"Ivanovsky?" When Lucian saw that the sneaking figure who had just slipped away mid-pursuit was none other than Ivanovsky, he could barely conceal his shock. Had he not already heard the footsteps earlier, entered a state of spellcasting focus, and been skilled at maintaining his composure, the violent emotional surge would have already broken his invisibility.
Ural City was as vast as Alinger, and the wilderness to its west was sparsely populated with mountain ranges stretching endlessly — and yet two people who had deliberately avoided each other, fleeing in completely different directions, happened to run into each other at the bottom of this narrow, dark mine shaft. The odds were absolutely preposterous!
Had they stumbled into each other by chance, or had Ivanovsky actually been secretly tailing him?
Lucian forced his heartbeat and breathing to slow, preventing them from breaking through the natural concealment his invisibility provided. At the same time, he suppressed any thought of killing Ivanovsky — the man was a Great Knight, with an almost supernatural intuition for danger!
From his hiding place, Lucian watched calmly as Ivanovsky came to a halt and surveyed the bottom of the mine shaft.
Perhaps Ivanovsky had simply never expected to encounter anyone in such a remote, abandoned place — or perhaps for some other reason, he did not conduct a thorough search of the mine shaft's bottom. After a cursory sweep with his sharp eyes and instincts, he let out a quiet breath, seemingly much more relaxed.
Then Ivanovsky turned, walked to the support beams near the necrotic rift, dropped to one knee, traced a cross over his chest, and began to pray in a low voice: "Father God above, please descend and dwell within us, cleanse us of all our defilement, and save our souls..."
"He's praying at a time like this?" Lucian thought with a trace of puzzlement. This notorious smuggler, this vicious, blunt "villain" — this Great Knight of such "skillful acting" — was actually a devout and "pure-hearted" follower of the God of Truth?
But the knowledgeable, well-traveled "scholar" Lucian immediately realized something was wrong: "No — whether it's the Northern Church or the Southern Church, when referring to the God of Truth, they either say 'the Lord,' or 'the True God,' or 'the Supreme Being.' They never say 'Father God.' And a proper cross is distinctly longer vertically than horizontally — not like the one Ivanovsky drew, which was short from top to bottom and wide from side to side. Ugly, and with a strange, unsettling quality."
"A follower of some other deity? No, that can't be right either — from the Arcane Library's 'Compendium of All True Gods Who Can Bestow Divine Arts,' I know that in order to evade the influence of the Church of Truth, no 'deity' or 'church' still uses the cross as its symbol..."
"What kind of power is really hiding behind Ivanovsky?"
Things were becoming increasingly bizarre. Lucian struggled to restrain his thoughts, preventing them from running too wild lest Ivanovsky detect them.
As Ivanovsky's brief prayer came to an end, a solemn and vast aura of Divine Arts manifested before him. Points of milky-white light slowly brightened, and what astonished Lucian even more was that this aura was unmistakably the genuine presence of the God of Truth — not natural Divine Arts or power bestowed by some other deity. Although the Divine Arts cast by priests of different churches shared common characteristics in their broad features, the finer details still reflected each one's distinct qualities.
"He can use special Divine Arts — could he be a Holy Knight?!"
The radiance of the Divine Arts dispersed, seeping into Ivanovsky's eyes. Then, with a smile, he extended his right hand and plunged it squarely into the necrotic rift.
"If Viscount Vite comes hunting for me, I'll slip in here for now. Thank you, Father God, for providing such a hidden world that overlaps with the main world — Who?!" Ivanovsky had been murmuring to himself in a relaxed tone, but his expression suddenly changed. His left hand snatched up the great sword and he lunged toward the corner where Lucian was hiding, while his right hand withdrew swiftly to grip the hilt.
The moment Lucian saw him plunge his right hand into the necrotic rift and heard him thank the Father God, a storm of shock and turmoil surged through his heart. What on earth was going on?!
Even someone like Lucian, who was so skilled at controlling his emotions and maintaining his composure, couldn't help but lose control for a brief moment when confronted with something so utterly paradigm-shattering. The violent fluctuations in his emotions were picked up by Ivanovsky's razor-sharp instincts as a Great Knight!
But the moment his emotions shifted, Lucian knew he was in trouble. Forcing himself to steady his mind as quickly as possible, he activated the spell model within his soul.
A halo of serene, deep-blue light rippled outward in concentric waves from Lucian's body, spreading in all directions at tremendous speed.
Third-rank Arcane Magic — "Greater Sleep Spell." This was another new spell Lucian had constructed within his soul during the months since entering the Shahran Empire.
Under normal circumstances, the Web Spell would have been the optimal choice to entangle Ivanovsky. But like the Star of Maskelyn, this second-rank spell belonged to a peculiar category of Arcane Magic — even with the spell model already built into his soul, it still required material components to cast, and there simply wasn't enough time.
Although Ivanovsky's speed was astonishing, the Greater Sleep Spell was a wave-type area-of-effect attack that left him no room to dodge. Yet the instant his two-handed greatsword came crashing down toward the halo of the spell, a layer of milky-white Holy Light erupted across his body. The serene blue curtain of light shuddered violently before being cleaved apart, as though the sea itself were being parted.
A small spray of the "deep-blue radiance" splashed against Ivanovsky, but his eyes merely glazed over for a fraction of a second before he snapped back to full clarity, his forward slash not delayed in the slightest.
"This…?"
Lucian hadn't expected the Greater Sleep Spell to perform so poorly — it had only halted Ivanovsky for an imperceptible instant, doing essentially nothing to slow the momentum of his strike.
Such a dramatic shift in outcomes could easily mean the difference between life and death. Fortunately, Lucian still had a trump card. With a focused act of will, the "Elemental" ring activated, conjuring a shield of gold-white flame out of thin air that materialized around him, forming a magnificent barrier of fire outside his evening suit.
Ivanovsky's greatsword, blazing with milky-white radiance, slammed into the gold-white flame shield, sending countless sparks dancing in every direction.
The flame shield lurched violently, on the verge of shattering — and Ivanovsky grunted as the flames lashed back against him, scorching great patches of his body into blackened char.
The "Greater Flame Shield" could defend not only against physical, elemental, explosive, and pure energy attacks, but also deal severe flame reflection damage to enemies who attacked at close range — it was the kind of magic that could kill an enemy even if the caster stood perfectly still and let them attack. The reason it hadn't shown its true power before was that many of the enemies Lucian had encountered used death curses, curses, soul-based attacks, and other bizarre forms of assault against which this fifth-circle spell was less effective!
"Damn it — how many powerful magic items does this guy have?!" Ivanovsky had also discovered that the one probing him was Lucian, but what shocked him even more was that the young mage had activated yet another fifth-circle spell, once again triggered through a magic item.
Ivanovsky was deeply frustrated and furious. If it had been any third-circle defensive spell, or even most fourth-circle defensive spells, he would have had a fair chance of cleaving straight through the defense and cutting Lucian down with a single sword stroke. But the number of powerful magic items the boy carried was absurd — this was outright extravagance!
Still, Ivanovsky was a Great Knight, and his willpower was stubborn and resolute. He refused to wallow in frustration, nor did he linger on the pain inflicted by the Flame Shield. A layer of milky-white radiance suffused his body, quenching the searing flames, and he swiftly shifted position to break the lock. Then, trading wound for wound, he continued his assault with sweeping greatsword strikes.
With every devastating blow, the fifth-circle "Greater Flame Shield" shuddered violently, as if suffering structural damage. At the same time, with each of Ivanovsky's strikes landing, the air around Lucian trembled, making it difficult for his soul and mental power to stabilize. This severely disrupted Lucian's subsequent spellcasting, prolonging his casting cooldown.
"Is this a 'Disruption' bloodline? Another purebred Mage Hunter bloodline!" As a mage, encyclopedic knowledge was essential for Lucian — only by being so could he, in the heat of battle, identify an opponent's abilities at a single glance.
The "Disruption" bloodline granted a dispelling effect with every blow. As long as the strike landed, it could severely interfere with a mage's spellcasting, and it could likewise disrupt the functioning of spells themselves, granting tremendous resistance to magic. It was one of the genuine mage-slaying bloodlines, and when paired with Holy Knight Divine Arts for support, it became even more formidable. For instance, Ivanovsky's ability to extinguish the Flame Shield's reflective power was the product of the two working in combination.
"Ivanovsky's strength is at least at the fifth rank, but his speed, agility, and so on are all below the fourth rank — he must be carrying items that enhance his strength. However, a Holy Knight with the 'Disruption' bloodline has extremely strict requirements when it comes to magic and Divine Art items. He can't use talismans, necklaces, rings, or similar accessories — he can only equip large pieces such as armor, boots, and gloves, where there is enough surface area to inscribe additional, complex anti-disruption arrays."