‘Ninth Circle - Blessed of the World!’
He was an archlich, not just ‘a superior mage’. Unlike most human archmages who were forced to restrict themselves to human magic rules, he could easily break them without worrying about the consequences, and make use of spells such as Blessed of the World, a spell that would continuously pour more and more mana into him from the atmosphere and then begin to temporarily increase his total spirit’s capacity once his spirit was full of mana.
Such a spell would destroy a human’s mage’s body the longer the spell was used, but as an archlich, would allow him to be buffed to eventually even reach the mana capacity of an ancient dragon after a few hours and only have the buff disappear once the spell wore off without any further consequences. The only consequence of this spell was that its cast duration of a few seconds was a little long, but if he were to be attacked while he cast the spell, the isolation barrier would work opposite to the intentions of the mage unit and serve to protect him! Of course, they could dispel the isolate, but he would have completed his own cast by the time they did that, only serving to allow Archlich Gradias to strike them with a lethal spell the moment isolate was dispelled. In short, the mages had no choice but to wait bitterly during the few seconds that he comfortably cast the utility spell.
In those few seconds, while the mages were locked away from the world in a barrier the deepest shades of red, the leviathan was only halfway between the dragon from the point it had dropped from and the dragon was ready to fire its dragon breath. Right as the miniature sun in the black dragon’s mouth began to expand, the dragon spotted a grand magical circle expanding to the size of a mature cumulonimbus cloud in the heavens. No, it wasn’t just one circle—right as the circle expanded to its full length, it began to spin slowly, and another grand circle stacked itself above it. As that circle expanded to the size of the first one, it similarly began spinning and another formed behind it, ending once five such grand magical circles were high in the sky.
The dragon, a creature at the magical apex of the Calysta continent, acutely felt the mana of the world itself was being sucked into those magic circles. The dragon had once seen Archlich Gradias use a spell that sucked in mana, but the dragon felt that it paled in comparison to the way the circles above were sucking in mana like a greedy black hole. The amount of mana that was being concentrated in those circles double the size of itself was enough to cause them to glow radiantly as the third overwhelming source of light that didn't lose out to the sun or the dragon’s accumulating ball of dragon breath. In response, the dragon forcefully sped up the expansion of the ball in its mouth. The air crackled as it rapidly expanded, and the ball burst upwards with a deafening roar.
At the same time, the spinning of the five grand circles suddenly locked into place, and starting from the magic circle closest to the ground, it began to show its effects in rapid succession. The first circle was the Third Circle - Deceleration. The function of the Deceleration spell was mostly used to, as one would expect, decelerate a speeding object.
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However, ever since Evan had learned to draw magic circles in the air, this had become one of his favorite spells, offering offense, defense, and utility, and even more so once he began to use his strings to weave the circle in the air. The hidden potential Evan had discovered in the deceleration spell lay in the fact that deceleration was, by definition, not the decrease in speed but rather negative acceleration. Yes, with the deceleration spell, he would strongly repel all objects in front of the circle. In the current situation, this was no different from creating an artificial gravitational field!
As the dragon breath traveled like a grand beacon towards the heavens, its width increasing parabolically as it traveled, the dragon that felt the sudden substantial increase in gravity was forced to decrease the mana output of its dragon breath, thinning the blnding beam.
It didn't end there. Just one circle had enough mana to increase the weight of a child to match that of a car. The next two magic circles consecutively locked into place and shone a blinding white, then exerted their absolute influence on everything directly below them.
‘Third Circle - Deceleration!’
‘Third Circle - Deceleration!’
The next two magic circles were also the same deceleration spell!
The dragon, which had been standing proudly on its four legs, crumpled. Spiderwebs formed on the ground as it fractured with a furious rumble of the earth, while its dragon breath was reduced to a mere fraction of what it once was.
The monsters and soldiers still stood still on the battlefield with perspiration pouring out of them, paralyzed by the terror of the dragon's might. When the edges of the spiderwebs extended away from the dragon to a small portion of them, they had no choice but to silently succumb without a struggle as they began to fall into the tear in the ground.
Finally, the severely weakened dragon’s breath reached the leviathan. Regardless of how much it was weakened, dragon’s breath was the ultimate spear of a dragon and leviathan scales were no match. The weakened breath dissipated once did its damage. The leviathan that should have been instantly vaporized by the breath if it was not thinned, survived.
With a hole blasted right into the midsection of the leviathan.
As planned!
‘Sixth Circle - Hellflame Arrow!’
Evan no longer drew his magic circles as he used to in his virgin year on the Calysta continent, but constructed them by manipulating strings in the air. This was the catalyst pushed him to reach a new level of accuracy with grand magic circles. He could now able to construct Sixth Circle grand magic circles, from his previous limit of the Third Circle!
This magic circle shone a blinding red, as if signifying the wrath of the flame of infernal judgement, before the light was sucked out of the strings that comprised the magic circle and was compressed to an arrow ten times Evan’s height. From his position high in the skies, hovering above the mighty arrow, he looked like an arrogant deity ready to deliver divine retribution.
With a flick of his circle fingers holding the strings, the arrow shattered the sound barrier instantly and seemed to lengthen as it rocketed and blurred towards the ground, reddening as it did.
The dragon could see this arrow all too well, despite the presence of the leviathan now looming directly above it, between itself and the arrow.
How?
The dragon could see the arrow through the gaping wound!
The dragon that immediately made an effort to dodge, found that it couldn’t. The deceleration magic circles had pinned it down. And that small effort to move used all the time the dragon had to react. The next moment, the arrow touchedthe ground.
And exploded.