The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 815: The Grand Opening Celebration Week 11

[New Dawn, Inside the colosseum, Damian’s POV.]

“Who are you?” Damian asked.

The imposter stored the waygate runic mold he had received as the prize for first place in his spatial storage, and grinned like a maniac.

Damian had already created tens of spells, surrounding the manaless man from all sides. Sam and Einar had also noticed the oddity and were ready for anything that might happen in the next second.

The issue was with the thousands of people looking at them. If he beat up a first-ranker in front of everyone, it wouldn’t exactly be a good thing.

“Handle things here, check up on Sanctuary,” Damian said.

Einar and Sam nodded at once. In times of emergency, the orders of a keeper were absolute. It was one of the rules of the high table that they all had agreed on. Sam grabbed the second-place winner with Ghislain and flew away from the stage. Einar did the same with the third-place one, only she jumped instead of flying.

“What are-”

Before the imposter could finish, Damian activated a giant waygate spell right beneath his feet, making him fall like an untethered branch. Damian slowly flew inside behind the guy as well. Sam and Einar were more than capable of taking care of anything abnormal going on. Damian himself did not want to take his eyes off this unnatural existence at any cost.

The waygate had connected to another small rocky island that had a dungeon entrance on it.

“What a rude thing to do to a guest that you invited.” The man using the face of Theren Emberwrit said with a malevolent grin on his face.

He was caught, and still the guy was just as cocky. Either the guy was extremely powerful or simply insane.

Damian did not attack first. His slight discomfort with the mana sense did not control his actions. Unless the guy was a fourth-ranker, Damian was more than confident he could stop him.

“Start speaking or you won’t be left with a mouth to speak,” Damian stated his thoughts clearly.

“Come on now! It’s been so long,” The imposter replied with not a worry in the world. However, seeing Damian’s serious expression, the mocking smile on his face disappeared.

Right before his eyes, Damian saw the red traveling coat of the imposter turn into a pitch black fur coat; the sizes of the two did not match at all. The black one was double the size of the red one. The clothes of the man also slightly changed; the leather armour was gone, replaced by simple black britches and an oversized white shirt.

The face had completely changed; the normal human ears were replaced with the dark grey wolf ears. The height of the beastman had increased to almost 7 feet. The physique wasn’t changed much, though – as far as beastmen go, the wolfman was much skinnier than average.

A wolf beastman with strange esper powers.

There was only one such individual Damian had met in his whole life.

“Kazak’s student..” Damian whispered with wide eyes.

“DON’T TAKE HIS NAME FROM YOUR FILTHY MOUTH!”

Neo shouted, his eyes losing the last semblance of humanity they held. His face, surrounded by dark purple cloud, with two red eyes shining through, was the very definition of a monster.

For a second, the words of Kazak’s ancestors echoed in Damian’s mind.

’The beast cannot be tamed..’

’Once, we roamed as kings and queens beneath the endless skies, our voices rising as one in songs of triumph. The lands trembled beneath our might, and our unity was our strength.’

’But I, Drazhan Kaelvar Thalaras, Herald of the Scorching Tempest, tell you this: pride cannot be stolen—it can only be surrendered.’

’For the fallen, For the pride. For home.’

“What is this? Revenge?” Damian commented, regaining his momentarily lost composure.

“Time for that will also come. Today I have a different mission, Eldoris dog.” Neo said, the purple cloud slowly covering his whole body like an armour made of dense jelly.

Damian quickly opened his receiver and checked the Sanctum head’s channel; his suspicion was proven right. Evrin was attacked, but she had successfully neutralised the threat. And had even captured some alive.

He looked up at the young beastmen. The guy had purposefully used an invited person’s disguise so Damian would get suspicious about him. Then he used the diverted focus to enter the tournament and create a chance for his buddies to attack Evrin.

It shouldn’t have been possible. Unless there was someone from inside Sanctum who had aided them.

The small sandy rock island was in the middle of nowhere. All around it was only blue water, as far as the eyes could see. The two of them were standing at only five meters distance from each other.

Unlike the beastmen esper, Damian did not need to prepare for the battle at all. He already had over twenty runic circles hovering all around him. He could have more, but they were distracting from his vision. Not that the guy before him could move faster than his instant spell creation.

“Let’s see how great you are!”

Neo, covered in full purple armour, charged towards Damian. The young beastman’s hands and feet were glowing with a red aura.

An esper with a pugilist side job. It wasn’t exactly unheard of, but people usually only trained for one class. Hybrids were very rare. Since it was only possible to be a hybrid through first-rank jobs. Everyone wanted to level up fast and rank up. No kid, or their parents, would normally waste time training for multiple jobs.

An esper able to use aura was nothing new. But an esper so adept at using the aura for physical strengthening, like a true pugilist, was actually an interesting thing to see.

But..

The punch coming towards Damian’s face was incredibly slow. To Damian’s senses, it was like seeing a slow-motion scene of some movie.

Damian easily caught the fist of the young wolf beastmen. Neo’s eyes were wide, but his face showed – it wasn’t an unexpected outcome. Damian raised his hand and punched him squarely on the purple-armoured chest.

It wasn’t even his 30% strength. And yet the young beastmen went flying, crashing into the dark stone of the island and going past it, breaking the small hill and landing in the ocean, some distance from the small island.

Damian squinted. A bit confused. The guy was truly just a second-ranker. Why had he come to fight him then? And even that when he had Sam and Einar with him. Had the guy truly gone so insane, burning in the fire of vengeance, that he thought fighting three transcendent beings was something doable alone?

Damian flew forward slightly, worried that the wolf-boy was drowning. But before he reached the water, air bubbles started appearing furiously where the guy had submerged. Then, displacing a huge amount of water, solid purple smoke rose out of the ocean, a giant dark wolf running on top of it.

The charge was aimed straight at him. Damian did not use any spells at all and grabbed the ten-meter giant wolf’s head, easily overpowering him and slamming the beast into the stony island. Spiderweb-like cracks instantly appeared, with a small crater forming beneath the dark wolf.

This time, Damian had to use a little more than 30% of his strength. Whatever weird esper job this guy had was indeed a powerful one. He might have an edge above the transcendent seed level of second rankers. But to a real transcendent, it wasn’t even equal to a worthy practice session.

The giant wolf growled, then its massive figure exploded into a massive dark and purple cloud. Damian activated multiple wind spells and immediately dispelled all the smoke.

It revealed the figure of Neo in his beastman form. Though he looked much more beat up than he did before transforming.

“The tales of your absurd powers did not mention stupidly insane physical strength,” Neo said while coughing up a little. Blood dripping out of a corner of his mouth.

“Stop this waste of time. Surrender. You have no other choice. You and your friends’ lives will not receive a death sentence.”

“Hah! Haha.. Believing the words of the man who imprisoned and killed the man who sacrificed his all to save your miserable lives? My mind is not that far gone yet, Eldoris dog.”

“You have greatly misunderstood what had happened back then, kid. Kazak did what he did for all the people present in the valley. He poisoned himself to achieve that miraculous feat. You have no idea how wrong you have gone from the path your great leader wished for your people.”

“SHUT UP! DO NOT TAKE HIS NAME THROUGH YOUR FILTHY MOUTH!”

Damian gritted his teeth. Because of the words of some forgotten fragment of a salted ancient beastmen, thousands of beastmen in today’s time had lost their lives. And this man, before him, had led that miserable flock of beastmen astray.

“Shadow Reaver.. What a joke.” Damian murmured.

“AGHHH!!”

The injured young wolf screamed at the top of his lungs. Damian stood ready for the attack, but there was no simple incoming attack.

Seconds later, from below the ocean, an enormous dark wolf pulled itself out. It was beyond 100 meters in length. The black skin was more of an astral substance than a real fur. The water was unaffected by the massive figure.

“Kazak’s technique..”

Damian’s eyes were widened to the limit.