Chapter 1055: Shadow of the Star (1)
Immediately after Lennok finished his conversation with the Alliance Leader in the Glass Garden and returned to reality.
On the broken deck, Lennok looked down at the fallen Corpse Ghost Spell Master.
“…….”
His conversation with the Alliance Leader in the Glass Garden had felt like about ten minutes.
However, a contemplation of his internal mana flow revealed that less than five seconds had passed in reality.
Proof that the time spent in the Order Alliance Leader’s Glass Garden itself existed outside the real-world timeline.
But even realizing this, Lennok subtly lowered his head to hide his complex expression.
‘Of all things, Celestial Spellcraft…’
The unique spellcraft of Chicheon, an Ascendant of the Old World, and the power to manipulate the celestial sphere, borrowed from the Archive of Darkness.
The Celestial Spellcraft Lennok had acquired as a means to twist the veil on his way to Outer Tribulation City, Kundara.
Lennok had only realized at the very end of their meeting that the Alliance Leader was seeking it.
Thinking about it, it wasn’t strange.
The Miniature Garden constructed through Celestial Spellcraft was, at its root, the origin of a Domain.
It was a power that allowed the spellcaster to freely adjust the rules within the garden according to their will.
If the Alliance Leader needed to rewrite the laws of physics in reality to descend, what spellcraft could be more suitable than the Miniature Garden?
If the very existence of the Glass Garden, in a way, hinted at the existence of the Miniature Garden—
Thinking thus far, Lennok looked down at the Corpse Ghost Spell Master, who lay collapsed at his feet.
Gurgle, gurgle…!!
A pale woman, fallen amidst a pool of blood.
Her eyes were unfocused, and blood streamed from her mouth and nose, clotting.
The Corpse Ghost Spell Master, cold and lifeless, her breath ceased before Lennok’s eyes.
“I know you’re alive, so get up already.”
But Lennok opened his mouth, looking at the Corpse Ghost Spell Master.
“How long do you plan to keep pretending to be dead?”
“…….”
“Words don’t seem to get through to you.”
Crackle!!
“Kyaaah!! I, I’m up…!!”
Lennok gathered lightning and threw it into the pool of blood, making the Corpse Ghost Spell Master spring up.
She hastily brushed off her clothes to avoid electrocution, then stammered with a pale face, glancing nervously.
“I-I’m quite good at… pr, pretending to be dead, so how did you…?”
“If you’d died from Eternal Thunder, your body wouldn’t be intact.”
Although things had been chaotic after returning from his meeting with the Alliance Leader, he remembered the events in reality relatively accurately.
He had entered the Glass Garden immediately after casting Eternal Thunder to kill the Corpse Ghost Spell Master and incinerate the ship’s deck.
If the Corpse Ghost Spell Master had died from Eternal Thunder, it would be strange for her body to remain intact.
The moment he saw the fallen Corpse Ghost Spell Master, Lennok knew she wasn’t dead.
“But if you hadn’t been hit, there would be no reason to fall here and pretend to be dead. You would have already escaped.”
Lennok’s eyes, fixed on the pale Corpse Ghost Spell Master, gleamed sharply.
“You suffered fatal injuries from Eternal Thunder, but managed to repair your body through some means?”
“…….”
“Your body seems closer to a corpse than a human. If it’s inorganic matter, repair wouldn’t be difficult.”
“H-haha… That power is something I… can’t use without consuming a large number of Corpse Ghosts…”
The Corpse Ghost Spell Master let out an awkward laugh.
Rolling her eyes with a pale complexion, she cautiously said,
“I-I’ll give you everything I have and leave… C-can we, for now, agree to… l-let me live…?”
“Agree? You’re worrying about unnecessary things.”
“Huh?”
“If I intended to kill you here, I wouldn’t be deliberating like this.”
In this situation, where there was still room to negotiate with the Alliance Leader, there was no need to specifically kill the Corpse Ghost Spell Master.
Considering Lennok’s current situation, keeping the Corpse Ghost Spell Master alive and using her as an informant would be rational.
“If you want to live, follow me from now on.”
“Ah, no… Th-that’s a bit…”
The Corpse Ghost Spell Master stammered, yet desperately refused.
“I-I have a lot… a lot of things to do… I-I also need to stop by the Northern Front… and there’s a b-big ritual coming up soon—”
“I’ve heard about the Great Connection’s reconstruction from the Alliance Leader.”
Lennok turned his head towards the direction of the blowing wind and said,
“I already know what your Alliance is trying to do. I have questions about it, so—”
“…Heh.”
The moment Lennok mentioned the Alliance Leader, the terrified look in the Corpse Ghost Spell Master’s eyes completely changed.
From the spellcaster, who had raised her hand while still stammering, an indescribable, eerie magic began to flow.
“I-In that case… th-there’s no need to persuade me with w-words, is there…?”
“…….”
“J-Just send me away, no more useless talk. If you keep b-bothering me—”
“You don’t seem to have properly understood my words yet.”
Lennok said.
“It doesn’t mean I’ll spare your life if you follow me.”
“Huh?”
Clang!!
Standing at the edge of the deck, looking down, Lennok crossed his arms and drew up his mana.
The Iron-Plated Wings on his back bristled sharply, spreading their steel feathers wide.
“It meant that by doing so, you could at least save your life from this spot.”
“Th-that is, what do you—”
Crumble!!
At that moment, the colossal aircraft carrier carrying Lennok and the Corpse Ghost Spell Master lost its balance and tilted sharply.
The carrier lost the very power that kept it airborne and rapidly descended.
The sharply tilted ship, caught in violent winds, began to plummet at tremendous speed.
CRASHHH!!!
“Waaaaaah!!”
The Corpse Ghost Spell Master, clutching onto a nearby protruding piece of deck debris, let out a grotesque shriek.
Lennok, who had secured his body by digging his Iron-Plated Wings into the deck, lowered his gaze, shielding his eyes from the wind.
“Davi.”
[Considering gravitational acceleration, the estimated fall time is 6 minutes and 25 seconds.]
From Lennok’s arms, Davi replied immediately, as if she had been waiting.
[Considering the angle of descent, air resistance due to the ship’s shape, and trajectory changes due to mana density depletion, the estimated crash site is around 8 km from the front line.]
“So, near the battlefield where the Headro Warlords’ tank division and druids are clashing.”
Taking the vast forest spread across the ground as their front line, monsters and druids were clashing everywhere.
The warlords’ tank units, trampling bushes and trees and firing shells, and the druids retaliating by unleashing barrages of spellcraft.
“Most of the Western Front’s border zone is covered by vast forests.”
Lennok, quickly assessing the ground situation from the falling ship, shook his head.
“We’ll avoid them and rendezvous with the Thorben Magic Tower. Can you control the carrier’s flight path?”
[It’s not impossible, but I need to access the ship’s flight control system first.]
Davi wiggled her tail in his arms.
[I think I can use the trick from the autonomous flight algorithm I replicated from the War-Mage Tower, Master?]
Crunch!!
The Iron-Plated Wings, dug into the deck, moved, repositioning Lennok’s body on the ship.
He strode across the tilted deck, heading for the control room located in the carrier’s superstructure.
CRASH!!
As he blew open the door, red flesh oozed out from inside the control room.
The grotesque mass of flesh filled the entire control room of the carrier.
Lennok frowned, maneuvering his wings to avoid the flesh and move deeper into the control room.
Squish, squish!!
He moved, tapping the tilted control room floor with the tip of his Iron-Plated Wings.
The flesh spilled onto the floor was torn, scattering bodily fluids everywhere.
A scene so grotesque it made Lennok, with his weak stomach, frown just by looking at it.
But the scene inside the control room surpassed even Lennok’s imagination.
“…….”
Gurgle, gurgle…!!
A mass of flesh, presumably what used to be an operator, wriggled, stuck to the control room chair.
Oozing eyeballs, blood vessels, and nerve clusters protruded, twitching from the chair’s armrests and the floor.
In the central captain’s chair, something like a colossal antenna sat in place of a human.
Dozens of eyes rotated grotesquely on the gray antenna, constantly emitting sinister Dead Thoughts.
[Ugh.]
The monster’s form was so grotesquely twisted that even Davi recoiled in horror, hiding in Lennok’s arms.
This was the core of the General-grade entity assimilated with the ship. It must have been the commander who controlled the Headro Warlords’ aircraft carrier.
The entire warlord faction, corrupted through a forbidden ritual, assimilated with war machines, becoming monsters eternally wandering the battlefield.
But Lennok focused not on its grotesque appearance, but on the Dead Thoughts emitted by the antenna.
“The direction of the emitted Dead Thoughts is maintained very consistently.”
Lennok said, gazing at the calmly wriggling antenna.
“It’s constantly sending Dead Thoughts somewhere… Is there a separate entity within the warlord faction that receives the monsters’ Dead Thoughts?”
[Won’t we know if we just tear this monstrous mass out?]
“From the moment the Corpse Ghost Spell Master spellcrafted and extracted the General-grade entity’s monster control ability, this is already as good as dead.”
Lennok replied and moved towards the control panel at the front of the control room.
“It’s barely clinging to life, too broken to even maintain its cellular structure. It will die soon.”
Crunch!!
Lennok, having dug one of his Iron-Plated Wings into the control panel, muttered.
“But I don’t know what meaning there is in sending Dead Thoughts. Is it a simple survival instinct, or an artificially set mechanism…?”
[Master, I’ve accessed the aircraft carrier’s flight control system, but there’s a problem.]
Click!
Davi, connecting her consciousness through the Iron-Plated Wing dug into the control panel, said.
[Hacking itself is possible, but there’s almost no power left in the ship. As you said, it’s as good as dead, isn’t it?]
“That must be because the Corpse Ghost Spell Master forcibly extracted the monster’s essence.”
[At this rate, even if I hack the flight control system, I don’t think I can make it work properly.]
“…No choice then.”
Lennok turned towards the antenna sitting in the captain’s chair, then brought his left hand to his eye.
The moment he held his eyelid open with his hand, Lennok’s eye glowed with a vivid violet light.
Kiiiiiing…!!
Dozens of eyes, suspended on the antenna’s surface, all turned their gaze towards Lennok’s Mystic Eye.
“Look here.”
……!!!!
Instantly, the antenna, facing Lennok’s Mystic Eye, was felt to convulse violently.
The forced transfer of information using the Mystic Eye’s Gaze Sharing ability.
An ability to create dummy data with Davi’s power, then meet the opponent’s gaze with the Mystic Eye’s ability and hammer it into their brain.
A technique developed to interrogate opponents when he first awakened his Mystic Eye, but he rarely used it as it shattered the opponent’s brain immediately after use.
Was the last time he used it in the snowy battlefield to save Lapis, back when he was heading to the Hanghasa Labyrinth in the Northern Continent?
[Kweeeeek…!!]
In the brief moment he recalled his memories, the eyes on the antenna began to bloodshot.
The antenna’s form was swelling and glowing as if it would burst, unable to avoid Lennok’s Mystic Eye.
Immediately after, a crimson, blood-red glow began to erupt wildly on the control room’s dashboard.
[A little power needed for system operation has been recovered!]
“I overloaded the monster’s cognitive ability, squeezing out its remaining reserves.”
Lennok said, turning around.
“It won’t last long, so please be quick.”
[Master, there’s something hidden inside the system’s biological database.]
Davi, diligently hacking the system according to Lennok’s words, tilted her head.
[I briefly decrypted the encrypted data, and it seems to be the Headro Warlords’ operational plan.]
“…An operational plan?”
Did monsters, the entire warlord faction having fallen and become monsters, actually have operations and plans?
Lennok glanced back at his words, and Davi immediately displayed the decrypted information on the dashboard.
=Western Continent Central Front. [Veil] Contamination Rate 24%.
“…….”
Contamination of the Veil, huh.
At the unusual string of words, Lennok quickly scanned through other information.
=Druids. Nature Spellcraft. Movement through forests. Western Front-wide range.
=Highest priority annihilation target.
A series of descriptions composed not of sentences, but simple lists of words.
But understanding their meaning was not difficult.
“The druids of Larabelli. They could move freely anywhere in the Western Front if it was forested terrain.”
Lennok’s eyes sparkled with interest.
“In that case, can they move directly to the front of the [Veil] from here?”
[Master. There’s one piece of related data regarding the ‘Veil contamination’ keyword.]
Davi said.
[But this isn’t something that can be opened in a normal way… It looks like Dead Thoughts fragmented into biological data.]
“Send a command to the system to transmit the data.”
Lennok said that, then turned his gaze towards the antenna.
“I’ll use my Mystic Eye to share my gaze and read that data together.”
[Kweeeek…!]
The antenna feebly struggled as if understanding his words, but it was useless.
Davi followed Lennok’s words and activated the transmission command. At the same time, Lennok, activating his Mystic Eye, used Gaze Sharing to read the direction the Dead Thoughts were heading.
But the scene Lennok confirmed using Gaze Sharing far exceeded his expectations.
“…This is.”
Flash!!
Far past the battlefield where druids and monsters fought, it shone deep inside the Western Front where the [Veil] unfolded.
The Central Front border zone, formed across the Western Continent.
Within the corrupted forest, monsters scattering dark red blood were densely packed.
Rumble rumble rumble!!!
Heavy tank units sped between trees, and blood-veined self-propelled artillery fired shells into the sky.
Eyeball-equipped fighter jets flew through the airspace, and colossal carriers supplied flesh and blood like fuel from the sky.
[Kuaaaah…!!!]
[Keh keh keh kek!!!]
Monsters with crimson-inverted skin all over their bodies marched, guns embedded in their flesh.
A monstrous army numbering in the thousands dyed the entire front line red as they formed ranks.
The blatant sight of these assembled monsters seeming to surround and protect something located near the [Veil].
Following that reaction, Lennok’s gaze naturally turned to the [Veil], and he was speechless.
“…….”
At the very heart of the corrupted monster army, a colossal human head.
A male head, dozens of meters in size, was wriggling, its neck attached to the [Veil].
[Aaak, aaak…!!]
With two bloodshot eyes wide open, it gaped its mouth, incessantly spewing monsters from its throat.
The head of a human male, brazenly existing at the center of the grotesquely twisted monsters.
That was the entity receiving the Dead Thoughts sent by the ship’s antenna.
What was the reason only that head among the Headro Warlords’ monsters maintained a normal human form?
At that moment, someone’s telepathic transmission clearly echoed in Lennok’s ear.
[The Headro Warlords’ Overmind is clinging to the [Veil] of the Central Front, contaminating the western lands.]
“……!”
[The ritual executor who corrupted the warlord faction is birthing monsters, turning the west into a demon realm impassable by humans.]
It wasn’t direct interference with Lennok’s consciousness.
Someone directly speaking to him, using the flow of Dead Thoughts that Lennok was observing via Gaze Sharing as a medium.
From the battlefield below, someone was reading what was happening in the sky and transmitting their will to Lennok.
[To bear such a consumption rate just by transmitting will-thought… if they possess such powerful will-thought, it must undoubtedly be the War-Mage Tower Lord themselves.]
“…….”
[I won’t speak at length. If it’s a path to the Veil, we can help.]
With those words, the telepathic transmission abruptly cut off, and the Gaze Sharing that illuminated the Western Front ended.
The antenna sitting in the captain’s chair could not hold on and crumbled on its own, scattering blood.
[Master, flight control system hacking is complete. If we change course and catch up to the War-Mage Tower—]
“…No. Plans have changed.”
Lennok said that, looking down at the forest spread across the ground.
“Turn the flight path at a right angle. Allocate all remaining power to the propulsion system.”
[…Huh?]
“The druids of Larabelli have something to say, it seems.”
Lennok placed his hand on the dashboard, slowly drawing up mana.
“From now on, I’m going to crash this carrier full-speed right on top of the monsters’ heads.”
WHOOOOOSH!!!!
The colossal carrier, which had been plummeting diagonally, began to change its flight path on the spot.
The flesh-covered aircraft carrier tilted as if bowing its head, accelerating as it fell towards the ground.
CRUUUMMMBBLE!!!
Immediately after the boosters at the stern of the ship’s hull activated, Lennok spread his Iron-Plated Wings and drew up mana.
The flesh-covered aircraft carrier plummeted at tremendous speed into the rallying point where the Headro Warlords’ tank division had gathered.
BOOOOOMMM!!!
A pillar of fire, intensely bright, shot up and exploded, its aftermath incinerating all surrounding trees and bushes.
Shockwaves burst out incessantly, shaking the ground as if an earthquake had struck.
[Kweeeehk!!!!]
[Gurgle, gurgle gurgle…!]
The Headro Warlords’ tank division, which had been narrowing the front line by firing shells from the forest’s edge, evaporated.
Unable to escape the impact of the falling carrier, the monsters rampaging on the battlefield shrieked madly.
Masses of flesh clung to the burning tank turrets and treads, strewn everywhere.
CRUUUMMM…!!
The aircraft carrier, engulfed in raging flames, was snapped in half and impaled in the ground.
Sharp lightning flashed amidst the deck debris, and the flesh clinging to the ship’s exterior burned away.
The druids, who had been fighting the warlords’ monsters for a long time, looked up at the ship with astonished expressions.
“Th-the monster’s ship….”
“A General-grade entity committed suicide…!!”
“What on earth just…!!”
Thud!!
Kicking aside the burning debris of the ship’s deck, Lennok walked out from amidst the wreckage.
The wizard, his Iron-Plated Wings arrayed above his head to shield him from debris, dragging the Corpse Ghost Spell Master by a Mana Thread pierced through her neck.
“The results weren’t as good as I’d hoped.”
Lennok stepped forward, treading on the squishy corpses of monsters, and muttered.
“Did I adjust the trajectory to kill as many monsters as possible, only to make the damage ambiguous?”
“U-Uwaaah…!!”
The Corpse Ghost Spell Master, pierced by the Mana Thread Lennok held and dragged out, struggled with a pale face.
The druids remaining on the battlefield looked at Lennok with hardened expressions, raising their weapons.
An untimely silence descended upon the battlefield that had been clamorous moments before.
“I’ve heard about the shortcut your druids use to reach the Veil.”
With the colossal, blazing ship at his back, Lennok turned to the druids and asked,
“Having killed this many monsters for you, will this be enough as payment?”
“…….”
Silence.
The druids stared up at Lennok with bewildered expressions, as if he were insane.
The Corpse Ghost Spell Master, her neck pierced by Lennok’s Mana Thread, stammered with a dazed expression.
“I-I wanna go home…”