Throne of Magical Arcana

“Viscount Andree…” Anna repeated the name in a low voice, with uncontrollable fear in her voice.

The young man standing before the altar was exactly Viscount Andree, their future liege. He had a chiseled face, which looked tough and gloomy. Just like the other members of the Vladimir family, he had gold hair, blue eyes and a unique strongman style. It’s a pity that his eyes were brimming with indescribable panic at this moment. There was no telling whether it was because Duda and the knight failed so easily, or it was because he was caught on the spot of demon worship.

However, Anna did not notice Viscount Andree’s face. Her mind was full of the intelligence, tales and legends of the guy: a talented knight, the future Count Calcate, a member of the Vladimir family, a grand knight at such a young age, and a student of a legendary knight…

Any one of those feats would’ve scared a common mercenary like Anna. After they were combined, even though Viscount Andree hadn’t attacked yet, and even though a powerful sorcerer and a vampire were floating next to her, she felt that her heart was trembling.

“There must be something unique about him. He’s certainly one of the most distinguished level-five grand knights, or he wouldn’t have been picked by a legendary knight…”

“He’s the future Count Calcate. If our battle is discovered, the radiant knights to come will certainly kill us to keep our mouths shut…”

“Also… Also, he is a legendary knight’s student. There’s no telling if Nicolle, the Storm of Death, has given him any senior-rank items and special abilities… Would Sister Katrina be hunted by legendary knights if she kills him?”

Too many ideas occurred to Anna. Putting the question whether or not Sister Katrina and the handsome vampire could beat Viscount Andree, his identity was enough to stop them from trying their best. Nicolle would feel that somebody slapped him in the face if Andree was killed two months after becoming his student. Who could escape from the hunting of a legendary knight?

The same fear spread among the mercenaries, and Yakov was no exception. But he soon calmed down. This was Viscount Andree trying to kill them. If they did not resist, they would die now; if they resisted, they might survive. After all, for a legendary knight and Count Calcate, they were just ants. If they ran away, it was possible that those people would be too lazy to chase them.

So, it was not difficult to choose!

“You shouldn’t have come in. You forced me to do this. You forced me…” Before the altar, Andree simply repeated his words, and the bloody mist spreading from the altar got more and more intense.

“What’s wrong with him?” Viscount Carendia always considered himself knowledgeable, but he could not understand Andree’s current status, so he asked through the telepathic bond.

Katrina looked at the abnormal Viscount Andree indifferently and concluded, “He was probably corrupted by the power of demons and is in temporary derangement because we disrupted the ritual. Let’s seize the chance to take him down.”

While she talked, pure, brilliant colors glowed on her body, releasing dazzling light like fireworks towards the mist, the statue and the altar.

When she performed ‘Arcana Light’, she seemed to be wearing a feathered cloak of light and looked fabulous and sacred. For Anna and Yakov, she was like an angel walking on the earth. Such spells had been created by the Congress of Magic referring to divine power. They looked very similar except for the lack of special waves of the divine power.

As the light hit the bloody mist, dazzling brilliance burst out. However, the bloody mist around this altar was apparently more powerful. It was only less heavy after being hit by Arcana Light.

Katrina’s ‘Arcana Light’, on the other hand, woke up Viscount Andree. The fear in his eyes gone, he said gloomily, “Like I said, you forced me to do this!”

With his words and his gesture, dark lines glittered on the floor. They spread over from all directions and crawled into the altar, forming a cubic magic circle. Dark fog surged out of the altar, turning the statue hazy and cold.

“Hurry up! The ritual is almost finished!” Katrina attacked the altar and Viscount Andree with ‘Lucien’s Fireball’ and other spells while she urged Viscount Carendia to attack.

She sensed great danger when the ritual was activated. This ritual had almost been completed and was only waiting for the last trigger!

Viscount Carendia sniffed. “And I thought that things were going well…”

The cape behind him flapped and turned into the deepest darkness, enshrouding both himself and the altar and corroding the magic patterns.

Protected by the magic circle, Viscount Andree watched the collapse of the bloody mist and shook his head brutally, “You forced me to do this!”

He took out a dark dagger from his storage bag. It was ivory but carried the intense air of death.

“This is ‘Nicolle’s Invitation’, a senior-rank dagger that my teacher gave me. Now, I’m going to use it as the sacrifice for the ritual. It will turn into the purest and most complete death storm that will consume all of you!” Andree laughed crazily and threw ‘Nicolle’s Invitation’ into the altar.

“You are the master of darkness and the embodiment of desperation. You will freeze the world in the doomsday…” Andree chanted more like a cultist priest than a knight.

“It’s Gonheim that they worship!” Having heard a lot about the Demogorgon of Darkness, Katrina was no stranger to him. She reminded Viscount Carendia.

Darkness surged out of the altar and froze the environment in frost. Suddenly, there was an earthquake, a deep, devastating air mass popped up. Anna felt that she was on the verge of death again the moment she saw it.

All the mercenaries including Yakov were attracted by the air mass. They felt that their souls were fighting their fight beyond their control.

After a collision, the darkness out of the altar was raised by the air mass. Many black bats were blown into the wall and died.

“Death storm…” Viscount Carendia reached Katrina, paler than before. He grimaced, “I hate the battles where senior-rank items are involved most…”

As he talked, he took out a frame from his pocket. Inside the frame was a painting of the silver-haired and silver-eyed Rhine. He looked more formal in the painting than he actually was.

Sensing the near-death feeling, Anna thought in desperation and fear, “Is this the power of legends? A senior-rank item that only contains a slice of the air of a legendary knight is already so powerful?”

She struggled to turn to Katrina, trying to ask her to flee. However, under the deterrence of death, she couldn’t make a sound after she opened her mouth!

“Huh. What’s Sister Katrina doing…” When her head was almost black, Anna saw Katrina pressing a silver badge on which there were all kinds of mysterious symbols with her left hand.

“Haha. You will taste the death storm very soon.” Not caring about the shivering mist and magic circle, Andree laughed crazily.

Anna closed her eyes in pain. The pressure of death was so insufferable. However, she heard the high and distant voice of Katrina that was different from the way she usually talked.

“The roars from space summons the Atomic Universe…”

In shock, Anna saw a boundless cosmos surfacing behind Katrina. It was deep and dark, and the stars were releasing various colors.

“Space arrival?”

“Cosmos arrival?”

All the mercenaries had similar questions.

Then, they sensed the profundity of the cosmos and the subtlety of stars, as if endless mysteries were contained inside.

The feeling of boundlessness immediately eased their mind that was pressured by death. They could no longer sense any desperation or pain.

“What… What is this power?”

“Is it the legend level, too?”

In their widened eyes, a gaseous form changed into the all-freezing blue, and Katrina tossed out of a tube of colorless liquids.

Enhanced by ‘Atomic Universe’, the tube was broken without any spell, and the liquids hit the collapsing magic circle after being condensed into a weird ray.

The steam was frozen, the mist was frozen, the air was frozen, and so was the bursting black storm of death, which was turned into black snowflakes.

Amidst them, Viscount Andree was frozen, too. His items were broken, and his blood became solid. His shock was frozen on his face.

Then, the coldness was gone, and everything began to melt, turning into drops of water.

Looking at the incredible scene, Anna and the other mercenaries felt that they were still in a dream.

“Had I known that you prepared the ritual, I wouldn’t have brought out the frame…” Viscount Carendia put Rhine’s painting back. “Evans’ Freezing Ray?”

“Yes.” Katrina looked rather pale. “It seems that Andree held the ritual to worship ‘Demogorgon of Darkness’ to increase his strength and potential.”

“That’s probably right. It explains why he became the student of ‘Storm of Death’ soon after the ritual. Also, the Demogorgon of Darkness is the most devil-like Demon Lord. It’s perfectly normal for him to develop believers.” Said Viscount Carendia, deep in thought.

…

Inside a castle, a mirror-like screen manifested everything that happened in Duda’s manor.

“Master, you could’ve killed them easily.” A beautiful and sexy woman was kneeling next to a young man and feeding wine to him with her own mouth. She had a pair of cute horns on her forehead.

The young man touched the woman’s hair and moved his eyes away from the screen. He had the exact face of Viscount Andree’s!

“Hehe. Even if I did, so what? One of them is a grand arcanist’s student, and the other is a vampire prince’s close descendant. Do you think that things will stop?” ‘Andree’ smiled. “If it were other sorcerers and vampires, I could’ve killed them and blamed it on somebody else. The Congress of Magic and the vampires wouldn’t pay much attention to it. However, since they were the ones who came, I could only give them an ‘answer’. After all, our plan has worked out, and the identity of Andree is no longer useful.”

The sexy woman nodded. “Yes. If the Congress of Magic and the vampires keep investigating, our future operations will be a lot more troublesome. However, how did you know that the Congress of Magic would send Katrina, the Atom Controller’s student? Otherwise, Duda would’ve killed Yakov and the other mercenaries while they were on their way.”

“Andree’ smiled but did not give a straight answer. “All in all, this is the end of everything. I do not want anything to happen to them, or Lucien Evans and Rhine might come in person. I hate the old who settle scores for the young after the young are defeated…”

Most importantly of all, he was unable to defeat the old yet…

He stood up. His facial muscles twisted, and his height reduced. He turned into an indifferent-looking, black-haired, middle-aged man.