Twin Magicians Of The 999th Generation

Prologue: The Twins

“Shit——”

Running across the field, his breath ran short.

“——I'm out of minimum magic required to use this damn thing!”

He was running across a field that was riddled with metal junk that was scattered everywhere.

He was being fired from behind by multiple people that chased him down, barely dodging them and hiding behind a large satellite disc.

It looked like an abandoned farm, with its crops withering just recently.

The masked man wielded two pistols, however, he was unable to use them as the screen that was integrated into them blinked red.

[Warning: Minimum Mana requirement is not met. Disabling function.]

He holstered it into what seems to be a futuristic belt, vanishing into digital particles upon contact.

It was useless to him now, but fighting unarmed against guns would be something blown out of proportion for him.

It was just straight-up impossible.

“...Ngh. Those bastards...”

He cursed them, yet he wasn't just about to lose his wits and hopes yet.

Why? Because he was not alone.

“Magi! Where the heck are you?”

Holding his earlobe, the red-haired young man would then speak as a small magic circle appears above his finger.

It was a magic earpiece that transmitted voice through magic.

“I told you to stay put. You jumped ahead guns blazing. It's not my fault you are in a tight squeeze now, Cian.”

A cold but calm voice could be heard on the other side.

However, their voices were almost alike, with the way of speaking only being the difference.

“He's not firing back. He must be out of magic! Move in!”

One of the men that chased Cian noticed that he wasn't retaliating from their fire.

It was only but a matter of time before Cian's position was compromised.

“——T-They're coming!”

“And whose fault is that?”

Cian and Magi only exchanged quick words in urgency, yet Magi only responded coldly.

The men hastened to move in as they had caught Cian in a deadlock, however, as they stepped across a line in the field, they felt something was wrong.

“T-This wasn't here before?”

They had crossed a line that glowed on the floor. It was something eye-catching and harmless, yet, little did they know its purpose.

“This is what was supposed to happen, Cian.”

The cold-voiced Magi whispered.

“——?!”

Suddenly, one by one, the men that had been chasing Cian fell one by one as they were hit by a fast bullet.

It came from above and behind them.

“A-A Sniper! Cover!”

They all ran for cover as seven of them were already down, leaving 20 of them alive.

They were all shot from the back and or chest, piercing their heart and core to the ground.

They were dead, and in their remains was the crawling sight of ice that slowly froze their corpses from the bullet hole.

The culprit was at the top of a shack, holding a large pistol, looking at the holographic digital sight, focusing on the enemies that were out in the open.

He didn't miss, killing five more without fail.

“About damn time, Magi!”

“Silence. You almost blew my cover.”

The digital HUD on his pistol showed that he had 15 more bullets, and different from Cian's pistol that ran on magic, his gun used physical bullets.

The remaining 15 enemies were scattered in the field alongside Cian, but despite having a vantage point.

Magi was unsure of the situation.

“Magi! I'll make a run for it and get some of those guys' guns! So, go ahead and shoot them if they come out, alright?!”

“——Cian, no!”

Yet, just like the impatient and reckless person Cian was, he jumped out without hearing confirmation from Magi himself, dashing towards the middle of the enemies that were killed.

He slid through the ice that had covered the ground around them, grabbing the guns that they had dropped.

“Aha! Back-up guns acquired!”

Cian shouted, yet as he looked around, he was already surrounded by the men taking cover from the sniper.

“S-Shoot that bastard!”

“——Ah sh*t.”

A barrage of fire would follow right after, racking up the smoke from the ground as they all sprayed bullets at Cian.

They all had wasted a clip of ammo for a single person, but they were sure now that person was done for good.

However, as the smoke subsided, Cian was still standing.

“You ruined my coat. Lucky for you, I buy this by the dozen!”

Cian's coat was riddled with bullet holes, except for him who stood unfazed by them.

“I-Impossible?! Did he reflect it using some kind of magic?!”

One of the armed men wondered in fear. They were all frozen in shock, and with all the others tumbling to reload their gun, they were all vulnerable.

They felt like nothing was going to work against the monster that appeared.

“Deflect? No, no, no. The only person who could do that is Magi. All I did is... melt them as they came in contact with my skin.”

Walking towards them, Cian's eyes and hair began to be enveloped in fire. A phoenix-like appearance that slowly made his coat catch flames.

His flames burned bright enough for them to be blinded by it, begging for mercy.

“——P-Please spare me! Don't kill me!”

They all knelt and dropped their weapon, crying out to seek Cian's sympathy.

However, they were all killed in a flash by the rain of bullets that hit them one by one, piercing their cores.

“...”

Cian's flaming appearance remained standing there, surrounded by fifteen frozen corpses that were begging for him.

“Cian.”

Revealing himself, Magi had climbed down and walked up to Cian who remained still in that very position he was in.

Magi was also masked, but instead of a warped smiley face, he was a frown.

His flames were still burning as the corpses around him melt away.

There were even no traces of blood as if their corpses had turned into solid ice instead.

“Did we really have to kill them?”

“It's our job, Cian. We've talked about this before.”

Magi was standing behind Cian. He was keeping his distance due to the flames he emitted, becoming hotter and hotter than his cost had already burned into a crisp.

What was left were the black crop top and pants that were made to be extremely fire-resistant.

Yet it was beginning to warp, as his body slowly reached a temperature that his clothes could no longer withstand.

“They sold drugs to children, Cian. They were bad people.”

“...I see.”

Cian's flames would extinguish themselves soon enough after hearing those words.

Cian had only needed a reason to justify murdering other people as they were evil but in his thoughts, they would still be as evil as them after committing such a crime.

“We're mercenaries, Cian. We are criminals that hide from the law, but that's how life dealt our cards. We just need to play with it.”

“...”

Magi holstered the pistol on his belt as well, turning it into data to be stored in digital storage.

Cian still fretted about their actions, but he was always like this after finishing a mission.

He would think for a long time, and then after that, he would return to his former reckless and lively self.

“Alright. Let's go and have some noodles then? I'm feeling a little bit hungry after using up my magic!”

“...Sure.”

It was Magi's worry that someday, Cian would break down.

They'd been doing mercenary work for years, yet Cian was fine with everything.

They were brothers, after all, twins at that.

But regardless, Magi was the eldest, and he was the one who had brought Cian to the underworld.

Both of them had taken off their mask at the same time, revealing their faces to each other.

As careless as they seem, they were infamous.

A duo that never failed a single mission, unorthodox mercenaries called,

[The Twin Magicians.]

**

In a world where magic was supposedly superior, humans had slowly entered a transgressive era of technology.

At first, the world was separated into Magistries.

Light Magistry,

Dark Magistry,

Unique Magistry,

Elemental Magistry,

and Spirit Magistry.

They were all Magistries that were named according to the magic of the people that lived there possessed.

They all shared a single supercontinent, inhabiting the land close to the sea as the middle was a barren wasteland filled with stones filled with explosive mana called Mana Stones.

Each nation had a belief that their Magistry was superior to the other, thus they were always hostile to each other, making their difference stronger.

Until one day, a new magistry was created.

It was an unorthodox magistry that was created by those without magic.

People without magic have been always deemed inferior to those who had magic, and so all those who liked to create and prove that they can be as powerful as those mages gathered.

They formed a small group of inventors that came from each of the five Magistry.

They were called ridiculed and made fun of by all the magistries, to the point that they were exiled by their clans.

However, by the time they were all exiled, one of them had already discovered how to replicate the magic that would be recorded by a special tool.

It would have to be powered by a great source of power and so, their main source of power became the Mana Stones, which were abundant in the middle of the continent, the wasteland.

At first, the elemental magic was replicated to create rain upon the barren land.

It took a year, but the barren wasteland became a paradise where the group could sustain themselves without having to sneak into other magistries.

With each one of them having a record of magic from their clan, they were able to do anything.

Their number increased over time and from a group of five, their population rose to tens of thousands in just a decade.

Their innovation slowly garnered notoriety from all the Magistry, but it was seen as a sign of rebellion despite being exiled.

The Dark Magistry led an attack on the developed city of the new Magistry, yet they were easily thwarted by the new tools and weaponry that they created.

This was the start where their group officially named their new nation the Technological Magistry.

All the other Magistry began to move as well as that win became a sign that the Technological Magistry would become far stronger than them.

In years the war had erupted into centuries of the never-ending cycle of war and peace centered around the Technological Magistry.

Until one day, it became a full-out war against the Technological Magistry.

It was the 980th Generation of Mages and they called The Crisis.

It was a year when the Technological Magistry declared to retreat to the skies.

The founders of the Technological Magistry were still alive in this era after preserving themselves in a cyber-enhanced body state, developing the future of the Technological Magistry.

They were developing an expandable city in the sky to escape the grasp of the magic-obsessed mob.

However, they were attacked by all the nations except for the Spirit Magistry, and soon the large-scale battle would be stopped by two Magicians.

They were masked magicians that floated above all those who were prepared to take down the Technological Magistry.

They wished to stop the war, but no one listened.

So as the nations continued to march to obliterate the Technological Magistry as one, they were faced with a large blast that exploded the whole center of the continent.

They were teleported back to their nations, which the landmass was already altered by the blast that they were teleported away from.

As for the Technological Magistry, they were all teleported to the floating city that they had created.

There were no casualties in that blast, but it separated the Spirit and Technological Magistry from the rest.

It was such a large event that everyone who saw them remembered the shocking magic that they cast that wide-scale magic that altered the landscape of the world.

The world of Areia then came to an indefinite peace, as each nation became wary of such an entity instead of fighting within themselves.

They would embrace the era of technology, yet it proved that the floating cities were far too advanced than those below, and without power to even fight against them...

They came to terms with everything.

Thus, the 999th Generation began.