Before Astroa could think about his plan for more than ten seconds, Solia Castle’s royal guards took stances again and launched arrows.
“Ugh, these small fries…”
All of the arrows collided with the barrier that Astroa had prepared earlier and fell down.
Although the attack ended up a failure, it appeared to have succeeded in making Astroa more annoyed because he gritted his teeth as he glared toward the direction where the arrows came from.
‘I don’t have time to deal with you bastards!’
Astroa assessed that the unidentified masked man was far more dangerous than the castle’s royal guards. It was because, to Astroa, the masked man was a bastard that managed to threaten his life twice, the life of a mage who had reached the height of Seven Circles magic. He may have had his guard down during his past encounters, but the masked man could not be taken lightly.
“Blizzard!”
Astroa decided to make sure that the small fries were neutralized and cast Blizzard, which was a Seven Circles level magic and the highest level ice element magic he could cast.
“This is, god damn it…”
The captain of the royal guards definitely heard what spell Astroa was reciting. The captain immediately started to have his subordinates fall back.
“Fall back! Everyone! Retreat! It’s a large-scale magic! You must fall back!”
Ha… [Note: I’m sure you can tell, but this is not laughter. This is a sound effect as in how one would breath out during a cold winter and notice the breathe is turning into white mist because it is so cold.]
It was supposed to be spring right now, but somehow, the breath coming out of the captain was turning into white mist.
The wind was initially blowing gently, but soon, it started to generate fierce noise that was sharp enough to tear apart people’s eardrums. With the cold wind, the atmosphere was changed to the point that it was slowing the royal guards’ movements.
“Uu… Col…”
A royal guard froze completely before being able to finish his word. The true power of the Blizzard, a Seven Circles magic, was starting to take effect.
“Kuuuk!”
The captain barely managed to get out of the blizzard’s range. He covered himself by raising one of his arms. He scrunched up his face. It was because some of his subordinates didn’t manage to escape the blizzard.
A royal guard that was standing near the center of the effective area didn’t just freeze. He was turned completely white and beyond recognition.
“C-Captain…”
A royal guard crawling from the effective area put out his arm toward the captain. The expression on his face was desperate and trying to tell the captain as he was pleading to be saved. However, with a tear hanging on his face, the royal guard froze solid.
It was a helpless situation.
Because he couldn’t save his subordinates, out of despair, the captain was just standing there with a vacant look on his face. Meanwhile, to the captain, a shadow was being cast from above.
“C-Captain! Look out!”
Although he wasn’t frozen from the magic, the captain was standing still like a statue because he was looking at the royal guard that didn’t make it out of the range. A royal guard came to tackle the captain and have him fall back.
“Kuuk?!”
Baam!
To the spot where the captain was standing a moment ago, an icicle, no, a large boulder of ice fell.
Its lower end had a blunt shape. If he was under the ice, it looked like it would not have ended with simply getting crushed.
The problem now was that these things were falling continuously.
‘This is a Seven Circles magic…’
The captain crumpled his face as he raised his upper body.
“Hm!”
Having noticed the captain staring at him, Astroa snorted as he thought of the captain’s glare as just an impudent gesture. Astroa turned his head away.
There were people remaining in the Holy Temple’s side, but regardless, they were not the people that could hurt him directly.
Now that he roughly neutralized the small-fries from Solia Castle, Astroa fixated his gaze toward the distance where Nainiae and the mask man were standing.
‘The amount of mana remaining in me is…about half? Still, this is enough.’
Astroa narrowed his eyes. He had enough mana to cast two more Seven Circles level spells that were about as powerful as the Blizzard.
Also, there was his trump card, the drug that he completed after having spent a long time in experiments.
There was no problem.
‘…I shall send you to your grave.’
Astroa’s eyes bulged with deadly intent.
***
“Huh, look at how violent his eyes are.”
Riley shivered his shoulders as he watched the blizzard from afar.
It appeared that the blizzard was quite powerful. Even though Riley was far away from the effective range, even he could feel the cold from here. It was making his body shiver from the cold.
Despite the cold from the magic and the grand mage glaring at him with murderous eyes, Riley was looking as relaxed as ever.
Nainiae shifted her eye to the back where the child was standing. Nainiae asked Riley,
“Hey… What are you going to do?”
She asked because Astroa was floating in the air and pretty far from where they were. Riley’s skill as a swordsman was something anyone would be proud of, but from this distance, it looked like it would be difficult for him to use his swordsmanship skill against Astroa.