Chapter 172: Destroying the Kingdom (1)
In the adjacent room, Lynn released the wizard tower. He entered its laboratory and, after ensuring the room was completely sealed, began to examine the vial of blood.
As expected for someone well-versed in Bloodline Studies and partially skilled in Necromancy like Lynn, identifying the virus in the blood was effortless.
It was a highly contagious virus—at least to mortals.
Sometimes Lynn felt they were truly fragile; just a tiny speck of this virus was enough to kill them.
"This is nothing but children playing house." Lynn's expression hovered somewhere between a smile and a grimace.
"Let me teach you what a real disaster looks like."
Back in the adjoining room, the two children were ravenously devouring cake. The man beside them snapped in exasperation, "Careful, you'll choke to death!"
"We drank water," one of the children mumbled, cheeks stuffed full.
Footsteps sounded outside the door, and everyone in the room immediately looked toward the entrance.
"I've finished the examination and developed an antidote," Lynn said mildly.
Staring at the figure before him, the man—who had been so aggressive just yesterday—suddenly spoke in a subdued voice.
"Yes, I understand..."
"This is for you." Lynn tossed over a vial of reagent. "There's enough for all three of you. Just drink it."
"What is this?" The man looked in astonishment at the glass bottle in his hand.
He had never touched anything so exquisite. The flawless transparency of the glass made it look like a luxury only nobles could possess.
He didn't even dare to grip it tightly, terrified that the slightest pressure might shatter the tube.
"A cure."
The man froze, a sudden light bursting into his eyes. Like a man talking to himself, he repeated Lynn's answer as a question.
"This is a cure?"
"Yes."
"That's wonderful. It would have been even better if we had this earlier."
"Yes, if only we had it earlier."
"I heard you mention that the elders of these two children were taken to assist with a wizard's experiment. Do you know where that is?"
"In the mountains." The man pointed toward a distant peak. "On the summit of the tallest mountain closest to town, there's a castle. I heard a legendary wizard lives there."
"I see." Lynn gave a faint nod, and the next moment, he vanished from the spot.
Following the man's directions, Lynn quickly located the castle.
There were indeed traces of many people having lived inside.
But now it was entirely empty, leaving only a thin layer of dust on the floor.
Were they afraid of retaliation for creating the plague?
Lynn's gaze grew deep. A plague was a large-scale, widespread virus that was impossible to control. Once the situation escalated, there was no telling who might get infected.
It was very likely they would offend someone they couldn't afford to cross.
So it made sense that the resident wizard had fled.
But he couldn't run.
Lynn cast a 2nd-Ring Spell at the ground—Track Revelation!
On the previously empty floor, numerous footprints suddenly appeared, glowing as if sprinkled with fluorescent powder.
The tracks were chaotic, growing dimmer the further they went.
However, one set of intensely bright footprints stretched out continuously in a specific direction.
Track Revelation was a 2nd-Ring Spell that revealed footprints left in a cast area over a recent period. However, the spell had time constraints: footprints that were too old wouldn't show, and neither would those left by people concealed by specific track-hiding magic. Furthermore, the spell only covered a radius of one thousand meters; anything beyond that range remained hidden.
But that didn't matter.
If one cast wasn't enough, he would cast it ten times!
If ten wasn't enough, he would cast it a hundred times!
Lynn's expression remained indifferent. Even if the man was dead, Lynn would dig him out of the earth!
Today, Dulan felt an incessant sense of trepidation. As a diviner, his intuition for such things had always been sharp.
"Let's test my luck for today." Dulan pulled out a deck of divination cards.
After a quick reading, Dulan deduced that he was going to die today.
His expression stiffened.
"?"
No, no, how could that be? Divination wasn't infallible; there was always a chance for a miscalculation.
He would try one more time!
The second reading yielded the exact same result.
Dulan took a deep breath.
As the saying goes, never push your luck past three. It was best not to perform consecutive divinations more than three times.
However, since this concerned his own life, Dulan decided to make an exception and divine his fate one last time today.
Perhaps this time, he could uncover more details.
The cards cascaded through his hands like flowing water. Dulan's card manipulation skills were masterful; as they tumbled between his fingertips, the metallic cards flashed continuously, leaving long afterimages in the air.
Suddenly, the deck came to a halt!
He spread the cards firmly across the ground in a long line.
Closing his eyes, Dulan took out a silver needle and pricked his fingertip.
A drop of blood swept across the surface of the cards, trailing a long streak of crimson.
The blood trail was long, but on most of the cards, the crimson slowly seeped in and faded away.
In the end, only one card retained the blood on its surface without absorbing it.
Dulan flipped the card over. It bore the image of an executioner.
"The Executioner... I'm still going to die?" Dulan muttered to himself. He was bewildered. He had done a reading for himself just last year, and it had only predicted a slight risk of danger.
"Congratulations, you successfully divined the day of your death." Lynn's gentle voice sounded from behind him.
Dulan's entire body tensed. He whipped his head around, only to see a young man with a gloomy expression standing behind him.
"Who are you?" Dulan asked, instantly on guard.
"So you're the national master of the Moduo Kingdom? The so-called grand astrologer Dulan... Then why didn't you foresee your death earlier?" Lynn stepped up beside him and gently rested a hand on his ear. Then, as easily as molding a ball of putty, he crushed Dulan's ear into a pulp of mangled flesh.
Dulan let out a bloodcurdling scream. Watching this, Lynn's expression didn't change in the slightest.
A deep, tyrannical urge for destruction lurked in his heart, and he needed to vent it.
"I heard you've spent your entire life striving for the expansion of the Moduo Kingdom, and that you single-handedly masterminded the birth of the plague. Well then, please take a good look at what's going to happen next."
It was getting late. Lynn looked up at the sky in the near distance.
Moshendon, the capital of the Moduo Kingdom.
It was said that the founding king of the Moduo Kingdom had established this realm with his own two hands.
It was also here that he had pulled the longsword known as the Sword of Victory, hacking through all obstacles to finally build the kingdom.
Lynn stood at the top of the city gate tower, gazing down at the kingdom below with cold eyes.
They said that the standard for advancing to an official wizard was the ability to single-handedly rival a small kingdom.
Then let's see how long it takes me to destroy one.
Standing at the spire of the wizard tower, Lynn splayed his fingers toward the empty air ahead.
Dense magical elements began to gather at his fingertips...
At the top of the Astrology Tower—the highest structure in Moshendon, located not far from the royal palace—Lynn stood before the windowsill, looking down at the quiet city shrouded in the night.
"Descend, Throne!"