The Star Of Annihilation

The Star of Annihilation

Chapter 12 – Ferneth (4)

Written by : eleven

* * *

The Imperial Capital, Lazarus

***

“Hm…”

Looking at the starry sky, an old man in a blissful and white-colored robe hymned to himself as he scratched his beard.

He was one to always watch the constellations in the sky. He didn’t understand the entirety of the constellations, but he was able to read a certain degree of fate from them nonetheless.

The 8-star Grand Wizard, Tubel.

He was also one of the co-administrators for the Imperial Institute of Knighthood and Magic. He was in charge of the Magical side of the institute but rarely felt the actual need to teach the youth these days.

A lot of them were fame-seeking individuals who used magic for nothing but politics.

As he looked into the starry night sky, he had a concerned look on his face.

He didn’t completely recognize what was coming, but he was worried as he looked at a clash of two stars in the sky. One of them was a star that shone with an eerie black light, symbolizing death, and the other was a star he had recognized to be the star of the Fourth Swordmaster, Lucius.

But what concerned him, was that there was something lurking much farther beyond it.

There were incredibly large stars that had never moved towards his direction. They were always immobile but bright stars that shone brighter than any other. They shone with gray light, something that Tubel never quite understood. He didn’t know what a gray light meant, but he neer had a good feeling about them.

But, those very stars were starting to move ever so slightly in the direction of the two stars that were clashing together.

‘Lucius, what have you gotten yourself into?’

Tubel’s eyes shook as he noticed something beyond the clashing of the two stars and the other gray stars that were approaching.

Never in his time of trying to read the stars, did he ever see a red star.

“What?”

For some reason, Tubel was feeling deathly frightened of this star. He didn’t know which being was in possession of this star, but it seemed that all the stars were actually moving towards this star.

As he examined the red star, he started to tremble. There were mixed emotions as he looked at this star.

He had a habit of guessing what certain stars indicated, and his foolish habit had already started again.

“….War? No- destruction?…. That’s not right either. Hm…. oh god.”

Tubel intuitively felt something within him crack as he thought of a single word.

‘Annihilation.’

Tubel immediately shook his head and opened a portal to the royal palace to report to the Emperor what he had noticed from the stars. Trying to shake off the foreboding sense of fear, he stepped through the space.

***

Bang!
The earth beneath Lucius’ feet immediately cracked into several pieces from the pressure of his feet as he lunged forwards at Ferneth.

[Blink]

Ferneth immediately started to murmur and move his hands as he started to prepare several spells in advance while blinking away.

Lucius’ eyes darted around and found the new location of Ferneth while bringing his sword across his body and letting his aura part from the blade.

Bwoosh!
The blue aura exploded forward like a fiery blade at Ferneth.

But as it approached, Ferneth had already completed his spell.

[Space Rend]

The space started to distort around ferneth as an invisible blade of equal size shot at the incoming attack of aura.

Srrrrrt~

At the collision, an odd noise could be heard as the aura and distorted space collided, trying to establish dominance over each other.

As this happened, Ferneth had already blinked away once more and was muttering another spell.

Lucius furrowed his brows as the space rend had completely demolished his aura and dispersed it.

Ferneth was a very troublesome Arch-Lich. Lucius felt like the Lich in front of him was already used to fighting against swordmasters like himself as he was incredibly proficient with his domain’s uses of space and supportive spells that used the domain to his advantage.

“Shit…”

Lucius muttered under his breath as he realized Ferneth already completed his next spell.

[Bone Hell]

Sharp and pointy bones shot straight from the ground and clawed at Lucius’ feet as he jumped up and brought his sword into the air.

The bones started to form together into a large hand and tried to reach Lucius.

The size of the large hand was easily the size of a large 7 story building.

Bringing his sword into the air, Lucius roused his aura around his body and focused it into the tip of his sword as he started to twist his body like a whip.

Ba-Boom!
Debris flew out as shockwaves reverberated throughout the entire forest. White shrapnel of the bones flew out and shredded the nearby trees to bits.

As this was all happening…

***

“Nate, Elizabeth, I need you both to hold them back while I work on reversing the barrier formula.”

Roy spoke quickly, getting the words out of his mouth while simultaneously rousing his core and looking at the barrier, trying to decode the source.

“Got it.”

“Got it.”

“The two of you should tie down that asshat over there. He’s a bit stronger the rest, and is probably much stronger than you both individually. But pull through with teamwork.”

Frankly speaking, when Roy pointed to the Head Priest who was seemingly screaming at them in rage, it was suicide to send Elizabeth and Nate against a 4-Star Priest like him.

A single 1-star magic spearman, on the cusp of becoming a 2-star. And another 2-star blood magician, was not enough firepower to close the gap of 4-stars.

In terms of quantity and quality of spells, they were at a large disadvantage.

But, Roy knew that Nate would struggle to not find it boring if he rushed the Priest. Although a Paladin was more than likely to come in and try to stop Nate, the chimeras would mostly tie them up, and he believed Nate would completely be able to dispatch a 3-star Paladin.

Nate took point as he stepped forwards and bent his knees.

The Head Priest stopped screaming in rage as he saw Nate point his spear at him, along with Elizabeth getting behind him, pointing her hands in the Head Priest’s direction. Seeing this, the Head Priest gave an incredibly cruel-looking smile as he started to gather his holy power.

Holy power was a bit different than all other types of energy, but it functioned the same. It was just gathered differently.

Nate suddenly flinched and turned his head back and leaned backwards. It was completely out of reflex, but at that moment, his body responded before his eyes could even register the sword of holy power that whizzed by him.

“Hoh~ looks like you brats aren’t half bad! Kukukuku…!”

The Head Priest chuckled to himself as he started to cast his next spell.

[Blood Prison]

But in terms of chanting speed, Elizabeth was much faster.

Blood Prison was a 5-star spell, but it had been modified by Ferneth for her to use at 2-stars. Instead of a circular ball of blood that completely engulfed the target, tendrils of blood shot out and aimed to restrict the Head Priest’s movements.

Qaddeuk!

One of the nearby Paladins indeed did hop in as it broke away from one of the Chimeras and cut at the tendrils of blood. But Nate was already above him.

Leaping up in the air, Nate swung the speartip down like a hammer to cleave the Paladin. The Paladin quickly tried to raise his sword, but a barrier formed in front of them as the head Priest redirected his spell to the Paladin to defend him.

“Thank you, Arthur.”

“Of course, sir.”

The Head Priest nodded at the Paladin as they exchanged glances.

[Blood Familiar – Twin Wolves]

Blood started to hydrate from the atmosphere in clumps and started to form the shape of 3-meter long wolves.

The Paladin, Arthur, and the Head Priest narrowed their eyes.

“Blasphemous witchcraft!”

The head Priest screamed at Elizabeth as he saw the disgusting blood familiars bare their fangs at him.

Nate had already stepped back and was preparing a spell.

[Ice steps]

Nate kicked the ground and slid at a rapid pace towards the Paladin, poking his spear up diagonally, and the two blood familiars leapt up behind him towards the Head Priest. There was ice below Nate’s shoes, and every step he took created more ice around them.

If Roy knew what Nate was up to, he’d be proud of him for fully being aware of how to use the surroundings towards your advantage as a mage.

The Paladin easily blocked Nate’s strike, but Nate didn’t give up and stabbed repeatedly while backing away and circling the Paladin, isolating him from the Priest.

The golden armor of the Paladin started to glow faintly as the Paladin was starting to enchant his armor and sword to counter Nate.

Pa-pa-pak!
Dancing around the Paladin, Nate slowly became in control of the fight as he whittled away at the defensive holy power that coated the Paladin.

“Hup!-“

The Paladin quickly took a gasp for air as the spear suddenly changed trajectory and smacked the right part of his chest, cracking his ribs.

Nate went in for the finishing blow as he kicked the ground seizing the opportunity to end the scuffle.

But as Nate came forwards, he saw the worry and regret in the eyes of the Paladin named Arthur. Nate was no saint, as he had been bullied and beaten for a long time by other humans. He had killed monsters prior to coming here, but his hands shook as they gripped the spear that was going forwards.

‘Fuck…’ 

Puk.

Nate cursed under his breath as he felt a part of him die off at that moment.

As he stared at the Paladin who looked down at the hole in his chest, Nate watched as life left the eyes of the man in front of him.

Staring at the hole in his chest spurting blood Arthur hiccuped and swallowed the blood rising from his throat.

“You….”

The Paladin reached his hand out towards Nate and Nate reflexively stumbled back.

Blinking his eyes repeatedly, Nate felt confused.

It was the first time he had ever taken another human’s life.

Although Nate hated other people, he wasn’t stubborn enough enough to say that all humans were bad. He wouldn’t just kill them indiscriminately.

Although he had developed some areas faster than other kids his age in terms of maturity, that didn’t mean he was shocked to take another life.

However, he didn’t have time as he heard a scream the very next moment.

“NATE…KYAAAAAH!”

Elizabeth was being choked and held by the neck. The person raising her body up into the air so forcefully with one hand, was none other than the Head Priest.

At that moment… Nate’s eyes bulged and his pupils dilated. That day was a day he would

never forget.

Chapter 12 – Fin