[75] The Return of the Archmage (2)
Canis brought a pale green robe. Arin was watching, but Arkein changed without hesitation.
Bracing himself on the table as he moved, Arkein only managed to catch his breath after sitting down.
"Phew. I feel a little more alive."
"Are you all right, Master?"
Canis asked, worried. The dark circles against Arkein's pallid skin marked him as a dark mage even without a word.
'Nice eyes. That's why I took him as my disciple,' Arkein thought.
By contrast, Arkein wasn't particularly fond of Arin. Her black hair and black eyes showed obvious talent, but she was soft-hearted and lacked judgment.
There was no trace of malice in her pretty face; her large eyes bared her emotions plainly.
The moment she saw the old man naked and her pupils trembled, Arkein clicked his tongue.
"Tsk tsk, what use is that? Useless."
If she hadn't been Canis's close companion, he wouldn't have brought such a weak girl along.
It had been seven years earlier.
Even while on life support and with crippled mobility, he had scraped together his last strength and entered the capital, Bashka.
As befit the largest city in the Kingdom of Tormia, the streets shimmered with wealth and splendor. But behind that light, the abandoned lived out miserable lives.
The slums of Radum.
As the capital with extreme polarization, Radum's residents endured far worse lives than beggars in other cities.
In a place people avoided, the only way to get food was to rummage through trash bins. Competition was fierce; people even killed over fish bones.
Arkein found Canis and Arin there.
Surviving in Radum's daily war, ten‑year‑old Canis had learned to become cruel to stay alive, and he kept Arin with him.
Canis's eyes burned with hatred for the world.
Arkein liked that look. He brought the two into a dungeon and taught them dark magic.
'My judgment was right. Those two are valuable,' he thought.
Arkein refused Canis's support and stood. Today was the day he would be free of this loathsome decay—he would not show weakness, not even now.
"Watch carefully. Witness the greatness of dark magic."
Clutching a black crystal, Arkein closed his eyes. His hands trembled from weakness, but excitement crept across his face and could not be hidden.
"Kraa!"
At his cry the crystal softened, coiled around Arkein like a stream, then billowed like stormclouds and engulfed him.
"Kraaa!"
He emitted a monstrous scream. He was absorbing forty years' worth of power at once; an ordinary man would have been driven insane.
The essence of dark magic was absorption and assimilation.
Arkein absorbed the darkness within the crystal and assimilated it into his own shadow, restoring his former strength.
"Wooo!"
The shadow at Arkein's feet flared like a blaze, broke away from his body, and scattered into fragments.
How much time had passed?
Canis and Arin slowly opened their eyes. There was no trace of the previous decrepitude in Arkein.
He didn't exactly look younger or stand straighter, but his complexion flushed and his eyes shone with vitality.
Canis trembled with emotion at the aura radiating from his recovered master.
'Is this Master's true form? I've heard tales, but this is incredible.'
Arkein smiled in satisfaction. He was as powerful as he had been before Alpheas defeated him.
"Let's go. From today, Arkein's history will be rewritten."
Having waited forty years for this day, Arkein left the dungeon without pausing even to feel the aftershocks of the surging power.
* * *
Arkein arrived at Bashka's western prison, Inferno. Housing mid‑ to high‑level criminals from D to B rank, it boasted ironclad security.
"Stop! Who's there? This area is restricted!"
The guards didn't take lightly to the approaching figures—even if they appeared an old man and children. They drew their weapons first and shouted on guard.
"Identify yourselves! Refuse and you'll be arrested!"
"These wet‑behind‑the‑ears brats..."
The shadow beneath Arkein's feet lengthened and merged with the guards' shadows. Without understanding what was happening, the guards' eyes rolled back, their eyelids fluttered, and they dropped to their knees before collapsing.
"Hmph. Not even worth a snack. Canis, open the gate."
Canis pulled a ring of keys from a guard's waist and opened Inferno's main gate. His master could have bent the iron door if he chose, but he seemed to want to avoid making a big scene.
Canis's expectation was immediately wrong. The moment the gate was breached, Arkein began to show his true nature.
"Intruders! Attack! Permission to kill granted!"
"Contact the palace—request backup! It's a mage!"
The guards charged with pikes and armor, but numbers meant nothing against a dark mage. Arkein's shadow extended like tentacles and merged with the soldiers' shadows.
"Ggrrk! What is this?"
"My body's not moving!"
The guards froze. Then, at a flick of Arkein's hand, they turned on their comrades and began stabbing them as if compelled.
"Ahhh! Are you insane? This is dangerous!"
"I don't know! I'm not doing this!"
Arin's face went pale. Born with eyes unlike anyone else's, she absorbed the guards' fear without filter.
"Canis, you didn't say Master would come to a place like this."
Canis was just as puzzled. Still, his trust in Arkein did not waver.
"He must have a reason. Let's go see."
Arkein strode through the battlefield and into the building. When the links to the guards' shadows snapped, those who had been fighting fell foaming at the mouth.
It was the mind‑control trait of dark magic.
Darkness melded with other darkness. Using that property, it invaded another's shadow and seized control of body and mind.
If you looked only at advantages, dark magic was overpowered.
Yet it was treated as a fringe discipline for one clear reason: a single weakness nullified every strength.
It was fragile against light.
When the sun was up, darkness could be no more than a handspan of shadow. The stronger the light, the more mental power a dark mage needed to cast. Though their power peaked at night, even that waned once Kergos's photonization theory spread.
Across the continent's magic schools, students majoring in dark magic were nearly nonexistent—proof of how despised it was among mages.
But Canis knew Arkein had completely overcome dark magic's weakness. The pinnacle Arkein had discovered had been handed over to him in full.
'Right. I have to trust Master. He gave me everything.'
Breaking through the entrance, Arkein dispatched more guards in the corridors. He opened the iron door to Cell Block A‑3, where prisoners were held. The inmates, sensing trouble, rattled pots and hammered on the bars.
"Hey! Whoever you are, get me out!"
"Oi! Open this damn iron door! I'll pay you! Or I'll have someone die in your place!"
Arkein slowly raised both hands. The prison's grim atmosphere was the perfect stage for his art.
"Power of Darkness."
Shadows draping the corridor took the shape of hands and surged outward three‑dimensionally. Hundreds of hands gripped the bars and pulled; metal groaned as it twisted. As frightened prisoners backed toward the walls, bars along the corridor were torn out one by one.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Power of Darkness let him command shadows that absorbed surrounding energy like limbs. A single strand could barely lift a pebble, but hundreds of hands moving with mechanical precision could wrench out iron bars.
When the gate had been open a while, prisoners shuffled out, heavy iron balls still chained to their ankles.
"What, are you a mage? That's a neat trick."
"Thanks. Let's introduce ourselves. I'm Night Cat Crown. Down here, people know you by name."
Arkein frowned at the prisoners' pathetic swagger. Inferno hadn't been like this forty years ago. How had a place once packed with vicious criminals decayed like this?
'Time is fleeting. Maybe life got easier—that's what it means?'
By Arkein's theory, as civilization advances, the quality of criminals declines. More clever con artists appear while truly bad people infiltrate society.
"Pathetic. Criminals introduce themselves? Just because the bars are gone, you think you can walk out?"
"What, has this old man lost his mind? We came all this way—do you expect us to leave quietly?"
Emboldened by numbers, the prisoners swaggered. Sharing a cell didn't make them allies.
"Listen up, idiots. If you can't beat me, stay locked in your cells. Disobey me and you'll feel bones snap."
The prisoners erupted with laughter.
"Ha ha! What is this old coot on about? Now that we're out, do you expect us to go back quietly?"
"Let's trample him! I'm getting out of this damned prison!"
Fueled by the thrill of freedom, they lunged without thought. Then they realized their ankles were still shackled.
Had they been so long in them they stopped noticing? Maybe they'd worn them for years and simply didn't sense them.
"Oh? Oh? Damn it!"
Only then did panic ripple through them. Arkein snorted at their pitifulness.
If you chose evil, you needed skill; if you lacked skill, you needed wits. These were mere parasites wasting rations in a cell.
"Power of Darkness."
"Egh! Aaah! What is this!"
The hands that had torn out the bars coiled around the prisoners and dragged them into the darkness. As if plunged into a colossal gel, their eyes, noses, and mouths were swallowed by the black veil.
Moments later, the sound of bones breaking echoed.
"Uuugh! Ugh!"
"Gaaaah!"
Mouthed shut, the prisoners could not even scream.
At the eerie crunching, Arin shuddered and turned to Canis.
"Canis, for revenge, do we really have to do things like this?"
"Arin, to deny Master is to deny us."
"Even so..."
"Have you forgotten what happened in Radum? There were things far worse than this. Besides, the prisoners here are the same kinds who tormented us in Radum."
"But we promised. We promised to forget everything from Radum. To start being happy from now on."
"Nothing is over yet. If Master's grudge isn't settled, happiness won't come to us."
When the darkness cleared from the corridor, the prisoners lay in grotesque heaps, bones broken.
Arkein stared down at them with contempt and murmured, "Weaklings. Was this a needless step? Maybe another wing will be better."
Three hundred and twenty criminals were confined in Inferno. Perhaps this place had, by chance, gathered nothing but low‑class scum.