Belial slowly opened his massive mouth lined with sharp teeth, and from deep in his throat burst forth blue-white, searing light. It was the radiance of a destroyer god and the unquestionable proof of the king of monsters. Spiral Heat Ray!
"Destruction's blazing white beam!"
In a place with no people and no detectors, a place so empty that even birds would not stop there, two voices drifted through the cold air. "The lord has gone crazy, right?" "Was he ever sane? Haha."
One man chopped down a tree, cut it into sections, and used the round pieces as stools. The rest was not wasted, as thin branches were split and mixed with dead leaves, piled together, and ringed with stones.
The man with a weathered face lit the campfire with a single match, practiced and calm. The other set aside his frozen rations without hurry, since they were impossible to chew unless boiled, then took out yellow paper to roll tobacco and placed a heavy metal frame to the side.
One of them flipped an old helmet over, pulled out the lining, scraped snow from the branches, and set it over the fire as a pot to boil water. They were not adventurers or explorers, and they were not lofty professionals either.
They were just ordinary guards. Yet instead of staying at an easy post where time could be wasted, they were out in the wilderness with packs on their backs, carrying an expensive Magic detection device.
All of it was for the lord's impossible fantasy. One of them did not care much about the thing that sounded so valuable, leaving it by a rock as he took the tobacco from his companion, lit it on the fire, and took a deep drag.
"Hoo..." He exhaled a mouthful of smoke and enjoyed a brief moment of ease.
He thought about why he had come to this empty place. It was all because of the nonexistent high-quality Magic Crystal Ore that the mad lord insisted had to exist.
For that delusion, the man had spent his fortune, withdrawn from power struggles, sold off his territory, and bought this worthless land. To outsiders, it looked completely foolish.
It was not even the first time. He had once spent huge sums and effort to produce a batch of terrible glass, piled it in a warehouse where nobody wanted it, and finally smashed it all himself.
Expensive spices and beautiful flowers ended up as a so-called cleaning product that caused skin problems, losing even more money. Later, a machine made of brass and metal that looked decent turned out to be nothing more than a device for boiling water, nowhere near true magic machinery.
No one invested. In the end, he made a desperate move and paid an enormous price to hire a professor from the academy, a great mage once qualified to compete for a seat in the hall, only to use him to detect mineral veins.
The great mage was attacked by a terrifying sub-dragon monster in the wild and demanded a heavy medical fee afterward. It sounded absurd for a great mage to be badly injured by a sub-dragon, but the wounds were real, and true or not, the lord dared not refuse to pay.
There were many other stories like that. Everyone believed the lord had an exceptional talent for dramatic performance.
It was said that even the butler was considering hiring a priest to perform an exorcism, and many servants did not object. After all, the lord truly did not look normal.
"Hahahahaha..." Just thinking about it was enough to make even low-paid guards laugh freely.
When it came to enjoying gossip, he did not lose to anyone. If nobody could hear them, why not talk as much as they wanted?
In a place this empty, finding even a chicken was hard, monsters were rare, and someone had paid a sky-high price for this land like a fool, still hoping to dig up something valuable. There was too much gossip to finish.
"Hoo..." He took another drag and asked the companion boiling the rations beside him.
"Tomorrow night, want to go drink? The tavern on East Street." "If you have the money, I do not mind," the man said as he poked the fire with a stick.
"Get lost. Are you going or not?" "I am going. Then we can also call..."
As they joked around, the ground suddenly shook hard, nearly knocking them off balance, and a powerful shout came from afar as a figure ran toward them. "Gather up, you few!"
"Captain, big brother, what happened?" "Does not matter. Check if your device has any reaction."
The tall man in armor with a fur-lined coat did not have the usual friendly expression on his face. Seeing his attitude, the two stood up at once and discreetly hid the bottle of alcohol behind their backs.
At the demand, one glanced at the metal frame tossed aside and waved lazily. "It has been days. When has this thing ever moved... Holy crap, it is moving?!"
One of them stared wide-eyed at the wildly spinning frame and even reached out as if to slap it. "Do not hit it so hard. What if it is just you shaking it?"
The man cursed under his breath and spat twice. Their lord might be mad, but the instructions given before departure were remembered, even if they had sounded ridiculous.
"So if it is spinning, does that mean we found that mineral?" "Wait, does that thing really exist?"
The two looked at each other, staring at the metal frame in their hands. The metal sphere at the top kept rotating, the side marked with the sun faintly glowing as it pulled toward a direction like a magnet.
"If the device reacts, it has detected high concentrations of Magic, and that must be Magic Crystal Ore. Report immediately once it is found." The words echoed clearly in their minds.
The man holding the frame swallowed and covered the horn at his waist, turning to ask the captain, "So what do we do now? Report right away?" The tall man crossed his arms, thought for a moment, and glanced at him.
"Report, but you come with me to take a look first. After that, go report. We head east." "This is not our assignment, right? That area is handled by the second team. Where are they?" he said, tightening his cloak and bending slightly in confusion.
The man glared at him. "Do not worry about them. The gods probably got fed up, the ground collapsed, two got buried, and they are digging them out. Nobody else can get through, so it is just us. This might even be first credit."
"First credit... Then let us go take a look now?" Thinking of the reward, everyone's eyes lit up, since no one disliked the lord's shiny gold coins.
With that in mind, even work felt lighter. They ignored everything else, grabbed the crucial detection device, kicked over the helmet boiling water, and ran toward the direction the sphere pointed.
If a mage had been there, they would have seen a river-like flood of Magic gathering in the air. All the Magic around was spiraling toward a single point.
At the very center, the density was terrifying, enough to hinder breathing. From a higher view, the three figures, tiny as ants, hurried along with the equipment toward a distant spot.
After running for several minutes, they panted with excitement. "We are here, almost there, maybe just a few more..."
"Let me catch my breath..." A massive roar erupted, nearly deafening.
A blinding blue-white light shot from ground to sky, almost burning their eyes. They instinctively lowered their heads and covered their ears, and one coward fell flat, burying his face in the dirt.
Only after some time did they dare to look again. In the next moment, everyone present widened their eyes, their throats forcing out cries they could not suppress.
"Ah, ah. God... God..." "God..."
Forgive them, for they could only use the greatest thing they knew to describe what they saw. A colossal blue-white pillar of light pierced the sky, like a spear of divine punishment thrown at the earth, tearing through clouds and land alike.
The light carried obvious destruction, so intense that even looking at it felt dangerous. Mountains in its path were crushed apart, as if a cake had been carved through the middle, leaving rivers of black obsidian where molten rock had cooled.
Nothing before it mattered, whether stone or cloud, all were ground down and erased as it stretched beyond sight. It felt as if a childlike god was waving a pen that reached heaven and earth, scribbling freely while the world served as the canvas.
Countless pale points of light rose as the pillar swept after splitting the ground, tearing open the thick cloud cover and revealing sunlight unseen for a long time. The earth trembled from the sight, and the three men stood frozen, their bodies nearly kneeling in instinctive reverence.
The light gradually dimmed. They came back to themselves about five minutes after the pillar had completely vanished.
"Do we... go back?" one asked blankly. "Of course we go back."
"Then what is there to say?" "There is nothing we need to say. Our lord may be mad, but he has eyes. He definitely saw it."