Chapter 1491: Hunting the First Apostle (25)

I don’t care about the end of the world.

What kind of glory was I supposed to enjoy by living for hundreds of years just to watch it all end?

It’s enough to live a decent life and then go. And maybe beat up a few guys I don’t like along the way.

I was strong and talented, so I could live as I pleased.

I traveled the continent as I wished, fighting and killing freely.

Then, by chance, I met a dull fellow.

……

The guy was a pervert strangely obsessed with fighting with his two fists.

Despite that, he was quite serious, talked a lot, and had some rather amusing sides to him.

He fought strong people without rest and went to learn something new every single day.

One day it was spellcraft, another day spell-words, another history, another divination…

He never showed it, but he always pursued knowledge urgently, as if being chased by something.

And every time he learned something new, he would fall into despair.

……

“Hey, why do you live in such a hurry?”

I don’t remember it clearly, but I think I’d already taken quite a liking to him by then.

The desperation and urgency he had, which I lacked, were refreshing and, in a way, entertaining.

Asking a question I’d never asked anyone in my life was purely impulsive.

But his answer was stranger than I expected.

“Because I know nothing.”

“You know nothing?”

There was no one around me who knew more than he did.

“And I’m too late. My talent is also far too lacking.”

“What bullshit are you…”

There was no one around me faster or more skillful than him.

I hated to admit it, but among all the humans I’d seen, he was one of the most competent.

Being around him was convenient in many ways, so we naturally started hanging out.

……

A lot of time passed, and before we knew it, we had been friends for decades.

He learned many things, became much stronger, and gathered many companions—

And in equal measure, he despaired that much more.

“I’ve checked over and over… and it seems I’m the first.”

“What’s the big deal? Is there anyone who came out of their mother’s womb second?”

I chuckled, but he didn’t laugh.

“You only live once, so just live moderately. Won’t living too long get boring?”

Though I said that, I too was living far longer than I had ever expected.

During my time with him, I too had grown much stronger and learned many things.

Above all, it was fun.

He always lived like a racehorse, never looking back, only charging forward.

And yet, he was a good enough guy that he couldn’t push away the people who held onto him.

I liked that about him.

So—

“If I am the first… this might not be the end. That choice back then was the beginning of everything.”

“…….”

“But if there truly is a next me, I need to know where the end is. So I must endure until then.”

I, so—

“Is that so.”

Not even knowing what he truly wanted.

I think that’s what I said back then.

“Then take me with you.”

“What?”

For the first time, he made a strange face.

“You’re making a fucked-up face… Do you dislike what I said that much?”

“No, you would certainly be a help…”

He scratched his cheek.

“…But I thought that, of all people, you would never follow me. I was wrong.”

“Haven’t I always lived as I please?”

“Yes. That’s true…”

For a moment, he smiled with a pained expression.

“Then, I hope you’ll always be like that, even after following me.”

“…….”

“Unlike me, don’t be obsessed… Be free. You can leave whenever you want.”

“Of course. What do you take me for? I’ll quit the moment it gets even a little tough.”

“I’ll arrange it. It would be best to give you that right outright.”

“Rights and titles are a burden. I don’t like them.”

And so, time passed.

Many things changed, and many people left.

Time passed.

One by one, the companions who had followed him perished.

Time passed.

Enough time passed for the Holy Nation to become the Cult.

Before I knew it, I too was shouldering many things, unlike before.

But I could no longer tell if that was what we had wanted in the beginning.

Time passed.

Time passed.

And so—

I stood watching my life flash by like a panorama, my hands in my pockets.

“I miss it.”

Unlike what I first thought, so much had changed.

Nevertheless, the beginning itself wasn’t so bad.

Each time we sacrificed and gave up something, we lost even more.

And at the end of a time when all those events no longer stirred any emotion, there we were.

“I babbled about living freely, but I never once managed it. Still, it wasn’t bad.”

A person’s life is like a floating plant, destined to gather and scatter at any time.

I lived like that too, and I was always ready to leave just like that.

Knowing that, why did I stay until the end?

I’ve seriously pondered that before, but…

“Ah, I don’t know.”

I burst out laughing and looked up to see him standing there, his back turned.

I spoke to him, knowing I wouldn’t get a reply.

“This is enough, right?”

……

He didn’t answer.

Whether answering me was truly for our sake.

He could no longer even distinguish that anymore.

Even that was a result of the choices we made.

So, I—

“I’m going first. You handle the rest.”

In the end, I could be satisfied with just patting his shoulder for a moment.

From within immeasurably distant thoughts, Lennok faintly regained consciousness.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The overwhelming spectacle of a giant, golden serpent devouring the light of the Great Connection as it fell from the sky.

Beneath the celestial sphere where the Ouroboros magic circle was spread, Lennok was trampling the blood-soaked, fallen body of the Order Alliance Leader.

“…I see.”

Belatedly grasping the situation, Lennok raised his gaze.

“So he has left.”

A memory.

A memory that unfolded before Lennok’s eyes the moment the short battle concluded.

He had seen the memory of a man who, after living for a very long time, had become bound by freedom.

This time, however, Lennok understood why he had seen this memory.

At the moment the final battle with the Leader reached its conclusion, he had peered into the memories of that body and, at the same time, faintly glimpsed a farewell from a distant timeline.

The moment the Second Apostle, who had served the Pontiff since the First World, truly met his end.

“…….”

It was undoubtedly because the current Lennok had vaguely become an existence similar to the Pontiff.

Left alone in the flow of time, as everything faded and discolored. Because he was here as an existence similar to the Pontiff of a distant past.

Lennok, who had merged with the martial artist from the First World through Super Fusion, had been able to witness that moment alongside them.

The moment he realized this, an indescribably complex emotion surged within him.

“…Magnificent.”

A quiet voice came from beneath his feet.

Through the blood-soaked body of the Second Apostle, the Order Alliance Leader was looking up at Lennok.

His gaze went past Lennok, reflecting the Great Connection and the Ouroboros spread across the sky.

“The eternal serpent that bites its own tail… A contradictory magic that seeks eternity through self-fulfillment, is it?”

“…….”

“Because it is incomplete, yet eternally strives toward completion… the principles of the Great Connection could not contain it.”

A faint self-mockery tinged the Leader’s gaze as he looked at the Ouroboros.

“Your fusion with the Incarnation Body was all to manifest that in its complete form in reality. Your principle is already complete in itself.”

The reason Lennok’s breakthroughs culminated in overcoming physical restrictions or backlash was ultimately that his talent itself was nearly untouchable.

It was because Lennok’s magical talent already possessed an absolute and perfect status in itself.

The Leader, befitting a great Grand Sorcerer, had seen through the fact that Lennok was not trying to enhance the spellcraft’s performance, but rather to establish the prerequisite conditions to properly wield it.

That undisguisable feeling of awe and admiration was being transmitted directly to Lennok through the Ouroboros that had swallowed the Great Connection.

“I was outmatched in the clash of principles, so defeat was determined from the start. I have no regrets, having learned this at the end.”

The Leader said, closing his eyes.

“Now, you should be able to sever the Great Connection and annihilate me completely. Take your victor’s rights.”

“…….”

The Leader’s attitude—accepting defeat the moment the Great Connection was broken, despite having obtained a new vessel.

Lennok looked down at him without a word.

In the way he relaxed his entire body, silently awaiting Lennok’s judgment, there were no other ulterior motives.

Even peering into the Leader’s inner self through the Great Connection absorbed by Ouroboros, only a single will-thought could be felt.

The moment the Leader, who had always pursued two goals through his Talent for Duality, was emitting a unified will for the first time.

“…No.”

Lennok chose to conclude this battle in a different way.

As he withdrew his magic, the mighty vibrations subsided, and silence fell.

Removing the foot that was pinning the Leader’s shoulder, Lennok slowly stepped aside.

“……?”

For the first time, a sense of bewilderment could be felt from the fallen Ascendant.

Slowly pushing up his blood-soaked upper body, the Leader stared blankly at Lennok.

After a long silence, the Leader asked.

“You… I truly cannot fathom your intentions to the very end. What are you thinking?”

“…….”

“There is no benefit you can gain from sparing me here. If this is an impulsive decision—”

“It wasn’t a particularly impulsive decision.”

Lennok said calmly, taking out a cigarette.

“It’s just that if I kill you completely here, the one who benefits won’t be me.”

“What?”

Lighting his cigarette while looking at the Leader with a cool gaze, Lennok spoke.

“It would just be doing the Pontiff a favor.”

“……!”

“As I said before we fought, now that the war is over, I have no intention of doing any favors for either the Alliance or the Cult.”

Lennok said and turned away abruptly.

“The Pontiff intends to use the Second Apostle’s death as a chance to free himself from a long-standing restraint… and that death certainly includes the ‘death of the body’.”

“……”

“Therefore, killing you here would be nothing more than shortening the time until the Pontiff is freed. I simply thought it would be better to keep you, his adversary, alive.”

After meeting and speaking with the Pontiff, Lennok had realized that the Cult had been anticipating the Second Apostle’s defeat from the very beginning.

Thus, he had been thinking that even this result might already be included in the Cult’s plans.

Since it was possible that even the Leader dying to Lennok here was for the Pontiff’s own benefit.

Lennok had decided to make a different choice instead of killing the Leader here.

The Leader was by no means a good person, but he was not a being who followed or blindly believed in the Pontiff either.

He was an Ascendant who had sustained himself through all sorts of bizarre methods, but it was a clear fact that he was, at the very least, hostile to the Cult.

“Now that the Great Connection has been eaten by Ouroboros, your will-thought is being read by me completely. You won’t be able to harbor any other schemes.”

“…….”

“However, Ouroboros is maximized through my fusion. Once the fusion ends, it won’t be able to devour the Great Connection whole like it is now.”

Leaving the speechless Leader, Lennok averted his gaze.

“Rather than overexerting myself to devour all of the Great Connection while the fusion is maintained, I just decided to choose another method.”

The number of spells the Order Alliance had linked to the Great Connection numbered in the tens of thousands.

Considering the applications and derivatives of each spell, literally tens of millions of spells were bound to that galaxy.

No matter how unprecedented the Ouroboros magic system was, it couldn’t swallow and digest all those spells at once.

Even now, with its output maximized through Super Fusion, it was overloading like crazy just from digesting about half of the spells it had swallowed.

If it was like this while the fusion was maintained, it was as clear as day that digestion would become impossible once the duration ended and the Super Fusion was released.

Of course, aside from that, it was possible to completely annihilate the Leader here—

“Because you need to be alive for the Great Connection to maintain its form without going berserk.”

Exhaling a long stream of smoke, Lennok raised his gaze and said.

“I don’t want the Order Alliance to collapse and the Cult to start gaining power here. I loathe that kind of cleanup.”

“…….”

“You started this war, so you take responsibility for it to the end. I doubt you’ll refuse, now that the Great Connection is being held hostage, will you?”

The moment Ouroboros devoured about half of the Great Connection, control over it had already passed to Lennok.

At this point, even if Lennok spared the Leader, it was practically impossible for him to harbor other intentions or betray him.

That was why Lennok, while devouring the Great Connection, had tried to settle the score at this moment when it would not benefit the Cult.

“So you’re saying you don’t want the outcome of this war to benefit only the Cult…”

The silent Leader slowly raised his gaze.

“Yes. That… I hadn’t considered that.”

Looking up at Lennok without a word, the Leader eventually gave a bitter smile and nodded.

“Understood. I accept your proposal. At this point, it seems I never had a choice to begin with.”

“…L-Lord!!”

“Are you alright!”

Sensing that the situation had been settled, the other spellcasters finally rushed onto the battlefield.

The Conjunction Spell Masters, cautiously eyeing Lennok with pale faces, hurried to assist the Leader.

Supported by the other spellcasters, the Leader rose and extended a hand toward Lennok.

“I admit my defeat and will follow your words. It may be far from enough for the price of my life, but will you accept it?”

CRACKLE…!!!

At the same time, starlight condensed in the Leader’s hand, changing into the shape of a small flower.

The Alliance’s Conjunction Spell Masters who were watching stared, greatly shocked, as if they were about to faint.

“Lord. That is…!!!”

“How can you give the access rights to the Glass Garden to another…!!!”

Access rights to the Glass Garden.

Is he talking about the garden closest to the Boundary Line of the World, where the Leader himself has been residing?

But the Leader was not swayed by the other spellcasters’ words.

“Then can we come all this way, shut our mouths without any compensation, and pretend it never happened?”

“B-but…”

“It was all over the moment he spared my life. It would be better to settle things here and now.”

The Leader said and calmly sent the glass flower flying on the wind.

The glass flower flew gently and settled in Lennok’s hand without him needing to catch it.

“You, who have devoured the power of the Great Connection, should be able to use it.”

Leaning on the spellcasters for support, the Leader spoke slowly.

“It is the most valuable thing I possess right now. It may not be enough to substitute for my life… but I thought you might need such ‘proof’.”

“…….”

“As for what exact value that Glass Garden holds… it would be best if you find out for yourself by going inside.”

The Leader said and slowly turned around.

FWOOSH!!

At the same time, a vast dimensional gate opened in the sky of the Crystal Canyon, revealing the Dimensional Corridor that served as the Alliance’s headquarters.

Does the Leader intend to move to the Dimensional Corridor to recover from the battle’s aftermath and adjust his body?

Having been defeated shortly after obtaining the Second Apostle’s body, the aftereffects must be severe.

Stopping before the gate, the Leader, supported by the spellcasters, looked back at Lennok.

“You said you did not want a situation where the outcome of this war benefits the Cult.”

The Leader said softly.

“Therefore, I intend to continue what I originally planned to do after obtaining this body.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I will break through the Demonic Realm and create a path to the sunken Imperial Palace. The reason I escaped the shackles of causality through the Second Apostle’s body… that purpose was set from the beginning.”

“…….”

Seeing the silent Lennok, the Leader gave a strained nod and slowly turned away.

As the Leader’s body passed through the dimensional gate, an intense light flared and his presence vanished.

On the battlefield that had turned into a sea of blood, Lennok, along with the surviving collaborators and the Alliance’s spellcasters, remained.

As Lennok silently watched the spot the Leader had left, a familiar presence landed beside him.

“…Adamant Thunder.”

Standing next to Lennok with a complicated expression, the Fairy Conjunction Master struggled to choose her words before speaking.

“About this incident… on behalf of the Alliance, I formally apologize. The Grand Spell Masters, including myself, have no intention of fighting you.”

“…….”

“I don’t know the details, but the Leader is probably on his way to adjust his body. He likely intends to receive help from the Stillness Spell Master.”

Cautiously observing the silent Lennok, the Fairy Conjunction Master said.

“I can tell you what I know of the Leader’s plan. If, uh, you give us some time to sort things out—”

“No. It’s fine.”

Lennok said and turned away.

“I didn’t spare him because I covet his position or want to take over the Alliance. I received the Glass Garden, so let’s end it with this.”

“Indeed, when the Leader said he was handing that over, I also wondered if he was in his right mind—ahem.”

Having agreed without thinking, the Fairy Conjunction Master gave an awkward cough.

“Still, it would be best to be careful. Though that’s not something to say to the wizard who devoured the Great Connection…”

“I don’t expect any trust from the Leader either, so don’t worry.”

Lennok looked at the Fairy Conjunction Master and gave a cool smile.

“I only cooperated in this plan out of necessity. A relationship where I’m holding the leash like this is more convenient in many ways. Don’t you think?”

“…Not at all.”

The moment Ouroboros devoured about half of the Great Connection, it was a settled matter that Lennok held the Leader’s life hostage.

That was why Lennok did not stop the Leader from leaving, and why the Leader, knowing this, did not hesitate.

Since their respective positions were decided the moment the fight ended, there was no need for pointless words.

If there were matters that needed resolving, they could simply meet again later to sort them out.

“Haa… I really don’t get it. I thought it wouldn’t be strange if you killed us all with that incredible magic…”

“I don’t kill people carelessly. There’s been a misunderstanding.”

“…….”

Staring at Lennok with a dumbfounded expression, the Fairy Conjunction Master let out a deep sigh, but her face was a little more relaxed than before.

It seemed she had been feeling considerable pressure at having to deal with Lennok directly after the Leader had left.

“We got a message from headquarters. They say the results of this war are already spreading across the continent.”

Composing herself and sweeping her hair back, the Fairy Conjunction Master looked up at Lennok and said.

“We’re planning to clean up the battlefield and tend to the casualties before moving to headquarters. What will you do?”

“I don’t care whether you celebrate or not, but I don’t think I can attend.”

Lennok said, raising his gaze.

“Handle the payment and settlement for this matter by contacting my magic tower. I have a place to be.”

“…A place to be? The war just ended, where are you rushing off to?”

This hunt for the First Apostle had been incredibly tense yet fast-paced, reaching its conclusion in an unexpected place.

In terms of time, it was as if everything had ended in less than a week.

Therefore, with things having turned out this way, Lennok had no intention of returning to Vulcan right away.

“Since I’ve come all the way to the Central Front, there’s no reason to return right now.”

Lennok said, fiddling with the obsidian mask in his pocket.

“I’ll have to move to keep a promise.”

The Imperial Three Grand Dukes of Ars Nova. The Second Gate, where the Grand Duke of Grasping resides.

It was time to head to the hell where the Ascendant Pyeonram was said to be held captive, where the fallen demigod dwells.