A meteor shower is falling upon Leinster.

  Such a thought surfaced in everyone’s head the moment the night sky was illuminated by a blinding light. It was quite a mystical sight, celestial bodies descending upon the world with a beautiful glow, but witnesses of this event felt not awe but cold despair.

  “Senior!”


  Everything had happened so quickly that Roel’s surroundings were already dyed in white light by the time he sensed the danger.

  A long distance away, a black-robed elder watched the meteor shower with complete nonchalance on his face.

  Priestley Maxwell.

  This was a name that people sang praises of in this era.

  The first image that came to people’s minds upon mentioning him was a wise and gentle old man. Citizens of Brolne proclaimed him a Sage. Scholars dubbed him as the wisest speaker their country ever had. Transcendents revered him as the Magician King.

  Priestley had accrued far too many merits over time for anyone to fully remember, and he shouldered the weight of humankind on his shoulders. Yet, as he watched destruction fall upon the city he had once loved and protected, all that could be seen on his face was cold solemnity.

  It had been a hundred years since he had defected to the Savior after his physical functions started to fail. He weaved an elaborate scheme within these hundred years, and victory seemed to be just within reach when an unexpected figure suddenly arrived in Leinster.

  The Ascarts.

  This was an ancient family with a long lineage that one must never lower one’s guard before, especially when dealing with those who had awakened to their bloodline. Despite the heavy responsibilities they bore, they were also blessed with miraculous powers as well. Anything was possible once they got involved.

  This was Priestley’s evaluation of them over the long years.

  It was like nothing was absolute before the Ascarts, be it seemingly unbreachable level difference or established laws of the world. They were a trove of possibilities, often accomplishing things that no one thought to be possible. It had been like this since the ancient era, and Priestley didn’t think that this would be an exception.

  His murky eyes watched as Leinster trembled under his attack, but the two younglings he was aiming for weren’t vaporized.

  As the blinding light finally dispersed, a massive skeleton and a humongous black snake appeared around the two younglings. Half of the skeleton had melted under the meteor shower, and the black snake seemed to be on its last breath too.

  Despite lacking souls, those two mana-manifested beings still managed to protect their master.

  As the manifestations of the ancient gods slowly dissipated, the black-haired man spewed a mouthful of blood. Yet, the pain he suffered didn’t seem to have undermined his fighting will. If anything, it made him even more resolute.

  “Glacier.”


  With a murmur, he released a burst of white mist that rushed toward an old man holding onto a staff in the distance.

  At the same time, an unprecedentedly powerful burst of mana exploded from Lilian. War horns blared deafeningly through the city as war cries started echoing around Priestley. Without any hesitation, the soldiers charged toward the culprit who had attempted to take their master’s life.

  These soldiers came in different varieties. There was a unit of heavy infantry bearing kite shields inscribed with ferocious lions, mounted lancers from the Blue Knight Order, and a division of archers wielding a mysterious magic engineered tool. Under the order of their queen, they swiftly moved to encircle their target.

  Within moments, devastating elemental arrows had already begun raining down on Priestley.

  Beside Lilian, a thousand red-cloaked mages raised their shimmering staffs up high and murmured esoteric chants. They were weaving an army spell that far surpassed what any individual magician could achieve on his own.

  After the unexpected assault from the enemy, both Roel and Lilian immediately retaliated with all their might. Their instincts told them that they had encountered a terrifying enemy that couldn’t be evaluated with common sense, and it would be unwise for them to pull any punches.

  Nevertheless, Roel’s complexion still looked incredibly awful. Lilian stepped forward and shielded him behind her, but her trembling arms revealed her lack of confidence. The two of them could sense that the enemy hadn’t used his full strength, and their guess wasn’t wrong.

  The meteor shower that had shaken the whole of Leinster was nothing more than a greeting from Priestley. Even though he had specially made his way here in order to kill these two, he thought that it was beneath him to assassinate these younglings.

  It was his pride as the Magician King.

  Thousands of soldiers surrounded Priestley under the moonlight. Their war horns continued to blare deafeningly around him. The earth trembled under the hooves of the war steeds. The sky was cloaked in arrows and frost.

  Yet, the black-robed old man remained unfazed.

  He gazed upon the duo with perspicacious eyes for a long while before finally sighing softly.

  “Remarkable,” he said.

  If Roel was able to tell the origins of these soldiers, how could a renowned scholar like Priestley possibly not know?

  The eerie frost aura and the powerful army would probably have been enough to easily destroy any Origin Level 2 transcendent. Had he not fallen into darkness, he would have surely done everything he could to protect these two children.

  But those were nothing more than what-ifs.

  Faced with attacks coming from all directions, Priestley’s body suddenly emanated a brilliant glow that vaporized all of the elemental arrows. At the same time, the frost aura was also forcefully scattered.

  The old magician raised his staff up high, and the banshee idol sitting on the tip of his staff suddenly came to life. It opened its arms wide and let out a death cry.

  “This is bad!”


  Roel’s eyes widened in horror upon seeing the old man’s staff. He reflexively thought of a holy weapon.

  Staff of Deathly Throes.

  Legend had it that a cursed banshee soul resided inside this staff. Once unleashed, the banshee would indiscriminately murder everyone in a large area. It had once taken ten thousand lives in a battle against the deviants.

  The moment the description of the terrifying holy weapon came to his mind, his speculation was verified by cruel reality.

  Everything within a hundred meters of the old man collapsed to the ground under the piercing shriek. Be it man or steed, those who stood in the face of the banshee’s scream all lost their lives.

  Lilian was shocked by the turn of events, but a mere instant of hesitation later, she toughened her determination and ordered her soldiers to continue their death charge.

  There was no other choice. She had to buy time for the mages in order to finish their army spell regardless of the cost.

  Corpses inevitably stacked up as the valiant soldiers charged toward the enemy, but none of them were able to even reach the ten-meters radius around Priestley. It was an absolutely tragic sight.

  The only one immune to the cries of the banshee was Grandar, but without a soul, the skeleton giant was unable to pose a threat to Priestley at all.

  The frost aura and rain of arrows continued surging toward Priestley, but they were dispersed and vaporized before they could deal any damage.

  Every second on the battlefield felt like years to Roel and Lilian. It was only when the mages’ chants finally came to a halt and the inexplicable pressure from the sky became so huge that it couldn’t be disregarded anymore that hope finally rekindled in Lilian’s eyes.

  The long preparation time for ‘Army Spell: Divine Strike’ was finally completed.

  The moment the war horns fell silent, the thousand red-cloaked mages raised their staffs up in unison, and a blinding white sphere reminiscent of a sun emerged from the dark sky and illuminated the city. As if divine retribution, it began gravitating toward Priestley.

  This spell was channeled by over a thousand mages and was impossible to dodge. The mana pulsation coming from it was so strong that it altered Roel’s perception of what was possible for transcendents.

  Just as its name suggested, it was like divine retribution from the gods.

  Faced with this attack that sought to purge the world, Priestley finally stowed away the Staff of Deathly Throes and resorted to his bloodline ability.

  He sliced an incision on his palm and squeezed his blood out. The moment his blood dripped onto the ground, intense ripples of mana swept through the surroundings, and grass began sprouting from the barren ground.

  A mystical tree imbued with a dazzling light began rising from the ground, drawing in countless spirits that started cavorting around it.

  Just like that, an ethereal paradise was born in the center of a battlefield dyed in darkness and blood. The divine retribution finally fell onto the ground and ravaged everything that stood in its path, but the paradise remained unfazed as if it was a sanctuary for sinners.

  A dirt storm swept across the surroundings as explosions and shockwaves tore apart everything within a thousand-meter radius, but Priestley remained completely unharmed.

  —