"It's him—Lucian? Evans!"
Though his strength had temporarily dropped to the seventh tier, Ramiro still recognized Lucian's identity from his unreserved arcane fluctuations and aura, which only deepened his understanding of just how dangerous his current situation was.
He had lost the initiative, his power was reduced, and in another twelve seconds it might drop by yet another tier. Against Lucian Evans—a man who possessed more arcane items than he could count—such a Ramiro had virtually no chance of victory. And to make matters worse, Lucian hadn't even drawn that magical staff inlaid with a solar gem, the one capable of casting Banishment. If he delayed any longer and had his soul infiltrated by soul-type curses or fate-disturbance spells, his soul disrupted, his destiny interfered with—he would truly, permanently perish!
In comparison, Ramiro would have far rather run into a ninth-circle Grand Mage. With the opponent unaware of his true capabilities, his chances of escaping through his uncanny abilities were quite high. But Lucian Evans had fought him before, had witnessed his self-destruction, and would certainly be able to guess at his general trump cards. He would inevitably take the appropriate precautions.
"He just cast two spells in succession. Even if one was only fourth-circle and the other came from a magic item's intrinsic effect, he should be in a brief backlash-stun state."
"I can't keep thinking about seizing an opportunity to turn things around. He hasn't even activated his Trigger Spell yet. The longer this drags on, the more dangerous it becomes."
"I have to make a decision! Hesitation will only get me killed!"
A flood of thoughts surged through his mind, but in that brief instant, drawing on the willpower that had carried him to his advancement and his wealth of dangerous experiences, Ramiro forcibly suppressed the despair and gloom. He assessed the situation with clarity, and the masses of flesh-slurry rushing in from every direction suddenly swelled—and detonated without the slightest warning.
Even if it meant self-destructing again after having done so just two or three months ago, even if the injuries from the last time hadn't fully healed, even if it would leave him in a weakened state for a prolonged period—perhaps even jeopardizing his future chances of ascending to Epic Knight—Ramiro had no choice. At a moment like this, failing to be ruthless with oneself, failing to act decisively, was tantamount to showing mercy to the enemy. Dead, he would remain weakened forever, and would never have a chance to become an Epic Knight.
BOOM!
The earth-shattering explosion turned every speck of gold, silver, and gemstone near Ramiro to powder. The terrifying shockwave hurled countless fragments outward with horrifying momentum and speed, surging toward Lucian.
"I refuse to believe you won't dodge!"
"I refuse to believe I can't disrupt your next spell!"
Ramiro's savage will seemed to fuse itself into the roar of the detonation.
Because Lucian's Cognition World—his Meditation environment—had already been transformed by the "Wave-Particle Duality Meditation Method" to better align with the Truth, his Meditation speed was not only two to three times faster than others of his tier, but his post-casting backlash was also slightly shorter than that of a normal sixth-circle mage. Most importantly, of the two spells he had just cast, one was only fourth-circle and the other was an intrinsic effect of the Immortal Throne robes—both caused a backlash so brief for a high-tier mage that recovery took roughly a single second.
Ramiro's hope in self-destructing was that the horrifying power would catch Lucian right as he emerged from his backlash, scrambling to deploy a defensive spell or trigger a spatial escape. That way, Ramiro could avoid the brief but lethally dangerous moment of soul transfer.
The terrifying blast wave crashed in from every direction except behind, carrying an aura of absolute annihilation. In a situation like that, not a single mage would think of anything other than their own survival first.
Lucian recovered even earlier than Ramiro had anticipated—virtually the moment the explosion erupted, he snapped free from the stun. Facing an explosion of this magnitude, his instinct was to deploy the "Energy Absorption Field."
But then, the words he had drilled into himself before engaging resurfaced in his mind: "If I fail to kill or imprison Ramiro, he will spread my identity far and wide. When that happens, being unable to continue observing the God-cultivation experiments up close would be the least of my troubles—if a Cardinal sets his sights on me, I'm truly done for!"
"I cannot let him escape my grasp—death or imprisonment!"
The consequences of letting Ramiro go flashed through his mind one after another, and Lucian stood firm where he was. Instead of deploying the "Energy Absorption Field," he seized the moment to activate a magic item, deliberately suppressing the spell trigger's activation slightly to ensure a hit.
A crystalline ray of ice and frost lanced from Lucian's left chest, piercing into the swelling blast wave with the deep, lifeless silence of a frozen wasteland.
At the same instant, the horrifying force of the explosion slammed into Lucian's body. He vanished from his original position, then reappeared at the entrance to the hidden corridor, a protective barrier of luminous energy now enveloping him against the concussive force.
Because the spell trigger had activated a fraction too late, Lucian's face was pale and drawn, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Had the Immortal Throne robes not offered decent protection, and had he not narrowly avoided the explosion's most devastating moment, he would likely have suffered injuries as severe as those from forced spatial transit. As it was, the damage was merely ordinary.
While waiting for the blast wave to subside, Lucian produced a vial of "Song of Water" potion and drank it down. His complexion slowly recovered.
Perhaps thanks to the freezing effect imposed by the Silent Ice Coffin, the horrific explosion did not rage for long—after just a few seconds it dissipated entirely, leaving behind a carpet of golden dust, silver ash, and gemstone grit. Many Divine Arts items and materials had been similarly annihilated.
"Hmm?" Lucian probed the area carefully with his full awareness, then suddenly noticed a crystalline object resembling a chunk of ice at the very center of the explosion. Inside it, a dark, enigmatic shadow appeared to be frozen.
Using Mage Hand, he retrieved the crystal and confirmed that it remained because the Silent Ice Coffin's cold had not fully melted away. The shadow within was a mass of flesh resembling a clump of mud, and peering through it, one could faintly make out Ramiro's pale face—his expression vacant, like an ice sculpture frozen for tens of thousands of years.
"His body and soul are both quite unusual. Before, when the Silent Ice Coffin froze a soul, it would melt both soul and body together, leaving not a trace behind," Lucian remarked with a slight sense of wonder. He cast a series of sealing spells upon the ice crystal, then produced the Dawn Crystal Ball and, through the link between his main body and his "clone," began searching for the resurrection trump card Ramiro had left behind.
Having witnessed Ramiro's self-destruction firsthand and then seen him appear alive and well before his very eyes, even an ordinary person could deduce that Ramiro must possess some method of resurrection. Combined with the bizarre flesh-splitting and self-destruct capabilities, it was possible to guess at a preliminary theory: he used the process of splitting his body to complete the cycle. Since Lucian was uncertain whether outright obliterating Ramiro's residual soul would kill him permanently and prevent revival, he chose to locate the "thing" Ramiro had left behind first.
"A resurrection without the corresponding magical ritual to support it will certainly have limitations—either spatial distance or time-based." Approaching it from a semi-professional angle, Lucian began his "arcane detection." Such a resurrection method was obviously not like a lich's phylactery or the improved Life Concealment Spell developed by Felipe—those allowed revival regardless of distance or how long consciousness had been lost, as long as the pre-prepared phylactery and tools remained intact.
Of course, if Ramiro's bloodline abilities were truly so heaven-defying that his resurrection fragment was hidden somewhere within the Holy City of Liance, Lucian could only resign himself to that fact. After leaving the Domain of the Lord of the Netherworld, he would immediately flee far from here, relying on the Fate Mysterian's unique abilities to evade Legendary powerhouses.
Inside the crystal ball, two points of light slowly brightened, and between them, a faint, gossamer-thin connecting line appeared.