The Golem Mage

A short while earlier, when Lucas and Brandon had retreated toward the eastern rune, Brandon had suggested setting up a trap.

Though Lucas didn’t know much about how traps worked, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to try, as if it worked out it would be in their favour and even if it failed, it could at least distract their opponents long enough to create an opening.

Acting on that, Brandon formed a series of hand signs before thrusting his palms outward in multiple directions around the rune’s vicinity.

Semi-transparent earthen hands, tinted in a faint brown hue, shot out toward the spots he targeted and sank into the ground as if nothing had happened, the only indication that anything had been placed there was a faint glow that vanished almost instantly.

_ _

Back to the present.

All this time, Brandon had been subtly trying to lure them into the trap’s range, but they had never come close enough, and with Damien, being highly proficient in long-range combat it became much more harder for them, as all he had to do was simply kept his distance and pressured them from afar.

However, the moment Alec arrived from above, everything changed, with his earth manipulation level, Alec had already sensed the existence of the trap, that was why he gave the simple command—“Move.”

All because he predicted that the Bloodline Academy mages would fall for it, and even if they didn’t, he would still gain a clean shot without unnecessary interference, but the moment Damien advanced—

—that was when he realized something was wrong.

“Got you!”

Brandon’s voice rang out.

[ Mid-Tier Spell – Quicksand Trap ]

Brandon thrust his right hand forward, with his fingers curling as if he were grabbing something unseen, then twisted his wrist like he was turning an invisible knob.

Instantly, the ground beneath Damien softened and collapsed, turning into a swirling mass of quicksand.

Damien tried to leap out of it, but instead of escaping, he found himself being pulled down even faster, realizing brute force wouldn’t work, he immediately prepared to switch tactics.

He quickly gathered the remaining blood energy swirling around him and began shaping it, in seconds, a long blood rope formed in his grasp, and he swung it outward, aiming to latch onto one of the nearby stone pillars.

But before the rope could fully extend it outward Brandon thrust out his left hand, and the pillar collapsed instantly, crumbling apart before transforming into loose sand.

With no solid structure left to anchor to, Damien lost his only chance of escape as the quicksand continued to drag him deeper, at the same time, Alec landed on the ground with a smooth roll.

Without hesitation, the first thing he did was raise his rifle and aim at Kira.

While Brandon and Lucas were fully focused on eliminating Damien, it had forced Kira to quickly reconsider her next move, and just as she was just about to rush in to assist Damien—

Bang! Bang!

Two shots rang out as bullets struck her kneecaps.

“Shit!” she cursed, immediately feeling the strength drain from her legs as she collapsed face-first onto the ground.

Alec himself was slightly surprised.

When he infused the rifle with his mana, his initial intention had been to produce gravity-based bullets, so in the process he had pushed his gravity power into the gun, as his energy flowed through the weapon, a faint purple hue flickered within its dark structure.

The moment he fired, he saw the result clearly, as soon as the bullets lodged into Kira’s legs, a heavy gravitational force activated, slamming her down and making it impossible for her to stand immediately.

Realizing too late, she turned her head toward Alec, and remembered that he was the true threat on the battlefield that she should have never taken her eyes off, her worry for Damien had cost her greatly.

But when she looked up, all she saw was the barrel of his gun pointed directly at her.

Bang!

Puchi!

Two distinct sounds echoed almost simultaneously, the first was Alec’s shot, the bullet piercing straight through Kira’s head.

The second was the sound of impact as Damien was impaled through the chest by a Qi spear, from the moment Damien had been trapped in the quicksand, Lucas had been relentlessly launching Qi spears, and now, one had finally struck the mark and pierced through.

Naturally, under normal circumstances, defending against such attacks would have been easy for Damien, but he had already expended too much of his bloodline energy just trying to keep himself from sinking deeper into the quicksand.

He had a strong, unsettling feeling that if he allowed himself to be fully submerged, he would end up in an even more dangerous situation.

His danger instincts were literally screaming, making it hard for him to even form a proper defense while trying to stay afloat.

And then—After several consecutive throws, one of Lucas’s Qi spears finally pierced straight through his chest.

Damien’s body then began to dissipate into particles, carried away like fragments in the wind, even as he faded, he muttered curses under his breath, already awaiting his re-deployment back into the battlefield.

In his mind, he had already made a decision, Brandon had to be taken out, he now saw him as a major threat.

_ _

At that moment, two bodies began to reconstruct at the rune point nearby, as Pale and Endrick reappeared, both visibly shaken.

“No one warned me that dying isn’t fun... I can still feel this lingering cold around my neck,” Pale said as he stepped out of the rune circle, his right hand touching his neck.

“So, what’s our next move?” Brandon asked, turning toward where Alec had been, only to realize he was no longer there.

“Oh... I think he’s heading for the central region. He’s trying to reclaim the point,” Endrick said, as he had seen that before his redeployment, it’s probably the reason why they all chose this point as their teammates were nearby.

“That means we should regroup with him.”This time, no one argued, considering he had to sacrifice himself last time to get the center point.

With the team finally reunited, they all understood the importance of supporting Alec.

They quickly rose into the air and began flying toward the central rune, but they weren’t the only ones moving, in the distance, Carmilla and Connor had also taken to the air.

However, they didn’t advance, it seemed as if they were waiting for Kira and Damien to reincarnate before making their next move.

After all, they likely didn’t believe they could take on the War God Mage Team alone, especially while Dragov was still occupied with reclaiming the western rune.

Then it happened, from afar, they all saw the central rune’s color begin to flicker, gradually shifting back toward white.

The moment they saw that, they all understood—The final phase of the Domination Match was approaching far faster than anyone had expected, and it’s because Alec had made sure his team always stayed ahead.

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