Chapter 1099: Level 9 (17)
Outer Tribulation City, Kundara. The Tenth Coffer, encountered at the end of the Ninth Tribulation.
A massive tomb and repository where Kaiser Bajour’s demise was enshrined.
But the sight of the corpse within was something Lennok had never even conceived.
The man enshrined on a throne connected by blood vessels had a ghastly appearance with nothing above his neck.
As if severed, nothing remained above the neck; only an empty cross-section was left.
Lennok, staring blankly at the sight, lost for words, parted his lips.
“……”
At the bizarre and unbelievable atrocity before him, his thoughts seemed to halt instantly.
Kaiser Bajour had no head.
Kaiser Bajour’s corpse was mutilated.
The end Kaiser Bajour met, in other words—
“……!!!!!”
Lennok’s vision, belatedly realizing the situation, turned crimson and wavered.
Blood rushed violently to his head, and a dizzying vertigo overwhelmed him.
As if forcibly comprehending and accepting an incomprehensible phenomenon, Lennok’s thoughts began to race wildly.
‘He was beheaded… and died?’
He had imagined and theorized over a thousand different ends for Kaiser after his project failed and he died.
He had never once considered that Kaiser Bajour would die in such a manner.
He was certain that someone who sought to gather all the failures of this world would have met a far stranger end.
Whether his body became part of the Outer Sea, or rotted and twisted into something grotesque, or transformed into an entirely different aberration or object.
Lennok was ready to accept and move forward with any of those possibilities, but this—
“……”
No, he knew why.
The Kaiser Bajour Lennok knew was a genius who had buried all the project’s secrets with his death.
Someone who designed the project, wielded countless Transcendent beings, and sought answers would never have met such a death.
That was what he had unconsciously believed.
Even amidst the confusion, Lennok’s eyes naturally surveyed the corpse on the throne.
The cross-section of the neck was unusually clean.
Rather than forcibly torn off or plundered, it appeared to have been artificially severed.
Traces that made it seem as if Kaiser Bajour had been ‘executed.’
If the end Kaiser met was not of his own making, but the result of another’s will.
And if his corpse was stored here to conceal that very demise.
Where was Kaiser Bajour’s head then?
“I’m glad I could keep my promise to you.”
Suddenly, Maleon’s voice came from behind Lennok.
The soft baritone of an Ascendant, filled with self-satisfaction and contentment.
A low sigh, as if relieved after accomplishing something great.
“It’s fortunate. To have endured this far. To be able to repay the favor you granted me.”
“……”
“I hope you’ve found the meaning you sought here, as you wished.”
“……Maleon.”
Lennok spoke in a heavy, subdued voice.
“Don’t you feel… something strange?”
“Hmm? What are you referring to?”
Maleon countered with a puzzled expression.
“I’m not sure. Are you perhaps suggesting this isn’t the end of the Ninth Tribulation?”
“……”
Even with a beheaded corpse sitting on the throne right before his eyes,
and openly receiving the True Blood of a Long-lived Being, Maleon seemed to feel no sense of incongruity.
As if that fact itself was not a significant problem for Maleon.
Could it be because Maleon Gnosis already knew the identity of the being enshrined in the Tenth Coffer?
Or was it, conversely, because Maleon had no interest whatsoever in the existence within the Tenth Coffer?
No, Lennok knew it was neither.
Maleon Gnosis had certainly kept his promise to bring Lennok to the end of the Ninth Tribulation.
In that process, there was no ulterior motive or deceit from him.
Maleon Gnosis had not betrayed Lennok until the very end.
However, the sense of contentment now felt in his voice—
It was not a feeling born from having kept his promise to Lennok.
“Van, can you hear it?”
Maleon asked, eyes closed.
“I hear a song… such a beautiful melody.”
“Maleon.”
“It’s so beautiful, just listening to it seems to calm my heart…”
“……Maleon.”
Lennok said, his expression rigid.
“There’s no melody. There’s… no music here at all.”
“Is that so? Listen carefully.”
Maleon said, and slowly began to walk past the throne.
Beyond the glass partition, where the darkness of the Outer Sea was reflected.
Quietly gazing into that void beyond, Maleon hummed softly.
“It makes such a beautiful sound, and you still can’t hear it?”
“……”
Since arriving at the entrance of the Tenth Coffer, Maleon had been speaking of hearing a melody.
What Lennok had thought was a simple metaphor grew closer to a certainty with each passing moment.
Yet, it remained unheard by Lennok, but directed toward Maleon.
The melody Maleon spoke of was, from the start—
“It’s singing to me.”
Maleon whispered.
“It’s been by my side from the beginning. It’s just now, at last, that I’ve been able to hear it.”
“Maleon!!!”
“It’s singing.”
Slowly, Maleon turned to face Lennok and spread his arms.
As if surrendering his body to the immeasurably beautiful melody, as if even his own existence and answers were being passed on.
Snap, crackle…!!!
Veins bulged in Maleon’s neck, and the tearing sound of muscles and joints rupturing was heard.
He exerted such immense force that the scales covering his neck began to shed and bleed.
WHUMP!!!!!
Starlight, coiling around Maleon’s entire body, rotated at tremendous speed, lifting his body into the air.
An intense heat source swept away everything except the throne and pressed down on spacetime like a storm.
“Hah…!!”
Lennok, his face pale, looked up at the sight, gritted his teeth and drew up his mana.
Having come this far, he could no longer delay.
The moment he began to incant the single countermeasure he had prepared against Maleon Gnosis.
[It’s singing to me.]
Maleon pressed his eyes with both hands so hard they seemed to burst, and threw his head back.
As if wanting to shout that fact until his throat burst, he cried out, as if unable to bear it.
[The sea, it’s singing to me…!!!!!!!!]
“Maleon Gnosis!!!!!”
At the same time, Lennok pulled out a grimoire, opened a page, and slammed it down with force.
Celestial Spellcraft Deployment Celestial Sphere Formation Spero Sphaera
WHOOSH!!
Light surging from the grimoire expanded, drawing a massive Celestial Sphere above the page.
A colossal Celestial Sphere unfurled above Lennok and Maleon’s heads and began to rotate majestically.
The Celestial Spellcraft of Chicheon, borrowed from the Archive of Darkness: Miniature Garden.
It was spellcraft borrowed to twist the veil and head to Kundara, but Lennok had not forgotten Claris’s explanation.
Chicheon’s Celestial Spellcraft. A hidden function within the Miniature Garden, which was the origin of the Domain spell.
An ability to forcibly expand consciousness through the Miniature Garden and forcibly draw out a Long-lived Being’s true form.
A countermeasure Lennok had recalled immediately after realizing Maleon Gnosis was trying to hide his true form.
The moment Lennok finally brought it out, forcibly imposing it on Maleon and stripping away his disguise.
[AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!]
Maleon’s Telepathic Transmission, a mix of ecstasy and agony, exploded, and a brilliant silver radiance enveloped his body.
CRASH!!!!
From within the light, gigantic dragon forelegs and hind legs simultaneously burst forth.
A torso covered in dazzling scales, a tail rigid as steel rebar. Massive wings slowly flapped.
And, attached to the beautiful body of the Gemstone Dragon, ‘two heads.’
“……You.”
Only then did Lennok understand why Maleon had tried so desperately to conceal his true form.
The Gemstone Dragon, said to be born once every thirteen generations, was not one person.
A mutant with two heads attached to a single body.
Maleon Gnosis was a conjoined twin.
[Don’t look!! Don’t look at me!!!!]
ROAR!!!!
One of the gigantic dragon heads flared its inner light, raising its gaze, while the other hung limply.
Only one of the two heads functioned normally, the other was dead, without even a life sign.
The living dragon head among them roared savagely in Maleon’s voice.
[Don’t imprint my form upon your eyes!!!]
“…….”
But now, Lennok could truly understand all the incongruities he had felt about Maleon.
The reason Maleon Gnosis left a dragon head remaining even after disguising himself in human form.
It wasn’t that Maleon hadn’t changed his own head into human form.
Even after completing his disguise in human form, there was still one more head that the disguise hadn’t applied to.
‘The reason he possessed such an unusually stable hierarchy.’
Because he shared two heads on a single body, Maleon’s consciousness was overwhelmingly vast compared to others.
Thus, even after transcending the hierarchy, he could quickly stabilize his hierarchy using that vast consciousness.
‘That’s also why he was unusually weak to absorbing Dead Thoughts for a Transcendent.’
One of Maleon’s heads was alive, the other was dead.
Because he carried a dead head, he was relatively more sensitive to and drawn to Dead Thoughts.
Even Maleon, having become an Ascendant, was unusually shaken and tormented by Dead Thought absorption, and that was why.
Why he hadn’t dropped his disguise until the very moment he was reborn as an Ascendant.
Why he possessed the most stable hierarchy among all Level 8s Lennok had ever met.
What the reason was for him being uncharacteristically shaken while absorbing the Founders’ Dead Thoughts.
It was because the being known as Maleon Gnosis was not, from the start, a single person.
[AAAAAHHHH!!!]
As if unable to bear revealing his true form, Maleon roared, shaking his head wildly.
Lennok, reading Maleon’s raw will-thought and emotions erupting without restraint, could understand the reason.
It wasn’t because he was ashamed or found his twin-headed form hideous.
He was unbearably afraid of the fact that his other head was dead.
“……Maleon.”
Kaiser’s death. An unexpected end.
Maleon’s rampage and his true identity.
In this spacetime filled only with chaos, he tried desperately to gather his thoughts.
Gritting his teeth and suppressing his emotions, he sought the best course of action.
Lennok, calling Maleon’s name in a subdued voice, said.
“What you’re hearing isn’t a melody. It’s not music.”
[……No, don’t look at me…….]
“Even the calm and relief you feel are false emotions. Look at me.”
Lennok, pointing to his own exhausted and disheveled self amidst the fierce battle, said.
“I am here. Whatever problem you face, I can help you.”
[…….]
“Just as I helped you during the Promotion Ritual, I can help you now.”
Did Lennok’s calm, level voice reach beyond Maleon’s chaotic mind?
Maleon’s constantly wavering mental waves could be felt slowly subsiding.
But Lennok remained vigilant until the end, and said.
“Tell me what the problem is. Tell me what you fear first.”
[……Van.]
“Even if you’ve become a Level 9 Ascendant, I would—”
“Ah, that’s incorrect.”
At that moment, someone’s voice interjected between Lennok and Maleon.
Lennok’s expression froze as he instantly located the source of the sound.
The second head, dangling from the chest of Maleon who had transformed into a dragon.
The dead dragon head, which had been hanging limply, was now moving its mouth and speaking.
“Maleon Gnosis was shaken by nothing other than you, you see.”
“……What?”
“Through the Promotion Ritual, he experienced your talent and existence with his entire being, and at its conclusion, he perceived the difference in the answers he reached.”
But the head, paying no heed to Lennok’s reaction, continued to speak fluently.
“Thanks to that, a miracle occurred where a ritual that should have failed succeeded, but the rift created in his heart by it was beyond mending.”
“…….”
“He was already shaken long before he absorbed the Dead Thoughts. He could only endure because he held himself together by using his promise to you as an anchor.”
Eloquence so fluent it made its prior silence seem like a lie.
“That was possible thanks to Maleon’s own powerful will and his outstanding self-control, which allowed him to compartmentalize his emotions despite an unbearable sense of defeat…”
The dead second head slowly lifted its gaze to look at Lennok.
“And thanks to that self-control, I was finally able to awaken, so everything truly is two sides of the same coin, isn’t it?”
“Who… are you?”
“As you know, I am not the Gemstone Dragon called Maleon Gnosis.”
The dead head smiled.
“The Dead Thoughts remaining in this space gathered in this dead head and regained memories, so if you insist on a name—”
The dragon’s two heads, looking at Lennok, simultaneously tilted.
“I suppose I should be called Ascendant Seonjong (善終). The being who was Faud Older.”