[306] Master of the Incarnation (4)
"But Your Highness, this place is dangerous."
"That, too, is for me to decide. The royal guard's duty is to protect the king. Isn't that so?"
"I will remember. Then please move to a slightly safer place."
As Orcamp passed Bosun and took a seat on the south side of the Grand Hall, the nobles erupted in outrage. Because the king refused to evacuate, they had no choice but to stay put.
When the nobles clustered around Orcamp, their personal guards followed close behind.
Magic, at any level, can erase a life in an instant. Now that Bosun had stepped forward, the nobles weren't about to lend their shields to anyone else.
Even so, it was a four-on-one fight. The senior figures from the Magic Department, including a certified Rank-4, were on a different level of combat ability than Jion.
"Doing such reckless things—looks like the first prince candidate won't amount to much. Lives in the castle a few days and already thinks everything's his?"
"I wouldn't take it even if you gave it. Bosun, was it? In other countries a fellow like you would be polishing archmage boots, but look at you—playing farmer and getting full of yourself."
Bosun let out a disbelieving snort-laugh. He hadn't expected such insolence from a junior so far beneath him.
Above all, he was furious that his specialty, plant magic, had been dismissed as mere farming.
Granted, plant magic wasn't specialized for combat.
Compared to battle mages who hone a single element—ice, flame—to the extreme, plant mages research various elements and, based on that, alter fertilizer mixes or cultivation methods to boost agricultural productivity. That was their primary work.
In a sense, it was the farthest thing from combat.
But a certified Rank-4 mage, whatever their field, always had at least one trump card capable of subduing an opponent.
"Young one, you're far too arrogant. Very well—this time I'll judge your skill myself."
Bosun dug into his pocket, pulled out dozens of seeds, and scattered them across his palm. Each differed in color, shape, and size.
"My specialty: 'A Handful of Seeds.' A mixed set of asexually bred plants I improved. They're all jumbled together, so I won't know what comes up."
He swept his arm and let the seeds fly.
He opened a Spirit Zone; seedlings sprouted from the air and, at high speed, matured into plants that revealed their traits.
Three Kawangkra seeds reached maturity first. Their flowers were pale green spheres that split open to reveal sharp teeth. Roots shot out, clamped onto Shirone's arms and legs, and the maws lunged.
Kieeeek!
Shirone detonated an ultra-short-range Frenzy; the Kawangkra's flower burst with a pop. Fierce enough to tear a snake's skin, the Kawangkra nonetheless couldn't match plant fragility.
Still, the other seeds all landed safely and began to threaten Shirone in their own ways.
As the massive plant group came to maturity, the north end of the Grand Hall became a jungle.
Bosun had bred eighty-seven plant types in total, so the handful of seeds surely contained over thirty species.
The scene around Shirone could have passed for a small ecosystem.
Roots of the Kokora tree, called murder vines, crawled up the walls and covered the ceiling. Ortho fungi released spores that sprayed madness-inducing gas, and Killer Flowers dangled on springy, winding stems at the ceiling corners, spitting acidic slime in full bloom.
Shirone surveyed the scene with interest.
He hadn't expected human magic to have advanced this far while he'd been sealed. One could see why the angels pinned their hopes on the final war.
"You bred these yourself?"
"Not worth answering."
When the murderous plants struck, Shirone teleported to evade them. But the plants were everywhere.
Bosun expertly herded Shirone into a corner. As branches extended, the space Shirone could dodge in shrank little by little.
"How's that—farmer's magic?"
Seeing trees move branches like limbs was grotesque, yet beneath it lay keen insight drawn from nature.
Plants have no muscles. The only way a plant can move is by growing.
Bosun's passive magic, Growth Acceleration, speeds plant growth by up to one hundred thousand times. That's why plants under its effect can display animal-like motions.
But that also meant their lifespans were short.
A Kawangkra, normally living about ten years, completes growth and ceases activity in forty minutes under Growth Acceleration.
Of course, a Kokora tree with an average lifespan of 1,200 years could sustain activity for over twenty hours, but the average active time of the plants mixed into a handful of seeds was only around two hours—so a long war was impossible.
If Growth Acceleration creates activity, then the fine-grained movements come from the active magic Elemental Combination: infusing plants with various elements to induce specific instincts—photosynthesis being one example.
It's much like humans behaving differently under various hormones.
That's why Growth Acceleration and Elemental Combination are called the heart and brain of plant magic.
Bosun combined the two magics with finesse, pressing Shirone relentlessly.
Flowers spat acidic slime, thorny vines lashed out like whips.
Because plant movement is growth, the space grew more saturated the longer it went on.
Only after the vines wove into a three-dimensional tangle and escape routes vanished did Shirone stop teleporting.
Vines dropped from the ceiling and wrapped around his limbs.
"Now I'll grade you. You fail."
He said it, but Bosun boiled inside.
In an environment without soil, a plant mage's power is reduced. Still, this was the work expected of a certified Rank-4 mage. To be driven this far by an amateur in front of his subordinates was a complete humiliation.
"How the hell did this happen? Did you gain some kind of insight?"
A person couldn't change this much in one hour. Personality could be strange, but the level of magic itself was different.
Shirone tried to pull the vines coiling his wrists. A mage's body couldn't tear them; instead, thorns scratched him and blood flowed.
Bosun snorted.
The plant prison had been one of his proudest spells—its restraining power was formidable, and thorn scratches could paralyze nerves.
"You should give up. No one but a scale mage can escape this prison. Surrender your neck and I might grant you the mercy of a peaceful death."
Shirone, who'd been looking at Bosun, blinked. Then, with a look of realization, he said,
"Ah—scale magic."
He looked up at the prison's ceiling.
Vines bulged like tendons, forming a wall like petrified lava. Entangled to that degree, the durability would be considerable. And that suited him.
"Now that's a good idea."
A smile cut Shirone's face and he immediately birthed a sphere of light before his eyes.
He activated Immortal Function, and the photon density of his Photon Cannon increased dozens of times.
Kruuuugh!
Nerves along Shirone's body all fired. The capillaries in his eyes burst and blood-tears streamed down his face.
Even so, he didn't lose consciousness—thanks to the power of Geumgangtae.
Shirone understood. He knew what he had and what he could do with it.
He expanded his mind to the brink of Geumgangtae's elasticity breaking. He didn't care if it tore; if he could unleash this level of power, he could set life aside and play with it.
"Teacher, we should finish him now."
Ekkasi said, seeing the Photon Cannon like compressed kinetic energy. Bosun had no objection.
When the Elemental Combination starved the plants, countless carnivorous species slipped from the branches and bared teeth at Shirone.
"Shirone!"
The Grand Hall doors opened and Amy and Reina rushed in.
They saw Shirone trapped in a dense grove. He looked worse than when they'd seen him in the food storeroom.
His nervous system protruded outside his skin—an amount of information was being delivered to his brain that no human could easily tolerate.
Even if Shirone's personality returned, it was doubtful he could function normally.
Kruuuugh!
Shirone focused the mental energy drawn by Immortal Function solely into god particles.
As the mass of light increased, the Photon Cannon began to blur. The immense mass generated gravity and pulled the photons inward.
"Shirone! Don't!"
Amy felt a chilling horror at the photon compression—nothing like Shining Impact. She heard phantom screams of Shirone's mind being torn apart.
Human minds are fluid but extremely vulnerable to sudden shocks. If his mind exceeded its limits regardless of Shirone's will, he might never return to sanity.
Carnivores descended like snakes along the trunks, jaws opening for Shirone's flesh. At the same moment, the light of the Photon Cannon vanished.
With a pop, a black sphere the size of a human head formed. When mass is compressed to an extreme, light cannot escape and is instead swallowed.
It was the dark orb—the Photon Cannon's counterpart.
Kieeeek!
The small gravity field the dark orb produced measured one meter across. Stalks of the carnivores trapped within snapped, and, as if sucked through a straw, droplets of their bodies vanished into the orb.
Then the vines holding Shirone's limbs began to creak and bend.
They tried to resist, then cracked and were sucked into the dark orb. Every plant group connected to those vines tore from the walls and swirled like whirlpools.
Rrreeeek! Rrreeeek!
Fibers broke, burst, and compressed in sequence, and were finally drawn into the orb's darkness.
Bosun stood dumbstruck as his specialty, 'A Handful of Seeds,' was utterly destroyed.
Only gravity can trap light. And that requires an enormous concentration of gravity.
'Scale magic…'
Shirone was an Unlocker, not a scale mage. But by drastically amplifying gravity, he produced the same spatial effect as a scale mage.
Bosun thought perhaps all Unlockers might, in some sense, be scale mages.
When the dark orb vanished, the grove that had filled the north of the Grand Hall was gone. Only shabby moss clung to the ceiling corners; a few surviving flowers drooled acidic slime and collapsed to the floor.
Bosun turned his stiff neck and looked at Shirone. Even with blood-tears streaming, Shirone was smiling.
"Well? My scale magic—pretty easy, right?"
As he spoke, a bucket of blood poured from Shirone's mouth. Amy screamed.
Still, Shirone laughed like a madman.
It's fine. At least I can still think. If I can fight, that's enough. I still burn inside.
Bosun's wounded pride made his fingertips tremble. Even for an Unlocker, wasn't this too much?
A gravity-specialized magic might not be usable as an offensive beam, but as defense it was unrivaled.
"I'll handle it."
Ekkasi stepped forward with a cold expression.
There are two broad ways to stand out as a battle mage: invent some shocking magic that makes the world gasp, or simply be truly exceptional at fighting.
Ekkasi belonged to the latter. Small in stature, he was nonetheless the kingdom's renowned technician when it came to combat sense.