Chapter 337: Summons (1)

Lennok was speeding through the rainy streets.

Despite the heavy downpour, the bike Lennok rode surged forward without hesitation on the empty road.

Vrooooooom!!

The engine’s roar echoed clearly even amidst the sound of the rain.

As he moved into the city’s outskirts and the ambient noise faded, the sound grew louder.

Flash!!

Lightning flashed between the dark clouds, followed by a resounding thunderclap that echoed in his ears.

It had been a long time since he’d witnessed such a natural phenomenon, not lightning he’d conjured himself.

Lennok thought so, and twisted the bike’s throttle.

The jet-black body, shrouded in darkness, veered off the road and sped through the empty construction site.

Sparse steel frames passed by, like a dense forest of concrete.

Each time lightning flashed in the darkness, more and more eyes watched Lennok from atop the steel structures.

[Master.]

“I know.”

[…]

The figures of superhumans, sharp visors pulled down, stood undeterred in the rain.

Each of them, with their distinct glowing eyes, gazed down at Lennok, their magical aura endlessly sharp.

Magic so keen it seemed ready to strike Lennok at any moment. Yet, they remained completely still, watching Lennok leave the construction site.

Davi, having checked her database to confirm their identities, muttered.

[They’re members of Aegis, a special agency directly under the City Government. I don’t recall them participating in this operation. What could this mean?]

“Running into them here isn’t a coincidence… They probably came to see me.”

[You, Master?]

“They must know that the Prohibition Edict will be lifted soon. Maybe they just came to greet me before that happens?”

[…They don’t seem like the type to be so polite.]

Lennok chuckled at Davi’s unenthusiastic remark.

“It’s just a figure of speech. They probably wanted to make an impression in advance, since we might run into each other often.”

[…]

“There were certainly organizations that resented the Agents’ privileges.”

As members of a special agency, they would already know the inside story of this incident and Lennok’s central role in it.

Once the Prohibition Edict is lifted, the only concern isn’t just the conflict between the surface and the underworld.

Even among the powerful figures on the surface, who were content to bare their fangs at each other while restrained by the leash of privilege, enough internal conflict could erupt.

Power accumulated over decades was on the verge of overflowing. It wouldn’t be strange for a lost blade to point in any direction.

Lennok wasn’t entirely unwilling to witness where that chaos would begin and end, but…

“Right now, I have more pressing matters. I’ll have to leave it to Jenny.”

Clunk!!

He stowed the bike and instantly changed his clothes and face to Evan’s.

At the same time, with Davi’s help, he completely disrupted nearby CCTV and personal information, twisting Lennok’s destination, and extended his reach to the city government’s network to alter his traces and schedule.

Leaving the outskirts, he headed straight out of the undeveloped zone.

A vast plateau, in a completely different direction from the desert fringes where the mobile fortress had collapsed.

Whoosh!

As the rain ceased and the stars began to brightly appear in the night sky, Lennok stood below the plateau and murmured to himself.

“Just as Lapis told me. I can’t believe the rain stopped at such a precise time…”

[Because she’s the Lighthouse Keeper, who gazes upon the sea beyond the sky. Predicting the movement of stars or the weather wouldn’t be difficult for her.]

The weather in the mega-city was difficult to predict even an inch ahead, constantly affected by the magnetic storms passing nearby.

Even Davi said that creating a weather prediction algorithm itself was meaningless.

Yet, how far Lapis’s vision extended, to pinpoint the exact moment the rain would cease and inform Lennok so perfectly, was something even Lennok didn’t know.

“Let’s start immediately. I’ll draw the formation, just check the location for me.”

Clench!

Without hesitation, Lennok bit his thumb, drew blood, and began drawing a magic circle on a clearing near the plateau.

The distance from here to the Northern Continent was easily several thousand kilometers. It was certainly not a distance one could travel on their own.

But yet, despite this, Lapis had issued a call to assembly for Lennok.

Naturally, a suitable means of transport was also prepared.

A select few, who accepted the name of Watcher in Lapis’s name. A call for assistance, transcending space and time, created by The Lighthouse Keeper’s authority.

Its principle, strictly speaking, was closer to summoning than spatial transference.

Only a select few superhumans, who met specific conditions, could temporarily appear by The Lighthouse Keeper’s side at her summons.

Aside from requiring preparations on the user’s side to employ the spell, it was undoubtedly a summoning ritual with tremendous efficiency.

“It would have been difficult if I hadn’t studied summoning magic with Aris… But can this even be called a condition?”

Lennok muttered as he unhesitatingly created the summoning circle with his own blood.

Spatial transference spanning thousands of kilometers. A spell beyond blinks and teleports, truly at a level where it wouldn’t be strange to call it a warp.

The problem was that to use such a spell, even the summoned caster needed a certain level of proficiency in summoning magic.

Whether Lapis knew this, or if it was merely a coincidence, there was no way to tell immediately.

[Rather than her knowing Master’s attainments, might there be a simpler reason?]

“What do you mean?”

[If the caster summoning Master can check the necessary conditions for the summons beforehand, then something like this would be possible.]

Lennok, immediately understanding Davi’s words, nodded.

“So, before issuing the call, she checked if I met the conditions. That makes sense.”

[It would also explain why she summoned that ‘archer’ earlier, even though he didn’t meet the conditions.]

“‘Archer,’ you say…”

Lennok let out a wry laugh at the unfamiliar term.

It was strange for Davi, with her intelligence, not to remember other people’s names, yet she insisted on referring to other humans by their physical characteristics.

“It’s roughly done. I’ll preheat the necessary mana, so please tidy up the summoning circle.”

Lennok left the detailed work to Davi, sat down near the clearing, closed his eyes, and focused his mind.

Since Davi’s spiritual domain awakened and she grew, Lennok had been trying to force her to take on some of his tasks.

It was a time when she had just bloomed her own Mind Imprint and materialized her Domain.

Lennok vaguely understood that it was desirable to give Davi as much experience as possible through various tasks and attempts.

While Davi meticulously refined the summoning circle, wagging her three tails, Lennok drew mana from deep within his body.

Not to expend mana during the summoning process.

Instead, Lennok focused on tightly wrapping the drawn mana around his skin, forming a thick barrier, rather than extending it outside his body.

This was a journey spanning an immense distance, imperceptible to human senses.

While there wouldn’t be issues with the summoning process itself, performed by The Lighthouse Keeper’s authority, there was a chance his body might not adapt to the different environment and pressure at the destination.

His body was delicate, complaining of strange symptoms even with a slight increase in altitude. He needed to ‘grease his joints’ in advance for any unforeseen circumstances.

[It’s done.]

As Lennok sat in the center of the summoning circle, calmly collecting his thoughts, Davi also climbed onto Lennok’s head and looked up at the sky.

[There’s still some time before the constellations align. We’ll have to wait a bit.]

“It’s my first time directly using a spell based on star arrangement, so I’m looking forward to it… I hope it starts soon.”

[Didn’t the mercenary leader tell you not to be impatient?]

Davi asked. Lennok nodded.

“That’s right. But… Antares’s story reminded me of something.”

Lennok answered, looking up at the star-filled night sky.

“That I don’t have time to be complacent either.”

[…]

The penalty he chose as the price for grasping the talent to reach the heavens.

Among them, Talent’s Bane, which gnaws at Lennok’s lifespan, is a restraint more powerful than any other chain or restriction.

It’s like the most fatal wedge, making it impossible to guess how much time he has left.

Until now, he had dismissed it as an unsolvable problem and tried to focus on the immediate issues, but now that he had reached the Archmage rank and grasped the clue to ultimate power, it was something he could no longer ignore.

“I couldn’t tell Antares, but it’s possible I might perish even sooner than he.”

[Master…]

“So, when the opportunity comes, I must find the answer. Right now, in the Northern Continent where we’re headed.”

Lennok’s eyes, gazing at the endlessly stretching horizon of the plateau, quietly deepened.

Antares had only told Lennok a part of the truth, but Lennok could guess what was happening in the Northern Continent from those few words alone.

A Level 9 Transcendent. Among them, one of the recluses who hadn’t moved for a long time must have stirred.

If such a formidable figure had moved, it made sense that Evelyn, who felt such a profound responsibility for the city’s order, would be absent.

If a Transcendent, who had cut off all ties with the mortal realm to pursue Ascension, had made a move, there must be a significant reason.

“There are questions I can’t answer without directly meeting a Transcendent and asking them. It’s something I always had to try, someday.”

There were still mountains of things Lennok didn’t know.

The meaning of The Lighthouse Keeper’s last words, from back when he hadn’t even fully adapted to this city.

What the word ‘Alkaid’ referred to. What exactly did the Transcendants’ desired Ascension mean.

An opportunity that might hold the answers to all those questions was right before him.

Even without the Eyes of Blue’s call to assembly, it was an opportunity he absolutely had to seize, even if it meant ignoring the chaos that would unfold in the mega-city.

Davi, who had been gently stroking Lennok’s head with her tail, suddenly lifted her head.

[Master, the time…]

“…Right. Let’s begin.”

Confirming that the constellation’s position had entered its normal orbit, just as Lapis had announced beforehand, Lennok immediately began activating the summoning circle.

A large-scale summoning magic, cast with himself as the target.

However, its destination wasn’t the Northern Continent’s snowfield, thousands of kilometers away, whose exact location couldn’t even be pinpointed.

Instead, his intent, launched straight up above his head with not a single error, headed towards the constellations pouring down from the night sky.

As the light of the summoning circle, shot hundreds of meters into the sky, scattered and vanished, the constellations in the night sky suddenly began to accelerate.

Vrooooooom!!!

The starlight, previously just dots, rapidly rotated along the celestial sphere, leaving long streaks of light.

Thousands of stars covering the night sky drew long curves, fully bathing the ground in their light again.

Whoooooosh!!

The ground where Lennok sat trembled violently, and the speed at which the starlight rotated grew faster and faster.

It rotated so fast that the entire sky flipped, alternating between day and night, stars rose and set, and the sun rose again.

The scenery outside the summoning circle, excluding the ground within it, whizzed by too fast for the eyes to comprehend, ceaselessly racing in every direction.

Rumble rumble rumble!!

Antares’ passing remark about the constellations moving was not wrong.

The Watcher summoning, achieved through The Lighthouse Keeper’s authority.

The principle of that spell was to fix the positions of the constellations and the ground, then flip the entire night sky, making it a summoning magic that transcended space.

A privilege granted only to The Lighthouse Keeper, who endlessly gazed at the sky, gauging the stars’ positions and monitoring the outer sea’s landscape.

Constellation magic that utilized astromancy to its extreme, by synchronizing the celestial sphere’s position with a part of the ground, then completely flipping the virtual celestial sphere to transfer the ground’s position along with it.

It came with complex conditions: the delicate adjustment of constellation positions, time, and location, and the summoned individual needing proficiency in summoning circles.

But if those conditions were met, it was possible to summon someone to The Lighthouse Keeper’s side, no matter how far away they were.

Whoosh…!!

Even though he had already enveloped his entire body in mana, his ears felt muffled, and he could feel the surrounding air grow cold.

The altitude was changing, the temperature dropping, and the entire environment was dramatically transforming.

A truly transcendent ability that went beyond merely utilizing terrain features, to adjust the constellations in the sky and the position of the celestial sphere.

It was a miracle that fully brought home the magic, spells, and fragmented, long history accumulated by the humans of this world.

Lennok desperately focused his mind, determined not to forget a single sensation or perspective he was experiencing and receiving.

An ability passed down through generations of Lighthouse Keepers, starting with The Lighthouse Keeper, the Transcendent.

If he could only understand, analyze, and quantify it, it wouldn’t be entirely impossible to emulate even a part of it and grasp it himself.

And the moment he finally confirmed the summoning circle had stopped working, Lennok slowly opened his closed eyes—

KABOOOOM!!!

He blocked the explosion falling before his eyes with a shield.

…

[…]

As the speechless wizard and spirit tried to fill the information gap, violent shouts echoed from all directions.

“Don’t miss him!!”

“You must capture him alive, don’t kill him!!”

“Capture the Lighthouse Keeper! She’s the one who can get us closest to our deepest desire!!”

Turning her back on those shouts, a girl with her blue hair tied up smiled awkwardly at Lennok.

“Um… long time no see, Evan?”