Chapter 717: Housebreaking (10)
Whoosh!!
As the flickering form of a woman, made of flames, grasped Tatiana’s hand, brilliant fire enveloped her body.
But instead of burning, the witch’s body was embraced by a warm heat, regaining its vitality.
Surprise flickered across Tatiana’s face as she struggled to lift her gaze, soon transforming into a sorrowful smile.
“Tessa…”
[I’m sorry, Tatiana.]
The woman called Tessa said quietly.
[Our last operation. It ended in failure, after all.]
“…No.”
Tatiana shook her head, her voice choked.
“I was wrong. I shouldn’t have made that deal with Master. No matter how many times I swore, I…”
She had thought many times about quitting her position as a Flame Pillar, feeling skeptical about the tower’s affairs.
It took a long time for Tatiana to confess that decision to the other wizards.
She had gathered her resolve with others and obtained a promise from the Magic Tower Lord that they would leave the tower after this operation.
Yet, even that had ended as a meaningless sacrifice, thrown into an impossible mission.
Tatiana’s wish to withdraw from the battlefield was ultimately as fleeting as smoke, but even with all hope shattered, she couldn’t stop yet.
She couldn’t allow the deaths of the wizards who had trusted her and followed her to the very end to be ridiculed.
Even as she desperately resolved and reaffirmed, she felt her eyes well up the moment she saw the faces from her memories.
“I’m sorry, Tessa. I wanted to keep apologizing.”
Transparent tears fell amidst the flames.
“I caused your deaths. It’s my fault…”
[We decided this ourselves. We accepted it to leave the tower, so I have no regrets.]
Tessa silently stroked Tatiana’s cheek.
[Still, it’s enough that you’re alive. It’s alright if you remain.]
“…”
[You just have to carry our hopes.]
“…Yes.”
Tatiana shed tears.
She smiled even as she wept.
Because there was an answer more fitting to see off her departing comrades than to explain the tower’s disgraces and betrayals.
Flash! Pop! Pop!!
From the engine’s power core, crimson lights unraveled one by one, transforming into burning human figures.
The figures of over a dozen wizards quietly vanished from Tatiana’s side.
The boundary between the living and the dead.
As if crossing to the other side within a cage, the wizards’ spirits transformed into a handful of flames and rose.
Flames that gently enveloped and burned around Tatiana.
At the same time, she felt the shackles within her burn away one by one.
Flames of the soul that incinerated the Geas forcibly binding her Mind Imprint.
As she raised her hand, following the enveloping flames, the launch pad’s fires began to extinguish, carried by the witch’s will.
Whoooooosh…!!!
The propellant overflowing onto the ground and the launch pad’s flames quietly extinguished as if melting into the atmosphere.
Realizing that the overflowing flames had been put out and the satellite launch completely halted, Tatiana collapsed and bowed her head.
“What do you think?”
Lennok, who had been silently watching, asked Peshia.
“Can the Mind Imprint’s shackles on a human be released and dispelled like that?”
“Don’t make me laugh!!!”
Peshia immediately kicked Lennok, sending him flying backward.
The impact alone instantly caused the launch pad to collapse, leaving a long scar on the ground.
Boom!!!
Peshia, who surged from amidst the collapsing debris, spoke as she watched Lennok, who had been pushed back.
A monstrous strength exerted even with her entire body broken and covered in blood.
The persistence of an extreme-level physical superhuman, resolved to die, had already transcended the boundaries of life.
“If you truly are his herald…!! You should know how meaningless this repetition is.”
“…”
“Knowing that, are you still clinging to such meaningless meaning?”
“You’re right. Perhaps the answer has already been decided.”
Lennok muttered, gazing at his faintly trembling arms.
The side effect of using Eight Reverberations of Ouroboros for the third time to properly land Circumferential Consecration.
It was powerful enough to instantly convert Peshia’s charge into a counterattack, but now he understood clearly.
The side effects from this abnormal power were something Lennok could never easily control.
A sense of alienation, as if Lennok’s body ceased to be his own with each use of the technique.
Something that couldn’t invade Lennok’s mind was slowly corroding his body.
Suppressing the emptiness, as if sensation was fading from his fingertips, Lennok spoke.
“However, I need certainty.”
“…”
“Something that cannot be explained by rational judgment and efficiency alone…”
Lennok slowly stood up, his eyes deeply沉.
“I am still searching for it.”
“Who says you can?!!”
Whoooosh!!!
With her body in tatters, Peshia once again unleashed the full power of her Miniature Universe.
The mere eruption of her Will-thought caused space to rupture and tear, rapidly cycling through dozens of spirits behind her back.
Whoosh!!
The moment Peshia’s body broke the sound barrier, severed blood vessels and muscles couldn’t withstand the strain, scattering blood everywhere.
A ghost drenched in crimson blood from head to toe tore through the air with bare hands, charging towards Lennok.
Crackkkk!
“Aaaaaaaah!!!”
The ground crumbled as if an invisible giant swung its fist.
Wind raged, terrain warped and vanished, and lava boiled beneath their feet.
Rumble!
Simply gripping and wielding her Will-thought caused her Mind Imprint to react violently, unleashing her power indiscriminately.
A monstrous strength that gripped and lashed out at everything around her, like a living pulverizer.
Lennok, too, immediately responded by pouring in his magic.
[Chanting Thunder]
[Thunderous Rupture Roar]
He hurled hundreds of fragments of thunder, scattering them like shrapnel, detonating them all before Peshia’s eyes.
Before the lingering afterglow of lightning faded from the sight, he unleashed a breath of frost, seizing her form.
[Ice Chain Infusion]
[Torrential Freeze]
Whoosh!!
Dozens of chains twisted atop the ripples of ice, seizing Peshia’s legs, and a torrent of frost poured down like a waterfall over her head.
“Don’t bother with your pathetic tricks!!!”
Peshia twisted both shoulders, and the ice chains instantly exploded, scattering into the sky.
Hundreds of shattered ice fragments rose above their heads.
Breaking through lightning barriers and ice chains, dozens of types of offensive magic and layered shields, and even enduring the suppression from Iron-Plated Wings and a magic gun.
Peshia, who landed before Lennok, treading on the frigid wind, vomited blood and laughed.
“Do you think you can truly accomplish anything with such vague resolve?”
“…”
Whoooosh!!!!
At such close range, a mere flick of her hand could tear Lennok’s very being apart.
But Lennok looked not at her, but at the flickering spirit form behind her.
Instead of taking the form of a specific animal or monster, it was a distorted, crude, and constantly flickering, unstable shape.
A sight somewhat alien from the highly perfected spirit forms and abilities she had displayed until now.
Lennok intuited the reason and asked.
“Supreme Seal of the Great Radiance Emperor’s Circumferential Consecration. You didn’t forcibly endure it or tear the seal apart to escape, did you?”
Lennok’s gaze settled calmly.
“Didn’t you leave your spirit and Mind Imprint inside the seal instead, and escape?”
“…”
“It wasn’t the wrong method. At that moment, it was the most appropriate judgment. The Supreme Seal of the Great Radiance Emperor, based on the subject’s perception, is a power that binds the Mind Imprint, not the individual.”
The sealing spell of Circumferential Consecration that Lennok had cast upon Peshia.
However, Peshia hadn’t forcibly torn the seal apart to escape.
She had merely torn a part of her inner Miniature Universe, letting it be sealed in her stead, and used that opening to forcibly break free from the restraint.
A miracle made possible because Peshia’s Miniature Universe was based on the concept of ‘Spirit Possession Art,’ manifesting her Mind Imprint as separate objects.
But the aftermath of forcibly separating her spirit, a part of her Mind Imprint, was something even she could not ignore.
The repercussions of a part of her Miniature Universe being torn away were reaching even her physical body.
“Since you forcibly tore off a part of your Mind Imprint to escape, it’s only natural that it wouldn’t function properly, isn’t it?”
Lennok said.
“You must have left more than half of the spirits you could control behind. Having split your Miniature Universe in half, it’s crumbling from its very foundation.”
Even though one has surpassed Hierarchy and reached level 8, an extreme-level superhuman isn’t necessarily more stable than a lower-level superhuman.
Because they are pioneers charting untrodden paths, the Hierarchy they build can sometimes become even more unstable.
Her decision to split her Mind Imprint within the Miniature Universe and use it as bait to avoid the Circumferential Consecration’s seal was bold and excellent.
As a result, the Hierarchy of her Miniature Universe, which she had built up, was now shaking and collapsing from its roots.
As time passed, Peshia’s accumulated Hierarchy would only continue to crumble and decline.
The Ghost Princess had taken action, willing to even endure the decline of her Hierarchy, to escape Lennok’s sealing spell.
“So what? What about it?”
But Peshia laughed calmly even after being called out on it.
Even after abandoning the Hierarchy she had built over a lifetime, and despite thinking she might never regain it, she showed no agitation.
“A collapsed Hierarchy can simply be rebuilt. Lost spirits can be created anew.”
“…”
“This isn’t the time to think about the future. Do you think there’s anything more important than killing you and bringing all of this to an end? I—”
“Of course.”
Lennok smiled.
“Because you can just kill more people to replenish your Mind Imprint and desires.”
Peshia didn’t respond to Lennok’s sneer.
Instead, she simply twisted her shoulder lightly and thrust her hand straight towards Lennok’s neck.
Whoosh!!
A single fist that surpassed the speed of sound the moment her wrist flicked.
The spirit’s demonic energy was imbued in that accelerating hand, twisting space.
A fatal move that instantly suppressed the surrounding space, blocking all possibilities of escape and evasion.
But just as that hand was about to pierce Lennok’s neck and relentlessly take his life.
Shatter!!
Lennok’s form shattered like a mirror on the spot, revealing only an empty ruin behind it.
An illusion using light.
Realizing it was a powerful illusion created by refracting light, Peshia abruptly snapped her gaze upward.
Lennok, now riding atop the massive fiery phoenix wings that had re-emerged, looked down at her.
“Mirage? No, the system is completely different…!!!”
“An illusion created by forcibly bending the angle of light. A moment is enough.”
A light-based illusion arbitrarily created by combining the principles of Circumferential Consecration.
If he mimicked the subtleties of the Mirage spell system used by Duren, he could deceive her sense of distance in this urgent situation.
The spell he chanted in the brief moment gained by deceiving Peshia was a transcendent composite magic, capable of annihilating even her remaining spirits.
“…!!!”
Peshia’s expression drastically changed as she gazed at the coalesced magical energy floating above Lennok’s head.
Rumble!
The fires of hell swirled within a pale orb of ice.
Solid chains of gravity suppressed that paradox of heat contained within cold, maintaining its form.
A beautifully distorted crystallization of Will-thought, as if a small planet had been created.
Lennok grasped the orb with his Will-thought, and as he pointed it towards the ground, heaven and earth trembled.
Creation-Type Unique Magic: Applied Alchemy
Triple Transmutation
[Flame’s Exhalation: Confounding Frozen Star]
Whoooosh!!
Even before reaching the ground, the power of Confounding Frozen Star pressed down on the earth and bent the horizon.
As its rotation ceased, the gravitational pull of the chains binding the flames within the orb was reversed.
The flames contained within the ice orb swelled with power, engulfing all creation.
The gravitational force, spinning from the core where the small planet exploded, pulled and devoured the surrounding space.
As the violet chains broke, the bound gravity warped, and the contained fire and ice danced.
Boom!!!!
“Aaaaaaaah!!!”
Amidst the hell where fire and ice ran wild, she sprinted across the ground.
With her entire skin burned away, she sought a weapon like a beast desperately searching for water.
Whoooosh!!!
The spirit’s power, unleashing a mournful cry, became her third arm, representing her will.
On the outskirts of the ruined theme park. Even as everything around them was upturned and vaporized, she seized an observation deck that had maintained its form.
Snap! Crack! Thud!!!
The spirit’s arm wrapped around the tens-of-meters-tall observation deck, breaking it and aiming it like a weapon at Lennok.
A thought that defied common sense, as if intending to use the observation deck tower as a spear shaft.
“Kaaargh!!”
Even as she was dying from the hellfire and frost of Confounding Frozen Star, her body moved by instinct.
The Mind Imprint of a spearman, using the observation deck as a spear shaft, unconsciously replicated a stance practiced hundreds of thousands of times.
Her Mind Imprint, on the verge of death, newly created and manifested a spirit that hadn’t originally existed.
[Gwaaaaarrrgh!!!!]
What appeared, tearing through space, was a gigantic grotesque dragon, its entire body covered in jet-black scales.
The grotesque dragon, clad in black scales, coiled its form around the spear shaft and threw its head back.
A spear throw that gathered all of Peshia Grisbern’s remaining possibilities, throwing the very essence of a spearman.
Lennok, riding atop the phoenix figure, smiled with a weary expression.
“Right. Stopping here would be unthinkable.”
Peshia was engaging in this decisive battle with the mindset that she was willing to lose everything here.
The power of will unleashed by an 8-level physical superhuman, willing to endure losses, was unimaginably dangerous, even after being broken and torn once.
A deformed spirit entity drawn forth by resolving to embrace deficiencies, emptiness, and internal voids created by external forces.
Lennok’s fingers twitched faintly, recognizing its power.
The moment he intuited the danger of that technique, Lennok’s thoughts also turned to his strongest hand.
‘A Domain would be difficult.’
But as soon as Lennok considered that possibility, he immediately gave up on it.
A continuous battle from the start of the operation. The decisive battle with Peshia, and even the sealing spell of Circumferential Consecration.
Having used magic consecutively, he truly had little left in reserve now.
If he had intended to use Domain [자성영역], he should have deployed it immediately after encountering Peshia and prolonged the fight.
‘Kaleidoscope once, Divergence Point Observation twice. Magic chanting thrice. Even considering the remaining elixirs or potions, it’s not enough.’
If he used the Unique Magic allowed only within a Domain, he could certainly gain the upper hand in the fight.
But Lennok, knowing this, still set aside the thought of using his Domain.
Because he knew there were still things he had to do, separate from simply winning.
‘End this while retaining some reserve. If possible, as quickly as possible…!!!’
Having made his decision, Lennok leaped from the phoenix figure, rapidly descending to the ground.
Between the fluttering folds of his shadow coat, he neatly brought his hands together, beginning to form hand signs.
[Grand Lightning Net]
[Lightning Void Gaze]
[Electric Potential Resonance: Harmonics]
Crrrackle! Crackle! Crackle!!!!
Lennok consecutively chanted Unique Magic spells from his lightning-element system that amplified and drew forth its properties.
Thousands of currents simultaneously burst forth, dyeing the dark sky blue.
The thunderous roar of crackling currents overlapped thousands of times, transforming into the sound of space tearing apart.
Zzzzt!!
He gathered all the unleashed current flows and condensed them beneath his hands.
The lightning flowing down his arms began to compress without a single strand deviating.
Rumble!!!
A vibrant blue tetrahedron formed by compressing and pressing down thousands of current strands to their absolute limit.
A crystallization of Will-thought, created by perfectly controlling thousands of irregular current strands that existed only at their origin and destination.
Load and repulsion, resonance and diffusion, compression and shaping.
One of the destinations he aimed for, amplifying the lightning’s manifestation by controlling six types of magic’s Property Transformation to their limit, borrowing Davi’s computational power.
Crackle, crackle…!!!
At the same time, the grotesque dragon, ready on the ground, surged towards Lennok, using the tens-of-meters-tall observation deck as a spear shaft.
[Ghost Extreme: Divine Spear]
[Asura’s Heaven-Revolving Cataclysm]
Boommm!!!
A deafening roar. A desperate cry, like a dragon’s roar.
The light that surged, defying gravity, transcended form and material, becoming an infallible spear throw that pierced its target.
The grotesque dragon’s spirit, pieced together from fragmented spirits, shattered the cloudy sky and opened its maw wide towards Lennok.
Just as the form of Mind Imprint, coalesced from malice, was about to wholly engulf and shatter the wizard’s body.
Lennok slowly lowered his trembling hand.
True Intent.
[Sand-borne Divine Thunder]
Flash!!
The blue-glowing tetrahedron fell without any premonition.
Without being launched with powerful force, or rapidly slammed down.
It fell as if losing control from Lennok’s hand, meeting the grotesque dragon’s breath.
The moment the grotesque dragon, having even swallowed that handful of light, extended its tongue towards Lennok.
The grotesque dragon’s form was crushed as if pressed down on the spot, and conversely, its body began to miserably tear apart.
Crrrackkkk!!!
“…!!!!”
The tens-of-meters-tall grotesque dragon crumbled, unable to withstand the light of Sand-borne Divine Thunder, which was smaller than a single tooth.
Even as it struggled to surge into the sky and devour Lennok, it thrashed as if unable to bear the weight of the tiny lightning.
Crackle!!
Despite the grotesque dragon’s convulsions, the lightning of True Intent merely maintained its initial falling speed, piercing through the spear throw and pushing through.
A sense of discord as a vibrant blue light shone and descended from within the spirit, covered in black scales.
A compressive force that tore apart everything, regardless of the obstruction.
[Gwaaaaarrrgh!!!!]
The spirit, thrashing while coiled around the observation deck, let out a desperate shriek, and at that moment, bowed its head deeply.
Ziiiiiiiiiiing!!
The light of Sand-borne Divine Thunder pierced through the grotesque dragon from head to tail, reaching Peshia’s head.
“Ah…”
Above the dazed Peshia, the observation deck, having lost its power as her spirit completely vanished, fell.
“Quite a long time ago…”
Lennok murmured.
“I sent your disciple off in this manner, didn’t I?”
As he recalled her disciple whom he had bound and killed at the Clock Tower, the moment he flicked his fingers.
[Thunder Genesis]
Above the dawn sky where the dark clouds had fully cleared, another Thunder Genesis began and vanished.