Chapter 409 – Only Me (6)

Rosalyn's fingertips were shaking.

'There's too much mana...!'

She bit down on her lips.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Her whole body felt as if it was on fire.
This boiling fire that she could not stop even if she wanted to do so seemed to want to gobble her up.

However, she continued to shout internally as she reached a hand toward the grey Dragon.

'More, more, more!
I want to handle more mana.
No, I want to control it with my bare hands!'

"You're crazy! Are you so desperate to die?!"

Becrock's voice could not reach Rosalyn.

Rooooooooooooooooooooar!

Rosalyn only looked at the grey Dragon that charged toward her again with its mouth open.

Crack, boom! Baaaaang!

Magic stones continued to break or explode as they crashed into each other before turning into red mana.
Rosalyn continued to reach her hand out.

Baaaaaaaaaang!

The grey Dragon and the red mage crashed against each other.

The grey Dragon tried to chomp off her side.
Rosalyn moved her left hand.

Bang!

Red mana blocked the Dragon's mouth.
She did not even finish looking at it before turning her gaze away.

'Everything is red.'

Everything looked red to her right now.
Everything from the tip of her head down to her toes. Red mana was covering her eyes, nose, mouth, and every part of her body such that her world seemed to be red.

Even the Grey Dragon, Becrock, and the night sky had lost their original colors and looked red.

'I like this.'

She liked what was going on.

Her whole body…
Every breath that she took…
All of her actions were full of her mana.
Rosalyn smiled as she reached her right hand out again.

A large mana hand that resembled her hand was created.

Squeeze!

Rosalyn formed a fist.

Baaaaaaaaaang!

The large red mana hand ripped the grey Dragon's wing.
Rosalyn's eyes flashed.

The combination mana made from dead mana and mana. That grey being was being ripped apart.

"That, that crazy!"

Becrock's eyes were full of astonishment as he watched.

It was not because Rosalyn blocked the grey Dragon's attack and ripped off one of the grey Dragon's wings.
It was fine since he could just attack again.

It was something else that had shocked him.

"…Are you really planning on dying?"

Crack. Crack.

Rosalyn was absorbing mana from an endless number of magic stones.
All of the mages were thinking that she would soon be swallowed by the red mana and die. They could see her entire body shaking. Her eyes had been dyed red as well.

Becrock shouted the word that mages used for such a situation.

"Mana explosion!"

Was she trying to defeat him even if it forced her to go into mana explosion?

Why?

Why would someone who lived an easy life as a princess do such a thing? Why was she going so far?

He could not understand at all.

He could see Rosalyn opening her mouth at that moment.
The owner of the red hand that had turned the ripped wing into dust looked directly at him as she started to speak.

"I will win. No matter what."

Becrock got chills after her say these words with a crazed expression on her face.

"This crazy person...!"

Self-destruct.

Rosalyn's face made him think of that word.

'She looks like she's saying 'let's both die!' She plans on killing both of us with her mana explosion!'

He could not die.

Becrock did not want to die. He lived too hard of a life to simply die here! He was already in pain after losing a hand and having one of his ankles poisoned. But to die?
Putting his life on the line?

His hand pointed to the grey Dragon.

"Block her! Rip her to shreds!"

A grey shield then appeared in his hand.

Rooooooooooar!

The large Dragon charged toward Rosalyn again.

Bang, baaaaang!

Dead mana and mana crashed against each other to restore the ripped wing.

"Kill her! Kill her now!"

The grey Dragon swung its front paw at Rosalyn as if to respond to Becrock's order.

Baaaaang!

Rosalyn blocked the paw with an arrow. She then started to move forward.
She didn't care whether the greedy Dragon got in her way.

Baaang, baang!

Her red mana exploded and slowly dwindled as it crashed with the combined mana.
But she did not even glance at it once.
Magic stones were providing her with an endless amount of mana.

'…Mana explosion…'

She thought about the word Becrock had just shouted.

"Pfft."

She started to laugh.

During the battle at the Gorge of Death… The Dragon half-blood had caused a mana explosion.
Mana explosion could be said to be a disaster caused by a mage's extreme greed toward mana. Their bodies would explode, and they would die for being greedy without knowing their limits.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

A large amount of mana was pressuring her body on all sides right now.
It felt as if this red mana would gobble her up instead of the grey Dragon.

"But you see."

Rosalyn quickly moved forward.

"Why am I not in any pain?"

She should be in pain if she was about to enter mana explosion.
But she was not hurting at all.
In fact, she felt strong.

The shaking in her body was slowly stopping. The pressure from the mana surrounding her was slowly losing strength and unable to hinder her movement.
She was slowly becoming freer.
She heard the great and mighty six years old Dragon's voice at that moment.

– Smart Rosalyn! You should know your own current condition!

'Yes. I know my condition.'

"This is my optimum condition."

She could not help but laugh.
Being surrounded by a large amount of mana like this was the optimum condition for her.

Words such as best or greatest were not fitting for this situation.
It was as if the condition of having a large amount of mana surrounding her that other people were worried that she might go into mana explosion was like wearing a perfect fitting outfit for her.

How could something other people feared be so fitting for her?!

She could not help but laugh.

"This is bad."

It was really bad news.
Did Raon understand what she meant?

– Rosalyn! The human says he has plenty of magic stones, so you can use as much as you want!

Rosalyn started to laugh even louder at Raon's comment.

"Pwahahahah! Then I don't have to worry about magic stones!"

She had thought it would be bad to have to use so many magic stones to reach her optimum condition every time. She didn't need to worry anymore because a wealthy person told her that she didn't need to worry about it.

"Kill her!"

Rosalyn responded to Becrock's shout.

"Who gave you permission?"

Rosalyn moved both of her hands as she said that.
Two large red hands appeared in the air. She only moved forward.
She did not care that the direction was right into the chest of the grey Dragon.

The two red hands slammed onto the grey Dragon.

Bang! Bang! Baaaaang!

More combined mana broke apart each time. It could not defeat Rosalyn's strong attack, forcing the dead mana and mana to split away from each other.

"You, you-!"

Becrock started to frown as he watched this happen.
The grey Dragon was squirming as if it was in pain. There was a reason it seemed this way even though it was not real.

"M, my combined mana!"

It was because Rosalyn's mana ripped the combined mana apart.

"The laws within my combined mana are perfect! They are perfect! There is no way you can rip through it so easily!"

Becrock sounded full of disbelief as he continued to create grey shields in front of him.

Rooooooooooar!

The grey Dragon's loud roar shook the night.
The Dragon's stomach had been pierced.
Two red hands had ripped its stomach apart. Those hands then headed for the owner of the grey Dragon.

"Damn it!"

Becrock created more shields as he looked toward the red mage behind the two red hands.
The two red hands headed toward the first shield.

Baaaaang!

The first grey shield instantly broke.

"Damn it!"

'How could my combined mana break so easily?! Is that really possible?
A genius created it!'

He started to frown even more.
Then he created many more grey shields.

He needed to make them thick enough that he could not see those two red hands properly.
He needed to create a shield that was large enough to cover him.

Only then would those two red hands not be able to get to him very easily.
It would take her a while to break through the shields.

Rosalyn would not be able to see him because he would be covered by the thick grey shields.

'Then I will have an opening to escape!'

Peek.

Becrock peeked down.
He made eye contact with one of his subordinates. He nodded his head and the subordinate mage nodded back before looking around.

'We are running away. We will go to a different Alchemists' Tower!'

His subordinate mages and the black mages should have understood his signal and would escape with him.

'Rosalyn, Cale, and Rex are here. The black Dragon is here as well. That means that the attack strength on the other towers are weaker!'

He was not scared of the Sun God Saint nor the Holy Maiden.
There were Choi Han and the others, but nobody would be able to use magic to defeat them.

That was good enough.

Baaaaang! Baaaaang!

Another shield was broken.
However, the grey color was so opaque that he could not see the enemy on the other side.

Becrock started to smile.
However, his actions were thorough.
He stealthily started to draw a teleportation magic circle.

'I have to do it without the black Dragon finding out!'

Rosalyn should not be able to stop because of the mana explosion right now, so she would keep trying to break through his shields to kill him. He needed to use that lack of rationality to his benefit.

'I will retreat and make my magic law even more perfect.'

He made that resolution as he shouted out.

"You think you can get through these? You'll soon die from mana explosion!"

He purposefully said something to rile Rosalyn up.

Baaaaang! Baaaaang! Baaaaang!

He could feel the two red hands breaking the grey shields even stronger as if responding to his provocation.

'This is it.
I need to do it now.'

Becrock started to shout.

"Now!"

Oooooooong-

The mages on the ground all started to use teleportation magic. Both skilled and novice mages worked together to use teleportation magic.

Becrock also cast teleportation magic as well.

"Ugh!"

However, the magic was broken.

"Ugh, ugh, this, what the, ugh!"

He looked down.
He could see a hand choking him.

Baaaaang! Baaaaang! Baaaaang!

'I can still hear the two red hands slamming on the grey shield…
So how is the person with red mana choking me right now?'

Becrock's pupils started to shake.
The teleportation magic was broken.

Why?

Crackle-!
A hand covered in red mana was grabbing onto his remaining hand that was covered in grey mana. It disturbed the grey mana.

And then, behind his back…
Becrock felt a strong fluctuation of mana behind his back.
He could also hear a voice.

"Is this how you had choked the Southern Tower Master earlier?"

Shhhhh.

He could see Rosalyn revealing her face to him.

"Ugh. H, how?"

Becrock started to frown.
How had she appeared behind him as soon as he started to teleport when she should not have been able to see him from the other side of the grey shield?

"You bastards do the same thing every time. You escape and leave your people behind whenever you smell trouble."

Rosalyn confidently responded.
The White Star's subordinates always escaped alone or with people they deemed useful in urgent situations.
Shouldn't they notice it now after seeing them do that so many times?

"Plus, it was weird that you were only defending. Wouldn't you wonder if your enemy was trying to escape if they only defended without attacking?"

Squeeze.

A hand covered in red mana clenched Becrock's neck even tighter.
Becrock could not breathe. However, Rosalyn's eyes were cold as they looked at him.

"That is why I let my magic keep attacking you before using invisibility and sneaking up behind you. Simple, right?"

'How is that simple?!'

She needed to use mana extremely stealthily for him to not notice.

Becrock was extremely angry.
His hand was shaking as he flailed his remaining arm.

Pssssssssss-

The grey shield disappeared.
He could see the two large red hands that had been banging on the shield.

"Y, you should be in m, mana explosion, ugh. H, how can you control mana so stealthily, ugh!"

Becrock looked toward Rosalyn in disbelief.
She calmly responded to his question.

"I'm not in mana explosion."
"…What?"

All emotions disappeared from Becrock's face.
He was so shocked that he almost forgot about the pain in his neck.

"Why are you so shocked? This is the perfect condition for me. Do I look like I'm about to die?"

Becrock finally realized that the mage covered in red mana looked better than before.

"…How could that-!"

How could a human control this much mana?

"My combined mana is perfect! You're telling me you did not get injured at all while ripping that perfect mana apart? You are not going to die?!"

Becrock started to frown not because of the physical pain but a different type of pain.
The fact that his combined mana did not manage to hurt this mage at all was painful to realize.
He then heard some cruel words that amplified that pain even more.

"Are you sure you didn't just mistakenly believe it to be perfect?"

Rosalyn's voice was calm.
Becrock's face scrunched up as much as possible.

"No! It was perfect! My combined mana is a power that will change the history of magic! It is a new power that someone like you who learned magic so peacefully would never be able to obtain!"

Rosalyn quietly looked at Becrock.

"How could something like this happen to someone like me who overcame all obstacles to get here?!"

Becrock had to overcome many obstacles ever since realizing that he had talent.
He recalled the obstacles he had to overcome in his life.

He thought about how he was a beggar who got lucky and ended up as a mage's disciple and how he had stealthily killed that mage's number one disciple so that he could become the number one disciple and let his talent shine.

How hard had it been to stealthily kill such a talented bastard?
He then worked very hard once he became the number one disciple.

He had then met the liege and finally, the time for him to rise to a position where he could treat those useless trash however he wanted was near.

He would become a great hero.
So why…

"Why is a bitch like you getting in my way?!"

Rosalyn started to think as she watched Becrock shout in anger.

'Did they say we were the same age?'

Becrock was the enemy, but Rosalyn admitted that he was skilled. He was so skilled that you could not help but admit it.
She recalled how Becrock said that they were similar in many ways.
But why was it that Becrock did not realize where they were most similar?

"Becrock, I was practicing magic as well while you were making your law and doing magic."

'I worked my ass off too.
I really did.'

Becrock's pupils started to shake.
Rosalyn loosened her grip on Becrock's neck.
Rosalyn looked into Becrock's eyes that were full of fear and continued to speak.

"Thank you. I grew stronger thanks to you."

Baaaaaang!

The two large red hands slammed against Becrock once she let go of him.

"Aaaaaaaaahh!"

Only Becrock's terrible scream could be heard.

***

If you find any errors or have suggestions, please feel free to provide feedback.

Thank you for reading!

[Author – Yu Ryeo Han]

[Translator – Anowa]

[Proofreader – Rai_Mayank]