Chapter 216: Destined for Boundless
All the Mage Masters present remained silent, but many of them wore expressions filled with mockery and disdain.
A mere level 9 Disciple Mage fighting against several Corrupted Beasts that even they—higher-ranked figures—found extremely difficult to contain?
In their eyes, that boy was clearly throwing his life away.
Of course, none of the mages there were naive. There were countless races with peculiar Ancient Arts, as well as exotic Magic Arts. Under the right conditions, any mage could display combat power several times greater than usual. Still, there was an obvious limit.
In the face of absolute power, theoretical advantages meant nothing. In the end, the weaker side would be crushed.
That was already an absolute truth in one-on-one battles. Against a crowd, the rule became even more merciless. Surrounded from every direction, a single person could only delay the inevitable for a little while, with no chance whatsoever of escaping death.
"Little guy, come over here. Join my group. You’re strong and fast, right? I’ll protect you, and whenever we need to take down a target, you can help us."
As Priam advanced through the channel, a tall woman clad in full silver armor called out to him. Behind her stood nine other female Mages. All of them looked at him with genuine concern.
Priam smiled and nodded politely.
"Thank you very much, but I fight better on my own. Don’t worry about me. I’ll show you what I can do."
The group nodded back, though their worried expressions remained.
Priam sighed inwardly. His short stature and delicate features made some girls see him as fragile, or even childlike. In this world, masculinity and the perception of strength were physically associated with the exact opposite of his appearance.
He kept moving, activating his Elemental Physique to its limit. The winds around him distorted the air and pulsed with immense force.
He advanced steadily through the soldiers of that leaderless faction, who were fighting desperately against the endless tide of Corrupted Beasts.
Priam observed them all and reflected.
The group’s main problem wasn’t a lack of raw power or coordination.
Even without a commander, they fought with remarkable organization. After all, they were battle-hardened mages, veterans of countless life-and-death battles. They knew exactly what they were doing.
In fact, everyone there was only a level 1 or 2 Mage Master. That proved the Super Genius leading them had also been low level. Their faction had most likely been promoted shortly before the sect’s recruitment began.
He quickly concluded that the chaos had settled in for one simple reason: their Super Genius had been the key piece controlling the flow of the Corrupted Beast horde.
Remembering the wall of fire he had used earlier to steer the creatures toward Priam’s faction, everything made sense. That fire wasn’t ordinary. It possessed properties that easily attracted the enemies.
Combined with his spatial escape techniques, he had probably been holding back that massive horde by himself, easing the pressure on the soldiers by releasing small, controlled waves for them to eliminate little by little.
A simple method, yet undeniably effective.
In less than a minute, Priam reached the front line, where the faction’s strongest fighters were gathered.
[Activate Power Rune?] [Yes / No]
Priam created and activated another Yin Enchantment Rune. Fortunately, he possessed thousands of crystals and could repeat that trick hundreds of times.
Priam shot into the sky at incredible speed, adjusting the enchantment to focus purely on agility. This was the most efficient application. It burned through the rune’s entire power in about twenty minutes, but made him frighteningly fast.
Without hesitation, he charged through the deep channel toward the farthest regions.
Up ahead, at the very end of everything, he caught sight of a writhing black mass tearing through the fabric of space itself.
That was the Sorcerers’ fortress.
Inside, those entities worked day and night creating Corrupted Beasts. Eventually, however, they would run out of ordinary beasts and be inevitably wiped off the planet.
The entire space-time distortion surrounding the planet had been designed as a deadly trap, ensuring the Sorcerers’ annihilation in the safest and most beneficial way possible for the sect.
With time flowing ten times faster outside, the sect could continuously prepare and send fresh armies, steadily stockpiling resources without any rush to maintain the pressure.
Every 275 days, entire well-rested armies entered the battlefield.
Meanwhile, the trapped Sorcerers had no rest, no supply lines, and no hope of outside rescue. It was a brutal war of attrition, using time itself as a weapon.
Just sensing the overwhelming distortion and corruption pouring out of that place sent a chill down Priam’s spine. A direct assault on that fortress by the Sages would cost the sect an exorbitant price.
That was why the temporal trap had been the perfect choice. It guaranteed inevitable victory while forging new disciples in the fires of battle.
Priam didn’t dare advance any farther.
He came to a stop, staring at the horde of Corrupted Beasts pouring toward that faction’s channel.
He took a deep breath. There were hundreds of them. Even if he unleashed all of his power at once, wiping them all out would be impossible. Worse still, the moment he killed one wave, hundreds more would appear the very next second.
But he didn’t need to destroy them all at once.
If there was one thing he had become absurdly good at, it was running away and maneuvering.
His speed with the winds, combined with his Elemental Physique and Enchantment Rune, already made him impossible for an ordinary mage to catch. Add in his Transcendental Anima—which allowed him to slow his perception of time and react as if anticipating every movement—and his evasive potential bordered on the unbelievable.
’Mirra, stay alert,’ he sent through their mental link.
’My Ether won’t be able to sustain the continuous consumption for four straight hours. So I’ll let them get as close as possible, then create an opening and kill a few of them. That way, I can absorb the corruption and replenish my Ether.’
*ROAR!!*
A horde of Corrupted Beasts roared in unison as they charged at him in a furious frenzy.
*Woosh!*
Priam sliced through the sky like an invisible blade.
He dove straight into the heart of the ocean of beasts, throwing himself into a deadly duel, balancing on the razor’s edge between life and death.
"!"
His body moved at such an insane speed that even the eyes of the distant Mage Masters could barely keep up.
To those watching from afar, the scene was simply surreal.
Priam no longer looked like a being of flesh and blood. He didn’t give off the aura of an ordinary living being. Instead, he looked like the manifestation of the wind element itself, sweeping across the battlefield.
Colossal claws tore through the air, corrosive projectiles blasted the ground apart, and the earth collapsed into massive craters.
Even so, Priam flowed through the chaos with terrifying grace. He leaped over the beasts’ heads, stepped on the air itself, and twisted through impossible angles, drawing the attention of hundreds of Corrupted Beasts at once.
On the rear lines, the soldiers of that faction stared at the spectacle with their jaws hanging open.
The overwhelming chaos that had threatened to destroy them had simply vanished.
"W-... what’s happening?"
Instead of the endless wave that had been suffocating them, only small groups of enemies reached them now. The soldiers were able to fight and wipe out those scattered groups with extreme ease.
As soon as they cleared the path, Priam would retreat like a phantom, release another small controlled wave for the soldiers to deal with, then shoot back to the front line, holding the main horde back all by himself.
The veterans were utterly stunned.
At first, some of them assumed he belonged to an ancient race specialized in agility and controlling the wind element.
But reality soon hit them like a bucket of cold water.
He was just a Disciple Mage!
How could his Ether possibly sustain such monstrous consumption without running dry in just a few minutes?
Nearly an entire hour passed at that frantic pace.
Then... it seemed his luck finally ran out.
"HE’S TRAPPED!!"
The same woman from earlier cried out in horror.
In a single millisecond of "carelessness," three Corrupted Beasts launched their attacks at him simultaneously. There was no way to escape!
*BOOOOOOM!*
A dull, devastating impact echoed throughout the channel.
Priam’s body was hurled away like a projectile, crashing into the ground and kicking up a colossal cloud of dust and debris.
"NO!"
"HE TOOK THE HIT HEAD-ON!"
Panicked cries erupted among the soldiers. They had only just realized the overwhelming strength of that young man, and seeing him crushed like that filled them with a suffocating sense of helplessness.
But... the very next second...
*SLASH!*
A blade of wind split the dust cloud clean in half. It continued forward, dividing the heavens and the earth along its path before finally coming to a stop.
Only then did everyone see that the three Corrupted Beasts that had attacked Priam had been sliced clean in half, their blood and entrails spilling across the ground.
The dust slowly settled.
"!"
Priam emerged with calm, steady steps.
A subtle, crystalline emerald-green aura flowed around his body, sealing every cut and mending every broken bone in the blink of an eye.
In less than three seconds, he was completely unharmed again.
Silence fell over the battlefield. The hearts of the thousands of Mage Masters pounded wildly in their chests.
Extreme speed.
Offensive power capable of slicing apart Corrupted Beasts of that level.
And now... terrifying regeneration through the power of nature?
How the hell was all of that possible in a single individual?
Amid the paralyzing shock, a few mages stammered as they remembered something important.
"C-... Celestial Mage..."
The words echoed through everyone’s minds like a clap of thunder.
They remembered the rumors that had been circulating months earlier—that the sect had recruited a genuine Celestial Mage in the newest batch.
At that moment, the truth struck them with the weight of a mountain.
The rumors had been true.
An absolute monster, a being destined for boundless greatness and to rule the heavens, was fighting right before their eyes.