'Trade time for information, my ass.' Zephyr shook his head and smiled.

"Old man corpse lover, you don't think you won by finding me, right?" He asked.

For some reason, the necromancer was treating it as if the battle ended.

Though he indeed had the upper hand for the moment, it was not entirely clear who would win if they fought. After all, Zephyr was not someone to be underestimated.

"Are you looking down on me again?" He asked.

"Corpse lover…Tsk." The necromancer clicked his tongue.

"I will never look down on you, young mage. You killed Gale and proved your worth. But at the same time, you have no chance of escaping alive or even surviving against me." He lifted his hand and pointed at Zephyr.

"You failed the moment you let yourself be discovered."

"If you had stayed far away and attacked me with the magical artifact of yours, I wouldn't have been able to do anything to you."

"But you came to me on your own."

"To save the villagers, you risked your life."

The necromancer showed a victorious smile.

"At close range, you have no chance of winning against me, one-armed defective mage." He laughed, calling Zephyr names.

"Or should I call you magically and physically challenged mage?" He giggled as if he were making a great observation.

Zephyr laughed along, showing no change in his expression.

'Magically and physically challenged. I like it.'

He had a defective core and a severed arm. It was quite the apt description.

"But if I am magically and physically challenged, should I call you mentally challenged?" He asked while smiling.

"After all, only a retard would fail to learn from his own mistakes. You are still looking down on me while you know that I can harm you."

The necromancer stopped laughing when Zephyr called him a retard. Spitting fire from his eyes, he gazed at Zephyr.

"What can a boy like you know? In a battle between mages, the one who is of a higher rank always wins. It's no wonder that a fool like you, who the tower abandoned, wouldn't know that. And don't even think of using the same tricks you used against Gale. It won't work against me. Which means that I won even before the battle began."

Then he pointed at Zephyr's arm.

"You wanted to strike me by surprise, right? Using an artifact of yours?" He asked.

"It won't work when I know about it." He said.

'What artifact?' Zephyr wondered.

The necromancer was paying close attention to his remaining hand, as if to see if he was carrying something else in his hand.

'Does he think I used some kind of artifact to attack him? But Gale's sword was not used before. So, what other artifact or magical tool do I have?'

'Anyways, let's go with the flow. The more time he spends speaking to me, the better.' He thought and decided to poke into the topic.

So, while showing a hint of fear, Zephyr asked.

"You know about my artifact?"

"Of course." The necromancer raised his neck and declared. "The light and lightning element spells you weaved together with the help of the artifact were challenging when I had to defend against them. The focused blast of mana was too potent and difficult to stop. But I don't have to defend the fog formation anymore. You won't be able to hit me with the mana bolt."

He declared as if he had thought about it clearly.

Zephyr wanted to applaud at the man's confidence. The necromancer had great imagination. Conjuring up a non-existent artifact to downplay Zephyr's ability was something only he could do.

'Did I shock him to stupidity with my railgun?' he thought, then nodded understandingly.

'That must be it.' He thought and looked at the necromancer with pity. Still, he was unwilling to reveal the truth about the artifact, because any advantage he could gain in the inevitable battle would be great.

"I know a spell cast from a long distance wouldn't strike. An intermediate mage of five-star strength must have ways to move out of its path or deflect it. That's why I came close this time. Would I fail to hit you while I am close?" He asked.

"Yes…If you are trying to use the artifact." The necromancer said again, confidently.

The artifact's activation would release a mana pulse. And the mana pulse's intensity would directly correspond to the mana used by the spell.

For an intermediate mage, it would be easy to sense the mana pulse at close range.

The necromancer had enough reason to be confident.

'Overconfidence kills. Overconfidence is injurious to health. Overconfidence causes cancer…No, the last one doesn't work in this context.'

Watching the necromancer stand proudly before him, bearing the air of a perpetual winner, Zephyr almost laughed.

He wanted to prove him wrong.

But before that, he had one more thing to talk about.

"Hey, do you know where Jack went? I thought I would see him here. But I couldn't find him."

"Jack, the burly warrior who awakened his mana heart and broke out of my control?"

"Yes."

"Are those your last words—the last thing you would like to speak?"

"Not really…but can you answer it anyway…since you are so sure that I pose no danger to you."

The necromancer shrugged.

"Why not?" He paused and thought for a second. Then began to speak. "He was taken away by some of my allies."

"Taken away? Do you have others working for you?"

Zephyr knew about the voyeuristic master of the necromancer who was silently watching everything and controlling things from the sidelines. But he didn't want to let them know he knew about them.

It would be foolish to reveal anything about the intelligence advantage he had because of Gale's mask.

"Plenty…"

The necromancer was a talkative person. He liked to go into unnecessary detail and explain everything. However, this time he showed caution when speaking. He seemed extremely careful, as if he was scared out of his mind, when revealing the snippets of information.

Zephyr noticed this and decided not to probe into anything unnecessary or dangerous. He focused on Jack, the topic at hand and asked.

"Then, where is he?"

"How would I know? My job ended when I sent him out of the fog. All I know is that they will be using him for some kind of human experimentation. He will most likely fail to survive." He ended the sentence with a smile.

The memories of the cruel experiments brought joy to him. He seemed to be enjoying just thinking about that.

However, when experiments were mentioned, Zephyr's face changed. A dark cloud covered it as he thought about his fate of becoming a chimera.

'Did he replace me?'

'Or, were we both supposed to be captured by them?'

Two thoughts shook his mind.

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