DMR Chapter 210:
Due to the severity of the situation, Raze had no choice but to do two things. First, he needed to enchant the weapon with Dark Magic. Doing so meant that the enchantment he had placed on it had the chance of making the weapon even rarer than before.
However, he couldn't have too high hopes. For one, the weapon didn't react well to his magic when it was being used, and he only used a level 2 stone. This meant he had no choice but to place a 2-star enchantment on the weapon. He was thankful that the weapon hadn't broken due to its quality and affinity with magic. The one thing he was thankful for in this situation was the fact that the weapon wasn't sealed. He knew this because the weapon gave off a slightly different energy after the enchantment was done. However, he had no time to see what the curse was.
Now that he had thrown it over, and Cronker had it in his hands, the effect of the weapon would all be down to him. Curses could have various drawbacks, such as depleting one's Mana or Qi after use, or more complicated curses like the one Dame had received. There were even more severe curses, such as causing the user to suffer the same amount of damage they inflicted or losing one of their senses with each use.
Raze couldn't know what kind of curse the weapon carried, and he felt a bit guilty about handing a weapon over to someone without letting them choose whether to use it or not.
'I'm sure he will understand,' Raze thought. 'This is a matter of life or death. Whatever the curse is, it will be better than death!'
The rest of the Crimson Crane continued their attacks one after the other, fighting more fiercely than before. They knew time was running low as the power of the Qi pill they were using would soon come to an end.
This was proving even more difficult for Nabi to deal with than he thought, even with his magic. Just like before, Cronker appeared from Nabi's blind spot, as if he had come out of the shadows.
"I will trust in you, Dark Magus!" Cronker swung the sword, hitting Nabi right on his side. As the sword hit the elder's body, it appeared to do nothing, not even cut his skin. This was worse than Cronker's own weapon that he had used so far. It was to be expected, a poor weapon against a Middle stage warrior who could coat his body in Qi. If a poor sword like this could deal with him, then he might as well not call himself a middle-stage warrior.
Raising his eye, Cronker soon noticed something. Right where he struck, an ice patch had appeared on Nabi's clothing. Not only that, but it was quickly starting to spread around the area, growing in size all over his body.
"What is this? What type of enchantment did you do?" Nabi shouted. The ice had quickly spread down to the bottom of his legs, and he needed to stop it fast. He decided to place his Qi away and would use his magic in some way to get rid of the effect. The only thing was, Nabi was going against not just one strong fighter, but in front of him, he had eight middle-staged warriors who weren't going to give him the chance.
"This is over!" Alba declared, as she attacked with all her strength, slashing him right on the neck. Blood was drawn, but the blade hadn't pierced right through. Soon, one after the other, all of the others attacked with their weapons piercing right through the elder. A large sword stuck in his side, a spear stabbed through his stomach, an arrow even pierced him right in the eye. From all the wounds on his body, blood was starting to fill his mouth, and the Elder was hardly able to breathe or talk.
"Damn it... I never... I never..." The Elder spoke. "I never expected... to meet a mage here of all places..." Nabi's vision was fading; he knew it was the end of his life. With few words left to say, he whispered, "I failed you..."
"No!" Raze said, as he quickly ran over. The others, seeing this, quickly pulled their weapons out from Nabi's body, and the Elder fell to the floor, blood soaking the ground.
They could feel all of the energy drain from their bodies. The effects of the pill had worn off. Not only that, but the weapon that Cronker had been holding started to crack and eventually broke into several pieces, no longer existing. It was the curse of the weapon. Cronker had lucked out; the curse was that the weapon would be destroyed after it had been used once on a person. It still had the strong enchantment that Raze had put on it, but the weapon would be gone.
For most, it would be considered a failed item, since all of the resources created and put into the weapon were now gone, but for all of them, this failed item had saved their lives.
Almost all of them had dropped to the ground, and doing so, Raze had come over, looking at Nabi's body. He had turned it over to get a good look at his face. He looked at the eyes, looked at the features and everything down to the last strand of hair.
"I don't recognize this person, but they clearly knew the name Dark Magus," Raze thought. He soon started to search the man, trying to see if he had the item that Alter had given him, but he was unable to find anything. He was thankful slightly because that was one less thing to worry about, but it made him wonder.
"How was there a mage in such a high position in the Light Faction? He had improved his skills beyond belief. What was his goal, and why wasn't he part of Alter? Did they simply not know about him, had he managed to stay in hiding for so long?"
There were so many questions Raze wanted to ask, such as when did he come over, were there more mages in the Light Faction, and was there a way to return to Alterian? But the Elder was dead, and there was nothing he could do now.
Alba and the others continued to look at the hooded figure. They were unable to see his face, but she was sure of it, that this was the same person from before. The same one that was with the other three and was about to go head-to-head with the Pagna student. She knew she had a good feeling about him.
"He is beyond what I imagined. He can create such strong pills, and his power is great for support. I don't even know what he did to that weapon that he gave Cronker as well. No matter what... I have to have him... I have to!"
Unlike Dame, she didn't care about where he was from or what the Dark Magus could possibly do; she was much more focused on her own goals and having the Dark Magus on her team.
While Raze was holding the man in his arms, there was no mist that came from his body. Although Raze played a part in killing him, he was not the one who took his life, so he didn't obtain any Dark essence from the kill.
"This mage, he used the lightning attribute," Raze thought. "When I absorbed the energy from the beasts in the Dimension, I didn't unlock the ice attribute. But after unlocking the ice attribute, I was able to increase its strength. However, unlike those beasts that just had a small amount of energy, this man, he could have a lot more."
Thinking this, Raze wasted no time as he placed both hands on the mage. Soon, the veins on his hands started to show, and they were pumping the energy from one into the other.
"He's... he's using the Extraction technique on the dead?" Reno noticed. "But I thought that wasn't possible on humans?"
This was something that Raze was unaware of. Beasts contained crystals, and because of that, there was lingering energy in their bodies. But it wasn't the same for humans. They had live energy, Qi energy, and this energy disappeared with their life.
However, Raze could certainly feel something coming out from the Elder, as he was starting to absorb his core. He could feel it rising in him, feel the energy adding from one to the other. As the others watched, they could feel the humidity in the air slightly change, and soon they could see sparks appearing all over him. Some of them were blue in color, while others were orange.
"What is going on? Is it a portal break?" Alba thought, trying to muster her strength but failing.
Rayna, who was closest, managed to catch a glimpse, just underneath the hood she could see it, she could see the hooded man's eyes start to glow a slight tinge of blue.
Finally, a spark and a layer were added onto Raze's magic core.n/)./)-(-/.//I.)n
"I did it!" Raze thought to himself. "I unlocked the lightning attribute."
Soon, though, the smiles had changed, as Raze suddenly felt all of the muscles in his body contract, and extreme pain shot through his body.
"ARGHHH!" Raze screamed. Rayna, looking and seeing the energy from his body, she could tell what this was straight away.
"He's breaking through... he's breaking through to the next stage!"
