Sand Mage of the Burnt Desert
Author: Woo-Gak
Chapter 544
Chapter 544
Boom!
Gigantic magma burst up through the sand.
It was a new skill created by absorbing dragon mana into the Sand Mage’s authority.
As if a volcano had erupted, lava surged up from underground.
Tridgion’s massive body, drenched in magma, instantly glowed red-hot.
—How dare you!
Tridgion roared and unfolded magic.
One of the magic circles engraved into the golem’s body rotated, rapidly cooling the superheated metal.
A circle inscribed with ice-element magic had activated.
Thanks to that, Tridgion remained unharmed even within the scorching lava.
—With something like this, you can’t do anything to me.
Then a gigantic magic circle formed above his head.
Anyone could tell a powerful attack spell was about to be unleashed.
Yet on the lips of Zeon and Sung Hoyun, who were watching the circle, hung a sinister smile.
Sung Hoyun spoke.
“Didn’t you say the one who possessed that golem was the King of Kurayan?”
“They call him the King of the Knights. Even though he uses magic himself…”
“Is that why? His knowledge of science is seriously lacking. If you rapidly cool heated metal…”
“…its strength drops drastically.”
“Exactly!”
Pop!
With his reply, Sung Hoyun lifted his body into the air.
Cracks spread across the surface of the greatsword in his hand, then it split into seven small swords.
Rainbow Sword.
Sung Hoyun’s exclusive weapon, made with Neo Seoul’s magitech.
The seven blades orbited around him like satellites.
Pointing at Tridgion, Sung Hoyun shouted,
“Divine Judgment!”
The seven swords spinning around his body shot high into the sky.
Sensing something ominous, Tridgion changed the direction of his attack spell from Zeon and Sung Hoyun to the heavens.
Shooo—
At that moment, the Rainbow Swords that had soared upward fell toward Tridgion like meteors.
The seven blades were wrapped in plasma.
Just looking at them made one’s pores prickle.
Even Tridgion, though he had the body of a golem with no pores, felt a chill.
—Ragna Blast!
With Tridgion’s cry, an inverted pentagram was drawn at the center of the magic circle, and a pillar of light shot up into the sky.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-boom!
High above, the seven swords and Ragna Blast collided and exploded.
The sky shone brightly in rings of light, as if a nuclear bomb had gone off.
The aftershock reached the ground.
All the sand covering the land surged upward at once, clouding the sky.
Crack!
At that moment, with a heavy tearing sound, Tridgion’s right arm fell to the ground.
While all of Tridgion’s focus was on Ragna Blast, Sung Hoyun had cut off his arm with another blade.
If its original strength had been intact, even Sung Hoyun wouldn’t have been able to sever Tridgion’s arm so easily.
That was how immense the golem body’s durability was.
But after being heated by lava and then rapidly cooled, its strength had dropped drastically.
Thanks to that, Sung Hoyun was able to cut off Tridgion’s arm with ease.
The corner of Sung Hoyun’s mouth lifted even higher.
“How does that feel, tin-can king?”
—I learned something, human. But you underestimated me.
“What?”
—Someone once said that sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. In that case, I’ve reached the pinnacle of science. Aside from dragons, there was no one who could match me with magic.
“So what are you trying to say?”
—This. Restore!
The moment Tridgion finished chanting, the right arm that had fallen to the ground reattached itself to his body.
“Damn it!”
—Now you understand, right? I don’t care about such trivial knowledge. One spell solves everything.
“Convenient. But I can just break it again. Let’s see how long you can keep restoring.”
Kwa-kwa-boom!
Sung Hoyun pulled out a large-caliber handgun for monster hunting from his tactical vest and fired.
Anti-monster rounds slammed into Tridgion’s body, sending fragments flying in all directions.
The bullets engraved with Sung Hoyun’s authority carved deep wounds into Tridgion’s hardened body, but they didn’t reach the interior.
—Graaah!
With a shriek, Tridgion unleashed magic.
Dozens of small magic circles floated around his body and poured out beams of destruction.
The beams rained down like a storm, targeting Sung Hoyun and Zeon.
“Ghk!”
Sung Hoyun leapt this way and that, dodging the beams.
Zeon raised sand walls to block them, but sand walls couldn’t truly stop destruction beams.
Bang! Bang!
Holes were punched through the walls one after another.
But by then, Zeon had already hidden himself within the sand.
Zeon swam through the sand toward Tridgion.
Tridgion’s body was still more than half submerged in lava.
The boiling magma was dealing continuous damage, so Tridgion tried to escape using flight magic.
His body was too heavy to rise high into the air, but he could lift himself a few meters.
That was enough to escape the lava—if Zeon didn’t interfere.
Within the sand, Zeon drew a mental image.
The image of a serpent large enough to devour the world.
A serpent that had truly existed.
Leviathan.
He sharpened the image and moved his mana.
Whiiing!
The core infused with dragon mana spun fiercely, amplifying its dominion.
Kuuuuh!
In that moment, a gigantic sand serpent burst up from the desert.
It wasn’t a small snake like the Sand Vipers Zeon had used before.
Its body was over ten meters thick, and its length exceeded a hundred meters.
The colossal sand serpent possessed immense mass to match its size.
And that mass itself became a terrifying weapon.
“Sand Leviathan!”
At Zeon’s chant, the giant sand serpent that had risen into the sky charged straight at Tridgion.
Tridgion couldn’t dodge in time and was struck head-on.
Kwaaang!
With a thunderous crash, Tridgion’s huge body was slammed back into the lava.
Sung Hoyun immediately pulled out another weapon and attacked again.
From his small tactical vest, weapons kept pouring out endlessly—clearly enchanted with a subspace.
Still, there was a limit to how much damage Sung Hoyun alone could deal to Tridgion.
It wasn’t Sung Hoyun’s fault, but a matter of compatibility.
He was an Awakened optimized for fighting humans.
This was his first time facing such a hard, massive golem, so his response could only be slow.
On the other hand, Zeon had hunted many giant monsters like this before.
He himself had hunted this very golem even before Tridgion possessed it.
So he knew exactly how to bring it down efficiently.
Zeon expanded Sand Gehenna even further.
All the sand within several hundred meters of the impact point melted and boiled.
The lava seeped into the wounds Sung Hoyun had made.
Tridgion didn’t just sit there and take it.
—Aaaagh! You barbaric humans…
Enraged, he unleashed magic wildly.
Some of it even fell toward Neo Seoul.
The one who blocked it was Old Go.
He spread a massive barrier in midair and stopped Tridgion’s spells.
Boom! Kwaaang!
“Ghn!”
Each time magic struck the barrier, a groan escaped Old Go’s lips.
That was how tremendous the impact was.
Then Grain, having recovered some mana, stepped in.
“Hyah!”
He focused gravity onto Tridgion’s body.
In an instant, gravity increased dozens of times, and Tridgion lost his balance and collapsed flat onto the ground.
Even his head sank into the lava.
Now even Tridgion was flustered.
With such a hard, massive body and ultimate-level magic, he’d been confident he could easily dominate Neo Seoul.
But reality was the opposite—he was stuck in filth, no, in lava.
Tridgion tried to use flight magic again to escape, but Grain crushed him down with gravity so he couldn’t move.
If he lifted his head, Sung Hoyun’s relentless barrage smashed into him, denting and shattering parts of his body, sending fragments flying.
And on top of that, Zeon lay in wait within the sand.
Gaaang!
Even now, the lava he was trapped in was spinning violently, shaving away at his metal body.
It seeped into the wounded areas and melted him from the inside.
At that moment, Zeon pulled something from his coat and shoved it into Tridgion’s torso.
Krrrk!
Instantly, Tridgion’s neural network was rapidly paralyzed.
—This is…?
“Destroyer. It paralyzes the artificial nervous systems of golems like you.”
What Zeon injected into Tridgion was the Destroyer that Hicks had made.
The Destroyer turned Tridgion’s neuron box and nervous system rigid as stone and paralyzed them.
Tridgion’s entire body stiffened.
If things continued like this, only death awaited him.
—After all the trouble I went through to revive…
Tridgion’s eyes flashed with a sinister light.
Sensing something wrong, Zeon burst out of the sand and shouted,
“Everyone, be careful!”
That was when it happened.
Kwaaaang!
Tridgion’s superheated body exploded.
“Kraaak!”
“Kgh!”
“Hurk!”
Sung Hoyun, Grain, and Old Go fell with screams.
They had been gravely injured by the exploding golem’s fragments.
They hadn’t expected the golem to self-destruct, so they’d had no chance to defend.
Only Zeon escaped the blast without being wounded.
His robe made from Balrog’s hide blocked the fragments.
Even so, he’d taken a heavy shock and his face had gone pale.
Gritting through the pain, he looked at where Tridgion had been.
He couldn’t believe Tridgion had chosen to self-destruct so readily.
A being that had clung stubbornly to life, even fusing with Samjok-o, wouldn’t throw away its life so easily.
As if to prove Zeon’s suspicion, someone walked out of the lava.
It was human-sized—but not something that could be called human.
There was no way a human could be made of metal.
The figure that emerged from the lava was a small golem, about the size of a man.
Zeon realized that this was Tridgion.
“You hid a clone inside that giant body?”
—This is my true form. I processed Atlas’s core and shaped it into a human form. I never thought I’d actually have to use it.
Tridgion’s voice was filled with bitterness.
His expectation that no one could oppose him with the giant golem body had been shattered.
But he soon steeled himself again.
—To give me such humiliation… I’ll kill all of you.
Pop!
Tridgion kicked off the lava and charged at Zeon.
His body became a single streak of light and reached Zeon in an instant.
His body had shrunk dozens of times, but his agility had increased by dozens of times as well.
Bang!
Without giving Zeon time to prepare, Tridgion’s fist exploded into him.
Chasing the flying Zeon, Tridgion moved again.
—Thunder Cannon!
Shooo!
A pure white beam struck Zeon.
“Ghuk!”
With a stifled groan, Zeon crashed down.
Tridgion followed him and swung his fist.
Bang!
With another blast, magic struck Zeon’s flying body again.
When Zeon tried to get away, he attacked with magic.
When he closed in, he fought in close combat.
Magic and martial arts combined into terrifying power.
Zeon was driven back helplessly.
Zeon slammed into the ground.
His face was already covered in blood.
Tridgion hovered high in the air and looked down at him.
—It’s over, Sand Mage!
Shoooo!
The moment he finished speaking, a jet-black beam dropped from the sky toward Zeon.
Hunting the Dragon.
The ultimate magic created to hunt dragons was unleashed against Zeon.
Kwaaang!
Boom!
Gigantic magma burst up through the sand.
It was a new skill created by absorbing dragon mana into the Sand Mage’s authority.
As if a volcano had erupted, lava surged up from underground.
Tridgion’s massive body, drenched in magma, instantly glowed red-hot.
—How dare you!
Tridgion roared and unfolded magic.
One of the magic circles engraved into the golem’s body rotated, rapidly cooling the superheated metal.
A circle inscribed with ice-element magic had activated.
Thanks to that, Tridgion remained unharmed even within the scorching lava.
—With something like this, you can’t do anything to me.
Then a gigantic magic circle formed above his head.
Anyone could tell a powerful attack spell was about to be unleashed.
Yet on the lips of Zeon and Sung Hoyun, who were watching the circle, hung a sinister smile.
Sung Hoyun spoke.
“Didn’t you say the one who possessed that golem was the King of Kurayan?”
“They call him the King of the Knights. Even though he uses magic himself…”
“Is that why? His knowledge of science is seriously lacking. If you rapidly cool heated metal…”
“…its strength drops drastically.”
“Exactly!”
Pop!
With his reply, Sung Hoyun lifted his body into the air.
Cracks spread across the surface of the greatsword in his hand, then it split into seven small swords.
Rainbow Sword.
Sung Hoyun’s exclusive weapon, made with Neo Seoul’s magitech.
The seven blades orbited around him like satellites.
Pointing at Tridgion, Sung Hoyun shouted,
“Divine Judgment!”
The seven swords spinning around his body shot high into the sky.
Sensing something ominous, Tridgion changed the direction of his attack spell from Zeon and Sung Hoyun to the heavens.
Shooo—
At that moment, the Rainbow Swords that had soared upward fell toward Tridgion like meteors.
The seven blades were wrapped in plasma.
Just looking at them made one’s pores prickle.
Even Tridgion, though he had the body of a golem with no pores, felt a chill.
—Ragna Blast!
With Tridgion’s cry, an inverted pentagram was drawn at the center of the magic circle, and a pillar of light shot up into the sky.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-boom!
High above, the seven swords and Ragna Blast collided and exploded.
The sky shone brightly in rings of light, as if a nuclear bomb had gone off.
The aftershock reached the ground.
All the sand covering the land surged upward at once, clouding the sky.
Crack!
At that moment, with a heavy tearing sound, Tridgion’s right arm fell to the ground.
While all of Tridgion’s focus was on Ragna Blast, Sung Hoyun had cut off his arm with another blade.
If its original strength had been intact, even Sung Hoyun wouldn’t have been able to sever Tridgion’s arm so easily.
That was how immense the golem body’s durability was.
But after being heated by lava and then rapidly cooled, its strength had dropped drastically.
Thanks to that, Sung Hoyun was able to cut off Tridgion’s arm with ease.
The corner of Sung Hoyun’s mouth lifted even higher.
“How does that feel, tin-can king?”
—I learned something, human. But you underestimated me.
“What?”
—Someone once said that sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. In that case, I’ve reached the pinnacle of science. Aside from dragons, there was no one who could match me with magic.
“So what are you trying to say?”
—This. Restore!
The moment Tridgion finished chanting, the right arm that had fallen to the ground reattached itself to his body.
“Damn it!”
—Now you understand, right? I don’t care about such trivial knowledge. One spell solves everything.
“Convenient. But I can just break it again. Let’s see how long you can keep restoring.”
Kwa-kwa-boom!
Sung Hoyun pulled out a large-caliber handgun for monster hunting from his tactical vest and fired.
Anti-monster rounds slammed into Tridgion’s body, sending fragments flying in all directions.
The bullets engraved with Sung Hoyun’s authority carved deep wounds into Tridgion’s hardened body, but they didn’t reach the interior.
—Graaah!
With a shriek, Tridgion unleashed magic.
Dozens of small magic circles floated around his body and poured out beams of destruction.
The beams rained down like a storm, targeting Sung Hoyun and Zeon.
“Ghk!”
Sung Hoyun leapt this way and that, dodging the beams.
Zeon raised sand walls to block them, but sand walls couldn’t truly stop destruction beams.
Bang! Bang!
Holes were punched through the walls one after another.
But by then, Zeon had already hidden himself within the sand.
Zeon swam through the sand toward Tridgion.
Tridgion’s body was still more than half submerged in lava.
The boiling magma was dealing continuous damage, so Tridgion tried to escape using flight magic.
His body was too heavy to rise high into the air, but he could lift himself a few meters.
That was enough to escape the lava—if Zeon didn’t interfere.
Within the sand, Zeon drew a mental image.
The image of a serpent large enough to devour the world.
A serpent that had truly existed.
Leviathan.
He sharpened the image and moved his mana.
Whiiing!
The core infused with dragon mana spun fiercely, amplifying its dominion.
Kuuuuh!
In that moment, a gigantic sand serpent burst up from the desert.
It wasn’t a small snake like the Sand Vipers Zeon had used before.
Its body was over ten meters thick, and its length exceeded a hundred meters.
The colossal sand serpent possessed immense mass to match its size.
And that mass itself became a terrifying weapon.
“Sand Leviathan!”
At Zeon’s chant, the giant sand serpent that had risen into the sky charged straight at Tridgion.
Tridgion couldn’t dodge in time and was struck head-on.
Kwaaang!
With a thunderous crash, Tridgion’s huge body was slammed back into the lava.
Sung Hoyun immediately pulled out another weapon and attacked again.
From his small tactical vest, weapons kept pouring out endlessly—clearly enchanted with a subspace.
Still, there was a limit to how much damage Sung Hoyun alone could deal to Tridgion.
It wasn’t Sung Hoyun’s fault, but a matter of compatibility.
He was an Awakened optimized for fighting humans.
This was his first time facing such a hard, massive golem, so his response could only be slow.
On the other hand, Zeon had hunted many giant monsters like this before.
He himself had hunted this very golem even before Tridgion possessed it.
So he knew exactly how to bring it down efficiently.
Zeon expanded Sand Gehenna even further.
All the sand within several hundred meters of the impact point melted and boiled.
The lava seeped into the wounds Sung Hoyun had made.
Tridgion didn’t just sit there and take it.
—Aaaagh! You barbaric humans…
Enraged, he unleashed magic wildly.
Some of it even fell toward Neo Seoul.
The one who blocked it was Old Go.
He spread a massive barrier in midair and stopped Tridgion’s spells.
Boom! Kwaaang!
“Ghn!”
Each time magic struck the barrier, a groan escaped Old Go’s lips.
That was how tremendous the impact was.
Then Grain, having recovered some mana, stepped in.
“Hyah!”
He focused gravity onto Tridgion’s body.
In an instant, gravity increased dozens of times, and Tridgion lost his balance and collapsed flat onto the ground.
Even his head sank into the lava.
Now even Tridgion was flustered.
With such a hard, massive body and ultimate-level magic, he’d been confident he could easily dominate Neo Seoul.
But reality was the opposite—he was stuck in filth, no, in lava.
Tridgion tried to use flight magic again to escape, but Grain crushed him down with gravity so he couldn’t move.
If he lifted his head, Sung Hoyun’s relentless barrage smashed into him, denting and shattering parts of his body, sending fragments flying.
And on top of that, Zeon lay in wait within the sand.
Gaaang!
Even now, the lava he was trapped in was spinning violently, shaving away at his metal body.
It seeped into the wounded areas and melted him from the inside.
At that moment, Zeon pulled something from his coat and shoved it into Tridgion’s torso.
Krrrk!
Instantly, Tridgion’s neural network was rapidly paralyzed.
—This is…?
“Destroyer. It paralyzes the artificial nervous systems of golems like you.”
What Zeon injected into Tridgion was the Destroyer that Hicks had made.
The Destroyer turned Tridgion’s neuron box and nervous system rigid as stone and paralyzed them.
Tridgion’s entire body stiffened.
If things continued like this, only death awaited him.
—After all the trouble I went through to revive…
Tridgion’s eyes flashed with a sinister light.
Sensing something wrong, Zeon burst out of the sand and shouted,
“Everyone, be careful!”
That was when it happened.
Kwaaaang!
Tridgion’s superheated body exploded.
“Kraaak!”
“Kgh!”
“Hurk!”
Sung Hoyun, Grain, and Old Go fell with screams.
They had been gravely injured by the exploding golem’s fragments.
They hadn’t expected the golem to self-destruct, so they’d had no chance to defend.
Only Zeon escaped the blast without being wounded.
His robe made from Balrog’s hide blocked the fragments.
Even so, he’d taken a heavy shock and his face had gone pale.
Gritting through the pain, he looked at where Tridgion had been.
He couldn’t believe Tridgion had chosen to self-destruct so readily.
A being that had clung stubbornly to life, even fusing with Samjok-o, wouldn’t throw away its life so easily.
As if to prove Zeon’s suspicion, someone walked out of the lava.
It was human-sized—but not something that could be called human.
There was no way a human could be made of metal.
The figure that emerged from the lava was a small golem, about the size of a man.
Zeon realized that this was Tridgion.
“You hid a clone inside that giant body?”
—This is my true form. I processed Atlas’s core and shaped it into a human form. I never thought I’d actually have to use it.
Tridgion’s voice was filled with bitterness.
His expectation that no one could oppose him with the giant golem body had been shattered.
But he soon steeled himself again.
—To give me such humiliation… I’ll kill all of you.
Pop!
Tridgion kicked off the lava and charged at Zeon.
His body became a single streak of light and reached Zeon in an instant.
His body had shrunk dozens of times, but his agility had increased by dozens of times as well.
Bang!
Without giving Zeon time to prepare, Tridgion’s fist exploded into him.
Chasing the flying Zeon, Tridgion moved again.
—Thunder Cannon!
Shooo!
A pure white beam struck Zeon.
“Ghuk!”
With a stifled groan, Zeon crashed down.
Tridgion followed him and swung his fist.
Bang!
With another blast, magic struck Zeon’s flying body again.
When Zeon tried to get away, he attacked with magic.
When he closed in, he fought in close combat.
Magic and martial arts combined into terrifying power.
Zeon was driven back helplessly.
Zeon slammed into the ground.
His face was already covered in blood.
Tridgion hovered high in the air and looked down at him.
—It’s over, Sand Mage!
Shoooo!
The moment he finished speaking, a jet-black beam dropped from the sky toward Zeon.
Hunting the Dragon.
The ultimate magic created to hunt dragons was unleashed against Zeon.
Kwaaang!