Black Hearted Mage

Chapter 320 Hunting

Caesars stood atop the sail, a cold smile curling his lips. Now that he'd locked onto his target, no one aboard this ship could escape alive. He slowly raised his hands, dark gray magic gathering in his palms. The air around him began to distort, as if even the moonlight was being swallowed by this power.

As he chanted softly, countless pitch-black magical tentacles suddenly emerged from the shadows of the deck, wrapping around the sleeping sailors like venomous snakes. The tentacles instantly strangled their throats, and before they could even scream, the muffled sound of bones breaking echoed throughout the cabin. Some awoke, their eyes widening in terror, but the next moment, their vision was swallowed by darkness—Caesar's magic directly corroded their consciousness, suffocating them in excruciating pain.

"Enemy attack! There's a magician!"

Finally, the ship's guards noticed something was amiss, and a sharp alarm pierced the night sky. Several fully armed warriors rushed onto the deck, enchanted weapons in hand, and glanced around warily. However, Caesars had already vanished, leaving only a faint whisper drifting on the wind.

"boom--!"

The stern mast suddenly snapped, sending a corrosive gray mist surging out, instantly engulfing the nearby crew. Amidst screams, bloodied figures struggled frantically, ultimately reducing to lifeless wreckage. The guards retreated in terror, but countless sharp black spikes jutted from the cracks in the wooden planks beneath their feet, piercing their bodies from bottom to top. Blood splattered, staining the deck a dark crimson.

"Damn it! Where is he?"

The consignee in leather armor finally woke up. He suddenly turned over and pulled out the dagger from his waist, but before he could rush out of the cabin door, a dark shadow appeared silently behind him.

"Are you looking for me?"

A cold voice echoed in his ears, and the receiver froze. Before he could react, he felt a wave of weakness all over his body. Feeling a pain in his chest, he slowly lowered his head. A magical hand pierced his chest. The blood-stained hand slowly withdrew, while his heart, held in the palm of the hand, continued to beat weakly.

"Unfortunately, you are too weak and don't even have a chance to struggle!"

Caesars clenched his five fingers, the heart exploded, and the consignee's body fell to the ground with a bang.

Caesar stood in a pool of blood, looking indifferently at the corpses on the ship. After confirming that no one was alive, he began to collect his spoils.

Half a quarter of an hour later, as the Elemental Wings ascended, several crystal bottles filled with red alchemical solvents crashed onto the ship. As the crystal bottles shattered, the red oil flowed all over the ship, and flames began to blaze.

The entire ship fell into a dead silence, with only the crackling of flames and the sound of water lapping against the hull. The sea breeze wailed, as if wailing for this silent massacre.

To avoid exposing the Elemental Wings, Caesars had to take the rugged path again, spending over an hour before returning to the cliff. When he arrived at the tent, breathless, the sight before him instantly made him forget his fatigue—the greedy puppy was sprawled out in the open space in front of the tent, its dark red belly bulging high and glistening in the sun, like a balloon blown to its limit, ready to burst at any moment.

"You damn dog!" Caesars gritted his teeth and kicked the puppy's paw. "Even the most ferocious monsters on Roland Continent can't do anything to you. Sooner or later, you'll die from your own greedy mouth!"

The puppy let out two muffled grunts, its stubby tail slapping the ground twice symbolically, not even bothering to open its eyes. There was a suspicious sauce on the edge of its mouth, and scraps of sea fish were scattered around its front paws.

Caesars held his forehead and sighed. This guy always ate like crazy while he was out. He sat down wearily on the creaking recliner and pulled out six storage rings of various shapes from his pocket. In the warm sunlight, the rings with different patterns jingled in his palms.

The first two storage rings examined were filled with daily necessities: preserved meat, sealed bottles of fresh water, a nautical astronomical device, and a complete set of tools for maintaining cables. The third ring contained the consignee's personal effects—several exquisitely crafted silk shirts, dented leather armor, and a short knife with a poisoned, bluish blade.

But when Caesars opened the last three rings, his breath hitched. Crates of high-grade magic crystals glowed within the storage space, alongside neatly stacked ice crystals, their surfaces frost-covered. Dozens of high-grade herbs were preserved in special containers, and the insignias branded on the magic steel ingots had been removed. Hidden deep within were several boxes of potions, sealed by the Alchemy Guild, as well as armor materials made from high-grade magical beast leather—the value of these contraband items was enough to buy a large estate in the Roland Empire.

"It seems I've underestimated Baron Cesis. This guy has woven a huge web in the Roland Empire!"

Felsteel ingots are far from a material that ordinary craftsmen can smelt. These ingots, gleaming with a faint blue luster, must be forged by skilled master forgers through repeated tempering in massive, high-temperature furnaces equipped with magical amplification devices. More notably, each ingot was once engraved with the mark of its original owner—a family crest or a magical brand—but these markings have now been deliberately removed, clearly indicating they likely came from a noble who wished to remain anonymous. Obtaining Felsteel requires not only rare ore but also royally authorized smelting. And stacked alongside the ingots are contraband items—banned alchemical potions, marked magical scrolls, weapons inscribed with magical runes—each hint at the secret dealings of the aristocracy.

As dusk deepened, a figure was hiding in the shade of the trees outside the courtyard. Caesars pressed his body against the high wall of the house, his magical tentacles exploring the heavily guarded mansion.

The gray-haired butler's face turned pale after receiving the magic message: "The Dawn failed to return as planned. The wreckage was found in the Emerald Strait, and some bodies have been carried back to the imperial coast by the tide."

"This is impossible!"

The butler's ecstatic exclamation pierced the twilight. The old man stumbled toward the magically lit study on the second floor, his silver-studded cane making a chaotic clatter on the marble steps. Caesars seized the opportunity to scale the oak tree near the wall. From this vantage point, he could clearly see the guards patrolling the backyard in seemingly ordinary uniforms, but the pale blue shimmer of their breastplates in the moonlight betrayed their composite material infused with magic steel. They patrolled with a precise rhythm, posting sentries almost every five steps and two men manning every corner.

Even more problematic was the fact that those seemingly simple brick walls were covered in spiderweb-like magical patterns—any touch would trigger an alarm. Even the doors and windows, painted in natural wood, showed the unique energy fluctuations of magic steel in Kaesus's true vision. This metal, strong enough to withstand heavy blows, was cleverly disguised as wood.

Three exquisitely decorated study rooms, arranged in a triangular pattern in the backyard, each furnished with identical ebony desks, gilded inkstands, and carved oak chairs. Even the brass astrolabe by the window was positioned at the exact same angle. Guards in silver-gray armor stood like statues outside each oak door, their rose emblems engraved on their breastplates gleaming coldly in the moonlight. In the study rooms to the left and center, two elderly nobles, draped in indigo velvet robes, sat facing each other across the courtyard, mirror images. Their equally wrinkled square faces held identical amber eyes, and even the serpentine emerald rings on their right pinkies shone with the same faint light.

As the old butler stumbled into the study on the right, his silver-studded boot heel caught on the tassels of the carpet. He forgot to touch his chest and bowed, his withered palms pressing directly onto the desk.

"My lord, the Dawn has sunk, and all the people on board have been killed..." The old man's hoarse voice was filled with a tremor like metallic friction. A few drops of sweat slid down from his gray temples, leaving dark spots on the gold-embossed pages.

Invisible spiritual ripples collided and surged against the stone walls. Caesars leaned against the rough bark of a century-old oak tree, his black leather armor blending perfectly with the tree's shadow. His icy blue pupils narrowed slightly, and those mixed emotions of fear and doubt were like stones dropped into a still lake, stirring clear ripples in his highly sensitive soul. The soul in the study to the left was violently fluctuating, like a ship's lantern in a storm.

In the study room in the middle of the backyard, the fluctuations coming from it were like the surface of a frozen lake. The soul of the old nobleman who was staring at a page of the "Continental Herbal Atlas" had been stagnant for a full seventeen minutes - the man had been in a daze.

As Caesars deftly climbed to the treetops, he found the perfect vantage point among the intertwined branches. Not only did he overlook the entire courtyard, but the dense canopy also obscured the arcane brilliance. Lilac magic flowed through his fingertips, arcane missiles from the elves. Those limestone walls, infused with felsteel, were a perfect barrier to ordinary magic, but before his carefully woven arcane spells, they were nothing more than a piece of parchment that could be easily pierced.

Caesars' figure flickered in the night. The silver light of his Blink spell had barely faded before his toes had already cleared the top of the wall. A pale blue halo of Levitate enveloped him, allowing him to glide across the towering barrier with the lightness of a feather. A well-timed Feather Fall spell masked the rustle of his robes as he glided. As he skimmed across the forty-meter courtyard and landed safely, Arcane Missiles was already firing.

Over ten meters from the carved wooden window of the study, a purple light emanated from Caesar's fingertips. Three arcane missiles flew in a triangular pattern, tearing through the rain curtain. Baron Sethis was pressing down on the gilded ink cartridge when his well-maintained fingers suddenly froze in mid-air. His eyes, always narrowed between his graying temples, now widened. The magical protective bracelet on his left wrist, passed down through three generations, blazed with a blinding green light. A shield powerful enough to deflect even high-level spells was rendered useless by the purple missiles.

"Impossible..." The baron's exclamation was cut short by a muffled thud in his chest. The first missile struck him squarely in the sternum, instantly deforming the silver button inlaid with the family crest. The second blasted a visible shockwave across his heart. By the time the third missile sank into the center of the shockwave, the renowned nobleman, known for his caution, had fallen backward like a puppet with its strings severed, a spiderweb of cracks etched across the sturdy oak chair back.

The old butler, attempting to rescue, didn't even manage to raise his hand before three arcane missiles struck his age-spotted temple. The old man's hunched body convulsed violently as if struck by electricity, his silver-inlaid cane creaking as he fell to the ground, his eyes rolled back as he passed out.

The courtyard instantly seethed like a hornet's nest. Thirty-two heavily armored guards swarmed from different directions, three of them gleaming with golden light. Caesars's black robe billowed as he hurled six painful curses. The captain of the guards, who had arrived first, suddenly fell to his knees and retched—his steel breastplate intact, but his skin had turned gray.

As the tenth guard screamed and fell, Caesars finally completed the complex spell that had taken five seconds. With a sweep of his blood-stained fingers, a dark barrier as thick as pitch erupted from the ground, transforming the entire courtyard into a black coffin. Shadow bolts came to life within this realm, automatically seeking out their prey like wolves scenting blood. Each purple flash was accompanied by the clang of armor falling to the ground—until the last guard, his sword still sheathed, a vibrant violet blossomed between his brows.

The door to the study across from him slowly opened, and Baron Sesis's double stepped out. Surprisingly, he wasn't frightened by the corpses strewn across the yard. Instead, his eyes widened, and a strange smile curled up at the corners of his mouth, as if he were enjoying some delightful sight.

Caesars crossed the courtyard with steady steps, his boots making a sticky crunch through the pool of blood. He stopped in front of the small building where Baron Sethis was hiding and pushed open the oak door, carefully disguised as magic steel. The hinges groaned harshly, revealing a fascinating scene inside the study: two treacherous old men were in a state of disarray. One slumped in a high-backed chair like a rag doll, his chest stained with dark red blood, and blood still lingering at the corners of his mouth. The other lay facedown on the ground, foaming at the mouth, his age-spotted face distorted by convulsions.

"Count Soren, you are really good at hiding!"

Caesar's voice was like icicles on a winter night. Before he finished speaking, his fingers had already drawn two gray spells, and the Curse of Weakness and the Curse of Fatigue descended simultaneously. He would never make the mistake of underestimating the enemy on the eve of victory.

"Who...are you?"

When the old man known as Baron Sesis heard the deliberately forgotten surname, his cloudy eyes trembled violently and his loose facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.

"I have received the gift you carefully prepared—dozens of highly venomous little snakes. To show my sincerity, I naturally should come and express my gratitude in person!"

Caesars sneered and pulled off his hood. His long, silver-white hair and beard gleamed coldly under the magic lamp, and dangerous flames danced in the depths of his ice-blue eyes.

"The... The Great Undead Mage!"

Earl Soren let out a scream that was not like a human voice, and his fingers gripped the armrest tightly, his knuckles turning white from excessive force.

"No, I'm a friendly dark mage, but I can harvest souls just the same!"

Caesars grabbed Baron Cesis's hand and forcibly took off his two storage rings.