Chapter 1235: Adamant Thunder Annihilation Campaign (26)
The gateway adjacent to the heart of the District 49 Labyrinth. A plaza where golden arches soared.
Two people sat facing each other at a small table, sipping tea.
A deep rumble…!!!
“It’s time. It seems they’ve started right away.”
Jutiya Heiberk set down her teacup, listening to the resounding roar.
“It’s a little earlier than planned, but if the archer of the Outer Lightning Tribe decided, we can trust it. Adamant Thunder trusts her judgment in the field, you see.”
“……”
“Honestly, when I first heard the plan, I never thought this war would reach this point… It’s ironic.”
Jutiya Heiberk muttered, taking her eyes off the person sitting opposite her.
“Unless one is a god, it’s impossible to calculate everything and discuss grand strategies… yet he has manipulated this war to this point, even using his own madness as a variable.”
“……”
“However this ends, this war will be remembered in the continent’s history. Whether it will be the slaughter of a mad Transcendent, or the challenge of a great wizard, I do not know… but at the very least, everyone will know what kind of human Adamant Thunder was.”
Jutiya Heiberk turned her gaze to the person sitting opposite her.
Her eyes narrowed as if meeting the gaze of the young man whose face was covered with cloth, and Jutiya Heiberk spoke.
“Even the fact that he is a uniquely special existence, one that even the Empire’s royalty takes note of.”
“……”
Ezekiel Ron Maize did not reply.
Instead, he merely stroked the untouched teacup with his long fingers.
“You’ve changed a lot.”
He said softly, quietly looking down at the tea Jutiya Heiberk had personally served.
“I recall you couldn’t even properly brew a cup of tea like this back when you served as the Central Scribe of the Council of Fate.”
“……”
“After the Imperial Palace fell, everything became like this teacup.”
Ezekiel Ron Maize slowly raised his eyes, staring at the silent Jutiya Heiberk.
“Just as my sister changed, and just as you changed, everything changes. We realized that truth far too late.”
“……”
“If you desire something, you cannot remain in the present… and because you want something, you cannot stay still. Is that not why we ourselves ended Ars Nova’s fate?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“In the current situation, it is clear that that wizard ‘desires’ more than anyone else in this city.”
Ezekiel Ron Maize said, placing a hand on the table and slowly rising.
“If so, I must confirm if he is the one who carries on the will of the fallen Empire. Perhaps even the will itself.”
“……Would it be correct to assume that is why you joined the faction of the One Who Walks Backward?”
“I once made a promise with my sister a long time ago.”
Ezekiel Ron Maize said in an emotionless voice.
“That no matter what, I would never stand on her side… I promised her that.”
“……”
“If my small consideration reaches the kin who are watching this war, that will be enough.”
“……I see. Understood.”
As Jutiya Heiberk closed her eyes, the table and teacup before her vanished as if wiped clean.
Jutiya Heiberk slowly rose, looking at Ezekiel Ron Maize’s unperturbed back, and walked away without hesitation.
Unlike Ezekiel Ron Maize, who headed for the gateway, Jutiya Heiberk went towards a small passage on the opposite side of the cavern.
“Are you leaving?”
“Our role in this war is not to perish with The Legion, but to buy time…”
Jutiya Heiberk said without looking back.
“I never intended to hold you for long from the start. Adamant Thunder desires not success, but failure in this war.”
“……”
“I was half in doubt, but now, I can’t deny that all the conditions have been met.”
Jutiya Heiberk muttered, slowly continuing her walk.
“Please, I’m counting on you.”
Whoosh!
With those words, Jutiya Heiberk vanished as if wiped away.
Not only the tea and table she had served, but also, as if nothing had been there from the start, only an empty wind blew.
But Ezekiel Ron Maize was not sensing Jutiya Heiberk; he was aware of the rapidly disappearing presences throughout the Labyrinth.
Adamant Thunder’s subordinates, who had been fighting the superhumans from The Legion who entered District 49, were disappearing one by one.
As if by agreement, they vanished, leaving only the outsiders who had entered the Labyrinth behind.
It was a ‘premonition,’ as if clearing the stage for a coming monumental event.
“Counting on me, huh…”
Ezekiel Ron Maize chuckled and walked towards the gateway.
“Words only fit for when His Majesty the Emperor was still alive.”
Shwaaak!!
A sharp tearing sound cut through the air.
But in this battlefield, that sound was closer to the whisper of death than the wind.
“D-dodge?!”
Ermont, panting and sprinting, ducked his head and rolled forward.
A black short spear flew directly into the head of a soldier running beside Ermont, impaling him.
Thwack!!!
A single blow that flew in before he could even turn his head, piercing his temple and crushing his frontal lobe.
Even after piercing the skull of a superhuman whose body was enhanced with mana, it still had enough force to pin his body to the cavern wall, preserving him like a specimen.
“Gurgle…!!”
He was already dead before he could even moan, blood foam seeping from his mouth.
A delayed death rattle escaped the soldier’s mouth, who had instantly become a corpse.
Next to the soldier, pinned to the wall by his head, dozens of other corpses had already met the same end.
Koo-woo-wooong!!!!
“Eek…!!”
The soldiers and superhumans running together around them sharply bowed their heads, their faces pale.
A chilling scene that even seasoned veterans hesitated to turn their gaze to observe.
But more terrifying than that was the sniping itself, flying from beyond the elegantly rotating golden wings.
Shwaak, then thwack. Pew, then crack.
The sounds cutting through the air changed slightly, but the fact that a superhuman on their side died with each sound remained unchanged.
Only the location where the incoming arrow pierced – whether it was the head, chest, or neck – varied each time.
Boom!!
“Hee-eek!!”
The head of a priest running behind Ermont exploded and vanished.
He fell forward with a splat, scattering blood, without even a scream.
At that instant, Evelyn Marcia’s arrow surged, not missing the movement, but a Magic Scribe grabbed Ermont by the collar and yanked him back.
Ermont, sliding on the flowing blood, rolled across the cavern floor and slammed headfirst into the wall.
Shwaaaak!!!
Thump!!
“Guh-ack!!”
“What a pathetic sight.”
Red eye-glow from beyond the obsidian mask looked down at Ermont mockingly.
“I wonder if I should have even bothered to save a guy who’s just going to jump into another body and run.”
“No, that’s also… without a suitable Incarnation Body, it’s just a dog’s death, I tell y-”
Before Ermont could say anything, Victor’s form, enveloped in a shadow robe, vanished.
Victor instantly traversed the cavern wall, accelerating to avoid the black-blue lightning flickering from all directions.
Following his movement, lightning flashed and struck the heads of soldiers moving here and there.
While Ermont stared blankly, dozens of black short spears plunged into the massive body of Quetzalcoatl, which had risen above his head.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!!!
“Hee-ek! Ha-at! Hwee-ing!!”
The black spearheads pierced through the snake’s scales and flesh, stopping one after another right in front of Ermont’s nose.
In front of the trembling Ermont, whose face had turned pale, the tattered snake gaped open its mouth.
Chomp!!!
“Black Wizard.”
Baragan, a sorcerer drenched in viscous bodily fluids, glared down at Ermont with a grim expression.
“Can’t you tone down that awful screaming?”
“Ba-Baragan?!”
Splash!!
Baragan, who had crawled out of the snake’s throat, hung from its wing and snarled.
“That irritating voice makes it hard to get my bearings. The Substitution Spell was almost a failure.”
“No, more importantly, how are you here?! Did you just arrive?”
“I used a totem. Got tied up in some useless place…”
Baragan replied, running a hand through his wet hair.
“Adamant Thunder has prepared a truly annoying setup. Thanks to him, I got royally screwed.”
“……What did you fight?”
“Never mind the details, just explain the situation quickly. Stop overreacting.”
“That’s too much. How can you call this an overreac-!”
Shwaak!! Boom!!!
Ermont shouted, using a modified soldier next to him as a shield to dodge an arrow.
Ermont trembled as he saw the soldier’s head, replaced by machinery, pierced and crushed by the arrow.
“So many have died already, and we haven’t even stepped on that woman’s shadow. It’s wrong, we’re all going to die!!”
“However, the battle situation is undeniably more chaotic than expected.”
Shwaak!!
Esteban Aisen, the 5th Seat of the Ability Awakening Warband, landed behind Ermont, snatching an arrow that flew low across the ground.
A technique of manipulating the mercury flowing beneath his feet to coil around the arrowhead, suppressing its spin and stopping it in mid-air.
Crunch…!!!
The viscous mercury twisted spirally along the direction of rotation, emitting a bizarre sound, and only after a long moment did it stop.
Only then did Esteban Aisen pick up the black short spear, stopped within the mercury, and spoke.
“It’s sniping us from hundreds of meters away, but the rotational force doesn’t diminish at all. It even feels like it accelerates the further it travels.”
“……”
“It rains down from the sky, then flies just above the ground like that just now. Its speed, direction, trajectory, and even its target are completely unpredictable.”
Crack!!
Esteban Aisen’s gaze, having snapped the short spear by coiling mercury around it, turned cold.
“Most dangerously, its size and strength cannot possibly be that of an arrow… there’s no talking when such a weapon is strung and fired.”
“……”
“The Agents’ Hyun-gung. Her archery is even more formidable than the rumors. There’s an incredibly skilled sniper on that side.”
“Hyun-gung is one of the most dangerous superhumans in Adamant Thunder’s Magic Tower, alongside the Thorben Magic Tower Lord…”
Deimus replied, his face pale, fumbling with the mercury he used to staunch his shoulder.
“She’s a genius who graduated at the top of Machina’s Enforcer curriculum, and a veteran who has faced all sorts of monsters and superhumans in Vulcan’s underworld… She won’t falter even in this chaotic battle.”
“……That’s.”
“In a situation where she occupies a high ground and unilaterally snipes from ultra-long range like now, she’s practically the strongest…”
“That’s precisely the problem.”
Baragan clicked his tongue and raised his hand. He glared at the sky through a hail of arrows piercing Quetzalcoatl’s tattered wings.
“High ground that didn’t exist in this battlefield is continuously being created. And only in a way that’s advantageous to that archer.”
“……”
Koo-goo-goo-goo!!!!
The heart of Adamant Thunder’s Domain, located in District 49.
The presence of Adamant Thunder arrived as the sky, enveloped in dark-blue nebula, opened.
Every time the mass of nine golden wings rotated in the center of the Domain, the landscape of the cavern was dramatically transforming.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa!!
Gigantic golden pillars continuously rose from the ground, soaring high into the sky, forming massive arches.
Golden arches, hundreds of meters tall, surged from all over the cavern, enveloping Adamant Thunder and beginning to rotate like enormous rings.
Evelyn Marcia was climbing onto these arches, concealing her presence, and launching unilateral snipes from the high ground.
This was why the Transcendent gathering in the heart of the Domain at this point were being held up by a single archer.
“The structure of the Labyrinth is changing simultaneously with Adamant Thunder’s Magic Tower arriving at the center of the Domain…”
Esteban Aisen muttered.
“Is that the premonition of the Ascension Ritual The Doctor mentioned?”
“To be precise, it should be seen as a stage that is completely opposite to a premonition.”
At that moment, a somewhat familiar voice leisurely echoed from behind Ermont.
A disheveled, gray-haired man in a lab coat was prostrate in front of Ermont.
“The Doctor!!”
“My apologies for being late. This body isn’t specialized for combat, so it was quite difficult to break through the Labyrinth, you see.”
The Doctor said, still prostrate.
“Moreover, I encountered an erudite wizard, which took some time. I hope you will understand with a generous heart.”
“……”
The moment they saw The Doctor’s face as he brushed himself off and stood up, everyone else was struck speechless.
“Artemeyer. Your face…”
“Ah, I look a little older, don’t I?”
The face of the ‘vessel’ The Doctor was using had aged dramatically, almost to that of an old man.
It looked as if he had aged decades in the short time it took to break through the Labyrinth.
“You can’t avoid a drastic reduction in lifespan when using the knowledge of the Ascension Gate. It’s unfortunate for this body, but unavoidable.”
“……”
The Doctor said casually, touching his chin.
“He was a promising engineer who made a name for himself in Endorose, but he met an unfortunate end at a young age.”
“……Why are you speaking as if it’s someone else’s problem?”
“Anyway, let’s continue what we were saying. I want to finish quickly while Victor buys us time.”
Flash, flash, flash!!!
As Victor used Flicker to accelerate, dark-blue lightning rotated, chasing after him.
At the moment the lightning from all eight directions warped towards one person, black arrows rained down upon the battlefield.
Red eye-glow and green eyes almost simultaneously flashed past each other.
Shwaaak!!
“……”
Was the complex emotion in the gaze directed at the obsidian mask doubt, or conviction?
It felt as if he had seen that face somewhere before, a face that had gained trust despite giving no definitive answer.
But Evelyn Marcia did not wait for a further answer, immediately turning her great bow to aim at the ground.
The ending that this battlefield needed was a draw, akin to a Pyrrhic victory.
To achieve that, the balance of the battlefield had to be chipped away to a predetermined extent.
Kwoo-aaang!!!
The impaled body of a soldier, amidst a flurry of arrows, slammed into the wall above The Doctor’s head, preserved.
Tracing the blood flowing down the wall with one hand, The Doctor drew a picture on the floor and spoke.
“Adamant Thunder is currently trying to complete the Ascension Ritual in District 49, arriving one step behind us. At this point, the remaining forces outside can be considered practically annihilated.”
“……”
“Separately, Hyun-gung has secured an advantageous position and is reducing our numbers. Therefore, your task will be to break through Hyun-gung’s suppression and stop the Ascension Ritual.”
“The Doctor. I told you, stop speaking as if it’s someone else’s problem?”
“The problem is that as soon as Adamant Thunder arrived at the center of the Domain, the entire Labyrinth facility reacted and began to change.”
The Doctor said, lightly ignoring Ermont’s words.
“This Labyrinth has been constantly changing, but it was always limited to altering existing environments or facility structures. But now, it’s transforming the Labyrinth’s very form entirely.”
“……”
“Completely disassembling the floor and re-laying it, creating and stacking new structures, and then reassembling them… Haven’t you seen a similar transformation during the Annihilation Campaign before?”
“……That’s.”
Immediately after hearing The Doctor’s explanation, everyone felt a strong sense of déjà vu, then Esteban Aisen spoke softly.
“Mass Spellcraft.”
“Correct, superhuman. Quite astute, as expected of a friend sent by the Zero Seat.”
The Doctor smeared the blood flowing on the wall and drew another picture on the floor.
“Adamant Thunder is now simultaneously applying Mass Spellcraft to this entire spacetime as soon as he arrived in District 49. All these transformations are evidence of that.”
“That’s impossible…”
The faces of the Transcendent, who belatedly understood The Doctor’s explanation, turned aghast.
“He cast that spell, the one that destroyed the command center, across the entire District 49?”
“Are you saying Adamant Thunder cast such a Transcendent spell targeting his entire Domain?”
“That’s not just attempting an Ascension Ritual; it’s practically being an Ascendant already.”
“Exactly. It’s inherently absurd.”
The Doctor agreed with the astonished Transcendent.
“However, if we slightly change our existing premise, it’s not impossible.”
“What premise are you talking about?”
“There’s no time, The Doctor. Speak quickly!!”
“What if this Labyrinth we’re in isn’t simply Adamant Thunder’s Domain, but a part of the Magic Tower he created?”
“……What?”
“We’ve always thought that this Labyrinth in District 49 existed separately from the Magic Tower, but that wasn’t the case.”
The Doctor raised his gaze.
“This Labyrinth was not Adamant Thunder’s Domain, but the Magic Tower he created itself. And what we believed to be Adamant Thunder’s Magic Tower until now was…”
Flash!!!!
The golden Cocoon, surrounded by nine wings, rotated elegantly and descended from the center of the Domain.
As all the superhumans who arrived late to the battlefield stared blankly at the sight, The Doctor softly muttered.
“It wasn’t the Magic Tower, but merely the Magic Tower’s ‘engine’.”
Whoosh!!!
The golden Cocoon enveloping Adamant Thunder perfectly settled into the heart of the Labyrinth, emitting a brilliant white light.
Dark-blue lightning surged between the golden arches, rapidly spreading throughout the entire Labyrinth.
As if regaining a lost power source, like a fire igniting in a cold hearth, fuel was supplied, and functions awakened.
Throughout the Labyrinth, countless white and pale hands surged, beginning to embrace everything.
Mass-Hierarchy Unique Spellcraft
[Creation: Fallen God’s Outer Paradise]
[Formation: Grand Awe Genesis Formula, Stage 1]
Fwoosh!!!!
Scores of meters of pale hands surged one after another along the ground and walls.
The slowly swaying white hands undulated like waves, becoming a ripple of grace.
Soon, they clasped hands and rotated in a circle, rising into the sky as a pale halo.
Chomp…!!
The pale halo floated above the nine wings, and grotesque eyes appeared beneath the wings.
Hundreds of eyes, their focus blurred, emerged on the surface of the wings enveloping Adamant Thunder, contemplating the ground.
A pale halo created by the white hands clasping each other. The golden-winged Cocoon, nested within those hands, ‘opened its eyes.’
Everyone was speechless at the fragment of transcendence, bizarre and inaccessible, completely beyond the human realm.
“A monster has descended into this world. Such antics, right to the very end…”
Baragan replied with a hardened expression.
“Who’s its father? It’s not some Outer God’s bloodline, is it?”
“Excuse me, but this was not in the plan.”
Ermont, staring up blankly, muttered with a dumbfounded expression.
“There hasn’t been a moment in this war that wasn’t dangerous, but isn’t this too much?”
“The engine returns to the Magic Tower, the entire District 49 is imbued with Mass Spellcraft, and it transforms into the optimal form for the ritual…”
Esteban Aisen said.
“Did Adamant Thunder intend to use this entire spacetime as a [sacrificial altar] for the ritual from the beginning?”
“All the slaughter and destruction in this war were preparations for it.”
The Doctor stroked his chin.
“It’s an honor to witness the moment world history changes with you all.”
“……”
“Now… the final stage of the Ascension Ritual begins.”
There was no time to argue with The Doctor’s utterly absurd observation.
As everything was tinged white, all expression vanished from their faces.
Fwoooooosh!!!!!