Chapter 151 - 150 (Spoiler, Title At Bottom)
Having narrowly escaped the celestial platinum mine, Marcus and the Eternal Queens sat on top of the mountain side where they had exited, trying to recover their strength.
Flopping right onto the ground, Rekia looked at Marcus and said, "Irene, I love you, but remind me to never follow you anywhere again."
All of the Eternal Queens then began shaking their heads in agreement before laughing loudly, mostly out of relief that they had managed to somehow survive.
"Yeah Irene, I think you owe us a bit of unconditional help after this, you can adventure with us full time for say, three months to make up for this debacle." Jesnay said, with a mischievous smile.
Sighing Marcus looked at Jesnay before saying, "I guess that is fair, since I nearly got all of you killed, but this is also partly my master's fault, I had no idea this place was this dangerous. I mean who is he trying to keep out by infesting this place with those kinds of monsters."
Marcus and the Eternal Queens soon started coming up with wild theories as to things Thabon was trying to keep out, ranging from a fairy he had made a dark deal with, to an angry ex wife that had actually obtained the mine in the divorce.
After their wild fantasizing and a good laugh, the Eternal Queens and Marcus thankful to be alive, began trekking across the mountain, back towards the entrance they had left their mounts at.
Slowly hiking over the snowy mountain terrain, by the time Marcus and the Eternal Queens had reached the mine entrance they had started at, the day was already long over.
Running up to their mounts that had stayed nearby, everyone except Marcus began hugging the warm fur of their snow horses in order to warm up since the cold winter night was beginning to take its toll.
Walking up to Blitz, Marcus began petting him lightly before pulling out a few of the treats he had and allowing Blitz to eat his fill.
Soon the Eternal Queens and Marcus had to leave their mounts and set up camp, bringing out a specially made pavilion tent which would act as shelter for all of them and their mounts.
Once the large pavilion tent that took the edge off of the cold winter night was set up, everyone brought out their own respective tents before the shifts for watch were chosen.
Luckily the night went by uneventfully, and after an extra-long rest the members of Eternal Queens got up and after taking down their camp started on their journey back to the kingdom's capital Boreas.
Trotting down the mountain and crossing into a valley, Marcus and the Eternal Queens were beginning to finally feel a sense of comfort now that they were down from the mountain where they had almost died.
Continuing along down the valley after half a day of travel they all saw the bend in the valley, that was right before the exit that would put them back on the road that led to Klopot, where they could properly rest up.
Turning the bend, everyone's spirts began to raise a bit when a premonition of dread overcame Marcus, and in the next instance a thin shimmer encompassed the area trapping them within the valley.
Looking around, Marcus feeling a sense of danger coming from above saw for a brief moment a figure standing in the sky before a massive tornado appeared and began falling straight towards him.
Seeing this tornado that was radiating vast power, Marcus knew that this was no time to care about appearances and jumped off of Blitz before casting wall of darkness, shield of light, and iron wings of the archangel in the few instances he had.
"BANG."
The colossal tornado, smashed through Marcus' wall of darkness, and shield of light like they were made of paper, before slamming into his iron wings which he had wrapped around himself.
Being hit by an impact stronger than anything he had ever felt, Marcus activated the enchantment on his mithril chainmail that was based on Lilia's force magic, and began absorbing the impact of the tornado, charging it to a certain point before deploying a force barrier around Marcus.
After being tossed around for a dozen seconds Marcus finally came to a stop and spread out his iron wings that were now missing many feather and were bent out of shape.
Looking around Marcus saw the members of the Eternal Queens and their mounts scattered around unmoving.
Seeing pools of blood forming under most of the Eternal Queens, Marcus was beginning to feel a sense of panic not knowing who to help first, when he saw Branna who's head was bent all the way around and had eyes devoid of life.
A sense of despair began to overwhelm Marcus when his danger sense brought him back to reality as he saw tens of wind blades coming for him.
Bringing the remains of his iron wings in front of him, Marcus was assaulted by the barrage of wind blades that soon cut past his defenses and began slicing into his body.
However, before he took too much damage, Marcus activated his embodiment of light unique skill and using a speed burst managed to move out of the way of the wind blades.
After sliding back over thirty feet to avoid the wind blades, Marcus looked up with anger in his eyes as he pointed his right hand towards the figure in the air, and it began glowing as he cast a heightened laser spell that was further enhanced by his embodiment of light.
The powerful beam of light shot forward with incredible speed and force catching the figure in the sky by surprise.
Nevertheless, when the beam was around two feet from the figure a shimmering barrier formed around them, and the laser spell was deflected as it split into four parts and flew past its target.
Seeing that his spell had been deflected, Marcus was getting impatient and tried running towards the closest member of the Eternal Queens hoping to cast healing magic.
Unfortunately, the figure in the sky while dazed for a moment by the powerful spell that had been aimed at him, quickly descended and cut Marcus off, floating in front of him.
Hovering in front of Marcus a few feet off the ground, Marcus could see a man who was dressed in fancy robes, and had many magical items on his person, including a staff that was made entirely out of wind crystal.
Instinctively using his creature appraisal skill, Marcus found the man in front of him to be many levels higher, being level forty-six. However, this did not cause Marcus to be afraid as his anger was overwhelming his other emotions.
With fury in his voice Marcus shouted at the man and said, "Who the hell are you, why are you attacking me? Do you think you will get away with this, I will fucking kill you!"
The man seeing Marcus so flustered began laughing and said, "So this is what you are really like when your cool façade is pulled away. And it pains me a little that you do not remember me when you ruined my life."
The man's face then twisted in anger itself before he said, "Do you not remember when you met with the grand archmage, and she introduced you to her students. Do you not remember how when you rudely dismissed her offer, I rightfully put you in your place and for some unfathomable reason the grand archmage punished me? You caused me to be exiled from the Guldur Spire and my father even removed me as his heir. I have had to work as a lowly common mage of the kingdom because of you, but after all this time I can finally enact my vengeance."
At this point Jared Kasrong the man Marcus had met after the battle with the ice ants and who was a former student of the Grand Archmage Aria, began swelling with mana before yelling loudly.
"Gale Wyvern Strike."
A massive form of a wyvern made out of wind then formed around his staff before flying towards Marcus with tremendous power behind it.
However, at the same time Marcus cast his own tier four spell and released a thunderbird strike which flew forward to meet the wyvern made out of wind.
The spells that were the incarnations of powerful magical beast that were rulers of the sky clashed, and lightning and wind fought for dominance.
Alas, Marcus' spell was soon overpower as the difference in level was higher than Marcus could overcome even with his unique skill.
Taking evasive action Marcus cast his speed enhancing spells, lightning strider, and legs of light before using his speed burst skill to jump out of the way.
Dodging out of the way with only a few inches of clearance, Marcus looked back at Jared who was staring at Marcus with a look of disbelief.
"Impossible, there is no way you could have silent casting at only level thirty-five. I spent good money to get ahold of your status and I know you do not even have chant shortening. How the hell were you able to cast a spell without chanting… no it couldn't be."
Realization formed in Jared's eyes as he understood that their was another way that Marcus could cast magic without the need to chant, if he was a magic beast or monster in disguise.
Jared then began laughing like a crazy person before saying, "This is perfect, once I kill you and unmask you as a monster that had infiltrated our society, I will have my status restored and even the grand archmage will have to take me back and apologize for he folly."
However, at this point Marcus's rage was beginning to boil over as he kept seeing the mangled body of Brann and the horrible injuries the other Eternal Queens had sustained.
"You're the one who is a monster here, you not only attacked me for such petty reasons, but also my friends who had nothing to do with this!"
After saying this Marcus turned off his embodiment of light and switched over to his embedment of darkness before pulling out his scythe and the black sword he had obtained from the vampire, ready to use every means at his disposal to win this battle.
Chapter 150 The Winds of Death