Round 30: The Path We Choose (II)
Figuring out one’s place in Imprint City isn’t an easy task. It’s not just because building houses here never requires approval from any municipal authorities; more importantly, as a place said to connect all worlds in the multiverse, Imprint City itself is constantly changing, filled with spatial uncertainty. One door might suddenly open while another closes, and a wardrobe that was fine the previous night could drag you to some hellish place just because you hummed while opening it to get clothes. Such things can happen at any moment, so it’s not unusual for a newcomer to lose track of the alleys they’ve just passed. This situation actually gives the natives of Cage City quite a few opportunities—when they’re at their wits’ end and don’t want to scavenge or sell themselves, becoming guides is a pretty good option—though often, that term is synonymous with “scammer.”
One cannot step into the same Imprint City twice—a truth with deeper implications than just a philosophical proposition.
Andrei stood under the eaves of a rather grand house, with rain dripping down in front of him, providing better cover for his figure. His mentor no longer had that dazzling magical glow, and his wand was dull and gray, indistinguishable from an ordinary stick. Even if someone passed by, it would be hard to spot someone standing in the corner—Andrei seemed to have merged completely with the building, his appearance blending in with mold, wood grain, rain stains, and even the spreading black razor vines. Only the faint light in his watchful eyes revealed the presence of a living being.
He wasn’t incapable of perfect disguise, nor was illusion magic his weakness. But such methods might make him easier to detect with magic—especially when facing a prophet mage. Compared to being locked down by spells, flaws visible to the naked eye were nothing. Both ambushes and evasion required extra caution, otherwise, he risked a fierce counterattack. The fact that Morriel could easily escape their pursuit made Andrei take it seriously, walking on thin ice and feeling surrounded by danger.
A dirty, unfamiliar city. His mentor’s lips moved slightly as he silently cursed. Despite having six obedient animated creatures lurking around to protect him, he couldn’t shake a strange sense of insecurity, feeling like an exposed target, a lamb ready for slaughter on a butcher’s block. He had to concentrate hard to control his restless fantasies. In Andrei’s childhood, his family’s castle had been his paradise—until he was expelled and forced to leave forever. The shadow of being homeless and helpless lingered persistently, following him like a ghost. That’s why his grand mage tower in Sel City was heavily fortified, no less secure than the Lich Fortress. It’s not hard to infer, then, that traveling outside, exploring this vast, unknown, and dangerous world, is one of Andrei’s most hated and unfamiliar things.
If it weren’t for the ancient constructs… but why can’t luck be a bit fairer? Just like this time—someone who communicates with the second construct turns out to be Morriel’s teacher, Isabella! Why? He, Andrei, is the greatest mage in the Order of Red Robes, skilled at bringing life to inanimate objects and creating miracles! That’s one thing; you can’t expect a construct to understand reason. But according to him, since they’ve already come into contact with something of the same type as the one in Morriel’s possession, they should proceed carefully and plan ahead—ideally bringing “it” back to Sel City first. Yet Isabella chose to attack her student right away! One should also curse that little madwoman, Morriel—her commotion is so loud that it’s almost impossible to ignore!
There wasn’t even time to conduct a ritual. Andrei clenched his staff anxiously, concentrating to dispel the gloom in his thoughts. There was no need to worry; it was just a junior who had just started learning. He wasn’t even qualified enough to deal with two Red Robe mentors yet… It’s just that Cynis is sometimes too arrogant, which is a bit concerning.
Where are you, Mentor Cynis? Andrei had no desire to play hide-and-seek. After calming himself, he immediately sent a message to the head of the magic department: Any clues about that girl?
Hmph. Don’t be so impatient. She won’t run… nor can she. A few seconds later, Cynis’s haughty voice rang in his ears, clearly full of confidence: “Andrei, you surely aren’t worried that we can’t handle her, are you? Then, once those two constructs fight each other to exhaustion, we can take their wreckage back for detailed study. Toppling Victor won’t be long in coming.”
How ignorant. You make it sound so easy… Andrei held back from expressing such thoughts. Even if they destroyed each other instead of one defeating the other, what use would a pile of scrap metal be? Did the old men who studied Agus waste a hundred years for this?
Andrei gave up communicating with the head of magic and tried to find another way to change the situation—when suddenly, a streak of lightning flashed at the corner of his eye. The mentor turned in shock and saw a cluster of buildings swirling in the darkness, along with flames bursting in the night sky. The sound was thunderous; though not overly loud from this distance, it still shook his ears. That glimpse also revealed something he had almost overlooked, something that could have cost him his life.
The flames in the sky weren’t really in the sky. It was just that the night was deep, and Mark City was a massive ring atop the Pole of Extremes, defying all common sense. Observing the distant battlefield naturally created this illusion. That flame resembled an exploding supernova, blazing brilliantly for a moment. The light illuminated rows of rooftops, leaving afterimages in his retina, with fleeting distortions as if passing through some transparent medium other than air.
Ordinary people couldn’t even detect this hardly noticeable anomaly, but Andre reacted immediately. Without performing any spellcasting gestures, a wall suddenly rose in front of him. The muddy soil hardened into stone the moment it left the ground, forming a solid waterfall flowing upward. Under this protection, the mentor retreated at an astonishing speed. Ignoring the obstacles, he vanished back into the room in the blink of an eye. His defensive spells grew even more layered, and the shimmering light made the furniture appear as if enchanted, surely startling anyone who saw it—though it was an empty room.
Fortunately, it was an empty room. Before Andre could decide whether to use Plan A or Plan B, the entire room shook violently. Something far faster, more destructive, and numerous times more powerful than raindrops rushed through the walls and into the room. After hitting the mentor’s shield and bouncing off, it was revealed to be nothing more than pebbles about the size of fists.
There was no need to hesitate—he retreated once again. The house seemed unable to withstand the impact and began to collapse, but in a strange manner. Beams, walls, and furniture all squeezed inward and rotated, as if suddenly given life to block or grasp what Andre was desperately trying to avoid.
Choked by dust, not even the rain could suppress the swirling particles. The mentor rose from the chaos, the light on his magical shield swirling like ripples. Everything around was silent—the inhabitants of the walled city had a good habit: never getting involved in trouble.
The ruins of the house twisted into a strange shape. Bricks, wood, tiles, and stones fused together like muscles and tendons. An activation spell extracted the strongest parts of the building, turning them into a deformed giant fist that tightly gripped an arrow—if a steel spear ten feet long and as thick as a bowl could be called an arrow. It continued to tremble, its jagged blade stretching and twisting, like a fierce serpent refusing to be tamed, showing its last fangs in a desperate struggle.
Andre was confident he could withstand any attack… but not for long. He quickly raised his hand, pouring spells into the paths traced by his fingers. A small clump of dust scraped off as he fled the room was used to activate the magic net, which was then transformed into a continuous stream of destructive magical energy using a small natural magnet. The mentor had greatly amplified the power of this spell—just a slight gesture could reduce an enemy to ashes, a feat only mages could accomplish.
The arrow-spear’s blade-like tail feathers suddenly dimmed as something landed on them, blocking the faint light reflected by the magical shield. The attacker’s silhouette appeared in the wave-like light. Though its nearly perfect invisibility was broken, it never intended to launch a sneak attack. The heavily guarded puppet guards rushed forward, indeed serving to create some obstruction. A few sharp flashes passed, and their fragments scattered like shredded paper. Andre seized this momentary gap to reach out—tapping a point in the distance.
At first glance, spell power appeared as merely a thin, dim, dark green beam. It burst forth from the mentor’s fingertips, lacking the intensity, brightness, or coldness that light should possess, rather resembling trapped mist. The green ray adhered to the massive iron arrow, instantly stripping it of all metallic luster and causing it to rapidly decay into dust. Along with the stone fist that held it, it collapsed without even a slight explosion, turning into powder in the drizzle.
But this was not what Andrei wanted. He continued to strike repeatedly, each blow causing significant damage, yet none could catch up to that elusive, ghostly afterimage. After a series of attacks, the mentor was forced to pause and prepare again. That humanoid figure, both alluring and ferocious, had no concept of a halftime break. In a flash, it descended upon Andrei, its blade-like limbs and claws piercing through his magic shield as if grasping into emptiness, then drawing back a bow and nocking an arrow—the long arrow twisted like a snake, its tip bearing fangs that, if they bit, would render the mentor’s efforts utterly futile.
Andrei raised his head and roared in fury. Energy erupted in his eyes, forming two points of light, while his staff was snapped in two with a forceful push. Now he truly unleashed the core skill of the red-robed mage: the broken end of the staff was pitch black green, and the activated dissociation magic no longer manifested as rays but formed a silent storm centered around the mentor. First, the magic energy forming the shield began to disperse uncontrollably under the impact. In the next instant, the rooftops and structures around them collapsed like sandcastles washed away by tides. Those still inside had no choice but to accept their fate—just as flames licking through thin paper, leaving only countless tiny embers.
The rain also carried a sickly green hue, yet not a single drop fell on Andrei. Whether the enemy had been destroyed in the dissociation storm or not, the mentor had no intention of “pursuing the defeated.” A mage’s true value lay not in such chaotic close-quarters battles. He transformed into a strange state between two and three dimensions, moving swiftly through the falling rain. The side effect of transcending space was that everything seen and felt became distorted and bizarre: raindrops were as large as buckets, jumping and spinning chaotically, while the buildings of Mark City resembled absurd reflections in a spinning kaleidoscope, layer upon layer, pressing in on him. So much so that when another flame erupted somewhere in the city, Andrei saw the flames swirling as if burning the entire world.
Another battlefield was also in full swing.
A graceful steel figure was in motion—appearing and disappearing, shifting from one side to another, blurring into an indistinguishable stream of light and shadow. But the forty-seven who were both under her attack and attacking her were also changing.
He couldn’t kick her like “Kerry” could and then pull back to block her claw and use the force to bounce away; yet when attacking her head, he found her head had turned into a fist the size of a sandpot, and their clashes were equally deadly. Forty-seven had no concept of defense at all. By now, he had achieved great mastery in combat, and so-called weak points or vital areas didn’t exist for him. Blood Axe, Blood Battle—the combat style summarized and created by the Tin Man—was simply to roll forward like a bulldozer. Rockfalls, sandstorms, or tidal waves might be able to be resisted or diverted, but when an avalanche, sandstorm, or tsunami came, the only option to avoid being crushed to pieces was to retreat far away. But since “Kerry” wanted to fight Forty-seven, to stop him and make him “return to the right path,” she couldn’t just keep avoiding; she had to turn the situation around.
So she used again the Thunder Strike that had repeatedly defeated Forty-seven. This was the flash Instructor Andrei had seen earlier—a bluish electric light that filled the sky and earth. Without a doubt, the Iron Woman’s ultimate weapon was always like Thor’s Fury, dominating the skies, yet even more precise, efficient, and perfect—aside from its stunning visual and auditory effects, all its energy was channeled into the opponent’s body to cause total destruction, as if stars were about to go out, their energy no longer radiating but continuously contracting and collapsing until they became a pile of cold, lifeless, heavy matter with no sign of vitality.
Things were different now. For the first time, Forty-seven managed to withstand the Iron Woman’s star-destroying strike head-on. At first glance, it seemed the lightning had ignited and exploded him, but in reality, he only tilted his body slightly amid the surging heat and flames. The Tin Man’s armor shell split into many parts, spreading out like an enraged animal displaying its scales or feathers. Countless gears and mechanisms inside turned like springs in the fire, and the dented and cracked area on his chest, directly hit by the attack, gradually smoothed out like metal forged in a furnace… The intense flames surrounding him pulsed erratically, sometimes growing larger, sometimes smaller. When the flames flared brightly, it was blinding, and everything in their light seemed to be suffering from the scorching heat of molten copper and iron, with the process of withering and turning to ash visible to the eye, rain turning into steam rising up… Almost no white color of cooling could be seen.
The Iron Woman also had fire on her. She flew backward a long distance and lay half on the ground. Flames danced between her and Forty-seven, but they couldn’t suppress those two points of abyssally dark red.
The red glow paused briefly, then two afterimages rushed forward swiftly, with waves of fire bursting apart like crashing waves. Forty-seven stepped forward forcefully from within, each step causing his physique to change—his armor expanding and combining, his head with protruding rebar, grotesquely growing spines, and increasingly thick limbs… The Tin Man roared as he charged through the flames, raising his fist and slamming it down on “Kerry.” His pile-driver-like punches caused terrifying destruction—several nearby buildings collapsed instantly, and the debris buried almost half the street. “Kerry” broke through the dust, twisted in mid-air, and landed lightly on Forty-seven’s back of the neck. Now his entire back was exposed to her blades, and with her speed, she could slice through it like chopping onions.
But “Kerry” did not attack; instead, she jumped far away before forty-seven heads turned to bite her. A streak of flame swept across her blade armor—slightly different from the one created by the Tin Man. The Steel Woman’s blue eyes flashed, and she leaped into the night sky amid the spreading flames, disappearing into darkness before long.
Forty-Seven also turned around. Dissatisfied with this inconclusive fight, he decided to put an end to “Kerry’s” troubles once and for all. The Tin Man pursued her with brute, beast-like movements, completely unlike “Kerry’s” graceful style, sucking in all the flames in its path—the spreading fire flowed back to its source like a rewind, inadvertently saving many lives.
“Don’t go too far!” Eponine emerged from the ruins, disheveled, with the chatty little demon Pipi by her side: “Be careful not to provoke—”
Unfortunately, the fierce wind carried by Forty-Seven drowned out her warning.