Chapter 2760 Eye of Arcana <TOC> Chapter 2762 Death of Vai
Translator: SumTLMan
After Mammoth comprehended the Eye of Arcana, he slowly closed his eyes and tried to use mental power to control the surging energy around him.
There was no hindrance whatsoever; all of the energy could be perfectly controlled by Mammoth.
It was the first time Mammoth had ever been able to manipulate so much energy, and energy at the formal wizard realm at that. This exhilarating sensation made even the ever-restrained Mammoth show a look of rapture.
With a single thought, Mammoth drew out a wisp from that billowing energy.
That wisp of energy, under Mammoth’s thought, transformed into a blood-red arrow.
With a flick and a point of his hand, the arrow turned into a streak of blood-light and shot toward Vai.
Vai instinctively tried to dodge, but the moment he moved he sensed something was wrong. His movements were far, far slower than before, as if his body had sunk into a mire and was wrapped in heavy sludge, he could still move, but even with great effort his speed was at least halved.
At such a speed, Vai simply had no way to evade that blood-red arrow.
Decisive in the moment, Vai sank directly into the ground. Yet even plunging into the earth, his descent was much slower than usual.
Gritting his teeth, Vai also set up a Stone Rampart around himself. The stone-coffin-like rampart shrouded Vai tightly and sank with him into the ground.
At the instant when Vai’s body was completely submerged underground, the arrow arrived. With a thunderous explosion, a crack split the arena platform floor.
Very soon, however, the crack in the arena platform floor began to repair itself. A few seconds later, the floor was smooth and pristine once more.
At that moment, Vai also burrowed out from the ground not far away.
As he emerged, he happened to catch sight of that distant floor gradually repairing itself.
As an earth element apprentice, Vai was very familiar with the arena platform’s material; it was a type of stone that only a formal wizard going all out could break.
And Mammoth had casually loosed a single blood arrow and already cracked the floor, this showed that the energy Mammoth now commanded had already approached wizard-level!
And that blood-red arrow had been merely a drop in the ocean of the surging energy around Mammoth. It stands to reason that if Mammoth increased his control over the energy, he could absolutely reach wizard-level.
At this thought, Vai’s expression grew heavy.
「Did you really think you could slip free of my lock-on so easily? This was merely a warning.」 Mammoth’s voice came from afar.
Mammoth meant that Vai’s smooth escape was in fact him staying his hand. This wasn’t entirely false. Vai had dodged the arrow’s strike with perfect timing, looking very much like a hair-breadth escape. Under normal conditions, Vai wouldn’t find that maneuver difficult, but he had just been affected by an unknown energy, he himself couldn’t fully command his own body, and yet he still managed to dodge the arrow 「just so」; that was, plainly, a bit too coincidental.
Mammoth said it was a warning, and Vai believed it.
Mammoth’s intention was also clear to Vai: intimidation and pressing for surrender. The underlying message was that this time he’d been magnanimous, but next time he wouldn’t be polite. So Vai ought to concede now; otherwise, he alone would bear whatever came next.
In the past, Vai might indeed have been persuaded by such words from Mammoth. But right now, he had just suffered a social-death moment before everyone present when the mushroom spores erupted from his orifices, and he had then landed at the arena platform’s center head-down, rump-up. His mortification had already surpassed his reason.
When emotion eclipses reason, one often acts on impulse; so did Vai. Yet his impulsiveness didn’t amount to a total loss of judgment, he still had a measure of discernment.
If, at this very moment, Mammoth were manipulating True Knowledge Wizard-level energy, Vai would surrender without the slightest hesitation. No matter how riled your emotions are, life matters more!
His refusal to retreat now meant he believed he still had a chance to win.
On the other side, after issuing his warning, Mammoth watched Vai’s movements. Seeing no terror in Vai’s expression, he sighed inwardly, then, without further delay, once more manipulated the surging energy around him.
This time, however, Mammoth did not, as before, control merely a few wisps. Instead, he mobilized nearly sixty percent of the energy around him.
It wasn’t that Mammoth didn’t wish to draw more; sixty percent was simply the limit he could currently control.
Under Mammoth’s control, that energy slowly condensed.
In the end, it became a blood-light that merged into that single eye.
Within the Eye of Arcana, red light coursed. It looked brilliantly lustrous, with a dreamlike beauty. Yet this beauty did not signify splendor but danger, deadly danger.
Even before the red light within the Eye of Arcana was released, Vai already felt a gut-clenching dread, and the surrounding sense of congealment grew ever more severe.
Watching Vai be pressed by overwhelming force until he could not move, Mammoth murmured in a low voice: 「How fragile you are. Don’t you think it’s a pity to die here?」
Vai could speak, but he made no sound, nor did he show any intent to retreat; he simply continued to glare at Mammoth.
Mammoth: 「Since you insist on dying, then… receive the grace of the Death Light!」
At the instant the words fell, the red light within the Eye of Arcana flared greatly……
……
Beneath the arena platform, Shepherd watched the standoff between Mammoth and Vai, his brows deeply furrowed. He didn’t know why, but Shepherd kept feeling that something about the atmosphere on the arena platform was off.
He couldn’t say exactly what was off.
Until Mammoth spoke that line:
How fragile you are. Don’t you think it’s a pity to die here?
Shepherd jerked his head up and looked toward Shrew: 「He isn’t Mammoth?」
Shrew’s expression was dark. She slanted a glance at Shepherd and said coolly: 「He is.」
「No, he isn’t Mammoth. Mammoth wouldn’t say something like that!」 Doubt showed on Shepherd’s face.
Hearing Shepherd’s words, Ghost Shadow and Pink Jasmine at his side also felt something amiss. They had been with Mammoth for years; how could they not know what kind of temperament he had?
Composed, honest, and…… steady.
You could say that among them, Mammoth played the role of 「big brother」, when everyone panicked or conflict arose, he could steady their emotions, calmly analyze the matter, and finally offer his own view.
Even if not everyone was satisfied with Mammoth’s view, it was definitely the most balanced, like a common divisor that everyone, gritting their teeth, could accept.
Mammoth was just such a 「good old fellow」.
He was the most steady and most trustworthy pillar in everyone’s heart, including Shepherd’s.
But now, as Mammoth fought Vai on the arena platform, he was acting far too unlike Mammoth. At first it was passable, there was at least a bit of rationality, but now he seemed a different person entirely: not only aggressive but also suffused with lofty contempt.
Moreover, for Mammoth to say directly: 「Don’t you think it’s a pity to die here」, that meant he truly harbored killing intent.
Across from Mammoth stood a scion of the Noah family!
When facing wandering wizards, Mammoth would consider the repercussions, if matters could be settled peacefully, he would settle them peacefully. Now, facing a scion of Noah, he neither considered consequences nor left himself a way out. That was far too unlike 「Mammoth」.
Just as Shepherd said, Pink Jasmine and Ghost Shadow also wondered: the Mammoth now on the arena platform, was he truly Mammoth?
Confronted with Shepherd’s doubt and the questioning looks of Pink Jasmine and Ghost Shadow, Shrew gave a cold laugh, looking as though she couldn’t be bothered to explain.
Her attitude left the others stifled. But there was nothing they could do; that was simply Shrew’s temperament, when she felt good, she didn’t want to deal with people; when she felt bad, she wanted to deal with people even less.
Shepherd exhaled a long breath, turned, and looked to the Gray Merchant, hoping to get an answer from him.
The Gray Merchant originally didn’t intend to respond, but seeing the earnest gazes of the three apprentices, and not yet having recovered his cold memories, his heart softened.
After a brief pause, the Gray Merchant said: 「Shrew didn’t lie to you. He is indeed Mammoth.」
「But Mammoth wouldn’t be this impulsive,」 Pink Jasmine also said.
The Gray Merchant hesitated for two seconds: 「People have many facets. What you’ve seen isn’t necessarily the whole truth. The Mammoth you see now isn’t necessarily ‘false,’ either.」
……
On the other side of the arena platform.
「What do you think?」 Daus patted Angel on the shoulder. At Angel’s puzzled look, he jutted his lips subtly, indicating with a hidden gesture at the Gray Merchant’s group opposite.
Because the Gray Merchant and the others hadn’t spoken through a mental connection, they could hear it over here as well.
Angel cast a far-sighted glance at the Gray Merchant and company, then shook his head: 「The Gray Merchant isn’t wrong either, people are multifaceted.」
Daus: 「Granted, but that deepest facet hidden in the human heart doesn’t turn up suddenly without difficulty.」
Angel said nothing, because they had eavesdropped on the other side’s conversation, the Gray Merchant’s group also heard them, and all turned to look over.
Angel didn’t want to expose his identity by saying more, so he chose to keep silent.
Daus, however, was oblivious to the awkwardness; even with others staring at him, he went on: 「This Mammoth is probably ruined, right?」
Angel: 「……」
「Even if he wins, he’s ruined,」 Daus clicked his tongue and continued: 「Pity, really, sabotaged by his own group’s wizard.」
Daus’ words made Shrew on the opposite side snap her head up, glaring viciously at Daus.
Daus still didn’t care and kept talking to himself: 「When a child holds a treasure, not knowing its worth, trading it for candy is no big deal. But for an adult, after tasting a treasure’s charm, its glory and convenience, trying to return to the days of empty pockets becomes hard indeed.」
「Such an adult is, in all likelihood, ruined.」
Daus hadn’t named names, but he also hadn’t spoken obliquely; he pointed straight at a simple truth.
Shepherd had previously puzzled over why Mammoth had changed so much. With Daus’ prompt, he understood at once.
Imagine it, an apprentice, whose mental power is as tiny as sand, yet able to wield wizard-level energy vast as the sea. Such a tremendous contrast is enough to make an apprentice with poor self-control lose himself in power.
This feeling is hard for outsiders to grasp, indeed, it sounds unbelievable. 「It’s just a ‘cash advance,’」 one might say. Why would he become obsessed?
The answer is actually simple.
The longer the time drags on to advance from apprentice to wizard, the harder it becomes to step into the realm of a formal wizard, because time not only erodes your lifespan, it also fills your heart with a thicket of thoughts.
You can consider that every day before you become a formal wizard, every step you take, every choice you make, every battle you fight, is an obstacle and a blockade on the path to becoming a formal wizard. Once you cross over, you return to a pure heart and are never overgrown again.
Fail to cross, and your potential is exhausted, you turn to bare bones.
Mammoth experienced the powerful sense of control granted by the Eye of Arcana, and then his heart began to be corroded by a poison named 「I was once incomparably powerful.」
Expelling such a poison is by no means simple. Losing oneself to power, or, rather, becoming enamored of power, is the greatest threshold to advancing to a formal wizard.
To see through it, you must have enormous willpower, or experience wizard-level power day after day until it becomes normalized; only then might you avoid straying in the fog of obsession.
But neither method is easy. The latter can be dismissed out of hand; the only feasible path is to temper one’s will.
Yet even tempering the will is very difficult for Mammoth.
The wizard-level power Mammoth is using does not come from the outside, it is not a rune scroll, not a magic formation, not a side-effect-free potion…… it comes from himself.
It is the masterless organ that granted Mammoth this experience.
Even if a masterless organ is 「one-time use,」 once it merges into Mammoth’s body, it belongs to Mammoth; it becomes his personal organ.
He used the masterless organ’s ability and fell into a loss of self to his own power, and that point matters.
Thus the will he must temper must exceed the sense of power-lostness that the masterless organ induces.
In other words, for Mammoth to see through the mist, his will must be strong enough to master wizard-level power.
If he cannot, then Mammoth is ruined.
In truth, can Mammoth do it? Daus personally thinks he cannot. Hence he spoke bluntly: he’s already ruined.
As for that addendum: 「sabotaged by his own group’s wizard」.
That isn’t wrong either, though his aim wasn’t to lament Mammoth; he simply wanted to sow discord between the apprentices and the wizards on the other side.
Whether he would succeed or not, Daus didn’t care. He just wanted to disgust that witch called Shrew.
Daus had intended to add a few more barbs, but just then the situation on the field turned critical.
Mammoth poured all the energy he could control into the Eye of Arcana and condensed it into a beam of 「Death Light.」
The Death Light was extremely fast, more than twice as fast as the arrow Mammoth had casually sent earlier!
And within the range illuminated by the Death Light, all matter and energy were suppressed; this made Vai’s speed slow to a crawl like a tortoise.
In such a state, Vai had no room to dodge.
Mammoth had no intention of pulling his strike, either. His single eye was wholly scarlet; the thrill of slaying a scion of Noah made him shake all over, yet he felt unspeakably exhilarated.
At such close range, and with a Death Light swift as lightning.
Vai had no time to defend.
With a sudden swish, the Death Light passed through Vai’s body……