Perhaps it was only now that Saruman realized what kind of being was fighting inside the city. It was nothing like any of the possibilities he had imagined.
It was a Legendary Wizard.
A Legendary Wizard who was still alive in this world!
Along with that incantation that seemed to rise from the depths of the underworld, countless streams of green magical energy erupted from the massive, twisted cluster of buildings at the heart of the city.
The green energy was so dense it looked almost solid, boiling and roaring like a living entity. It was as though a fountain of death suppressed for millions of years had finally burst free, or a cloud of plague and destruction had gained a mind of its own and been unleashed upon the world.
The overwhelming green light swallowed vast stretches of non-Euclidean structures in an instant, transforming the entire area into a ghostly hellscape.
The green radiance blended with the dark, eerie sheen of the stone itself, creating a nauseating visual corruption. And that light was anything but static. It surged, churned, and spread wildly.
Saruman could clearly sense a contagious, utterly destructive energy multiplying and expanding within it. Its scale was monumental, covering nearly half the city's skyline. Its power was vast, pure, and terrifying, like an endless ocean of death pouring down upon the world.
This wasn't even remotely on the same level as the magic an ordinary wizard could wield!
"How can it be a Legendary?!"
Saruman's head snapped up, his eyes reflecting the terrifying sight of the green hell raging inside the city. Even from such a distance, he could feel the magical shockwaves sweeping toward them like a physical force, threatening to extinguish all life and freeze every soul in existence.
At that moment, Saruman's mind simply ground to a halt. All his wild theories, his guesses, his complex attempts at rational analysis, every last one of them was shattered and vaporized by this overwhelming display of absolute power.
"How can there still be a Legendary wizard in this era?!"
It took him a long moment before he finally cried out.
Saruman's sharp exclamation fell like a stone into a dead, silent pool, sending invisible ripples through the oppressive yellow world around them. Yet it wasn't merely the disbelief in his voice that shook Kag, it was the sheer weight carried by the word "Legendary."
Kag immediately snapped out of his awe at the battle inside the city and fell into an even deeper state of confusion.
"A... Legendary?" Kag repeated the word, stumbling over it.
As a top-tier warrior, he had a clear understanding of the hierarchy among wizards.
A Great Wizard was already a peak ordinary wizards spent their entire lives failing to reach. Someone like Saruman, who had touched the threshold of the Legendary realm, was rarer still, one of the few extraordinary individuals regarded as potential leaders of a new era.
But a true Legendary... Those were living gods. Beings capable of altering the balance of power across an entire continent single-handedly. Their names belonged in epics, sung by bards for thousands of years.
There were no Legendary beings left in this world. That was supposed to be common knowledge!
Kag was every bit as shocked as Saruman. He whipped his head around, his rugged face filled with equal disbelief and confusion.
"How is that possible? Saruman, are you sure? You can tell from this far away?"
Even as a warrior, Kag knew perfectly well that the Legendary realm had vanished from the world. In fact, anyone in the supernatural world knew it.
After all, the end of the Legendary Age hadn't just been a tragedy for wizards, it had been a tragedy for everyone. Warriors could reach the Legendary realm too; King Arthur was a prime example. If there were no more Legendary wizards, then warriors naturally couldn't achieve that level either.
They were in the exact same boat.
So the sudden appearance of a real Legendary left Kag just as stunned.
"I know exactly what I'm saying! My mind is perfectly clear!"
Saruman's face had gone frighteningly pale. His eyes remained fixed on the tide of green magical energy inside R'lyeh City, still surging and twisting as if alive.
A faint tremor ran through his voice. "There's no mistake, Kag! That level of magic output... that degree of control over the laws of death, as if wielding them from their very source,
"Avada Plague? This isn't an ordinary curse! It's spreading and reproducing the concept of death itself as a plague! This goes beyond mere spells, it touches the realm of Authority! Only someone who has truly reached the Legendary realm could display power like this!"
Saruman understood the Legendary realm far better than ordinary wizards. After all, he was one of the rare few with the genuine potential to break through, only to be held back by the limitations of this era.
He took a deep breath of the hot air, thick with sulfur and dust, trying to calm his pounding heart.
It barely helped.
"I wondered how someone with such a young voice could possess magic far beyond mine... If he's a Legendary, everything makes sense! But that only makes it even more unbelievable!" Saruman could only marvel in awe.
Kag struggled to digest this, his brow furrowing deeply. He wasn't ignorant of the broader magical world; in fact, that was precisely why this sounded so absurd.
"But... Saruman, as far as I know, this isn't an age where Legendaries can exist! The last ones were the Four Founders of Hogwarts, over a hundred years ago in the West! Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hufflepuff... They were the last four wizards confirmed to reach the Legendary realm in five hundred years. Legend says they nearly exhausted all known Legendary Proofs that allowed someone to break through... Since their time, no new Legendary has ever appeared. Everyone agrees on that!"
Kag's voice was thick with disbelief. How could Saruman not know this?
Saruman nodded heavily. Everything Kag said was common knowledge.
As a genius who had touched the threshold of the Legendary realm, Saruman knew far more about "Legendary Proofs" than Kag did.
A Legendary Proof wasn't necessarily a physical object. Rather, it was an opportunity, a rare chance to deeply resonate with the fundamental laws of the world. It could come as a sudden enlightenment, an ancient artifact containing fragments of law, or an extraordinary feat completed at a specific time and place.
The rise of the Four Founders was closely tied to several ancient secret realms discovered across the British Isles and the inheritances within them. They had almost completely drained the accumulation of "Proofs" built up in that region over thousands of years, including the last great dragon, though people in Africa knew little of that particular detail.
"Yes... common knowledge..." Saruman murmured, his eyes still fixed on the green cloud of death hanging over the city. "After the Four Founders, the tides of magic entered a period of decline. No new Legendary Proof has ever been confirmed since. That's why, even though I've touched the threshold, the path ahead has always been buried in fog... as though I'm missing that one crucial key."
A trace of bitterness tainted his voice at the thought of his blocked path, but it was eclipsed by sheer confusion over the impossible scene unfolding before them.
The two fell silent.
Only distant, muffled booms echoed from R'lyeh City as the green magic collided with unseen resistance. Mixed with those impacts were Lina's pained moans, meaningless sounds accompanied by wet, bubbling noises that felt especially disturbing in the dead silence.
Kag forced his warrior's mind, far better suited to battlefield tactics than grand magical theory, to consider another angle.
"Could there still be undiscovered Legendary Proofs out there? Maybe inside the lair of an ancient dragon? Or somewhere like this damned place, a Forbidden Land cut off from the rest of the world where ancient opportunities remain?"
He had heard legends of dragonslayers breaking past their limits using a dragon's core. To be fair, his guess wasn't unreasonable.
However, Saruman slowly shook his head.
"It's not impossible, but the odds are astronomical. The birth of a Legendary Proof is tied directly to the fundamental laws of the world and the ebb and flow of magic itself.
"Since the Era of the Four Founders, global magic activity has been on the decline. That's an undeniable fact. Even if undiscovered Proofs exist, their quality and resonance might no longer be enough to support a new Legendary... And besides," he paused, pointing toward the city, "did you hear his voice? He's so young! Even if he somehow found a rare Proof, reaching Legendary at his age would require talent that is simply... monstrous. I've never heard of such a thing!"
Saruman was clearly reluctant to accept that possibility. Geniuses were like that, it was hard to accept that someone far more talented than them might exist.
Kag scratched his coarse hair as another thought struck him.
"Then... what if the person in the city isn't a new Legendary at all? What if he's one of the Four Founders? Maybe they didn't retire or vanish like the outside world believes. What if one of them came here?"
Saruman's eyes instantly lit up.
Of course! If the person inside was one of those four who had achieved Legendary status long ago, everything fit!
He hurriedly reached into his storage pouch and pulled out a thick volume of biographies. The cover bore the crest of Hogwarts Castle: 'Immortal Foundations: A Study of the Lives of the Four Founders.'
An ordinary person wouldn't carry such a book around, but Saruman was hardly ordinary. Desperate to become Legendary himself, he had spent years collecting every scrap of lore on Legendary figures across the continents, hoping to glean inspiration for his own breakthrough.
He had never succeeded, but those materials had finally found a use.
Saruman rapidly flipped through the pages, searching for descriptions of the Four Founders' voices to compare with the youthful tone he had just heard.
"Gryffindor, records say his voice was loud and passionate, like a lion's roar..."
"Slytherin, cold and smooth, with a hoarse, serpentine edge..."
"Ravenclaw, cool and ethereal, like the whisper of wisdom..."
"Hufflepuff, gentle and warm, steady as the earth..."
Not a single record described any of them as having such a clear, boyish voice. Besides, the Four Founders had been active over a century ago. Even if Legendaries lived extraordinarily long lives and used magic to maintain a youthful appearance, the fundamental timbre of a voice, especially that pure quality of youth untouched by time, was nearly impossible to disguise completely.
Unless they used Transfiguration. Human Transfiguration.
That could explain it. But Legendaries already stood above almost everyone in the world; Saruman couldn't imagine why one would bother disguising themselves while traveling. Furthermore, maintaining Human Transfiguration could interfere with magical precision. In the middle of a high-level battle, no wizard would waste effort maintaining a transformation unless forced to.
Every clue only left him more baffled.
"No... none of them fit..." Saruman closed the book, his expression darkening with confusion. "The vocal descriptions don't match at all. Besides, the Four Founders vanished from public view long ago to establish that magic school. They should have plenty on their hands, so why would one suddenly appear in a Forbidden Land called R'lyeh? And why fight some unknown existence here? It makes no sense."
Saruman analyzed it logically. He knew a great deal about the Four Founders, even that they had established Hogwarts. In fact, Kag had only learned of Hogwarts through him; in an age of slow, unreliable communication, such knowledge was far from widespread.
"I see..." Kag sounded disappointed, dropping onto a nearby black rock and kicking up a small cloud of dust. "Then... could it be a Legendary from an even older era? Someone before the Four Founders? Didn't you say Legendaries can live for a very long time?"
Saruman leaned against the cold tablet, his thoughts in disarray. "Theoretically, yes. Legendary Wizards live far longer than ordinary people; surviving for centuries isn't impossible. But according to reliable historical records and archaeological finds across known magical civilizations, all the famous ancient Legendaries are accounted for. The first Speaker who established the Atlantean Magical Council, the Heavenly Venerable who unified Eastern Qi cultivation... they were either confirmed dead or vanished in unknown realms, never to return.
"Legendaries aren't immortal," he shook his head. "Given enough time, even the greatest beings wither away, their names fading into myth. For one to survive from an ancient era to the present without leaving a trace in history... that's even less likely than a newly risen Legendary."
Once again, they hit a dead end. One possibility after another was raised, only to be demolished by logic and facts.
Yet the reality before them remained unchanged: someone with the youthful voice of a boy was wielding Legendary-level death magic. That fact violently shattered everything they understood about the world. Having their entire worldview torn apart was, in some ways, far more terrifying than any physical danger.
Meanwhile, Lina's mutterings grew more urgent.
Her body twisted unconsciously, her scales scraping against the stone with a harsh, grating sound that set their teeth on edge.
The girl forced out several disjointed syllables:
"...stars..."
"...rest..."
Or perhaps...
"...gate... opens..."
(End Of This Chapter)
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