Chapter 164 - Walking on Eggshells (4)
“Giant hail.”
Crack, crack!
As Henry cast the spell, massive chunks of ice formed in the air. This time, the ice was twice as big as the one he had previously dropped on the carriage.
“Spin.”
Whoosh!
Henry spun the giant hailstone and dropped it on top of Alfred’s carriage.
Thud!
The three hailstones were enough to call it a warning.
Alfred had no intention of stopping the carriage. He only stopped because of the spinning hailstone.
‘It looks good.’
Henry had even altered the landscape in order to hide the location of the mansion just in case, but even so, it was just best to keep Alfred away from the area in the first place.
Alfred and Torian came out of the carriage, and Henry increased the intensity of the snowstorm.
Whoosh!
The climate of Salgaera was completely under Henry's control. This was one of the many great powers that only Archmages possessed, and he intended to deceive Alfred as much as he could by manipulating the weather.
“Elagon.”
- Khu!
Elagon had been patiently waiting by his side, and when Henry called his name, he slowly flew into the air, flapping his wings.
Elagon’s chest was clearly embedded with the Egg of Evolution that Henry used to have in his left forearm.
‘This should do.’
The countermeasure that Henry came up with upon seeing Elagon was simple: merging the death of Aubert with the object that Alfred desired the most. His aim was to divert Alfred’s attention by intertwining those two elements and associating them with Elagon.
In a way, this strategy was quite risky because if it failed, there was no plan B. However, Torian's great acting, the limited visibility caused by the harsh Salgaera climate, the rare Elagon, and Henry's strong support all came together to make even the cheapest plays seem like fantastic musicals.
“Elagon, you remember what I told you earlier, right?”
- Khu!
No matter how well Elagon understood what Henry wanted, it was still bound to be difficult for him to carry out complicated plans. Thus, Henry had asked Elagon to play a simple game of tag, and the person inside the carriage, namely Alfred, was going to be it.
Henry had even planted the real Egg of Evolution in Elagon’s chest so that Alfred could also participate in the game.
Fortunately, Elagon hadn’t suddenly evolved just because the Egg of Evolution was embedded in his chest.
Actually, Henry had hoped that Elagon would evolve because of this, but as he expected, evolution couldn't be achieved with such ordinary methods.
Henry snapped his fingers and Elagon slowly grew in size as he was in the air.
- Khu?
Elagon cocked his head at the sudden heightened view.
Seeing Elagon become bigger than his mother, Elyragon, Henry nodded in satisfaction and said, “You need to be at least this big to draw his attention.”
Henry also cast various helpful spells on Elagon, including Haste, because he had a mission to trigger the person that was it in the game.
“M-Marquis! Look! That’s it!”
In the meantime, Terion pointed over to the gorge as instructed by Henry, and pretended to be scared. Alfred looked toward the direction Torian was pointing.
‘That’s…!’
Although the snowstorm was fierce, Alfred could see the silhouette clearly. The thing above the gorge definitely was Elyragon, the highest form of water spirit.
Whoosh!
The snowstorm was so strong that it made Alfred dizzy. However, as the head of the most distinguished spiritualist family in the empire, he was sure that the creature was Elyragon just by looking at its silhouette.
Gulp!
Alfred unconsciously swallowed.
He was looking at a spirit of the highest level, born naturally in the human world, and not one that had been summoned from the spirit world. Alfred was excited at the prospect of getting another high-level spirit in his hands.
‘I can’t believe I’ve met a naturally born spirit in a place like this.’
Based on their sociability and mentality, spiritualists would summon a spirit from the spirit world and sign a contract. Therefore, no matter how good one’s mentality was to communicate with the spirits, if they weren’t sociable enough to call one, their ability as a spiritualist was limited.
However, things were different in the case of a spirit that was naturally born in the human world.
As those spirits originated in the human realm, spiritualists could form contracts with them as long as they possessed a basic level of social connection with the spirit. Of course, since they were born in nature, spiritualists had to communicate with them a lot more than with the spirits that were summoned.
However, that wasn’t a problem for Alfred since he already had two high-level spirits. At least that was what he thought.
Flap!
‘It’s coming!’
The large, dark silhouette began moving and Alfred could see it flying in the snowstorm.
Soon it flew like a butterfly and shot like a bee at the carriage.
“Neuer!”
Realizing the threat, Alfred instinctively unleashed his spiritual skill. His target was Elyragon’s underside, as it was shooting toward the carriage.
As soon as Alfred stretched his arms forward, Neuer, the high-level earth spirit, erected a huge stone pillar from the ground.
Thud!
He was just barely able to block Elyragon’s attack.
It was very powerful.
Shooting down from the sky, Elyragon smashed Neuer’s stone pillar in an instant and soared into the air again.
‘So powerful…!’
Alfred had goosebumps all over his body.
How could Elyragon have as much destructive power as the earth spirit when it was just a water spirit?
How majestic was its power that had been created in nature?
In addition, Alfred got a clear view of Elyragon passing over his head after shattering the stone pillar.
‘I’m sure of it! It’s Elyragon!’
Alfred’s heart was pounding.
Not only did Alfred have to catch Elyragon because it had been born in nature, but also because it had most likely stolen the Egg of Evolution from Aubert.
- Khu!
However, this was just a game for Elagon.
The whole thing seemed fun to him because not only was he bigger than usual, but he was also faster and lighter.
Even though he had hit the stone pillar, he didn’t feel any pain at all, as if he had become invincible, which was why Elagon was even more excited.
- Khu!
‘It’s coming!’
Elagon prepared his next trick to continue enjoying this fun game.
Alfred couldn’t only play defense, so he quickly put his hands together to launch a proper counterattack.
“Sildia!”
Whoosh!
Unlike Cillion, a high-level spirit that looked like a lion, Sildia was a high-level wind spirit that looked like a giant hawk.
- Khee!
The hawk of the wind cried out loud.
A huge wind blew and pushed out the ongoing snowstorm. This was to get better visibility.
The moment Sildia cleared the snowstorm, Alfred had an unobstructed view of Elyragon flying in the air.
‘The Egg of Evolution!’
The thing stuck in Elyragon’s chest certainly was the Egg of Evolution, but unlike what Alfred had seen before, the size of the egg was much bigger.
This was because the Egg of Evolution had also grown when Henry had magically made Elagon bigger.
However, Alfred didn’t find this strange at all. He simply thought that the egg looked like that because Elyragon couldn’t fully absorb it. Both The Egg of Evolution and Elyragon were too fascinating to start nitpicking right now.
‘I’ll capture it first, and then take a closer look!’
Alfred’s eyes were filled with ambition.
He no longer cared about Aubert or the Exile Village at all. The only thing he could think of right now was capturing Elyragon which was in front of him.
“Neuer!”
The high-level earth spirit looked like a massive bear.
- Koo!
Elagon was very excited at the fact that the hawk of the wind, the bear of the earth, and the dragon of the water were all here.
Elagon had instinctively realized that Alfred’s spirits were all high-level spirits just like him.
‘Now’s the important part.’
Henry concealed himself with a hiding spell because he could no longer hinder Alfred’s visibility with the snowstorm, since he had summoned Sildia.
Nevertheless, Henry maintained the intensity of the harsh snowstorm. By doing this, he could prevent Sildia from doing anything else.
Flap!
Now that the snowstorm was gone, Elagon flapped its wings and showed himself off.
- Khaaaa!
Elagon cried!
As his body became bigger, his vocal cords also grew in size, and he was finally able to show off his cry like an actual dragon, but of course, it still sounded like khu in Henry’s ears.
‘Elagon, Water Breath!’
- Khu!
Henry transferred his will into Elagon.
Elagon accumulated a bunch of water in his mouth like a water cannon just as Henry had ordered. It was a weak water cannon because he had never shot a Water Breath before.
However, since his mother was Elyragon, the highest form of a water spirit, Elagon instinctively knew what Water Breath was.
Elagon opened his mouth.
‘Aqua Burst!’
Splash!
A small magic circle formed inside Elagon’s mouth and soon a huge water cannon shot out at Alfred.
- Khu?
Elagon also spewed out his Water Breath, but since this was his first time using it, all he managed to get out was a weak stream of water that looked like spit.
Thus, having his mouth open was just for the sake of showmanship.
“Neuer!”
Thud!
However, Alfred couldn’t have known what was really going on.
Alfred quickly formed an earth shield to block the Aqua Burst.
Boom!
The Aqua Burst collided with the shield, but no matter how well-built the shield was, Henry’s Aqua Burst was one step stronger.
Crack! Boom!
The shield was shattered, and Henry’s Aqua Burst kept flowing like a waterfall.
Splash!
“Nooo!”
The power of the empire’s sole unofficial Archmage was incredible.
Henry’s Aqua Burst broke through the earth shield and completely destroyed the carriage behind it.
Alfred also used all his strength to reveal his spiritual skill, and Elagon was hit with a strong wind from Sildia.
Alfred wasn’t able to handle the attack with just Neuer, so he gave up stopping the snowstorm and decided to join forces with the earth spirit.
However, he was already too late. The Aqua Burst had hit Alfred before it could be stopped by Sildia.
The water was everywhere.
The gorge was filled with sleet because of the waterfall that Henry had ejected, and Alfred had no choice but to endure it.
- Khu khu khu!
Elagon was having the time of his life.
He felt as if Henry’s Aqua Burst was his own Water Breath. He was enjoying the sight of his surroundings becoming flooded from the Water Breath he had spewed.
“I-I can’t believe it…!”
Elyragon was much stronger than Alfred.
Upon realizing how great the difference between their power was, Alfred had no choice but to fall into despair and run away in fear.
The ferocity Elyragon’s roar was too overwhelming for him to fight against it one more time.
- Khu khu!
Henry’s clever scheme had worked like a charm.
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