Chapter 1113: Afterglow (1)
OOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
The Gate of Darkness rotated in a circle, scattering distant black ripples.
Like a stone cast into a sea of darkness, the world rippled and convulsed violently.
The fading form of The Gate, which had flung Seonjong’s soul and consciousness into the ruined future beyond.
A failed conclusion that had lost the meaning of ‘next’. A future of a timeline that had met its end.
The moment a black star swirled around the sky where an Ascendant had risen, departing from reality.
Lennok, who had been staring at The Gate with vacant eyes, slowly knelt and collapsed.
“Ugh…!”
He coughed, spewing black blood down his front.
The hemorrhaging worsened, too much for both hands to contain.
Lennok, silently looking down at it, gave a hollow smile.
“…Ha.”
A Domain is the power to project a caster’s Root Mindscape onto reality.
But the Domain Lennok reached at the end of a corrupted divergence was different.
Instead of deploying the Domain by projecting the Root Mindscape onto reality,
it was a form that opened The Gate and revealed the Root Mindscape existing beyond it.
The ability to open The Gate itself was merely a part of the Domain’s deployment.
Had the Domain that the failed Lennok acquired become so corrupted, losing even its name and form?
As Lennok thought so, staring blankly at the closing crack in The Gate.
…
From the other side of an endless void, something faintly peeked through.
A fragment of a failed, doomed future that Lennok had yet to face.
The other side of The Gate, which he had reached and held, yet whose name he did not even know.
“…”
Lennok peered into The Gate.
From ‘the other side,’ it peered back at Lennok.
The longer he stared at it, the more it stared back from the other side.
It wasn’t reacting specially, nor was it forcibly ignoring him. It was simply ‘perceiving’ him.
With that thought, Lennok forcibly tore his gaze away from beyond the closing Gate.
Whoosh…!!!
As The Gate vanished, the sanctuary of the Hall of the Thunder God also slowly disappeared.
The Lightning Spear, engulfed in thunder and lightning, vanished. Hyeonghokseong, scattering and dissolving into flames.
Only Lennok remained, slumped in the center of the plummeting Ninth Tribulation, coughing up black blood.
In the sky of reality, where The Gate and the Space-Thought Domain had simultaneously vanished.
Realizing Maleon’s presence had disappeared, Lennok quietly closed his eyes.
“…Maleon.”
What Lennok had gained was the extreme of a failed, corrupted divergence, one he could not have reached himself.
He was merely wielding a spellcraft that ran wild beyond its limits, unchecked and rampant.
While he could open The Gate and display the mental image of a ruined future, controlling it had been impossible from the start.
Therefore, only at the last moment could Lennok decide how to conclude Maleon’s fate.
Because he knew Maleon had strived to be himself and done his best until the very end.
Because he understood Maleon had entrusted the end of his self-proclaimed futile journey to Lennok.
Lennok, instead of directly choosing Maleon’s end—
“Cough…!!”
Gasping for breath as if about to break, Lennok rose to his feet with blurry eyes.
He had settled things by sending Seonjong’s will-thought into the future, but it wasn’t over yet.
If he didn’t escape the Ninth Tribulation, all his carefully laid plans would be for naught, and he would burn to death right here.
He had to escape this battlefield, plummeting at an incredible speed, to properly finish everything.
Thinking this, the moment Lennok took a step forward.
THUD!!
Lennok lost his balance, fell headfirst, and rolled down the corridor, which was awash with flames.
“…Kuh!!!”
Burning, melting debris. The station shook violently, its heat intensifying.
Oxygen became scarce, his breathing ceased, and his vision blurred.
He had used up all his remaining time and energy before opening the Hall of the Thunder God.
Without the power of the sanctuary, he wouldn’t even be able to move like this.
Opening The Gate and achieving victory was the last thing Lennok had been able to calculate.
Yet, one contingency remained that he had prepared for this very moment.
“Ugh…!!”
Lennok retched, vomiting black blood, and with difficulty, shoved his hand into his pocket.
With trembling hands, he pulled out an old notebook and tossed it down.
The Blood-Thought Scribe, a blood-based database created by the Fearsome Blood King. A recording device and communicator that responded using blood as its medium.
Flutter!
He raised a finger over a randomly opened page of the Blood-Thought Scribe.
With a trembling hand, he dipped it into the black blood pooling at his feet and smeared it onto the paper.
The black blood smeared clumsily, too much to even form letters.
But from beyond, someone who recognized Lennok’s blood responded.
[Adamant Thunder.]
“…Only once.”
Lennok mumbled in a broken voice.
“If the timing isn’t… matched…”
[…]
He had no strength to write on the Blood-Thought Scribe, so the Fearsome Blood King wouldn’t have heard his answer.
But the vampire beyond the notebook, who was aware of this very moment, did not hesitate.
Whoosh!!!
Bright red blood welled up on the old page, forming a complex Blood Magic Circle within the notebook.
Lennok, watching it with blurry eyes, weakly dropped his head.
“…I.”
In the end, had Lennok done well until the very end?
Could he even do well until the very end?
Even after pouring everything out, it wasn’t perfect, and regrets still lingered.
But because Lennok himself had decided not to choose everything directly.
There was something he had to do because he had chosen to leave that possibility within this.
Even if it was unsatisfactory, incomplete, clumsy, and futile, if this was the only way.
If the desire to move forward was all that remained for Lennok.
BOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!
Below the melting window, the rapidly approaching ground scenery peeked through.
The Central Front’s outer border zone, where vast forests and grasslands stretched out.
The plummeting, burning Ninth Tribulation, and Lennok’s figure wavering at its edge.
And a storm of flames, burning everything and scattering.
The moment they met at a single point, plummeting thousands of kilometers to the ground.
CRAAAAAASSSSHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
A distant light, completely covering the horizon, enveloped Lennok’s consciousness.
A hazy shimmer wavered before his eyes.
Everything around him blurred and wavered, barely visible.
Opening his eyes only worsened the foreign sensation, failing to bring anything into focus.
“…”
But instead of forcing himself up, Lennok quietly recalled his memories.
Hadn’t he been told to remember the last moment before losing consciousness?
Fortunately, Lennok had no difficulty remembering what he had been doing.
From drinking the Elixir of Ascension and ascending to the Ninth Tribulation, fighting on the plummeting battlefield, to settling matters using his ‘failed’ Domain.
Even the memory of The Gate that Lennok himself had opened.
“…”
How long had he been unconscious? How much time had passed since then?
Lennok, raising his gaze blankly, soon realized his eyesight hadn’t worsened.
It wasn’t that all objects around him were blurry.
A wet towel or something similar was simply covering his face, obstructing his view.
At that moment, a familiar voice echoed in Lennok’s ears.
“You’re awake?”
Whoosh!!
With a hand brushing his face, the towel was gone.
A black-haired girl with glowing red eyes sat looking at Lennok.
Only then did Lennok realize he was lying on a soft, wide bed.
The Fearsome Blood King, who had been checking a medical chart with a small ballpoint pen, turned and asked.
“You regained consciousness faster than I expected. Considering your injuries, I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d been unconscious for another two weeks.”
“…”
“You ‘died once’ and came back. Did you know?”
“…At the end.”
Lennok coughed with difficulty, his voice dry.
“It seems… I managed to match the timing.”
The Blood-Veil Palace, located at the boundary between reality and the Imaginary Dimension. The Blood Management Room, situated deep within it.
The Fearsome Blood King had been treating the unconscious Lennok here.
“It was only possible because I’m contracted as your summon. If I’d been even a little late opening the Blood-Veil Palace and bringing you here, it would’ve been disastrous.”
The Fearsome Blood King scoffed.
“But are you going to say something so meaningless right after waking up? I expected a more… profound impression.”
“Profound impression…”
Lennok mumbled weakly and asked.
“Was it the Extra Life Vessel?”
After drinking the Elixir of Ascension, Lennok knew he had to die once.
Although he suppressed the poison with Pyeonram’s Dark Scale, he couldn’t completely block the toxic effects that had spread throughout his body.
Given time, Lennok’s entire body would have literally rotted away, leading to an inevitable death.
To prepare for that, he had two contingencies: the Extra Life Vessel and the Art of Resurrection.
Lennok realized that he had barely saved his life by consuming the Extra Life Vessel.
“If you know what happened, it makes explanations easier.”
The girl, leaning back in her chair, replied languidly.
“The moment your body entered a state of suspended animation, some of the damage that should have accumulated in your physical body disappeared. The Extra Life Vessel was likely consumed in its place.”
“…”
“But not all the backlash and damage accumulated in your body during that time disappeared, so I’ve been treating you here.”
“…It only absorbed fatal damage once; it wasn’t something that healed physical injuries.”
Lennok said with a wry smile.
“Considering that, my body doesn’t feel as bad as I expected.”
“An Extra Life Vessel isn’t always a convenient item, you know. Didn’t you know that and prepare accordingly?”
The Fearsome Blood King asked.
“More critically, the scale embedded in your carotid artery. I don’t know where you got it, but you had an absurd item.”
The Fearsome Blood King pointed to the dark scale lying beside Lennok’s bed and said.
“It contains a will-thought so transcendent that even the Eight Great Dragon Kings are no match. A mere scale, yet it’s equivalent to a relic-grade spell-armament.”
“…”
“Thanks to this preventing the poison from reaching your brain, we were able to minimize damage to your nervous system. You were lucky in many ways.”
“…Preserving just the brain and nervous system wouldn’t have been enough to manage it.”
Lennok replied weakly.
“It was a gamble, assuming I’d die once. The poison would have spread to every cell in my body; did you extract all of it?”
“You already prepared the method for that, didn’t you?”
WHOOSH!!
The girl snatched something wriggling at the edge of the bed and held it out to Lennok.
“You entrusted this one to Olivera. I thought for sure it was because of this.”
“…”
Hiss…!!
A small snake-like figure landed on Lennok’s bed, flicking its tongue wildly.
Even seeing Lennok lying with a pale complexion, it was clearly terrified.
Lennok, realizing the snake’s identity a moment too late, murmured.
“Nives Orosia.”
“This one had the antidote for the elixir you drank.”
The Fearsome Blood King said, lightly lifting Nives by its struggling tail.
“The amount was woefully insufficient, so I mixed in some True Blood and poured it straight into your body. Fortunately, it worked well.”
“Let go, let go…!!”
Nives, caught in the Fearsome Blood King’s hand, cried out weakly.
“Now, now that he’s awake, isn’t that enough…!! I’m leaving!!”
“Where are you going? You’re Olivera Ron Maize’s summon now.”
“You vampire…!!”
The snake gnashed its teeth, glaring at Racy with reptilian pupils.
“You’ve fallen so far. To willingly be a human’s summon, have you no pride?!”
“Oh, is that so?”
The Fearsome Blood King gave a cold smile.
“Pride… I threw that away a long time ago, so I don’t quite understand it.”
“You fiend!!”
“Don’t hate me so much. If you think about it, you and I are in the same situation, aren’t we?”
The girl, dropping Nives to the floor, casually waved her hand.
“I asked Olivera to summon you, so she’ll unsummon you again. Wait outside.”
“No, this can’t be…!! This isn’t the ending I wanted!!”
Following the Fearsome Blood King’s gesture, a shadow of blood rose from the Blood-Veil Palace floor, dragged Nives away, and vanished.
“You, you dared—Kundara—!!”
BOOM!!
With a scream, the door to the Blood Management Room closed, and the sickroom instantly fell silent.
The Fearsome Blood King, casually turning her gaze back to Lennok, shrugged.
“Anyway, through a combination of several coincidences, I managed to save your body.”
“…I see.”
“You said you had insurance to revive after drinking the elixir, but if you died due to bad luck, that would be troublesome for me too.”
The girl, turning her red eyes to meet Lennok’s, said.
“As long as you and I are bound by contract, your death would rebound to me in some way.”
“…”
“If something went wrong, it could even cause problems for my spiritual essence or bloodline. I absolutely detest such unpleasant experiences, understood?”
So the Fearsome Blood King saved Lennok herself because the summoner’s death could harm the summon?
Lennok nodded with a wry smile.
“I called it insurance, but I wasn’t entirely sure how the revival would occur. In the worst case, I might have had to endure damage to my Transcendent Rank.”
“…”
“Considering my body’s condition, avoiding unforeseen variables is something I welcome. You don’t need to make excuses.”
The Extra Life Vessel and the Art of Resurrection.
He had arranged for both to activate, triggered by his death,
but Lennok couldn’t be certain of the exact principles by which the process would occur.
It was obvious that the backlash would be immense, commensurate with the ‘sensation’ he had gained from drinking the elixir.
If he had revived with his entire body saturated in poison, instead of being cleansed and healed as he was now, problems would have arisen.
Without the Fearsome Blood King’s help, the backlash could have even affected Lennok’s Transcendent Rank.
“…Your body’s condition.”
But the Fearsome Blood King seemed to focus on a slightly different part of Lennok’s answer.
“I have something to say about that. Since Nives isn’t here, I can talk freely.”
The Fearsome Blood King, Racy, tapped the medical chart in her hand, looking at Lennok with serious eyes.
“Your condition is far worse than what one would expect from just being damaged by the Elixir of Ascension. Was your body already this broken to begin with?”
“…”
“The damage to your circulatory and immune systems is too severe. Your metabolic efficiency is so abnormally low that your body can’t properly circulate blood internally.”
Saying so, the Fearsome Blood King pointed to the cluster of IV drips hanging over Lennok’s head.
“So, I’m circulating all the blood in your entire body externally. See?”
“…”
All the IV drips in the Blood Management Room were densely arranged over Lennok’s bed.
IVs inserted into both of Lennok’s wrists, shoulders, and sides branched out in multiple directions, creating hundreds of drips.
Within them, purified blood was slowly being re-injected into Lennok’s body.
“If I weren’t contracted as your summon, I wouldn’t have been able to do this much.”
The Fearsome Blood King said with a serious expression.
“But you wouldn’t have let things get this far without a contract either, would you?”
“…”
She wasn’t wrong.
Lennok borrowing the Fearsome Blood King’s power at the last moment was largely due to the summoning contract he had with her.
Having experienced being treated by Murphy, a doctor in Vulcan, there was no reason not to entrust his treatment to the Fearsome Blood King, with whom he had a summoning contract.
He knew from past experience that the penalties etched into his body weren’t something that could be detected by such examinations.
“I’d like to know what’s happening outside.”
But instead of explaining his body, Lennok naturally changed the subject.
“When will I be able to move out of the Blood Management Room?”
“You… talk as if that’s a given, but you need to focus on recovery for at least another week.”
Racy sighed with an incredulous expression.
“Besides, are you even in a position to care about what’s happening outside right now?”
“Although I dropped the Ninth Tribulation into the Outer Sea, that wouldn’t have ended everything.”
Lennok replied quietly.
“Seonjong’s will-thought vanished, and Maleon died. The repercussions for Kundara must have been greater than that.”
“…”
“Where is Kundara now?”
Racy remained silent instead of answering the question.
Not because she didn’t want to answer, but because she was choosing her words.
Before he drank the elixir and ascended to the Ninth Tribulation, and even after, Racy hadn’t changed.
She acknowledged that Lennok had the right to hear the city’s fate.
“It was already too late the moment the Ninth Tribulation’s gravity began pulling Kundara.”
The Fearsome Blood King slowly turned and walked out of the Blood Management Room, speaking as she went.
“It was precarious even before you ascended to the Ninth Tribulation. Remaining within the Veil’s reverse side was impossible from the start.”
“…Then?”
“Originally, this city would have been drawn by the Ninth Tribulation’s gravity, pulled out into the Outer Sea, and shattered into pieces.”
Click.
The girl, grabbing the red curtain that had covered the wall, said.
“But you dropped the Ninth Tribulation, erasing its gravity, and held the city with the Dragon Kings’ Jurisdictions, reducing the damage by half.”
“…”
Half the damage.
Did that mean half of Kundara’s Long-lived Beings living in Outer Tribulation City had died?
As Lennok remained silently expressionless, the Fearsome Blood King glanced at him and said.
“You seem to misunderstand. I’m not talking about casualties. The ‘half the damage’ I mentioned is—“
WHOOSH!!
As the curtain was dramatically pulled back, the scenery outside the Blood-Veil Palace was reflected beyond.
The art of reflecting reality from within the Blood-Veil Palace, which the Fearsome Blood King had once shown him.
The moment Lennok witnessed Kundara’s landscape reflected outside the Blood-Veil Palace through it—
“…The city…”
A colossal satellite, once floating above the Universe of Mist.
The satellite that was once Kundara itself lay scattered in pieces across the plains.
The Central Front’s Western Border Zone. Inside and outside the Veil, where druids and the Headro Warlords clashed.
Fragments of what was once the city of Kundara were scattered across an endless plain.
The moment Lennok silently closed his mouth at the horrific afterimage of destruction.
Among the broken city fragments, countless Long-lived Beings could be seen moving through the city.
“What’s that…?”
Even though Kundara was shattered and scattered across the front lines, the Long-lived Beings who lived there still remained.
They moved, repairing and rebuilding, having split apart the city’s tiers, which had been divided into eight Tribulations.
Thousands of Long-lived Beings moved amidst the shattered satellite fragments.
Unlike the shattered, dead Outer Tribulation City, the light of life still existed there.
“We managed to protect the city’s core facilities and main structure, but not its form.”
The Fearsome Blood King, standing beside Lennok, explained.
“Since it’s no longer possible to maintain the satellite’s form, hiding within the Veil’s reverse side again has become impossible.”
“…”
“Do you understand what that means?”
The vampire asked with a strange expression, turning her gaze.
“The Outer Tribulation City will now advance to the Central Front… and live alongside the humans of the mundane world.”
The Outer Tribulation City, Kundara, hidden in the Veil’s reverse side, advancing to the Central Front.
Maleon’s plan had failed, but its repercussions changed the city’s direction.
The Long-lived Beings, who had hidden in the mist for over hundreds of years, had begun to officially enter the continent.
CRUNCH…!!
A dark, colossal figure, walking through the darkness, shimmered faintly.
With a heavy roar, something that had paused its steps raised its gaze.
“…”
Bright yellow reptilian eyes. Dark scales covering its entire body.
The moment the magnificent form of the Alligator Giant emerged, parting the shadows.
[What’s wrong?]
Behind it, a inorganic voice echoed.
[We still have a little further to go to the harbor. Considering the continent’s warped spacetime coordinates, we’ll need another half-day.]
“Somewhere on the continent…”
The giant, baring its teeth, replied.
“Something unpleasant opened and then closed.”
[…Unpleasant, you say?]
“…Khahat.”
The reptilian, bright yellow pupils, staring at the distant dark horizon, curved in a mocking manner.
“If you can’t even see it through to the end and have to quit, you shouldn’t have started in the first place.”
[…]
The Alligator Giant said no more and continued walking.
The earth’s axis faintly tilted, and the surroundings rumbled as if an earthquake had struck.
CRUNCH, CRUNCH…!!
The voice looked at the giant’s retreating back and quietly spoke.
[To go outside the continent, more complex procedures are required.]
“…”
[However, this time, a ‘path’ to guide your existence will exceptionally open.]
Croken did not reply.
Instead, with murderous pupils, he merely stared at the uncanny darkness approaching from afar.
Behind the Alligator Giant, who leisurely craned his neck, the voice quietly echoed.
[The Trampling Heaven is waiting. Let’s depart immediately.]