Dark Magus Returns

Chapter 1518: Absorbing It All

The extraction technique was being used on Ibarin, and his energy was fading right before everyone’s eyes. His once imposing frame was shrivelling, skin clinging tightly to bone as not just his mana core, but his very life force, was being drained away. The proud Grand Magus who had once commanded storms of power now looked like a hollow husk collapsing in on itself.

There was a limit to this method, a point where Raze could have stopped and left him barely alive. But why would he? Ibarin had taken far more lives than he could ever repay. Many of those deaths had been of people who were far less deserving than the man crumbling beneath Raze’s grasp.

Raze had often wondered about this, back in his old life. He used to watch stories, tales where the main character walked the path of vengeance. And always, when they finally cornered the one who had wronged them, they hesitated. Sometimes, they even spared their enemy. They spoke of being "better than them." Of proving they were different.

But who cared about that?

Whether he felt peace after this or drowned in disgust didn’t matter. This wasn’t about healing. It wasn’t about showing mercy.

This was something he had to do.

No matter what.

Finally, all shrivelled up, Ibarin lay motionless. There was no life in his eyes, no rise in his chest. The arena was filled with silence as Raze slowly stood, straightening his back, the dark aura around him fading as he looked across the stands.

’I did it,’ he thought. ’I finally took down another one of the Grand Magus. A task that was impossible for me to complete in my past life. Everything I’ve endured... every pain, every sacrifice... has led me here.’

For a brief moment, a strange stillness washed over him, but then he felt it, a tingling sensation deep in his chest. The cluster of stars swirling faintly around his sternum, the ones that marked his magical rank, had begun to shift. They spun faster, pulsing with an unfamiliar rhythm.

’It’s... happening. I’m going through a breakthrough right now?’

The realization hit him hard. He could feel it. He was climbing from the seventh star to the eighth star. The energy from absorbing Ibarin’s mana, the mana of a nine-star mage, had been enough to push him to the edge, and now he was tipping past it.

He had suspected he was close, but he hadn’t thought it would come this soon.

If he reached the eighth star, he would become even stronger, powerful enough to face the other Grand Magus with greater certainty. But there was a problem. The higher stages were far more demanding. Breaking through them wasn’t instantaneous. It took time, and during that time, a mage was at their most vulnerable.

"There’s only one thing I can do," Raze muttered under his breath.

He placed his hand over his chest, steadying his breathing as he guided his focus inward. Slowly, deliberately, he reached deep toward the center of his magic core.

Then he took a step forward, and a pulse of mana erupted from his body like a shockwave. It rippled outward across the arena, cracking the floor in jagged lines as the pressure shoved the ground away from him.

The crowd flinched back, the shockwave snapping them out of their stunned silence. For the first time since Ibarin’s death, voices rose again, sharp with urgency.

"Did you see that?!" someone shouted. "The Dark Magus, he’s... he’s going through a breakthrough right now!"

"What do you mean a breakthrough?" another demanded. "Is he... is he reaching the tenth star? I thought nine-star was the highest level anyone could reach!"

"You idiot," someone else snapped. "That wasn’t nine-star magic he used just now! Even the Grand Magus himself said it, that the Dark Magus is only at the seventh star level."

There were nods of agreement, several voices murmuring at once. They remembered what Ibarin had claimed earlier.

"So... even though he was only a seventh star, he was able to beat the Grand Magus?"

"That doesn’t make sense," another said, voice trembling. "How could he have done that?"

There was no clear answer. They had all seen it with their own eyes, the way Raze’s attacks had overpowered Ibarin, overwhelming him piece by piece. At times they had felt something else within those strikes, something that wasn’t mana. But what could it have been?

"Wasn’t the Dark Magus from before, a different person, the one from history... wasn’t he a nine-star mage?"

"Yeah, that’s why all the Grand Magus struggled against him."

"Stop being stupid," a more cautious voice cut in. "These aren’t the same person. They just share the name. They’re even completely different ages!"

The debate rolled through the crowd in waves. Yet as they argued, their eyes were locked on Raze.

He had lowered himself to the ground, settling into a meditative posture, legs crossed and back straight. Faint rings of mana pulsed outward from his body in steady bursts, like ripples on a dark pond. They spread across the cracked arena floor, shimmering with the light of a newborn star.

They had read about this phenomenon in old texts, how breakthroughs changed with the higher ranks. Normally, no one could see a seven-star mage breaking through to eight, not unless they were close and attuned to the flow of mana themselves. Yet here it was, clear to even the untrained eye.

Power was radiating from him like heat from molten iron.

And with that realization came another.

"Wait," one voice hissed, barely louder than a whisper. "Isn’t this... our chance?"

Heads turned.

"Our chance... to kill him. Right now."

A shiver rippled through the crowd.

"He’s in the middle of a breakthrough," the voice pressed on. "That’s when a mage is at their most vulnerable, right? We all know it. He can’t defend himself while he’s focused inward. If we act now, if we all attack at once, we could take out the Dark Magus before he finishes!"

Silence followed those words, but it was a silence heavy with thought.

Because they all knew... it was true.

They had seen Raze’s power. They had seen him kill the Grand Magus, someone they had once thought untouchable. And they had seen how his eyes had lingered on the crowd afterward, cold and calculating.

If they didn’t stop him now, if they waited until he rose again as an eight-star mage, then no one would be able to.

The thought began to spread through them like poison.

The Dark Magus was vulnerable.

This was their one chance.

*****

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