NOVPUBThe sudden appearance of the fire giant threw [N O V E L I G H T] the banquet into total chaos.
“Wh-what the hell is that?!”
“Run! Get out of here!”
People scattered in every direction, crashing into one another, falling over, screaming.
Most of the guests had no power of their own. They couldn’t keep calm, couldn’t think, caught in a blind panic.
The giant looked down at them, and slowly opened its mouth.
A maw lined with jagged fangs, like a beast, revealed the flickering inferno inside—a writhing flame, glowing red like a cursed fire pulled from the deepest pit of hell.
Faces went pale at the sight.
Everyone here could feel it, instinctively.
They knew exactly what that giant was about to do.
KUUUWAHHHHH!
Even from a distance, the searing breath of flame that burst from the giant’s mouth was hot enough to blister skin.
That was when the guards moved.
Because this was a banquet filled with important figures, the security had been chosen with care—every guard was at least knight-class.
“Move!”
The guards, clad in sleek black suits, drew their swords from their waists and struck.
There weren’t many of them, but a single knight could do the work of dozens of mercenaries. The security at this banquet was no joke.
KAAANG!
The first guard’s sword, charged with aura, cleaved into the oncoming fire, slicing it aside and sending it veering off course.
FWOOSH!
The redirected flame shot upward, devouring the banquet hall’s ceiling in a sweeping arc. The heat tore through the chandeliers, melting them like wax until they collapsed to the floor.
“Get out of the way!”
“Run!”
CRASH!
Screams erupted everywhere. People collided, fell, trampled over each other in a desperate scramble to escape.
The grand hall turned into a madhouse in seconds.
That’s when Seorn’s teachers sprang into action.
“Everyone, this way! Move away from the center!”
“Stay calm! Move slowly and carefully!”
Spirits appeared throughout the hall, shielding guests from falling debris, clearing the wreckage.
Wind spirits lifted fallen people to their feet. Water spirits doused the burning ceiling.
Other mages weren’t just standing by either. Spells flew through the air, aimed at the fire giant.
The giant, having finished its first breath attack, simply endured the incoming spells, tanking them head-on.
“Hold it back! We have to bring that thing down!”
“Where the hell did it come from?!”
“Just buy time! Get everyone out first!”
Ludger stared at the fire giant.
He’d never seen this exact form before, but the energy was unmistakable.
It was that same high-ranking fire spirit.
‘High-ranking? No. It’s even stronger than that.’
Before, it had felt like a standard upper-tier spirit. But now—now it was something else entirely.
This one was close to an arch-spirit, a near-mythical being born from the purest essence of nature.
‘An arch-spirit. Just below the Elemental Lords themselves. And someone’s controlling it?’
Spirits on this continent were ranked.
From the lowest grade, all the way up to arch-spirits.
Upper-tier spirits had the power of a 4th or 5th Circle mage. Arch-spirits? Close to 6th Circle.
Above them sat the Elemental Lords.
The fire giant now rampaging through the hall was an arch-spirit—just a step below a Lord.
It was so powerful that no matter how many hasty spells the mages fired, they couldn’t even scratch it.
‘Where’s Esmeralda?’
Ludger’s eyes scanned the room. The prime suspect was that girl Selina had mentioned—Joanna Lovett.
But ever since the fire giant had appeared, she was nowhere to be seen.
He had to find her.
Just as he thought that, the fire giant moved again.
KUUUOOOHHH!
The flames still licking the ceiling seemed to respond to its roar, stretching downwards, thick and heavy.
It wasn’t like normal fire—it looked more like molten, viscous liquid.
As it fell, the guards rushed into action.
“Don’t let it hit the guests!”
“Cut it down! Get rid of it however you can!”
One guard swung his sword at the falling mass of fire, slicing through it—but then—
“Huh?”
He let out a confused breath.
The viscous flame didn’t split cleanly. Instead, it clung to his blade.
That alone could’ve been shaken off, if he poured aura into his sword.
But the fire crept up the blade—faster than he could react—and spread to his body.
FWOOOM!
“GAAAHHH!” 𝖓𝔬𝔳𝖕𝖚𝖇.𝖈𝔬𝔪
The guard, trying to block the falling flame, was engulfed in fire in an instant, collapsing to the ground, writhing.
Even his superior knightly physique couldn’t save him.
The fire of an arch-spirit wasn’t just ordinary flame.
It was Infernal Flame.
In seconds, his body melted away, reduced to a pile of black ash.
The other guards went deathly pale at the sight.
“Don’t touch it! Stay away!”
“If it hits your sword, drop it! If you don’t, you’ll die!”
But the warning came too late. After the first casualty, three more guards were consumed by fire.
Ludger’s eyes narrowed.
‘Of course. Spirit-element flames are different. That’s more like magma.’
It wasn’t just fire—the heat it gave off was unreal, even for something so small.
Looking closer, he could see the giant’s body was marked with dark, molten blotches, like living black spots across its surface.
It was like a living embodiment of magma.
‘Normally, spirits take on awe-inspiring, mysterious forms...’
Spirits didn’t have fixed shapes, but there were patterns.
They usually appeared in inhuman forms—animals, plants, or strange structures.
And the higher their rank, the more otherworldly they became.
Their power came from how much of nature’s essence they embodied.
The stronger the spirit, the less they resembled living beings, and the more they became something entirely different.
Ludger remembered a time, long ago, when he and his master had seen the Water Elemental Lord.
Its form had been nothing like what people guessed.
A blend of Eastern dragon and colossal whale.
Larger than an island, trailing endless white mist like sea fog, moving across the ocean’s surface.
It had been a living wonder of nature.
But this fire giant? This wasn’t the same.
It was almost... human.
It had human shape, crossed arms, grotesquely bloated flesh instead of muscle.
Its body was dotted with dark patches, making it even more monstrous.
A twisted spirit.
That’s the only way Ludger could describe what Esmeralda had summoned.
Then he noticed something strange.
‘It has no lower body?’
For all its massive upper body, the giant had no legs.
And soon enough, he realized why.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
The giant hadn’t fully manifested.
‘It’s being channeled through a medium.’
There were two ways for a spirit user to summon a spirit.
The first was through their own mana—pulling the spirit into the world by pouring their power into it.
But that method had a major flaw: mages sensitive to mana could instantly detect who the summoner was.
That’s why the second method existed.
Using a medium to summon the spirit.
Depending on the spirit’s rank, the medium varied, but for an arch-spirit, it would have to be a rare, extremely expensive gemstone to work properly.
‘But the biggest advantage of using a medium? No one can tell who summoned it.’
That was exactly the method Esmeralda had used.
And the medium she’d chosen to summon the fire spirit was—
‘The silver tray placed on the banquet table.’
It was definitely the tray Joanna Lovett had secretly set down earlier.
Even if it seemed ordinary, it couldn’t be just any tray—not if it could bring forth an arch-spirit, even incompletely.
Ludger was glad to have identified Esmeralda, but the situation was still far from ideal.
He couldn’t chase after her now—not that chasing her would accomplish anything immediately.
‘No, now’s not the time.’
Ludger’s eyes swept the room.
The guards were doing their best to draw the giant’s attention, and some mages were bombarding it with water and ice spells.
In the middle of all that chaos, Ludger spotted someone who hadn’t yet escaped.
‘That’s...’
His expression hardened in an instant.
* * *
‘What’s happening...?’
Rine opened her eyes.
She remembered serving drinks, moving through the crowd—then nothing.
The last thing she saw was a sudden flash of light.
Had she passed out?
Clutching her pounding head, she sat up—and finally realized what was going on around her.
“What... is this?”
The center of the banquet hall.
Where the party should’ve been in full swing—it was now complete devastation.
And towering near her, radiating intense heat, was a massive being of flame.
‘A spirit? Is that really... a spirit?’
A colossal fire giant.
It was fighting against the banquet guards and the academy’s mages, and it was far beyond anything she could comprehend.
What the hell had happened while she was unconscious?
‘No, that doesn’t matter now. I have to get out of here!’
Rine tried to move, but pain shot through her ankle.
‘M-my leg...’
She must’ve injured it when she collapsed. Her ankle was cut—not deep, but enough to rob her of strength.
‘I-I have to crawl, at least...!’
But at that moment, the fire giant unleashed a wave of flames, sweeping them across the room.
It seemed determined to wipe out the pesky gnats swarming around it.
“...Ah.”
Rine saw it.
There was no way she could dodge. No way she could block it.
Each drop of that fire was enough to turn a person into ashes.
She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for death.
But then—something covered her. Shielded her.
And she felt herself being pulled, dragged forcefully.
‘Huh? It... it doesn’t hurt?’
Rine cautiously opened her eyes.
And saw him.
Ludger, looking down at her.
“Rine.”
“Ludger... teacher?”
“You’re alright?”
Why was he here? No—did he just save her?
Her mind raced, trying to make sense of it.
Ludger had saved her life.
Thrown himself into danger, just for her.
“T-teacher...!”
“Stay still.”
Her face flushed red as she squirmed in his arms, but Ludger didn’t budge.
He carried her to a safer spot, then immediately checked her leg.
“The wound’s not deep. I’ve got a potion, hold on.”
“....”
As he pulled a vial from his coat, Rine felt something... familiar.
‘What is this?’
She barely knew Ludger. They didn’t interact much.
And yet, in this moment, as he saved her and treated her—
It felt like she’d seen this before. Lived this before.
“Teacher.”
“What is it?”
Rine didn’t know why she asked—she just had to.
“Have we... met before?”
