Just a little more. Fernandez thought as he drove wedges into the gaps of the surging magic energy all around him. It felt like hammering stakes. The wedges he drove—formless, condensed magic wedges—were tangled haphazardly among complex spells and incantations.
In his wake, crooked remnants were left behind, crackling alone. Running through the crumbling building, Fernandez was drawing a kind of map in his mind.
“You pesky fly!!”
-KWAAANG!
The map was revised. Part of the building exploded, and bricks came crashing down. He drove a wedge into the gap and ran again. Fernandez’s map wasn’t flat. It was a complex projection of a three-dimensional space.
The path he ran, the place where Rene Philippa was likely imprisoned, the debris of the collapsing building—all were reflected in real-time in the three-dimensional shape slowly shifting in his mind.
And at its center was Manderson. Half-demon Manderson, his glowing green muscles writhing, was smashing everything in sight. His mind was fading—either from rage or the corruption of hellish magic.
‘Foolish fool.’
Fernandez clicked his tongue briefly. When dealing with hellish magic, one needed extremely careful spells, protective rituals, and equipment. Making a rash contract with a demon and wielding its power would only lead to one’s own destruction.
Manderson wasn’t an idiot. At least, that’s how Fernandez remembered him. Timid and passive, but quite clever and capable. A low-ranking but brilliant mage in the academy.
“You’re disqualified, Manderson.”
Fernandez smirked and turned his head. With a crash, a cluster of bricks from the building’s outer wall brushed past his ear and smashed into the ground.
“How long are you going to keep hopping around like a rabbit?! Come at me! I said come at me! This royal castle is mine. Stop defiling the palace!!”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing right now.”
Manderson, now almost delirious, spoke as if he had already become the duke. Fernandez clicked his tongue and swung his greatsword through the air. A flying brick hit the blade and ricocheted into Manderson’s head.
“Guh!!”
Manderson staggered, clutching his head from the sudden attack. Soon, his eyes burned with rage and madness.
“GRAAAAAH!!”
-KUGUGUGUNG!
The entire building shook. The royal palace had already collapsed from the top floor down to at least three levels. The walls, barely held together by magic, crumbled and floated into the air.
Now, the walls no longer had a fixed shape. They floated in the air, one by one, like isolated stone bridges. Fernandez kicked off one wall to the next, grabbed a pillar, and leaped to the next foothold, swinging his sword relentlessly.
‘90%.’
Taking advantage of Manderson’s momentary lapse in sanity from the earlier provocation, Fernandez jumped to the highest point of the floating walls. Holding his sword upside down—
-It’s still a bit early to finish.
‘If more time passes, Manderson will give up on Rene. Then, on a macro level, it’s our loss.’
-It’s a gamble.
‘Our entire lives have been a gamble on ourselves.’
This is just a continuation of that. Fernandez, with the tip of his greatsword pointing downward, leaped into the air. Manderson’s burning eyes followed his body. His mouth opened, sharpened molars grinding as he burst into laughter.
“Finally caught you!”
Unlike running on the ground, the trajectory of a fall in mid-air couldn’t be altered. And if one could predict the direction of movement, crushing that pesky fly would be child’s play!
Manderson, laughing with glee, swung his arm. The dense magic energy in the air gathered and took shape. Pure force. Not a crafted magical spell, but simply overwhelming power!
In that case, magic wedges were useless. I’ll admit, his technique is impressive. Manderson smirked. But he’s mortal. Just a human body. The pressure of crushing magic far surpassed that of an industrial press. No human body could withstand it!
“It’s over!!”
“It’s over.”
Their gazes and words crossed. Just before the sword struck Manderson’s forehead, Manderson’s magic crushed the space around Fernandez, pressing down on both sides.
Expecting Fernandez to turn into a mere bloodstain, Manderson spread his arms wide and laughed maniacally. But.
But, the magic stopped.
“Wha, what… What is this…?”
“You should’ve paid more attention to your surroundings.”
-Tap.
Fernandez stood on Manderson’s shoulder. Thanks to Manderson’s demonic transformation and increased size, balancing on his shoulders was easy.
Moonlight poured down from beyond the collapsed building’s roof. The obsidian greatsword gleamed under the moonlight. Manderson stared blankly at the blade and the faint silhouette of Fernandez beyond it.
And the two eyes glowing ominously.
“Magic wedges… You used magic wedges to create a spell…”
“This technique was originally yours, Manderson.”
Fernandez paused briefly before speaking. Driving magic wedges to disrupt the enemy’s spells, then using those wedges to form a large-scale magical formation.
Magic wedges are, quite literally, wedge-shaped fragments of magic. They contain no information, just magical noise. By driving these into the weakest gaps of the enemy’s spell structure, one can disrupt their magic and nullify it.
A counter-spell. A high-level technique requiring complete understanding of the enemy’s spell structure.
-A magical formation is a tool for weaving spells by drawing magic circuits onto specific objects.
‘And magic circuits are the totality of condensed magic lines.’
So, by connecting magic wedges—magic fragments containing no information—and using them as stakes for a massive spell, one can fill the gaps with the enemy’s own magic.
Back in the day, Manderson called this technique ‘Jack.’ A fittingly timid name for him. If it were Faijashi, he would’ve named it something like ‘Faijashi’s Plunder’ and made it his signature spell after creating such a complex and beautiful combat technique.
It was a technique worthy of that. Manderson. Manderson of the Corpse Tower. Timid but sincere and witty. A friend who fragmented enemy spells and pieced them together to his liking, crafting his own spells in a complex combat magic.
“This… spell’s name is…?”
“Manderson’s Plunder.”
“Ha… I never thought…”
