Birth of the Legendary Battle Mage

Chapter 24

“That’ll be enough for now.” Julius said as e lay on his back, staring at the night sky. “So the underworld has a sky too, with stars.”

“The underworld is said to be a different dimension, different from the earth.” The assassins leader says while also sitting close to Julius on the open hill. Her voice sounded a little rough and sometimes tired/sleepy, and this was how she sounded most of the time.

“Yes, that’s right. It’s more of a pocket dimension than a completely different one. It’s still linked to the earth in its roots, unlike the heavens. The heavens is located on a completely different plain, completely disconnected from the earth and the underworld.

“Hey, I am your enemy, but you still keep me alive...”

“Huh? Where is this going?”

“Are you, keeping me around, for, that?”

“Hey, come off it.”

After this short conversation, they remained silent for a while before she went to sleep, and Julius meditated. The assassins leader told him everything about her plans and how she found out about the method to open the gate to the underworld. From everything she said, Julius noticed something odd, it sort of felt like everything was not done by her, but she was just a puppet controlled by someone else.

The assassins leader ‘Emilia’ told Julius everything he needed to know, and everything he asked for. From Emilia, Julius learnt the reason behind her attacking with the demonic beasts, and how he got a hold of them. How she was able to find the gate that connected to the underworld, and how she could withstand the pressure of the mana while being so close to the river of ends, and also being able to withstand the corruption and pressure of pure demonic mana.  

Emilia said that she came across the scroll that contained the body strengthening technique when she went on a mission to exterminate some dark magicians. After she exterminated them and was looting the place, an old looking box left in an obscure corner of the room drew her attention, almost as if it was calling her. When she picked up the box, it opened by itself, and inside was the scroll. She tried to read the contents of the scroll, but she couldn’t, because it seemed to have been written in a different language, so she took it back with her, hoping that she could decipher the language written in the book. After she finished her looting, she left for their hideout, and considering the fact that the mission had to be done fast and the place was quite far from the assassin’s hideout, she didn’t sleep for somedays in order to complete the mission efficiently and in time. Because of that, she decided to get some rest along the way, before she got back to their hideout. During her sleep, she had a strange dream that she couldn’t remember after waking up, but the bizarre thing was that after she woke up, she could comprehend the words written in the scroll.

Generally, it would be normal if a magic artefact had this kind of bizarre nature, considering the fact that they are things left or make by the gods, or some demons. Nevertheless, Julius suspected the scroll because, what he saw with Emilia’s body resembled effects of cultivation. He might not be a master or anything like that, but because Li’s memories had fussed with his, he could tell very clearly about things that had to do with cultivation.

Li wasn’t a master, neither was he a talented or high ranking cultivator, the only thing he had going for him was his brain, wisdom, and memory. If he were to become a scholar, he would have risen to be one of the best in the history of his world. But instead, he went on the part of cultivation, mostly because he didn’t have a choice in the matter being some child the demonic cult carried, and the fact that the cult doesn’t care much about anything else except power.

Unfortunately, the scroll wasn’t there, and the so Julius couldn’t take a look at it.  But the fact that a hint of cultivation existed in this world was worth investigating.

“I was going to kill her, but it seems like she might be useful.” ‘According to Li, people of this world do not have that much cultivating potential/talent in cultivation. He was an exception, and there are others that might have some potential, but they are very little. But with Emilia, her talent is above average, she should be able to reach the the realm of Nascent soul in at least a few couple hundred years, or sooner.’ Julius thought to himself as he took a short look at her with a smile on his face.

The next day, when Emilia woke up, she saw that Julius had already made food and finished eating, but to her surprise, he also made some for her to eat, enough that she almost couldn’t finish it. “How did you get these?” She asked with a surprising look on her face. What she saw on her plate were small chunks of meat, prepared so well that the dish looked irresistible.

“It might be a meal made only of meat, but it should suffice. I can use dimensional and space magic, so I don’t need a magic item for that.” Julius said in response.

“You must be very talented to be able to grasp dimensional and space magic up to this degree.” “But how are you so strong physically?”

“Hey. Firstly, your life is in my hands. Secondly, I am almost 50 years old, regardless of my appearance now. You should put a little more respect behind your words, I’m just saying.  It’s still up to you though.”

“I’m an assassin you know.”

“And you life means nothing to you. Heh, I am not threatening you. Just giving a suggestion.”

“...”

“I’ll find a better place for us to stay for now. You just sit there and wait, I’ll be back.” Julius left to find a cave or somewhere similar, just a spot that’s better than the bed of grass where they currently are, in the open.

Not more than 20 minutes later, Julius returns to the spot where they were before after getting them a place to stay. Emilia was still sitting there, unable to move due to her current condition.

“Ok, let’s go. I’ve found us a place.” He said while looking as non-enthusiastic as always. He picked her up unto her back since it would be too slow if she were to walk.

“You feel older than you say you are. Are you really just almost 50 like you said?”

“It also doesn’t feel like this is your real face.”

“...”

“Heh.. There was a time I was trapped in a time related artefact for some tens of years. So technically, I might be approaching 70.”

“Ohhh, so that’s why?”

“Probably.” ‘I can’t tell her the real reason. It’s probably because of Li’s memories offsetting my reality in a way.’

He carried her to the spot he found which was a cave. “Brace yourself.” Julius said as he stopped momentarily before shooting off. In a short moment, they got there. It was definitely very fast, seeing as they travelled a few kilometres in under 30 seconds.

“Wha..? Do you want me dead suddenly? How can someone be than fast on foot, without magic... you truly are a monster.”

“For the leader of a vicious assassination organization, you do complain a lot. I wasn’t even going that fast. Tsk.”

“Not going that fast?...”

Emilia didn’t want to say too much, because she found it hard to read Julius’ emotions because he wears thesame face for most of the time, weather he’s happy or annoyed is hard to guess. Julius takes her inside the cave and drops her on a platform that looked as if it was carved into the wall, with the floor of the inner space covered in huge fresh leaves. The cave had a small entrance, and a passage right after the entrance. The entrance and passage’s size were just wide enough for two people to walk alongside each other, and the height was around 2 to 2.2 metres. The passage goes on for a metres before entering into a larger space withing the cave, woth well carved walls and an almost smooth floor, it wasn’t at all looking all cave-like. As Julius placed Emilia on the floor of the space within the wall, she lay on her side and took another look at the interior of the cave.

“Julius, Sir. this place looks so weird, like it was carved, and not long ago. Don’t you think we might have invaded someone else’s cave?”

“I just made the cave, who would dare to claim it as theirs?” As he said this, he rose his hands simultaneously to cast a spell. The spell he used was a very intricate one, perhaps he might be the only one to be able to use it since he thought of it by himself, at least on earth. He altered the laws of nature around the small mountain he carved his cave in, in such a way that, the rocks that were at the side of the entrance would let air pass through them into the room inside even though they were solid materials. The other was that, the cave was now moved way underground, very deep, except the entrance and the passage; everything passed this two points had been moved underground. So if someone who does not have access to the cave tries to enter, they would just meet a dead end after reaching the end of the passage. After he finished the spell, a black dot mark appeared on Emilia’s wrist and his as well.

Later when night reached, they ate and chatted for a while and were about to head to bed when Julius asked. “Isn’t it time you showed your real face?”

“...” Emilia remained silent for sometime before speaking. “I. I can’t. Only someone who I will spend my entire life with can see my face. I’m sorry.”

“Is that a tradition? Or a rule your family or cult set for you? If it is, I advice that you disregard it.”

“No, Actually. It’s. It’s because I don’t want you to be a victim of the curse that plagues me.” “Have you heard of the cursed witch?”

On heai=ring this, Julius’ expression changed a bit, looking slightly surprised or maybe interested, his expression wasn’t quite direct, just faintly. “Do you mean the one who was said to be banished to hell by the gods while still being alive?”