Wizard: Starting from the Skill Tree

The suddenly appearing wizard was named Mateo, a demigod-level mage under Ares.

This time, Mateo traveled with the Twenty-Third Battle Group to ensure that the mission could be executed smoothly.

After all, this was a key mission involving the entire Blackstone Plains war with no room for mistakes.

They had already thoroughly investigated the enemy forces here, with the strongest being this Level 3 Lord of Flame.

If it were only Rex handling it, it would still be tricky, but with the demigod-level Mateo making a move, especially with a covert attack,

the Lord of Flame had no chance of survival.

Mateo did not consider it shameful to attack secretly while having the advantage of power; this was war, as long as the mission goal could be achieved.

After succeeding in his strike, Mateo did not pause for a moment.

His gray-white robe flapped in the wind, and he held his five fingers in a virtual grasp, condensing a giant hand of pure energy in mid-air, capturing the not-yet-fully-disintegrated body of the Lord of Flame in the air.

Dark red blood gushed out from the cracks like a spring, turning into clouds of blood mist in the hot air.

The Lord of Flame’s body exploded in mid-air, with shattered flesh and scale armor raining down, making sizzling sounds as they hit the black rock surface.

A dark red core the size of a fist fell from the wreckage, its surface flowing with lava-like luster; it was the elemental core of the Level 3 Lord of Flame, invaluable.

With a casual gesture, Mateo summoned the core into his hand, where it vanished from sight.

The entire process took no more than three breaths.

Rex stepped back two steps, slightly panting, a charred burn mark on his chest from where the Lord of Flame’s spear had grazed him.

He looked up at Mateo, nodded slightly, said nothing more, and turned to walk toward the fortress.

The news of the commander’s death spread across the battlefield faster than flames.

The flame warriors on the city wall were the first to sense something was amiss.

There existed a sort of elemental resonance-based connection between them and the Lord of Flame, and when the lord’s life force completely dissipated, that connection was forcibly severed.

After a short dead silence, panic erupted like a plague among the defenders.

Some flame warriors let out piercing howls, heedlessly jumping off the city walls, charging toward the fortress’s outer perimeter.

More flame warriors fell into chaos; the once orderly ranks began to crumble, defeat unfurling like a landslide.

The Slave Creature Legion took advantage of the situation to press forward.

Tens of thousands of slave creatures surged like a gray-black tide toward the obsidian fortress.

Without the Lord of Flame’s command, the defenders’ line quickly showed gaps.

The runes on the city wall were still operating, but their energy came from underground veins, not some commander’s will.

They wouldn’t fail because of the lord’s death, but couldn’t compensate for the command system’s collapse-induced chaos either.

Duke gathered the yellow sand, withdrawing from the elementalized form, landing fifty meters in front of the fortress’s main gate.

The runes on the city wall were dimming visibly, the originally flowing crimson lights in the rune troughs growing progressively weaker, as if blood vessels were being drained of blood.

With the loss of rune support, the obsidian wall’s temperature plummeted, shifting from a searing dark red to a cold stark black.

"The rune energy source has been cut off," Duke said softly, staring at the last few struggling flickers of rune patterns on the city wall.

Vera landed beside him, thorns and vines retracting like tidal waters from all around, disappearing into spatial fissures.

Following Duke’s gaze toward the city wall, she nodded: "With the Lord of Flame dead, the fortress’s internal rune core has lost its controller. Now these runes are only running on residual energy, they won’t last long."

No sooner had she spoken than the largest rune above the city gate suddenly flickered and went out.

Immediately afterward, like dominos falling, all the runes on the city walls went out sequentially from the inside out.

The obsidian city wall transformed from a living structure flowing with flame luster into a pile of lifeless black stones.

Rex stood at the forefront of the battlefield, looking toward the main gate of the fortress.

"Breach the gate."

His command was concise and powerful.

Hundreds of mages cast spells simultaneously, fireballs, ice spikes, wind blades, stone bullets - magical spells rained down on the city gate like a torrential storm.

Though the obsidian city gate was heavy and robust, without rune empowerment, it was ultimately just a stone.

Under continuous bombardment, the gate first showed cracks, the cracks spread and deepened, and finally, amidst a dull, resounding boom, the whole gate collapsed inward, raising a cloud of black dust.

Duke was the first to pass through the gate, stepping into the fortress’s interior.

A wave of searing air rushed at him, mixed with the scent of sulfur and lava.

The interior of the fortress proved far more spacious than it appeared from the outside, with the entire mountain hollowed out to form a gigantic dome-shaped space.

Beneath the dome was the mining platform, with dozens of winches set up on the platform, chains hanging down into the magma lake below, heat-resistant metal baskets submerged in the bubbling lava, still containing ore not yet extracted.

The magma lake occupied more than half of the fortress’s base area, the churning lava emitting a muffled gurgling sound, the dark red glow reflecting on the dome, tinting the entire space blood red.

Piles of fire attribute elemental crystal ore were stacked on both sides of the platform, representing the mining yield that had yet to be transported away.

The surface of the ore still bore the black crust formed from cooled lava, but through its cracks, one could see the red crystals inside emitting a scorching glow.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!