Chapter 651: Thorn Ripple

Third Person’s POV

Even Ethan, with his exceptionally powerful soul perception, had failed to notice the moment Misril had completed the spell.

There had been no grand accumulation of mana, and no dazzling magical fluctuations.

The spell had simply appeared at the exact moment it was needed, its razor-thin, frighteningly sharp wind blade cutting through the heron’s neck with frightening precision.

This wasn’t merely evidence of powerful control over the wind element.

It also revealed considerable combat experience.

Misril clearly wasn’t the kind of scholarly mage who spent most of his time studying magic in isolation and then demonstrated his abilities through carefully arranged and controlled magical duels.

He was a warrior mage.

However, Ethan had no time to dwell upon it.

His soul sense was already expanding rapidly across the surrounding plains.

His expression changed as he realized something

"There are more."

Without another word, he withdrew the massive ice-blue broadsword from his spatial ring.

The moment the weapon appeared, rich ice mana surged from his body violently through its blade.

Then, with a powerful roar, Ethan drove the broadsword deep into the frozen ground beneath his feet.

BOOM!

The surrounding ice cracked violently.

Blue veins of mana spread beneath the frozen earth in every direction like rapidly growing roots.

Within an instant, they expanded into a radius of nearly a hundred meters.

Then, the entire snowfield exploded.

Hundreds of razor-sharp ice spikes burst upward simultaneously.

Unlike ordinary area-of-effect spells that indiscriminately destroyed everything around them, these spikes curved and adjusted their trajectories with astonishing precision.

They completely ignored Ethan’s companions.

Instead, every single spike targeted only living enemies that had surrounded them silently using their ability to become invisible.

One after another, monstrous shrieks echoed across the plains.

Invisible figures were violently impaled before their concealment completely failed.

Blue blood sprayed into the air, and gigantic blue herons suddenly appeared everywhere.

One...

Three...

Six...

Ten...

At least ten of the monstrous birds struggled violently as countless ice spikes pierced straight through their bodies.

The more they struggled, the thicker the surrounding ice became.

Dense frost rapidly spread over their wings, necks, and legs before completely encasing them.

Within only a few breaths, the once violent monsters had transformed into towering blue ice statues.

Silence returned to the snowfield, making Erius and Aria stare blankly at the battlefield before him.

Their hearts pounded violently at this terrifying and efficient display of power.

If Misril’s display had been expected, this spell had blown them away.

Even Misril was surprised, and his evaluation of Ethan rose by many levels.

Till now, he had not witnessed Ethan’s strength, so his arrogant inner self refused to acknowledge him at all.

Ethan slowly pulled the broadsword from the frozen earth before sweeping his gaze across the surrounding plains.

Far away, crimson splashes already stained the endless white snow.

Those groups of students had already begun dying in droves, no matter how much they struggled against these monstrous and cruel hunters.

His expression gradually became grave.

"We are leaving."

His calm and powerful voice that left no room for negotiation immediately drew everyone’s attention.

"This place is infested with these creatures."

Ethan’s soul sense continued to spread through the surrounding area, allowing him to detect the faint disturbances rippling through the ice-element mana whenever one of the invisible herons moved.

He could already sense that more of them were slowly being attracted toward their location because of the sudden slaughter he had caused and the powerful mana fluctuations released by his spell.

Although the monstrous herons could conceal their bodies perfectly, becoming almost completely invisible to the naked eye, their movements still disturbed the natural flow of the surrounding ice-element mana.

To ordinary mages, those fluctuations were almost impossible to notice.

But Ethan was different.

Not only had he previously witnessed his master’s extraordinary understanding and manipulation of the space element, but his own soul was also exceptionally sensitive and powerful, allowing him to perceive changes in the surrounding mana far more clearly than ordinary mages.

To him, those disturbances were almost like ripples appearing across the surface of a perfectly calm lake.

And judging by the ones he could sense, there were already far more of these creatures in the surrounding area than the ones he had just killed.

Even Ethan wasn’t foolish enough to believe that he could fight hundreds of these silent hunters while simultaneously protecting everyone around him.

Without another word, he stretched out one hand.

The emerald-green dagger embedded inside the first heron’s eye immediately shot back into his grasp.

With a casual flick of his wrist, Ethan returned it to his spatial ring before turning toward the towering mountain rising behind them.

He then dashed across the snow without hesitation.

However, the moment he passed beside the corpse of one of the impaled herons, he briefly stopped and touched its frozen body.

The enormous creature disappeared into his spatial ring.

Ethan was quite interested in their ability to become invisible, and since he had never encountered such a magical beast before, he naturally wanted to examine its body later and determine exactly how this ability worked.

His destination was the towering mountain rising behind them.

His instincts told him those invisible predators preferred hunting across open terrain, and the rocky slopes and narrow mountain paths ahead would greatly restrict their movement and make it much harder for them to surround their group.

Seeing Ethan already moving, Misril immediately followed without asking a single question.

After witnessing Ethan’s strength firsthand, he had no reason to doubt his judgment.

Aria likewise hurried after them.

Even Erius abandoned any thought of questioning Ethan’s decision and quickly followed the others.

Although he didn’t want to admit it, somewhere deep within his heart, Ethan had already begun to give him a strange sense of security.

It was almost as though this mysterious young man had suddenly become the savior he hadn’t known he needed to survive this dangerous realm.

That realization made Erius uncomfortable, especially because he had previously regarded Ethan as an arrogant and troublesome bastard whom he wanted to submit to him and become his hunting dog.

As they rapidly moved toward the mountain, both Aria and Erius couldn’t help replaying Ethan’s previous spell within their minds.

Neither of them had ever witnessed an area-of-effect spell cast with such terrifying finesse.

The spell hadn’t relied upon overwhelming destruction or simply covered the entire area with indiscriminate attacks.

Instead, every single ice spike had appeared precisely where an enemy was hiding, while completely avoiding Ethan’s allies and wasting almost no mana in the process.

That astonishing level of control was difficult to imagine.

Aria’s eyes gradually changed as she looked at Ethan’s back.

The admiration she had initially felt toward him after seeing his mysterious actions was slowly transforming into worship.

Naturally, no one else noticed the change in her eyes, not even Ethan.

If the others came to know that the spell they had just witnessed wasn’t some ancient technique inherited from a powerful organization or a secret magical legacy, who knew how they would have reacted.

It was a spell Ethan had personally created years ago while travelling across the Blood Veil Continent after his Devil bloodline had awakened.

He had named it Thorn Ripple.