Trying to snatch the Holy Relic in broad daylight, surrounded by so many people and three mages of unknown strength, would be suicidal.
Therefore, Luo Lan’s primary objective was not the magic cube in the ruins that had yet to be unlocked, but rather the massive magic circle suspended above the lake.
With a mere thought, the mana circuits within his body opened at an unprecedented output. By imitating Elia’s combat style, he gathered wind-element mana around his body to reduce his weight.
Then, he crouched and leaped.
In the next moment, Luo Lan soared into the air from behind the small hill where he had been lurking. The height and speed of this jump far exceeded the ordinary, and he soon reached the apex of his parabolic trajectory.
He then made a grasping motion with his left hand, condensing the moisture in the air beneath his feet to form a palm-sized shard of ice. Tapping it lightly with his toe, he used the leverage to change direction mid-air.
His right hand brushed against his waist, and a black-painted dagger slid into his palm. His gaze locked onto the magic crystal below that was maintaining the stability of the magic array.
The thrown dagger turned into a black line that blended into the night, shooting straight toward the crystal. Meanwhile, Luo Lan himself dove toward another mage, descending from the sky like a bolt of black lightning tearing through the heavens.
He could even clearly see the shock in the mage’s suddenly uplifted eyes, reflecting a piercing flash of crimson.
“Enemy attack—”
Parris’s reaction was anything but slow. The knight captain did not, as Luo Lan had initially feared, charge directly across the entire lake toward him.
The moment Luo Lan shifted direction to pounce on the mage, Parris’s hand on his sword hilt moved.
The man narrowed his eyes slightly and violently drew the longsword from his waist, throwing it with all his might toward the path of Luo Lan’s advance.
The moment the sword left his hand, the runes engraved on the blade flared brilliantly. A blinding bolt of silver lightning erupted, wrapping around the entire sword and turning it into a spear of thunder that ripped through the air. It pierced through the sky at a speed far exceeding Luo Lan’s dive, sweeping toward him with terrifying momentum.
If Luo Lan continued on his current trajectory toward the mage, he would inevitably be impaled by Parris’s lightning-clad flying sword before he could even touch his target.
It was a trap.
From start to finish, his goal had been to destroy the stability of the magic array. Attacking the mage was nothing more than a feint to force Parris out of position and draw everyone’s attention.
“Crack—”
The sound of the crystal shattering was exceptionally piercing amidst the chaos by the lakeshore.
Parris, who was charging toward Luo Lan like an arrow off a string, whipped his head back. He saw a dagger accurately embedded in the crystal, which was now covered in spiderweb-like cracks. The mana sealed within lost the restraint of its container and surged outward like a collapsing dam.
A blinding flash erupted, accompanied by a screeching sound that sent the nearby knights flying.
The massive magic array woven in mid-air flickered violently. Having lost the support of one of its nodes, the already fragile structure broke apart in an instant.
After a drone of resonance, the magic array covering the lake’s surface disintegrated, vanishing into the cold wind as countless specks of light.
Deprived of the mana binding it, the massive sphere of water suspended in mid-air lost its support and came crashing down.
Seeing that his objective had been achieved, Luo Lan ignored the flying sword that was already upon him and forcibly twisted his body in the air, aiming toward the ruins at the bottom of the lake.
His silhouette blurred just before Parris’s sword could touch him. Along with the crashing sphere of water, he appeared directly behind the mage who was currently decrypting the cube.
The lake water, now free from its shackles, struck the shore like the shockwave of a bomb. The knights who hadn’t yet recovered from the shock of the crystal shattering bore the brunt of the impact, sent flying by the towering waves along with their armor.
The other magic crystals arranged along the shore shattered one after another under the impact of the water, and turbulent mana currents shot out in all directions.
Parris himself was forced to retreat to higher ground, staring in shock at the apocalyptic scene before him.
His expression became incredibly grim, and the hand gripping his sword turned white at the knuckles from the sheer force of his grip.
—
Before Luo Lan, the dark-gold magic cube that had yet to be unlocked continued to emit a stubborn glow. The mage who had been standing before it had been subdued the moment Luo Lan appeared—struck in the stomach by a fist and then chopped in the throat by a palm.
The mage, unable to chant his incantations, collapsed into unconsciousness with a look of resentment.
Time was still pressing; Parris wouldn’t just wait on the shore for him to take his time unlocking it.
The chaos he had caused was only temporary. The knight captain and his subordinates would soon regroup and completely blockade the area. Once that happened, there would be no escape.
Gazing at the dark-gold cube, Luo Lan reached out. Following the positions in his memory, he precisely pressed four specific areas on the side faces of the cube, excluding the top and bottom reference planes.
The second block, the eighth block, the eighth block, the seventh block.
Two, eight, eight, seven. It was a very catchy sequence.
Four clicks, completed in less than two seconds.
The engravings on all surfaces of the cube lit up simultaneously. Light flowed through them, and the six faces bloomed elegantly like flower petals along invisible seams, revealing an object wrapped in soft white light at the core.
Luo Lan didn’t stop to look at what the Holy Relic actually looked like. He reached out with his left hand and stuffed the Holy Relic into the cube’s storage space.
He didn’t have the bad habit of looting in the middle of a battlefield with everyone watching.
With the Holy Relic in hand, the first phase of the objective was complete. The next step was to figure out how to escape.
The sound of the water overhead was still roaring. Luo Lan used a familiar trick, employing his Mirror Image technique to create a shadow that looked exactly like him.
His Mirror Image was only at the fourth rank; the phantom it produced had no physical substance and almost no combat capability, but it was enough to serve as a decoy in this situation.
Luo Lan controlled the mirror image to swim toward the surface while he himself held his breath, silently diving toward the opposite shore along the slope of the lakebed.
Sure enough, the moment the mirror image broke the water, it was collectively annihilated by the mage and the knights who had been waiting for a long time. The sound of water splashing mixed with the dull thud of a mana explosion reached him through the water. The mirror image didn’t last even a second before shattering and vanishing like a bubble.
“It’s a fake! It’s a fake!”
Exasperated roars came from the shore.
Immediately after, Luo Lan felt at least three pulses of mana perception sweep across the lake, quickly splitting into three directions to lock down most of the lakeshore area.
It seemed luck was on Luo Lan’s side. When the boy emerged from the water, the first thing he saw was not Parris, but a mage.
The distance between them was less than twenty meters.
The other party had already turned around the moment the sound of water splashed, the mana radiance in his hand reaching its peak.
But Luo Lan’s reaction was faster. At the moment the ball of electricity condensing in the mage’s hand was about to be released, Luo Lan’s figure blurred once more.
It was the Blink technique.
The mage instinctively forced his casting direction to shift, slamming the lightning ball toward a spot slightly to his side where a faint spatial ripple had just appeared.
The lightning ball whistled past, exploding into a field of leaping electrical arcs that scorched the muddy ground black.
But the expected figure did not appear.
Luo Lan had deceived him using the same trick he had used during his fight with Ophelia; the distance between the two of them was now within arm’s reach.
In his terror, the mage tried to mobilize his mana once more to prop up a magic shield, but it was too late.
With the same punch and palm strike, the mage’s body stiffened, and the incantation brewing in his mouth turned into a short, muffled groan.
A mage who had not yet learned Silent Chanting was completely defenseless in such a situation. Combined with the suddenness of the event, he could only watch helplessly as Luo Lan vanished into the darkness of the forest.
“Where is that bastard?!”
The last remaining mage had a face turned livid with rage as he growled at Parris, who was striding toward him. The hem of his robe was covered in mud, his hood was crooked, and half of his pale, anger-contorted face was exposed, his previous pretense of mystery and arrogance long gone.
Parris stopped in his tracks, his gaze sweeping over the wrecked lakeshore and his disheveled subordinates.
“He got away.”
“Got away? You’re telling me he got away? Right under the noses of so many of us, he just ran off with the Holy Relic? Do you have any idea how much we stand to lose because of this?”
The mage’s voice became shrill and distorted. He took a step forward and roared with a sneer.
“I want all of you to go after that bastard and get the Holy Relic back! Otherwise, the Regent will never forgive us! That includes you!”
Parris did not show anger at the other man’s rudeness. His gaze moved past the mage, who was shaking with agitation, toward the lake.
The unlucky fellow whom Luo Lan had knocked out earlier had just floated to the surface.
“Everyone?”
“EVERY! SINGLE! ONE!”