The Great Mage Returns After 4000 Years (Web Novel KR)

Kran continued to fight Gullard.

Throughout the fight, Gullard gained a lot of injuries and bled constantly. In fact, just from looking at his appearance, it wouldn’t be strange if he collapsed at that very moment.

But Kran knew that that wasn’t the case.

As one of the Five Dukes, his regenerative ability must have been beyond imagination.

As long as his brain wasn’t destroyed, he would survive even if he lost the rest of his body and he would be able to regenerate.

‘It’s impossible to defeat him unless his energy is exhausted.’

Paht.

Suddenly, Gullard split into four beings who then moved to surround Kran from four directions. Four was the best number when one needed to encircle a single person.

If he left them alone, the situation would become annoying.

Kran noticed this fact quickly and tried to break through the point closest to him.

But Gullard was one step ahead of him.

Puruk-

The four Gullards spread their wings at the same time and wrapped them around Kran. Then, as though thick curtains had completely blocked all the light, a pitch-black space was created in an instant.

His night vision wasn’t bad. In fact, it was quite good. For example, even if it was the middle of the night without a hint of moonlight, he would still be able to distinguish the features of someone standing a few kilometers away.

But this artificially created darkness was different.

It wasn’t that it was dark but that it was as if black walls had been erected around him.

Shik!

Something flew forward. Gullard had finally started his attack.

Kran sensed it purely by using his hearing and feeling the flow of air. He swung his sword.

He wasn’t sure what it was, so he couldn’t afford to hold back.

Shuk-

His sword easily cut through the thing that had been flying towards him.

It was much softer than he expected it to be, and it fell to the ground with a scream.

‘A vampire bat.’

It was just as Kran had guessed.

Dozens of bats shot towards him ferociously. Kran could feel all of them, but his vision was limited, and he wasn’t able to defend himself completely.

Soon afterward, a vampire bat clung to his thigh. Then, he felt its sharp fangs pierce his flesh, followed by the unpleasant feeling of his blood being sucked out.

‘This is dangerous.’

Kran grabbed the head of the bat with his left hand. Then, he popped its head with a simple squeeze.

Crack!

Nevertheless, the blood that had been sucked out couldn’t return.

‘I can’t let this continue.’

In this space, just standing there and defending consumed a lot of his stamina.

Kran hesitated for a moment.

There were a lot of humans around at the moment.

Would it be okay for him to go all out in this situation?

“…!”

It was at that moment when his instincts screamed at him. Such warnings could not be ignored.

Kran forcibly twisted his body and spread his cloak out in front of him as the bats rushed forward madly.

The fluttering cloak hardened in the air, becoming a solid shield in front of him.

Boom!

Immediately afterward, a powerful force shook the cloak. If it had been a normal cloak, it would’ve been torn to shreds in an instant. However, this cloak was a special magic item that had defense and shock absorption stronger than steel walls and even some magical engineering techniques.

Nevertheless, this cloak, which could even withstand anti-tank weapons, could not completely block the explosion. And Kran, who was standing behind it, was forced back a few steps by the shockwave.

‘Is this the explosion ability he used earlier?’

So it could be used at a distance.

The destructive power was only half as much as the previous time, but even that was still tremendous.

It seemed that he did it by grouping the vampire bats together before forcing them to explode by overstimulating the veins in their bodies, turning them into biological bombs.

Boom! Boom!

And seeing that the attacks continued without any signs of stopping, the technique was less troublesome than he expected.

Kran’s cloak, on the other hand, was slowly being torn to shreds.

‘It won’t be able to last much longer.’

So he had to think of something before the cloak was completely destroyed.

Kran took a deep breath before changing to the place where the bombardment was the strongest.

Boom! Boom!

As he expected, the attacks from this area were the fiercest.

Running to the place with the strongest attack was something that no rational person would dare to do. Nevertheless, there was a reason for this seemingly suicidal behaviour.

The cloak could only truly defend attacks that came from the front. So heading towards the area with the strongest attack allowed him to pay less attention to it while increasing the attention he paid to his sides and back.

In fact, as he forged ahead at full speed, he found that it was much easier to withstand Gullard’s attacks than before.

Before long, he realised he’d reached the end of the space, Gullard’s wing. As soon as he saw this black wall, Kran thrust his sword forward without any hesitation.

Crack!

Naturally, that alone wouldn’t be enough. He couldn’t escape through a hole this small.

Kran forcibly twisted the sword that was stuck in the wing.

The blade became twisted in an instant.

This was a barbaric move that Swordsmen, who treasured swords, would never do. However, for Kran, the most important thing was efficiency.

The blade was damaged? It lost its edge?

That was fine. It was better to rip through the wings this way.

Crack crack-!

The hole in the wing became larger, and he could finally see the outside. Kran forced his body through the hole.

Blood gushing from the hole in the wing turned his entire body red.

“Roar!”

With a roar, Kran finally managed to escape.

Kran, who had finally emerged outside, looked like a demon from the pits of hell.

Paht.

Gullard recalled his alter egos.

‘I didn’t think he could escape from the Black Wing Annihilation World.’

Gullard had a record of annihilating thousands of humans with this one technique.

Of course, this one was smaller than that time, but he never would have thought that it wasn’t enough to deal with a single being.

Even if that being wasn’t a human.

Gullard, who was looking at Kran, finally opened his mouth.

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t need your understanding.’

Looking at Kran, who answered coldly, Gullard asked with genuine curiosity.

“Why are you baring your fangs at me? Why is your hatred directed at me? If you think about it, in a way, I am your parent.”

As he said that, Gullard looked over Kran’s shoulder.

The hybrids had almost all been wiped out. There were only a few of them remaining, but they were close to death.

In less than ten minutes, the invincible army that he’d dedicated decades to create had been wiped out.

At that moment, the rage that filled Gullard’s head cooled down as if cold water had been poured on him.

He looked at Kran with a cold expression.

“Those dead creatures are the perfect result of my hybrid experiment. There could be no better soldiers. Because they would never doubt an order that was given to them. However… I’m very disappointed in their combat power.”

It was true.

His idea was similar to what Kran had thought when he first saw the hybrids.

“The king always reminded us of the disadvantages we Demons have. Our innate strength. He said that it was the innate strength we received at birth that hindered our evolution. And he’s right. There is hardly any precedent of Demonic Humans becoming Demon Nobles, and even if they did, they never became more than a Count.”

In Gullard’s eyes, it didn’t matter if a high-ranking Demon Noble was arrogant.

But the Demons below that level shouldn’t.

For example, he didn’t believe a Baron had the right to show off in front of the Demonic Humans, or even the humans.

That’s why Gullard created beings like the hybrids.

Or to be precise, it was the King who had given him the order to do so.

He’d said that they needed the fighting spirit that humans were known for and the tenacity to fight against opponents who were stronger than them without backing down.

When he’d heard it at that time, Gullard hadn’t paid much attention to it.

If it hadn’t been for the Demon King’s orders, he wouldn’t have even bothered to do it.

But it was his king who gave him the order. Even if he had been told to murder his own kind, Gullard would have done it without hesitation.

The experiments he did were difficult and time-consuming, but Gullard didn’t give up. And eventually, he was finally able to achieve weak results.

It was only then when the 1st-generation hybrids were born. Unfortunately, they were out of control and almost indistinguishable from Demon Beasts. In other words, they were more like beasts and monsters than trainable soldiers.

So he continued to experiment.

As more and more generations were created, they gradually became more stable. With just a little more effort, he was certain that the result he wanted could be reached.

But it was at that time the Demon King said to him.

‘There’s no need to experiment anymore.’

‘He must have been disappointed in me.’

He must have made a mistake.

Because of this thought, which plagued him day and night, Gullard disobeyed the Demon King’s orders for the first time.

He continued to experiment in secret.

“Those guys were the 9th generation. Their stability was the highest, and their Demon blood was the thinnest. But when it came to pure combat power, the 3rd generation was stronger than any other generation.”

Gullard’s gaze turned to Kran.

“Unfortunately, the 3rd generation hybrids… couldn’t suppress their innate ferocity, and they escaped after destroying the lab. At that time, I didn’t bother tracking them down. I felt that it wouldn’t be worth the effort because I could always make stronger ones. But it seems I was wrong.”

The 3rd generation were more unstable and dangerous than walking time bombs. At that time, their intelligence was on par with beasts at best.

But what about Kran now?

He could speak fluently. He had a good understanding of civilisation, and he was skilled at using all manners of tools.

This meant that they had evolved.

Kran just snorted coldly.

“Don’t you feel anything from the death of your brothers?”

“Brothers? Enough of your shit.”

Anger was clear on Kran’s face. He pointed his sword at Gullard with a fiery gaze.

“Where I came from doesn’t matter. There is only one thing that you need to pay attention to right now. And that’s that you will die here today.”

Gullard chuckled.

“By your hand? Or will you borrow that man’s power?”

“…”

It was obvious which man Gullard was talking about.

“He is strong, unreasonably strong. That’s why you also have your doubts. Could a human really have such power?”

“…do you know who he is?”

“Huhu, are you curious?”

“Right. However, I don’t need to ask you.”

After saying that, Kran drew his gun and fired.

Bang!

Gullard avoided the magic bullet fired from the gun. There was a fierce killing intent in his eyes.

“Because I can ask him directly after I kill you.”

“You speak really well. You must be trying to buy time.”

Did he notice?

Kran didn’t express his worry on his face.

There was no need for him to take risks and fight arbitrarily. After witnessing Lukas’ power, he realised that the most efficient method would be to fight with his support.

That was the only reason why he continued this meaningless conversation.

“Well, it’s fine. Because I was able to make plans as well.”

“Plans?”

Gullard turned to look at Lukas.

“I can’t defeat that man. If I fight you, I’ll probably die.”

While it might not have been the case for other Demons, that wasn’t something that one of the Five Dukes would say.

Realising this, Kran couldn’t help but feel a bit suspicious.

It was true that Lukas was strong. However… he still wouldn’t be enough to completely overpower Gullard.

The scene of him annihilating the hundreds of hybrids in an instant was truly frightening, but in truth, it was something that the Vampire Duke, who was standing in front of him, was also capable of.

In his head, Kran also added.

‘If no one was around to see it, I could also do something similar, even if it would take longer.’

Most importantly, Lukas hadn’t dealt with Gullard on his own. Instead, he’d brought him from over a thousand kilometers away.

Of course, it might have just been because he wanted to defeat Gullard perfectly, but Kran couldn’t help but have a strange feeling at some of Lukas’ behaviour, which didn’t have a logical explanation.

He looked at Gullard and said.

”So? Since you think you will die, do you plan to run away?”

“Right.”

“What?”

At the same time as Kran said that, Gullard’s figure suddenly appeared in front of him.

Even Kran was a bit too slow to react to the sudden move.

He swung his sword hurriedly, but he hadn’t had time to fix his posture, and the sword’s edge had already been damaged.

Crack!

The blade stopped without being able to cut through even half of Gullard’s arm.

Not caring about the blood that dripped from his forearm, Gullard grinned.

“I’m running away, but I’m gonna take you with me. Let’s go together.”

“You son of a bit-”

Shuk-

Before Kran could finish his curse, he and Gullard disappeared from the spot as if they had evaporated.

(TL: Kran probably hates teleporting at this point. Poor guy.)