Genius Wizard who sees Rainbows- Chapter 195

Chapter 195 – *“What You Lose When You Grow Up (3)”*

 

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The boy had never imagined anything before.

To be exact, he had never had the freedom to do so.

Even when he recalled situations or words, they only existed as abstract concepts or letters.

Never once had they taken on a distinct or tangible shape.

What occupied the boy’s mind had always been a blank sheet of paper—one on which nothing could be drawn.

But now—

────.

Lines of multiple colors surged across that pure white page.

Like the iridescent murals found in ancient ruins, the colored lines seemed like the cracks that form on an egg just before it hatches.

*“If I could also break free from the laws and handle mana freely…”*

Indeed.

What would that look like?

The opponent’s method of manipulating mana carved a searing sense of inquiry and curiosity into the boy’s mind.

It pushed him to imagine a scene—far beyond his limits.

And that unrelenting stimulation—

─────!

—breathed life into a power buried deep in his unconscious.

It was imagination.

The boy’s mind now drew an image clearer than ever before.

An image of himself, breaking the rules and handling mana freely.

In that moment, the boy felt the mana from the circle and gem become incomparably more pliant than before.

It was like paint perfectly prepared for use.

─Thump.

He felt his heartbeat and turned his senses outward.

On the deck soaked with damp despair—

Rael Row’s top combatants had all collapsed, groaning in pain from heavy injuries.

And just ahead—

Stood an unharmed enemy.

The enemy, steadily closing the distance, stared straight at him.

He swapped his wildly swung whip for a longsword and braced to charge just the same.

Through the lenses of his goggles and gas mask—

Two pairs of eyes locked as they rushed toward each other.

─Thump.

Ray’s thoughts began to whirl at lightning speed.

What kind of picture could he draw using this paint-like mana?

How could he strike an enemy immune to ordinary magic?

His thoughts grew hotter and more focused.

With his concentration narrowed solely to the enemy, the surroundings faded, leaving only what lay ahead in sharp clarity.

Only two beings existed now.

Himself—and the enemy.

In the next moment, the figures of the two boys crossed each other and widened the gap between them.

A still silence followed, neither of them moving an inch.

Then—

Rip—!

The first sign of movement appeared on Ray’s face.

His gas mask split in two and tumbled to the floor.

*Thunk!*

At the sound, the enemy turned to Ray, the corners of his mouth curling upward.

“Well now, you dodged that? I could’ve split your face right d—”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

Because the next moment, he saw his own right arm, sliced diagonally, sliding off.

*Thud!*

“What… is this…?”

The enemy looked back and forth between the gushing wound and his severed arm with a deeply bewildered expression.

Then, alerted by a sudden instinctual warning, his face stiffened and turned back toward Ray.

His vision blurred for a moment.

Ray held a sword radiating a golden glow.

The clearly manifested sword carried high-purity mana flowing along its blade.

And at the same time, it blazed with immense light, tearing through the darkness of the storm.

Seeing Ray’s white hair and the blazing sword, the enemy’s face lit with realization before he burst into manic laughter.

“You…! You’re the one Father talked about…! It was you! Of course, it was you! Why didn’t I realize it sooner?!”

Ray gave no reply.

He simply stared at his opponent with a detached gaze.

“Heh…! He told me to avoid you, but now that we’ve crossed paths, there’s no helping it. You have to die. That way, Father will be pleased to see the thorn in his side disappear! Right?!”

Suddenly, crimson-black mana surged from the enemy’s shoulder.

It stopped the bleeding from the severed limb and began to stretch, forming a new arm.

But only briefly.

*Aaaaaaaagh—!*

A horrendous scream echoed through the heart of the storm.

Bright yellow flames blooming from the wound devoured the oozing dark mana.

─────.

The lightflame swayed in silence.

The wondrous scene left even the dwarves—masters of fire through forging and crafting—speechless in awe.

The yellow flame wasn’t satisfied with consuming the emitted mana alone.

It began to encroach toward the dark mana that had already taken form as an arm and armor.

“Grrk…! Grraaagh…!”

The enemy broke out in cold sweat, desperately increasing the output of the dark mana.

But the yellow flame showed no signs of withdrawing, calmly engraving excruciating pain into him.

“Graaaaagh—!”

“……”

What Ray saw in the crimson-black mana was darkness.

What chases away darkness is light.

What hunts down its target and snuffs out its breath is fire.

So the boy imagined—

A flame made of pure light.

“Aaaaaaaaagh—!”

That was why.

Even though the sword and flame were clearly formed from the circle and gem’s mana, their elemental fusion defied all conventional laws.

Their composition was built solely from the boy’s imagination.

There was no intricate or precise calculation behind it.

The boy simply imagined, and the elements changed properties and rearranged themselves to match.

It wasn’t easy, of course.

Maintaining the imagination etched an intense fatigue into the boy’s mind.

‘…But it’s fine.’

It was a satisfying kind of exhaustion.

Ray kept his guard up, eyes fixed on the enemy.

Several dwarves struggled to their feet, swaying as they rose.

“D-Did we win…?”

“H-He’s not even moving…”

Shock and awe toward the boy.

Relief toward the fallen invader.

These were the shared sentiments of the dwarves remaining on the deck.

“Not yet.”

But Ray’s warning pulled taut the tension that had just begun to slacken.

He knew the battle wasn’t over.

“Aaaaaaaaagh—!”

With a convulsive shudder, the malice contained within the vessel swelled rapidly.

The vessel’s fury had long since become one with the malice.

Only black emotion remained.

──────.

The oozing crimson-black mana soon turned into pitch black.

In a sudden explosion of power, the black mana began to push back the yellow flame.

*Aaaaaaaaagh—!*

Kill! I’ll kill you!

I’ll tear you apart!

The burst of venom and hatred sent a chill down everyone’s spine.

The enemy didn’t completely drive out the yellow flame.

But he regained enough strength to rise again.

At that instant, Ray was already at the enemy’s front, swinging his sword.

*Craaaaack—!*

A black orb wrapped around the enemy’s body blocked Ray’s blade.

The clashing light and darkness gnawed at each other, endlessly flickering between formation and disintegration.

Within this cycle of creation and erasure, Ray sensed it clearly.

The issue wasn’t output.

To tear through this malicious darkness, he needed mana of even higher purity.

*Crack—!*

Using the orb’s rebound, Ray traced an arc through the air and landed some distance away.

In the next moment.

What emerged from the vanished orb was a massive black wolf, cloaked in yellow flames.

A body rippling like a shadow.

Eyes slashed with malice.

A breath reeking of soot.

Ray, casting a high-powered reinforcement spell on the fallen Isra beside him, said:

“I’m heading to the power room.”

“Huh…?”

There was no time to ask for clarification.

Ray disappeared down the stairs into Rael Row’s interior.

*Grrrr—!*

The wolf lunged after him.

Isra barely dodged the collision and turned to see the wolf vanish down the stairs as well.

“……”

All that remained on the deck was chaos and groans.

The elders and higher-ranking figures who would usually issue orders were all unconscious.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Isra forced himself to stand.

Move. Think.

Do what you can.

‘The power room… the only thing in there is… ah.’

In that moment of realization, Isra threw himself toward the stairs.

Though the complex pathways split into dozens of routes, his feet unerringly sprinted toward one destination.

He arrived at the control room.

Before a wall of monitors showing every corner of Rael Row stood Elder Parun and several operators.

“Elder! We need to open all of Rael Row’s passages immediately!”

“You barge in and spout nonsense—! You’re saying we should just let that monster roam freely through our domain?!”

“Ray—Ray can defeat the intruder! We have to make a path so he can reach the power room!”

Parun shouted, his face flushing red.

“How dare you speak such nonsense in a crisis like this! Return to the infirmary and recover! Now! That monster will be dealt with per wartime protocol—by sealing off passages and deploying combatants!”

No—that would only increase the sacrifices.

“No. The best course of action is—”

“Isra! Are you disobeying?! Judgment lies with the elders—it is not your place to interfere! Leave the control room at once! That is the rule!”

Isra’s head was spinning.

His stomach churned.

He felt suffocated and stifled.

Yes—this suffocating pressure that always crushed him came from these inflexible, lifeless rules that had no room for flexibility.

“Didn’t I tell you to leave?! You no longer have the right to be here!”

Rules, protocols, authority.

God, how noisy.

Something snapped in his mind.

At the same time, someone’s advice flashed in his thoughts:

*“Make a scene.”*

“……”

It’s not because I’m following your advice.

It’s just… that’s how I feel.

By the time he finished the thought, his fist was already flying toward Parun’s solar plexus.

Isra’s glove had broken during battle, leaving his bare fist.

Parun wore a protective belt over his abdomen.

But Ray’s enhancement spell changed the outcome in a flash.

*Crack!*

Isra’s fist shattered the belt and struck Parun’s solar plexus dead on.

“Guh…!”

Caught off guard, Parun fell without even letting out a proper groan.

Isra shook his fractured hand in the air and snarled at the operators.

“Out. If you don’t want to die.”

—

*
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*

 

Descending the stairs and entering the corridor, Ray came face-to-face with two people who looked flustered.

It was Veronica and Grine.

“Both of you, return to the guest quarters and protect the rest of the group. I don’t think the intruder will make it down that far, but just in case, I’m enough to handle things up here on my own.”

“Are you really okay by yourself?”

“We still don’t have a clear grasp of the situation, but… understood for now.”

The two disappeared down the corridor, following Ray’s instruction.

Ray watched them for a moment before turning his head in the opposite direction.

In the distance, the charging wolf came into view.

The yellow flames clinging to its body, shaped by Ray’s imagination, weren’t burning anything in the surroundings—only the wolf itself.

*Tap!*

Ray exploded the red mana in his legs and forcefully kicked off the floor.

The ensuing chase unfolded at a perilously narrow distance—close enough that he could hear the wolf’s breathing right behind him.

*So the evacuation’s complete. I don’t see any dwarf civilians.*

At a glance, Ray’s path seemed completely erratic, without any rhyme or reason—but that wasn’t the case at all.

The yellow gem pressed against his chest acted as a compass, showing him exactly where to go.

From the moment he entered Rael Row, the gem’s resonance had never stopped—and the farther he ran through the corridors, the more violently it surged.

Of course, not being fully familiar with Rael Row’s structure, Ray sometimes had to turn back or got momentarily lost.

But that only happened in the beginning.

At some point, security devices along his path began deactivating on their own, corridors opened up to form clear routes, and flashing lights on the walls started guiding him in the right direction.

That was how Ray finally arrived at the power room and opened the door.

The yellow gem—his other half—was trembling with fierce excitement on the other side.

 

 

 

 

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