Chapter 113 Ancient Magic Script

After hearing Shaoke's explanation, Mage Roman grinned and pointed at her own eyes, "The mental probe you just used can only be pulled off once your mental power hits a certain level. I really didn't expect yours to be so high. But I feel your mental power isn't pure enough. You should hold off on boosting it for now, or it could mess up your advancement."

"That infiltrator was only Second Rank; he couldn't have hidden from the close-range mental probes of Third Tier Mages." The female mage Roman finally held her tongue, not asking again about Shaoke's sudden surge in mental power. She believed everyone had their own secrets, and there was no need to dig deeper. Even if he were a super genius, it didn't matter—she'd seen plenty of those anyway.

"Oh," Shaoke murmured. "Mage Roman, are we still going to regroup with the other mages?"

"No need, Mage Xueye. We have to get out of here—they're still on our tail." Mage Roman checked the red markers on the magic item and dismissed Shaoke's suggestion, as it seemed unnecessary now.

"Were they surrounded by the enemy?" Shaoke followed the female mage cautiously as they felt their way forward in the dark. He sensed a heavy tone in her voice when she rejected his idea, which gave him a bad feeling.

The female mage said, her voice thick with emotion, "They were unlucky; they probably encountered a Third Rank infiltrator." After saying this, she grabbed Shaoke's arm and whispered urgently, "Mage Xueye, we will definitely make it back to the fortress."

Shaoke smiled bitterly to himself. He hadn't expected the other two Third Tier Mages to die so silently. He even wondered if they'd even put up a fight. "Mage Roman, won't they use this magic item to track us?"

Hearing Shaoke's somewhat innocent question, Mage Roman realized he had been holding onto this concern for a long time. A smile tugged at her lips as she explained, "Don't worry! This magic item stores the imprint fluctuations of its owner. Both activating and deactivating it require this imprint as a key. If the holder dies, the imprint fluctuations inside will also disappear immediately." The female mage braced herself against a tree, caught her breath, and went on, "Once it has a new owner, all markers on this item will vanish. It cannot be used by the enemy at all."

After hearing the female mage's explanation, Shaoke nodded. He knew that once the owner's imprint fluctuations disappeared, no identical imprint fluctuations would ever appear in this world again, as each mage's imprint fluctuations were unique and irreplicable. Of course, he couldn't yet sense the differences between various imprint fluctuations, but after becoming a Third Tier Mage, one could use powerful mental power or mana to perceive each person's unique fluctuations.

Just as Shaoke was leaning against a tree facing the female mage to rest, two Three-pointed Star Magic Arrays suddenly appeared in her eyes—one silver and one purple—looking unnervingly eerie in the night.

Mage Roman threw herself at Shaoke, already chanting a spell. A few low syllables spilled from her mouth, and a white vortex over a person's height materialized behind her. "Gorya Wuzé," she cried, unleashing an ancient command mage's Spellcasting Technique.

The white vortex rapidly expanded, a vortex over a meter wide whirling into existence behind the spellcaster. Glittering clumps of snow quickly scattered from it into the surroundings. After the female mage reached Shaoke's side, the snow veered away from the two of them, unable to land on their bodies.

Shaoke grabbed the stumbling Mage Roman to steady her, only to see a thin, ice-encased humanoid figure emerge from the white vortex. The frozen figure, caught mid-lunge, was shredded to pieces by the spinning vortex.

The female mage didn't observe the result of her spellcasting but urgently reminded Shaoke, "There's another pursuer, probably..." Before Mage Roman could finish, Shaoke saw a dark figure charging from the side. A palm-wide longsword, enveloped in pure white Aura, cleaved through the obstructing wind and snow as it swung toward the two of them.

"Death Gaze!" In a panic, Shaoke cast this only second-tier spell he could fire off instantly. The ambusher, seeing two purple diamond arrays appear in the opponent's eyes, slammed to a halt, his whole body locking up.

Propelled by inertia, the warrior flew straight toward Shaoke and the mage, landing with a thud on the thick snow. Shaoke could feel the man's Aura flaring, fighting against the ‘Death Gaze’s’ hold. He sensed his mental power draining rapidly, and his intuition told him the spell array binding the ambusher was about to be torn apart. If not for the surge in his mental power last night, the opponent would have already stood up to deliver a fatal blow.

Although Mage Roman didn't know how the ambusher had fallen, she didn't hesitate. She pulled out a silver dagger inlaid with a sapphire from the pouch at her waist and stabbed it fiercely into the opponent's head.

With a *thud*, the ambusher, despite erupting with all his Aura to struggle against the restraint, had no defense against Mage Roman's silver dagger. It easily pierced through his skull, pinning him to the ground.

Seeing that Mage Roman had killed the warrior, Shaoke's tense nerves relaxed instantly. He felt his vision darken, and his body swayed. If not for the female mage catching him in time, he would have surely fallen heavily onto the cold snow, just like the ambusher.

"Xueye, how did you manage 'Death Gaze'?" Mage Roman asked, panting heavily. She hadn't expected Shaoke to master this unique Meditation method in such a short time and restrain the ambusher for so long.

"This spell is the one I've practiced the most among my Second-level Spells," Shaoke rubbed his head, quickly took auxiliary drugs to suppress the headache and speed up recovery, and smoothly uttered the lie he had rehearsed for a long time. He then looked down to check the ambusher's identity and found he was a Third-rank Warrior. This sent a shiver of fear down both mages' spines.

Shaoke knew that if the opponent hadn't ambushed too quickly, and the violent fall hadn't disrupted his gathered Aura, 'Death Gaze' would have restrained him for only a few breaths before he broke free. At such close range, neither of them could have escaped the opponent's hunt.

The female mage hooked the white velvet cord on the dagger and returned the bloodless blade to its original place. Softly, she said, "Let's go. The enemy will soon discover their deaths." She then grabbed Shaoke's arm again, leading him through the dark forest toward the fortress.

The two hardly rested, stumbling through the wind and snow until dawn before stopping. The female mage plopped down under a tree, stretching her legs and leaning against the trunk, gasping intermittently, "Xueye... I think we should be safer now... What do you think?"

Shaoke leaned against the tree, bent down, and grabbed the female mage's shoulders, "Yes, I think so too. But you shouldn't stay like this now; it's not good for your body." He tried to pull the female mage up, but several attempts failed.

The female mage shrugged her shoulders, rested a bit more, then grabbed Shaoke's body and swayed as she stood up. "I know. Do you have any food? I think I must eat something to replenish myself."

Seeing the female mage's snow-white long hair now turned grayish-black, Shaoke couldn't help but smile. "Yes, luckily I have a habit of carrying some food with me." He then held Mage Roman's arm with one hand and took out the already crushed bread slices, handing them to her. Both endured the cold, grabbing some clean snow to wash down the dry, hard food hastily.

After resting against each other for a while, they set off again. According to Mage Roman's magic item, at their current speed, they would still need two days to possibly return to the fortress.

Shaoke and Mage Roman supported each other as they advanced. Perhaps due to their counterattack last night, the enemy's disdain, or insufficient manpower, they encountered no further pursuit.

However, from time to time, through the female mage's magic item, they learned that many Third Tier Mages had perished in this sudden breach of rules. More than half of the red dots on the disc had disappeared, though the situation of the scattered Second Tier Mages remained unknown.

Although both worried about the other companions in their team, they had no better options under these circumstances. After all, they were also on the run, and could only place their hopes on individual luck.

During this time, Shaoke also asked Mage Roman how she had detected the enemy. Her answer left him pondering for quite a while.

"At that time, I just felt something off about the atmosphere around us, so I used mental detection and unexpectedly found them," she said, a smile of relief after surviving a disaster appearing on her face. "But I only discovered one pursuer. If that warrior hadn't known how to conceal his mental fluctuations, we would never have escaped the infiltrator's assassination. After all, only infiltrators of the same rank could evade my detection."