Free Web NovelChapter 151: Chapter 150: Reckoning
Ian’s gaze fell upon him. He raised his right hand, his fingers curling into a grasping motion.
The Marquis’s voice cut off abruptly.
His obese body was instantly hoisted into the air by an immense, invisible force.
His neck was squeezed tight, his face turning purple as he choked. His limbs kicked and flailed in vain.
"Those who participated in coercing the Marcus Clan, step forward." Ian’s eyes swept over the paralyzed crowd below.
Several men who looked like Knight captains and Stewards, scared out of their wits, scrambled and crawled toward the door.
Ian flicked the fingers of his left hand.
TSK! TSK! TSK!
Several faint purple rays, as thin as hairs, flashed through the air.
The men froze in place, still in their running poses.
The next second, from the inside out, their bodies silently transformed into ice-blue sculptures, glowing with a cold, eerie light under the moon.
"Ahhh..." The surviving guests and servants let out blood-curdling screams.
Ian paid them no mind.
He controlled the force, pulling the terrified Marquis Holden, who was still suspended in mid-air, before him.
"You sent men to Marcus Castle to threaten them, intending to seize the Magic Stone Ore," Ian stated.
Holden wanted to beg for mercy but couldn’t make a sound. He could only blink desperately, his face a mess of tears and snot.
Ian looked away from him and gently closed his right hand into a fist.
SPLAT! freeweɓnovel.cѳm
The Marquis, hanging in mid-air, was crushed as if by an invisible giant’s hand, squeezed tightly from head to toe.
A series of muffled cracks echoed as his bones shattered. In an instant, his entire body was compressed and twisted, finally exploding with a BANG into a messy pulp.
A crimson mist of bone fragments and flesh rained down, sprinkling over the horrified crowd below.
Gaga flew into the air and, facing the ice sculptures and bloody mist below, opened its beak and spat out a gust of pale green wind.
Wherever the wind passed, the ice sculptures and the flesh within turned to dust. The bloody mist was completely dispersed and purified.
In the blink of an eye, aside from the hole in the wall and the general mess, all traces of the men’s existence vanished from the banquet hall.
Ian turned, stepped onto the air, and landed back on Gaga’s back.
"Next, the Ministry of Finance."
The giant bird shrieked, tearing through the night sky and leaving behind a dead silence and the lingering, thick stench of blood.
「In the Royal Capital, at the Minister of Finance’s luxurious estate.」
The lights were already on in the study.
The Minister of Finance, a sharp-faced man with graying hair, was poring over a map, planning the mining routes for Black Stone Canyon once he acquired it.
Suddenly, a shadow fell over the window.
He looked up in surprise, only to see the shadow of an impossibly large black bird completely covering his window.
Before he could react, the sturdy, steel-framed glass window disintegrated silently into dust.
A young man walked in, a Raven perched on his shoulder.
"You..." The Minister of Finance’s heart pounded. He wanted to call for help, but his throat felt tight.
"You conspired with Holden to plot against the Marcus Clan’s Magic Stone Ore."
Ian walked to his desk, picked up the draft proposal for "taking over" the mining area, glanced at it, and flicked it with his finger.
The paper instantly ignited, turning to ashes.
"No! Your Excellency! This is a misunderstanding! I’m willing to..."
The Minister of Finance stumbled backward in a panic, trying to explain, trying to beg for his life.
Ian extended a finger, and a silvery glint began to glow at its tip...
It swiftly expanded into a fist-sized miniature star cluster, continuously collapsing and glittering within itself.
[Collapsar Starburst]!
It was a Tier One Witchcraft he had just recently acquired. He was only at the Beginner level with it, and this was his first, unskilled attempt at using it.
He wasted no words and sent it forward with a gentle flick of his finger.
The miniature star cluster drifted toward the Minister of Finance.
The Minister of Finance’s eyes widened as he watched the beautiful yet deadly ball of light sink into his chest.
The next moment.
BUZZ!
There was no loud explosion, only a deep, muffled hum that seemed to originate from within his own chest.
With the Minister of Finance at its center, space itself seemed to collapse inward for an instant.
His body, the chair beneath him, the bookshelf behind him, the carpet under his feet...
Everything was crushed and compressed within that irresistible, collapsing Force Field, ultimately forming a black sphere the size of a fingernail, its density astonishingly high.
It fell to the floor with a "TINK" and rolled twice.
All that remained was a smooth, hemispherical depression in the floor, its edges as neat as if carved by the most precise instrument.
Ian recalled the small black sphere. It felt heavy in his hand.
He glanced at the terrifyingly silent study, then turned and leaped out through the broken window.
Gaga was already waiting outside.
"Only two locations left—the dens of those wandering apprentices."
Ian’s tone was flat, as if he had just crushed a couple of Insects.
He mounted Gaga, and the giant bird beat its wings, streaking like a black bolt of lightning across the Royal Capital’s night sky toward a few inconspicuous coordinates in the Wilderness.
Wind swept across the Wilderness.
A few small camps were scattered across the ground.
This was the edge of the Human Kingdom, where the Magic Power was so thin that not even Middle Level Apprentices were willing to stay for long.
Only a few wandering Wizard Apprentices with poor Talent and nowhere else to go would scrape by here.
Ian stood on Gaga’s back, looking down.
His Spiritual Power spread out like a net, instantly locking onto three targets with weak Energy fluctuations.
Two were Low Level Apprentices, and one was barely even a Beginner, his aura weak and unstable.
"Just these three?" Gaga tilted its head, its tone dripping with disdain. "They’re too scrawny to even be a decent snack. They’d probably get stuck in my teeth."
"Let’s make it quick," Ian said.
He didn’t even bother to descend. Raising his right hand, he condensed a [Frost Ash Beam] at his fingertips, which then split into three and shot off in different directions.
Brief, terrified screams came from below.
The next second, a blinding white light flared up from all three locations simultaneously.
The three Low Level Apprentices were silently erased.
A gust of wind blew, and even the smell of blood quickly dissipated.
Ian beckoned, and a few Magic Stones flew into his palm. He weighed them, then casually tossed them to Gaga. "Here, play with these."
Gaga caught them in its beak, chewed them with a CRUNCH, CRUNCH, then spat them out. "Tasteless, and hard."
"Let’s go."
The giant bird turned, spread its wings, and flew toward Marcus Castle.
「Less than an hour had passed since he’d left.」
Outside the castle, Latour and Vincent stood on the terrace, staring intently at the night sky.
Ainoya had been persuaded to wait in the hall. She sat clutching a handkerchief, her knuckles white.
Then, they saw it—a black dot, growing larger and larger.
Gaga folded its wings, glided silently, and hovered steadily just off the terrace.
Ian stepped off, his black robes untouched by even a speck of dust, and nodded at Latour.
Latour’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He wanted to speak, but for a moment, he was speechless.
Behind him, a few old Stewards who had been peeking out collapsed to the ground, their legs giving way, muttering, "A miracle..."
Vincent’s eyes were wide. "This... so fast? Baihe City is at least two hundred li from here..."
"I took care of it on the way," Ian said casually, as if he had just gone to the backyard to pick some vegetables.
He walked into the great hall, and Ainoya rushed over, grabbing his arm and checking him all over.
"Are you all right? Are you hurt? Did you run into any danger?"
"No." Ian took his mother’s hand. Her cold fingertips made him pause.
"Just a few small Insects. They’ve been cleaned up."
Latour followed him in, his voice still a bit hoarse. "Taken care of... you mean?"
"Marquis Holden, the Minister of Finance, and the Knights and Stewards under them who made a move.
Also, I dealt with the wandering Wizards in the Wilderness who had designs on the mine."
Ian looked at his father. "From now on, no one will come looking for trouble."
The hall fell into a dead silence.
Vincent sucked in a cold breath. The few family Knights listening in turned pale, their eyes filled with awe and lingering fear.
To wipe out two of the most powerful nobles and annihilate wizards in less than an hour...
This was beyond what could be described as "Power." It was a natural disaster.
Latour closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his emotions were suppressed, leaving only a heavy sense of security.
"Good... good. You’ve worked hard."
"It was my duty," Ian said.
