"Oh, those pitiful creatures you mentioned?"
The cloying, sweet voice instantly turned sour, a disgusted tone floating through the rust-scented air like one would have upon coming across vomit or other nauseating filth, scornfully disparaging the underlings who had met their end impaled.
"Completely worthless trash that can't even stall a few imps, not to mention their death being utterly crude."
The arrogant remarks, made with the nonchalance of swatting a bothersome mosquito, even caused the elves, who are hostile to begin with, to sneer. Amidst the brewing dissatisfaction, Li Lin let out an aloof, elegant laugh.
"Such a simple worldview. Disdaining everything except one's own self, the mindset of a narcissist is all too clear, isn't it? It's not much of a thought, and it has nothing to do with me, but—"
His confident, knife-sharp smirk cut through the hypocritical veil of an air that reeked of toilet fragrance, going straight for the shallow facade hidden beneath the thick layer of makeup on the magician.
"The flip side of extreme narcissism is always extreme inferiority. The genesis of a narcissistic personality is often a profound sense of inferiority. The ones that people, who can only find warmth by loving a false image of themselves and are not even worthy enough to be called pitiful, despise the most are usually their pathetic selves. Our poor little magician, always bullied and crying in corners."
"Just as the rumors said, a real sharp-tongued fellow....!!!"
His sissy composure gradually fractures and peels away. His formerly condescending tone trembles, anger seeping into the air, iciness and resentment turning into lethal intent, scorching the elves' skin.
"I was actually planning to spare you, just for that uncommonly handsome face of yours!"
Within the suddenly depressurized space, a spine-chilling sound was heard, originating from a pit devoid of any sign of life. The sound of *something* moving in the pit underground reached the surface; after a while, a pale hand clasped the edge of the pit, grabbing onto a bush, a lifeless, pale face emerged from the pit.
"Even the most worthless trash can be useful after dying once. Now then, country bumpkin of transformation magic, how are you gonna deal with my horde of famished pets?"
Among the taunts that toyed with and blasphemed life, more than a dozen pierced corpses climbed out of the pit one after the other, moving stiffly and purposefully toward the convoy.
Bang—!
The leading corpse was hit head-on. Its brain splattered all around, the mixed red and white substance was sprayed everywhere.
The zombie, which relied totally on instructions and acted based on its inflated appetite, couldn't wait for its startled master to issue "dodge" or "scatter" commands and had its head exploded repeatedly. The rigid bodies swayed a few times, and the horde of corpses forcefully awakened by malicious rituals lay down again.
"What are you doing!!!!!!"
Flipping out and going berserk out of embarrassment and rage, the sissy's voice gained a lot of masculine edge. Impulsive demons always reveal some semblance of manliness, irrespective of who the subject is or how they usually act.
Everyday decorum and front-stage persona are no longer in focus. The boy who held a rock in his hand was.
"You threw a rock?! You're a transformation magician, right?! Even the poorest apprentice has some sense of being a magician! What does blasting such cute zombies with rocks mean? At least use a sword! A sword!"
The sentences were incoherent, the words and phrases questionable. But the fact that the magician was driven mad by an unexpected situation was well grasped by the elves. They somewhat understood the chaotic reactions caused by intense stimulation. However, they wouldn't accept his babblings.
They were in hostility with the sissy. There was no reason to heed an enemy's words. Moreover, whether it's "hermaphrodite," "necrophiliac," "zombie lover," or "narcissist," any single one pops out as an undeniable certificate of "pervert." When these completely disgusting terms are connected to one person, the disgust doubles, then squares. Accepting the questioning from such a very, very, very perverted guy on one of their own? Elves are not brain-dead. They are not religious icons that put forth their right cheek after being slapped on the left. They can't pull off such a feat.
"A rock thrown with enough speed can crush a skull, so why waste time dueling with magic, right? As for zombies... none of your zombies are girls, they don't have a single moe element."
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Don't say such non-moe things!!!!!!"
"No matter how you see it, all your moe zombies have been headshot. So what's your next move? Are you going to step into the battlefield yourself? Or... will you let your friends clean up the mess for you?"
The mocking provocation was returned with a moment of silence but was soon followed by an enraged and vicious retort.
"Are you mistaken about something? Do you think my commanding magic is just some spell that controls corpse puppets, that without corpses I'd be stuck? Don't be so naive! Dealing with a third-rate brat like you, I, an adherent of the principle of not getting my own hands dirty, am more than sufficient, even without zombies. These little ones will keep you company!"
At the snap of his fingers, the bodies on the ground began to tremble violently. In a few beats, the bodies began shrinking, black maggots surged like a tide from inside the corpses onto the ground. The carrion bugs residing within the bodies, which were receiving mana supply from Laurence to control the zombies, received their master's command to evolve. They quickly devoured their hosts that served as nests and began their metamorphosis using the flesh and blood as their nutrients.
The quickly hardening outer shell of the bugs cracked open at the back, revealing black wings and carapace gleaming like metal.
All the "gluttonous bugs" finished their metamorphosis and leapt out of the old shell. The edges of the wings, fanning the air, were sharp like knife blades, saliva flowing from their mouths full of razor-sharp teeth. The bugs, freshly metamorphosed, were thrilled at the prospect of a feast before their eyes to fill their empty stomachs.
"Devour them all! Humans and beasts alike, down to their bones...argh!"
His arrogant shouting was interrupted by a muffled sensation of coughing up blood. Magician Stephen Herbert Laurence writhed and flopped around like a mortally wounded dog. Cold sweat poured from his pores, and his whole body was wracked with an intense pain, as though someone was ripping him apart. His insides felt like they were going to be coughed out with each violent cough, leaving traces of blood on the grass. His lungs felt as if they were being roasted in flames.
"You...cough...used poison...cough..."
His dilated pupils were filled with bitterness and confusion: he had hidden himself well, the black-haired boy hadn't come near him, when and how had he been poisoned?
"Hiding in the brush downwind was a good idea; using magic to create an echo to distract was brilliant as well. But if you really wanted to go unnoticed, you should've found a way to make your body heat and heartbeat disappear first. From the beginning, you were always within my field of vision."
"Cough...how could...cough..."
"If you hadn't been so confident in your hiding abilities and hadn't focused entirely on the rock-hurling right hand of mine, you might have noticed my left hand flicking a crystalized piece of poison your way. When the crystal vaporized, it formed an odorless, colorless poisonous gas that entered your body through your skin and breath. And the result of that is what you're experiencing right now."
"Despicable...cough..."
"Well, when compared to you manipulating your subordinates' lives and even their corpses, I've just played a little prank."
"Cough...cough...cough..."
The magician's coughing gradually weakened; the combined efforts of nano-machine bugs and nerve gas were delivering their final blow to Laurence's respiratory and central nervous systems. His life was on countdown, the dwindling light in his eyes caught sight of a scene that added to his confusion in his final moments.
A black fog was slowly encroaching, the chilling buzz made his scalp prickle.
——Eater bugs. His coveted magical weapon was slowly approaching him at a speed that amplified his fear, he could even hear the crunching noise it made as it munched on the air.
Impossible!
He repeated the word again as if it were a straw he was desperately clinging to, but the elusive nature of the word didn't hold the power to save him from his despair.
After the supply of mana to the eater bugs was interrupted, they should have attacked the nearest target indiscriminately! The distance between himself and the bugs was significantly greater than the distance between the bugs and the convoy. None of this made any sense! From the density of the black fog in front of him, it was clear that all the bugs had gathered here, and he was their only target!
Someone had provided the eater bugs with new mana to replace the old control spell, manipulating them to attack him, their master!!
Although this was the only explanation that made sense, in his final moments, Laurence still refused to face reality, refused to accept that the black-haired boy had stolen control of the eater bugs, let alone admit that this was a magician's duel.
"Whether it's setting traps, forcing your subordinates to fall into them, showing off your way of controlling zombies, the spells to modify the form of toxins, and finally your demise from poisoning... you did all of this admirably."
The black-haired boy was standing before Laurence, arms folded, with an expression that hovered between mockery, a cold sneer, and a gentle smile. To the dying magician, it was as though he was looking at a demonic portrait from the depths of hell.
Such a thing could not have been forged from the sins of this world.
Raping, looting, desecrating, murdering and all such heinous sins were incomparable to that void which even consumed the evilness itself. [That thing]was even trying to deny its own[existence].
"After the mana supply to the eater bugs you created was cut off, they instinctively sought fresh flesh as a temporary alternative until they stopped rampaging. But, having to deal with such a troublesome characteristic is a bit problem for us... well, it was an unexpected situation, and a headache, no doubt."
The face of the demon was gradually getting blurry. He no longer had the strength to even twitch his limbs. His consciousness, like a burnt residue, was drifting away from the body. Only the bloody cracks and the indifferent verdict of observing ants carrying away a green bug were branded on the last flickering sparks of his life.
"This is my last request to you, let the bugs eat as much of your poisoned flesh as they can, otherwise, it will be a bit annoying."
A swarm of bugs rushed over, covering his body, fully permeated by the poison. The densely packed guests fought for every inch of space, their sharp mouths cut through the skin. Starving bugs burrowed into muscles, bone marrow, organs, and even the brain — tearing every inch of his flesh into tiny pieces they could consume. The feast of devourers was in full swing, marked by the strange crunching noises, and no one among the spectators dared to approach.
A far from glamorous end came to the magician who used to mock his subordinates dying in the old-fashioned way. The once flamboyantly disgusting Laurence was now nothing more than some unsightly white bones and dead bugs scattered across the deserted grassland.
The fate of this self-loathing narcissist was no different from that of the bugs.
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PS: This book has successfully entered the Recommended Fantasy category! Thanks to all the readers and editors! I hope everyone will continue to pay attention and promote this book! Thank you for your support!