Chapter 1242: Adamant Thunder Annihilation Campaign (33)
The labyrinth and Domain were dismantled, revealing the dark sky over the ruins of District 49.
Leaning against the fallen, shattered fragments of golden wings, the Incarnation Body rested, seemingly asleep.
Passing by Deimus, who stared blankly at the sight, and then Song-ha, who lay collapsed before it with a pale face.
The wizard stopped directly behind Baragan, who was gathering his sorcerous power towards the Incarnation Body.
“…You.”
The moment Baragan saw Lennok’s expressionless face, his thoughts froze.
A heavy black coat. A black-haired young man with a calm, intellectual demeanor.
A chillingly serene and cool presence, looking this way with a gaunt face.
Even though it was the first time seeing his face directly, Baragan knew instinctively.
He couldn’t mistake the Spiritual Presence of the Transcendent he had faced countless times throughout this annihilation campaign.
The formidable adversary whom The Legion’s superhumans had risked their lives to wear down.
Making a mockery of all the moments they had hoped to achieve an end, even if they couldn’t win outright, by exhausting him together.
Ignoring their desperate struggles, their resistance, their thrashing, as if they were nothing, and speaking to him now.
Not for a single moment had Baragan imagined he would appear from behind him—
“This is… impossible…”
Baragan momentarily forgot the unfolding situation and muttered.
“Why are you… here—”
“Do I need to say it twice for you to understand?”
Crunch—
The wizard didn’t wait for an answer.
The moment Lennok cast his gaze, Baragan’s body was already slammed into the ground.
“Guh…!!!”
His entire body was crushed and pressed down by invisible, intangible mana.
Broken bone fragments pierced his lungs and cardiovascular system, staining Baragan’s face purple.
Overwhelming power instantly drove Baragan’s robust body, regenerated using Ethan Bajour’s blood, back to the brink of death.
Even without a glimpse of lightning, he had no choice but to understand.
A magic so incomprehensible that its principles could not even be guessed.
The transcendent demonic power that The Legion had guarded against until the very last moment throughout the annihilation campaign.
A grotesque, utterly bizarre genius that seemed to twist and wield the very laws of this world.
This man was, without a doubt—
“Adamant Thunder…!!!!”
Only after seeing Baragan pinned beneath Lennok’s foot did Deimus awaken from his frozen state.
He gasped in panic, having stared up at the throne beyond, pale and breathless.
“Impossible…!!! How, in the world…!!!!”
“Oh?”
Sarin, watching from afar, muttered with a blank expression.
“This isn’t some illusion, is it? Am I seeing things?”
“…”
The Iron Chain Dragon King silently raised his head, and Ezekiel took his hand off his sleeve.
Without a single word of reply, they never took their eyes off the wizard who had appeared on the battlefield.
A tacit agreement passed between the two Transcendent, as if by promise.
“Ah, surely…”
The superhumans, dying after their desperate struggle with the Incarnation Body, finally realized the situation and weakly parted their lips.
They didn’t know how there could be two Adamant Thunders on this battlefield.
They didn’t know how Adamant Thunder had made such a thing possible.
Only the unbelievable yet cruel reality was vividly etched into everyone’s eyes: that the Transcendent who had crushed Baragan with a mere glance was perfectly fine.
And that the Adamant Thunder they had sacrificed their lives to defeat wasn’t even the real one.
The dying superhumans convulsed and shivered in disbelief.
“This can’t be… This can’t be…”
“How… how could this happen, after coming all this way…!?”
Was this how it felt to realize, belatedly, that you had been madly obsessed with something meaningless?
Was this how it felt if someone told you that tens of thousands of lives had been poured into something utterly pointless?
If, in a war believed to be a noble sacrifice, a mission for a greater cause, they had gained nothing.
If the annihilation campaign they believed was the end hadn’t even truly begun.
“I’d like to express my gratitude first.”
Lennok turned away from Baragan, who was pinned to the ground.
“You all did remarkably well. You fought surprisingly well, even beyond what I had envisioned.”
“…”
“To be honest, I thought this war might not even reach this point. So I was preparing for the possibility of The Legion’s complete annihilation…”
Lennok slowly walked over and looked down at Song-ha.
The white-haired swordsman lay collapsed, his face pale. No breath could be felt from his blood-soaked body.
Lennok slowly tilted his head, watching Song-ha’s time rush towards its end.
“I can’t deny that the Captains’ talent and power were greater than I thought. Without you, I would have had to revise the plan a few more times.”
“…You, bastard.”
Looking at Baragan, who glared at him with bloodshot eyes, Lennok smiled faintly.
“Your totem sorcery was also a great help. Without Quetzalcoatl, so many of The Legion’s forces couldn’t have survived and entered my Domain.”
“…Bullshit…!!!”
“A reciprocal sorcery activated by consuming the totem you crafted. Even if the time spent is honestly converted into power, when it reaches a strategic-grade scale, it becomes such a threatening spellcraft.”
Lennok slowly moved on.
“Thanks to you, I was able to fully test the performance of the new Magic Tower until the very end. As a testbed, it was more than enough.”
“Shut up…!! You, dog…!!!”
Baragan coughed up blood, gritted his teeth, and convulsed, trying to get up.
Lennok’s response, praising and encouraging the desperate struggle for which The Legion had sacrificed their lives.
This war, in which tens of thousands of superhumans had been expended, was not for The Legion from the start.
Baragan understood that Lennok had intended all of this as a trial-and-error process, and he was enraged by it.
“Kuk…!! Aagh…!!”
Thud!!
Every time Baragan moved his arm, broken bones crushed his internal organs, causing blood to gush out.
Despite gathering his sorcerous power to reinforce his body and add strength, he ultimately couldn’t stand up and slammed his head back down.
Bang! Bang!
Pure mana, unmixed with any attribute or Will-thought.
Yet, pinned beneath it, he couldn’t rise for a single moment.
Baragan gasped in disbelief.
“Damn it!! Just simple mana, why…!!!”
“Because the way you activate your sorcerous power has long since been analyzed.”
Lennok looked down at Baragan with indifferent eyes.
“It starts in the lower dantian, passes through the spleen and liver, then rotates behind your neck to draw out your sorcerous power. Considering the importance of Spiritual Presence in sorcery, it’s not strange, but—”
Crack!
Lennok stepped on the back of Baragan’s neck with one foot and spoke casually.
“Conversely, that means I can read the prelude to your sorcerous power’s activation and cut it off before it becomes a meaningful force.”
“What, did you say…?”
“Did you think that after draining your sorcerous power to the bottom within my Domain to fight, I wouldn’t be able to analyze it?”
Lennok chuckled.
“I have a connection with Pyeonram, so I was somewhat wary of your sorcery. If she had intervened, I would have had to revise the plan a little.”
“…”
“You… this war… you were looking that far… ahead…”
Deimus fell silent, and Baragan gasped, gritting his teeth.
From an organization that started as Kaiser’s personal guard to becoming the continent’s largest warlord.
They had crossed the line between life and death countless times, surviving even crises that should have been fatal.
Always, they believed that if they could just fight, they would eventually win. But—
Adamant Thunder had never even intended to properly fight them in the first place.
“Why… why…!! Why is it that only you… can do such a thing…!! This is…!!!”
“One cannot plan everything by calculation unless one is a god.”
Lennok turned his steps.
“But I don’t wish to become a god. I learned from chance that it’s ultimately no different from failure.”
“…”
“What I can always do is plan for the worst, not the best… and this annihilation campaign was no different.”
He walked slowly, alone, through the debris where the golden wings had fallen.
At this moment, everyone on the battlefield looked up at Lennok alone.
Only Lennok’s voice resonated quietly through the silent, solemn battlefield.
“Assume the worst-case scenario and leave open possibilities. Hypothesize the worst branching point and guide the situation towards it. Because I came this far with that as my only goal…”
Clack!!
Lennok stopped before the broken throne and lowered his gaze.
The center of the ruins, where golden debris had piled up, towering high.
Looking at the Incarnation Body, flickering with dark blue lightning, its head bowed in slumber, Lennok spoke.
“This Ascension Ritual had to fail once here.”
“What, do you mean—”
The Incarnation Body was not modeled after Lennok, but after a martial artist from the First World.
This was unavoidable because Lennok’s talent possessed an absolute, unreplicable nature.
Therefore, it was natural that the Incarnation Body’s origin was closer to the Pontiff than to Lennok.
If the Ascension Ritual succeeded, its final destination would also clearly be similar to the Pontiff.
Indeed, as the ritual neared its end, the Incarnation Body began to transform into a grotesque form akin to the Pontiff.
Therefore, Lennok had intended to deliberately fail the ritual at a specific point.
The worst possible outcome: the Ascension Ritual, which began during the annihilation campaign, failing at a critical moment.
The one branching point that The Legion would have desperately wished for, and that would appear utterly disastrous to Adamant Thunder.
Because he had hypothesized that moment and guided the situation, all variables and circumstances could converge on this endpoint.
However, it was also clear how Lennok’s answer would appear to others.
“Heaven is truly heartless…”
Robert Loveride closed his eyes weakly, clutching his spilled internal organs.
“Was all this sacrifice and war… nothing more than a Transcendent’s amusement…?”
“Hahaha… Haaah… this is absurd…”
Atiya, with the upper left half of her body blown away, laughed with unfocused eyes.
“If I had… known this… I would have surrendered… earlier…”
“My gods…”
The dying priest prayed weakly, bowing his head.
Anger and denial, fighting spirit and resolve, a sense of mission—all were gone.
They had already burned all of that in facing the Incarnation Body.
Only despair remained, knowing that even after everything had ended, it hadn’t even begun.
Lamentation and frustration emanated from all directions. At the same time, the signs of life rapidly faded.
Watching all of it, Deimus muttered blankly.
“…What, in the world, was I doing.”
Lennok’s answer, that he desired his own failure and started the ritual.
The incomprehensible reply that through it, he ultimately achieved victory.
Those who perceived an endless madness in his words shivered, their bodies growing cold.
“Did all these things… truly hold no meaning… for you…?”
Deimus muttered with a pale face, struggling.
“For a Transcendent… already mad… no meaning at all—”
“No. There was meaning.”
Lennok replied, gathering mana.
“From the beginning, there was only meaning.”
“…What?”
“My acceptance of this war. Welcoming you all while destroying District 49 and its Domain. Even the reason I desired the failure of the Ascension Ritual.”
Lennok slowly reached out his hand and murmured.
“All of it was merely a process for this moment.”
Flash!!!
At that moment, a faint ripple formed at Lennok’s empty fingertip.
Lennok’s mana, devoid of any specific properties or attributes, spread out like waves, grasping the empty air.
The moment Lennok’s will and mental image, covering spacetime, enveloped the Incarnation Body sleeping beneath the shattered throne.
The Incarnation Body, flickering with dark blue lightning, was engulfed in an intense light, scattered, and soared into the sky above Vulcan.
Kwaaa-a-a-a-a-ang!!!!
From the center of the golden throne, a dark azure lightning bolt exploded, piercing through the dark sky and extending outwards.
The dark blue lightning, boundless and infinite, pierced and connected the sky and earth, transcending concepts and limits.
Eventually, it passed beyond the stars and headed to the far side of the Sea of Darkness.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa!!!!!!!
The pillar of dark blue lightning connected heaven and earth, rotating, violently shaking the very foundations of the world.
Each rotation of the majestic lightning pillar, several thousand meters tall, shook the world.
It pressed down on the five senses and minds of the superhumans on the battlefield, shaking their very souls.
“Aagh…!!”
“This, this is…!!!”
“I knew what to do from the beginning.”
Lennok muttered, looking up at the rotating pillar of dark blue lightning.
“To control the causality of lightning, a Level 9 consciousness and Spiritual Presence are needed. But I myself couldn’t reach that point yet.”
“…”
“Because there are things that can only be obtained by wearing down and expending… I intended to use this war to find that means.”
Koo-goo-goo-goo-goo!!!!!
The shattered debris of the golden Magic Tower, broken in the fierce battle, was ground down and annihilated by the transcendent power and heat.
The fragments of broken wings rotated in the lightning’s radiance, concentrating on the dark blue lightning that pierced stars and the universe.
As if grinding the blood-soaked battlefield to dust. As if tearing open the sky where death had settled.
The overflowing transcendent Will-thought, transcending concepts and laws, finally reached beyond the stars and the universe.
“What I wanted from the Incarnation Body was the method… how a Level 9 Ascendant handles lightning. It was time to observe and learn that moment.”
Lennok whispered as the violently rotating dark azure lightning reflected on his face.
“This war was, from the beginning, a process for that.”
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa!!!!!!
As he reached out his hand, the pillar of lightning piercing the sky and earth rotated even more violently.
The dark blue lightning, engulfing the battlefield, gradually compressed, beginning to reduce in size.
As if, by Lennok’s will, it was focusing its power, being led and guided.
The majestic pillar of lightning, piercing the sky and earth and rotating fiercely, compressed, and the moment it was grasped in Lennok’s hand.
A vast dark azure ripple, spanning several thousand meters, spread out and swept across the surface of the star.
Flash!!
The lightning, reaching the Ninth Hierarchy, pierced the star and flashed, engraving its existence upon the world.
A transcendence that, by merely being born and existing there, declared mortality to all living things.
At the same time, everyone watching Lennok realized the same thing.
“Ah…”
The unprecedented branching point that should never have been grasped by that wizard’s hand at this moment.
The fact that they, through the annihilation campaign, had handed such a miracle to that wizard.
The moment they intuitively understood that a transcendence that should never have succeeded was happening here.
An intense lightning blast erupted, pushing everything on the battlefield far, far away.
Zeeeooong!!!!!!
“Kuk…!!!”
“Ah, aahhh…!!!!”
Everyone was unable to even scream properly as the wave of birth swept across and blew away the surface of the star.
The impact was as if their very existence, including their will and mental image, their mind and soul, was being crushed, broken, and pulverized.
In the center of the shattered throne. Even Deimus, who was watching from close by, lost consciousness, swept away by the shockwave.
Lennok, grasping the lightning that flashed as if alive, raised his head with his eyes closed.
“…Finally.”
Crackling, crackling…!!!!
At this moment. An eternal, indelible proof was etched into the spacetime of the world.
The proof of transcendence, once born and existing, never to disappear.
A response that surpassed the hierarchy and cultivation a Lightning Wizard had built up throughout his life.
Lennok slowly opened his eyes and whispered.
“I have achieved it.”
Lightning Magic that had surpassed Lennok to reach Level 9 after facing Ban-gung’s corruption.
The branching point of lightning that ran wild and increased its output, not matching Lennok’s own hierarchy.
Lennok had finally managed to control Level 9 lightning without becoming an Ascendant.
Ooooh-ooooh-ooooh!!!!!
As Lennok turned, holding the ominously flickering dark blue lightning in one hand, the world rotated with him.
In an illusion where all light and energy in spacetime tilted together, seemingly distorting perception.
As all those pushed away from the battlefield floundered helplessly in the shock of the world tilting.
Lennok, holding the distant, transcendent lightning, slowly raised his gaze.
“Now, shall we end this war?”
The ruins of District 49, where the labyrinth and Domain had collapsed, and bodies piled up.
The final destination of a battlefield where adversaries were endlessly ground down, exhausted, and cast aside.
He had known from the beginning that an uninvited guest, here to conclude all these matters, had arrived.
A man who, even at this moment, stood beyond spacetime, silently watching Lennok.
Skin so pale it was almost white. Familiar, curly hair, like a painting. A severely worn black military uniform.
The one who would bring an end to this entire story, waiting for the moment the ‘result’ of this annihilation campaign was determined.
“Ethan Bajour.”
Lennok took a step forward with a cold smile.
“I’ve kept you waiting.”