Ahem.
If you wanted to make it sound respectable, you could call it archaeology. If you were being less charitable, then what Saruman and the others had done really was just tomb raiding.
Still, whatever you called it, Saruman had absorbed knowledge from countless magical traditions and eventually forged a path entirely his own.
Even though he had used only a tiny amount of magical power, the black spike had technically pierced the force field. By then, however, almost all of its power had been stripped away. It merely left a tiny hole in Saruman's gray robe, without so much as touching his skin.
Meanwhile, Saruman's left hand hadn't stopped pulling at the nebula mist. It was almost as if he'd calculated everything in advance.
At precisely the right moment, the mist that had slipped from the black-robed man's control was redirected back toward him, silently enveloping him just as his failed ambush left him off balance.
"Using the fluctuations in magical power and the shift in your opponent's attention while they break your spell to launch a surprise attack, that was good tactical thinking." Saruman slowly turned to face his disheveled student, who was now partially surrounded by his own nebula mist.
"But you're too dependent on specific combinations and your natural abilities. You failed to consider that your opponent might possess hidden techniques of their own, such as more advanced methods of controlling and neutralizing energy."
Saruman gestured toward the thin barrier behind him. "The principle behind this Ripple Force Field is simple. It uses high-frequency vibrations to convert energy concentrated at a single point into energy spread across a wider surface, then redirects it somewhere harmless. You need to think more broadly when dealing with an opponent."
At this point, Saruman really did have the air of an unfathomable old master.
"Haa... haa... haa..."
The black-robed man stood amid the gradually dispersing nebula mist, breathing heavily as sweat poured down his face.
The continuous, high-intensity spellcasting, the repeated failure of every tactical adjustment, and the crushing mental pressure had pushed him nearly to his limit.
His magical reserves were almost empty. Even the mutated parts of his body had begun to burn with pain, a clear sign that he had pushed himself too far.
There was no helping it. His teacher was simply too strong.
Even after suppressing his power to a level below his student's, and even without actively attacking, Saruman's profound understanding of magic, absolute control over the rhythm of battle, and seemingly prophetic ability to anticipate every move left the black-robed man feeling utterly powerless.
'Is it really impossible to hurt him at all? Even just making Teacher take one step... or leaving the smallest mark on him?'
No!
The black-robed man's head snapped up, a stubborn flame burning within his vertical pupils. His teacher had taught him that a wizard's greatest strength lay in his mind. He couldn't rely solely on spells and raw power.
His thoughts raced through every detail of the battle. Every exchange. Every criticism Saruman had given him.
The layout of the underground chamber. Every ability he possessed: conventional magic, ancient spells, forbidden arts... and even the unique abilities granted to him by his corrupted body.
Then, like a spark igniting in the darkness, an incredibly risky, almost insane, idea took hold in his mind.
The black-robed man slowly lowered his wand, looking as though he had finally exhausted himself and given up. His body hunched forward slightly, his breathing growing even heavier.
Saruman simply "watched" him. He didn't urge him to continue, nor did he lower his guard. Like the most patient teacher in the world, he merely waited to see what final effort, or decision, his student would make.
Then the black-robed man moved.
He didn't raise his wand. Instead, he suddenly drove it hard into the floor, not to cast a spell, but to use it as an anchor.
At the same moment, he let out a low roar. Every muscle in his body bulged, and veins rose beneath his gray-green scales as he recklessly poured every last trace of magical power inside him, along with the violent, corrosive foreign energy granted by R'lyeh's corruption, into his legs.
This wasn't magic. It was a purely physical burst of power, reinforced by magic.
He launched himself forward like an arrow released from a bow. No, like a boulder fired from a catapult. There was no clever footwork, no sophisticated spell, no wizarding technique whatsoever.
He simply hurled himself straight at Saruman with brutal, completely unreasonable speed.
But at the exact instant he charged, something else happened.
The magical gemstone set into the wand he had driven into the floor had remained partially activated throughout the duel. Using the very last thread of his mental strength, the black-robed man forcibly overloaded it.
The gemstone didn't release an attack. Instead, it erupted with an incredibly bright flash carrying a powerful mental interference effect. And its target wasn't Saruman.
The light shot toward an inconspicuous stone slab in one corner of the chamber ceiling, where ancient purification runes were carved across its surface. Stimulated by the overloaded magical energy, the faint purification power contained within those runes briefly awakened.
A wave of pure energy spread through the chamber, completely at odds with the lingering traces of R'lyeh's presence that permeated the underground space.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye.
From Saruman's perspective, his student's magical power had suddenly dropped to almost nothing. His movement was crude, a simple, straight-line charge that looked like the desperate final move of someone who had run out of options.
But at exactly the same moment, a faint energy fluctuation of the completely opposite nature appeared in the corner of the chamber: purification energy. For the first time, it disrupted the stable model Saruman had been using to perceive and predict the flow of energy throughout the surrounding environment.
The overloaded flash spell wasn't particularly powerful, but for that single instant, it introduced the faintest trace of "light corruption" into the pure energy perception Saruman's 'Eye of the Heart' relied upon.
The interference was so tiny it should have been negligible. But combined with everything else happening at the same time, that tiny ripple created something even Saruman himself hadn't anticipated: a one-in-a-billion delay in his perception.
And a misjudgment.
By the time Saruman realized what had happened, the black-robed man had already charged to within two steps of him, every last bit of strength poured into his body, even at the cost of drawing upon the power of the corruption. The wind generated by his charge actually stirred Saruman's graying beard.
"Hm?"
Saruman instantly chose the most appropriate response. He abandoned the idea of using refined energy manipulation to neutralize the attack, gathering magical power into his right palm instead, preparing to release a simple burst of force and knock his student away.
The black-robed man's body was saturated with corruption; allowing him to make direct physical contact carried too many unknown risks.
But just as Saruman raised his palm and the magical power was about to erupt…
The black-robed man's trajectory changed.
At the very last instant, he used the wand embedded in the floor as a pivot. Taking advantage of the momentum from his charge, he twisted his body sideways by the smallest possible margin in a movement that almost seemed to defy physics.
This wasn't magic. It was the kind of desperate control over one's own body that only a warrior pushed to the absolute limit could achieve.
And that tiny difference was enough. The point Saruman had predicted for his Magical Impact and the black-robed man's actual trajectory no longer aligned.
'Bang!'
The black-robed man's scaled shoulder slammed solidly into the outside of Saruman's raised arm. Raw physical strength, the last remnants of his magical power, and the corrosive force of the corruption, all three struck at once.
And Saruman, the man who had stood as steadily as an immovable rock for a thousand years, actually swayed. Then he moved backward half a step.
At the same time, the faint corruption clinging to the scales on the black-robed man's shoulder managed to penetrate the defenses of Saruman's gray robe. A shallow gray-green mark appeared on the skin of his arm.
It was insignificant, and almost immediately, Saruman's far greater power purified it away, but that didn't change the fact that damage had been done.
After the collision, the black-robed man was thrown backward like a puppet with its strings cut. He stumbled several steps before coughing up a mouthful of blood laced with black mist.
His body finally gave out. He dropped to one knee, barely keeping himself upright by gripping the wand embedded in the floor. It felt as though every bone in his body had come apart. His magical power was completely dry, the agony of the corruption surged through him like a tide, and his vision began to blur.
But he'd done it. He had actually made his teacher move! And he'd left a mark on him!
"Good."
Saruman remained where he stood. He lowered his head, "looking" at the rapidly fading gray-green mark on his arm, then sensed the tiny change in his position, the half-step he had been forced backward.
And then he smiled. Slowly, clearly.
This wasn't the relieved or affectionate smile he'd shown before. It was genuine joy, genuine approval.
"Yes..." Saruman spoke quietly, yet every word reached his student's ears. "That's it. The greatest weapon a wizard will ever possess is right here." He raised one finger and gently tapped his temple. "Our mind. You did very well, better than I expected."
Saruman's smile grew wider. It was the satisfaction of a master seeing his finest work finally reveal its true brilliance.
Then the smile faded.
Saruman straightened his back once more and allowed his hands to rest naturally at his sides. He tilted his head upward slightly, his expression returning to one of calm anticipation.
"Now... send me on my way."
He said it softly, almost as though he were asking his student to draw back the curtain on the beginning of one final, magnificent adventure.
The black-robed man fought through the pain and dizziness. He looked at his teacher standing there completely defenseless, at that calm, contented face. Tears mixed with the blood on his face, further blurring his mutated vision.
Yet his trembling hand became strangely steady as he tightened his grip around the wand embedded in the floor. He understood. This was the final step, and the most important thing he could ever do for his teacher.
The black-robed man slowly raised his wand and pointed it directly at Saruman's unprotected chest. Tears silently slipped from his distorted eyes, mixing with the blood still staining the corner of his mouth before falling onto the cold stone floor.
His vision was blurred by tears and exhaustion, but Saruman's peaceful face remained perfectly clear, carved into the deepest part of his soul.
There was no incantation, no dazzling burst of magical light. The black-robed man simply gathered the final trace of pure arcane magic remaining inside him, not the alien energy of the corruption, and poured it into his wand.
A tiny point of silver-white light appeared at its tip, faint but steady, like a cold star in the darkness.
"Teacher..." He forced out the words with the last of his strength, his voice hoarse. "Have a safe journey."
Then he closed his eyes.
His wrist moved steadily forward.
'Pfft.'
A soft sound, like a sharp blade piercing rotten wood. The tiny silver-white star flew forward like a weary bird finally returning to its nest and sank into Saruman's chest beneath his gray robes, straight into his heart.
There was no explosion, no dazzling burst of light, and not even much blood. Saruman's body merely trembled slightly. The calm, expectant expression on his face never changed, as though nothing more than a gentle breeze had brushed past him.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he fell backward. His movements were as gentle as an autumn leaf drifting from a branch, his plain gray robes spreading around him as he fell, like a cloud from which all life had faded.
'Thud.'
The old wizard's body came to rest on the cold stone floor, curled slightly as though he had simply fallen into an eternal sleep. His empty eye sockets faced the chamber's dim ceiling, and the faintest hint of a smile still lingered at the corner of his lips.
The chamber fell silent. Only the black-robed man's ragged, painful breathing remained, accompanied by the thunderous pounding of his own heart.
He staggered forward a few steps before dropping to his knees beside Saruman's rapidly cooling body. A trembling hand reached out, wanting to touch him, but at the last moment, his hand froze.
He couldn't bring himself to do it. Part of him feared that touching Saruman now would somehow profane the sacrifice his teacher had just made. And another part was simply afraid of feeling that terrible coldness, the unmistakable proof that the life within him was truly gone.
Then something strange happened.
Saruman's body didn't undergo the usual changes that followed death. There was no stiffening, no hint of decay. Instead, an incredibly faint, gentle glow began to emerge from him, as though formed from countless tiny points of starlight.
The light wasn't coming from his flesh; it seeped out from deep within his brow, his heart, his limbs, and every part of his body, strand by strand, like the first rays of dawn breaking through a layer of clouds.
The tiny lights seemed almost conscious. They drifted slowly through the air, gathering together until, drawn by some invisible force, they began flowing like streams toward Saruman's left hand, the hand that remained tightly closed even in death.
More precisely, they were flowing toward the object resting within his palm: the pitch-black tail feather of the Raven.
"Teacher's soul... That's it!"
The black-robed man could barely contain his excitement, and some of the grief that had overwhelmed him moments earlier immediately faded.
The instant the final point of light entered the feather, it suddenly came alive. It didn't release a blinding radiance; instead, it shone with a dark silver light of impossible depth, a light that seemed capable of drawing both one's gaze and soul into it.
Every barb of the feather seemed to awaken, with mysterious runes and shifting patterns of light flowing across its surface. Then, defying gravity, the feather slowly rose from Saruman's palm and floated about a foot above his body.
It began to rotate. Slowly.
As it turned, the feather itself gradually became transparent and unreal, as though being peeled away from this world. Meanwhile, the dark silver light surrounding it grew brighter and brighter, gradually outlining something vague and constantly shifting around the feather.
The shape was dreamlike and indistinct, yet strangely vivid at the same time. It resembled a great bird spreading its wings to take flight, an odd contradiction, hazy yet somehow incredibly detailed.
Every part of it seemed lifelike, while at the same time possessing the unmistakable unreality of something that had no physical form.
"Teacher was right!"
The black-robed man held his breath, unable to tear his eyes away. He could feel an ancient, incomprehensible power radiating from the feather, something so profound that it lay completely beyond his understanding.
It was like feeling ripples spread across time itself. Like hearing the threads of fate being plucked.
Several seconds later, the spinning feather and the phantom bird surrounding it suddenly collapsed inward, both compressing into a single point of intensely concentrated dark silver light.
Then, like a candle flame being quietly blown out, it vanished. Completely. Silently.
There was no trace left behind. No disturbance in space. No fluctuation of energy.
It was as though everything the black-robed man had just witnessed had been nothing more than an illusion.
Only two things remained in the chamber: the black-robed man himself... and Saruman's body lying quietly on the floor, the strange glow around it gradually fading until it once again became nothing more than the remains of an ordinary old man.
Proof that what had just happened had been very real.
(End Of This Chapter)
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