Chapter 53

It’s not unheard of for a high-ranking mage to deliberately project the ‘world of thought’ into reality. That’s precisely why the clash between high-ranking mages is called a ‘collision of worlds’.

But Leonard Walter’s case was different. It was merely the result of a recklessly constructed fourth circle spiraling out of control, his consciousness running wild and rampaging unchecked.

“You worthless piece of trash! What makes you think you’re so much better than me…!”

He had literally become a ‘Flame God’ consumed by jealousy and inferiority.

“Admire me! Everyone must revere me…!”

Hell’s flames raged from all sides. A world of fire that perfectly mirrored Leonard Walter’s inner landscape. This was ‘Leonard Walter’s world’, and Leonard was its god.

The embodiment of jealousy and inferiority.

“Dale of Saxony… It is you who shall vanish and be defeated…!”

That very embodiment spat a twisted flame of malice toward Dale.

‘What an utterly hopeless brat.’

Dale shook his head in disbelief. After shaking his head, he pulled his fluttering shadow cloak back and focused his consciousness.

“Don’t underestimate me, Dale of Saxony…!”

The flames engulfing Leonard surged toward Dale like an explosion.

Kwaaang!

“Heeek!”

Even the Fourth Circle professor caught up in the chaos was powerless to block Leonard’s attack, which raged uncontrollably within the realm of thought.

‘Judging by the situation, it doesn’t look like they’ll be much help either.’

Needless to say, mere third-circle students were no exception. Faced with a situation far more complex than anticipated, Dale clicked his tongue.

‘Anyway, I don’t need to take responsibility for this.’

Simultaneously, a shield of cold built from blue magic power blocked Leonard’s strike.

“Everyone, fall back behind me.”

Beneath Dale’s feet, a horizon of bitter cold and darkness began to unfold. The world of winter nights, embracing endless void and emptiness.

“──This is my domain.”

Every magician possesses a world that reflects their own inner vision. And that world also serves as the foundation upon which the magician builds their philosophy.

Leonard Walter’s world was filled with the blazing, searing flames of jealousy. A world burning like the fires of hell itself.

Against this, Dale unfolded his ‘world of ideas’. Unlike Leonard’s earlier reckless rampage, Dale projected his mental image under the thorough control befitting a high mage.

A clash of thought against thought, world against world.

Toward Leonard, blazing and burning, Dale stepped forward. Behind him, he carried the world of a white, dark winter night.

The world of bitter cold and darkness collided with the world of flames.

The two worlds interlocked. And upon the boundary between them, Dale stamped his foot.

Accelerating the circle of his heart, he generated blue magic power and scattered cold air to draw away the heat from the area. White, frozen frost crystals scattered. The swirling frost crystals absorbed the surrounding heat, beginning to achieve thermal equilibrium. Like a firefighter suppressing a blaze.

He moved toward Leonard Walter, whose magic of flames was blazing and raging out of control.

“Leonard Walter.”

Approaching, Dale opened his mouth.

“Look around you.”

He addressed Leonard, who had lost his reason and become a shadow of flames. Behind him, the cold darkness and chill of a bitter winter night lingered.

The ‘World of the Black Sage’ unfolded before him.

“……”

Before long, the void-filled world Dale was unfolding was swallowing Leonard’s world whole. The hell of searing jealousy and inferiority was engulfed by the darkness and chill of a bitter winter night.

A wizard’s battle is ultimately a clash of ideologies, a collision of worlds.

In that regard, no matter how wildly Leonard’s magic surged and raged, there was little he could do against a ‘true genius’.

“Ah, aaaaaah!”

Leonard screamed. The flames of jealousy dancing upon Leonard’s body plunged toward Dale. Flames of jealousy and inferiority. That was the very form of thought Leonard Walter possessed as a magician.

But the raging flames of jealousy froze solid.

Unable to melt the ‘Winter Night’s Chill’ that Dale commanded, the world of flames froze solid. The flames died down, and darkness settled over them. It was an endless darkness, like peering into the bottomless pit.

“This is my world.”

Dale spoke. Leaving behind the ‘world of Dale’ he was unfolding against Leonard Walter.

“Are you prepared to bear the weight of this world?”

That night, projecting the winter landscape made of endless emptiness and void.

“Do you still see ‘the talent I possess’ as something so precious and dazzling, like a jewel?”

The flames of jealousy that had been consuming Leonard were now fading, powerless.

“Ah, ahh…”

Dale took a step.

Leonard took a step back. From the white and dark winter night horizon that Dale held behind his back.

“Oh, oh, don’t come…!”

As if fleeing from the biting cold and darkness.

“Why are you doing this?”

Dale asked back.

“Here lies what you desire.”

The source of Dale’s talent. The world of the ‘Black Prince’. A horizon of emptiness made of biting cold and darkness.

“Didn’t you envy me so much, soaked in inferiority, that you longed for the talent I possessed?”

It was no trivial thing like talent. The embodiment of absurdity? That’s laughable.

“I have already paid the price.”

Remembering the blade of the sacred sword piercing through his own chest.

“Are you prepared to pay that price?”

Dale asked back, as if he couldn’t comprehend it.

“Here is what you desire, so why do you try to run away?”

Leonard didn’t answer.

“Do you still feel like what I have is a blessing?”

Dale asked.

“P-please…! Don’t come any closer, please don’t come any closer…!”

A terrified Leonard trembled and begged. Kneeling pitifully. He didn’t even dare to look at the world Dale carried, and the flames of jealousy that had once burned fiercely were now extinguished.

Every last spark scattered and died.

Only a bone-chilling cold and a blizzard of frost swept through.

In the darkness that seemed poised to swallow the world, Leonard was now nothing but a trembling, terrified figure.

Leonard’s heart, which should have been burning at the end of his rampage, and the fourth circle, had frozen solid.

Snap.

Dale simply flicked his finger. The winter night world enveloping the area vanished. When he came to his senses, he found himself inside the auditorium of the Imperial Academy for Practical Magic.

“We’re… back…”

The professor muttered in shock. Dale simply bowed his head.

“Ah, aaaah…”

Leonard Walter was there. Shivering like a madman consumed by paranoia, muttering incomprehensible nonsense.

He still hadn’t recovered from the aftermath of his contact with Dale’s world.

Even a 6th Circle elf mage dared not maintain composure in the darkness of that winter night.

While the professors and students who weren’t directly exposed might be considered safe, Leonard Walter was not.

The ‘World of the Black Sage’ is not something a mere prodigy mage’s vessel can bear.

I’ll never escape the aftermath of that, and it wouldn’t be strange if I went mad. No, I probably will. I knew that from the start.

‘None of my business.’

Dale turned his head away, unconcerned.

After all, it was Leonard who brought this upon himself; Dale had merely made him pay the price.

After that.

The rampage at the academy ended just like that, becoming nothing from the start.

A gag order was imposed on those who knew the truth.

Leonard Walter withdrew solely for personal reasons, and rumors circulated among the students that for some reason his mind had gone awry.

‘He challenged the Saxon family’s eldest son, lost, and went mad.’

‘That Leonard lost to an 11-year-old brat?’

‘So the gossip was true after all.’

‘Who would’ve thought the legendary Leonard Walter would end up like that….’

‘I heard he was cursed by dark magic and went mad from the agony!’

‘No, from what I heard, it was a spell that destroyed his mind!’

Dale’s name was no empty title. And as always, stories tend to pile exaggeration upon exaggeration.

Moreover, precisely because the Red Mage Tower could not reveal the truth and remained silent, Dale’s infamy swelled endlessly day by day.

Rumors spread that Leonard had been cursed by the Black Prince’s wicked dark magic and driven mad.

Because of this, no one at the Imperial Academy dared treat Dale carelessly. No, rather, they were more desperate than ever to appease him. Even the professors, who were supposed to guide the students, were no exception.

In a sense, their fear—born of a full understanding of the Black Prince and the Saxon family’s prestige—was even greater than that of the students.

In any case, for Dale, there was nothing bad about it.

After eldest son Leonard went mad and was imprisoned underground, some time later.

The Crimson Magic Tower.

Walter of the Blood, a tower elder and 6th-circle mage, bit his lip so hard it drew blood. He wept in sorrow so deep it felt like his bones were aching.

“The bloodline of the Walter family…!”

It was not the sorrow of a father for his eldest son Leonard. It was the sorrow of a nobleman—the sorrow that the Walter family’s reputation had fallen to the ground, and the bloodline meant to carry on the family legacy had lost its function.

The shame of having disgraced the proud Walter family was so bitter and agonizing I couldn’t bear it.

“It cannot be! It simply cannot be!”

Like his very name, Bloodthirst, the blood of Count Walter began to boil within him like flames.

“Dale of Saxony… That damn Saxon brat!”

Walter the Bloodstained. Elder of the Crimson Mage Tower, and during the Empire’s Unification War, the ‘6th Division Commander of the Black Blood Cultists’. A dark mage who amassed ‘scholarly achievements’ by conducting incalculable biological experiments.

“I cannot forgive him, absolutely cannot forgive him!”

And there was no need to say where his rage was directed.

“Ah, Lord Walter.”

Just then, a voice rang out.

At that voice, his blood, which had been seething like flames, instantly grew cold.

“M-Master Tower…!”

Without a sound, the fair-haired handsome man who had been watching him was suddenly there.

“I humbly greet you, Lord Tower Master!”

It was the Crimson Blood Prince, Marquis Yuris.

“Your heart must be in great pain.”

Viscount Yuris feigned an exaggerated expression of grief. And before the crimson mage tower master who was comforting him, Count Walter’s expression froze coldly.

“I-I-I apologize!”

A fear akin to gazing upon an object of terror.

It was not unusual for the Tower Elders to hold reverence toward the Tower Lord. Yet, Walter’s feelings toward the Crimson Duke contained no trace of easily recognizable reverence. It was pure terror, as if he were seeing a monster.

Because he understood the man known as the ‘Blood-Red Duke’ better than anyone else.

“I absolutely do not harbor any ill will toward the eldest son of the Saxon family invited by His Majesty the Tower Lord!”

“Ah, is that so?”

“Yes! Please, please withdraw your misunderstanding!”

“Hmm, that’s a pity.”

Viscount Yuris tilted his head in apparent surprise.

“I am, after all…”

…he said with a smile that gave no hint of his true intentions.

“I came here to assist in avenging Prince Walter, you see.”