novelraw Chapter 456: Anti-Mage Gloves, Dragon Claw Evolution 30
Chapter 456: Anti-Mage Gloves, Dragon Claw Evolution 30
Ser Wilderness, northeast.
Late at night, the vast curtain of darkness blanketed the sky, stars and moon dimmed, only the ridgelines faintly visible in the distance.
Cold gusts of night wind swept across the layered peaks, brushing past the countless mines and smelting works embedded in the mountains, carrying their ceaseless hammering, engine roars, and furnace bellows into the far distance.
Since the founding of the Aola Kingdom, developing the northeastern region has always been a core national policy.
This land is perilous, ranges rising and falling like slumbering behemoths, and both mountain bodies and the ground beneath hide nearly endless mineral resources.
Iron, lead, mythril, mountain copper... sometimes even rare magic crystal veins are discovered.
After years of exploitation, this area has been built into the kingdom’s largest and highest-yield mining district.
Day and night, ores are excavated from rock layers, sorted and evaluated, and depending on value, properties, and smelting difficulty, either shipped south to other nations for wealth or sent to the kingdom’s industrial zones to be forged by high heat and alchemy into refined materials and complex constructs.
At this moment, the ridges and peaks lay silent in the dark, sprawling like ancient sleeping monsters.
A group of figures moved swiftly between ridges and ravines.They moved quickly and silently, making no sound when stepping on loose stones and dry twigs. They bore no insignia of any organization or kingdom, their identities shrouded.
From high above you could clearly see their route deliberately avoided every Aola Kingdom outpost and patrol route.
They acted like they knew the defenses here intimately.
Suddenly, one of them halted for a beat.
He was a man of medium build; beneath his hood a pair of unusually bright eyes gleamed.
He raised a hand in a stop gesture, and a strand of pale-blue prophecy runes flashed across his pupils.
The symbols flowed on the surface of his eyes like living things, then faded.
“The destination is up ahead,” he said in a low, serious voice, “Centered on the target, besides the guard points we already know, there are a lot of hidden sentries. Their numbers... at least thirty percent more than our intel indicated.”
To his right, a lithe figure carrying a longbow tilted his head slightly.
He was dressed like a ranger; even in the dark his eyes adapted like a feline’s to the light.
“Those hidden sentries are monsters with extremely sharp perception. We can’t get close. If we enter their vigilance range, we’ll be detected immediately.”
“We need to find a viable route between their sentries and the guards.”
the prophet added.
The ranger nodded. “My wild senses are warning me too—the forward area has too many lines of sight. All normal stealth approaches are covered.”
Another tall silhouette spoke: “Take a look from those bad spots, see if there are other ways.”
The prophet nodded without speaking.
He pressed his hands together before his chest and chanted a low incantation.
Spell light flowed between his fingers and gradually coalesced into a simple map formed of luminous patterns.
A dense scatter of points appeared on the map.
Red represented fixed sentry posts, white represented the roaming hidden sentries.
They interwove into a vigilance net that almost covered every conventional infiltration angle.
“Hold on, let me deduce the most suitable route.”
The prophet tapped his forehead with the index finger of his left hand; the runes on the palm-up map began to spin rapidly.
Around each red and white light point, concentric ghostly ripples representing detection ranges spread, overlapping and sealing off almost every possible path.
The other team members waited silently, every one maintaining perfect concealment, breaths barely audible.
They were seasoned operatives, knowing in moments like this patience and silence mattered most.
As the spell’s deduction deepened, a previously overlooked terrain detail gradually emerged at the map’s edge.
It was not truly a path, but a natural rock fissure on the mountain’s north face behind the target.
It began at a scree-filled steep slope, snaked down clinging to near-vertical rock, narrowing in places to only allow a single person to squeeze sideways through, with sections half-covered by years of dried vines and weathered rock dust—hardly what anyone would call a route from any angle.
If not for the prophet’s deduction, this passage would have been nearly impossible to find.
Most importantly, this perilous crevice avoided the detection coverage of sentries and hidden posts at a very tricky angle, creating a tiny blind spot.
It was a rare lapse in the tightly woven vigilance net, overlooked because the terrain was so extremely hostile.
“Found it... we go from here.”
The prophet withdrew his spell; the luminous map faded.
“But the process will be dangerous. One slip or a rockfall and we’ll be exposed.”
The team leader, a tall man with a warrior’s build who moved as light as a shadow, weighed the prophet’s words for a few seconds then decided: “There’s no better option.”
“Assassins go first to scout. Ranger watch above and behind. Prophet keep scanning for anomalies.”
“Everyone keep maximum alert. If anything changes, execute Plan Three immediately.”
Time pressed; every extra second increased their risk of exposure.
They no longer hesitated and silently altered direction to skirt around to the mountain’s dark north side.
Their skill and discipline revealed themselves during the climb.
On the steep, slippery, nearly vertical face, they clung like geckos, using hands and feet with almost no sound.
The assassin took point, using special gloves fitted with hooks and suction devices to fix makeshift rope anchors at the most dangerous spots, giving the following members leverage points.
The ranger stayed in the middle, eyes like an eagle’s, constantly scanning the cliff above and the ravine behind, short bow half-drawn at the ready.
The prophet was protected in the center; though less fit, he kept steady with the help of his companions.
The journey was not without incident.
Halfway through a weathered rock loosened suddenly; the prophet’s foot slipped and he nearly fell into the ravine, only to be grabbed by the wrist and hauled back into the crevice by the assassin’s swift hand.
After nearly an hour of arduous crossing, the team finally passed the last cramped seam.
Ahead, a natural rock platform opened up on the mountain’s north side.
The assassin reached the platform edge first, lowered his body, and with sharp eyes pierced the night toward the valley floor below.
There, a dark rift that seemed to tear reality itself lay silent.
It stretched for roughly forty meters, widest around three meters, its edges shimmering with an ominous black-purple glow. Its emanations were disquieting, as if it were a wound leading to another world.
The assassin’s spirit sharpened rather than wavered.
An Abyssal Rift!
“Target confirmed.”
He returned to the group, voice held extremely low. “Abyssal Rift, exactly as the intel described. Many guards around, but mostly clustered at the entrance and the rift’s front. The side where we are has relatively sparse defenses.”
They planned to infiltrate to the rift and toss a special alchemical device into it to make it expand.
That was their mission.
The leader nodded and glanced at the alchemist in the team.
The alchemist understood and took from a sealed container at his waist a foot-long strip of metal covered in spatial runes, twisting it between both hands.
With a faint chime, pale-silver ripples spread from the device, shrouding the team.
Their silhouettes began to fade, grow transparent, and finally vanish from the Material Plane, slipping into a parallel dimensional crease.
In that state they could bypass most physical and magical detection, gliding like ghosts toward the Abyssal Rift.
They moved down along the cliff toward the rift.
Phase-space movement wasn’t easy; it required concentrated focus to maintain one’s anchor to the Material Plane, or you risk getting lost in the dimensional seam.
But everyone in the team was well-trained; their movement was orderly.
However, when they reached mid-mountain, still some distance from the rift, they crossed an invisible boundary.
Hum!
The calm space was struck like a lake by a great stone, suddenly rippling violently.
A powerful, stubborn repulsion field forced against them, squeezing the team out of their dimensional walk and revealing them again under the cold night sky.
“Crap, space locks!”
“They were prepared!”
The team’s hearts sank in unison.
Almost at the same moment they reappeared.
WAA—OO!!
A piercing, wild chorus of wolf howls exploded from all directions!
Not a single cry but dozens to hundreds overlapped, shredding the night’s silence instantly.
In the dark, countless eerie green and crimson pupils flashed alive, surging from camouflaged caves, plant-covered tunnels, and ledges clinging to the cliff face.
They were burly werewolf warriors.
Muscles bulging, claws and fangs glinting coldly, they moved across the rugged cliff as if on flat ground and quickly encircled the intruders.
Among the pack, a tall, graceful figure stepped forward.
She was a female werewolf whose dense, blue-gray mane interspersed with patches of dull metallic dragon scales. Her claws and toes were more dragonlike—thick knuckles, hook-shaped talons—and she exuded a clear dragon-blooded aura.
She was Frostfang, daughter of clan leader Russell, and a werewolf sorcerer.
Her age was not young, but because she had undergone more than one dragon-forge modification ritual, she still looked youthful.
“Welcome, little mice.”
Frostfang bared a maw of white fangs. “Do you like the burial ground I picked out for you infiltrators? Remote, quiet, perfect for disposing of trash.”
The kingdom’s defense of Abyssal Rifts had never slackened.
Those seeming omissions were often deliberate traps.
No sooner had she finished speaking than the werewolf warriors around her let out low growls, stamped their paws, and lunged.
“Trapped! For—”
The leader began to shout but his voice was cut off mid-phrase.
In the next instant, a terrifying energy wave erupted from several of the trapped team members.
It was not an outward offensive spell, but an extremely unstable, inward-collapse destruction energy.
They were going to self-destruct!
“Fall back! Scatter!”
Frostfang’s pupils constricted. As she barked the order she swung her staff.
A dense pale-blue radiance burst from the staff’s tip, shaping into the spirit of a massive wolf with dragon wings on its back. It lunged with mouth open toward the named assassin.
Boom—boom—boom!!!
Several incendiary bursts exploded nearly simultaneously, but the dragon-wolf spirit swallowed them in one bite.
The spirit howled in pain. Under Frostfang’s control its wings flapped vigorously, carrying the collapsing destructive energy skyward.
Half a breath later.
The dragon-wolf spirit’s body detonated in midair, torn apart by the fearsome energy within.
The violent shockwave rippled outward, sending stones and dust flying; moss and dead vines from the cliff face were ripped away.
Even at a fair distance from the blast center, the werewolves below felt the heat and impact surge over them.
Long moments later the light and shockwave finally subsided.
Frostfang rose from cover, shaking dust from her form.
She looked up at the sky, then scanned the positions the intruders had occupied.
There was nothing. No corpses, no cloth fragments, no weapon debris.
Everything that could identify them had been reduced by the decisive self-detonation to the finest dust, blending with the mountain wind and vanishing.
“So determined... so thorough...”
Frostfang murmured, heavy concern flashing across her pupils. “These aren’t ordinary spies or saboteurs. They were death operatives, prepared for this. They didn’t even leave a chance to be captured.”
She looked to an adjutant.
“Report to the palace.”
“Encountered infiltration attempt at Rift Number Two,” the adjutant intoned. “Intruders unidentified, highly trained. After exposure they self-destructed, leaving no identification.”
“I suspect an organized operation. Their target may be to expand the rift.”
“Requesting reinforcement: increase guard levels at all Abyssal Rifts and investigate recent abnormal border activity.”
Frostfang said sternly.
“Yes!”
The adjutant answered crisply.
Frostfang’s gaze swept the dark cliff walls as if trying to yank more hidden clues from the air.
“A storm is coming.”
She said quietly.
Citadel of Crimson Flame, rear mountain.
The rising dawn finally pierced the clouds, scattering golden-red light across the land and reflecting off the heavy, armor-like plates of the red iron dragon’s scales, each plate radiating a calm, majestic gleam.
Huff...
Garoth exhaled a stream of scorching breath that rose and dissipated in the morning light.
He lifted his head and watched the brightening sky; a faint glow flowed within his dragon pupils.
“I broke through to Legendary in 322, now it’s 341—nineteen years have passed.”
He calculated silently.
Nineteen years to advance from level twenty-one to twenty-two—a fast pace even among Legendaries—yet Garoth had never felt satisfied.
He hungered for swifter progress, to reach higher tiers, to have Aola Kingdom’s dragon wings cast a wider shadow across the sky.
At the same time his body steadily grew.
Now he measured thirty-eight meters from nose to tail; upright he towered like a mountain, lying coiled he resembled a fortified stronghold.
The most noticeable changes were in his eyes.
Not yet fully evolved, they already displayed extraordinary traits, as if certain perception spells had been crystallized into them.
Even without actively awakening the Eye of Truth, he could vaguely see the flow of elements and energy threads across the world; with focus his gaze could pierce thick rock or walls to reveal internal structures and hidden voids.
Natural eyes, after all, fit the self better than any external device.
Garoth patiently awaited the day his eyes finished their transformation.
Pulling his thoughts back, he lifted his right foreclaw and withdrew a pair of black gloves from a spatial container at his side.
The material was strange, neither cloth nor leather; to the touch it was as cool and supple as congealed night wind. On the back of each glove a finely embroidered six-pointed star in silver-thread glinted faintly metallic in the dawn.
“Anti-Mage Gloves...”
Garoth whispered.
He had exchanged two legendary items for them.
A two-for-one trade might have seemed a loss, but Garoth felt it was worth it.
Hum—
The gloves seemed to sense his will. Suddenly they liquefied into black viscous pools that crawled up his toes, spreading rapidly to cover his claws and perfectly fitting into the gaps between each scale.
Finally, the six-pointed star on the glove backs lit up on his dark-red scales like embedded silver veins of light.
Garoth concentrated, locking his gaze on the empty mountain wall before him.
He slowly extended his right claw, splayed his talons, then snapped them shut with force.
A tangible sensation pulsed at his claw pads, as if he had seized some tenacious, invisible object.
Garoth’s forearm muscles bulged and his scales creaked from the strain.
He roared softly.
“Shatter!”
Crack!
A clear fracturing sound rang out, not from stone but from space itself!
Centered on his claw pad, a cobweb of dark fissures manifested, crazily spreading, and with a violent tug he actually tore off an irregular shard of space whose edges flickered faintly with light.
It wasn’t a physical thing you could see with ordinary vision; its existence was confirmed only by the continuously warping, refracting edges of the surrounding rifts.
Garoth held the ripped piece of space in his claw and felt its extreme instability, its tearing vibration.
He brought his other claw to join it and slowly squeezed.
Creak, crack...
A fine grinding noise sounded; the fragment of space collapsed under his colossal pressure and utterly disintegrated into the air, while the space he had torn healed, restoring itself.
“Not bad.”
Satisfaction showed in Garoth’s eyes. “Though it consumes tremendous physical energy, it can turn the tide at critical moments.”
The Anti-Mage Gloves’ effect was exceptionally special.
They allowed the wearer’s grasping will to act on three categories of things normally unreachable by physical touch:
energy, magic, and space.
They could seize raw energy flows—raging flames, striking lightning, or even formed protective fields—and tear them apart or divert them;
they could seize magical effects acting on the wearer, stripping or directly destroying them;
they could seize spatial structures, tearing rigid spatial barriers by hand or smoothing micro spatial fissures.
Of course, the cost was steep—primarily physical and mental energy. Each use inflicted great strain, and excessive use might cause the user to collapse.
Take tearing space as an example.
For a Legendary human warrior, even if higher level than Garoth, ripping off a piece of space by bare hands would be no easy feat, much less casually crushing it afterward like Garoth.
Still, the gloves were a precious, powerful legendary item.
Garoth had paid dearly to obtain them—exchanging the Thiefmage’s Terminus and the Guardian Wings for one pair.
He still retained the Shadowlight Boots and the Immovable Plate, waiting for suitable objects to trade.
“I hope they guide my body to evolve a pair of claws capable of grasping and tearing solid things.”
Garoth murmured, a trace of expectation in his eyes.
Years of dual self-evolution and the nascent dragon-claw evolution were his two most important advancement paths now.
At that moment, iron dragon Sorog’s voice came through the mental link.
“We had infiltration near the Abyssal Rift in the northeast of the wilderness.”
He briefly recounted the event, then added: “They were extremely decisive. Once they realized they were surrounded they chose immediate self-destruction, erasing all traces.”
“They didn’t even attempt to break out.”
Garoth slowly raised his head, narrowing his gaze slightly.
Half a second later he asked: “Based on your judgment, where might these people come from?”
Sorog replied in a grave tone: “Most likely death operatives cultivated by the Divine Kingdom of Theo.”
“Since the conflict with Lyon Kingdom and the Kingdom of Sax deepened, relationships among the Romania nations have grown tense. Theo has always regarded us as a major threat. At this time, striking at our rear to cause disruption fits their interests.”
Lothrian Federation used to have an older geographic name—Romania Federation.
That name came from the Romanian Plain where those lands lay in the north of the Atlantis Continent.
After the federation dissolved, the nations remained separate.
The Romania nations became the more common designation.
Before, Garoth had habitually referred to those realms by their relative position to him as the southern nations, but on a broader Atlantis scale the Romanian Plain was actually in the north.
To the Halden Empire and other kingdoms, these states including Aola were northern nations.
Now that Aola Kingdom had formally been established, calling them southern nations no longer fit.
The Romania nations was the correct formal term, and Aola belonged among them.
“We have many enemies to be wary of. But regardless of whether Theo did this, from now on they are the prime suspect.”
Garoth said calmly.
“Immediately issue a proclamation in the kingdom’s name, publicly condemning the Divine Kingdom of Theo for acting on petty grievances, trampling inter-nation accords and the safety of all life by attacking our guarded Abyssal Rifts.”
“This is the most blatant challenge to the order’s baseline and must be punished severely.”
Iron dragon Sorog showed a flicker of doubt at Garoth’s words.
“Such a condemnatory notice likely has limited practical effect.”
He said cautiously.
In Sorog’s view, Garoth was an extremely pragmatic ruler and seldom wasted effort on meaningless moves.
Under normal circumstances, during peace other nations might join to pressure over Abyssal Rift issues, but with war already raging a paper condemnation would hardly create real pressure or change.
“Sorog, broaden your perspective.”
Garoth stretched his body and leaned back slightly.
“We will indeed be drawn into the fires on the Romanian Plain, but that doesn’t mean we must sit and wait passively.”
He paused then continued: “Don’t forget we hold a background card.”
This formal denunciation of Theo as an evil state was essentially a card played toward the metal dragons.
Metal dragons have always been aloof, reluctant to join wars driven by mere interests.
However, if it’s to punish an evil kingdom that ‘destroys order and endangers the world,’ that fits their guardianship role.
Garoth intended to cloak any forthcoming conflict with a mantle of righteousness by using the attack on an Abyssal Rift as pretext.
Calling in a legendary metal dragon to defend the rifts would be reasonable.
Of course Garoth never relied solely on others.
He trusted himself more.
This was merely a spare move placed outside the main chessboard—an insurance he might never use—but if the opportunity existed, it was worth laying down the piece first.