The End of Magician's Life

Ren stood still, overlooking the ruins surrounding him. He never expected that one of the most prosperous city in the Elsgard Kingdom can be reduced into this state. There's a trace of sadness from Ren. This is the city that he grow up. This is the place that he spent his school days with his friend who had always with him, his junior who admired him and had tried their best to follow him, and his crush that he had never chance to confess his love.

Ren shifted his sight towards the figure in front of him. Zarth, the Demon Lord of Destruction.

That horrifying demon in front of Ren was the reason why all of this happened. His arrival with his army 7 years ago from demon realm was starting point of the demise and fall of mankind.

The demon lord Zarth glared menacingly before at a group of human that gathered around him.

"So, mere mortals would dare to challenge me?"

The demon's grating voice was giving those around him goosebumps. He had sneered at the effort of those pathetic humans who believed that they had a chance to kill him.

"This is the end, Zarth." Ren spoke.

The battle between humans and demons had claimed too many lives, whether from human's side or demon's side. However, the demon army still poured endlessly day after day. An untold number of people had become the sacrifices for this. Albeit the neverending attack from those demons, there were some that lucky enough to survive this ordeal and continue their struggle to stay alive.

After 7 years of repeating this cycle of carnage, these were the only survivors remaining. They had struggle to continue this life and getting stronger while witnessing countless dearh of their loved ones all in hope of reaching this point.

"We will slay you right here, right now and we will claim the victory at the end." Reynard, the leader of the human group let out a big roar before casting a few of giant fireball towards Zarth. The others were follow up with their respective spells and attacked the demon lord too. Zarth responded them with a defensive spell before countering their attack with magic spell of his own.

As their battle dragged on, the survivor found themselves at a greater disadvantages. However, there were not even one had their determination wavered. They know that if they failed to end it here, the world would come to an end. There was nowhere for them to go.

Therefore, they were ready to give everything to defeat this mighty foe. Perhaps, by not giving up and continued to fight, there would be a miracle bestowed upon them.

The battle continued with Zarth's [Rain of Torment], which was a spell that let Zarth to create hundreds of fireball and aimed them towards the enemy.

"Incoming attack from the front! Mages, formation Aegis! Now!"

The mages took a formation and casted defensive spells to block the attacks from the demon lord. At the same time, the remaining survivors took offensive stances to get ready for attacking the demon lord after the attacks from that demon lord has been blocked.

The exchange of attacks between demon lord Zarth and the remaining survivors continued for a little bit. Each of them gave 100 percent to the battle. After a moment, slowly but surely, the demon lord's attacks had become weaker while his defence had become easier to penetrate.

In the end, Zarth the demon lord cannot withstood the attacks from the remaining survivors. After so much loss and sacrifice, finally the victory that humanity hoped was within the grasp.

"N-No, this can't be happening! How could I lose to mere mortals!?"

Ren took the honour to deal last damage and killed the demon lord by impaling his heart using [Zephyr's Strike], one of Ren's magic skills. It took a few moments longer before Zarth, the demon lord fell unconsciously onto the ground. With that, everything was over and human took the victory of the war between humans and demons.

Or so they thought..

***

The remaining survivors collapsed among the debris of the city, felt exhausted after the long fight. Only 7 of them remain survived the battle. They still could not believed they emerged victorious despite all of the odds that they faced. Memories of the past 7 years flashed through their minds; the hardship that they encountered, the thousand of life-or-death situations they overcame, the fallen of their comrades. Yet, they has managed to stay alive.

"Good job everyone. We actually killed that demon, we saved the world."

Their leader, Reynard who was known as The Paladin of Light gave the praise to those who remained.

"I bet all of you are still feeling exhausted, so I suggest we wait a bit and rest." Reynard continued by suggesting to rest a little bit before going home. Although humanity was in a brink of extinction because of the demon's invasion years ago, but they are still some of the human regrouped and built a state at the northest part of the world. Since then, all of the remaining mankind called it 'their home'.

They were still some people who still stayed there; the children and also the ordinary people who cannot fight.

Soon after, the person standing beside Reynard spoke with their husky voice. "Out of millions mages and warriors we have, only seven of us that are survive. What a terrible odds."

The man was known as Firaz, the Sage of Quintet Elements. He wore a black cloak with a hood and held on to a staff. Hearing that, the Saint of the White Lotus, Stella responded angrily.

"Shut up, you freaking nerd! Whatever happened, we are the winner here. I bet there's no major force would threaten mankind again."

Ren was watching Firaz and Stella bickering to each other in silence. After all this years, their companions never bothered to stop them as this was happened in regular basis. Firaz and Stellar never see eye to eye with each other.

Then, Ren shifted his gaze to Thavas the sword master who was sitting on one of the debris while cleaning his sword. In front of him was Kheir, who people called Sniper King Kheir as he never missed any target.

"It would be really hard if you are not here for us, Reynard."

The last survivors, Princess Ryna spoke and Reynard upon hearing the words, waved his hands in modesty.

"No, princess. I just do my duty as a Paladin. I think Sir Ren played much bigger role than myself."

"Right... if not because of Ren, I think it would be impossible to win this battle."

Stella agreed with Reynard, seeing as most of the damage received by the demon lord was from Ren's attack. And it was also Ren that gave the last damage and killed the demon lord.

"To be honest, I don't think that you will stay alive, Ren. I thought you would be long dead by now."

Firaz gave a gloomy look to Ren.

"Even if you got helped from artifacts of your own, but it still quite hard for me to believe that you are only a 4th circle mage. I think you are the only 4th circle mage in history who is not fazed and survived a battle with demon lord. So, why you are still in 4th circle with that talent?"

Everyone's eyes now focused on Ren waiting for his answer to Firaz's questions. "Because I never got a chance to learn properly during my stay at Varion Academy. It's really shame to know that if we aren't so focused on the differences of social class, we could save much more people.

Furthermore, I do not blessed by a huge amount of mana to begin with, so I cannot go further than 4th circle in magic. That's why I asked Sir Thavas to teach me aura and sword art to cover my shortness."

".... That's too bad. If only you were with Magic Tower instead of Varion Academy, I'm sure your talent wouldn't been wasted for so long."

"That's enough reminiscing the past. We need to get moving. I think there was enough rest."

Ren turned towards Reynard's voice. Just as Ren was about to reply, a powerful surge of mana roared forth, alerting the survivors. The mana surge was coming from Zarth's body as suddenly Zarth's body floated on air.

"What happened? Why he is floating?!"

Princess Ryna the first person to question this.

"Did we not killed him completely killed him."

Thavas screamed in return, with his confused voice.

"Impossible! I definitely confirmed its death."

Ren answered. He personally check the demon lord's death as that demon longer was no longer breathing before.

"What are those thing there?"

Stella pointed her finger towards the words that circled the demon lord's floating body. Then, Firaz spoke in unexpected low voice.

"Those are rune magic."

"RUNE MAGIC? WHAT'S THAT?!"

Stella asked in confusion. She was forced to scream a little as the wind surrounded becoming stronger and made it hard for her to communicate in normal mean.

"Rune magic is an ancient magic. It was one of the magic type that people from the past used.They wrote the magic formula instead of chanting it. But, there would be some actions or words needed to activate its magic, I think that demon lord used his body as medium to cast an explosion magic."

Firaz explained the theory of rune magic to the others. Although he never encountered this magic before, but he had read it from books before.

"So what's the thing that triggered this," asked one of them.

"His death."

Ren answered it for Firaz. Like Firaz, Ren also learned and researched a little bit regarding those ancient magic.

"How did you know?" someone curiously asked.

Ren paused and gazed on the demon lord's floating body, before answering.

"You can see those strange words that surround his body. Those are called 'rune circle'. It basically the same with magic circle that we know but has more complex mechanism."

"More complex mechanism?" Stella interrupted. "What did you mean?"

Firaz answered, "Rune magic cannot be activated by using mana only. There's a certain requirements to activate it. Of course every different rune magic has different requirement to activate it. In this case, I believe that demon bastard casted that magic before he died."

All of them become silenced, shocked with the explanation given by Firaz. Then, Reynard spoke, "So what are that magic? What will it do?"

Ren and Firaz looked to each other and Firaz sighed before telling all of them, "We think that is explosion magic and by the looks of it, its power can destroy at least a big city."

"WHAAAT?!?!" Princess Ryna shrieked. "Is there nothing we can do?!"

Firaz was only stared Princess Ryna with gloomy look and shaking his head. The response from Firaz made all of their face turned face. Like a black cloud, the inevitability that gonna happened cast a pall over the survivors.

"I...I don't believe this. I thought after all this time, I get to beat the odds and survive. But..." Princess Ryna fell down. There were tears flowed from her eyes.

Ren turned towards the rune circle with unfocused gaze. As the disaster that unfolded before him, thousands thoughts hovered in his mind.

'Is this the end?'

He closed his eyes and resigned with the fate.