Chapter 655: The Right to Ascension (5)
How an Ascendant from the Old World, who should have already vanished, descended without any warning.
How the series of plans Lennok and Maiya had conceived could fail so easily.
They weren’t even given time to think or prepare.
Only the reality of the worst-case scenario they had envisioned, having arrived so abruptly, lay before them.
“…….”
The fact that their arrival point, after deploying the Myriad Reflected Single Pupil’s Ideological Domain to evade the Machine City’s pursuit and finding Hermes and the Ascension Gate, was a failure.
But instead of panicking or trembling in fear, Lennok began to concentrate, trying to observe the Ascendant before him as calmly as possible.
An entity that had directly crossed the gate from the Old World and descended.
And a 9th-level Ascendant, qualified to challenge ascension in the second world.
Without knowing the level of dignity with which the opponent descended, or what thoughts lay behind his words to Lennok, no countermeasure could be devised.
‘The Doctor said Orokneer’s true ability was Mass Manipulation Magic.’
Lennok’s eyes, gazing at the unmoving Ascendant Orokneer, sank deep.
‘He said he manipulated the boundaries between matter and non-matter… I can’t even talk to him without checking his replication rate.’
9th-level Mass Manipulation Magic, transcending Hierarchy and gaining qualification.
The power that reached the pinnacle of transcendent elemental systems, placing Hermes Orokhnier at the Hierarchy of an Ascendant.
Simply being wary and observant wouldn’t be enough.
Once inside Orokneer’s Ideological Domain, it wouldn’t be strange for reality-altering attacks to pour in from all directions at any moment.
Lennok, too, should observe the opponent while prepared to immediately deploy his Domain.
His physical condition wasn’t good yet, but fortunately, his core mana had recovered considerably.
If he relied on the medicine’s power, he might even be able to force the deployment of his Mind Imprint.
Although it was a matter of clashing first to gauge his chances against an Old World Ascendant, Lennok didn’t stop preparing countermeasures.
Orokneer, seeing Lennok remain silent, slowly nodded.
“You seem to have many questions. Shall we sit and talk first?”
As he lightly gestured, pure white platinum metal rose from the empty air and transformed into the shape of a chair.
A state that transcends merely dominating and controlling reality, capable of creating and annihilating new matter.
This is not something that can be explained by temporarily gaining control over this world’s space-time.
A miracle where the very space-time Orokneer exists within functions as an independent world.
The ability of ‘answer’ granted only to Transcendent beings who have obtained the qualification to challenge ascension.
“Why this happened, you still don’t seem to understand.”
The Ascendant, Orokneer, smiled and leaned back in the chair.
“It’s simple. From the beginning, my soul never existed beyond the void of the Old World.”
“Are you saying… you never challenged ascension from the start?”
At Lennok’s question, Orokneer silently lifted his gaze.
After a moment of silence, he quietly replied.
“Transcending worlds and moving forward isn’t something possible with just will and conviction.”
He said, looking at the collapsing form of the Ascension Gate with his hands clasped behind his back.
“That is a privilege granted only to those who have prepared their own ‘answer.’ Obtaining the qualification to challenge ascension and succeeding in that challenge are entirely different matters.”
“…….”
“I obtained the qualification to challenge before the conclusion approached, but because of that, I knew I would fail.”
Orokneer closed his eyes, placing both hands neatly on his knees.
“Because the ‘answer’ I conceived wasn’t my own, but the salvation someone else desired.”
Someone else’s salvation.
Lennok knew who that statement referred to, and Orokneer didn’t bother to explain.
Orokneer’s last memory, witnessed beyond the gate.
Both knew that they had witnessed that unforgettable memory together.
“From that day, facing the Outer God’s eyes upon the sea, until finally reaching the conclusion…”
Orokneer slowly opened his eyes, referencing the memory of when the Director declared god-slaying.
“There was only pain, transcending all the time I had lived.”
“…….”
“Whenever I faced the Outer Gods descending from beyond the dark sea, I couldn’t stop having doubts.”
Orokneer spoke, as if sadly.
“I wanted to deny it, but recalling the time I met him and journeyed together… I, too, ended up believing that was the only answer.”
Was he saying that as the world’s conclusion drew near, he came to believe that killing the gods and stopping the deferment was the only answer?
Even a Transcendent who held their own answer and obtained the qualification to challenge ascension eventually faced a tragedy so profound that their thoughts changed.
“So, you intended to leave only your memories beyond the gate and observe this world’s reactions?”
Lennok asked, looking at Hermes’s corpse slumped on the throne.
“Waiting for someone, influenced by your memories, to guide you from beyond the ruined world…”
At that moment, Orokneer let out a quiet laugh.
Unlike the awkward smile that seemed to imitate human laughter, this was a laugh that seemed to well up from deep within.
Orokneer smoothed his long, curved lips with one hand and spoke.
“How precious, how magnificent the ‘answer’ he presented in the second world was… I only truly realized it when the conclusion was imminent.”
Orokneer murmured.
“That’s why I respect his ‘answer.’ That’s why I don’t presumptuously claim inevitability.”
“…….”
“That one is merely an avatar moving superficially according to my memories. There’s no depth, no trace of actual presence.”
He shook his head, as if Hermes’s words about becoming someone’s inevitability were preposterous.
“I understand that your thoughts changed at the end of the conclusion, and you realized you would fail ascension.”
Lennok, gazing fixedly at Orokneer, asked.
“Then how is it that you can exist in this world with your full consciousness?”
In the end, only this one fact mattered most.
The Doctor had told him that Orokneer chose a different path, but not the exact method.
But if Orokneer still existed as a result, didn’t that mean the method he chose succeeded in a way different from ascension?
If Orokneer had reached the third world, transcending the conclusion, without choosing ascension.
If he had descended himself beyond this world in a different manner than the Director, Lennok had to question him about it.
“Orokneer. Did you transcend the world and arrive here through a method other than ascension?”
“What is the Self [自我]?”
Orokneer, in turn, asked Lennok.
“Is what constitutes oneself the soul, or memories? Or perhaps it’s merely a collection of organic matter and genes?”
“…It depends on how you define the concept of ‘self’ and what criteria you use.”
Lennok replied.
“Whether spiritual, biological, or limited to magical theory, the concepts and definitions all differ. There is no clear answer.”
“No. There is a correct answer.”
Saying so, Orokneer slowly placed his hand on the throne from which he had risen.
Simultaneously, the platinum metal chair shattered into fragments and collapsed on the spot.
Looking down at the completely shattered fragments of the chair, he spoke.
“Even if the self disappears, will remains. As long as the form of the heart reveals its will-thought and that scene continues, it does not vanish.”
“…….”
“Even if I cease to be, only my ‘answer’ remains. Therefore, I…”
Orokneer smiled clearly.
“It wasn’t me, but my ‘answer’ that I caused to ascend instead.”
Not himself, but the ascension of his ‘answer’.
Lennok, realizing its meaning, fell silent.
Why Orokneer, from that point in time, stood before Lennok’s eyes.
What this intense manifestation of Mind Imprint space meant, even though the gate’s operation had been stopped.
He instinctively knew that what Orokneer was saying now was by no means an empty lie.
“…I see.”
Lennok murmured from beyond the freezing silence.
“You chose to ascend not yourself, but only your Ideological Domain beyond the world?”
Orokneer did not challenge ascension with his own will.
Instead, without challenging ascension, he merely launched the Ideological Domain, constructed from his own Mind Imprint, beyond the world.
The separation of his own self and the fundamental Mind Imprint that defined him.
An act of wonder: separating the Ideological Domain, which depicted the Ascendant’s ‘answer,’ from himself and sending it to the next.
Through this, he left only his ‘answer’ remaining even after the conclusion, without challenging ascension.
“That’s insane.”
Lennok asserted.
“You left a masterless Mind Imprint beyond the conclusion, without knowing how it might distort or where it might arrive?”
“Lyman. But you understand, don’t you?”
Orokneer smiled gently.
“That leaving possibilities means precisely that… clinging to futile hope and anticipating the next means that.”
“…….”
Lennok couldn’t easily refute those words.
In a way, seeking an ‘answer’ in this world, where a fourth didn’t exist, also meant that.
“Sometimes, one must even abandon oneself and leave meaning behind.”
Orokneer said, turning to look at the silent Lennok.
“Even knowing that it might end up as an empty echo and mere foam.”
Hermes Orokhnier knew that even if he challenged ascension, he would fail.
Therefore, instead of perishing meaninglessly, he wished to become someone’s possibility, and so tried to detach and send only his Mind Imprint to the next.
“…….”
The heavy truth that even a Transcendent, qualified to challenge ascension, eventually sensed failure and sought other possibilities.
Furthermore, the despair that even such a possibility, clinging to tenuous reasons and miracles, had drifted here.
The struggle to leave meaning at the end of the conclusion was this desperate.
The weight of trying to convey that struggle and longing to the next, somehow, suffocated him.
“What do you wish for?”
Lennok asked in a heavy voice.
“Why did you explain all of this to me?”
“‘Answer.’”
Orokneer replied with his eyes closed.
“The true me turned to a handful of dust beyond the ruined world, and no one remains who remembers our journey, but…”
As if his throat was clogged, he spoke with difficulty.
“Even so, I… want to confirm that we weren’t wrong.”
“…….”
“You tried to stop the gate and kill my avatar to end this situation, but my ‘answer’ has already reached this world.”
Orokneer said.
“My folly of ascending my Ideological Domain, meeting with the failure of the Ascension Gate, created an impossible miracle.”
“That’s…”
“But what happens next is not something we can choose.”
Orokneer looked at Lennok and nodded.
“Once the Ideological Domain alters reality according to the avatar’s will, I will simply become another apocalypse, halting the world’s bifurcation point.”
“…I see.”
Only then did Lennok truly realize what Orokneer desired.
The reason why an Old World Ascendant descended upon this world, even though Hermes was stopped before fully opening the gate.
It was because Orokneer, who appeared before Lennok, was the very will-thought of the Ascendant, inherent in his Ideological Domain.
Hermes’s existence was merely a trigger; Orokneer’s Ideological Domain was already flowing out beyond the Old World and the Ascension Gate.
Even if Hermes was killed at the point the gate activated and opened again, the Ascendant’s Ideological Domain was already altering reality.
If the power of the Ideological Domain were to manifest according to Hermes’s will-thought as it was, it would literally become an apocalyptic weapon, crushing the world.
“If even choosing is no longer permitted, then I…”
Orokneer murmured.
“I hope that the ‘answer’ I left behind will be rewritten by someone more qualified.”
He had summoned Lennok from beyond the space-time of the Ideological Domain, hoping for an end at Lennok’s hands.
Hoping that this wizard, who maintained his self even after facing the Ascendant’s memories, would show an ‘answer’ that could even convince him.
“…….”
Leaving only his ‘answer,’ not himself, in the next world, and yet still craving meaning?
But Lennok knew that challenging ascension meant precisely that.
To make one’s ‘answer’ into a world, into a single solution transcending causality.
That’s why even after the self is extinguished and the conclusion arrives, lingering attachments continue and longing persists.
If challenging ascension meant that.
If gaining qualification meant confronting that madness head-on.
What needed to be done was always clear.
Click!
He opened the ampoule cap and injected it directly below his collarbone.
The dosage administered just for this one day alone was more than five times. The bruising on his shoulder numbed his senses, making him barely feel pain anymore.
Thud, thud-thud!!
Orokneer watched the countless medicine bottles, stimulants, and elixir wrappers falling to his feet and smiled.
“I thought you would understand.”
“Understand?”
Lennok tossed the empty ampoule over his shoulder and chuckled.
“That’s a word completely unfitting for our current situation.”
“Though the time and place differ, we witnessed the same memory.”
Orokneer replied.
“If you heard that ‘answer’ of slaying gods beyond the sea… don’t you also know that there is only one solution that transcends all common sense and morality?”
“No.”
Lennok shook his head.
“Even that, as you said, is merely salvation for someone else.”
“…….”
“There is no such thing as salvation. Even deferment cannot be a method. If I cannot find a fitting answer in all the time I’ve been born and lived, then I…”
Crunch!!
Lennok bit his thumb, drawing blood, and murmured.
“I will find the ‘answer’ in a future that has not yet arrived.”
“Very well.”
The moment Orokneer lightly stamped his foot with his hands clasped behind his back,
Shwaaaak!!!
The distance between the two began to stretch insanely.
In the Ideological Domain, where the Ascendant’s will became reality, Orokneer was trying to create distance from Lennok and prepare for battle.
Lennok, knowing this, reached into his pocket with a hand still dripping blood.
Taking a deep drag from a cigarette, Lennok raised his gaze to the sky and quietly murmured.
“Domain deployment.”
Fwoooooosh!!!
At the end of the colorless wave, the void of the universe unfolded.
The golden Mind Imprint rising behind Lennok. But the form of the Mind Imprint rising from the edge of the universe was only one.
The Mind Imprint of the forging system, which settled into the work of a craftsman under the identity of Lyman, eventually grasping the title of Meister and reaching the pinnacle of the Machine City.
The ideal of a craftsman striving to absorb all the technology and know-how existing throughout the Machine City to create a single masterpiece.
It was the heart of a creator who wished for their ‘answer’, created by their own fingertips, to reach beyond the world, not for themselves.
Domain Deployment: Divergence Point Observation
Primordial Hierarchy Mind Imprint Manifestation
Forging System Peak of Extremes
[Dragon-Toad Fortress (遷屯甲龍星)]
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!!!!!
A gigantic steel fortress hundreds of meters in size, seemingly a blend of dragon and toad forms.
Thousands of cannon muzzles protruding from the fortress walls, and the unceasing flames of war rising from the outer battlements.
The aerial fortress, floating and moving through the air, glared at Orokneer’s Ideological Domain from beyond the sky.
The moment Lennok, mounted on the armored fortress deployed over the distant platinum land, raised his hand.
“Here I come.”
[Spatial Collapse Temporary Construction]
[Imaginary Dimension Information Extraction]
[Old World Database Forced Recognition Complete]
“…….”
The moment Orokneer’s emotionless eyes suddenly widened.
[Mini Ascension Gate Open (開放)]
Crackle-crackle-crackle!!
Above the head of the fortress, which bore a dragon’s visage, space began to tear apart, opening a gigantic rift.