Chapter 547: Broken MPF Tester
Over three thousand.
According to Gran Doma’s earlier words, that was roughly ten times the power of an Enforcement Unit captain.
However, he’d said "at least", meaning it wasn’t necessarily the bar, only a baseline.
So, Rhodes decided to go all out for the second try.
He reached up and gripped the pendant hanging on his chest. "Please, everyone, step back a little."
Maybe the memory of his last attack still lingered, because the Councilors, usually stiff and haughty, actually obeyed, backing away dozens of meters without hesitation.
Of course, that wasn’t due to fear of injury. Thought Bodies couldn’t be harmed in the physical sense. At most, they’d vanish if hit with enough magic to scramble the signal.
Rhodes had asked Master Makarov about it before. A Thought Body couldn’t be used as a backdoor to injure the real person, it was more like a magical projection. The most that could happen was a temporary disruption.
And the Councilors clearly knew that, which was why they insisted on watching up close. They weren’t worried about danger, only about missing something.
Rhodes ignored their subtle flex.
He spread his arms wide.
"Summon: Blue Sentinel. Brambleback."
A blue crystalline giant and a towering red tree-beast emerged behind him.
The soldiers whispered in confusion. The Councilors narrowed their eyes. None of them recognized these creatures, they weren’t in any registry of known magical summons.
"Blue buff. Red buff."
Two radiant auras wrapped around him, one blue, one red, each made of three streams of light that spiraled and intertwined.
Rhodes now looked like a deity in preparation, his silhouette glowing from head to toe in layered enchantments.
Next, his fingers touched the silver chain around his neck.
Threaded through the pendant was a strand of spider silk, faintly glowing white.
It wasn’t sticky, but it was unnaturally tough, a gift from the massive spider, Vilemaw. Rhodes had carefully woven it through his pendant’s loop so it wouldn’t snap under strain or magic recoil.
He took a breath and whispered, "Crown of the Shattered Queen. Hecarim"
A soft violet halo ignited around him.
In an instant, the atmosphere changed.
The Enforcement soldiers’ eyes widened. A pressure unlike anything they’d felt before descended.
Even Captain Lahar, seasoned and disciplined, felt his shoulders tense involuntarily.
A few soldiers began to tremble.
They weren’t imagining things.
This wasn’t killing intent or intimidation magic. It was something deeper. A surge of power that overloaded their senses just by being near it.
Only the Councilors, whose real bodies remained safe and distant, were unaffected. Even so, several of them blinked, momentarily seeing Rhodes’ body blur and shimmer.
Was he moving?
Before they could react, he was airborne.
In truth, they hadn’t seen him move at all, just vanish and reappear in the sky.
In the game the magic had been based on, Crown of the Shattered Queen was an elite-tier buff item and Hecarim. It boosted everything, health, mana, attack, defense. It even granted minor fear effects to enemies and could make the user intangible, able to pass through allies and minions alike.
And now, in reality, Rhodes felt everything surge.
Magic, strength, speed, focus, clarity.
Even better, he could share this boost with allies in his line of sight.
This was his first true group buff.
If a reckless guild like Phantom Lord ever tried something again, Rhodes wouldn’t need elaborate battle plans.
What was truly astonishing was that the magic power consumption didn’t increase with the number of people affected. Whether Rhodes applied the aura to one person or a hundred, the cost remained roughly the same.
As for the ’ghost-like’ state, those Councilors hadn’t imagined it earlier. Rhode really could make his body intangible. He could pass through walls now.
This ghostly state made him immune to most physical attacks, making it a practical asset in battle.
Though he hadn’t had time to explore the ability fully, Rhodes suspected that the beneficial effects provided by Nash Baron might not be as comprehensive as those of the Crown of the Shattered Queen and Hecarim.
Right now, he still wore the form of the Purgatory Dragon, his body wrapped in flames, wings ablaze. Red, blue, and pale violet lights circled around him like orbiting wisps. Crimson dragon scales climbed up the sides of his face, giving him a majestic and terrifying presence.
He drew a deep breath, and in the skies above, a massive crimson trumpet-shaped bloom appeared like a flare of power unfurling from nowhere.
The MPF magic power tester, was like a tiny stamen swept into a storm. It was instantly swallowed in a fiery eruption of lava and flames.
The rocky field below, dry and barren, transformed into a blazing sea of fire within moments. That sea of fire expanded rapidly, but instead of spreading flat across the surface, it sunk deeper, burning down through the ground.
The breath attack was accompanied by violent explosions. The shockwaves rolled outward in waves of scorching wind and trembling air.
The Blue Sentinel and Brambleback had already retreated once Rhodes began his attack. Even they could sense the threat and fled instinctively. As for the Councilors’ Thought Bodies, they were devoured whole by the flames and vanished from sight.
Lahar didn’t hesitate. "Everyone fall back!" he barked.
Had those frog-like messengers from the Central Council been present, they might’ve started scolding Rhode for his recklessness. But Lahar was far more level-headed. He wasn’t worried about the Thought Bodies, he was more concerned about his own people getting caught in the crossfire.
In truth, he regretted not setting up a magic containment barrier beforehand.
He was baffled. If he, a seasoned officer, hadn’t anticipated this, how had the Councilors not seen it coming either? Did they really not understand how powerful a Wizard Saint candidate might be?
Thankfully, the worst didn’t happen.
Rhodes had kept perfect control over the attack. Even if Lahar’s unit hadn’t retreated, the most they’d have suffered was some intense heat, maybe a little singed in the front row, nothing more.
Even so, the Councilors had been stunned when Rhodes made his move.
They couldn’t help but suspect that the two massive dragons mentioned in Lahar’s previous reports were not summoned beasts at all... but Rhodes himself.
But before they could think deeper, the nine Thought Bodies, engulfed in the fiery sea, suddenly flickered and distorted, like a projection with a broken link, before blinking out of existence entirely.
At that very moment, a number appeared above the flames: 6934.
"Si—six thousand... six...?" Lahar stammered, barely able to speak.
An MPF value approaching seven thousand. Was that even possible for a human?
The soldiers were completely stunned. In raw numbers, Rhodes alone was now equivalent to their entire hundred-man unit, and maybe even stronger.
Of course, magic power didn’t add up so easily.
A hundred soldiers with an MPF of 100 couldn’t combine into a single blast of 10,000. Group magic lacked perfect unity.
But this? This strike, this number—it was nearly seven thousand MPF. They didn’t need to imagine what that looked like. They had just seen it with their own eyes.
Somewhere in the crowd, Rhodes swore he heard someone shout "Six-six-six!" and just as he looked up, the digits hovering in the air flickered twice, like static on a broken lacrima screen, before vanishing completely.
He had a bad feeling about it.
Without wasting a second, Rhodes dove into the sea of fire, grabbed the MPF tester, and flew straight toward Captain Lahar.
The captain still hadn’t recovered, standing there with a face full of awe.
As for his soldiers, the closer Rhodes came, the more terrifying he seemed. If not for their strict training, many of them might have turned tail and run on the spot.
Rhode landed gently, placed the cracked MPF tester on the ground, and looked innocently at the captain.
"Didn’t you say even Super Magic couldn’t break it?"