"What the hell was this? I just blinked!" now laying on the ground just outside of the dungeon, Milo's body felt sluggish and soft, despite this, he was being shaken around as the earth itself shook.
The dungeon was collapsing upon itself, the metal that had once formed immense hallways and rooms was retracted, allowing the packed stone all around to flood into the empty space, rumbling the very foundations of homes and buildings in the city, this tremor was not simply a physical blow, but it also meant that the great source of iron the city was built upon had been taken away.
The ramifications of such an event were going to be terrible, many would lose their jobs, the city would be left destitute, it would become no different from many others that had lost the primary income source, this was not quite what was on the minds of the two youths however.
"I did not, and I still didn't see this guy move, I don't even know how he managed to move so fast" Helena would typically infuse her mana into the air currents all around, and even then, she had failed to sense the odd man's movements, from their perspective, he might as well have teleported.
Milo slowly circulated what little mana he had been left with, the sudden forced crystallisation had really taken a lot from him, and it had happened significantly faster than he could have accomplished himself, at least, in the event that he knew how to crystallise his mana.
Soon enough, a magical item, a brooch secured on both of their chests shimmered with mana, flames manifested in between them, letting place to their teacher.
She asked them if they were alright even though she definitely knew that it was the case, paying close attention to the collapsing dungeon, clearly, the crumbling was not only due to the metal walls leaving their spots.
'This guy… It's definitely him again, what is so interesting about this dungeon?' Rosemary had heard of the, still fairly recent, opening of a second part of the dungeon and the failure of a group of adventurers, she knew that this place was somehow linked to Audit's prophecy as she had been made aware of all of that nonsense after agreeing to train the three otherworlders.
But this would imply that the unknown master of magic was also linked to the prophecy in some ways, after all, the raving lunatic that was Quideos Audit had claimed that it was either that aforementioned group succeeded, or failed and whatever was inside would break out, at least, that is how she had understood it.
'If what the king believes is true, then the thing inside would have been an undead of some sort, and so, is the zone user also one? Or just some sort of maniac that wants to bring about destruction? He did already associate himself with the defilers and all that madness…' she stretched her arms behind her back, addressing her two students.
"Stay here and recuperate, I'll go investigate" she said, after all, considering who she believed to be the cause, the likeliness that another clash would occur was too high to bring anyone else, none of her students had managed to properly learn a technique to resist a zone, and to be frank, even then, none of them would be able of enduring her's, or the unknown mage's zone for even a moment.
Stepping inside, the volcano witch brushed through the debris without problem, soon reaching the spot where the short confrontation had taken place, the sheer control and technical knowledge required to take control of someone's inner mana, have them transmute their mana to an element and then have them crystallise it outside of the body, all the while not overdoing it and not hurt them, in barely a few seconds.
It was honestly ridiculous to even know how to do such a specific thing, Rosemary was skilled enough to learn it, but never would it have crossed her mind to do something , not to mention, the fact that her students had not been hurt in any way meant that he deciphered the activation requirement of the item they carried by just looking.
Indeed, had either Milo or Helena gotten scratched in their encounter, Rosemary would have been brought here instantly.
There was another option to the peacefulness but she doubted that this caster was so gracious to not kill them, and this time, he had left residuals of his mana, quite a lot of it actually.
'Way too much…' she soured, he was still actively exerting control over those bits of his mana.
'He must be quite a fair distance away' the ease with which she could overpower and destroy the remnant mana was a clear sign of this, he was already far away, having probably left clear signs of his passage all over the dungeon to throw off anyone trying to tail him, having most certainly concealed the real escape route he had chose for himself.
None of the creatures said to inhabit the dungeon were to be found anywhere, but considering that all of the metal of the dungeon had been taken away, then it came to reason that the same had happened to the monsters that were well known for being one hundred percent iron as well, the guardians and appearance of the place had probably been due to the power of whatever resided deep within.
'Are his visions so important to him? Why couldn't have me, or the copper knights taken care of what was down there?
Altering the fate he sees should be the best way of preventing the outcome he fears…' Rosemary did not really know much about Quideos Audit, he was once respected before showing signs of madness and mixing up hallucinations with actual visions, his divinatory powers were evidently true however.
But she had never interacted with the man personally, Audit mostly spoke to kings and rulers, Syklon had had a meeting with him in the past she heard, in fact, the copper knights, Storm Of Blade and Agilulf Wanneck had mentioned that Quideos was not only a seer, but that he was also to be respected because of his strength, what that strength entailed, no one had given precisions
Arriving in the final room, moving huge pieces of debris and shooing away the earthen mana floating around, she soon found the minced headless corpse resting in the center of the room.
"That's… That's a bit crude" she whispered to herself, looking around, but finding nothing of interest.