The echo of the explosion roared through the underground halls, corridors, and courtyards.
The stone walls shuddered; the beams above groaned.
With a sharp series of cracks, the statues in the courtyard—already fractured and eroded beyond recognition—finally collapsed into rubble. Then, a massive chamber crumbled entirely, crashing down in a thunderous rumble.
Fragments of stone, splinters of wood, and clouds of smoke scattered in every direction.
The warlocks and guards around Sunny exchanged uneasy glances.
No one dared to stop the deranged man now.
Miguel noticed how the others—warlocks and guards alike—cast wary, uncertain looks at Sunny's twisted expression.
Hen Gedymdeith was gone, and with him, the stability of their hearts. Doubt was spreading.
"Huff… huff… huff…"
Panic and rage churned inside Sunny, mixed with the magical backlash from the shattered gemstones that had exploded around him, clouding his mind.
It wasn't until the hot air seared his tongue and the roof of his mouth that clarity began to return to him.
The ruins before him had become a sea of fire.
"Hen…"
Realizing what he had just done, Sunny's throat tightened; terror dawned in his eyes.
"Did I… kill Hen Gedymdeith?!"
A dreadful thought struck him like lightning, piercing through his skull.
Ortolan had ordered him to kill Hen only as a last resort—if there were no other way.
But Sunny had never intended to actually do it. He had believed—hoped—that there was still a chance. A chance to reach Hen before anyone else could, to "save" him.
Because Hen Gedymdeith was not only a legendary mage—he was also the mentor of most of the warlocks of Ban Ard.
Including Sunny himself.
Once an orphan with nothing, Sunny owed everything he had—his power, his influence—to Hen. Without that connection, he would never have become the leader of the radical faction within Ban Ard, Hen's own domain.
He had been Hen's favorite student.
But now, staring at the blazing ruins before him, could Hen possibly still be alive after such a blast?
"Despicable Wild Hunt—they must have taken and killed Dean Hen Gedymdeith!"
Miguel spoke calmly, gently patting Sunny's back as if steadying him. "Fortunately, Lord Sunny struck in time. Before those monsters could flee, you destroyed them and avenged the Dean."
"Now," Miguel continued smoothly, "we must find the Dean's body as soon as possible, so he may be properly laid to rest."
"Yes…"
At Miguel's reminder, Sunny's eyes flicked toward the others—the warlocks and guards standing nearby, their expressions uncertain, whispering among themselves.
His brows furrowed sharply, his gaze turning cold and commanding.
The warlocks and sword-bearing guards exchanged terrified looks, quickly nodding in agreement.
"Y-Yes… indeed. If it weren't for Lord Sunny, no one would have avenged Dean Hen Gedymdeith…"
"Yes, yes! Those cursed, cunning Wild Hunt bastards even dared to use the Dean as a hostage…"
"And the Wild Hunt still ravages Ban Ard outside… Dean Hen's vengeance is far from over…"
-----------------------------------
The warlocks and sword-bearing guards began nervously echoing each other's words—at first stammering, but soon speaking more fluently, their voices rising with emotion.
Before long, their fervor grew to the point where they seemed ready to rush out of the catacombs, return to Ban Ard, and hurl fireballs at the skeletal riders still circling in the skies above.
Hearing their growing zeal, Sunny finally relaxed his tense shoulders.
"Enough talk," he said coldly. "Put out the flames. Find Dean Hen Gedymdeith and that damned Wild Hunt."
Though truthfully, there was little fire left to extinguish.
The underground temple of the ancient elves was built entirely of carved stone. Without fuel to feed them, the magical flames began to fade, their power limited by the duration of the triggered spellgems.
Still, the radical warlocks led their guards forward to clear the ruins.
Thick layers of cloud gathered over the catacombs, drawn by a chorus of high, resonant chanting.
Then the heavens opened. Sheets of rain poured down, quenching the flames and revealing the blackened ruins beneath.
Before the fires had fully died, the guards' armor flared with magical light as they charged into the rubble, prying away the heavy slabs of stone.
Sunny no longer thought about the consequences of slaying his master.
At this point, there was no turning back. He could only keep walking the path that Ortolan had set before him—until it killed him.
His mind spun as he tried to calculate what price he'd have to pay to satisfy both Ortolan and the insatiable Rissberg Group's Civil Cooperative Organization. His eyes flicked over his busy subordinates, unreadable and sharp.
Then—
"The radical faction is gone…"
Miguel's voice echoed in Sunny's mind.
Sunny turned his head slightly and saw Miguel give him a grave shake of the head.
After a moment of silence, Sunny took a deep breath and nodded faintly. "I underst—"
Before he could finish, it happened.
BOOM!
A deafening blast tore through the ruins.
A massive wall of stone, piled high like a small mountain, was blown apart. The debris slammed into the unsuspecting guards and warlocks.
Fortunately, the warlocks—battle-hardened all—reacted on instinct. Their black robes flashed with layers of protective sigils.
The guards, whose only defense came from enhancement spells that strengthened their bodies, were not so lucky.
One poor man caught a chunk of stone straight to the temple. Half his skull vanished in an instant; crimson blood and translucent tissue sprayed into the rain, seeping into the cracks of the wet ruins.
CLANG!
Several pale flashes of steel glinted through the gloom.
Two guards' heads flew from their shoulders. Another took a crushing blow to the forehead, screamed once, and fell lifeless.
"Vilgefortz?!" Miguel shouted in horror.
Through the rain and the last flickers of dying flame stood a brown-haired man—Vilgefortz.
His once-elegant robe hung in tatters, flapping in the storm. In his hand gleamed his signature metal staff—a meter-long rod of heavy brass, topped with a fist-sized piece of black obsidian.
The obsidian dripped with murky, blood-tinged fluid.
It was clear that the fallen guards had died by his hand.
But Sunny's gaze slid past him—to the figure behind Vilgefortz.
Its back bulged unnaturally, the entire form wreathed in black mist, like a swordsman draped in a tattered gray cloak.
No—
Sunny wasn't looking at it. He was staring into that swelling shape on its back.
"You've lost your mind, Vilgefortz!" Miguel shouted, throwing up a blue spherical barrier around himself and Sunny. "Why did you defy the Dean's command? Why are you standing with a Wild Hunt?"
At the mention of the Wild Hunt, Vilgefortz froze for a heartbeat—then forced himself not to glance behind him.
"I stand only on the side that's right," he declared firmly, regaining his composure. "Hen Gedymdeith is the true Dean of Ban Ard. Sunny is nothing but a failed disciple—a traitor who tried to kill his own master."
"Dean Hen would never agree to forming a Sorcerer Kingdom! Nor would he allow the Rissberg Group's Civil Cooperative Organization to conduct their vile human experiments within Ban Ard!"
At the words human experiments, Miguel's face darkened. His voice faltered as he replied,
"Sunny… we had no choice. Once the Sorcerer Kingdom is established—once Sunny becomes the supreme authority of our kind—the chaos caused by Rissberg's arrival will be corrected…"
Vilgefortz gave a short, scornful laugh.
"Miguel," he said coldly, "do you even believe the words coming out of your mouth?"
Miguel seemed not to have heard, his expression unchanged as he continued to persuade, "Vigofortz, isn't it every sorcerer's ideal to let the wisdom of mages guide the evolution of mankind?"
"The ideal realm of the sorcerers is about to be built. By then, every problem will have a solution…"
"Stop saying such useless things, Miguel!" Sunny coldly interrupted him, stepping out from behind Miguel's magical barrier, his eyes locked on the rising and falling back of the black-robed, sword-wielding figure.
"I don't care if you're a member of the Wild Hunt or some other damned creature…"
"Put down Dean Hen Gedymdeith, and I'll allow you to leave Ban Ard alive."
The black-robed swordsman did not speak. Hidden within the black mist, everyone from Ban Ard felt as if a starving beast was staring right at them, sending chills crawling down their spines.
At some point, the rainfall spell had faded away. The clouds parted, the rain stopped, and the temple became eerily quiet.
Then—
"Rumble!"
A violent impact struck somewhere above them, so strong that even the pillars holding up the underground sanctuary began to tremble, shaking loose flakes of plaster that fell like rain.
At the instant the first bit of plaster hit the ruins, every mage of Ban Ard standing amid the rubble reacted as if hearing a signal gun—they all raised their staves at once.
Multicolored spells burst forth like fireworks, filling the underground hall with a dazzling yet deadly brilliance.
"Over there! Run!"
Vigofortz and Allen were clearly prepared for this.
At the same moment the Ban Ard mages cast their spells, they twisted their bodies and dashed sideways toward the guards stationed on the north side of the ruins.
The guards' faces paled in shock, and they hastily raised their swords.
Several battle-hardened Ban Ard mages, seeing this, quickly waved their staves—wrapping the guards in sturdy magical barriers while casting a flurry of enhancement spells: strength, agility, reflex, endurance.
Before Vigofortz and Allen could even reach the guards—
The empowered guard's muscles tensed as he swung his longsword backward in a powerful arc, slashing fiercely toward their heads.
The blade's cold gleam split the air, producing a sharp crack.
And the next instant—
"Impossible!"
The Ban Ard mage who had just finished strengthening the guard and relaxed in relief now screamed in horror.
He saw it clearly—The black-robed swordsman carrying Hen Gedymdeith moved like a wildcat, lowering his body with blinding agility. The sword's edge missed his robe by a hair's breadth.
Then—
With his sword point still inverted toward the ground, the black-robed figure bent and sprang. His body swayed like a willow in the wind, and within the narrow space of a single arm's reach, his blade thrust forward with perfect precision toward the guard's exposed throat.
The guard's eyes widened in terror, blood vessels bursting as he desperately tried to dodge.
Useless!
With a wet "shhk", the blade sank deep into his neck.
The guard's head flew from his shoulders, and scarlet blood gushed like a fountain from the severed neck.
In the next instant—
"Boom—!"
A blazing incandescent dragon of fire, seemingly waiting for the right moment, roared through the air before the guard had even lost his advantage.
The black-robed swordsman had no time to react.
At that moment, Vigofortz leapt forward, roaring as he swung his metal staff, smashing it against the blazing dragon's head.
"Bang!"
The fire dragon veered violently off course, gouging a deep trench into the ground.
The muddy water instantly vaporized into billowing steam; mist, dust, and smoke surged together in a blinding cloud.
Before the haze could clear, countless magical lights erupted again—an indiscriminate barrage of spells bombarded the area.
"Stop!"
Sunny shouted, raising his hand and summoning a powerful gust of wind that swept the smoke away.
When the dust settled, the guard's corpse was torn apart—no trace of his original form remained.
But Vigofortz and the black-robed swordsman, the one suspected to be from the Wild Hunt, had vanished without a trace.
"Search for them—now!"
Sunny's furious roar echoed through the hall. Yet in the next moment, his eyes caught something odd—the ruins behind the corpse, near the rock wall, were slightly uneven in height.
He exchanged a silent glance with the other mages.
The last remaining guard's body shimmered faintly with protective enchantments as he stepped quietly toward the wall's edge.
"It's a hidden passage…" he mouthed to the mages behind him—then turned back.
In that split second, blinding purple-red lightning flared from the darkness within the passage.
In the final moment of his life, he saw a flash of radiant blue—a beast's eye, gleaming with cold light.
"Hunt—"
Crack!
The violet-red bolt, like a spear of divine wrath, tore through every magical barrier, pierced his body, and plunged into the ruins beneath his feet.
Boom!
The deafening explosion shook the entire chamber. Sunny's furious scream echoed through the underground sanctuary—
"Vigofortz!"
Rumble…
The tremors continued. Dust filled the secret tunnel, and it took a long while before the air finally stilled.
Snap—
A small sound echoed.
A glowing sphere of light appeared, illuminating a Witcher and a mage.
"Too extravagant," Allen remarked, glancing at the shattered gemstones embedded in Vigofortz's tattered robe. "Using a top-grade instant-trigger gem just to blow the tunnel… far too extravagant."
"It is extravagant—but effective," Vigofortz replied, brushing the dust from his sleeves.
Not that it helped much.
When they were buried beneath the ruins of the ancient elven temple, he'd raised a shield in time, but his clothes hadn't been so lucky—they were filthy beyond salvation.
Calling the robe "beggar's rags" would be generous.
Next time, he thought, he'd wear leather armor. The Ban Ard robes were far too impractical for real combat.
"This gem was prepared for this exact moment," Vigofortz said with a sigh, giving up on cleaning himself as he started down the tunnel. "In such a short time, killing the pursuers and collapsing the tunnel to a degree that makes repairs difficult, yet not enough to bury us alive—it's a delicate balance."
"No ordinary instantaneous spell could accomplish that."
"That's why, once I knew you were coming, I rewrote the spell sealed inside the gem."
Allen glanced back at the sealed passage behind them—it would take at least fifteen or twenty minutes to dig through. He nodded, impressed by Vigofortz's foresight.
To be honest, he was glad his companion was Vigofortz and not Philippa Eilhart.
Not that Philippa lacked foresight—she simply wasn't the type to waste a fortune on an instant-trigger gem like this.
"For people like us," Vigofortz said with a faint smile, seeming to read Allen's thoughts, "money is the least of our concerns."
Allen thought of the alchemical oil production lines he owned in Lady Vera's laboratory and nodded in agreement.
Tap… tap… tap…
The dark tunnel grew silent again, filled only by the echo of their footsteps.
The Witcher and the mage walked forward in silence toward the tunnel's end.
"Alright," Vigofortz finally said after a while, stopping, "put Dean Hen Gedymdeith down."
"We need to assess his condition before we move on."
"After all…"
"Once we leave this passage, the real trial begins."
.....
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