A certain lake stretched out before Noah, motionless.
It was a remote place, with no signs of human presence in the surroundings. The dark water barely reflected the cloud-covered sky, and there was nothing in appearance that distinguished it from any other lake lost somewhere in Great Britain.
Noah stopped at the shore and observed the surroundings calmly.
There were no obvious signs of activity, no visible structures, no energy fluctuations that would betray the presence of anything out of the ordinary.
Yet there was no doubt.
He had arrived at the right place.
The reason for his presence there was not accidental.
Hours earlier, while looting Balthazar's shop, he had found an ancient map, rolled inside a leather tube hidden under a loose board on the counter. On that map, Balthazar had marked the location of one of his master Merlin's secret laboratories.
Noah had followed that map to this lake.
Without hesitating, he dove into the dark water.
The cold bit his skin instantly, but his six-year-old body, reinforced by chakra, withstood the temperature better than any normal body. He descended into the darkness, guided by the faint glow of a small sphere of light he had created with the ambient mana.
At exactly fifty meters, his hands touched rock.
And then he found a vertical crack in the stone wall, wide enough for a human to pass through. On the other side, the water emptied into an air pocket.
Noah emerged in an underwater cave.
The light from his sphere illuminated wet rock walls, stalactites hanging from the ceiling like stone teeth, and a carved passage leading into the darkness.
—Here begins the laboratory of the most legendary sorcerer in history —Noah said, and a smile spread across his lips.
He advanced down the corridor.
The walls were engraved with runes that no longer glowed and protection symbols that had lost their power hundreds of years ago.
The passage opened into a much larger chamber.
And there, before him, stood two huge, half-broken black stone doors.
Noah stopped at the threshold.
—From what I can tell, someone came here before me.
He ran his fingers over the impact marks on the stone. The texture was rough, but he noticed something strange: the fractures did not follow a pattern of natural wear. They had been caused by a single blow, or a few, but of colossal power.
—Whoever it was, their power was considerable —he continued, straightening up—. But I suppose they died during the exploration. Otherwise, this place would have already been occupied or completely destroyed.
Upon closer inspection of the marks and the door material —an alloy of stone and metal he didn't recognize— Noah could make a rough estimate.
—Those marks are hundreds of years old —he said, frowning—. And this laboratory's defensive protocol is surely faulty after all this time.
He took a step beyond the broken doors.
He hadn't even set foot on the ground when an impact caught him from the side, like an invisible hammer the size of a truck. Noah flew backward and crashed against the cave wall with a dull crunch.
Blood gushed from his mouth.
His ribs broke in at least two places. The pain was sharp, stabbing, but his mind was already assessing the situation before his body finished sliding down the wall to the floor.
Counterattack? —he thought, expecting a second blow that never came.
Silence returned to the chamber, broken only by the echo of his own ragged breathing. Noah spat out some blood and looked up at the broken doors. There was nothing. No figure, no glow of a spell preparing to strike again.
—Whatever that was —he panted—, there was no spell in that attack. Just pure physical power.
He forced himself to get up, leaning against the wall. Each breath was a stab in the chest.
With a trembling hand, he reached into his 4D pocket and extracted a small reddish pill. He had obtained it from Balthazar's shop, from one of the jars labeled "Restaurativum Majoris." He swallowed it without water.
The effect was almost immediate.
A pleasant warmth spread through his torso from his stomach toward his broken ribs. He heard a tiny snap, then another, and the pain began to fade.
Noah took a deep breath, now pain-free, and stood up.
—With those abilities —he said, staring at the threshold of the doors—, there's no reason to wait for me to enter before attacking... unless it can't get out.
He frowned, thinking.
—Whatever it is, it seems its function is to prevent anyone from entering the laboratory. A guardian. A magical golem, probably. Something built to protect this place, but trapped inside the main chamber.
A slow smile spread across his face.
—I suppose this is an excellent opportunity to use that technique.
He closed his eyes.
He took a deep breath, and this time it wasn't a normal breath. He began to draw the surrounding mana toward him, absorbing it voraciously, as if his entire body were an inverted funnel sucking in the world's energy.
The air around him began to vibrate.
He opened his eyes.
—Sage Mode: Overgear.
Runes appeared on his skin like multicolored light tattoos.
Green, blue, red, golden runes... swirled over his arms, his neck, his face, forming shifting patterns that flickered with every beat of his heart. His body seemed to have turned into a small black hole. World energy flowed into him with such intensity that the dust on the floor began to rise, drawn by an invisible force.
On his hands, mana condensed into two masses of burning multicolored energy, enveloping them like gloves of solid fire.
Noah suddenly disappeared.
His body moved at such an absurd speed that he seemed to teleport. A multicolored light crossed the threshold of the broken doors and crashed against a gray figure waiting in the shadows.
CRACK.
The impact resounded like thunder inside the chamber.
The gray figure was flung backward, but Noah was already on it again. Blow after blow. Each impact produced an explosion of multicolored light and a roar that made the cave walls vibrate.
Finally, an especially violent blow hurled the creature out through the broken doors, sending it rolling across the floor of the outer chamber, under the dim light of Noah's floating sphere.
For the first time, he could see it clearly.
It looked like a human armored with spikes all over. It was a dark gray suit of armor, corroded by time, covered in spikes protruding from shoulders, elbows, and knees. It had old broken pieces all over its body —cracks in the breastplate, a raised visor revealing a dark void where eyes should have been— and it was missing its entire right arm. Despite its ruinous state, it moved with an unnatural fluidity.
Noah lunged at it immediately.
His fist wrapped in multicolored flames headed straight for the automaton's head when it moved. With a dexterity that contradicted its rickety appearance, it dodged the blow and counterattacked.
The spiked gauntlet of its left arm sank into Noah's stomach.
The puncture was clean. The spikes pierced skin, muscles, and Noah felt the tip of one of them graze his internal organs. He was flung backward and crashed against the cave walls with a dull thud.
The wound looked severe.
But immediately, the multicolored flames covering his body swirled around the puncture. The heat intensified, and Noah felt the tissues regenerate and the flesh close over the hole left by the spikes. Within seconds, the damage had vanished as if it had never existed.
Noah let out a laugh.
—Hahaha! —his voice echoed in the cave, wild and euphoric—. That feels great!
He lunged at the automaton again.