Frase and Geehrt boarded the carriage that was set to take them toward the village where Kanone was waiting. When they arrived at the rendezvous point, Kanone was surprised to see Geehrt accompanying the Captain.
However, considering everything she had witnessed regarding Geehrt's monstrous growth over the past year, she immediately understood that the boy would be joining them on this new mission.
"Captain," Kanone greeted Frase respectfully.
Out of sheer habit, Kanone reached into her pocket and pulled out a box of cigarettes. It was a standard practice for them.
Whenever they embarked on a dangerous mission, she would offer a smoke to Frase to calm the nerves, even though Frase was not a heavy smoker.
Frase reached out to take the box, but before her fingers could touch the cardboard, the entire pack ignited.
A precise, controlled burst of flame incinerated the cigarettes instantly, leaving nothing but ash in Kanone's hand.
Kanone and Frase blinked, then turned to look at Geehrt.
The boy was looking out the window, feigning innocence, but they both remembered his strict stance against his grandmother smoking.
Frase and Kanone exchanged awkward smiles, cleared their throats, and decided to simply discuss the mission details instead.
As the carriage rumbled along the dirt road, the atmosphere suddenly shifted.
Frase, with her decades of combat experience, felt it first. It was not a visual cue but a prickling sensation of killing intent directed at them.
Geehrt felt it a split second later, but unlike Frase, his detection came from his Six Eyes picking up a disturbance in the atmospheric mana.
"Enemy attack," Frase announced calmly.
She slammed her wand against the floor of the carriage. Instantly, the earth beneath them erupted.
Frase conjured a massive, incomplete stone golem that rose from the ground, wrapping its rocky arms around the carriage and the horses to serve as a physical bunker. Simultaneously, Geehrt and Kanone reacted with practiced synergy.
They expanded their mana, reinforcing the stone construct with layers of hexagonal defensive shielding magic.
A heartbeat later, the attack landed.
Explosions rocked the golem as magical blasts struck from multiple angles. The dust cleared to reveal three figures hovering high above the clouds. They were horned humanoids with wings. Demons.
As the demons prepared to dive down for a second volley, they suddenly froze. A sensation of absolute dread washed over them. It felt as if a cold hand had gripped their hearts.
Despite demons being creatures of cold logic who were incapable of human empathy or emotion, they still possessed the primal evolutionary trait of fear.
They were predators who had climbed the food chain, and they knew instinctively when they were looking at something higher on the ladder than themselves.
Geehrt had stepped out of the carriage and was staring directly at them.
His Six Eyes were fully active, dissecting their mana flow and biological structure. He was not just looking at them; he was studying them.
He analyzed the way they manipulated mana to achieve flight. It was incredibly different from the flight magic humanity had developed.
Historically, demons had dominated the skies of the Frieren world almost exclusively because their flight was silent, efficient, and instinctive.
It seems that I do not need to worry about learning how to fly anymore, Geehrt thought with a satisfied smirk. He had seen the formula. Now, it was his.
He stepped fully onto the road, followed closely by Kanone and Frase.
Both of the adult mages were perfectly suppressing their mana signatures, a stealth trait they had mastered over years of protecting the Empire from the shadows. To the demons, they looked like ordinary humans.
"Hmm, curious. Where did that terrifying feeling come from? It certainly did not come from these three," one of the demons mused aloud.
The feeling of being hunted had vanished the moment Geehrt finished his analysis, leaving the demons confused.
"We should end this fight quickly. They are only three humans, and one of them is a mere child," another demon said with an apathetic tone.
They nodded in agreement and began their descent. Their primary target was Geehrt, as his mana signature appeared to be the smallest and weakest among the group.
One of the demons raised its hand and summoned a massive field of thorny vines.
The briars erupted from the earth, tearing through the road and separating the three humans from one another. It was a classic divide-and-conquer strategy.
Geehrt stood his ground as the thorny wall isolated him. He looked up at the demon who had summoned the vines.
The creature landed softly in front of him, thorns crawling along its arms like living armor. Without a word, the demon launched a barrage of razor-sharp spikes directly at the boy.
Geehrt did not flinch. He raised a finger and materialized multiple magic circles.
"Zoltraak," he whispered.
Beams of black magic fired instantly. They intercepted the incoming spikes, shattering them into dust, and continued onward to destroy the mass of vines the demon had created. The demon's eyes widened slightly. The casting speed was instantaneous.
"I want to see you dance," Geehrt said calmly, his voice cold. "Move like a monkey for me. Do that, and maybe I will let you live. Just maybe."
The air behind Geehrt shimmered as twenty separate magic circles manifested at once.
He fired.
A torrent of Zoltraak beams screamed toward the demon. The creature panicked, creating wall after wall of briars and thorns to counter the barrage. But it was futile. Geehrt was not just firing blindly; he was controlling the trajectory of every single beam. The black rays curved around defenses, shattered barriers, and grazed the demon's skin, leaving scorching cuts.
Geehrt was playing with his food.
The demon was pushed back, sweating and desperate. It realized it could not win alone. It quickly canceled the thorn field that separated them, intending to scream for help from its two companions.
"Help me! This human is..."
The demon's voice died in its throat.
As the wall of vines crumbled, the demon saw the other side of the battlefield. There were no reinforcements.
There were only Kanone and Frase, standing lazily among the dissipating mana particles of the other two demons.
They were waiting patiently, looking bored, as if waiting for a slow child to finish a chore.
The other demons were already dead.
"I guess the fun is over," Geehrt sighed.
He snapped his fingers.
Instantly, the twenty magic circles multiplied. In the blink of an eye, more than a hundred Zoltraak circles filled the sky, blocking out the sun.
The demon looked up, its face twisting in despair.
"Fire," Geehrt commanded.
The barrage was absolute. The demon was obliterated instantly, its body torn apart by a hundred beams of concentrated killing magic.
There was no chance to regenerate, no chance to fight back. It was total annihilation.
As the demon died, its body began to disintegrate into black mana particles. However, Geehrt noticed something strange.
Through the omnipotent vision of the Six Eyes, he saw that the mana was not just returning to the atmosphere.
About twenty percent of the demon's mana particles drifted toward him. They sank into his skin, absorbed by his pores.
Geehrt checked his internal status. His mana capacity had increased. It was a small amount relative to his already massive reserves, but it was a permanent increase.
'Is this a hidden perk of the Ultimate Magic ability?' Geehrt thought, stunned. 'Can I absorb the mana of those I kill?'
He grinned inwardly. If this absorption rate remained constant for demons and monsters, he could theoretically catch up to the mana reserves of ancient beings like Frieren and Serie without needing to live for a thousand years. He just needed to hunt.
"This kind of behavior is not permitted on the battlefield, Geehrt!"
Frase's stern voice snapped him out of his trance. She walked over, looking displeased.
"You played with your opponent instead of killing it immediately. You should change your thinking now, while you are still a child, before it is too late. Arrogance leads to death," Frase scolded him.
Geehrt nodded with a serious expression, accepting the lecture. "I understand, Grandmother."
However, he was not truly paying attention to her scolding. His mind was still racing with calculations regarding the mana absorption.
"Come on! Get in!" Frase shouted, waving him toward the carriage.
Geehrt realized that Kanone and Frase had already boarded while he was lost in thought. He quickly jogged over and climbed in.
As the carriage began to move again, Kanone noticed Geehrt's distant look. "What is troubling you, Geehrt?"
Geehrt looked at his two mentors. "Do you know that demons have a completely different style of flying than humans?"
Frase and Kanone nodded. It was common knowledge that demons flew differently, but no human had ever been able to replicate it perfectly.
Geehrt began to speak. He explained the mechanics of demon flight in excruciating detail, breaking down the mana flow and the gravity manipulation he had analyzed during the brief encounter.
As he spoke, he subconsciously began to manipulate his own mana, floating slightly off the seat.
Kanone and Frase listened intently, their eyes widening. They knew he was talented, but this was absurd.
He had analyzed a species-specific trait in seconds and was now teaching it to them.
'The Honored One, Frase thought,' a chill running through her.
'The being blessed by the Goddess of Creation,' Kanone thought simultaneously.
They looked at the boy, who was happily explaining the theory of flight, and realized once again that Geehrt was not normal. He was a perfect being, crafted by the divine to reshape the world of magic.