The Undying Magician - Book 2 - Chapter 57 - Decision (Patreon)

             Somewhere in the Forest Around the Undying Caverns
                                 Year 2849 | Month 1 | Day 24

Frost stands in silence alongside a dozen other magicians, each leaders of their own cities. But despite their power, both in influence and magic, not a single one of them manage to muster a word as they stare at the screen in front of them. On the screen each of them can see the Undying Magician – who by now has earned the title – simply walking away from Falkner’s corpse after burning it with a fireball spell.

Is he really immortal?

“Wait, doesn’t he look older now than he did before?” Archon asks, sounding at least a little intrigued by this, his scholastic mind pushing aside the fear he’s no doubt feeling at the moment.

Frost’s eyes narrow before he focuses on the child who doesn’t appear to be a child anymore. If he was asked to guess his age when he first met the boy, he would’ve said about fifteen. But now? Now the Undying Magician appears to be about eighteen years of age by appearance.

“Is his immortality draining his life energy?” Archon mutters to himself before shaking his head and saying, “No, I don’t think that’s it. Otherwise he wouldn’t be so nonchalant about taking hits.”

“His appearance never really did match his actions,” Frost comments, getting a nod out of all the magicians who had seen and met with the Undying Magician before.

Archon glances at him before returning his gaze to the screen again as he says, “You think his aging was frozen at some point?”

“Certainly possible,” Frost says with a nod.

No one says anything for a few minutes, simply watching the barrier close behind the Undying Magician after he reenters his caves.

Eventually Harold speaks the question on all their minds, “Then what changed to let him age again?”

Silence fills the clearing for several seconds before Archon answers, “If I had to guess, it was most likely His Majesty’s experimentation that did it.”

Which means Nathan Fox is most likely older than he appears. It would certainly explain how he’s already a Class C magician.

“We’ve deviated from the purpose of our gathering,” Frost says, bringing everyone’s focus back onto the topic. “We’ve seen what he can do. Now we decide.” He turns around to face each of the magicians. “Will we attack him? Or will we leave him be?”

The threat level he poses has shot up past what we had expected it to be, so I would be surprised if someone didn’t back out…

As if in response to his thoughts, two of the magicians present shake their heads and voice their withdrawal before leaving the group, heading back to their own cities. Then, not long after that, another magician joins them, leaving nine magicians in the clearing.

Frost looks around for a few seconds to see if anyone else joins them, and when no one else does he lets out a sigh of relief.

Looks like greed and fear are still at the top.

Then he begins talking, “Now some of you might have noticed that the Undying Magician’s regeneration-”

“I wouldn’t call it regeneration, per se,” Archon suddenly interrupts, making Frost frown at him. “His wounds aren’t healing. They’re reverting.” The man walks over to the screen and begins pressing buttons on the terminal before the screen changes to show a recorded image of the Undying Magician while he was in the tornado getting torn apart and put back together. “Regeneration is when the body itself is healing through natural or unnatural means, regrowing the lost tissue or in some cases. But what the Undying Magician’s condition is doing appears to be reverting it back to how it was before he was hurt. Almost like-”

This time Frost interrupts him as he finishes, “Time magic.”

Gasps echo from the other magicians at this revelation. But Archon doesn’t stop there as he turns back around and says, “Not just time magic. It would also require space magic to get that level of precision in returning everything back to how it was. Especially since some of the missing parts, as shown in this clip,” he pauses as he fast forwards the video to show the man’s arm being torn completely off and sent flying away along with a boulder, only for the arm to suddenly teleport back to his shoulder along with all of the blood and any other ligaments that were torn off in the process, “were teleported entirely. Something time magic can’t accomplish.”

Not good.

“Does this mean he’s a time and space magician in addition to fire?” Frost asks the unthinkable. But Archon just shrugs at that and answers, “Who knows? It shouldn’t be possible to have more than one affinity, but then again, not much about this thing should be possible in the first place. If you asked me though, I don’t believe he has time or space affinity. Otherwise he’d be using time and space mana while fighting.”

Frost – along with the other gathered magicians – let out a collective sigh of relief at that. Then Frost gets back to what he was originally going to say before getting interrupted, “Now, some of you might’ve noticed that his,” he pauses to glance at Archon, “reversion,” he looks back at the group as a whole again, “appeared to become stalled by several seconds after he took enough damage from Falkner’s attacks. Which proves that it should be possible to deal with him as long as we move quickly enough and with enough force.”

He moves over to the terminal and messes with the buttons before saying, “And if you didn’t see it, look at this recording.”

The various magicians do so as Frost watches each of them.

“So is it safe to assume that everyone still present here is with us?” Frost asks, narrowing his eyes, only to nod after hearing each of the magicians respond in confirmation. “Then we’ll attack in a week. Prepare anything you need to attack in full force, regardless of how wasteful you may believe it to be. We just need to deal enough damage at once after his reversion stalls to kill him without the reversion kicking in to save him. But if someone holds out and our attacks prove to not be enough because of it? We’re dead.”

All of the magicians present frown at that, but none of them say anything. Because all of them know that it’s the truth.

A dark truth, but a truth, nonetheless.

Frost turns back to the screen again with a sigh, simply letting the video resume playing.

For a brief moment, Frost can’t help but wonder if he’s going to regret what he’s doing. But he pushes past it anyways.

I need that armor if I’m going to have any shot at breaking past the Class B city blockade around the continent.

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