Chapter 657: The Right to Ascension (7)
Kwoooosh!
The platinum spacetime, shattered into fragments, crumbled.
The radiance of Ouroboros, rising in a colossal halo, began to dismantle the Ascendant’s Ideological Domain.
Realizing this, Orokhnier’s gaze wavered, for the first time, with agitation.
“You mean a mere magic system can disrupt and collapse a perfected mental landscape?”
The Platinum Star of Soaring Harvest was Hermes Orokhnier’s answer to ascension, a destination he had achieved by sacrificing his own existence.
The platinum spacetime, attained by reaching the pinnacle of Mass Manipulation Magic, was a miraculous domain where all creation and transformation could be performed freely.
Originally, the processes of Mass Manipulation Magic required immense cost and casting time, but within the spacetime of the Platinum Star of Soaring Harvest, they were compressed into a single, instantaneous cycle.
Yet, the Ascendant Orokhnier’s Ideological Domain, perfected with such grand will-thought, was unable to contain the magic of a single person and began to crumble.
“How can a mere mortal, unqualified for ascension, wield such power…?!”
“It is precisely because I haven’t reached it that I can dream of perfection.”
Drip, drip…!!
Lennok wiped away the trickling nosebleed and replied with effort.
“It is because one is incomplete that one can, at times, surpass perfection.”
The Ouroboros magic system, which forcibly dismantles and absorbs all existing powers and spells.
A miracle: Lennok’s perpetual motion machine, incomplete yet yearning for perfection, spinning and beginning to collapse the Ascendant’s Ideological Domain.
But the reason this miracle could materialize was not because Lennok had acquired power surpassing Orokhnier.
“An answer that wavered, transcending worlds. Remnants of will-thought, abandoned by their master. Information overload from the Mini Ascension Gate’s opening, and even the output measurement of Mass Manipulation Magic.”
Lennok smiled.
“Only by forcibly aligning conditions to this extent can one even attempt it. The right to challenge ascension, indeed…”
Lennok’s perpetual motion machine, the Ouroboros magic system, built upon his transcendent intuition and comprehension.
Given sufficient time and conditions, it could dismantle and analyze any power or spell, allowing him to acquire it.
However, it was a natural fact that even with Ouroboros’s power, dismantling an Ideological Domain required an immense price.
That was why Lennok had continuously adjusted the conditions for using Ouroboros even while engaging Orokhnier in a battle of pure firepower.
“Cough…!!!”
His vision turned crimson from the vast influx of information and mental landscape fragments piercing through his mind, and his back hunched forward.
Forcibly dismantling the Ascendant’s Ideological Domain alone caused all the mana in his body to evaporate.
Excruciating pain, as if his veins and brain were being scraped and torn, surged through him.
Kiiiing…!!
A white radiance, extending from the Ascendant’s fingertips, warped space and converged at a single point.
It transformed into a blinding pure-white bombardment that dyed the horizon.
KRA-THUMP!!!
The platinum legions and ramparts rose again from where they had crumbled, and Orokhnier’s will-thought scattered helplessly as a mighty bombardment.
But from beyond the mass bombardment sweeping and raging in all directions, Lennok neither dodged nor fled.
Mass Hierarchy Unique Ability Imitative Projection Proxy Process [Creation: Dragon-Toad Fortress’s Mechanical Wall]
The moment he shakily raised a hand and swept it sideways, a colossal mechanical wall surged from the ground, racing forth to meet the pure-white onslaught.
Rumble!
Orokhnier’s hand movements paused momentarily as he realized the identity of the mechanical wall that had assembled itself in an instant.
“The fragments of the aerial fortress—”
“The Platinum Star of Soaring Harvest is the power to create and transform mental landscapes into mass, wielding them like weapons.”
Lennok, leaning heavily, said.
“If you dismantle and observe its essence, similar results are… possible.”
A colossal wave of machinery, coursing across the ground, unrestrained, following Lennok’s will-thought.
Fragments of the shattered Dragon-Toad Fortress, mimicking Mass Manipulation Magic, were being forged into new matter and concepts.
A momentary miracle, directly mimicking the Ascendant’s Mass Manipulation Magic, which consumed immense costs.
But to Orokhnier, that alone seemed an achievement bordering on the impossible.
“Hahahah! You mean you forcibly transformed the remnants of my domain by mimicking Mass Manipulation Magic…?! That’s possible for you?!”
Orokhnier laughed maniacally, as if disbelieving, and drove his platinum legions forward.
“That shouldn’t be a miracle allowed to humans! I must see for myself what lies at the end of that vessel!!”
“All necessary preparations are complete.”
Lennok murmured, instantly drawing up his mana.
“Neither will take long, in any case.”
“Indeed…!!”
[Creation: Endymion’s 17th Lancers] [Formation: Iron Cavalry Amplification Armament Art] [Approximate Thunder and Mist] [Whitefall: Soaring Azure]
The platinum legions and lightning intermingled and crossed hundreds of times, transforming into a spear-play of will-thought.
Each time the Ascendant and the wizard exchanged gestures, space all around them twisted and shattered, even their debris raining down as weapons.
Behind the two, one who had transcended humanity and one on the verge of doing so, brilliant radiance erupted, dyeing the platinum spacetime a deep blue.
All repercussions of destruction and mutual annihilation faded, leaving the crumbling, revolving heart of the Ideological Domain.
Beyond the infinite chasm of time and consciousness, two divided mental landscapes and will-thoughts clashed.
Kagagagagak!!!
The Ascendant’s will-thought transformed on the spot into dozens of weapons, beast heads, monster claws, and roars.
Lightning tendrils bloomed, twisting as if mimicking a legion’s barrage, tearing space apart.
[Heavenly Collapse Thunderbrand] [Armored Electric Slaughter]
Hundreds and thousands of legions and ramparts simultaneously surged forth, then were pulverized and annihilated.
Artillery fire from the workshop fortress rained down like a storm, gathering will-thought within scattered time and detonating it.
An extreme high-speed battle unfolded, with positions shifting dozens of times in an instant.
BANG!!
Orokhnier’s form, hidden amidst the brilliant platinum petals, warped space and manifested behind Lennok.
A colossal guillotine, descending from above, struck down explosively, raising a pure white storm.
It plunged directly into the storm’s center, spinning, battering, kicking, and tearing the wizard’s form to shreds.
Thump-thump-thump!!!
Yet, all the barrages and killing intent surging towards Lennok, seemingly about to land, failed to connect, twisting and vanishing as if unable to finalize.
The mental landscapes and will-thoughts, abandoned by their master, were continuously devoured by the golden snake revolving behind Lennok.
Furthermore, the entirety of the platinum spacetime began to revolve around the wizard.
Kiiiiiiing…!!!
“An oddly incomplete structure and an extremely twisted will-thought… I see. The very process of advancing towards completion, as a principle?”
After an impossibly high-speed exchange, an undeniable, intense reverence flickered across the Ascendant’s face as he grasped the essence of the Ouroboros magic system.
“An absurd notion. But what’s even more astonishing is the sheer speed at which such a dangerous ability is cast and constructed. It is not a state that can be reached with a single mind and consciousness.”
“Ever since I realized Ouroboros’s shortcomings, I’ve been researching various ways to compensate for them.”
CRASH!!
The moment Lennok murmured that, the platinum spacetime shattered, mingling with the surrounding matter and beginning to revolve.
“But if one doesn’t focus on its essence, it’s impossible to truly manifest the meaning of a magic system.”
In battles between high-level superhumans, it’s difficult to use Ouroboros because opponents quickly recognize its danger and try to suppress it.
That’s why Lennok deployed the Mini Ascension Gate from the very beginning, covering the Ideological Domain with information from the Old World.
Hidden amidst the informational will-thought entities pouring from the Mini Ascension Gate, it became difficult to detect the activation of Lennok’s Ouroboros magic system.
“An incomplete Ideological Domain that reached ascension without a master. Measuring its output and estimation through rotation would be sufficient.”
Lennok said.
Kwoooosh!!
Fragments of the shattered Dragon-Toad Fortress mixed with the Ideological Domain’s spacetime, surging in all directions.
The clash of will-thought and mana, intersecting countless times in the brief instant he split and inserted his consciousness.
Hundreds of magical light and heat ray trajectories overlapped, curving circularly, piercing through the Ascendant amidst the vanishing domain and soaring high into the sky.
“Tsk…!!”
Orokhnier’s form, pushed back in the frontal power struggle, was impaled between the cracks of the Mini Ascension Gate that had ascended high into the sky.
KAA-BLAM!!!
[Sealing Gate]
Orokhnier immediately tried to escape the gate’s fissures, but the Mini Ascension Gate rapidly closed, beginning to tightly constrict his form.
Realizing, belatedly, the true reason Lennok had pre-laid the Mini Ascension Gate, Orokhnier’s complexion changed.
“I can’t escape… Could it be, from the very beginning?!!!”
“Even an answer that has crossed a world will inevitably find its true place.”
Spacetime manipulation interference due to the Ascension Gate’s information overload. The objective was not the high-speed casting of the Ouroboros magic system.
The Ascendant’s transcendent will-thought and mental landscape, which could not be bound by ordinary traps or restraints.
Therefore, to forcibly fix his existence, Lennok had meticulously woven a series of offensives, making the Mini Ascension Gate itself the final destination.
Thump-thump-thump-thump!!!!
A bizarre spectacle unfolded as the platinum spacetime, incessantly revolving on the ground, dismantled and merged into one.
In the sky, Orokhnier’s form was impaled within the Mini Ascension Gate’s fissures, fixed like a target.
Lennok, standing inverted on the revolving, collapsing ground as if connecting heaven and earth into a single path, raised one hand towards the Ascension Gate.
“The necessary configuration is complete.”
Kagagagagak!!!
The moment Lennok tossed Teremer’s Demise, the Old World’s magic rifle, into the air.
The shattered remnants of the Dragon-Toad Fortress and the platinum of the Ideological Domain converged around the magic rifle, rising.
Mass Hierarchy Unique Ability Imitative Projection Proxy Process [Creation: Teremer’s Demise Artillery]
Kwoooosh!!!!
The fortress components of the Dragon-Toad Fortress and the platinum of the Ideological Domain intermingled, transforming the domain itself.
The crumbling Ideological Domain, revolving around Lennok and the Mini Ascension Gate, reassembled into the form of a colossal artillery cannon.
The Ideological Domain transforming into a massive artillery of demise, and Orokhnier’s form impaled and fixed within the Mini Ascension Gate at its very tip.
The cannon and the target.
The regret felt from the far side of the magic rifleman’s memories, shared by both of them, intersected simultaneously.
Only then, a sharp sneer formed on Orokhnier’s lips as he realized what Lennok was about to do.
“You dare intend to shoot me down, like a mere target?”
“The Dragon-Toad Fortress’s firepower is creation magic that has reached the apex among all the physical forces I can generate.”
Lennok replied calmly.
“If I cannot destroy you even by mixing in variables that originally did not exist, then it means your annihilation cannot be pinpointed through physical attacks.”
The crafting-type self-Domain, Dragon-Toad Fortress.
Its inherent powerful potential dramatically evolved when Lennok acquired the irregular elements of the Ascension Gate’s activation code and structural system.
The knowledge and power of the Ascension Gate were the embodiment of all the hopes and possibilities held by Machina, the Machine City.
Therefore, integrating that potential into Lennok’s mental landscape was tantamount to forcibly drawing upon the entire potential of a city.
The reason Lennok challenged Orokhnier head-on, despite knowing he was an Ascendant specialized in warfare, was his certainty that he could significantly boost the Dragon-Toad Fortress’s power by drawing upon the Ascension Gate’s potential.
But even with the combined fire of mass combat, the activation of the colossal mechanical arm Heoyeok, Shadow Moon’s gravitational pull, and the impact of dropping the entire fortress, Orokhnier did not perish.
If that was the case, he had no choice but to imbue his mental landscape with meaning beyond mere physical attacks, and fire it.
“If an Ascendant must be shot down, then I….”
Lennok murmured.
“I will even make your memories my potential.”
And the key to that strategy, Lennok had drawn not from elsewhere, but from the depths of Orokhnier’s own memories.
Impaling Orokhnier into the void beyond the Mini Ascension Gate, Lennok would shoot him dead with his mental landscape.
The Director’s demise, proclaiming he would shoot down a god.
If it were Orokhnier’s lingering thoughts, shaken by the Director’s answer and thus failing to ascend, then this causality would surely strike him.
“Preposterous. You are not the magic rifleman. You don’t possess even a fragment of his authority.”
Orokhnier sneered, as if unable to tolerate it, fixed and impaled amidst the shattered spacetime.
“You, whose talent lies in an entirely different direction, dare to mimic that life? With such a paltry, imitative trick…!!!”
“You’re not wrong. But it’s enough.”
Lennok replied.
“Because that, too, is another branching point that might have existed for me someday.”
“…What did you say?”
In the fleeting moment Orokhnier’s expression turned blank, failing to grasp the meaning.
Lennok stretched out his hand towards the Ascendant’s will-thought, floating high in the platinum spacetime.
He dismantled the incomplete Ideological Domain with Ouroboros’s power, simultaneously absorbing it as his own energy source.
Using this newly acquired energy, he once again manifested an impossible miracle in this place.
Pwaaaaaah!!!
Behind Lennok, the radiant golden kaleidoscope emerged.
Within the kaleidoscope’s scenery, a double-helix-coiled serpent revolved and blazed.
[Formation: Mental Landscape Bullet Construction]
A second domain deployment, used concurrently with the Ouroboros magic system.
However, the scenery reflected beyond the kaleidoscope was a power entirely different from that of the Dragon-Toad Fortress.
“Domain Reversal.”
Reversal Domain Construction Origin Hierarchy Mental Landscape Manifestation [Black Solution Starfall]
Pwaaaaaah!!!
The moment Lennok reached his hand into the kaleidoscope, the pure white plain, teeming with platinum legions, was inverted in the blink of an eye.
Kwoooosh!!!!
What unfolded before their eyes was not a vast plain, but an endlessly sprawling, pitch-black wasteland.
Upon hills of ash, where everything had been incinerated and completely consumed, lay Orokhnier’s platinum legions and the scenery of a city.
An alien landscape, revealed by the overlapping of Lennok’s domain and Orokhnier’s Ideological Domain.
Above the dark sky, where ash and platinum legions were chaotically intermingled, a faint ring of light hung, like a total solar eclipse unfolding.
Beyond the possibility of having entered Blaiver Magic Tower, dedicated himself to pyrokinetic systems, and endlessly ignited flames upon battlefields.
A mental landscape that transcended the five Flame Pillars, surpassed hierarchy to inherit the Tower Lord’s position, was called a ‘Fire God’, and transformed into the eternally blazing inferno of the battlefield.
“A second self-Domain…?”
Undisguised wonder appeared on Orokhnier’s face as he looked around.
“There was a reason for such astonishing combat power. How can a human wield two mental landscapes with a single mind?!!”
As an Ascendant of the Old World, Orokhnier had encountered many monsters possessing multiple domains, and many geniuses who could alternate between a single domain.
But such individuals were always those with twisted minds or constitutions, or whose talents had been warped by unique circumstances.
However, Lennok casually defied such common sense and unfurled a second self-Domain before Orokhnier.
A pyrokinetic mental landscape, immeasurably stronger than that of the Dragon-Toad Fortress, was coiled together and transformed into a mental landscape bullet.
“This is….”
Sizzle…!!
Amidst the heat rising from the ash hills, the platinum legions began to melt, helpless.
The city-forms created and manifested by Orokhnier melted and crumbled, and in their wake, the entire Ideological Domain twisted and cracked.
The heat filling all directions was burning away not only matter but also the very concept of space, threatening the construction of Orokhnier’s mental landscape itself.
The entire sky, which had appeared like a total solar eclipse, inverted completely, surging towards the ground.
A colossal, endlessly burning pitch-black sphere began to converge into the massive cannon’s muzzle, as if being sucked in.
Dismantling Ideological Domain Platinum Star of Soaring Harvest Mass Hierarchy Unique Magic Mimicry Projection [Creation: Teremer’s Demise Artillery] [Domain Reversal: Black Solution Starfall] [Bullet Designation: Heavenly Connection Fall]
“Perhaps there is no single answer that encompasses everything.”
Lennok said.
“But if an answer doesn’t exist, then I will create it myself.”
Lennok, standing atop the artillery of demise, slowly clenched the hand he had raised towards Orokhnier.
“Even the moment I shatter your mental landscape, steal your spells, and reforge their meaning… I only hope that it becomes a process moving towards completion.”
That was why Lennok made the heart that yearned for that process his magic.
The golden serpent, forever revolving, biting its own tail.
“The right to challenge ascension must be such a thing.”
“Ha…”
Orokhnier, silently gazing at the radiance, slowly closed his eyes.
“That is not the answer I desired. It’s a method far too different from the perfection we sought. But…”
For just a moment, a clear smile seemed to grace the Ascendant’s lips.
“It is the most arrogant answer I have ever witnessed.”
Kwooooh!!!
The pinnacle of pyrokinetic magic, permitted only within the kaleidoscope’s domain, was drawn into the cannon created by dismantling the Ideological Domain.
A fusion spell, rotating the entirety of his mental landscape’s construction and domain power, fired towards a single person.
[Non-Divine Fall]
Kwoooosh!!!!!
Above the ash plain, a black star surged from the platinum muzzle.
The magic rifleman’s demise, proclaiming he would shoot down a god.
The wizard’s sun, attempting to turn even that answer into possibility, became a mortal magic bullet, engulfing the Ascendant and soaring.
KAA-BLAAAAAAAAAAAM!!!
The spacetime, scattered and enveloped in black flames, shattered the Ascension Gate and the Ideological Domain, dyeing the Machine City’s sky a dark crimson inferno.