Chapter 714: Housebreaking (7)

The factory-like structure burning above their heads.

The ruins of a crumbling theme park, flames surging from all directions.

The ticket booths and commercial buildings collapsed, unable to withstand the shock and heat, emitting roars.

Beyond the shattered fragments, riding the distorted earth, Lennok and Peshia stood facing each other.

Hundreds of superhuman bodies lay scattered at their feet.

Only five were barely breathing. Two were of unknown fate.

“D-Director…”

Starkton mumbled with a voice about to break.

He bit his tongue, desperately trying not to lose consciousness.

“Adamant Thunder, isn’t mad… there’s something we missed…”

“Yes. I know.”

Peshia replied without taking her eyes off Lennok.

“A guy who’s gone mad with blood and battle doesn’t feel like this from the start.”

“……”

“There are sometimes guys like this.”

Peshia grinned, ignoring the silent Lennok.

“Guys who are weirder than those driven mad by curiosity about the ending. No, maybe that’s the real madness?”

Peshia chuckled, as if completely indifferent to the overwhelming scent of death or the bodies of her subordinates lying at her feet.

Her eerie voice and demeanor were chilling even to Lennok.

But Lennok, apart from that, was calmly organizing his thoughts about Peshia.

Peshia Grisbern, the Ghost Princess of Deadrise.

A killer who, in the past, had operated in Vulcan and slain countless people, and the master of Beck Clinton, who was part of the Cigar Bang Gang.

A physical superhuman who wielded powerful spirit manipulation techniques, and herself a formidable spear user who had reached a profound state.

Peshia’s achievements, which had been ambiguous when they met at the casino, now felt clearer than ever, with her intent to kill revealed.

It was difficult to guess the exact depth, but this desolate aura clearly transcended Hierarchy.

However, Lennok had somewhat anticipated Peshia’s capabilities.

‘I had heard explanations about Peshia’s past actions.’

The fact that she had engaged in a one-on-one battle with Antares when she was active in Vulcan.

That she had been pushed to the brink of death, her spine broken, and had focused on recovery at the Central Front.

But Lennok was more concerned with the fact that Peshia had survived the fight against Antares, rather than her defeat.

‘Antares is not so lax as to deliberately spare an opponent he has fought.’

Lennok’s gaze deepened as he watched Peshia slowly walk towards him.

‘If that precognitive couldn’t kill Peshia, there must have been a good reason.’

Antares was a precognitive who had glimpsed the ending and returned, a being whose own ending was fixed as a result of that backlash.

He was one of the very few prophets who wandered the continent, trying to change outcomes with the foresight he had gained.

Would he, with the pre-determined answer sheet in his hand, enter battle with the intention of sparing an opponent he had decided to fight?

If he couldn’t kill Peshia, even though he had essentially excluded her future, it must be because a significant reason existed.

The mere fact that Peshia even considered fighting Antares one-on-one suggested her martial prowess was extraordinary.

And if she, who had nearly died once at Antares’s hand, had returned to Vulcan.

Was it not possible only because she herself was confident she wouldn’t be outmatched by Antares?

“I thought it at the casino too, but you’re a truly strange one.”

Peshia, who had advanced significantly, smiled, looking at Lennok.

“What are you contemplating so deeply even now?”

“……”

“Don’t think. Thinking is something you do before a fight.”

Behind her, unknown spirit forms rapidly shifted, representing her changing will-thoughts and emotions.

[Quiiiiiek!!]

The first to stop behind Peshia was a plump wild boar, emitting an unpleasant snorting sound.

Covered in black fur from head to toe, the Ghost Princess, possessing the beast’s spirit, extended one hand to the side.

Sliiiip!!

The boar-like form opened its mouth wide, and from within, it spat out a long spear shaft.

A bizarre long spear emitting a shimmering light. The bell attached to its tip rang out with a clear chime.

The moment she grasped it, Peshia’s aura dramatically changed.

Her already faint presence deepened further, and the whites of her eyes disappeared as she gazed at Lennok.

Peshia’s aura became still, as if possessed by something, or preparing for it.

“If you don’t want to die, focus on me.”

A chilling scream flowed from her lips, so eerie it was impossible to tell where she was looking.

“Struggle desperately, think only of me until you’re on the verge of death!!!”

“Who says?”

The moment Peshia’s spear shaft vanished from its spot, Lennok also gathered his mana at his fingertips and swung.

[White Descent]

[Flying Azure]

As the bizarrely curved spear blade lightly rotated, Lennok gripped and unleashed a streak of pure white lightning.

The moment the superhuman weapon and magic, transcending common sense, collided, they split into hundreds of fragments and exploded in an unseen realm of consciousness.

Boom!!

The first clash of wills erupted between them, standing face to face.

As the two monsters, having reached Level 8, moved, everything around them began to be pulverized at invisible speeds.

Screeeeech!!!!

Beyond mere grinding of blades and magic, a bizarre roar of twisting, splitting, and crushing.

An eerie sound, enough to burst eardrums, echoed like a song.

The exchanges between the wizard and spear user invaded and overwrote each other’s gaps hundreds of times.

Crackk-boom!!!

Even without properly assuming a stance, the speed of the swinging spear transcended sound.

The power of the launched strikes was truly monstrous, but what was even more astounding was the speed at which the weapon was withdrawn.

A paradox: the speed of retraction and convergence was vastly superior to the speed of the full-hearted swing.

But the spear user’s martial art, which manifested this paradox in reality, transcended sound and space, turning into power beyond the laws of physics.

[Ghost Extreme: Ashfall]

Lennok, matching that speed, simultaneously chanted dozens of his unique spells in response.

[Thunderbreak]

[Night Thunder Dance]

Grrrrrr!!!

While the spear swung, a drilling sound, as if tearing through space-time, echoed.

The crushed and twisted lightning radiance swirled from his fingertips, tearing through and deflecting between the mangled spaces.

Beyond the speed of perception, fragments of trajectories surged forward from the depths of will-thought.

Innumerable trajectories of offense and defense burrowed beneath the conscious minds of Lennok and Peshia.

Hundreds, thousands of fragmented lines, constantly changing their paths and directions, carving out life and death in every moment.

Transcending the current time of spear and magic collision, they weighed their predictions and repercussions from the past and future.

The first clash, happening immediately upon encounter.

That too, a tactical battle exchanged head-on, without either moving an inch.

Crackle…!!

The realm of calculations and intuition, pushed to the extreme.

Illusions of sparks flying in the mind, and trajectories that swayed like a piano melody, instantly merged into one and rotated.

A streak of pure white lightning Lennok held in reverse grip and swung, collided precisely with the tip of Peshia’s spear and stopped.

KAAANG!!!

Their hundreds of colliding exchanges, which had twisted and struck more than a hundred times before two breaths could finish, abruptly ceased as if by agreement.

“…!!!”

With the crisscrossing shockwaves at their backs, Lennok and Peshia almost simultaneously looked at each other’s faces.

Peshia’s lips twitched. Her pupils, devoid of whites, gleamed with bloodlust and excitement.

“You, you see it. Don’t you?”

“That sounds like something I should be asking.”

Lennok chuckled.

Lennok’s left eye, by then, glowed with a distinct violet mystic eye.

“So that’s why you survived your defeat by Antares. You seem to have been greatly affected by that battle.”

The violet mystic eye etched in his left eye was the power to visualize Lennok’s mental landscape, which observed the divergence points of possibility.

It was an ability designated as an innate unique ability and manifested in the form of a mystic eye, simply by visualizing Lennok’s own mental landscape.

The culmination of extensive combat experience, transcendent intuition, and judgments honed by facing countless monsters.

But Peshia had forcefully countered Lennok’s final Flickering Thunder, forcibly creating a state of equilibrium.

It wasn’t a head-on tactical victory, but an odd sense of someone forcing their tempo, as if having peeked at the answer.

Lennok remembered where he had felt this sensation.

The peculiar unpleasantness felt from precognitives like Antares, or revelation ability users like the cult’s priestesses.

“Future sight? No, it’s a much weaker and fainter power. So weak it can’t even be called a unique ability.”

Lennok slowly retreated, muttering.

“It’s merely mimicking Antares’s power clumsily… but it feels like you can use it whenever you want.”

Peshia’s lips twitched at Lennok’s fearless mention of Antares’s name, but she did not deny it.

Lennok, without waiting for an answer, naturally spoke the inferences that came to mind.

“That’s why you were so absorbed in gambling at the casino. Probability games would be effective for training precognitive aptitude.”

After being defeated in the battle with Antares, had she instead been influenced by his power and awakened an aptitude?

If so, it would explain why Peshia not only recovered from her injuries but also became a high-hierarchy powerhouse.

And why Antares couldn’t kill her and let her escape from that battle.

“Wrong. It’s not that I discovered a new unique ability or aptitude now.”

Peshia said, stroking her spear shaft.

Even after the exchange ceased, she showed no impatience.

She merely gently caressed the spear shaft, which had rapidly heated up during the fierce battle.

Her unhurried movements, paradoxically, felt dangerous to Lennok, as if she could explode at any moment.

“It’s just that I learned to… enjoy the process more, perhaps?”

“……”

“As I pondered not who to kill, but how to kill, I began to understand something more.”

Peshia shrugged.

Behind her, a giant owl with large, bloodshot eyes had now appeared, staring at them.

A bizarre owl shape with intensely bloodshot eyes glaring this way.

Spirit possession manipulation far more grotesque and powerful than what Beck Clinton used.

“From then on, the spirits started to break free from my control… Once I realized that, I became more interested in the method than the outcome.”

“Like the casino games?”

“Yes. Just like those games.”

Peshia’s mouth stretched horizontally, forming a long, wide grin.

A grotesque smile, chilling like a ghost. She was like a child unable to contain her desire to reveal her true nature.

Not about who to kill, but how to kill.

Had her mental landscape twisted as she became engrossed in the aesthetics of death, transcending Hierarchy to reach Level 8?

If so, her degraded mimicry of future sight should also be seen not as awakening a new unique ability, but as a deepening of her spirit manipulation methods.

Crrrunch!!

‘During the Pandemonium meeting, Deimus spoke down to Peshia, yet still showed respect for her martial prowess.’

Lennok rapidly pieced together the information he had received under the aliases Van and Victor.

‘That must be because, regardless of Deimus’s higher position within Deadrise, his actual strength isn’t necessarily superior. Considering that—’

The internal positions and ranks within Deadrise were assigned regardless of individual combat power.

Meaning, even if someone was Peshia’s superior, there was no guarantee they were stronger than her.

This was information Lennok could not overlook, given that he might have to face Deadrise in the future.

The moment Lennok maintained a precarious distance from Peshia and poured more mana into himself.

“Excellent intuition. But I don’t like that way of thinking.”

Peshia whispered.

“Setting the answer and forcing the process to fit… your arrogance pierces the heavens. You think everything you think is right, don’t you?”

KAAABOOM!!

At that moment, the satellite factory floating above them exploded and began to tilt heavily to one side.

The satellite factory was starting to plummet, unable to sustain itself. Had Tatiana destroyed the anti-gravity engine?

But Tatiana’s expression, as she burst out from inside, was far from bright.

“Van!!”

Kiiing!!

A ringing in his ears. Before he could even notice the anomaly, both their senses shot towards the sky.

Tatiana, standing at the far end of the exploding factory, shouted with a pale face.

Due to the significant distance, Lennok could only perceive her urgent demeanor.

But that alone was enough to understand Tatiana’s intent.

She hadn’t been able to destroy the engine inside the factory, or perhaps hadn’t even found the engine itself.

Lennok, intuiting this, turned his gaze towards the fallen Starkton in the distance, when Peshia spoke.

“I made extensive preparations for this plan. You didn’t think I’d let things go wrong just because of one crazy wizard, did you?”

Lennok immediately grasped the meaning of her words and replied.

“…You moved the incomplete engine to the launchpad. Even if things go wrong, you’ll ensure the launch itself succeeds?”

“A few dead wizard souls won’t change a thing.”

Snap!!

She twisted her spear shaft, pulling it out from between Lennok’s lightning magic, and answered.

“What’s important is that you are the pyromantic Authority Receptacle itself. Once the witch plugs the stolen treasure into the engine’s power core, the rest will work itself out somehow.”

Peshia said this and slowly began to assume a stance.

“So die here. Along with that witch who’s ruined this entire plan up to this point!!”

Immediately after, fragments of the plummeting satellite factory fell upon Lennok and Peshia.

KABOOOOOM!!!!

With an enormous impact, a massive crater formed beneath the commercial building where the ticket booth was located.

A deafening roar that ripped eardrums. A vibration that felt like the entire senses were shaking. A strange ringing in the ears burrowing into the mind, all swirling together.

Beyond the ruins of melting metal and earth piles, the clash of lightning and spear light continued without ceasing.

The clash of forces, several times faster than their initial confrontation, aiming for each other’s vital points to seize life.

KWOOOOSH!!!

As if using the impact of the falling factory as a recoil, long steel structures rapidly shot up from the other side of the theme park.

Their forms seemed designed to support something and secure a runway.

Before Lennok could even register that it was a facility for satellite launch, intense flames erupted, burning the propellant.

KWOOOOSH!!!

The launchpad began to ignite, despite Lennok not having yet seized the Phoenix Hall.

Crack!!

Peshia, with one foot planted on Lennok’s fallen shoulder, whispered.

“After Lord Bajour attained ascendancy, we struggled to leave this city and seize a second chance.”

Kiiing!!

A ringing in both their ears simultaneously. Was their hearing being damaged by the roars echoing from all directions?

She lowered her head towards the bloodied Lennok and said.

“That’s why I hate this city. That kind of experience… where everything gets ruined. I don’t want to go through that twice.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Lennok gave a bitter laugh and tilted his head.

“But about Kaiser Bajour, I do know a thing or two.”

“What?”

Click!!

An old pocket watch fell from inside Lennok’s fallen coat.

The moment Peshia’s eyes widened beyond words, staring at the pocket watch spinning rapidly counter-clockwise.

“I understand the feeling. Shall we start over?”

KIRIRIRIK!!

Lennok, grasping the pocket watch, plunged its second hand into his temple.