Chapter 178 : Chapter 178

Chapter 178. A Brief Clash

The person on the black horse earlier had not been Fulan, but rather one of Fulan’s old acquaintances—a Modified Human.

If it had been someone who knew Fulan, they would have recognized it immediately. Aside from the face being somewhat similar, neither the height nor the weight matched the real Fulan.

Fulan had long known that these knights would be waiting to block her in this mountain valley, so how could she possibly have made no preparations at all?

She had deliberately picked up a corpse from the roadside and used her Modification technique to turn it into a Modified Human that would imitate her movements.

She had also inscribed a Flame Trap inside it, all for the sake of waiting until those knights closed in before giving them a vicious blow.

In truth, Fulan’s method had been rather crude. The Modified Human she made moved stiffly, and its face did not really resemble her either. But those knights did not know what she looked like in the first place.

On top of that, the knights had been freezing here for so long that the moment they saw her, their anger instantly surged up.

They simply had no extra presence of mind left to tell whether the thing in front of them was a Modified Human or not.

That was how Fulan had planned it. With that, plus her Dragon Flame, she had directly burned three knights to death.

Connor looked at Fulan in her mage robe, still holding a sword in her hand, and could not help but feel puzzled.

You’re not from the Sword Chant School, so why are you carrying a longsword? And didn’t you just set up an ingenious trap? Since when do you know how to use a longsword too?

The knights were still waiting for their captain’s command. According to the rules they followed in past battles, they had to obey the captain’s orders before launching an attack.

And now, these knights had long since reached the limit of their patience. It was not only because they had been frozen here for so long and had already built up deep resentment toward Fulan.

When they looked at the three corpses on the ground, charred like burnt cinders, anger surged through them. Their eyes widened as though they wanted to devour Fulan alive.

These had been their companions, people they had lived alongside day and night, and now they had been killed just like that by this mage. They almost wanted to rush forward at once...

But the training they had received was telling every single one of them to stay calm.

So they suppressed their anger and waited for Connor’s command.

Seeing that the other side still refused to attack, Fulan was just about to cast a spell herself when a mysterious force suddenly welled up inside her.

Fulan had already experienced this many times, so she knew that this was the moment she had foreseen earlier.

Connor, however, was unlike the people Fulan had met before. He immediately noticed that something strange had changed about her.

He was also very familiar with this kind of change. It was the most famous form of prophecy magic from the Astrology School. Even if Connor were reduced to ashes, he would still recognize this spell.

Because his father had been a Third-Tier Mage of the Astrology School, and he had often demonstrated prophecy to his sons in front of them.

If it had been any of his brothers, they might not have recognized it. But Connor, who had a high affinity for astrology, identified it at once. That was prophecy, or at least some related spell.

A dreadful thought suddenly rose in his mind: the mage standing opposite him had already foreseen this very scene through prophecy and had long known that she would encounter the Bloodwolf Knights.

And what did that mean?

Even if the mage before him had already foreseen her own death, that would still be terrible news for them.

Prophecy was not something that could be changed easily. Altering a prophecy required paying an enormous price.

That was one thing his father had emphasized to him over and over again, and he had remembered it firmly.

Even if the mage before him had already accepted that she would die, that did not mean she would not make arrangements for what came afterward.

That was how prophecy worked. Most of the time, once the scene had been seen, it was difficult to change, but the information that came from the future was still enough to let someone make many arrangements in advance.

For example, Fulan might already have foreseen that she would die at the hands of the Bloodwolf Knights.

That outcome might be difficult to change, but she could still set up all kinds of traps to drag the Bloodwolf Knights into a dead end.

For example, she could arrange for a Battle Mage Corps to just happen to pass by and witness a mage dying miserably beneath the blades of a knightly order...

That was entirely possible. After all, Fulan had dawdled for so long and only now arrived at the Northern Border Pass. She had clearly made full preparations.

Connor felt his heart turn cold. He had the feeling that he might not die today, but the knightly order he had painstakingly built would likely be destroyed in one stroke.

Why?

Fulan’s records clearly did not mark her as a member of the Astrology School, so why did she know such prophecy magic?

And most prophecies only touched upon trivial, insignificant matters, so why had the Bloodwolf Knights been so unlucky as to step right into hers?

While Connor’s thoughts were scattering wildly and he was still thinking, Fulan cast her spell.

It was the same Earth Uplift she had used in her prophecy.

In Fulan’s eyes, enhanced by her spell specialization in the Elemental School, she could only feel the earth element within the valley becoming violently active.

The entire valley was filled with earth element, so the power of her spell received an enormous boost. On top of that, there was also the trait she had obtained from the Earth Drake.

The terrain of the entire valley changed. Spikes began jutting out of the ground, and the knights, who had just set their stances, felt as though their bodies had suddenly grown heavier. Mud and sand flew up and coated their armor.

The earth began to tremble, causing every knight to turn toward their captain, who was still standing there in a daze, unable to pull himself out of his thoughts for a long time.

Unable to endure it any longer, one knight in silver-white armor suddenly kicked off the ground and shot toward Fulan, raising his greatsword to strike her down with a single blow.

Only then did Connor come back to himself. Seeing the knight spring out, his eyes widened and he tried to stop him.

But he discovered that some mysterious force still seemed to be restraining him. His thoughts were still in turmoil, and he could not bring his body under control in time.

And so he could only watch as Fulan used the Sword Chant School’s Sword Dance to block that heavy strike.

Then a special rune flashed across her longsword, and she directly smashed that knight’s head flat.

Only at that moment did Connor suddenly realize that the pressure brought by the prophecy had ended.

The knights behind him saw this scene and wanted to throw themselves forward regardless of the cost to fight Fulan.

But Connor stretched out one hand and stopped them.

“No one move. Stay here. I’ll go myself.”

Then he stared fixedly at Fulan, as though he wanted to devour her whole.

He knew that these knights were absolutely no longer a match for Fulan. From that brief exchange alone, it was already obvious that Fulan’s physical abilities far surpassed those of his knights.

For a mage’s Physique to be higher than a knight’s was simply absurd, but the iron reality stood right in front of Connor, and he had no choice but to accept it.

Moreover, by this point, Fulan had already displayed the abilities of several different schools, and every single one of them had exceeded Connor’s expectations by far.

That forced him to steel himself and face this still First-Tier mage with the utmost seriousness.