The Sword Genius of the Magic Empire - Chapter 66



Only Noblemtl

When he came out of the alley of the village, Enoch was greeted by an empty square.

There was no one there. It seemed that the magicians belonging to Elseid had successfully distracted Vendetta’s attention as originally planned.

Entrance to the abandoned underground living quarters of the Suin tribe village.

In front of him, Enoch took down a cloth bag.

As I went down the dark stairs, a much wider tunnel than I had expected came into view.

A passage leading to a large gray wall of underground passages. There were iron reinforcements everywhere, and huge cement pillars stretching up to the high ceiling.

‘Tantalos. Even in a complicated place, you hide.’

Underground living quarters.

Even the most skilled detection magic users can’t do their best in this messy terrain. That’s probably why Vendetta is hiding here.

‘But that’s a story about ordinary wizards.’

Enoch focused his mind as he looked into the darkness that covered the passage of the dark tunnel.

Of course, I didn’t come without any plan. At least there was a way to find him for sure.

‘… … is visible.’

Enoch’s eyes narrowed.

As expected, a line was visible across the passage.

─A line of sticky green mana.

It was the same color as the large magic circle that spread across the entire village. The line of glowing green mana stretched out somewhere along the passage.

‘I’m sure. It’s the Mana of Tantalus that I saw before.’

This is how you find Tantalus.

Just follow the source of this mana flow. Naturally, the line of mana will lead to the place where Tantalus is casting a large-scale spell.

Then you can find him at the end of this.

But before that.

There was something that had to be taken care of first.

Enoch took a step into the tunnel.

Thump… … .

His footsteps echoed through the tunnel.

On the other side of the sound of footsteps echoing through the basement.

Woohoo.

Suddenly, dozens of magic circles of light appeared in the dark passage, dispelling the darkness and creating geometric patterns.

Behind the light emitted by those countless magic circles.

The silhouettes of the wizards unfolding it were reflected.

Vendetta’s defensive forces guarding the underground area.

Enoch’s eyes narrowed as he saw them.

The next moment, magic circles spun in unison in the air. Eagle-like fireballs formed, emitting a sharp sound as they burned the air.

Fireballs flew straight through the darkness at a terrifying speed, rushing towards Enoch.

Swish!

React to the scorching sound that cuts through the air.

Enoch turned around immediately. A fireball narrowly missed his hair and passed by, scarlet sparks flying, just a sheet of paper away.

Taat─

Enoch started running towards his enemies, kicking his legs and landing on the ground, just as he had been doing while evading.

Avoid the fireballs that fly in succession through the narrow passage.

At the same time, pull on the knot of the hanging bag.

Sling.

When I draw my sword, the dark blue mana drives away the darkness and projects itself onto the long blade.

The expressions of the enemies who saw the black-haired boy approaching in an instant were filled with shock.

“… … !”

Enoch quickly approached right in front of the enemies.

One of the vendetta wizards who had been hiding closest quickly raised his magic shield and formed a magic circle.

But the next moment.

A sharp sword strike that coldly slid through the air quickly cut through the air a few steps ahead of the bastard.

Chaang!

The magic he was casting was canceled in an instant.

The mana that was trying to form a magic circle shattered into pieces and crystallized. It colored the dark underground space and flew into the sky.

Enoch’s sword quickly pierced through the enemy who was staggering greatly due to the momentary backflow of mana in his body.

“Keuh-euk!”

Even at that moment, Enoch’s eyes did not spare a moment to find another enemy.

Right behind.

Another vendetta soldier aimed his staff at Enoch. The magic circle they had constructed spun around. Mana bullets swirling with light flew straight in.

Enoch immediately grabbed the collar of the enemy he had just pierced with his sword with one hand and raised it forward.

Then, holding the enemy’s body like a shield, he breaks through the pouring enemy magic head-on.

Take cover behind the pillars of the tunnel.

Pavababak!

Mana’s bullet hit the pillar just in time. Cement fragments exploded next to Enoch’s cheek, who was leaning against the pillar.

Meanwhile, the ambush-bound vendetta forces exchanged brief signals in the darkness.

Immediately, several wizards continued to cast spells towards the pillar where Enoch was hiding and the surrounding area.

Immediately after temporarily blocking Enoch’s movements, the remaining soldiers also stood up, aimed their steeds, and approached Enoch.

But the next moment.

Towards the advancing magicians of Vendetta─

WHEEK!

─The wizard Enoch used as a shield flew in.

Suddenly, the wizards’ gazes stopped for a moment as they saw their colleague’s body flying towards them.

A deadly sword strike flew from behind him.

“Khuuuk!”

Immediately after throwing away the wizard he was using as a makeshift shield, Enoch kicked the ground and ran.

In the blink of an eye, the gap between me and my enemies widened to within range of my sword. The enemies quickly aimed at my horse.

But it was too late.

The sword radiated a cold light in the darkness.

A trail of dark blue light spun through the air, slashing at the bodies of the wizards he had thrown into the air and the enemies behind them one by one.

Just as Enoch glided past them.

Before they could even scream, the Vendetta wizards fell to the floor with a thud.

Enoch straightened his stance and glanced around, swinging his sword into the air.

Of course, this isn’t all of them.

As if to confirm that thought.

─Phase jjik!

Immediately, something shining brushed Enoch’s cheek and struck the ground behind him. A chill ran down his spine for a moment.

Enoch glanced back.

A pale spear of lightning was stuck obliquely into the ground, disappearing while sending up blue sparks.

‘Electric attack magic.’

Enoch slowly turned his head across the tunnel, watching the magic that passed right next to him.

The light emitted by dozens of magic circles spread out widely, covering all sides of the tunnel, aiming in this direction.

For a moment, the hairs on the back of Enoch’s neck stood on end.

Immediately fling your body to the side.

The lightning magic that was fired next landed a beat late, shattering the ground he was on.

Enoch rolled over and got up, took cover behind a nearby pillar, and observed the situation.

‘There are more enemies than you think.’

In the darkness of the front passage, the members of Vendetta were already appearing one by one.

A tight siege in a narrow tunnel, prepared in advance for any intruders that might come here.

Even at this moment, they were aiming at the horse stable and closing in on us moment by moment.

‘It’s harder than I thought.’

Enoch checked the situation over the pillar, knelt on one knee, and readjusted his sword.

‘It’s impossible to overcome that number alone.’

But it doesn’t matter anyway.

Because I kind of expected it from the beginning.

‘Because in fact this side is… … ‘

At that moment, the moment Enoch thought that far─

Wedge!

Suddenly, an eerie cracking sound came from the dark tunnel behind him.

Enoch turned his head sharply back. For a moment, his eyes opened wide.

WHEEK!

─A sharp blade of ice that flies through the air.

A decisive sniping shot from the Vendetta wizard who was lying in ambush, hidden across a complex tunnel.

“… … !”

For a moment, time passed as if in slow motion.

Without even a moment to be surprised, the sharp tip of the ice spear stabbed into Enoch’s eyes at every moment.

It’s already too late to avoid it.

But just before the sharp ice spear pierces his eye.

A small but familiar sound came to his ear.

Peeeing─

That moment of life or death.

Thin wires, tinged with silvery mana, flew in quickly from the side of Enoch’s vision.

Kagakak!

Wires that delicately wrap around the ice spears from all sides to stop them.

The ice spear stopped before Enoch’s eyes.

The wires surrounding the ice spear immediately snapped with a sharp sound. Then, right in front of Enoch, the ice spear exploded and shattered.

Chaaaaang!

Enoch smiled as he watched the ice shards shatter before his eyes.

‘… … Actually, I’m not alone.’

Again.

Beyond the ice crystals flying in the darkness.

The silver-haired maid walked coldly between them.

Lien.

With the wire spread out at the end of one hand, Lien’s silver hair waved lightly in the darkness as she walked this way and that.

Her gaze, which had come closer, quietly looked at Enoch.

“… … .”

But she soon closed her eyes without saying anything and with a simple movement she retrieved the wire.

Then he turned his gaze towards the enemies before him.

Enoch also rose up without saying a word.

He spun his sword around in front of Lien, grabbed it, and started to run forward.

“Damn it, there’s two of them! Stop them!”

The Vendetta wizards raised their swords in protest, but their eyes were soon filled with horror.

A silver wire flew through the air, protecting the path the black-haired boy was taking.

Wedge!

Silver-white wires wrap around Vendetta’s soldiers like spider webs from all sides, subduing them, followed by successive, blue-black sword strikes that cut down the enemies in a semicircle.

Behind the black and white dash that pierced through the darkness, the Vendetta wizards fell like fallen leaves without even being able to resist.

I went down deeper underground like that several times.

widely.

Finally, we reached the deepest part of the underground area.

A dark staircase appeared ahead.

Enoch stopped there.

I looked up and saw the wall next to the stairs. On the large gray wall was a white stencil paint that indicated the floor number and a sign indicating the deepest part of the underground area.

The flow of mana continued down the stairs.

Lien, who had been clearing the way for Enoch, also stopped walking behind him for a moment and looked ahead.

“There’s a guy in front of here.”

Enoch spoke briefly.

Tantalus’ Mana led to a staircase leading to the deepest part of the underground living quarters.

Lien looked at it silently.

At that moment, the urgent cries of the vendetta wizards echoed from the other side of the tunnel corner.

“Two intruders, over there!”

“Call more support! Hurry up!”

It was obvious that they would come soon.

Enoch spoke softly to Lien.

“Vendetta support will arrive soon. Lure the enemies to the other passage and tie them up.”

Lien looked this way for a moment and then spoke quietly.

“Tantalos is a 10th-level wizard. You should be well aware of the dangers.”

“okay.”

“Then you already know my answer.”

Lien, with her usual emotionless expression, took a step closer to Enoch and spoke in a soft voice.

“I can’t let you go alone.”

A pair of blue-silver eyes came closer, right in front of Enoch’s eyes.

Even in these circumstances, Lien remained consistent.

……but.

It was natural for her to react this way.

When he first encountered Tantalus, Enoch was pushed to the brink of death in an instant.

‘And the one who saved it at that time was Lien herself.’

Therefore, it would be a natural decision for her to not be able to send Enoch alone to Tantalus, as she was originally trying to protect Enoch’s body.

But Enoch slowly shook his head.

“… … No. This time it’s different.”

The enemy’s footsteps were getting closer. Enoch looked at Lien calmly and said.

“If we both face Tantalus in this state, more vendetta wizards will come. That would be even more dangerous.”

The most certain way would be for Lien to tie up Vendetta’s hands while Enoch goes to stop Tantalus.

“… … .”

Lien, as always, just stared at me with her silver-blue eyes.

Enoch added.

“And if I ever really get in trouble, you’ll know too, right? If I’m dealing with those guys here and I get into a dangerous situation, you’ll be able to come right away.”

He had ample reason to deal with Tantalus.

All that remains is her consent.

Swish.

Fortunately, Lien seemed to understand and turned behind Enoch without saying anything.

But just before she took a step.

“… …Remember.”

Lien, who was passing by Enoch, whispered in his ear, speaking in a voice that had a faint chill to it.

“If you get hurt, I won’t forgive you.”

Lien’s cerulean eyes glanced at him. Enoch responded, glancing at her as she passed by.

“Don’t try.”

In the faint darkness, their gazes briefly crossed, then soon moved away in opposite directions.

***

The deepest part of the underground living quarters.

A huge underground space where all traces of the people who once lived here have already disappeared.

We descend the stairs, which are littered with huge cement pillars and intricate steel pipes.

The underground cold assailed Enoch’s skin.

And in that cold air.

From somewhere, thick cigarette smoke wafted in.

The translucent, gray-green cigar smoke was enveloping the underground darkness like a thick fog.

‘As expected, it’s inside here.’

The stairs were already at the end.

Enoch stopped walking slowly.

In the middle of the underground cavity located at the end of the stairs.

There, standing, was a man in white.

Enoch’s eyes narrowed slightly when he saw him.

‘Tantalos.’

13th in the Vendetta’s Destruction Hall hierarchy.

In the original work, a black magician who was called a ‘genius’.

The white-robed wizard, shrouded in translucent green tobacco smoke, had his back turned away from me.

He was endlessly absorbed in something.

When Enoch realized what Tantalus was doing, his eyes widened in surprise.

‘That’s… … .’

Tantalus moves his hand holding his cigarette.

The smoke from the cigarette etched his scribbled handwriting.

As if a noble scholar were writing on a blackboard with chalk.

Tantalus treated the entire void as a giant blackboard, and played with his cigars filled with mana like chalk.

Woohoo.

A dark, glowing green mana hovered over the magical texts and geometric patterns he had written in the air.

The deepest part of the abandoned underground living quarters was already filled with the vast magical texts and geometric structures he had written down so far.

Enoch swallowed his breath without realizing it.

A huge magic circle that is so overwhelming that you will be overwhelmed just by looking at it.

Even if you weren’t a magician, you could guess how great its complexity and sophistication was.

“… …You’re interfering with my experiment.”

At that moment, Tantalus’ voice rang out softly.

“This is the second time. Enoch Elseid.”

A cigar that burns itself with a small flame.

The smoke that rose from the end of it hovered around Tantalus’ back like a fog containing wisdom.

Magic circles created by formless smoke.

As if it were an elaborate mechanical device with countless gears meshing together, countless magic circles and actuators slowly rotated, filling the air.

Enoch thought calmly.

‘There it is.’

That is the ‘Magic Circle of Demon Flower’ that will destroy the Suin tribe village.

I had to stop him from completing it and activating it.

at that time.

“I always keep a ‘spare’ ready.”

With his back turned, he slowly opened his mouth.

“Be sure to keep this in mind. Direct descendants of Elseid.”

Tantalus muttered as if talking to himself.

“It is always essential for researchers to have spare parts. If an unexpected accident causes failure, it allows them to start over from the point just before failure.”

The Vendetta’s demigod spoke lightly, twirling the cigar between his fingers.

“Isn’t this something that happens often even at the Imperial Academy, where only the elite gather? Freshmen who don’t know anything do their homework without preparing any supplies, accidentally blowing everything, and staying up all night to meet the deadline.”

He shrugged his shoulders calmly.

“How is it? Doesn’t it give you goosebumps just thinking about it?”

Tantalus’ green eyes, as deep as a swamp, glanced at Enoch and spoke.

“If anything fails, it’s over. The same goes for experiments. No matter how confident you are in an experiment, if it fails midway, it’s all in vain. If you don’t have a backup plan.”

“Spare parts?”

“Yes. Fortunately, there are many ‘spare parts’ available throughout this great magical empire.”

Tantalus glanced away.

The water people trapped in a basement test tube.

They had lost consciousness and were sleeping like grotesque objects with hideously deformed appearances.

“Isn’t that pretty fun? Enoch.”

Looking at it, Tantalus said:

“Even people like the Suin tribe, who are considered completely worthless by the Empire, are completely valuable as spare parts for experiments.”

He flicked the cigar between his fingers.

“The value of people is something that can be found out.”

With his back turned to the light of the giant magic circle he had constructed.

Tantalus slowly turned towards Enoch.

“Enoch. Let me ask you one thing.”

He asked quietly.

“Do you believe in God?”

Such a sudden topic.

Enoch frowned slightly.

After a moment of no answer, Tantalus added, as if trying to explain it kindly.

“The so-called ‘goddess’ who created everything in the beginning and is worshipped with utmost devotion in the ‘religious order’.”

For a moment Enoch paused.

─ “Goddess”.

The first being said to have infused mana into nature.

The master of the faith that the empire’s ‘religion’ holds dear.

‘You’re suddenly talking about a goddess?’

Clearly Tantalus never said anything like that in the original. So why did he say it like that?

‘There might be some information that can help us find out something.’

Enoch, who thought so, responded appropriately at first.

“What about you?”

“I believe in God. The young direct descendant of Elseid.”

He answered leisurely, as if he were having an academic discussion.

“However, I only acknowledge her existence as a researcher and not as a believer.”

Tantalus lifted his head from his backpack and looked closely at his magic circle that filled the huge underground facility.

“Magic is a discipline that can be studied and inherited through observation. Thus, magic has made remarkable progress in each field over the generations. However… … .”

Tantalus muttered in a subdued voice.

“… … Such a magical and brilliant light sometimes blinds us even from seeing the stars in the night sky.”

He raised his head.

As if trying to see stars that could not be seen from underground, Tantalus looked up at the ceiling of the underground.

“… …Can you understand, Enoch?”

He asked with his head raised and his eyes turned away.

“Mana, the goddess that dwells in nature. The empire established by wizards who manifested magic with it, paradoxically became blinded by the omnipotence of magic.”

Tantalus spread his arms low.

“That’s how we lost God.”

Vendetta’s annihilator spoke in a weaponless tone.

“In the magical age when observation and proof became the basis of belief, the gods that humans could not observe disappeared. Everyone came to believe only in the omnipotence of magic.”

He lowered his head and looked straight at Enoch.

“In modern empires that have lost their gods, instead of the universal love that the goddesses of the past taught, their own narrow-minded beliefs have taken root.”

“trust?”

“Yes. These are the truths that everyone wants to avoid.”

Tantalus turned his gaze to the test tube. Then he looked at the people trapped there and said.

“Since there was no such thing as God from the beginning, none of us are born special. We are not worthy of respect and love.”

A wisp of cigarette smoke brushed Tantalus’ eyes.

“There is a clear hierarchy in the lives of each individual, and this is determined by the value of each person’s reputation and talent as defined by society. It is determined by efficiency.”

Tantalus said calmly.

“In the end, we are nothing more than a collection of naturally formed cells and hormones. We cannot be recognized as more valuable than an organism in and of ourselves… … .”

He bowed his head.

“… … that dignity for people is not the default.”

From the corners of his darkly smiling lips, cigar smoke billowed toward the sky, as if lamenting.

“The point is, what do we each accomplish in our own lives with our worthless bodies?”

The light emitted by Tantalus’ magic circle shimmered.

“We, who have lost God, must become God ourselves.”

Chijijik.

He put the cigar he had on his finger into his mouth.

The body of the early morning burned itself and emitted smoke.

“So I give them dignity in my own way, and create unique value in their lives.”

Tantalus asked with his back turned to the backlight of the magic circle.

“Does this make any sense to you, Enoch?”

He bit into a cigar and let out a deep laugh.

“Being forcibly stripped of your dignity by society. That’s something you, as a non-magician born into the Imperial Household, would know best.”

“I don’t care.”

Enoch looked at him with a somewhat askance look.

“Is that the end of your story?”

Of course, this wasn’t the information I was expecting. It’s a bit disappointing, but in reality, it was just a needless expectation.

No need to waste any more time.

But just when Enoch was thinking that.

“Think about it carefully.”

chuck.

Tantalus raised his arm and stretched out his fingers.

“The value of your talents has probably been arbitrarily determined over the past 17 years, Enoch Elseid.”

He said, pointing to the sword Enoch was holding.

“Isn’t that right?”

For a moment, Enoch paused.

Tantalus’ expression was reflected on the silver sword in his hand. The hazy figure smiled and opened its mouth.

“A value that the imperial people who became magicians long ago forgot. A talent that everyone turned away from.”

Enoch’s eyes fluttered slightly.

“Also, it is a supreme, transcendental state that only those who constantly face and confront the ego and finally overcome themselves can reach.”

Tantalus looked at Enoch and smiled.

“Among all the beings in this world, only humans are able to project their innate ‘unique mana’ into a weapon called a sword through their own will… … .”

He added quietly.

“… … the talent of a swordsman.”