Mage? Magic Engineer!

Ilysov saw a fraction of a house floating gently in the air.

Standing on it was an exceptionally handsome man. His gaze was sharp and determined, giving him an ethereal air, as if he stood aloof from the rest of the world. His uniform was soaked in blood and sweat; he was the very picture of a fine Warrior who had clawed his way out of a horde of monsters. For a moment, Ilysov didn’t realize that beneath Richard’s feet were numerous "Boatmen" casting the Floating Skill.

"Help! Help me!"

Fate was a curious thing. His ritual had been on the verge of success when a lump of some unknown blue object suddenly fell from the sky, nearly piercing the ground. The subsequent explosion and shockwave cost him many of his generals, who had been transformed into Flesh Monsters, and blew the turret of the Mage Tower where he was hiding to smithereens.

Ilysov cried out in alarm. The unnatural daylight had made him lose all sense of time, but the general was certain the attack had come from a High Tier Caster (he couldn’t imagine it was from a certain Great Mage with a rather peculiar way of thinking).

Just as he was about to ask Gregory what to do, the young man grabbed the still-unconscious Hench, jumped onto a large brass door panel, and began actively drifting toward the crash site.

Ilysov also began his own fantastical journey. He was trembling like a leaf at first, and only felt a little relieved after he encountered two stray Blood Knights and used a secret rite to bring them back under his control.

However, what he couldn’t stop was the accelerating pace at which the Flesh and Blood Carpet was being devoured. The Blood Knights desperately struggled against the current, holding up the spire’s peak to keep their master from sinking, but there was no way they could outpace the suction.

So when Ilysov saw Richard standing serenely above the chaos, he was overjoyed. The very man he had desperately tried to kill had now become his last hope—mainly because this last hope could fly!

Seeing Richard approaching him, the general’s mind raced. Malice, jealousy... all of it finally melted away into an expression of overwhelming joy, which was genuinely from the bottom of his heart. "Help! He—lp—me!"

Richard was stunned for a moment, then controlled his expression and asked, "You are...?"

Ilysov cursed inwardly. ’Can’t you fucking grab me before you ask questions?’

The current grew stronger. Watching himself get pulled away from the young officer again, Ilysov was forced to shout at the top of his lungs, "I am the supreme commander of this battle, Vice Admiral Ilysov! Richard, save me!"

Richard did indeed extend a Mage’s Hand. Ilysov grabbed it, escaping the fate of being drawn into the black hole, and thanked him profusely.

The response to the general’s thanks was a blast of Dragon Breath. Suspended in mid-air, the general was about to be roasted like a suckling pig. Just as the Dragon Breath was about to singe his eyebrows and beard, one Blood Knight shot into the sky and carried its endangered master away, while the other took the full force of Richard’s Dragon Breath Skill with its body.

It was instantly charred black, but after a shake, it could move again. The burnt outer shell cracked and fell away, revealing dark armor underneath that looked like it was pieced together from numerous overlapping plates.

By now, the two Blood Knights had recovered from Rorschach’s initial blast. The horses fused to their bodies galloped madly, allowing them to remain relatively stationary in relation to Richard atop the "raging flood."

Ilysov, held in a princess carry, was strangling his Personal Guard’s neck. The scene was an absolute eyesore. Richard snorted coldly. ’Sure enough, no one who’s survived this long is a good person.’ From the start, Richard had sensed something was off about the man. He wasn’t injured at all, but his aura was in disarray, with several streams of foul power coiled and hidden around his body.

The "Black Armor" Blood Knight put its strength into a short dash, then leaped into the air, attempting a downward slash at its enemy.

’What should I do?’ In the instant the Blood Knight charged, Richard made a decision. With a flip of his hand, a delicate model of a small car appeared from his ring, shimmering with the distinctive iridescent glow of an Ethereal Membrane.

Richard’s second move was to deactivate the Ethereal Membrane, and his third was to hurl it forward with the Flying Arrow Skill.

When it was within five meters of the Knight, the "little toy" expanded at an incredible speed. By the time it reached the Blood Knight, a machine weighing several tons came crashing down on its head.

If it had been a carriage or something else, the Blood Knight’s sharp blade would have undoubtedly sliced it in two. But this was the personal vehicle Rorschach had given his good friend, a high-quality product he had once tried to market to the Empire’s upper crust. How could it be so easily destroyed?

The Blood Blade made contact with the Air Car’s surface. The high-end paint job reflected a beautiful luster as the passive Magic Circuits activated, perfectly repelling the initial attack.

Next, it was the Air Car’s turn. Its sheer weight was enough to knock the Blood Knight down, to say nothing of the additional Magic cast upon it. After pinning the monster beneath it, man, horse, and car were all swept away by the current, hurtling toward the black hole.

The strange object Richard had thrown took Ilysov by surprise. He could only vaguely make out that it was likely some expensive trinket.

’Is fighting always this expensive for you Mages?’ The old general tightened his grip on the Knight carrying him. Though the Blood Knight could not speak, it immediately understood his intent. It disengaged from Richard and tried to speed away.

Ilysov’s escape attempt failed. The flow of corruption was still accelerating. A section of a marble pillar, tumbling through the crimson slurry of flesh, slammed into the horse’s frantically kicking legs.

Finally, Ilysov became one with the very corruption he had called "a gift of eternal, undying life."

"Richard! I know your father! I’m on good terms with the Marshal... Save me, and I’ll..."

He shouted, begged, and made wild promises out of pure instinct, never expecting that a force would actually take hold of him and haul the fat pig up.

"Did you cause all this?"

"No, no! Oh, yes, yes... I’ll tell you everything..."

It turned out the "scorched earth strategy" had originally been Hench’s idea. However, he had seen it as a last resort, to be used only if Ovord’s defenders were unable to resist the National Guard and after the civilian population had been fully evacuated.

But Ilysov had twisted all of Hench’s plans, mixing in a ritual to worship and summon the Earth Mother Goddess. All the arrangements for the ritual had been carried out by his Barbarian Royal Guard; these Northern People were followers of the Ancient Divine Spirits from a young age.

"Is there a way to stop the ritual? Tell me, now!"

Having been hauled out of the muck, Ilysov gave in to despair. He shook his head and said, "My ritual has already failed. There was supposed to be a second fall of ashen snow that would have incinerated the entire city and drawn out more of the grea... the Mother Goddess’s power.

"But the bizarre timing, the way day and night were distorted, it kept me from finishing everything. The mountain of flesh and blood I Melted and Cast ahead of schedule didn’t receive enough nourishment..." He couldn’t help but whine mournfully.

"And now this strange thing has appeared and is devouring the last of my harvest. It’s out of control! Everything’s a total mess!"

"Wait, are you saying the celestial phenomena and this black hole... none of it was your doing?"

"If I were that powerful, I would’ve succeeded long ago... Wait, what are you doing?

"Richard von Dalberg, you can’t execute an Empire Vice Admiral!"

He dangled in the air, watching as the Caster before him gathered a dangerous Spiritual Light.

"Look around you. Does this even look like the world of the living anymore? What meaning do the Empire’s laws or your title have here? The only reason I saved you was so I could finish you off with my own hands, you bastard."

To prevent Ilysov, that follower of the Mother Goddess, from ever reviving, Richard meticulously Decomposed his remains. After he was done, a head poked out from a hole in the piece of the room beneath his feet. It was Paul.

"What were you just doing? The corruption here is weakening. We opened a safe Teleportation Gate."

"You all go. I still have something I need to finish." While interrogating Ilysov, Richard had learned something new: a Priest of the Mother Goddess had been on the scene and had taken Hench.

Just as Richard made up his mind, the ominous black sphere embedded in the horizon suddenly expanded. Before, only the viscous pull of the Flesh and Blood Carpet had been dragging objects on the surface into it; now, a powerful gravitational force appeared out of thin air.

Not only that, but thick, arcing tendrils began to sprout from the black hole’s surface, clawing at everything in the vicinity. It was clearly the maw of a glutton starved to the extreme, its tentacles reaching upward as if to devour the rising sun itself.