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Chapter : 63. The Forger of Greed
They say an ambush is supposed to be sudden.
But Adrian’s ambush was beyond sudden—it was completely out of the blue.
That didn’t mean his ability was ordinary. Far from it.
Before Avarus could even process what was happening, the estate’s guards—the combat-type homunculi—had already been massacred. That alone was anything but normal.
At first, Avarus thought it must have been the blond knight’s doing.
But then he saw Adrian shatter his shield spells with nothing but his bare claws, and that assumption changed.
So he wasn’t just some worthless count’s degenerate after all…
The rumors had been misleading, it seemed. After all, Avarus had only heard them by rifling through Baron Veneron’s memories.
Adrian was no worthless wastrel of a count’s son.
Yet that only made another question rise.
How did he see through my disguise?
Transmogrification magic was never meant to be detectable. At most, only someone capable of perceiving a being’s innate mana pattern could notice the discrepancy.
And there were precious few mages on the entire continent capable of that.
Moreover, Adrian had shredded his multi-layered shields with nothing but his fingernails.
That meant he wasn’t using mana at all—he was wielding aura. More accurately, aura honed into the raw savagery of a fighter.
But a knight, not a mage, recognizing Transmog?
Impossible… incomprehensible.
Avarus couldn’t begin to imagine how Adrian had pierced through it.
I’ll need to capture him and dissect him… research his body.
The value was undeniable.
But Adrian’s strength was anything but ordinary. On the battlefield, he’d have been a terrifying foe.
Here, however, things were different.
This was his realm—the mage’s dungeon, Avarus’s territory.
“You’ve crawled right into my lair, fool! Hahaha!”
Within this “Eternal Silence” barrier, Adrian was nothing more than a rat trapped in a jar.
In here, the flow of mana itself was sealed to absolute stillness.
And without mana or aura, humans were fragile beyond compare.
They had no ogre’s strength, no beast’s claws, no hardened bones.
A human’s only edge was intelligence and stamina. Strip that away in nature, and they were the weakest of creatures.
But Avarus… was no longer human.
He had given that up long ago.
Grrrk—!
His flesh twisted hideously, swelling into grotesque bulges. The alchemical reagents in his veins forced mutation, warping his very genes.
From that bloated mass sprouted tendrils of meat—lashing forward to pin Adrian where he stood.
The knight must have frozen in fear. Avarus’s mouth curved into a smile of certain victory.
“Die for me!!!”
The swollen tendrils whipped toward Adrian, dozens of them coiling around his neck—
And then, suddenly, Adrian bent his knees and slipped cleanly out of their path.
“…What?”
Avarus’s eyes flew wide.
He dodged that? Impossible. No human reflexes could achieve that speed.
Unless…? No. It can’t be.
But Adrian kept moving.
Shhhk—! Shhhhk—!
Again and again, he evaded every incoming tendril.
Each time the flesh sought to ensnare him, Adrian twisted just enough, faster than the eye could follow, and slipped free.
His reflexes, his vision—none of it was human.
“H-How…?”
Adrian closed the distance in a blink. His claws tore through the air—
Crunch!
Avarus hastily melded his flesh into a wall of hardened defense—
Only for it to rip apart as though it were paper.
“This… this can’t be!”
Those weren’t ordinary chunks of flesh. They were reinforced, alchemically transmuted, harder than steel itself.
And yet Adrian had shredded them with bare claws—human nails, nothing more.
Avarus’s mind reeled. But Adrian wasn’t done.
If this kept up, he would be killed.
“Raaaaahhh!!!”
He roared, and—
Shrrrkkk!
The torn flesh split further, multiplying into countless tendrils that exploded outward, filling every corner of the chamber.
Now there was nowhere left to run.
And yet Adrian moved. Dodging even in a space filled to bursting with writhing limbs. Reacting to attacks from behind without even turning his head.
“Impossible! How can you—!!”
It was beyond frightening. It was awe-inspiring.
Still, not every strike missed. A few lashes caught him, carving bloody gashes across his body.
If those injuries kept accumulating, Adrian would eventually fall. That was the limit of human frailty.
But then Avarus noticed—
He’s… regenerating?
Before his very eyes, the wounds closed in real time. At a rate no human body should be capable of.
“What… what are you…?!”
“I told you,” Adrian said coolly. “I’m a wastrel.”
Nonsense. Lies. No mere ‘wastrel’ could do this.
Here, mana was sealed. No magic, no aura. Nothing but raw biology and muscle.
Which meant Adrian’s abilities were pure physiology.
No tricks. No enhancements. Just his body.
Then… he isn’t even human, is he?
Avarus, too, had abandoned humanity. But compared to Adrian, his level was pitiful.
Adrian was something else entirely. Another level.
A predator that fed on monsters.
“Don’t despair,” Adrian said, as if reading his thoughts.
“Even the Archmage couldn’t explain me.”
The words drained the color from Avarus’s face.
Predator and monster. And monsters always got eaten.
If he wanted to survive, there was only one choice.
He had to lift Eternal Silence.
Crash!
The sound of glass shattering filled the air.
A primal warning shrieked through Avarus’s nerves, forcing him to recoil—
BOOM!
A bolt of black lightning slammed into where he had been standing a heartbeat earlier.
A lightning spell. A direct hit would have consumed him.
He lifted the Silence…
Sparks crackled at Avarus’s fingertips. Yes, the barrier was gone.
This complicated things. With his magic restored, Avarus was far trickier to deal with.
In his past life, Avarus had never lifted the Silence.
But back then, the Allied Heroes—a great Archmage and a Spirit Summoner—had been present.
If he had released it, they would have torn him to pieces.
Better to suppress their mana and fight head-on. That had been his logic.
But now, the only ally at Adrian’s side was Kai.
Avarus must have thought Kai was no real threat.
That was a fatal mistake.
Kai launched forward the moment aura returned to him.
And so too did Avarus unleash fire at his fingertips.
WHOOSH—!
The chamber erupted in flames—only to vanish in an instant, replaced by radiant light bursting across the room.
Fake magic…
Feints, misdirections—decoy spells meant to confuse an opponent.
The Allied Archmage had mastered them, weaving magic so fluidly that no enemy could distinguish lethal strikes from harmless illusions.
It required impossibly delicate control of mana.
And yet Avarus wielded them deftly.
But Kai wasn’t fooled. Not once.
“You—what are you?!”
He cut through the real spell every time, ignoring the feints completely.
The key to countering fake magic was simple yet difficult: read the mana itself.
Mages could do it. Knights could not.
Unless…
He’s reading the flow of mana directly…
Aura and mana were born of the same source. Perhaps Kai was perceiving it instinctively.
Only two knights had ever managed such a feat.
Kai, the Legion Commander of Frost.
And Ian, the Hero and Supreme Commander of the Alliance.
Yes—Kai was no mere hound. He was a warhound.
Slash—!
His blade, sheathed in spinning blue aura, tore through Avarus’s flesh.
The alchemist reeled, blood spraying.
A mad dog—that was the only description. Barkless, but savage.
If Avarus had only kept Eternal Silence, he might have at least chained this mad dog down.
But the barrier was already spent. It couldn’t be restored for at least six months.
He was cornered.
Against Adrian’s biology, he was outmatched. Against Kai’s mastery of aura, his magic was worthless.
A dead end.
Only one path remained.
“RAAAHHHHH!!!”
Avarus unleashed every last drop of his mana.
BOOM—!!
The dungeon shook with explosive force, a hurricane tearing through every corner.
Kai was thrown back, forced to stab his sword into the ground to anchor himself. Adrian did the same with Dragon’s Claw.
At the center of it all stood Avarus, his body grotesquely contorting.
“Bear witness to the power of the Great One!!”
His eyes bulged with blood. Bones cracked. Muscles split.
Blood poured from every orifice of his face.
And still, he laughed.
What the hell is he doing?
In Adrian’s past life, Avarus hadn’t done this. He’d simply been subdued, his heart torn out.
But now, he was clutching something new.
That…
A glass vial. Large, like an elixir.
Could it be—?
The elixir said to cure Seraphia…
In the past, Avarus had given it to Seraphia, awakening her as the Lord of Frost.
This must have been it.
Adrian activated Predator’s Instinct. Information scrawled before his eyes—
◆Mu? Elix?r [??]◆
When consumed, this draught restores the body and mana completely, curing all afflictions and wounds. The user’s dormant abilities awaken, surpassing all natural limits…
However, the user will be severed from the flow of time itself, condemned to eternal torment…
But the words were garbled, broken. Even Predator’s Instinct couldn’t fully read it.
That could only mean one thing: this wasn’t knowledge born of this world. Not of any life on this continent.
“It is to the Great One that I offer my soul!!”
Avarus’s shout rang out, fanatical, delirious.
And the elixir shattered—
BOOOOM—!!
From it burst a torrent of pure darkness, engulfing the entire chamber.
