Chapter 12 : The Death Blow

My attention shifted toward the volcano.

Its enormous body was riddled with glowing cracks that spread across the mountain like countless wounds, each one leaking a dull, molten light from somewhere deep within the earth. Thick clouds of sulfurous gas poured continuously from those fractures, rising into the sky and mixing with the smoke already hanging over the battlefield. The entire mountain trembled with increasing violence, sending waves of vibration through the surrounding land as though some enormous beast had been buried beneath it and was desperately struggling to break free.

To an ordinary observer, the sight would have been nothing more than a volcano on the verge of eruption. The violent shaking, the molten light, the suffocating fumes, and the pressure building beneath the surface all pointed toward the same conclusion: the mountain was about to explode.

But appearances meant very little before my eyes.

I allowed my gaze to penetrate through the mountain's rocky crust, ignoring the layers of stone that separated the surface from the depths below. One layer after another became transparent to me until the true structure hidden beneath the volcano was revealed.

The continental crust stretched beneath my perception like an enormous living structure, and within it flowed the great rivers of mana that nourished the continent. They were not ordinary streams of energy. These vast currents had existed for countless years, circulating beneath the earth and carrying the mana that sustained the land itself.

Yet something was wrong.

Someone had forcibly altered their natural course.

The immense rivers of mana had been redirected toward the chamber beneath the volcano's central channel, the passage connecting the mountain to the molten depths of the world. Instead of continuing along their natural paths beneath the continent, enormous quantities of mana were being gathered into that single location.

And once they had been gathered, every means of escape had been sealed.

The mana had been compressed inside a completely enclosed space, with no natural outlet through which the accumulated energy could disperse. The longer I observed it, the clearer the purpose became.

A gigantic reservoir of unstable energy.

A bomb...

Disguised as a volcano.

I raised one hand and rested it beneath my chin as I continued examining the structure. Whoever had manipulated the world on this scale possessed extraordinary abilities. This was not simply a matter of forcing mana from one location to another. The currents had been redirected with a degree of precision that went far beyond ordinary magic, and the entire structure had been designed so that the accumulated energy would eventually become impossible to contain.

It would require dozens of True Mages working together in perfect harmony to accomplish something like this.

Or...

A Mage at the Origin level.

My eyes narrowed slightly.

“Even that old hag couldn't smuggle dozens of people inside.”

The thought immediately eliminated the first possibility. The scale of the manipulation was enormous, but the work itself showed the precision of a single will rather than the chaotic cooperation of dozens of mages. If the old witch had not somehow managed to conceal an entire group of powerful mages beneath everyone's noses, then there was really only one realistic explanation.

An Origin-level True Mage.

I turned my gaze toward Maxwell.

His strategy wasn't difficult to understand once the structure was exposed before me. The problem was not that the mana had been gathered. The problem was that it had been forced into a closed system, and as long as that system remained intact, releasing the accumulated energy all at once would only cause the very disaster Maxwell was trying to prevent.

“He intends to release the accumulated mana gradually.”

The thought formed naturally as I continued following the altered currents beneath the continent.

“Restore the balance, reopen the sealed mana channels, and allow the currents to resume their natural flow.”

It was a logical solution. Safe, methodical, and perfectly suited to someone who wanted to dismantle the problem without risking the destruction of the surrounding land.

But there was one unavoidable weakness.

It would take time.

A great deal of it.

I looked at Maxwell again, and a faint smile appeared on my face.

“For him.”

I paused for a moment.

“Not for me.”

Power existed for a reason.

The difference between Maxwell and me was not something that could be overcome simply through patience or careful technique. The gap was far more fundamental than that. It was greater than the difference between a featherweight boxer and a heavyweight stepping into the same boxing ring.

Weight classes existed for a reason.

They ensured fairness. They prevented opponents separated by an absurd difference in physical power from being forced into the same category, giving fighters of comparable strength an equal chance to compete.

The same principle applied to energy.

“If the mana about to explode is equivalent to an internal combustion engine…”

My smile widened slightly as the answer became obvious.

“…then what I'm about to release is a jet engine.”

I raised one hand before me.

“It was called the High Mana.”

The idea had first taken shape while I was observing the beings that inhabited the world beyond the sky. Those creatures had been empowered by a superior form of energy, and ordinary mana was simply no longer sufficient when dealing with opponents who operated on that level.

If ordinary mana belonged to one weight class, then the energy used by those beings belonged to another.

So I had sought a way to bridge that difference.

The principle was simple.

If an enemy possessed a superior form of energy, then ordinary power was no longer enough. The only solution was to forge an energy of equal—or greater—weight.

In the end, the principle remained the same.

Weight classes existed to maintain fairness.

Only equals could challenge equals.

And only Great Rulers could stand against Great Rulers.

My heart beat once.

BOOM.

An immense force erupted from the mana core within my chest.

The reaction was immediate.

The sky trembled as an overwhelming pressure spread outward from my body, while the surrounding air seemed to scream beneath the sudden increase in energy. The winds surrounding the volcano exploded outward in every direction before abruptly freezing in place, as though nature itself had momentarily forgotten how to move beneath the pressure I had released.

The clouds twisted into enormous spirals overhead.

I glanced to the side and looked toward Maxwell.

“Watch closely, Maxwell.”

A calm smile settled across my face.

“And learn.”

I had already seen the method he intended to use. He would have needed an enormous amount of time to accomplish what I was about to do, carefully restoring the balance of the continent one mana current at a time.

But there were situations in which patience was unnecessary.

“What takes the mind months to solve…”

My gaze returned to the volcano.

“…the fist can solve in seconds.”

I lowered my center of gravity and adjusted my stance.

The position was a modified martial arts stance inspired by a style I had once seen during my previous life on Earth. One foot moved forward while the other shifted backward, establishing a stable foundation beneath me. My body followed the movement naturally as I prepared to transfer every ounce of force into a single attack.

Then I struck the air with my foot.

The sky received my step.

At the same instant, I twisted my waist, turning my shoulders with the movement as a violent vortex of wind spiraled around my body. Every muscle contracted with tremendous force. Every fiber tightened in perfect harmony, not through brute strength alone, but through the precise coordination of my entire body.

My heart beat once more.

BOOM.

High Mana surged from the pulsing reactor within my chest.

The energy flooded through every vein, every muscle, every cell, until my entire body seemed to become nothing more than a conduit for that overwhelming force. Yet the torrent did not stop there. It surpassed the natural boundaries of my body and flowed outward, saturating the surrounding space until the very air seemed to become heavy beneath its presence.

Behind me, Maxwell's pupils contracted.

His expression froze.

For a single moment, his connection to the world was severed.

The mana that filled the sky and earth vanished from his senses. The enormous currents that he had been manipulating, the energy that had always been present around him, suddenly became indistinguishable from emptiness.

Only the mana contained within his own body remained within his perception.

“This…”

His emerald eyes trembled as he tried to understand what he was sensing.

“…this isn't merely the release of magical power.”

He was right.

The surrounding space had become a field.

The immense mass of High Mana overwhelmed this portion of the world, spreading through it until the natural balance of energy was completely drowned beneath its presence. It was as though the fabric of spacetime itself had been punctured, forcibly creating an artificial field in which my energy had become the dominant force.

Then, with nothing but my will, the High Mana began to compress.

The field collapsed inward.

The enormous quantity of energy that had just saturated the surrounding space was forced toward a single point, its density increasing again and again as I continued compressing it. What had previously been an overwhelming field gradually became something far more concentrated, until all that tremendous power was condensed into one place.

My fist.

There was no dazzling radiance.

No grand display of light.

Only absolute pressure.

For an instant, the space around my fist seemed to distort beneath the sheer density of the energy contained within it.

Then I threw a punch.

I called it—

Death Blow.

The movement was almost gentle.

There was no explosive motion accompanying it, no dramatic burst of visible power. The strike simply moved forward with the inevitability of a falling meteor descending through the atmosphere, slow enough to be perceived yet carrying a force that could not be stopped once it had begun.

The invisible strike effortlessly pierced through the volcano's crater.

It passed through rivers of molten lava without slowing, cutting through the mountain as though the enormous mass of rock and magma simply did not exist. The attack continued deeper and deeper, descending through the mountain and into the earth until it finally reached the abnormally compressed sphere of mana hidden beneath the surface.

The instant the two forces collided, the result was almost anticlimactic.

It was like a sphere of glowing steel piercing through butter.

The unstable mana melted beneath the impact.

The compressed structure collapsed.

The artificial reservoir disintegrated.

There was no deafening explosion. No enormous pillar of fire erupted into the sky, and no wave of destruction swept across the continent.

Instead, the power was directed inward.

The first sign of what had happened was an earthquake.

Then another.

The earth trembled violently as the force of the attack traveled through the underground structure. A massive quake spread for hundreds of kilometers, causing distant mountains to shudder and forests to sway beneath the weight of an unseen force. The land itself seemed to groan as the artificial structure beneath it was dismantled.

And then...

Silence.

The High Mana continued moving through the underground network, piercing through the natural mana and dismantling the artificial structure that had obstructed its flow. Once the barriers were destroyed, the sealed channels began to open one after another.

At my command, the blocked mana rivers returned to their original paths.

One after another, the immense currents resumed their natural flow.

The continent breathed once more.

It was almost as though the land itself had been holding its breath while those channels remained sealed, waiting for someone to remove the obstruction. Now that the balance had been restored, the mana beneath the continent flowed naturally once again, continuing along the paths it had followed for countless years as though it had never been interrupted.

I slowly lowered my fist.

For a moment, I simply watched the volcano.

It had become completely stable.

The violent trembling had disappeared, the pressure beneath the mountain had been released, and the rivers of mana were once again circulating naturally beneath the continent.

Only then did I turn toward Maxwell.

“So?”

A faint smile appeared on my face.

“What do you think?”

Maxwell remained silent for a long while.

His emerald eyes stayed fixed on the volcano below, watching the mountain that had only moments ago been on the verge of becoming a catastrophic weapon. He seemed to be comparing what he had expected to happen with what had actually happened, perhaps searching for some flaw in the method, some hidden trick that would make the difference between us easier to understand.

But there was nothing.

The restored rivers of mana were already flowing quietly beneath the continent, and the last traces of the instability that had threatened to destroy the surrounding region were disappearing one after another.

Eventually, Maxwell released a slow breath.

“…Amazing.”

His voice carried no exaggeration.

He had seen enough to know that there was no point pretending otherwise.

“I knew there was a gap between our levels…”

A bitter smile appeared on his lips as he finally looked at me.

“But I never imagined it was this wide.”

I chuckled softly and walked over before giving him a light pat on the shoulder.

“Don't worry.”

I smiled.

“You'll have your chance to shine.”

Maxwell's expression changed immediately.

“What chance?”

He shook his head with a helpless laugh, clearly unable to imagine what I could possibly mean.

“Not while you're here.”

I looked at him for a moment, a mysterious smile slowly forming on my face.

“It may come sooner than you think.”

His smile disappeared instantly.

“…My lord.”

A shiver ran through his body.

“The way you're saying that gives me a very bad feeling.”

There was a brief silence between us before Maxwell forced another smile onto his face, as though he had suddenly realized that there might still be a way to escape whatever fate I was casually preparing for him.

“On second thought…”

He straightened slightly.

“I'm perfectly happy living under the protection of a great person such as yourself.”

I slowly narrowed my eyes.

“Maxwell…”

My voice became dangerously calm.

“Are you implying that I'm going to dump all my work on you?”

His expression froze.

“No, no.”

A bead of sweat slowly rolled down his forehead.

I folded my arms.

“Then you want your chance to shine, don't you, Lord of the Great Mage Tower?”

The sweat on Maxwell's forehead increased almost immediately.

His smile stiffened further and further as he desperately tried to determine the safest possible answer. He had clearly realized that every word he said from this point onward could become evidence against him, yet refusing me directly was obviously not an option either.

At that moment, he felt exactly like a naive child whose kind grandfather had casually wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pointed toward a deep pit, and said with a warm smile:

Look over there.

Why don't you jump?

I leaned forward slightly.

“What did you say?”

“I didn't hear you.”

“No, my lord!”

Maxwell immediately straightened his back, his expression becoming unusually serious.

“I want to shine!”

He raised his voice with enough conviction to make it sound as though this had been his lifelong dream.

“I want to prove that I am worthy of serving an extraordinary person such as yourself!”

For a moment, silence descended between us.

Then I burst out laughing.

“Hahahaha!”

I patted his shoulder again, completely satisfied with the answer.

“Excellent answer.”

“That is exactly what I expected from the strongest mage on the continent.”

The moment those words left my mouth, Maxwell's shoulders slumped.

The confidence disappeared from his face, and he stood there with the expression of a man who had just realized that he had walked willingly into a trap whose jaws were already closing around him.

For reasons he couldn't quite explain, he had the unmistakable feeling that he had just volunteered for something he would regret for the rest of his life.