Chapter 1390: Paradise Lost (1)
After finding the message Myeong left behind in the Black Coffin at the end of Gateway City’s underground labyrinth.
Lennok briefly explained the situation to the other members who arrived late, following the collapsed labyrinth.
“The Nether King traded with the Three Grand Dukes to find a way to stop the Gabihaeng… That’s quite surprising.”
“Are you saying his defeat by Jinwa in Paradise Lost was intentional?”
“I don’t understand. How did the Nether King meet the Three Grand Dukes and make a contract in the first place?”
Soryu said with a cold expression.
“They are supposed to be living in seclusion deep within the Central Front. The fact that they were even alive wasn’t known until before the Four Archangel Demonic Mirrors was cleared.”
“The Nether King was the last survivor carrying the blood of the Black Edict, one of the Five Families.”
Hylaea answered in a calm tone.
“I know some of the older families bowed their heads to the Imperial Palace. It wouldn’t be strange if there was interaction during that process.”
“That black wizard might have forced his way through with sheer power, without even needing to conquer the Demonic Realm. He must have possessed that much power even before his defeat by Jinwa, no?”
The Conjunction Spell Master said.
“I recall the former leader coveted that black wizard. It was said that among all the heads of the Black Edict throughout history, few possessed such power.”
“……”
The Spell Master’s speculation was not entirely wrong.
For Myeong, who continued the Gabihaeng, his power had already reached a level equivalent to an Ascendant.
He had simply forced himself to stop because he didn’t want to gain the qualifications; had he wished, he could have easily ascended to Level 9 at any time.
It wouldn’t be strange if, instead of conquering the Demonic Realm, he forced his way through with power and met one of the Grand Dukes who ruled the Empire.
Hadn’t the Director himself proven such a thing was possible by killing Megiddo in the Sixfold Demonic Mirror of Return?
“Why did the Nether King not want to become an Ascendant in the first place? Isn’t it good to get stronger when you reach Level 9?”
“Because when one becomes an Ascendant, they become subservient to their Answer. He must not have wanted such an outcome. It’s a common occurrence for Transcendent beings who reach that level.”
Maiya answered calmly to Freya’s question.
“The Nether King didn’t start the Gabihaeng of his own volition. He may have sought to avoid his actions being bound by it.”
“…Then shouldn’t we properly define what this Gabihaeng actually is?”
Ermont tilted his head, his hand on his hip.
“We only know that he traveled all over the continent collecting deaths, but we don’t really know why he did it. We need to know that to understand Myeong’s true intentions, don’t you think? Why are you all looking at me like that?”
“Because we have to ask you, Master Black Wizard! You’re from the same Black Edict bloodline, so what exactly do you know about the Nether King?”
Sarin asked, flabbergasted, on behalf of the bewildered members.
“Isn’t this too shameful to even call him an ancestor? If Master Black Wizard were some True Ancestor, he would’ve been betrayed and sucked dry to the bone marrow by his descendants long ago.”
“Haha, Vampire. What kind of talk is that?”
Ermont chuckled.
“Well, that’s why I’m in this state now, you see.”
“……”
Though he spoke with a smile, his reply was far from humorous, and a momentary silence fell.
No one was unaware that many things had transpired for Ermont, born into the Black Edict family centuries ago, to arrive here.
Shrugging his shoulders indifferently, Ermont added to his explanation.
“When I was part of the family, I never heard the word Gabihaeng. Of course, this might be because my standing in the family wasn’t very high back then, but…”
“It means it wasn’t a generally accepted custom or procedure within the Black Edict family, at the very least.”
“However, the Nether King ultimately obtained power leading to transcendence through that journey. It might have been a secret art passed down within the family, or a kind of dark secret.”
“A journey to prepare oneself, then. Just hearing it makes it clear it has an unusual meaning. Could it have been a type of Ascension Ritual to ascend?”
Gabihaeng (加備行).
Even without knowing the clear meaning or purpose of the word, no one had forgotten its name.
What kind of ritual allowed the Nether King to stand before the gate of transcendence in such a short time?
And how could such a Grand Mage have been pushed to the brink of ruin, unable to endure that journey?
These were questions that many who knew Myeong had pondered but couldn’t easily answer.
However, Lennok now vaguely understood its meaning.
“The Gabihaeng isn’t a ritual to ascend, but a ritual to fall into hell.”
“Adamant Thunder?”
“Demons who, instead of ascending to the Upper Heavens, fell and built their own hells. It’s the journey itself to manifest the concept of hell in the present world.”
The worst possible future Lennok had glimpsed through the Kaleidoscope of the Ascension Relic, one he would never choose.
At that time, Lennok had glimpsed what kind of being existed in the future of the Branching Point where he chose the Gabihaeng.
A future where he became the master of myriad demons, ascended to the throne, corrupting all sentient beings and wielding them as demons.
Because Lennok had glimpsed a Branching Point he would never normally choose, he was able to understand the concept of the Gabihaeng.
This was the method of inevitability, understanding the process by first seeing the outcome in reverse.
Perhaps even this understanding was only possible because of the Director’s assistance.
“Because he couldn’t ascend, Myeong didn’t challenge it, and because he had to fall into hell, he continuously collected deaths.”
Lennok stated calmly.
“Among you, some might already have an idea.”
“…That is.”
Maiya’s expression, as she listened to the explanation, subtly changed.
It must be because she, too, remembered the explanation of the Gabihaeng she had heard from the Doctor sometime.
[Through the Gabihaeng, he seized a fate greater than what was given to him, and reached the gate of transcendence at an unrealistically rapid pace.]
[The problem lay in Myeong’s exceptionally outstanding capacity; he was ready even before he finished the Gabihaeng.]
[One of the continent’s ugliest yet most sublime rituals. Among rituals unlinked to ascension, it was virtually—]
Stories about the Gabihaeng that the Doctor would sometimes casually mention during interim reports or remote meetings.
The designer of the Ascension Gate had understood from the beginning the meaning behind the Gabihaeng Myeong attempted.
“I can’t be certain, but the process must have required an immeasurable number of deaths. That’s why Myeong wandered the entire continent, collecting deaths, and at times, creating them himself, all while heading towards the end.”
“……”
“Even his choice of Paradise Lost as the place to stop himself, he knew from the very beginning.”
Lennok lifted his gaze.
“Perhaps even his contract with the Three Grand Dukes was to maximize the utilization of that choice.”
Myeong, whom Lennok met in Gateway City, immediately shifted the direction of the Gabihaeng towards Paradise Lost as soon as he met Jinwa.
It was as if he had used the power of Paradise Lost as a rudder, changed the Gabihaeng’s trajectory, and waited for a collision.
Had Myeong already designed his future up to that point the moment he continued the Gabihaeng and arrived at Gateway City?
Did he leave his final wishes here so that even his own end could be fated as he desired?
The other members, seemingly feeling similar sentiments to Lennok, wore strange expressions.
“He decided his own fate at the end of the Gabihaeng long ago… I can tell he was an extraordinary human in many ways.”
“How far ahead was he looking? Is even this moment an arrangement he designed?”
“Perhaps even our gathering here and discovering this Black Coffin was something Myeong had foreseen…”
“No… that’s probably not the case.”
Ermont said with a thoughtful expression.
“He isn’t a precognitive ability user, and in fact, he detested precognitive users. He wouldn’t have looked that far into the future after his own death.”
“……”
“Though I didn’t have many conversations with him, he often expressed disillusionment with fates or bloodlines determined from birth.”
“That’s…”
“It must be because he felt more bound by such shackles than anyone else.”
Ermont said, recalling his memories.
“Though he may have predetermined his own end, he wouldn’t have tried to control the subsequent events in such detail. This Black Coffin, too, isn’t the result of such a complex design.”
“That’s not wrong.”
Though their directions differed somewhat, Lennok inwardly agreed with Ermont’s conjecture.
This was because Lennok also knew that Myeong truly detested Antares, a precognitive ability user.
“He tried to leave what he had experienced here before accepting his end… For now, is that meaning enough?”
“We actually discovered this place and became aware of the contract between the Three Grand Dukes and the Nether King. That should be more than enough.”
“He used this Black Coffin simply to leave a message? Then what was originally inside this coffin?”
“……”
No one could easily answer that question.
If Myeong had written down what had happened to him here in his final moments and departed.
The stories inscribed in this Black Coffin would be akin to a last will he left for those who remained.
In that case, what was originally meant to be interred in this Black Coffin was none other than…
“For Myeong himself—”
“There’s no need to rush to conclusions about a question that has no answer.”
Slowly, Lennok approached the Black Coffin, raised his hand, and said.
“If it’s according to the contract Myeong made with the Three Grand Dukes, then he wouldn’t have a reason to leave this Black Coffin here.”
“……”
“Everything else can only be confirmed once we enter Paradise Lost directly.”
Whoosh!!
Lennok, who had wrapped the Black Coffin in darkness and retrieved it, slowly turned around.
“Everything in Gateway City is finished. Hylaea, are the preparations for travel to Paradise Lost complete?”
“Yes. Martina is outside, synchronizing with the Flame Flower and has already linked the coordinates. However…”
“…However?”
“It seems something has gone wrong.”
Hylaea’s expression, as she looked into her communicator, was rigidly frozen.
“It seems I need to go outside and check right away.”
Aaaaah…
A faint singing echoed like an ancient melody. A transparent veil shimmered across the evening sky.
Lennok looked up, lifting his gaze to the massive Flame Flower that floated above Gateway City.
The Flame Flower, as if the previous battle had been a lie, had returned to its original form, burning crimson.
At the dazzlingly bright center of the Flame Flower stood a female knight, her red hair fluttering.
Whoooom!!!!
Each time the ceaselessly burning Flame Flower shimmered, different landscapes were continuously reflected beyond the veil.
Snow-covered mountain ranges. A blood-stained sea. Canyons where house-sized mushrooms grew. A fortress from which lava flowed.
The entire shimmering veil before them seemed to reflect various parts of the Central Front, like a semitransparent mirror.
“She’s adjusting the Flame Flower’s heat to change the veil’s reflection angle and projection depth.”
Hylaea, standing beside Lennok, explained with a rigid expression.
“Because the Flame Flower is directly connected to the veil, by simply synchronizing with the Flame Flower, we can directly peer into the borders of the Central Front shrouded by the veil.”
“……”
“This is possible because the veil itself is a special conceptual barrier formed from the Shadow of the Star. Normally, we should have been able to cross over immediately upon finding Paradise Lost’s location, but—”
Crrrunch!!!!
At that moment, the veil, which had been reflecting various parts of the Central Front, was stained a grotesque violet, and simultaneously, Hylaea’s expression turned pale.
The transparent veil, stretching to the horizon, was covered in opaque violet, rapidly consuming the Flame Flower.
“C-ck…!!”
Martina, standing at the center of the Flame Flower, staggered, her complexion suddenly pale.
It seemed she was swept by a powerful backlash the moment the violet barrier, consuming the veil, connected with the fiery passage.
The members, understanding the situation, moved immediately.
“Guardian!!”
Soryu froze the surrounding air to momentarily lower the Flame Flower’s heat, and Agneta pulled Martina out with Mana Threads.
Freya chanted Musical Scale Spellcraft to protect the other members’ minds, and Hylaea calmly observed the situation with her Talent for Duality.
At the same time as finding Paradise Lost’s location, a grotesque violet barrier instantaneously enveloped the entire veil.
The moment Lennok realized that the entire barrier was covered in incomprehensible ‘grotesque characters’.
“We’ve already found Paradise Lost’s location, but they’re preventing us from [interpreting] those coordinates.”
Hylaea said with a rigid expression.
“They’re twisting the coordinates themselves with Spell-Words, hindering the information itself from being transferred to us. I never imagined something like this was possible…”
“…That’s.”
Lennok, immediately understanding Hylaea’s explanation, hardened his expression.
The method Pandemonium was attempting now was like synchronizing with the Flame Flower to run a scan across the entire veil.
By applying a strong stimulus to the veil surrounding the entire Central Front, they were trying to search for Paradise Lost’s current location and acquire its coordinates.
They had intended to confirm the location using the Flame Flower as a passage and cross over to Paradise Lost in one go.
But what if a truly powerful Transcendent intervened and twisted the coordinates beyond interpretation?
What if they had twisted the language and characters used to record the coordinates, rendering them unreadable?
Lennok, intuiting the meaning, asked.
“From Paradise Lost… an Ascendant has read our movements and intervened?”
“It likely isn’t Jinwa himself intervening directly. If it were, it wouldn’t have ended with just this.”
Maiya said, quickly attaching her prosthetic arm.
“Perhaps it’s a type of Spell-Word art that Jinwa cast to prevent Paradise Lost’s location from being detected.”
“……”
Had Jinwa manipulated Paradise Lost’s coordinates themselves through his own Spell-Word art, twisting them to be impossible to interpret?
A transcendent Spell-Word user who founded the continent’s common language. A Transcendent who, in essence, possessed the power to interfere with all languages and characters in the world.
Such a being should have been aware that they could interfere with the information interpretation process itself in this manner.
“We’re maintaining output forcibly, but it’s reaching its limit. We can’t hold out much longer…!!”
Fwooosh…!!!
Near the fiercely shimmering veil, a storm of bursting grotesque characters scattered profusely.
The flames of the Flame Flower floating in the sky weakened, and the output of the members assisting the process around it also diminished.
As they had been giving their all to directly shake the veil and assist Hylaea’s ‘observation,’ it couldn’t be maintained for long.
“Even though we succeeded in observing Paradise Lost’s location itself, their Spell-Word art is hindering the interpretation…”
Lennok, having reached a conclusion, moved forward.
“There’s no choice.”
“Adamant Thunder. Do you have a plan?”
“The explanation is complicated, but in short, isn’t it that the Spell-Word art left by an Ascendant is hindering coordinate observation?”
Lennok drew up his magic and moved.
“If they are twisting the coordinates to be uninterpretable, if we succeed in scouting but cannot bring back any results—”
“……”
“We have no choice but to tear apart that Spell-Word art, supposedly cast by an Ascendant, with brute force.”
“…What?”
For a moment, Maiya’s expression shifted to a rarely seen bewildered look.
Lennok ignored the security and used Flicker to instantly move near the Flame Flower.
Whoosh!!
Lennok, traversing through Gateway City in the blink of an eye, rose into the sky.
Soryu, who had been freezing the air near the Flame Flower, flinched and turned her gaze, and Freya, who had been chanting Musical Scale Spellcraft, reacted.
“Tower Lord, why are you here?! If you don’t want to be caught, get down now!!”
“Don’t mind me and step back.”
Lennok, caressing the thick [veil] shimmering like a transparent curtain before his eyes with his bare hands, closed his eyes.
The moment he instantly found the spellcraft’s trigger deep within his mind and read it using a mixture of Will-thought and magic.
Whoosh!!
A massive Black Coffin, scattering deep darkness, appeared before Lennok’s eyes.
It was the Black Coffin left by the Nether King, which he had acquired in the underground labyrinth. The other members, confirming its appearance, spoke with bewildered expressions.
“Adamant Thunder. What are you trying to do…!!”
“If I borrow the Nether King’s power, I should be able to ‘conceal’ myself without being noticed, at least once.”
Crackling…!!!!
The moment he placed his hand on the Black Coffin, deep darkness erupted, and sapphire lightning flashed in Lennok’s hand.
The current that rose through the night sky rapidly converged in the clear sky above.
Soon, it began to flash with an eerie thunder that resounded throughout Gateway City.
Flash!!
Craaaaash!!!!
Sapphire lightning burst forth across the cloudless evening sky, and a deafening roar, as if the sky was tearing apart, exploded.
The tremendous lightning was enough to make even the superhumans of Pandemonium, who had been focused on their search, flinch and look up in surprise.
“The sky…!!”
At that very moment, Hylaea, startled by the impossible meteorological change, lifted her gaze with a horrified expression.
A thunderbolt, fallen from the distant sky, shrouded in darkness, pierced the veil and descended with incredible speed.
[Ultimate Conflagration]
CRAAAAASH!!!!!
“C-ck…!!”
“Kyaaah!!!”
The impact was strong enough to send Soryu and Freya, who had been chanting spellcraft near the Flame Flower, flying in one go, unable to withstand the backlash.
Even Martina staggered heavily for a moment, the repercussions forcing her to hang on precariously, as if about to fall from the Flame Flower.
Creeeeeak…!!!
The distorted violet barrier, covered in incomprehensible grotesque characters, crumbled and burned away.
Beyond the Spell-Word art, burning away and vanishing by the lightning, the landscape of Paradise Lost slowly revealed itself.
Only then did the other members, realizing the true nature of what Lennok had done, mutter with dumbfounded expressions.
“Unbelievable… He solved it like this?”
“Is he really human?”
“Tower Lord, you truly don’t think like an ordinary person.”
Sarin asked with a stunned expression.
“Surely, you didn’t just force your way through the veil with power to find Paradise Lost’s location, did you?”
He dropped lightning magic to pierce the veil, and shattered the Spell-Word art that was hindering their search beyond it.
In the process, he even used Myeong’s Black Coffin to conceal his presence from the entire operation.
If Jinwa wasn’t directly observing the situation, he would assume it was Myeong’s black magic that destroyed his Spell-Word art.
The speechless members of Pandemonium whispered quietly.
“Didn’t I tell you? That man is unusually excessive in his methods.”
“I felt it in the labyrinth earlier too, he doesn’t think things through for long. If things go wrong, he just crushes them with force, doesn’t he?”
“Enough with the pointless talk, come over here.”
Lennok looked at the veil, now revealed as the violet barrier receded, and said.
“It seems we’ve finally found where Paradise Lost is located.”
“This is…”
The location of Paradise Lost, detected by synchronizing her senses with the entire veil using her Talent for Duality.
The entrance leading to Paradise Lost, successfully observed by synchronizing with the now interpretable coordinates.
“It looks like some massive palace… Does anyone recognize it?”
Whooooosh!!!!
It was as if looking down from a distant height upon the form of a desolate palace where dry winds blew.
An unnamed ancient palace that once boasted a luxurious scenery, now closer to ruins.
But Hylaea’s and Maiya’s expressions, upon seeing it, were unutterably cold and rigid.
“It can’t be…”
“It seems best to hurry and depart for Paradise Lost right now.”
Maiya said with an expressionless face.
“In the depths of the Central Front, only the Yeongheo Palace maintains such a vast, palace-like form.”
“Yeongheo Palace?”
“It’s an Imperial Palace structure remaining outside the Imperial Palace. Once called the Emperor’s detached palace, and…”
Maiya said, hesitating.
“It is believed to be where the Corpse Emperor’s corpse is buried.”