By Zephyria Leonardo threw himself with all his might from the inside to break the seal surrounding the bars.
With that impact, the heavy lump of metal dragged on the floor and seemed to move to the side, but at some point, it was blocked by a solid wall and stopped moving.
Thinking that his body would break down first if he continued like this, he stopped and immediately looked for another way.
What caught his eye then were the handcuffs and shackles on his wrists and ankles.
Magic Stone handcuffs were known to be so strong that they wouldn’t break easily. So, if you tried to break them with physical impact, other things would break instead, but if you thought about it differently, if you hit something as hard as Magic Stone, one of the two might break.
Immediately gathering his hands and changing his posture, he this time began to swing the handcuffs tied to his wrist madly at the bars. Then, the joints of the Magic Stone handcuffs, which were said to be so strong, gradually widened and eventually fell off cleanly with a clattering sound.
“They tied me up so damn tight.”
Leonardo frowned, rubbing his sore wrist. He couldn’t do that twice.
Still, with the handcuffs off, he felt that it was much easier to manipulate magic, so he took a light breath and immediately moved on to the next step.
With his freed hands, he grabbed two bars, one in each hand. He wondered why no damage had been done no matter how much he had struck, but it felt particularly harder, as if it had been made by mixing other ingredients to harden the bars.
When he put strength into his clenched hands and endlessly emitted heat, the surface softened very slightly. Because of that, magic was also leaking out, but the situation was different from before, so it was somewhat bearable.
Leonardo’s strength was inferior to Hugo, but if he was strong, he was definitely not weak. Eventually, he added the unique strength of his body and spread the two bars with all his might, and the steel pillar bent to the side with the sound of metal boiling.
However, the black cloth covering the outer surface of the bars was also not ordinary, and he felt unpleasant as it repeatedly caught fire and went out, and his magic was absorbed as if his hand would be sucked in.
Quickly taking his hand off, he put the back of his hand on it and sensed that a Magic Stone net was wrapped around it, and sighed with annoyance. Nothing was easy to solve.
“How do I get out…”
Leonardo, stepping back two steps, sat down on the floor, thinking about how to get out. He grabbed the back of his stiff neck and turned his head from side to side, and the stiffness seemed to ease a little with a cracking sound.
However, the fact that he couldn’t see a way out because of the tightly wound cloth and Magic Stone net remained unchanged. He roughly swept his hair back and pondered for a moment, then suddenly hypothesized that if he changed the volume of this rectangular lump of metal he was trapped in, cracks might form in the things that were tightly wrapped and fixed on the outside.
In other words, if he succeeded in crushing the bars and deforming them, the taut net would loosen, so he could slip through the gaps without having to put in any effort.
But the problem was that the guys outside wouldn’t just wait quietly for his escape attempt.
If they saw even the slightest sign of something strange, they would attack immediately. In a way, these bars also served as a fortress, so he wouldn’t die, but it was obvious that it would be even harder to get out.
So all of this had to be done in a very short time, so that they wouldn’t notice.
‘Only one chance.’
Having organized his thoughts, Leonardo slowly got up again. In the meantime, bone-chillingly cold magic flowed in through the gaps in the densely woven Magic Stone net.
The magic, which was so deeply imprinted that he could tell who it belonged to just by touching it, made him realize that ‘he’ was watching him, even without seeing it.
The place where he felt the energy was above. So it was better to avoid a head-on confrontation from above.
Leonardo’s lips curved into a smile when he thought that far.
Because he had a good idea.
* * *
Hugo, who had called for support, was puzzled when the guy who had been rampaging in the middle of the ice wall suddenly became quiet.
The sudden silence was very suspicious, but after watching for a while without any particular movement, Andreas spoke first.
“Is he tired?”
But Hugo couldn’t answer rashly.
Because when he was near the bars earlier, he had clearly felt the guy’s magic being released little by little. The flow that was being sensed now was weak to say that the guy had been completely released, but he couldn’t overlook the fact that he had an excellent ability to reveal and hide his magic.
“The guy I experienced never gets tired this easily. Don’t let your guard down.”
At Hugo’s solemn words and expression, Andreas also nodded solemnly.
And then, as if waiting for them to let their guard down, the metal bars creaked and bent sharply. As soon as the two of them shifted their gaze, the corner of the bars was visibly dented.
At that, Hugo immediately flew into the center of the ice wall, reached out to the bars where Leonardo was trapped, and said.
“Burster Splash.”
Then, a blue magic circle covered the entire sky above the ice wall, and a huge vortex of water appeared from within and began to descend violently to the ground. With a roar that shook the area, the sharply frozen end of the vortex plunged towards the bars, digging up the area around it.
Cannonball-like streams of water sequentially struck the ground, and the ground that had been rising and cracking as the ice wall rose could not withstand the pressure and exploded, turning into a mess. The spewed-out earth mixed with the vortex and filled the area with muddy water that was impossible to see through.
Eventually, Hugo withdrew his hand only after the inside of the ice wall was completely flooded and the bars were deeply submerged in it. As the water became calm and the movement disappeared again, Andreas, who had been watching, said with a sullen expression.
“Hugo, even so, isn’t the purpose not to drown him?”
Hugo didn’t respond to his words and stared at the murky water.
The huge magic circle floating under his feet descended as it was and passed through the entire ice wall. Then, the impurities mixed in the water sank to the bottom with the magic circle, the water became clear, and the bars submerged in it reappeared.
In water, resistance increases and everything slows down. Moreover, Leonardo mainly used fire, so Hugo thought that whatever magic he used, the current situation would be very fatal to him.
However, the guy’s subsequent actions made him realize that it was a big miscalculation.
Bubbles rose from the bars to the surface of the water. Hugo and Andreas, who had noticed something strange, immediately prepared for battle.
Before long, the sound of thumping echoed a few times, muffled in the water, and suddenly cracks began to form in the ice wall. It was the moment when Andreas hurriedly wrapped vines around the area to prevent the wall from breaking.
Kwaaaang!
An explosion occurred as part of the ice wall burst out with a tremendous destructive sound. The power was enough to completely blow away the lower part of the side of the ice wall, which was tightly wrapped with vines.
As the sharp ice fragments flew and the ice wall was pierced, a vast amount of water that had been trapped inside began to pour out, Andreas quickly put up a barrier in front of himself and Hugo.
“Ugh!”
“Run away!”
As the sharp ice fragments flew and the ice wall was pierced, a vast amount of water that had been trapped inside began to pour out. Then, the people who had been watching from a distance screamed and ran away, and the center of the imperial capital instantly became a scene of chaos due to a large-scale flood.
And in the meantime, golden hair mixed with hundreds of tons of water was swept out from the gap in the hole and washed into the middle of the plaza.
“Cough- Huff… I thought I was going to die.”
Leonardo, who was sprawled on the floor with his whole body wet, coughed incessantly and raised his head with a pale face. Perhaps because he had been in the dark for a long time, the strong sunlight that suddenly came into his view was excessively dazzling.
He frowned, but still propped himself up on the messy ground with his hands and staggered to his feet. Then, he immediately looked around, regained his senses, and created flames to dry his wet body in an instant.
The water evaporated rapidly, and hot steam surged in all directions, and the scattering of light created by it further emphasized his presence.
Leonardo, frowning and catching his breath, immediately shielded the sunlight with his hand and looked up at the sky as if trying to find something. Eventually, when he made eye contact with Hugo, who was looking at him from above, he gave a confident smile and shouted at him.
“Hydrogen is a very good explosive material, you know. Thanks to you, I survived!”