Only mages could prevent natural disasters like volcanic eruptions.

Especially this time, the scale of Mount Vesuvius's eruption might be extraordinary. After all, a hundred-zhang-long pillar of fire shooting out from the volcano's mouth was not normal in any era.

Once the lava from the volcanic eruption spread for hundreds of li, villages and crops could be destroyed.

Not only would it cause enormous economic losses to the capital, but it would also threaten the lives of many creatures near the volcano.

The capital took this matter very seriously, immediately gathering all available mages in the city.

The empire's army dispatched batch after batch of mages, continuously heading towards Mount Vesuvius.

Duke Levi and Erica were no exception.

After nearly a day of travel, the overnight long-distance journey had left everyone somewhat exhausted.

In the early hours of the morning, the team finally reached their destination, and everyone rested on the spot.

Due to the collective evacuation by the Knight Order, all the people of Sanchez Town had gathered outside the town.

Even chickens, ducks, cattle, sheep, and other livestock, including cats and dogs, were driven out without exception.

Outside the town, it was a scene of utter chaos, like chickens flying and dogs jumping.

The villagers watched as large numbers of troops and mages entered the town, no one knowing exactly what was happening.

At this moment, the atmosphere around the camp was extremely tense.

Duke Levi was among the last batches of mages to arrive. When he got off the carriage, many mages from other noble families greeted him with smiles, actively approaching him.

"It's been a long time, Duke Levi."

A white-haired nobleman walked towards Duke Levi, leaning on a cane, with other noble mages closely following around him.

"Long time no see, Mr. Beck."

Duke Levi responded politely.

"We probably haven't met since the last kingdom gathering."

Beck reminisced, speaking to the Duke.

The Duke nodded, smiling in agreement.

"This must be your daughter, she's truly graceful."

"Oh, you're too kind."

Beck noticed the badge symbolizing a second-tier mage on Erica's chest.

Pushing up his glasses, he continued:

"Indeed, your daughter has already reached the second-tier stage."

"It seems the academy wasn't exaggerating."

Erica knew these were just pleasantries among adults.

But hearing her evaluation from other renowned mages still made her a bit happy.

No one dislikes praise, and Erica, who had grown up surrounded by compliments, was no exception.

Duke Levi smiled at his daughter, she was his pride.

"Haha, your daughter's magical talent truly makes us old men envious."

The adults exchanged pleasantries, gradually calming down.

In the mage circle, almost everyone knew each other.

Duke Levi was one of the few third-tier mages, and the remaining few third-tier mages were also nobles.

In the Carencia Empire, high-level mages were almost monopolized by the nobility.

It was rare for even a single second-tier mage to emerge from the commoners.

At this moment, a silver-white figure appeared before everyone's eyes.

Duke Levi glanced at her, knowing this was the second daughter of the Delin family.

She currently holds the position of Captain of the Royal Knight Order in the capital.

"Gwen Delin reporting."

When the mages saw Gwen approach them with a solemn expression, their hearts tightened. Was the volcano's current situation not optimistic?

"Esteemed mages, since the volcano showed abnormal changes yesterday, it has remained in a relatively stable state until now."

Gwen gripped her silver sword tightly, sweat dripping from her forehead.

The mages breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing her news. The white-haired mage patted his chest, his hand holding the cane also relaxing considerably.

This way, they only needed to take preventive measures here, rather than expending a lot of energy to directly confront a natural disaster.

At this time, Erica was standing quietly beside Duke Levi, observing everything.

"Father, who is this...?"

Duke Levi whispered in Erica's ear, "This is the current Captain of the Royal Knight Order."

Erica nodded. It was her first time seeing the Captain of the Knight Order, and she was somewhat shocked to learn that the Captain was a woman.

She didn't know Gwen, much less that Gwen was Viktor's fiancée, but Gwen knew her.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The magical prodigy student known throughout the country, Gwen had naturally heard of her.

Not to mention that because of Viktor's incident last time, it made her remember Erica clearly.

Gwen looked at the blonde girl before her, thinking to herself:

'So this is Duke Levi's daughter? She's really beautiful, no wonder Viktor impulsively confessed.'

Previously, she had only seen Erica in newspapers. Meeting her in person this time, Gwen was also momentarily stunned by her aura.

Just one look at her would make people feel like they were falling in love.

"Well then, Knight Captain Gwen, what exactly happened at the volcano?"

Gwen briefly explained to Duke Levi about the Knight Orders investigation after arriving at the volcano.

.....

"What? You say you heard a huge roar when you were halfway up the mountain?"

"After the Knight Order investigated the summit, the volcano's temperature suddenly rose? And it even shot out a hundred-meter-high pillar of fire?"

Beck and the other third-tier mages listened in shock, asking each other:

"What's going on?"

"I don't know, do you?"

"I don't know either, never heard of such a thing."

The mages looked at each other, standing there not knowing what to say.

Duke Levi also fell into deep thought as he listened to Gwen's account, just as clueless as the other mages about what was happening.

Gwen remembered something else and said:

"This time we requested an accompanying mage. He went to the summit ahead of us, saying he was going to investigate something, but then he disappeared. We still don't know his whereabouts."

"What?"

Now they were all stunned, after all, such words were too easy to arouse suspicion.

Erica also froze upon hearing this, as if realizing something. For the first time, she actively spoke up from the side to ask:

"Who was that mage?"

Gwen looked at her puzzledly, then answered:

"You should all know him, it's Viktor Klayvenna."

The moment this name was mentioned, it immediately caused a stir among the mages.

Several mages who harbored resentment towards Viktor seized this opportunity, righteously declaring:

"It must be Viktor's doing!"

"That's right! He's done other bad things before, this must be his handiwork too!"

Everyone present knew of Viktor's 'notorious' reputation. Once there was a chance to slander him, they showed no mercy.

Duke Levi was also perplexed, but still tried to persuade the other mages:

"Everyone, let's not rush to conclusions. The most important thing now is to prevent the volcanic eruption and minimize potential damage!"

Hearing the Duke speak, the mages stopped arguing.

As Levi said, at this point, finding the mastermind behind this wasn't important.

Getting through the immediate crisis was the top priority.

"ROAR!!!"

As they were speaking, a furious roar suddenly came from atop the volcano.

This time, everyone heard it loud and clear.

The mages collectively looked towards the volcano's summit, unable to utter a word.

Was that sound... from a living creature?

"Ma'am! You can't go through!"

The voices of surrounding knights attracted everyone's attention, and all eyes turned in that direction.

It was an old woman, trying to push past the knights' blockade to enter the base.

"Someone has angered the Volcano God! Someone must have angered the Volcano God!"

She shouted from behind the guarding knights:

"It's all over! We're all doomed!"

The mages looked at each other. Duke Levi waved his hand, saying to the knights.

"Let her in."

"Yes, sir!"

The knights stopped obstructing her, and the old woman quickly broke free from their grasp, limping over with her cane.

"Grandmother, what is the Volcano God?"

Duke Levi asked her kindly, but the surrounding mages, seeing the old woman's earlier frenzied behavior, started chattering:

"What can we learn from this crazy old woman?"

"What Volcano God? I've never even heard of it."

"She's probably here to cause chaos. Duke Levi, we should quickly send her away."

Duke Levi didn't heed the mages' advice, instead looking kindly at the old woman and asking.

"Grandmother, if you have something to say, please feel free to tell me."

The old woman looked the Duke up and down, suddenly changing from her previous frenzied demeanor to a mysterious tone:

"Hundreds of years ago, someone sealed a flame-burning demon god under the volcano. That sealing angered the Volcano God, causing an eruption here."

"But after that eruption, the volcano remained silent for hundreds of years."

"Now that the volcano is stirring again, it must be because the sleeping Volcano God is angry once more. It's about to break through the seal and burn the sky and earth to ashes."

The many mages present listened in bewilderment, quickly interjecting:

"Duke, don't mind her, it's just some folk mythology."

Duke Levi's expression, however, was extremely grave.

He smelled a familiar scent in this story.

At this moment, Erica glanced towards the summit.

She touched her chest, as if in thought, then turned to Duke Levi and said.

"Father, I want to go to the summit to take a look."

"I feel... there's something up there."

"Absolutely not!"

Hearing Erica's request, the Duke waved his hand, his attitude extremely firm as he exclaimed:

"Erica, I can agree to many things, but on this matter, there's no room for discussion!"

Erica, unwilling to give up, continued to plead for her father's permission: "Father! I'm already a second-tier mage, I have the ability to handle things on my own."

"Unless your strength surpasses mine, I absolutely won't allow you to set foot on the volcano's crater!"

Seeing Duke Levi's stance, Erica could only fall silent.

This was completely unreasonable.

Her father had been immersed in third-tier magic for over thirty years.

Everyone said that if a new fourth-tier Holy Mage were to appear, it would definitely be Levi du Cloie.

Erica thought about how she couldn't even surpass Viktor, how could she possibly jump two tiers to reach the fourth tier?

But...

Erica felt a tightness in her chest.

In that roar just now, she had heard a voice speaking.

'Some voice is saying it hurts.'

Meanwhile, Duke Levi had already started issuing orders to the mage squad.

The volcano's abnormal activity was becoming more apparent. The third-tier mages took formation, with second-tier mages taking turns to supply magic as support.

They needed to draw magic arrays to summon powerful war magic to cover the entire Mount Vesuvius before the eruption.

When the time came, whether it was lava erupting or something jumping out of the volcano.

They would eliminate it all!

......

"Finally... injured?"

Vega stared blankly, looking at Viktor in disbelief.

His current state couldn't be described as good.

Half of his coat had been burned away, and flames continuously burned at the wounds where magma had attacked his body.

However, this was actually the first time Viktor had been injured after an entire day of intense battle...

Monster, it could only describe him as such.

Even though he was facing a calamity-like disaster, he had been able to fight against it for a whole day, and even wounded it.

During this time, he had only been injured once.

This was because he was momentarily distracted and grazed by that shocking pillar of fire.

Just this one hit had caused him considerable damage.

If he had been struck directly by the fire pillar, he probably wouldn't even have bones left now.

"It's still too much of a strain after all....."

But being injured was definitely not good news. It meant Viktor's energy was declining, and he was falling into fatigue.

The continuous battle was gradually making it difficult for him to concentrate.

"Why don't we just give up? While you still have enough magic power, quickly teleport away."

Vega persuaded him, although he knew Viktor wasn't the type to give up easily.

But his condition wasn't optimistic.

Viktor didn't answer it, instead casting magic to buff himself with fire resistance, stopping the burns, while dodging another shocking pillar of fire.

"If I leave now, this magical beast will instantly break out of Mount Vesuvius."

"At that time, it would truly be a catastrophe for all living beings."

"Vega, do you understand?"

Vega was stunned.

After saying this, Viktor remembered that Vega was an evil god, so he continued:

"I'm sorry, I forgot that you probably don't care about these things."

"But I do."

Viktor threw away his shattered, completely ruined coat.

He let it flutter in the wind, falling into the magma.

The coat turned into sparks in the air, completely dissipating.

"I'm not trying to be a good person, but I also don't want this unstoppable giant beast to break out of its cage, and then have people put a hat labeled 'world destroyer' on my head."

He had already reduced Guledon's health by a third, which was his proud achievement.

As long as he could break through the magical beast's defense, there was no boss he couldn't kill.

Viktor still looked at the enraged Guledon with the same determination as at the beginning, becoming even more excited.

Only in such high-intensity battles did he feel like he had found himself again.

"It's just one injury, I haven't lost yet."

Because this was a battle that staked his dignity as a power leveler!