Silence pervaded the room that had now adopted a dark red light from the isolation spell Noah was in. This continued for almost a full minute, during which the hint of frustrated anger in his eyes gradually melted into astonishment and…joy? They remained trained on the archmages though, while they stared back indifferently. The silence was finally broken by the blond haired woman of similar age to the blond middle aged archmage who initially spoke.
“What, no response? I do feel somewhat guilty for doing this to a product of my own mistakes, but I’m not about to complain about an easy jo-”
“Ha. Ha ha ha. Hahaha!”
Noah cut off the archmage that spoke by throwing his head back abruptly, and laughing incredibly boisterously.
“Do you not-”
“HAHAHA”
As she tried to speak once again as Noah paused to catch his breath, he cut her off once again, in even louder laughter, one that radiated a mood which sharply contrasted that of the archmages in the room. Their corners of their mouths slowly curled downwards into frowns of displeasure, while Noah, who looked at them between breaths, burst out even louder. It seemed as if he were about to suffocate, with how much he was gasping in between his laughs. Wiping the tears away from his eyes, he slid off the bed to his feet, which instantly set the archmages on high alert.
‘It wasn't just the bravado of a dying man? Wasn’t he supposed to be incapacitated?!’
Noah exhaled, as if getting the last dregs of the laugh out of his system, then let his mouth finally settle on a smirk of genuine joy.
“So, uh, sorry about that. What’re your names, fellas? Tell me your ranks too”
The response that came was delayed and carried a wary tone.
“...Draven. Peak Archmage Veteran. Of the same rank, Lirael, and this is Seraphina, Peak Archmage Apprentice.”
Draven gestured to the blonde Lirael and still silent flaxen haired Seraphina who seemed to be in her thirties, a relatively young archmage.
“I see. So all three of you are researchers then? Considering that you completed all nine circles before pursuing proficiency in mana reinforcement.”
The silence that followed suggested their confirmation, which prompted Noah to continue.
“I see. As thanks for leading me to a grand realization about myself, I’ll be generous. Instead of killing you, we can talk about working for me instead. Coincidentally, a few positions just opened. How about that?”
“...Young blood really is arrogant, isn’t it?”
Noah sighed and the smirk began to leave his face, replaced by a frown of disappointment.
“Damn. I know it came off as arrogant, but it was the best offer I could think of, especially considering how I’m fairly sure I'm riding an ego high right now. Also, you ain't slick, Lirael. I can see the magic you're trying to sneakily cast from your ring.”
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“You seem to be letting it happen. Your arrogance shall be your downfall!”
Right as her sentence completed, she let her spell loose.
‘Ninth Circle - Annihilating Beam!’
A beam rivaling the intense heat of the sun was released from Lirael’s ring, at an upwards angle such that the beam would melt Noah’s head. At this, his bored face showed no change to its countenance, and his currently red eyes followed the path of the beam as it was released. With just a slight tilt of his head, he let the beam zoom centimeters past it and above his shoulder.
“Alright, we can do it this way if you want to.”
In the span of time that the archmages took to barely blink, Noah crouched and dashed forward, with his movements resembling a blur to the archmages. With their veteran ranked mana reinforcement, they had no hope of catching his movements. However, the intelligent archmages accurately predicted the trajectory of his dash, and the three prematurely launched another annihilating beam each, only for them to widen their eyes in astonishment as he skirted around the spot where the three beams coalesced, while not breaking the momentum of his blurry dash.
“Impo-”
What the archmage meant to say before Noah’s punch vaporized his jaw, was that Noah’s speed seemed outside the realm of physics or magic. To dash in a straight line was one thing, to maintain that speed while turning almost at a right angle required accelerative forces that suggested that Noah was holding back much more firepower in his muscles.
And they were right. He was.
‘If I hit too hard, It’ll break the isolation barrier that the three combined their prowess to cast, after which point my attacks would begin to damage the room. I am not paying for the cost of so much darbean wood, that shit’s premium stuff. I need them alive anyway, I guess I’ll hold back a bit.’
But Noah doing this did not change the predicament the three were in. At any one point, dozens of attacks rained down on the three, each. Every time they tried to cast magic, a punch would disorient them, and their veteran or even apprentice ranked mana reinforcement most definitely could not keep up with the strength of eight blood stacked vampires.
‘Blood stacking is surprisingly useful. Learning to be able to mimic only a certain part of a monster in the last few months has been huge for the vampire. Just another thing great about spirit splitting.’
By choosing to mimic only the innards of a vampire aside from the skin, he would retain the vastly boosted capabilities of the vampire which was of even greater strength than the ogre, while still maintaining his human form. Only his eyes would change to the characteristic red from its usual black.
As Noah flitted around the room, the three archmages gradually began to blink in and out of consciousness, as they were tossed about as if the room was a blender, and Noah were the blender blades. He finally came to a stop once he felt no more mana moving in the bodies of the archmages. He tried to bait them, in the event that they were pretending to be weak while preparing a massive attack once he let his guard down, but he found that they were well and truly down.
“Actually, I think I went too far. Oy, fellas, please do get up now. Uh, sorry about everything, and stuff.”
As he gently nudged them with his foot, he received no response from the bloody, bruised and no longer recognisable proud archmages, who were supposed to be a symbol of strength on the Calysta continent.
“Damn bro, I'm having to use this thing for everything these days.”
As a horn eight times denser than the usual unicorn head sprouted out from Noah’s skull while still in his human form and began to glow, his eyes returned to black.
An hour later, Ariel returned to Noah’s room, only to find three people that were the picture of health but wearing torn, bloodied and ragged flowy robes, sat on the floor cross legged, seemingly in conversation with Noah, on the bed and in even better condition than the three figures.
What had happened here in the hour that she left?