And so, every day was filled with monotonous patrol duties. During this time, Dago realized that Viser’s arrogance was ingrained in his very being.
His eyes held no contempt, not even emotion, only a profound indifference, as if “making eye contact with a commoner was a desecration of his family’s Wizard status.”
He always used terms like “you rats” or “wandering Wizards should act like wandering Wizards.”
Every sentence seemed to emphasize, “Wizards are different, and I stand at the pinnacle of the pyramid,” as if bloodline was the only measure of everything, and other efforts and talents were worthless in his eyes.
This also led to strained relationships between him and everyone else in the team; if it weren’t for earning Magic Stones, the hired Wizards would have left long ago.
Thus, in this oppressive atmosphere, ten days of patrol duty passed safely.
Around midnight, thick snow clouds brought light snow, completely obscuring the light of the twin moons.
Dago and two hired Wizards walked across the wide fields, holding torches.
He wore a black heated cloak and walked at the head of the group, while the remaining two young hired Wizards were positioned on either side behind him.
Dago walked silently on the path illuminated by the torches, with Detection Art active, occasionally glancing towards the forest, where large expanses of fields had been completely swallowed by darkness.
As he walked, suddenly...
“Boom!”
A loud bang, like a hurricane sweeping across the fields, made Dago instinctively look up, searching for the source of the explosion.
The sound came from not far away, in the direction of the watchtower. Something had happened.
Dago dropped his torch, turned, and instructed the two hired Wizards, “I’ll go first, you follow.”
His physical fitness was now stronger than most Wizards of the same level, mainly due to the transformation of his body by Resonance Art.
He abruptly took off, running towards the watchtower. He remembered that Old Marico’s team was resting in the cabin at that time.
Dago pulled out his crystal staff from his storage pouch, praying for the safety of their team.
In the direction of the watchtower and the cabin, a raging fire lit up a large area of the fields. Faintly, some figures could be seen moving rapidly in the firelight—fighting.
As he ran closer, he saw Viser, staff in hand, crouching over two shattered Black Robe Wizard corpses, searching for spoils.
Not far from the burning wooden house, Old Marico lay on the ground with a severed arm, and a young hired Wizard cried beside him, pressing on his wound and sprinkling healing powder.
Numerous large and small craters from spell bombardments were left nearby. Dago quickly ran towards the fallen Old Marico.
Viser noticed him, glanced at him, his eyes like poisoned ice shards, a faint, almost imperceptible smile playing on his lips.
He turned his head; it wasn't a smile, but the triumph of waiting for prey to fall into a trap, the ruthlessness of planning how to chew human bones to pieces and swallow them.
Dago didn't notice this anomaly. He knelt beside Old Marico and the young Wizard, asking in a trembling voice, “What happened? Why is Marico so seriously injured? Where’s the other person from your team?”
Dago pulled a healing potion from his storage pouch and fed it to the pale, pained Old Marico.
The young Wizard spoke bitterly, “Our team was resting peacefully in the wooden house when it was inexplicably hit by a Fireball Spell. One Apprentice Wizard has already burned to death inside the wooden house.”
As he spoke, he deliberately looked at Viser, “The team leader and I escaped the wooden house and fought two Black Robe Wizards outside, one of whom was a high-level Level 3 Apprentice Wizard.”
“We were attacked so suddenly, and we didn’t see Viser come out to help, not even a warning.”
“It wasn’t until we killed one of the low-level Apprentice Wizards, and the team leader, protecting me, had an arm broken by the Black Robe Wizard, that Viser appeared and killed the high-level Level 3 Apprentice Black Robe Wizard.”
“Damn it!”
Dago understood the entire process of Old Marico’s injury, and an unnamed fire surged from his heart. He gripped his Ice Crystal Magic Wand under his cloak, wanting to rush up and kill Viser.
But then he saw Old Marico, whose cloudy eyes had opened, tightly grasp one of Dago’s pale hands with his remaining withered arm.
His lips moved, like two withered leaves, shriveled by autumn frost, struggling to open and close in the wind, each movement accompanied by a visible tremor.
Old Marico’s voice squeezed out from his throat, saying, “Dago, I know you’re angry, but he is a genius Wizard of the academy. If you kill him, you’ll be wanted by the academy and eventually become a Black Robe Wizard. It’s not worth sacrificing your future for my arm.”
Before Dago could calm the anger in his heart...
However, at that moment, an intensely strong sense of danger rose from behind him, accompanied by a sharp whooshing sound.
Old Marico, lying on the ground, his cloudy eyes swirling with a deep blue halo, unleashed his last mental energy to push them several meters away.
A fierce wind, carrying invisible blades, whistled past. Old Marico didn’t even have time to let out a complete scream.
The green wind blades, like countless thin, transparent knives, instantly sliced through flesh, and the blood droplets they carried were torn into finer blood mist before they even hit the ground.
Old Marico’s body seemed to be pulled by invisible strings. The next second, a crimson fissure opened from his shoulder, and the crisp sound of breaking bones was swallowed by the wind.
His hair was torn messy by the strong wind, his eyes wide open, and a large amount of blood flowed from his torso, forming a dark red stain that was quickly dried by the cold wind.
Old Marico died, his body sliced open by the wind blades.
Dago fell from the air, rolled and sat on the ground, helplessly watching this scene unfold.
In an instant, the rage churning in his chest almost melted his blue eyes. The veins on his temples throbbed as if they would burst, but that violent ferocity suddenly subsided at a certain moment.
It was like the hottest charcoal fire being doused with a ladle of ice water—not extinguished, but congealed into ash mixed with ice shards.
Dago turned to stare at Viser, who was holding his staff. His pupils, brimming with killing intent, suddenly constricted. The deep blue halo in his eyes was tinged with black, still as a deep pool, without a single ripple.
The redness on his face completely drained, leaving only a deathly pale hue.
Dago didn't say a word, only raised the Ice Crystal Magic Wand in his hand, its tip steady without the slightest tremor, as if he were doing the most ordinary thing—like picking up a fallen leaf.
Violent mental energy surged out, and the cold wind, carrying Broken Snow, formed a small vortex at the tip of his staff. An Ice Crystal Cannonball rapidly expanded, and then Dago fiercely launched it.
The massive, deep-blue, ink-like Ice Crystal Cannonball whistled forward, blowing away the snow on both sides of the path, stirring up a fierce hurricane in its powerful wake.
The terrifying Ice Crystal Cannonball, to Viser’s astonishment, pierced his protective shield, deviated from its trajectory, and grazed his torso as it flew past.
The powerful swirling airflow broke several of his ribs, sending his body flying several meters, where he fell heavily to the ground and tumbled a few times.
The Ice Crystal Cannonball exploded dozens of meters behind him, leaving a crater several meters wide, and the chaotic ice wind overturned the thin snow on the ground.
The ice wind pushed Viser on the ground again, and only then did he regain his senses.
He saw Dago pointing the Ice Crystal Magic Wand at him, the pearl on its tip glowing, and a large amount of ice elements gathering into an energy orb.
Seeing this, Viser suddenly went mad and shouted, “Impossible, absolutely impossible! How long has it been since I left the patrol team, and you’ve become so powerful?!”
He thrashed on the ground like a fish out of water, convulsing and kicking his limbs wildly, raising a cloud of dust.
“I’m clearly the genius Wizard of the academy, and you’re just a rat from the forest! I am the pride of the Hailam Wizard Family! There’s no way I can lose to a bumpkin like you!”
Viser suddenly seemed to remember something, activated the communication crystal around his neck, and screamed into it, “Help! A Wizard named Dago in the Southeast Patrol Team has rebelled! Quick, Wizards, come save me!”
He laughed at Dago, a shrill sound like fingernails scraping glass: “You wouldn’t dare kill me! I’ve already called the academy’s mobile patrol team! If you dare kill me, you’ll die too, haha!”
But Dago simply continued to hold his staff, his eyes filled with an intense, unyielding killing intent. Death, like a countdown, ticked closer and closer to him.
Dago’s voice was as calm as ice as he said, “When you harmed Old Marico and broke his arm, you should have died then. He saved your life.”
“When he died, you also died. Even Jesus can’t save you, I say.”
“No… don’t kill me… I have Magic Stones! I have the inheritance of a Formal Wizard!” Hearing Dago’s words, Viser suddenly lunged forward, clawing at the ground to crawl, oblivious to his knuckles being scraped raw and bloody.
His eyes bulged as if they would pop out of their sockets, and the whites were covered with gruesome bloodshot veins. “I’ll give you my storage ring! I’ll be your dog! Your ox and horse! Please… please, for the sake of the Wizard Academy…”
The madness in his eyes instantly shattered into fragments of pleading: “Spare me… please… I was wrong… I was really wrong…”
He cried and laughed, swore to repay kindness, then cursed hysterically, like a puppet whose soul had been extracted.
Dago, however, ignored all his words and fired the ice-blue energy orb from the front of his staff towards his body.
Watching the beautiful blue energy orb slowly fly towards him, Viser knew his time had come. The slowing of time only represented his final attachment to this world.
His body trembled like a sieve, the chattering of his teeth drowning out his pleas, but his eyes were fixed on Dago, churning with fear, jealousy, and madness.
Finally, it all turned into a turbid pool of tears, flying straight towards Dago.
No explosion, no strong wind.
It merely froze Viser’s dying, weak finger scratches, as if he wanted to grasp one last helping hand, still maintaining the grasping posture, his eyes wide open. His grotesque, half-mad, half-pleading expression before death was completely frozen, turning him into an ice sculpture emanating cold air.