Advent of the Archmage

On the flagship of the Silver Storm Sparrows

Bryant had cooped himself up in his cabin ever since he returned.

There was something wrong with him as if everything in his body had all been used up. He simply leaned motionless against the edge of the bed in his cabin.

A while later, he took out his magical notebook for a read, which he would usually do to regain his composure.

However, this time, it seemed to not work on him as before.

As he stared at his notes, the only thing that popped up in his mind was the scene back on the rooftop. He could not stop thinking about the face of the young Magician, his words, his every action.

After a long while, he exhaled. "That year when I had just reached Legendary, I exuded the same vigor as he did, but it all ended when I met Fiona..."

There was no going back at this stage. The only thing left for him to do now was to walk this path to the end, and Link would have to die and be deprived of any chance of joining the High Elves if Bryant was to do so in comfort.

Bryant closed his notebook sharply, stood up and headed for the door to take in the sea breeze on the deck.

At the same time, there was a knock on the cabin door, and a voice spoke from outside, "May I come in Prophet?"

It was Magician Vonhelon. He was a High Elf noble with pure High Elvish blood running through his veins. Even though he called Bryant "Prophet," he knew Vonhelon had never thought of him as an equal.

Of course, this was all trivial to him.

"Enter." Bryant removed the rune lock from his door.

Vonhelon entered the cabin and closed the door behind him. He then spoke with a low voice, "Prophet, I must know, what is going on right now?"

Tonight, they had retreated from Ferde without any confrontation. This was humiliation of the highest order for both the Silver Storm Sparrows and the Magician Army. The ships' crew and members of the Magician Army were all greatly aggravated by this.

Bryant did not even bother hiding the truth from him. "Link and the dragon race have formed an alliance. He is now married to the Red Dragon Queen."

This alliance with the dragon race was the only element he could not ignore. Bryant did not doubt what Link had said. Scorched City was now filled with a massive number of Red Dragon Warriors, including a Red Dragon Elder. Surprised to see this at first, he later learned that it was due to the fact that Link had been proclaimed as a duke of the dragon race.

Vonhelon was simply dumbfounded at Bryant's response. It was something no one in their wildest imaginations would have conceived, a bad joke that would elicit only a bitter laugh from anyone who heard it.

The High Elf Magician spread out his hands. "I didn't think it would turn out like this. My apologies, Prophet, for having suspected you, but this is just outrageous!"

"If I had not seen the Red Dragon Elder back in Ferde, I would not have believed it myself... Still, if Link does not wish to give up the mining island, we may have to go to war over it. And our chance of coming out victorious from that war would be slim."

"Surely you don't mean to dispatch the Black Thorn?"

"Link knows about the Black Thorn, as well as the existence of the Double Shadows. I don't know how he had all this information, but one thing I know for sure is that he is now more than prepared for any attempts on his life. The chance of success to kill him in his sleep with an assassin is also pretty small."

Vonhelon was at a loss for words and fell silent for a long moment before he finally spoke with a troubled tone, "I guess we should leave it to the queen to decide how best to proceed from now on."

There were only two options to choose at this stage: either they admitted their defeat, or they picked up their arms and fought to their bloody deaths, and Vonhelon knew that conceding was the best option they had right now.

In the 3000 years of High Elf history, this may be the first time that the Silver Storm Sparrows had retreated without a fight.

This was truly a huge blemish on their personal record.

Depressed, Vonhelon headed back for the door and was ready to leave, when all of a sudden, a deafening boom rocked the cabin window from outside.

Through the window, Vonhelon could see that a nearby Silver Storm Sparrow ship had been split in two by a black silhouette that had risen from the depths of the ocean.

The resulting shockwave hit the side of the ship that Vonhelon and Bryant were on, violently tipping the entire ship to the other side and sending both High Elves tumbling in the cabin.

While tumbling in mid-air, there was a flash of white light from Vonhelon's body. He had cast Teleportation, and with a soft hum, his body had vanished from the cabin. There was another hum, and the High Elf reappeared a few 100 feet above the ship in the air.

Bryant's body, on the other hand, had dissolved into mist. With a whoosh, he rushed out of the broken window and into the air outside.

As the two floated in the air, they saw the same black monstrous figure from the ocean depths slamming into the Silver Storm Sparrow ship which still had not regained its balance. With a deafening crash, the sturdy warship was also smashed into pieces.

In the midst of all this, the ship's crew and Magicians on board were either dead, badly injured or had fled for their lives. Everything was in chaos, and the sea was stained red with High Elf blood.

With the second Silver Storm Sparrow ship destroyed, the black shadow headed straight for the third ship with unimaginable speed.

"Stop it!" shouted Bryant. At the same time, he began chanting out a spell, and a queer silver leaf shot out from his Legendary magic wand, Fiona, towards the black figure.

This was Bryant's ace in the hole. Like a silver bolt of lightning, the leaf slashed across the black figure in the sea.

But he had not accounted for the thing's reaction time. As soon as he cast his spell, the black figure had dodged it by sinking back to the ocean depths.

"It's trying to flee! Realm Conversion!"

There was a blinding flash of light before Bryant's eyes as the silver leaf turned translucent. It then pierced through the ocean's surface in pursuit of its prey without even slowing down, as if the seawater had for the moment ceased to exist around the leaf.

Just when it looked as if the leaf was about to reach the black figure, all of a sudden, there was another ear-splitting shockwave from the ocean's surface. The last Silver Storm Sparrow ship was demolished in an instant by another black shape that had pierced through the vessel's bottom.

In no more than five seconds, all three Silver Storm Sparrow ships were completely obliterated.

Without losing its upward momentum, the huge black shadow rose up into the air from the ocean.

At that moment, Bryant could see clearly what they were up against. It was a silver pomfret, but it was ten times the size of a normal silver pomfret. It was 30 feet long, and the compact scales across its body was a dark red color radiating with the light of magical runes.

"It's a Magical Beast! There are two of them!" Bryant roared.

Floating in the air beside him, Vonhelon pointed his magic wand at the massive fish and screamed out a spell, "Vacuum Blade!"

Vacuum Blade

Level-8 Spatial Spell

Description: Creates an absolute vacuum by removing all air in a space with Mana. The resulting vacuum is incredibly sharp and can cut through any material in existence.

(Note: A secret spatial spell of the High Elves)

A thin film of silver light streaked through the air, and in a tenth of a second, it struck the silver pomfret!

Boom! The dark scales of the monster fish emanated a faint red light. Almost immediately, the Vacuum Blade was dispersed into the air, leaving the fish's body basically unscathed. A second later, the fish fell to the water and dove back into the dark ocean depths.

Bryant witnessed all this with a look of amazement. "This is divine power! This is no ordinary Magical Beast, it's a Divine Beast!"

Only with divine power was it able to completely nullify a spatial magic attack.

Just then, his silver leaf had caught up to the magical beast that was still rapidly diving into the ocean.

With a chink, the silver pomfret's body also emanated the same dark right light to defend itself from Bryant's attack. However, the silver leaf was more than ten times stronger than Vonhelon's Vacuum Blade and was able to pierce through the fish's defenses. It struck the fish's body, leaving a wound that was half a foot deep on it.

But... the silver leaf was only able to go so far before it pulled back to regain its momentum in the water.

A wound half a foot deep was only a flesh wound on a fish of that size. With a flick of its tail, it began to accelerate once more to the surface. This time, it began gulping down the surviving crew members floating on the ocean surface.

"Help!"

"My leg, my leg!"

"Oh God, help me!"

The crew members floating on the sea were still disoriented after being hit by the initial shockwave. At that point, except for a few Magicians who had managed to keep themselves afloat in the air, the rest of the crew members were all still floating in the water, including the commanding officer of the fleet.

In the middle of the ocean, they were all powerless in the face of these monstrous silver pomfrets capable of sinking all their ships into the sea in mere seconds.

The other fish had also returned to the surface and began its indiscriminate slaughter of the remaining elves.

The seawater was instantly dyed red with the blood of their prey.

More than 30 High Elf Magicians floating in the air began casting their spells frantically at the silver pomfrets, but their assault was completely ineffective against them.

Out of all the High Elves in the fleet, only Bryant had managed to deal any damage to the fish, but even with his strongest spell, he was only able to leave a small wound on the fish's body.

The faces of the Magicians in the air had all gone pale. They hurled their spells down at the fish in desperation, but their efforts were all futile. They could only watch on helplessly as their kin were horribly swallowed alive by the monster fish.

The number of High Elf crew members was drastically reduced in an instant.

"Prophet, what should we do now?" Vonhelon shouted. He was now at his wit's end.

"We can only run at this point. I sense that this is only the beginning of an ambush. It's too dangerous to stay here now!" Saying this, Bryant began flying straight for the continent.

He shouted back at the other Magicians, "Everybody, head for the continent, hurry! Hurry!"

They had not left the continent too far behind, which made it the only possible place to run to. If they were to head out any further into the ocean, they would surely be killed.

Watching the two monstrous fish on the ocean surface and their surviving compatriots still shouting for help from below, the other Magicians hesitated for a few seconds, then bit their lips and gave up all attempts to rescue them.

Looking away from the floundering crew members, one by one they flew behind Bryant and fled for the continent.

Just as they had flown for a couple 100 feet, a voice rumbled from the ocean surface. "Why are you all leaving, Magicians? You've only just got here."

The voice was echoing off from every direction. There was no way to determine which direction it was coming from. It was as if the entire ocean below them was speaking to them.

Now that was a terrifying thought.

Even Bryant was stunned for a moment, and he then roared out, "Link, I know it's you. If you want to kill me, just do it out in the open. Spare me the cowardice of an ambush!"

"Hahaha, Bryant, you really are funny. As a reward for your folly, I'll kill you last."

Vonhelon's eyes widened as he looked about, desperately searching for the enemy, but only darkness greeted him. He roared again, "Who are you? Are you not Link?"

"Who I am matters not, what matters now is that all of you should die right here, right now!"

Suddenly a beam of dark red light shot out from the ocean. Unable to react quickly enough, one of the Magicians was pierced by the beam of light. Looking down, he saw that there was a gaping hole the size of a fist in his chest before he fell, wide-eyed, from the sky.

Bryant instantly lost all will to fight back upon seeing this. "This is divine magic! We can't fight this, run now!"

Strictly speaking, all divine magic was beyond Level-19, but its power was considerably diluted due to being only supplied with power from the Mortal Realm. Still, divine magic was capable of overcoming any other spells in the Mortal Realm, including Legendary spells.

The enemy had managed to keep himself hidden. Even now, Bryant still could not find out where his opponent had hidden himself, and to top it all off, he was also capable of using divine magic. This was a fight none of them could win. Escaping was the only option.