Advent of the Archmage

At the beach

In this world, if you gave your heart to someone, you’ll be able to sense even their smallest movements.

To Gretel, Link was that someone. In her more than 2000 years of life, other than her mother who’d passed away, Link was the person she was most familiar with.

She felt Link blink. Jolting slightly, she understood what Link meant. That sentence was said to lower the opponent’s guard. His ulterior motive was to unleash a fatal kill while the other was relaxed and listening to his words.

The corners of Gretel’s lips curled upward. Understood.

Link caught this small movement too. He knew that Gretel understood his motive and started preparing to act.

Thoreau didn’t discover the secret exchange. He was feeling proud that Link complimented his wand. "You aren’t blind, at least. But unfortunately—"

Before he could finish, Link moved abruptly. He stabbed his Dragon King’s Fury out. Halfway there, the tip flashed with crystal-red light. He’d activated the Demon Slayer Whip.

A thin crystal-red streak flashed and whipped towards Thoreau’s head. It was so fast that it reached within 60 feet of Thoreau within one-tenth of a second. It instantly went for the kill.

Because of Link’s previous words, Thoreau had subconsciously guessed that Link would use this action to move the battlefield. He sneered. "Nice calculations but it’s useless to me. Crystal Waves!"

Whoosh! A ring of transparent ripples appeared around him. It was only as tall as him at first and spread out with him as the center. Three feet away, it turned into a huge wave. After another three feet, the wave turned into a tide. Sand and pebbles tossed in its path. The crystal wave entirely covered Thoreau.

An instant later, it crashed into Link’s Demon Slayer Whip.

Hiss. Water and fire clashed and white steam rose up. Link’s Demon Slayer Whip snaked through the crystal-like wave, trying to attack the spell-caster behind it.

But the waves seemed to be endless. The Demon Slayer Whip kept bursting forward and evaporating the waves. It even created a hole more than six feet wide in the waves. But after 15 feet, it used up all its energy.

Poof. Link’s flame extinguished.

His fire law was around the same level as the law in the Crystal Wave. However, the difference in scale of the spell was too large. Thoreau was the victor in this direct clash of spells.

"Haha, taste the power of the sea!" Thoreau’s roar traveled from behind the endless waves. His voice rumbled like thunder.

Link had lost in the fight of water against fire. But he wasn’t alone.

"Burning Dragon Breath!" Gretel yelled.

She pointed her magic sword at the incoming waves. A dark purple pillar of firelight rushed forward. Halfway there, the pillar transformed into a dragon in flight.

An instant later, there was a huge boom. The dragon of light snuck into the hole in the crystal waves that Link’s whip had created.

Thoreau’s crystal waves had a large scale but, to defend Link’s traceless Demon Slayer Whip, he’d chosen a ranged attack. He wasted a whole lot of energy. Gretel’s spell, on the other hand, was a targeted attack and had the advantage created by the Demon Slayer Whip. With these two together, water and fire came to a tie.

With a boom, white steam rose up and firelight shot in all directions. A huge hole gaped open in the horrible wall of water.

Now!

Link was waiting for this. He instantly activated the battle technique Instant Flash.

His figure blurred and the next moment, he was beside the black-robed man. He stabbed his sword forward with the Time Sword technique he’d just acquired. He also added in 10,000 Dragon Power points.

He put his all into this attack. If he didn’t succeed, he would be dead.

With this stab, time passed and 100,000 years flew by!

This attack was so abrupt. As a battle technique, there was also no need to construct a Mana structure. Thus, it operated so fast the opponent had no time to react at all.

Thoreau was surprised. His spell had gone against Gretel, and his power was delayed. It was completely beyond his expectation that Link would be able to cast such a fatal attack. He was still a Level-13 Legendary Magician though. As his thoughts flowed, his body faded. He turned into a ball of white mist that flew back quickly.

While escaping, crystal needles appeared in the air around him. They pierced towards Link.

If Link didn’t dodge them, he would turn into a pin cushion.

If he kept stabbing his sword forward like this, he would miss. But he didn’t change his movement. His sword kept going but midway through, the white mist was 300 feet away. It transformed back into a human while the crystal needles were right before Link, about to stab through him.

"Despair!" A light ball with a black vortex within appeared at the tip of Link’s sword. The tip buried into the ball. He still ignored the crystal needles.

"Dragon Scale Barrier!" It was Gretel; she cast a defense spell for Link. A thick magic shield appeared before Link. It was a Level-11 spell.

Ding, ding, ding, ding. There were consecutive crashing sounds. White crystal shards appeared on the surface of the ten-centimeter-thick red scale-like shield.

Thoreau had hurriedly released this spell while Gretel was prepared, so she had the advantage.

The same moment, Link’s sword appeared behind Thoreau. This move was still as abrupt as before. He’d just re-solidified and was caught off guard. Link’s sword ended up stabbed into his back.

"Vaporize!"

As someone who’d reached Level-13 with his own abilities, Thoreau was truly powerful. The instant the sword entered his body, his back turned into vapor. He’d dodged the fatality of that attack. Then the light of vaporization extended to the rest of his body and he escaped again.

He couldn’t help it. He’d miscalculated and was forced into a disadvantage. His every move after that worsened it. Every second was spent at the brink of death. This was unexpected too.

Now, he finally understood that Link hadn’t planned on moving the battlefield. He’d been preparing to just end the battle!

Link reacted quickly. Seeing that Thoreau had vaporized again, he swept the Dragon King’s Fury horizontally.

Boundless Sharpness!

This effect had been raised to the highest level. It could even cut through the causal loop of time, let alone white mist. The blade started tearing apart the mist’s structure.

If it was just the mist getting torn apart, Thoreau wouldn’t get hurt. He could quickly reconnect after that. However, Link’s sword also had the power of time.

Time flew by. One hundred thousand years passed in an instant!

The Dragon King’s Fury first broke through the white mist. Then the broken mist traveled through time, passing millenniums instantly. No elemental spell in this world could last for more than one day, let alone millenniums.

So in the time’s path, the spell quickly ended, revealing the flesh body. After a while, the flesh turned into black fish scales and white flesh. The fish body then started decaying until it finally turned to ash.

Poof. Link cut the white mist into two with his sword. As the sword passed by, gray-white ashes flew to the side. No matter how powerful one’s spell was, it couldn’t survive the passage of time.

The broken white mist rapidly turned into two bodies. Link had cut through the body’s chest, halving it.

"Ah!" The black-robed Thoreau fell to the ground. He wasn’t a human anymore—he was a giant black-scaled fish!

Link didn’t give him any chance to fight back. He stabbed again, and the Despair Ball appeared. He was going to end this guy once and for all.

Poof. But Thoreau didn’t die and even cast a spell. Half of his body turned into white mist again. Then it transformed into a white flash of light, escaping with incredible speed.

Link’s sword was only met with white mist. He didn’t have much Dragon Power left, so he couldn’t activate the Time Sword battle technique. He couldn’t damage the white mist either.

With this delay, the mist escaped to the sea and jumped in, disappearing in the water. The sea was boundless. There was no way to pursue him now.

Only two items were left on the beach. One was half of Thoreau’s fish body. The other was his wand, the Sea God’s Fury. After Thoreau’s escape, peace resumed on the surface of the water. Light kept flowing in the air around the island. It was the rune array.

The runes in the sky cracked and disappeared, one by one. The shackles around the island disappeared completely.

Gretel walked over. Studying the cut on Thoreau’s remaining body, she gasped, "Link, your sword is so powerful."

Before this, she’d thought that it would be a bitter battle. In the end, Link only stabbed his sword once, and Thoreau couldn’t even resist it. A Level-13 Legendary Magician was forced to flee from just one of Link’s attacks.

Link felt for his Dragon Power. He had pretty much used up all of it for this attack, so he didn’t feel any pride in that. He chuckled wryly. "There’s a thin line between victory and defeat. If I were by myself, I wouldn’t be his match."

There were countless powerful heroes in this big world. By far, he wasn’t powerful enough.

Gretel didn’t mind. "Alright," she laughed. "He’s an old creature that has been alive for who knows how long. How old are you? When you’re his age, you can kill him with just the wind from your sneeze."

As she spoke, she picked up the Sea God’s Fury wand. She studied the blue gem at the tip and gasped. "Hey, why do I think this is a meteorite? Link, come look. This is something good."