The huge ball of golden fire quickly expanded, incinerating everything in its path.
The waves of heat and shockwaves carrying rubble were blasting through the dungeon.
The dragon dug his long claws into the black stone under him. A huge dome of wind was loudly howling around him, enveloping the whole islands where he stood in a protective dome.
The waves of heat and flying rubble constantly crashed against the barrier, getting deflected like water crashing against a cliff.
Vesuvius quietly observed the destruction he caused, his eyes shining as they penetrated through the clouds of smoke.
‘It should have run out of fissile material long ago, yet it is still expanding. Is it possible that the divine energy not only increased the heat but also somehow took on the concept of atomic instability, turning everything it touches into more fission material? Or what is going on?’
He felt like the soviet scientists when they detonated the most potent nuclear bomb ever made, watching how it destroyed everything in its path while they wondered if it would stop or destroy the whole world.
Then Vesuvius realized something as his precise eyes locked onto the explosion, even through the pain of them constantly getting damaged and repaired from the blindingly bright light.
‘Its colour is changing!’
The golden radiance slowly faded from the mass of energy with every island destroyed, its colour changing towards blue and white.
‘So its divine energy is likely getting spent to fuel this unnatural nuclear reaction.’
It was a relief as he knew that it would stop.
The dungeon around him kept darkening, the ground under him cracking with massive fissures leading into the black void, opening in the obsidian bedrock.
Even though he wanted to see the aftermath, he saw that the dungeon would soon collapse.
He made a single step, crossing the boundary of the portal, and the world around him changed again.
The fresh and cold air washed over his body, the clean air without any demonic corruption refreshing his tired body.
Around him was nothing but the seared black ground and rivers of molten stone flowing around. All the trees were gone, and the tall stone peaks were covered in cracks.
‘So the shockwave passed through the portal… Such a power!’
Vesuvius himself was shocked by the power that he unleashed. If the nuclear explosion that he unleashed against the vampire was only on the level of a tactical nuke, then this one was on the level of a strategic nuke.
‘The divine energy and nuclear reactions are truly deadly combinations. Some of the most powerful forces of both magic and science combined into one.’
Ding!
//
You gained a title: [Mage of Mass Destruction]
Conditions: Unleash a magic attack surpassing a strategic nuclear bomb.
Effects: Increases the damage of any magic attack by 0.1% for every enemy killed by that attack; Unlocks spells of mass destruction for all the magic schools that you have mastered𝑶𝑣𝗅xt.𝒸𝔬𝐦
//
‘This can be powerful. But it is like asking me to cause as much collateral damage as possible. I am not sure that I like its premise.’
Ding!
//
You have made a world achievement: [The Magic of Mass Destruction]
Do you wish to announce your achievement to the world?
//
His mind hovered on the option briefly as he thought about all the chaos the single yes would cause.
‘No, now is not the time to risk my plan going into shit.’
For the first time, Vesuvius saw how destructive the magic practised by the four balance races could be, awakening his paranoia about facing the high echelons of the four balance races in an all-out conflict. He saw how both he himself and the demon unleashed the attacks destroying everything around them as far as he could see.
‘No, attacks of this scale can’t be trivial.’
He saw it himself, ‘It needs lots of time to build up, and the cost is huge. On top of that, it required so much focus to prevent it from blowing into my face.’
The more he thought about it, the more limitations he saw, ‘It limits my mobility, and there is not even close to the amount of natural mana as it was inside of the dungeon.
‘When facing highly mobile enemies such as angels, I doubt they would give me enough space to unleash such an attack.’
He had never faced an angel of the highest tier, which worried him even more as he had no idea what their domains and potentially divine powers could do.
On top of that, the fact that they were all extremely abstract, like purity or justice, made it even more unpredictable and harder to imagine.
A huge grin formed on his face as he knew the solution, ‘I have my space magic. I can probably teleport it while it is still forming with me to mitigate the mobility issue. It will take some experimentation, as it is hard to teleport something so unstable and energetic, but it is possible. That way, I can charge it while preserving at least a portion of my mobi…’
Suddenly he froze, his body so unmoving that he might get mistaken for a mountain as the light in his eyes faded.
Only now he realized the horror and terror that his idea represented, ‘If I go overboard with it and use some insanely long-range teleportation, maybe even one fueled by divine energy, I could probably nuke enemies on the other side of the world…’
What scared him was the potential retaliation, ‘What could a thousand mages led by archmages, and maybe even magus do? Could they cast some huge spell and smite my city from the other continent? And that are only mortals…’
Vesuvius pushed back the deadly and dangerous thoughts, refusing to open the pandora’s box, which, when opened, could potentially cost him more than what he was willing to stomach.
A world of magic of mass destruction that could strike him or his property from afar without any fight wasn’t a place where he wanted to live.
‘The moment that someone takes this path, others will follow.’ He felt especially worried with players around. He was sure that if he got such an idea, others probably had it too.
