Didia ran straight ahead without looking back.
She had suspected it.
When the thunderous explosion erupted from the mansion, she had not sensed any Mana from the upper floor.
She had assumed she was mistaken.
Her entire body had been encased in ice at the time, so she had been in no state to pay attention to something like that.
However, after witnessing Loeb’s magic earlier, Didia had unconsciously reached a conclusion deep within her heart.
Loeb was a Dark Mage.
Didia knew very little about Dark Magic.
Everything she knew came from what she had studied during her school days. She had never witnessed it in person.
Zid was Dark Magic that sent a powerful Shockwave into a person’s body and detonated it from within, killing them instantly.
It had been named after the man named Zid who first invented it. The Magic Association had deemed the spell dangerous and classified it as Dark Magic.
Yet Loeb had used that spell without the slightest hesitation right before her eyes.
It had allowed him to protect Gaten from the incoming Icicle Spears, but she could not shake the unease it left behind.
‘Did he do it deliberately?’
Didia even began to wonder whether the entire situation unfolding around them might be an elaborate performance orchestrated by Loeb and Shuran.
Darren emerging from the mansion without his soul might also have been part of the scheme. Someone with Loeb’s abilities was more than capable of doing it.
‘No. That cannot be true…’
Something must have gone wrong with her mind for a moment.
Didia shook her head violently and struggled to regain control of her increasingly confused thoughts.
Logically speaking, if everything that had happened thus far was an elaborate performance carried out according to a meticulously calculated plan, what could Loeb possibly gain from it?
Dark Mages were driven entirely by self-interest.
Traveling alongside Mages would inevitably expose his identity. There was no reason for Loeb to take such a risk.
“Wait. Could the reason Letra was searching for Loeb be…?!”
Icicles poured in from every direction.
With their pointed tips sharpened and their precise arcs aimed directly at Rud, the attack resembled an army of cavalrymen filling the land and hurling their spears in unison.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Rud calmly destroyed the Icicles approaching him with Shockwaves.
He did not have a moment to look away.
No, it would be more accurate to say that there was nowhere safe for him to look.
Arsil drew his attention in one direction, then immediately attacked through his blind spot.
Snow fell from the sky and accumulated across the ground.
A single misplaced step would cause him to slip and fall.
WHOOOOOSH!!!!
The sound of the air tearing apart came from above, and an enormous shadow fell over his feet.
Rud looked up.
A massive block of ice floated in the air, large enough to crush the mansion behind him with ease.
He had no idea when she had created something so enormous.
Rud was about to blast it away when Arsil violently brought her arm down.
The mass of ice plummeted toward the ground without hesitation, like a falling meteor.
BOOOOOOM!!!!
It happened in the blink of an eye.
Karte’s pupils widened.
The block of ice, which weighed several tons, had crushed Rud in less than a second.
The corners of Arsil’s lips rose into a grin.
The relentless barrage of Icicles had all been preparation for this.
She distracted her opponent with attacks from one direction while preparing a single overwhelming blow to finish them.
It was a strategy that had succeeded countless times before.
She believed Rud would be no different.
CRACK—BOOOOM!!!!
The enormous block of ice suddenly exploded with a deafening roar.
“What…?!”
A startled exclamation escaped Arsil’s lips.
Fragments of ice burst apart like a shattered watermelon and scattered in every direction.
Karte casually knocked the fragments aside with his hands while keeping his gaze fixed on one place.
Rud, who should have been crushed beneath the ice, stood completely unharmed and calmly brushed the frost from his clothes.
“That was painfully obvious.”
Rud muttered loudly enough for her to hear.
Arsil’s face twisted viciously.
“What did you just say?”
“I already experienced all of this inside the mansion. Judging by the way you keep repeating the same tricks, you do not seem particularly intelligent.”
“Ha! Is that supposed to provoke me?”
“Provoke you?”
Rud responded as though he had no idea what she meant.
“I do not know what you are talking about. I merely said exactly what I thought.”
The calm, innocent manner in which he spoke made it even more infuriating.
Arsil had been notorious for her foul temper even in the past. Somehow, Rud had recognized it after exchanging only a few words with her.
“Oh? Then I suppose you think you are exceptionally clever?”
“More than you.”
Twitch!
A prominent vein bulged on Arsil’s forehead.
Her eyes burned with fury, and her tightly clenched molars looked ready to crack.
A single word had been enough to strike directly at her nerves.
“Fine! If you are so clever, then prove it!!”
Arsil roared and stomped hard against the ground.
Karte recognized the movement.
A chill ran through his entire body, and he hurriedly attempted to escape into the trees.
Solid ice bloomed beneath Arsil’s foot and spread outward in every direction.
SHRAAAK!!
In less than a second, everything within a hundred-meter radius turned pure White, frozen like sculptures carved from ice.
Karte was no exception.
He desperately attempted to reach the highest branch of a nearby tree, but he could not outrun the advancing ice. He froze along with the ground, becoming part of the frozen landscape like an ornament.
Karte was a Mage who controlled water.
He could create Massive Waves and razor-sharp Water Pressure Cutters, but before a Mage capable of instantly freezing them, he was rendered completely powerless.
There could be no greater humiliation.
Surely even Rud could do nothing against this.
Arsil had cast the spell with the same thought in mind.
However, Rud was floating high in the air as calmly as before, as though nothing had happened.
“Tsk!”
Arsil quietly clicked her tongue.
It had taken only 0.3 seconds for the entire three-hundred-meter span to freeze, yet Rud had reacted quickly enough to leap high into the air.
As long as he did not touch the ice, he would not freeze.
But could he truly avoid it so easily?
The Ice Field Arsil had cast did more than merely freeze the surrounding area.
If even the smallest part of a person’s body touched the ice, the freezing effect would spread automatically.
The moment a small bird landed on the ice, its entire body froze solid.
Arsil was certain of her victory.
She had clicked her tongue earlier out of disappointment that she had failed to finish him in a single attack, but unless Rud could fly through the sky, escaping this trap was impossible.
“It is over…!”
Arsil muttered, unable to suppress her smile.
BANG!!
Rud fired a Shockwave into the empty air and instantly closed the distance between them.
He had used the recoil from the explosion to propel himself through the air.
“Impossible…?!”
THUD—BOOOOM!!!!
Rud’s fist drove into Arsil’s temple, unleashing a powerful Shockwave.
Arsil’s body lifted into the air and flew an unbelievable distance.
She could not understand what had just happened.
Had Zid always been this kind of spell?
Arsil had believed that she had witnessed every imaginable spectacle during her time with Shuran, yet this was the first time she had ever seen someone use Zid in such a manner.
Through her overturned field of vision, Arsil struggled to focus her eyes ahead.
Rud was flying fiercely toward her, one arm extended behind him as he used a Shockwave like a booster to remain airborne.
WHOOOOOSH!!!
Even from this distance, she could hear the air tearing around him.
She had no time to remain idle.
Arsil forcibly corrected her inverted posture and attempted to create an Icicle.
CRACK!!!
The sound of breaking ice struck her ears.
Rud had already reached her face.
He shattered the Icicle with his bare hand, then seized Arsil’s face in a crushing grip.
“…?!”
A chill ran down her spine.
Arsil hurriedly placed both hands on his arm and attempted to pull it away.
Rud displayed unbelievable strength and hurled her by the face with all his might, as though throwing a ball.
WHOOOOSH—CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
Propelled backward by the violent pressure, Arsil’s body crashed through the frozen trees behind her and continued flying.
‘What is wrong with this bastard…?!’
Arsil was a corpse.
She would not die merely from smashing face-first into a frozen tree.
However, if she continued receiving impacts of this magnitude, the link placed on her brain would eventually break.
Gravity pulled Arsil back toward the ground.
Her body bounced across the earth for several more meters before finally coming to a stop.
Arsil struggled to correct her posture and rose to her feet.
She appeared to have been thrown well over a hundred meters.
The mansion that had stood directly before her only moments ago had completely disappeared from sight.
Making no attempt to conceal her viciously twisted expression, Arsil hurriedly scanned her surroundings.
“Where did that bastard go?”
Rud was nowhere to be seen.
Rage surged through her.
How dare he humiliate her to this extent?
A suffocating pressure weighed down on her entire body.
Arsil breathed heavily and swept her wide eyes from side to side.
Rustle…
Grass shifted behind her.
Arsil would never miss something so obvious.
She immediately created an Ice Trident and drove it forcefully into the ground.
Ten thick Ice Pillars erupted from the earth, rising sharply in a circle around her.
RUMBLE—BOOOOM!!!!
That should have skewered Rud through the backside like meat on a spit.
Strangely, however, the only thing impaled upon one of the Ice Pillars was a tiny squirrel scarcely larger than a mouthful.
The sound in the grass had not come from Rud after all.
It had been the squirrel.
The situation was utterly absurd.
Arsil snorted loudly and turned her gaze away.
At that moment, Rud descended from the sky like a falling cannonball and slammed her face into the ground.
BOOOOM!!!!
Although he had merely driven her face into the earth, the resulting explosion sounded like the detonation of a small bomb.
Arsil had no idea where he had been hiding, but she decided to turn the opportunity against him.
Touching an Ice Mage was no different from throwing away one’s own life.
Arsil attempted to lower the temperature of her entire body and freeze Rud along with her.
“You should stop.”
Rud spoke quietly in a low voice.
“If even a little ice touches my hand, I do not know what I might do to you.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?”
Unlike his talent for provoking her, his ability to threaten someone appeared pathetic.
With her head buried deep in the earth, Arsil grinned and continued.
“It seems you are doing this because you want information from me, but you should give up. My mission was merely to keep you occupied after you arrived at the mansion.”
The answer was entirely unexpected.
Rud’s eyes narrowed coldly.
“What does that mean?”
“Use that brilliant mind of yours and think carefully. That brat Darren was openly escaping right before my eyes. Why do you think I merely stood there and watched?”
“What are you talking about? You already attacked the wolf—”
“I attacked the wolf.”
Arsil whispered with a meaningful, mocking smile.
“But only the wolf.”