Chapter 744: Low-Altitude Flight (12)
The Domain unfolded by The Clown, an illusionist who has reached a transcendent realm, imprinting his own Mind Imprint.
It is the ideal world of a liar who manipulates and deceives reality by playing tricks with his own hierarchy.
The roulette wheel that appeared above his head simultaneously with the Domain’s activation must be a buoy that fully reveals The Clown’s Mind Imprint.
It takes the form of a grotesque clown mask integrated with a constantly spinning roulette wheel with a protruding tongue.
Indeed, the irony that represents The Clown’s very existence is fully contained within it.
But Lennok, knowing this, intently watched the wildly spinning roulette wheel.
‘It’s different from the Well incident. Why?’
If it’s someone as unique and distinct in nature and ability as The Clown, Lennok rarely forgets their words and actions.
Though a long time had passed since the operation at the Well of the Codex, his memories of that time remained vivid.
At the heart of the altar deep within the great forest where the Well was located. The desperate moment when the Ascendant Pyeonram awoke and confronted the Gye-baek Incident.
At that time, The Clown had undoubtedly used his own Domain to open a path to the Well for Lennok.
The power of reality alteration, shattering reality like glass, deceiving it, and replacing it with illusions, temporarily reversing outcomes.
Lennok had remembered that ability, considering it one of the pinnacles achievable through illusion.
But now, the ability of the Domain The Clown had unfolded here was completely different from back then.
‘I hadn’t heard the Domain’s name or its exact ability, but I definitely confirmed it was a Mind Imprint. Yet…’
Whirrrrr!!
Even as Lennok was lost in thought, the clown’s tongue flickered, spinning the roulette, and its rotational speed furiously accelerated.
“Kill that crazy bastard!!”
“Once the Domain unfolds, sacrifice is inevitable. We must cancel the spell now!!”
The Knights of Kabahim, the mages of the Order Alliance, and the Observer twins also seemed to have no intention of standing idly by.
They rushed forward, throwing sharp killing intent at the staggering Clown as they formed hand seals.
“Damn it…”
Lennok sighed, kicked the Sixth Prince’s corpse, and raised one hand.
Whoosh!!
Mana threads extended from the air, grabbing The Clown by the waist and sharply pulling his body backward.
“Whee-aap!”
The Clown, letting out a cry, his waist sharply bent in half as he shot upward, and Lennok followed right behind him with a Blink.
Flying low through the tilted corridor of the inner wall of the fortress, he quickly put distance between them, dragging The Clown along.
Thump-thump-thump!!
Lennok redirected the slashes and spells pouring in from afar with manipulation magic and asked,
“How much time do you need until the Domain activates?”
“Victor!”
The Clown, dangling in the air, spread his arms with an expression of deep emotion.
“Finally, my feelings got through. I always believed in—!!”
Thud!!
Lennok released the mana threads he was holding, and The Clown’s head plunged straight into the floor, upside down.
Pushing The Clown’s shoulder, which was squirming amidst the marble fragments, Lennok met his gaze and said,
“Enough with the annoying nonsense, tell me the conditions. You’re not going to just spin that roulette so loudly and have that be the end of it, are you?”
It’s not that he has no intention of abandoning The Clown and escaping, but on the contrary, it would be troublesome for Victor if The Clown actually died here.
Of course, this crazy illusionist wouldn’t do something reckless without any countermeasures, but considering his nature seen so far, he wasn’t trustworthy.
‘Escaping alone wouldn’t be difficult, but the pursuit would be relentless.’
Considering the aftermath of this incident, Gillian’s side would surely try to track Lennok down with all their might.
Moreover, with the Observers lending a hand, their tracking ability was considerable.
‘Considering my remaining mana and stamina, things would get troublesome. Perhaps it would be more efficient to cut off the possibility of pursuit by borrowing The Clown’s abilities here.’
While The Clown’s nature wasn’t trustworthy, Lennok acknowledged his abilities.
At this point, surrounded by the Order Alliance, the Observers, and the Knights of Kabahim, he was willing to play along to some extent.
“Pfft, actually, grand preparations aren’t needed. There is something that needs to be done, but it’s not that complicated.”
“Don’t make me ask twice. So what is it?”
“Hmm.”
The Clown, sitting on the floor with his chin in his hand, looking at the spinning roulette, said,
“I can only explain once the roulette results are out.”
…
While Lennok was speechless at that irresponsible answer, a colossal pillar of light descended upon the two of them.
KRA-WOOSH!!
A summoned beast in the shape of a colossal monstrous bird instantly flew across the sky, descending into the inner wall of the fortress.
Immediately after, its body swelled up crazily and exploded.
“Whoa-ah-aah!!”
The Clown, letting out a frivolous shriek, rolled around on the corridor floor, while Lennok’s body, clinging to mana threads, slid across the ground, their paths crossing.
Swoosh!!
Lennok, hanging upside down on the tilted inner wall of the fortress with two mana threads wrapped around his waist, toyed with his mask.
Naiyab, a high-ranking mage of the Order Alliance, who had manifested through the Sixth Prince’s summoning ritual.
Even after killing the summoning Prince, he was still standing there, firing spells at Lennok.
Lennok’s eyes gleamed as he realized that six or seven mages were strenuously pouring mana into Naiyab’s ethereal body behind him.
“It seems they want to achieve something here no matter what. Their situation must be urgent too.”
“Naiyab of the Alliance? He’s quite a well-known fellow on the Central Front.”
The Clown said, massaging his shoulder while lying sprawled on the ground.
“Among mages, he’s known for his very open research views, so I hear his reputation is quite good. Well, I didn’t expect him to end up looking like that.”
“Hmm. His method of handling spells doesn’t seem very open, though.”
The two, exchanging opinions rapidly, slowly distanced themselves and drew up their mana.
“His attack methods seem diverse, but in reality, it’s all about creating temporary summoned beasts and self-destructing them. It’s crude as a manifestation of will-thought and clumsy in its application of mana. I suspect it’s a recoil from him essentially modifying himself to be closer to a summoned beast.”
“That’s how parasitic power supply methods are. But I don’t particularly dislike such a sordid way of existing.”
The Clown chuckled, clapped his hands together, and pointed above his head.
“It’s no fun chatting with the Alliance’s old hag, so shall we start right away?”
…!!
As soon as he finished speaking, the furiously spinning roulette wheel slowly began to decelerate, its form precisely revealing itself.
While the clown’s tongue elongated and licked the side of the roulette.
The roulette, whose contents were previously unreadable, slowly stopped, revealing its sections one by one.
The others also turned their gaze toward the spinning roulette with heightened tension.
“He’s an illusionist. Prepare for mental attacks!!”
“No, if you’re conscious of it, you might fall for it. You have to kill him before it stops!!”
As Geo shouted, lecturing the other knights, Lennok’s eyes gleamed at the roulette’s surface.
Because the contents of the roulette, wrapped in the clown’s face, were more interestingly designed than he thought.
Dozens of sections exist within the giant circle of the roulette.
However, only nine of those sections indicated meaningful content.
Nine sections, marked with numbers from 1 to 9. The smaller the number, the larger the section’s area, and the higher the number, the smaller the area.
All other sections, excluding those marked with numbers, were simply filled with gruesome skull marks indicating a ‘dud’ or ‘blank’.
“You, surely…”
Lennok, realizing the roulette’s characteristic, turned his gaze towards him with a dumbfounded expression.
“Are you dividing and using the Domain’s abilities according to each hierarchy?”
Nine sections. Nine hierarchies.
The Clown’s ability to manipulate his own hierarchy at will.
The reason why the ability didn’t activate immediately after the Domain unfolded, but instead the roulette spun so loudly.
Wouldn’t it be because different Domains would activate according to the hierarchy determined by the roulette?
“Kekeke, it’s not such a convenient ability…!!”
BOOM!!
The Clown, letting out a sinister laugh, dodged the self-destruction of a giant lion summoned beast that flew towards him and replied,
“I customized it as I pleased, but the Domain got a little too broken.”
“…Broken?”
“Instead of leaving the activation conditions to chance, I could change the ability to my liking, but various penalties attached, making it a quite strange item. Do you see that ninth section over there?”
A roulette section so faint that even Lennok had to sharpen his mana perception to notice it, narrower than a needle.
But the radiance of the number [9] carved into that section shone more brilliantly than anything else.
The Clown pointed to the narrow ninth section, where even a speck of dust could not be guaranteed to land, and said,
“If that lands on the roulette, I die.”
…
“That’s the most certain and definitive way to kill me in any situation.”
The ninth hierarchy’s Domain, originally not permitted to The Clown.
Why was the ninth number, referring to an Ascendant, brazenly placed on The Clown’s roulette?
The moment that hits, The Clown wouldn’t be able to refuse its activation, and he would explode as a consequence of intruding upon a forbidden hierarchy.
Perhaps placing that ninth section wasn’t The Clown’s own will.
From the dud sections that filled the roulette, to the impossibly narrow numbered sections.
While The Clown might have intended the roulette’s ability, he couldn’t properly set the arrangement of those sections.
“Perhaps sections 8 and 7 are the same. In the current state, if a high-tier Mind Imprint activates, he’d just die, right?”
“Then what are you going to do?”
In response to Lennok’s question, The Clown brought his hands together and meekly bowed his head.
“Pray.”
…
“Plea-a-ase!!!”
With The Clown’s desperate cry, the clown’s tongue sharply stiffened and pointed precisely at one of the stopped roulette sections.
Naiyab, who had silently focused on killing Lennok and The Clown until now, and the Order Alliance mages assisting him.
The knights narrowing the encirclement from all directions, the Observer twins, and even Gillian, who had quickly regrouped and stood up, all turned their gazes skyward at that moment.
Click.
The tongue stopped exactly in the middle of a [Dud].
Bum-pa-ba-ba-bam~!
A noisy fanfare burst from behind the roulette. Firecrackers and cheerful music echoed.
The clown’s eyes rolled around, unleashing an unpleasant burst of laughter, as if mocking them.
[Hehehehehehe~]
“Oh.”
The Clown smiled awkwardly.
“Isn’t this supposed to be the moment where the desired number exquisitely appears?”
…
Lennok, inwardly regretting trusting this idiot for even a moment, immediately prepared to escape alone.
Just then, The Clown frantically pulled his mouth open with both hands and stuck out his tongue.
“Alright, alright! It was all a joke, and actually, there’s one more chance for probability fluctuation!!”
Below his extended tongue, a red drop of blood. The moment Lennok realized it was serum collected from Gillian.
“Here we go!!”
The Clown unhesitatingly swallowed it into his mouth.
The moment he swallowed the blood drop, the clown’s tongue, which seemed to have stopped, sagged slightly as if it had become heavier.
Then it pointed precisely at the section marked [4] on the roulette.
Click!!
Only then did Lennok realize that The Clown had spun the roulette for this purpose and shook his head.
“Probability fluctuation. A power that meddles with luck. Were you planning to play tricks from the start?”
The blood of an 8-level peak-tier physical ability user. Moreover, a serum processed directly by an illusionist to be used as a catalyst for a spell.
While other blood might be different, if the blood of a superhuman like Gillian was used as a catalyst, it would certainly be enough to give some weight to the Domain’s ability.
Thinking back, The Clown had previously manipulated luck by offering Glen’s heart, forcibly fixing an 8-level hierarchy.
An ability that heavily relies on luck, a Mind Imprint that isn’t fixed to a specific hierarchy.
All the fluctuating power of illusion, depending on the conditions, must be considered to be artificially controlled by The Clown’s own judgment.
“Victor, I’m not playing tricks. It’s about deceiving a farce that looks like coincidence to extract a good outcome.”
The Clown grinned, stood up, and tilted his head.
“That’s what they call ‘being lucky’.”
…
“Number four. Well, that’s not bad, I suppose.”
[Screeech!!]
The clown’s face, hanging on the roulette, grotesquely distorted, letting out bizarre screams.
At that moment, an illusion of cracks appearing in the space around the roulette shattered.
Instantly, the scenery of the fortress courtyard began to change.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!!!
What appeared before them was a gigantic cylindrical room rotating around Lennok and The Clown.
Dozens of holes were drilled into the walls, and a large black pillar rotated ceaselessly in the center.
The suffocating and dark space felt as if they had entered a gigantic oak barrel.
“W-what is this…!!”
“What needs to be done hasn’t changed. Move!!”
“If we kill the spellcaster, the Domain will be dispelled!!”
Even after failing to prevent the Domain’s unfolding, the knights did not panic and quickly made their judgment and began to move.
The Clown shouted at Lennok, who plunged mana threads to avoid the blades coiling around them from all sides.
“Victor!!”
He twisted his body crookedly to dodge the blade and spear shaft that struck from behind.
Breaking the lower jaw of a passing knight with his heel, bending his waist almost to the point of breaking, he lightly trampled on him, using him as a foothold to stand up.
Crunch!!
The Clown, who instantly ground the helmeted knight’s head into the floor, quickly picked up the Sixth Prince’s corpse, which was lying there.
He shoved the prince’s corpse, wrapped in red cloth, headfirst into one of the holes in the wall.
The upper half of the prince’s corpse was embedded directly into the wall, with only his legs sticking out, a grotesque sight.
“Just take a corpse with mana still remaining, like this, and shove it into each of the holes in the wall. Easy, right?”
…
Truly a grotesque sense and activation condition for a Domain, befitting a mad illusionist.
Click!!
Simultaneously, the sound of a trigger winding was heard from the Domain’s wall, but nothing happened.
The Clown shook his head regretfully.
“Oh, it succeeded.”
“Succeeded?”
KRA-WOOSH!!
With that statement, a giant’s fist slammed down on the spot where The Clown had been standing.
Gillian, having recovered from the recoil of forcibly canceling his Miniature Universe, drew up his mana again and stepped to the front line.
“Your audacity in not fleeing yet is admirable, manipulator.”
Gillian, who had stepped down, crushing the spot where The Clown had been, glared at Lennok and said,
“But your judgment to unfold the Domain and narrow your own fighting space was the worst.”
…
“You so arrogantly lectured me earlier, didn’t you? I admit it. It was a very painful critique.”
Rumble-rumble-rumble…!!
Gillian’s massive forearm glowed intensely, enveloped in blue mana.
“But can you maintain that arrogance even without your comrade’s corpse…!!”
Inner World Miniature Universe: Colossus Armament
[Heaven’s Hammer]
KRA-WOOOOSH!!!
A powerful strike that shook the entire Domain as it slammed into the ground.
The impact was so strong that the scattered corpses of mages and knights defied gravity and lifted into the air.
Lennok, who sighed as he looked around the inverted clock, crossed his hands and muttered,
“…This is the last time.”
Manipulation-type Unique Magic
[Vines of Threaded Communication]
Swoosh-swish-swish!!!
Hundreds of mana threads shot out from all directions, grabbing and pulling the top, bottom, left, and right of the Domain.
The corpses dangling from the tension were pulled along by the contraction of the mana threads and impaled all around the holes in the Domain’s wall.
An abnormal dexterity, perfectly handling all these procedures while dodging the combined attacks of Gillian and Naiyab, and shaking off the knights’ blades and the Observer’s spells.
Click, click, click!!
But even as the holes in the Domain’s wall were quickly filled, there was no particular reaction.
Instead, the surrounding obstacles disappeared, and the barrage targeting Lennok and The Clown intensified.
[Victor!!]
Naiyab, who had somehow even memorized that name, looked down at them, wielding ominous mana from afar.
[Manipulator. And a Specialized System user capable of spatial manipulation!!]
Naiyab’s face bore a strange ecstasy that didn’t match his refined appearance.
[To think I would meet such a noble person in such a humble place…!!!!!]
…
[I will surely take you to the Alliance. I will certainly do so today!!]
Had he recognized Lennok’s Blink spell as a Specialized System type that directly manipulates space to transfer the body?
Naiyab’s discernment in recognizing Lennok’s spell system amidst this intense battle was astonishing, but having a troublesome guest cling to him was unwelcome.
KRA-WOOSH!!
Lennok, dodging Gillian’s kick with a Blink, turned his head irritably toward The Clown.
Almost all the holes were filled, yet the Domain’s ability still hadn’t activated.
Despite The Clown saying it succeeded, the Domain’s activation conditions seemed to contradict themselves.
“There’s no more time. You don’t actually want to die here with me, do you?”
The self-destruction of summoned beasts raining down from above. Concentrated slashes of mana approaching nearby.
Even the Observer twins, far away, were facing each other and forming hand seals as if determined.
He had played along, trusting The Clown’s promise of a safe and convenient escape, but it was time to make a decision.
“No, it’s not like that…”
The Clown, whose left arm and leg were bent in grotesque directions, as if he had also fought fiercely, tilted his head in bewilderment.
“It’s not that duds usually appear so often, but today is an exceptionally unlucky day.”
“…Dud? It has to be a dud?”
As Lennok questioned him back at that outrageous nonsense, The Clown chuckled awkwardly.
“Ah, yes. This Domain actually isn’t about getting a ‘win’; it’s about getting a ‘dud’ to break even.”
…
“Originally, you stick people in one by one and the roulette picks the one who gets the ‘dud’.”
“What kind of Domain ability requires a dud to be the ‘break-even’ point—”
Lennok, who had spoken up to that point, stopped and sharply turned his head.
The scenery of the barrel-like Domain. The shape of the holes all around the walls.
The roulette format where you stick in mana-infused corpses one by one to pick a dud.
Although the form is somewhat different, isn’t its principle similar to Pirate Roulette, where you stick a sword into a barrel to pick a winner?
A roulette where, if you stick a sword into the barrel and hit a dud, the person inside pops out.
And applying that fact to The Clown’s Domain now—
“Surely, the meaning of ‘dud’ in this Domain is…”
“Forced ejection from the space of the activated Domain.”
The Clown picked up another corpse and grinned.
“What we needed to aim for wasn’t the Domain’s activation condition, but actually the Domain’s activation penalty~! Ta-da!!”
The moment The Clown said that and threw one more corpse into the remaining hole.
Thump!!
A dull roar, completely different from before, echoed through the Domain’s space.
Unlike the cheerful trigger sound, it was an inauspicious, dull thud.
The moment Lennok intuitively realized that the ‘dud’ The Clown had spoken of had hit, he felt the Domain’s scenery crumple like paper.
Rumble-rumble-rumble…!!
A powerful presence, as if some unknown, intangible force was expelling the entire Domain outward.
The moment Lennok concentrated, letting himself ride the flow of the Domain instead of resisting the force.
“Yippee~!! Goodbye, everyone!!”
P-WAAANG!!!
The scenery of the Domain unfolded by The Clown shattered completely, and the two figures shot upward into the fortress sky at an immense speed.
A strange speed, as if they were forcibly being expelled from that very spot.
Leaving the valley where the crumbling giant’s fortress was located and the surrounding mountain range, they instantly distanced themselves beyond the horizon.
KRA-WOOSH!!
Gillian, whose fist slammed down on the spot they had been a moment too late, looked up at the sky with a blank expression.
…
The other knights and Naiyab also merely stared silently beyond the mountain range with their mouths agape.
As if the fierce commotion and chaos of moments ago had been a lie, the giant’s fortress fell into a chilling silence.