As Furio slept during the day, he was rudely awoken by a massive roar.
He jolted awake in confusion, quickly opening his tent to look outside.
In the distance, he saw a red dot coming from the direction he heard the sound.
Very quickly, this dot was growing in size.
As Furio focused his eyes, which were still fuzzy after such a sudden awakening, he realised something.
"No way. Holy shit!"
A dragon was flying directly towards him.
Immediately, his fight or flight response had activated.
He instantly ruled out the idea of fighting and started running in the opposite direction.
He had been camping on top of a sand dune, so he quickly slid down to the bottom.
The dune was small, but perhaps the dragon would not notice him.
He aimed his palms towards the sand underneath him, and shot out several magic bullets faster than he had ever done before.
The sand separated slightly, and he jumped in without hesitation.
He allowed the sand to bury him, and although the claustrophobic suffocating feeling was unbareable, he was far more afraid of becoming dragon food.
Unfortunately for him, his plan failed.
Thud!
The sand shook under the weight of such a massive creature.
It opened its mouth and breathed a great gust of wind.
The sand which had encased Furio was blown away.
Furio, who was blinded by the cloud of sand, recklessly started firing bullets towards the beast.
Naturally, the magic bullets of a beginner mage could not even scratch the scales of a dragon.
The dust cloud disappeared in an instant, with all the air being sucked into the dragons lungs as it took a deep breath.
Furio opened his eyes, seeing a red ball of energy inside the dragon's jaw.
Still, he tried to fire bullets, aiming for the eyes of the dragon.
Zzzt!
The ball in the dragon's mouth only got larger, and Furio understood that death was imminent.
...
'Okay, maybe I overestimated the kid.'
I had assumed he was holding back or something, after all, who would believe someone with that kind of mana was just a beginner mage.
Wouldn't it make more sense that he was performing some kind of challenge, where he could only use a single spell without going beyond the first layer of operations?
I had wanted to check out what his true strength was by sending a wyvern at him, but this was just pitiful.
"Damn, I even went out of my way to go piss off a wyvern."
The kid was almost certainly going to die if he did not intervene.
"Fine, I guess it's my mistake."
'Hm, I should probably keep it in tact a little bit, right?'
The man thought for a moment as the wyvern charged its blast breath.
"This one should do the trick."
"O' all omens filled with hatred and curses, gather, and become my blade. Secare."
A magic circle with nine rings appeared in his hand, and from it appeared a sword of pure darkness.
No light reflected of it, the blade stood as a void in the desert.
"Wind, be my wings."
He uttered a short phrase, with this, a circle with six rings appeared on his back, sprouting an invisible pair of wings.
With this, the man dashed towards the wyvern which had lost track of him thanks to his cloaking spell.
"True Apocalyptic Deathblade"
...
As I stood, ready to accept my death, the ball of energy in the dragon's mouth disappeared.
Its entire body, previously a bright red, was covered in shadow.
After a moment, it fell apart.
There was no sound, no shriek of pain, nothing to even suggest it had been attacked.
One moment it was, and the next, it wasn't.
"Huh?"
I was just about to die, yet the thing fell into pieces?
The veil of shadow had disappeared, leaving only chunks of dragon in front of me.
And right after that, I spotted a man walking towards me.
He looked horribly out of place in this desert.
He wore a black suit and black tie, with a mask over his face.
Catching a glimpse of his skin, I couldn't be sure if he was human or not.
What little skin he revealed around his mask appeared almost black, with cracks emitting purple light upon said skin.
In his gloved hand, he bore a weapon.
At first, its shape was unclear, as it simply appeared to be a void of absolute blackness in a world of color.
No light reflected off it, but its shape seemed to be that of a sword.
I had a feeling.
This was the man who had been watching over me.
"W-Who are you?"
I could not help but fear him.
For days, he had been silently following me without truly revealing his presence, and now he had cut down a dragon effortlessly.
The man tilted his head slightly, deep in thought.
"...From henceforth, refer to me as master."
---
LOG 9 - SECARE
A spell used by the highest level dark mages, creating a sword of pure darkness. Any wound inflicted by this blade inflicts curses upon its targets. As injuries pile up on an opponent, they become weakened, to add upon this effect, targets take increased damage from magical and physical forces thanks to the curses applied by the blade.