finish the battle.”

“Boss, I’ll help you.” Said Anna, even though her legs were shaking.

Right then, a photon of light appeared before her eyes. It seemed to be made of freezing ice, and the werewolves and knights in its range were all transformed into ice sculptures.

“How powerful…” Anna complimented in a low voice.

Yakov felt similarly, but his abundant experience stopped him from standing still. Instead, he jumped out and hit the ice sculptures.

Crack, crack, crack. The few knights and werewolves were broken into glittering pieces that looked like diamonds on the ground!

“Be careful!” Anna suddenly saw that a werewolf approached Katrina stealthily and leaped, trying to catch Katrina’s ankle. She reminded her anxiously.

Her voice was still echoing when the werewolf’s shadow moved. It suddenly hugged the werewolf and dragged the werewolf into a dark well that appeared out of nowhere. Then, the werewolf was nowhere to be seen.

“What a marvelous spell…” Anna was so fascinated by the view that she almost began to worship magic.

Duda who was in midair took the chance to flap his wings and flew downwards. His target was the door which had weird patterns.

The door was right next to him, when he suddenly felt that his guts were rolling and his blood was surging into his head. From dizziness, he hit the ground.

“Professor’s Infrasound Resonance?” He thought in panic.

Then, before he realized what was going on, the scales and armor that covered his body, after Katrina pointed her finger, turned into red, white, black and gold items, some solid, some gaseous and some yeti!

“Elemental Order?”

“Why can she cast spells so quickly? Does she not need to cool down at all?”

In disbelief, Duda watched his armor and his natural scales vanish into thin air. He knew that it was a unique spell of Lucien ‘Atom Controller’ Evans, and it was not strange that his student was capable of it. What was strange was that there was no cooldown between the two spells at all. There was no way that he could’ve avoided it!

What escaped his attention was that the beautiful and cold badge of silver moon on Katrina’s left chest flashed as if it were electric.

Having no time to think any further, he crashed the gate behind him, his body shivering.

In Anna’s eyes, Katrina’s hair stopped moving after the wind died down. She extended her right hand, and a fireball that was much larger and hotter than usual flew out, hitting Duda in his back.

BOOM!

Duda was almost blown into pieces, but he did manage to open the gate. On the other side, Viscount Carendia wiped his hands with a white handkerchief. The frost giant had collapsed before him, with the eyes still widened.

After the gate was opened, an identical altar appeared, except that the statue in the new altar was clearer. It was a human-shaped handsome demon with dark skin.

Right below the demon stood a young man who appeared rather flabbergasted. He had all the distinctive features of the Vladimir family.

“Viscount Andree?” Anna blurted out, sensing strong horror.

Andree shook his head, as if he were devastated. “You shouldn’t have come in. You forced me to do this. You forced me…”

“We’ve caught the culprit behind the curtain so quickly?” Viscount Carendia tossed the dirtied handkerchief to the ground and said to Katrina in amusement.