'Black City?' Ervin curled his brows.
His main research stayed within the confines of Lightwall City, but he did take some time to know a little about the regions outside the city. Black City from his knowledge simply looked to be a place in relatively equal power with Lightwall City. They didn't have any real special Mages he should take notice of.
But none of that really mattered.
What truly mattered was that this Noble patrol team was currently all alone, secluded in one spot. It did not matter that it was most likely this patrol team wasn't injured, Ervin had a plan for that.
He first memorized the route he needed to go on to reach the Noble patrol team, noting every little sharp turn and particularly dangerous Demonic Beast on this road.
Once the information settled deep into his mind, he put back the document, and down the vial of several Mana potions until he was back at full capacity and stepped out of the office.
The drain of his Mana reserves was intense, leaving right back to a meager 5%.
Ervin only had a few seconds in this state. But not panicking, he swiftly dashed straight back down to the library's camera blind spot.
Still, nobody was there as merely several minutes passed.
Only then could Ervin deactivate his invisibility. He breathed a small sigh of relief, finally being able to relax the mental stress of draining his Mana reserves in rapid succession.
The first part of the plan in Ervin's mind was genuinely the hardest. There's always the potential for failure when dealing with such a powerful organization like Mage Enforcers.
But with the difficult part out of the way, the only thing left for Ervin to do was steal flashbang grenades and Mana grenades from some random weapon shop.
Their defensive magical arrays aren't anywhere near as powerful as even a one-star Noble Family. Ervin knew his Mana reserves could tank phasing straight through them.
He feigned stopping his selection of books and quickly left the main estate building to finish gathering his supplies.
...
A few minutes quickly flew by.
At the dead end of the night, one man unnoticeable by all stole several valuable items and was currently making his way out of Lightwall City.
Ervin made a direct beeline straight towards that Patrol Team full of great confidence. The greater speeds he has allowed him to traverse great distances without getting tired in the slightest.
He only felt a slight bit winded after several minutes of continuous running and even then, straining his physical body did help him get adjusted to the sensation of Mana running through him.
Ervin didn't have to pay that much focus to his surroundings considering he was in his invisible state. But he still surveyed around himself to take notice of anything overtly strange happening.
At first, nothing too noticeable stood out to Ervin. Just the usual sign of battle and the occasional footsteps of nearby Demonic Beasts.
Things began to change the closer he got to the Noble Patrol team. Stains of blood, either old or even fresh began to splatter across the ground. Larger signs of destruction permeated, including shattered trees, cracks in the ground, or ashes covering large patches of the area.
Further down the line, Ervin began to see traces of old shattered corpses littering the ground. There was no fully intact corpse, but that made it all the more eerie to see random fingers, broken-off arms, bloody legs, and all other sorts of stomach-churning sights terrorize the area.
The pungent smell grew more powerful. Ervin faintly scrunched his nose up, feeling as if he entered an old mosh pit where the corpses were never cleaned up.
Ervin, at this point, wasn't really disturbed at all. He more so kept his guard even more up.
Evidently, this Noble Patrol team has either been in death-defying fights or whoever is from the Black City is quite cruel in their killings.
The degrading surrounding only continued even when Ervin realized he was close to his targets. His magical sense detected a group of six powerful magical auras huddled in one area.
Every magical aura from that group exuded an unfathomable sense of power that made Ervin, even from meters away, feel shivers crawl up his spine.
His enhanced magical sense could detect that four of them were Peak Stage Novice Mages while the other two rippled with Mana sensations similar to the Adept Ervin previously killed, presumably them being in the Late Stage.
Ervin got dangerously close to this powerful group. He made it to just the right spot to witness the powerful group finishing their last scout of the area.
Six Noble Mage Enforcers certainly breathed a presence far superior to most other Mages Ervin had seen.
Their luxurious Mage Robes that faintly gleamed with beautiful magical insignia symbols frighten both Demonic Beasts and humans. All of them were at a level of beauty the average person could only look up to.
The supremely confident expressions glistening on their beautiful faces gave all of them the feeling of absolute control. Every step they took was calculated to the tiniest of details.
Ervin even doubted he could kill this group even if they were heavily injured and nearly drained of Mana.
For a brief moment, because of the strange scenery Ervin witnessed when coming here, he decided to listen to their current conversations.
One of the Novice Mages just finished her scouting as she said, "Tch. You show off a few times and those rats just up and disappear. But I know those demons will be back the moment we live. When will Frost City finally crush them?"
"Hmph." One of the other Novice Mages snorted. "Black City is equal and most of the time stronger than us. Even with Sky Mages, do you think that even Frost City will have such an easy killing Spirit Mages fortified in powerful bases? Just focus on what we can do than what others can't, or really, won't do."
"Mn. Out of the two, I much rather be on Black City's bad side than Frost City. At the very least, the status quo won't change for now. We scout as much as we can here. We'll report that it's a mix of random killings, Black City and killings, and Frost City doing their rounds as per usual. Let's go." One of the Adept Mages calmly spoke.
The other Mages nodded in agreement. All of them were just about to leave the area.
With a single step, the Adept Mages with their usual confident expressions suddenly froze up. Their brows fiercely twisted together, feeling something immensely strange burst out of their souls at a frantic intensity.
The Adept Mages only had a split-second to feel whatever this warning feeling coming out of this soul.
As right at that exact same moment, two blinding white lights engulfed the entire area in a chaotic flash!
'Bang!!'
Two mind-shattering explosions rumbled the entire ground, blinded all Mages, and violently shook their minds!
"Ahh!!" The Mages horrified shrieks couldn't even be heard by themselves.
The Mana Flashbang grenades both made vision completely useless and heavily disrupted their magical senses. Disruptive flows of Mana in the form of powerful sound waves violently storm through their brains.
Everything for them became chaos, the world seemingly spinning and completely blinding at the same time for the Mages.
But even like this, the Mages were desperately surging their Mana to stabilize themselves and break off the flashbang. They would soon recover in only seconds.
However, why would Ervin give them such time to come back to reality?
Naturally, if Ervin were to attack on his own, the most he could do was fatally cripple one Peak Stage Novice Mage before everyone recover. He would still have the element of invisibility, but wanting to pierce through these Mages' defenses would drain him at a terrifying pace.
Thus, Ervin, with his Demon Orb surging along with his killing intent and the physical boost of his physical magical arts, flung out five high-grade Common Mana grenades at blinding speeds!
The Novice Mages and Adept Mage's magical senses were completely disorientated at this point. They were only blindingly releasing their Mana power to resist, but it was a chaotic flow of Mana at their very weakest.
Not even the Adept Mages could properly detect the overwhelming danger reaching them nearly instantaneously.
'Bang!'
A horrifying explosion of pure Mana essence shook everything for miles, seemingly making the entire world tremble to its knees!
Extreme waves of compressed Mana power equal to the Adept Stage wreaked utter havoc on everything in its path of pure destruction.
The Novice Mages didn't even have the chance to shriek. Their bodies were utterly smashed apart into horrifying mists of blood within the waves of explosions.
"Ahhh!!" The two Adept Mages' shrieks were swallowed by the rumbling explosions.
One of them suddenly went quiet, all force of life instantly vanishing out of them.
While the other experienced utter anguish. They didn't know what was happening to their body, only that it was getting shredded apart at a horrifying ease.