Legacy of the Dark Sage

Without even a pause in his action, Kyran swiped his hand at Osric's neck.

Osric failed to react in time. Thus, Kyran's hand, which seemed to have become a sharp blade, neatly sliced through his neck.

Slash!

Osric's head flew up from the momentum of Kyran's strike before falling to the ground, with his body following suit.

However, even after cutting Osric's head, Kyran did not look happy. Instead, his brow furrowed as he watched Osric's head and body fall.

Osric could turn himself to water. Even if Kyran's attack were fast, Osric would have turned himself to water the moment he was attacked. Kyran would have grazed his neck by then, but he would still turn to water and escape.

'A dummy?' Kyran thought with a slight frown.

When Kyran felt Osric's presence earlier, he had the same aura and presence as the real one, which was why he did not hesitate to go after him. But to think that the one he attacked was only a dummy.

No.

It was not exactly a dummy. It was more like an essence!

Kyran suddenly felt an incoming headache. There was no way for him to differentiate between a real body to an essence. Even when Nolan's essence appeared before him, Kyran only noticed he was an essence because he could clearly sense his mage level. The real Nolan would never make such an obvious mistake.

Among the people Kyran knew, only Cyneah seemed capable of differentiating an essence from its original body, and that was because she could see their 'souls.'

Thinking of this, Kyran came up with an explanation of what had just happened.

Most human mages were not aware of essences. Because of this, it was impossible for them to create one. And even if they knew how, they should be at least a Grand Master before they could succeed in making one.

In any case, only those who had entered the Tower of Tribulations knew about essence.

Osric did not know about the Tower of Tribulations, but he likely knew about essences because he was born during the Chaos Era.

At that time, those creatures from another plane likely used an essence or two during their stay.

Nevertheless, knowing about essences did not mean Osric knew how to create one. Besides, if he created an essence to confuse Kyran, he would have seen through his bluff because an essence's mage level would be lower than the original. Since it did not, it means it was not an essence but another form of magic spell.

Kyran concluded it was a spell created from Soul magic.

His Draconic and Void cores hummed as if to agree with his conclusion.

Although Kyran coming up with this conclusion seemed to have taken some time, the truth was he had processed everything in a second.

While Osric's body and the severed head were falling, Kyran had already moved.

He ignored Osric's body and went straight at the array formation that appeared above.

Obviously, the array formation Osric and his men prepared was meant to transport the whole tower to a specific location— most likely, in Ravenpass, where Haylee was.

It was a smart move, to be honest. If they could not bypass the tower's defenses, they only had to target where Cyneah was hiding. Since they could not enter the tower, they aimed to transport the part where she was to another location.

It was quite unfortunate that the array formation in Stella's chamber did not have any counter to such a move. If it did, such a plan would not have worked.

Kyran's eyes flashed as the space around him crackled as cracks appeared. Several purple orbs appeared from the cracks and flew toward several spots above the array formation.

The array formation shook just before the purple orbs could touch these spots, resulting in them missing their target.

Kyran suddenly stopped as realization dawned on him.

His magic energy erupted and enveloped the whole range of the formation, instantly locating what he was searching for.

A Space mage!

That was right.

Apart from the array formation, a high-level mage with Space innate magic supported the array formation. Because of this, Kyran's attack would not land on it.

To think that he would fail to notice such a mage!

No. It was not that he did not notice it. Space magic energy had similarities with his Void magic energy since the former could be said to have been derived from one of the latter's properties.

It was similar to how Memory magic was derived from one of Soul magic's properties, or, Acceleration magic was to Time magic.

Kyran turned his focus toward the mage emitting Space magic energy. This time, he did not use his warp but used the Dragon Steps!

With one step, he was already in front of a female mage.

The female mage was none other than the woman who had 'scolded' Osric a while back when he released his magic weapon's sentient. She had been paying close attention to Kyran's movement the moment he had appeared behind Osric's dummy.

As a Space mage, she would notice if Kyran planned on using his warp ability and could also predict where he planned to go to a certain extent. She planned on using this ability to her advantage and avoid being sneaked attack by him.

Alas, she did not expect Kyran could warp without even her noticing.

Because no one had seen Kyran use the Dragon Steps, to the women, his step looked the same as his warping.

Kyran appeared right in front of the woman.

The woman gasped in surprise, but her gasp was cut off as Kyran grabbed her by the throat.

The Grand Masters nearby, who were meant to protect the woman, stood rooted in spot. They looked at Kyran with fear in their eyes.

"Gaah!" The woman grabbed Kyran's hands and tried to yank his hand off her. "W-What are you doing?"

She glared at the Grand Masters from the corner of her eyes.

Snapping out of their frightened state, the Grand Masters roused their magic energy. Red magic arrays formed on their hands, and they summoned fireballs to attack Kyran.

Kyran ignored them and the woman's struggles as he tightened his hand around her neck, and at the same time, he lifted her off the ground.

The fireballs hit Kyran. However, they did not even 'warm up' his coat.

Seeing this, the Grand Masters were shocked. Just from this attack, they were already aware of the gap in power between them and Kyran. Even if they continued attacking, they would only be digging their grave. However, they were tasked to protect the woman. If they did not do their job properly, they would be severely punished if they ever survive today. And if they did their job, they would likely end up dead.

Regardless of the choice they made, they would die, which was why they ultimately chose to fight!

The Grand Masters combined their magic energy and prepared an advance-tier fire magic spell. A large red magic array appeared before them, where flames danced at its edges. They channeled all their magic energy into the magic array and prepared to summon the advance-tier fire magic spell.

However.

Without even looking at them, Kyran's magic energy erupted again, spreading in every direction.

In a split second, when his magic energy swept through the red magic array and into the Grand Masters, the magic array shattered while the Grand Masters spat out a mouthful of blood. After that, they were thrown a few meters away before hitting a wall.

The wall crumbled from the impact, burying the Grand Masters at once.

The woman was shocked at what she saw from the corner of her eyes. But instead of showing fear before Kyran, she gritted her teeth and pretentiously said,  "Y-You might think with me dead, you can finally destroy the array formation, but you're dead wrong! As long as Lady Layla is alive, I will not die—!"

The woman choked out her words before Kyran broke her neck.

Not even sparing the woman a glance after killing her, Kyran took another step.

In an instant, he was already behind one of the Array Specialists maintaining the array formation.

The Array Specialist did not even have the chance to react when Kyran cut off his head from behind.

All the Grand Masters nearby were both shocked and frightened by Kyran.

But their fear did not stop them from attacking. Their reasons were the same as the Grand Masters, who were supposed to protect the woman.

Regardless of what they do, they will die anyway. Might as well die honorably.

Alas, to them, dying for the sake of the Crown Princess's goal was honorable.

It was an unfortunate notion.

Kyran ignored the Grand Masters and continued to eliminate the Array Specialists.

As the woman said, he did not believe the array formation would stop after her death, so he aimed to kill all the Array Specialists first.

To be honest, Kyran could have killed them in one go using his magic sense. However, he would have to reduce his magic sense's range if he did that. But he could not do that at the moment because he was using his magic sense to keep those Conclave members who were on the verge of death alive.