Chapter 195

The collision between continents first brought earthquakes.

Not the kind that merely collapsed buildings, but earthquakes that uprooted mountains.

Soon after, a tsunami arose. Not seawater, but the earth itself surged. Massive shockwaves made the crust roll like waves, and mountain ranges sprouted from flat plains before racing across the landscape.

By now, people could hear nothing at all.

“Aaaahhh! Aaaahhhhh!”

Unable to even hear their own screams, people shrieked until their throats tore to endure the pouring violence and thunderous noise. Without doing so, they felt they couldn’t distinguish whether they were alive or dead.

Hans struggled to his feet. Blood was flowing down his forehead. No matter how robust a 1st Circle mage’s body might be, there was nothing he could do against stones raining down like hail. Everyone else lay prostrate on the shaking ground, praying only that death would pass them by.

Still, Hans forced himself to stand.

‘Fuck!’

Sparks flew from his eyes.

‘Fuck! Do you think I’m a joke? Huh? You think I’m funny?!’

Incoherent curses poured out. The sense of defeat he’d felt toward Vice-Mayor Jin Sihui, the helplessness he felt here, and his wildly pumping adrenaline mixed together until he didn’t even know what he was thinking.

But strangely, Refinement’s instructions came through crystal clear to his ears.

-Burn everything you’ve got, mana bills and mana coins alike! Synchronize the mana stones I’m sending with the barrier where you are!

“Uaaahhhhh!”

Hans ran. Even when the ground erupted to strike his chin, even when flying stones smashed the back of his head, he kept running. He grabbed the star-shaped rocks that had sprouted like constellations across the red clearing.

Mana coins and mana bills tumbled from his fumbling pockets. He grabbed whatever he could and burned them all. Hans couldn’t see it, but the mana released like mist soon enveloped both the flying mana stones and the constellation-shaped rocks at the crossroads.

-Follow my incantation! ‘This is the will of administrator Divine Wizard. And the message of his faithful assistant, Shadow Library.’

“This is the will of administrator Divine Wizard! And the message of his faithful assistant, Shadow Library. Let all facilities rise according to their original purpose! Reclaim your original boundaries and perform your original duties!”

Hans bellowed the incantation until his throat gave out. Immediately after,

Krrrr-crack!

The ground where Hans stood began shaking violently. It was a completely different kind of vibration from before.

‘The earth is… rising?’

The rocks embedded like constellations in the red square began… to emerge.

‘No? These aren’t rocks?’

What broke through the earth were massive statues. Beings that resembled humans yet were different. Giant statues rose endlessly. The spot where Hans stood was on the shoulder of one colossal statue. Hans swayed, struggling to keep his balance.

“Uh… uaaahhh!”

Suddenly, he saw a small child who had been lying near the statue’s elbow tumbling off. Hans’s eyes widened.

“This is an ancient promise! Gentle breeze of Hwion! Protect that child!”

Breaking protocol, he blurted out the shortened version of what should have been a longer incantation. Fortunately, the spell manifested successfully. A soft wind embraced the falling child’s body.

But ultimately, it was an unnecessary gesture.

Thump!

A massive hand gently caught the child.

The giant statue that had just risen was moving.

“Wh-what?”

Hans looked around at the statues with a bewildered expression. The statues’ eyes were glowing bright blue.

-Construction golems belonging to the Disaster Response Headquarters. Shadow Library’s authentication code confirmed. We express our deepest gratitude and welcome to the administrator who has returned across eons of time. We will immediately begin rescue operations and shelter construction.

Thoom! Thuuuum!

The massive statues—no, the construction golems—began to move. They sheltered the people lying on the ground with their own bodies and shattered the wave-like rising earth with their fists to neutralize it.

They dug into the ground and erected protective walls.

“C-can we… survive?”

Hans found himself muttering without realizing it. He looked up at the sky. He gazed with reverent eyes at the wizard wreathed in brilliant white light.

But Hans was merely one of the lucky ones.

Standing high in the sky, the Wizard of Refinement thought,

‘They look like insects.’

It wasn’t arrogance but an honest impression.

He had awakened the ruins to their original functions, but it wasn’t enough. Unlike the Constellation Crossroads where Hans was located, there were countless ruins that couldn’t help in this situation. People scattered like ants. They sought holes where they could somehow hide their bodies from the merciless violence.

No matter how he looked at it, they seemed like insects.

‘It’s… rather heartbreaking.’

Refinement himself was one of those insects too. Everyone was. Hadn’t even that great Divine Wizard originally been just a little boy who survived calamity like an insect?

‘But still… if we just stay alive without dying, we can overcome this.’

Refinement clenched his fists tightly.

The fist wrapped in his magical exoskeleton seemed to contain enough power to shatter even Mount Tai. With simple punches alone, he could surpass Ak-hu’s <Collapse Strike>.

‘Even with such power, I don’t have confidence I can completely stop it…’

Refinement smiled bitterly and gazed at a point on the plain. A mountain range that had torn through the plains was becoming a tsunami, rushing toward them. If something like that hit, even a city would be pulverized in an instant. The entire continent would face annihilation without any benefit from awakening the ruins.

“Transportation.”

[TraaaannSSSsportation]

Refinement used the primordial incantation as the Divine Wizard had taught him, with the authority the Divine Wizard had granted him.

This was possible thanks to the magical exoskeleton. The magical exoskeleton was the essence of the magical revolution brought about by Baek Jun-woo and the geniuses of this era. At least while wearing the magical exoskeleton, he could mimic Baek Jun-woo’s talent.

‘Of course, not quite to Baek Jun-woo’s level… but that’s still something.’

Refinement crushed the magical devices being delivered through <Transportation> one by one. Bows snapped in two, swords shattered like glass, protective amulets and boots burst into flames. Each time he destroyed a magical device he had personally crafted, the magic inscribed within was released with several times greater amplification.

‘The cost is high. To avoid losses, I need to save at least one more person.’

Refinement looked regretfully at the breaking magical devices, then finally gritted his teeth and plummeted down like lightning.

He threw his punch along with layered incantations. The situation was so overwhelming that even he, a Circle mage, had to add punches outside his specialty.

BOOM———–!!!!

With a brilliant flash,

the charging mountain tsunami came to a halt.

All the survivors stared blankly at the explosion. The scenery of mountains breaking and earth shooting into the sky.

With that spectacular explosion as its peak, the earthquake gradually subsided. Aftershocks continued, but their intensity was incomparable to before.

“…A-are we… alive?”

After a long while, Hans cautiously rose from his spot.

‘Damn. Are my legs shaking? Or is the ground still trembling?’

The earthquake had lasted so long that he couldn’t trust his own senses anymore.

Hans squinted and looked toward the plain where the massive explosion had occurred.

“Huh… what is that…”

“Th-the mountain range…!”

He could hear the shocked voices of other survivors. Hans felt the same. He felt like he might wet himself.

‘Actually, did I already wet myself? It’s so damp with sweat and blood… I can’t tell.’

Unconsciously touching his damp crotch area, Hans gulped.

“It’s like… we’ve come to another world.”

Where the plain had been, a mountain range now stood tall enough to touch the clouds. The protective walls the golems had built were on one side, and wave-like undulating hills surrounded everything.

“How did we… survive this?”

No matter how helpful the golems were… with the earth in this condition, how could they still be alive? Did this even make sense?

‘I’m grateful to be alive, thankful… but seeing this impossible landscape makes me feel so humble and sorry for being alive that I don’t know what to do with myself. Am I even worthy of being alive?’

Faced with the impossibly transformed terrain, there wasn’t even the mental capacity left to be grateful for survival. People felt confused by the fact that they had survived when they should have naturally died.

Then, from the towering mountain range, a faintly glowing figure rose. The light had dimmed enough that even Hans, a 1st Circle mage, could make out its true form. A man in full-body armor engraved with complex patterns. Through cracks in the armor, the man’s eyes, cheeks, and thin limbs were visible here and there.

‘Young?’

A boy who looked to be about thirteen or fourteen, with black hair and forsythia-colored eyes. But his youthful appearance made Hans feel even greater awe.

The surrounding light, the incredibly intricate full-body armor, the young-looking face—weren’t all of these utterly inhuman?

‘Earlier… didn’t someone call him the Wizard of Refinement? Is that person really the same as us? Could he be a legendary different race?’

It wasn’t just Hans who felt this way. Everyone looked up at Refinement like a god. They trembled at his overwhelming power and were moved by the inhuman atmosphere he radiated.

Like newly hatched ducklings, like baby sparrows opening their mouths wide for food, they each stretched out their hands toward their savior floating in the sky.

Finally, their savior spoke.

-Sowing.

Then, across the completely overturned earth where only red soil showed, green grass sprouted. It was wind reed grass that nomads enjoyed eating.

“Ohhhhh!”

“Lord Wizard… thank you…”

Now people fell to their knees. They were busy worshipping their savior with tears streaming down their faces.

‘Is he really a god? He saved our lives and provided food… who exactly is he…!’

Hans’s eyes had also reddened. He felt like he might cry too. Everything was so moving.

Then Refinement’s voice reached his ears.

-I’m giving you ten minutes. Feed the survivors and start searching the surroundings immediately.

Even at this point, Hans thought Refinement was going to tell them to rescue the wounded.

-Collect all magical materials and items, whether expensive or cheap. There’s no time, so move quickly!

“Huh? What about the wounded?”

Hans found himself asking back without thinking. At that moment, the forsythia-colored eyes of Refinement, floating far in the sky, passed over Hans. Hans felt goosebumps prickle up.

-Good question. Tell the survivors this. They need to hurry with collecting magical materials. I’ll distribute healing potions according to how much they collect. Those who don’t meet my standards won’t get any. By the way, my standards are very high.

“What??”

-Move quickly! Even at this moment, precious magical materials are getting buried in the soil and rotting away! I’ve already consumed many resources to protect this continent. If it doesn’t look like there will be greater returns, I’ll abandon it without hesitation. After I leave, you’ll all starve to death, right? Of course, my passing grade is very high. You’ll need to work at least three times… no, ten times harder than usual.

Was he not a savior but an exploiter?

At this declaration that went far beyond everyone’s expectations, Hans pressed his darkening eyes and shouted.

“Th-that’s too much! In the middle of this destruction… why go that far?!”

But Refinement, who had been listening to all the mages’ grumbling from high in the sky, muttered with a cold expression.

“The age of destruction? No. If I had to say… now is the age of creation. That’s how it has to be. So stop whining and work. With a sense of mission. If you don’t, you’ll all die here.”

Refinement closed and opened his eyes.

He could see people facing reality and scattering in panic. They looked like ants again. The sadness of losing family members. People running around and digging in the earth to find magical materials, with no time to tend to their bodies and hearts exhausted by disaster.

It was unfortunate, but…

‘This is what I have to do. Baek Jun-woo. Your supply lines will never be cut off.’

He steeled his resolve once more.