Chapter 154
Chapter 154
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 154
Chapter Title: Chapter 23 - The Depths
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* * *
“Connected.”
The woman said.
She didn’t just leap to her feet and clench her fist—she even hopped in place.
Labyrinth World.
The wardrobe that had arrived there.
And now, the connection.
The woman let out another cheer.
* * *
The deepest part of the Great Labyrinth.
The Deep Layer Demon King, who had been entrusted with everything by the Demon God, could perceive all events unfolding within the Great Labyrinth.
The god of sloth had vanished.
Evnail’s divine artifact had fallen into the hands of the benevolent gods.
Finally, the Plague God was driving the god of healing into a corner.
But the Deep Layer Demon King did not hurry. Nor did he grow impatient.
Time was on the side of the Great Labyrinth.
The Great Labyrinth’s victory was inevitable.
Labyrinth World.
Great Labyrinth.
The Demon God and the five goddesses.
The Deep Layer Demon King fell silent.
He waited for the promised time to arrive in due course.
To save the Labyrinth World, after entering the Great Labyrinth and more than ten years had passed, when they finally reached the depths.
The god of healing came to know naturally. Without anyone teaching him, he understood.
The goddess of the sun, Aiter.
Her story.
The story of the five goddesses she had kept hidden.
* * *
Cheon-ho opened his eyes in the mental world.
He must have dozed off for a moment, slipping into Mitra’s mental world out of habit(?).
The mental world was the same as always.
A blue sky and lush green meadows.
A cool breeze blowing from afar.
The only difference was that the woman he usually saw was nowhere in sight.
“Mitra?”
Calling her softly as he looked around, Cheon-ho soon spotted Mitra.
She was lying down, buried in the grass of the meadow, fast asleep.
The woman with golden eyes.
Mitra was no longer a girl. She had become the beautiful, mature woman—like a goddess—that he had seen the first time he wielded the hero’s sword.
A sleeping beauty in the truest sense.
Cheon-ho, who had been staring entranced at her sleeping form without realizing it, cleared his throat as if someone were listening.
‘Impossible.’
He had intended to offer her his arm as a pillow, but that seemed out of the question. Cheon-ho was as ‘innocent’ as he was ‘lewd.’
It might have been fine with her as a young girl, but the current Mitra was too much.
“Ahem, ahem.”
Staring intently at the oblivious, sleeping Mitra, Cheon-ho cleared his throat again and put some distance between them. He fanned his flushed face a few times to calm himself, then extended his hand forward.
“Clone.”
It wasn’t Cheon-ho’s own clone.
Having created a clone of Mitra, Cheon-ho reflexively let out a gasp of admiration.
Unlike before, when only a small dagger had appeared, a proper Mitra had emerged—this time in the form of the greatsword she usually took.
[Holly Sword Skill - Clone Lv7]
Opening the light window right away, he saw the level had risen dramatically. Cheon-ho nodded once more.
‘If it’s to be expected, then it’s expected.’
After all, Mitra had absorbed not only the dragon sword made by his mother but also Evnail’s divine artifact.
It would have been stranger if she hadn’t reached max level.
Cheon-ho plopped down right there and opened a bunch of light windows. Not just for Mitra, but to check his own status as well.
‘Ah, as expected.’
Level 99.
He had reached the mid-layer max level.
He had been level 90 when leaving the Citadel of Justice, so this journey had netted him 9 levels, but it was the same as with Mitra.
The enemies they had defeated were too significant for this growth to be anything but natural.
[You are the first in the mid-layers to reach max level (99).]
[You receive the reward for first and fastest to max level in the depths.]
It was the same message he had seen in the low layers.
First and fastest.
The raiding party led by the god of healing aimed for the fastest clear times, so no heroes or angels in the low or mid-layers had reached max level.
‘Nice.’
Recalling the low-layer max level bonus he had received right upon entering the mid-layers, Cheon-ho smiled warmly as he checked the other light windows.
There were many related to level-ups overall.
[Holly Sword Master Lv8]
[Ally of the Benevolent Gods Lv6]
[Ally of the Angels Lv7]
[Slayer of Evil Gods Lv5]
Examining each one, Cheon-ho opened Mitra’s skill window. It was just as he had thought.
[Holly Sword Skill: Demon Sword Ascension Lv8]
Demon Sword Ascension’s level had also risen sharply.
With Clone at level 7, this seemed feasible.
Gripping the clone Mitra, Cheon-ho channeled his power. The real Mitra was sleeping soundly off to the side, but with Holly Sword Master at level 8, Cheon-ho could wield Mitra’s powers and techniques as he pleased.
“Demon Sword Ascension.”
Murmuring lowly, the clone Mitra in his hand transformed into the demon sword Mitra.
It slipped from Cheon-ho’s grasp and materialized before him.
[Tada!]
Cheon-ho’s eyes widened at the demon sword Mitra, who appeared beaming broadly—hardly demon sword-like.
It wasn’t just because the demon sword Mitra had become a mature woman like the holy sword Mitra.
“Horns?”
[What? You’re the one who made me like this. Trying to back out now?]
As the demon sword Mitra scolded him accusingly for even suggesting otherwise, the flustered Cheon-ho blinked a few times before standing up to observe her closely.
“Did you become a dragon sword?”
[Precisely, a dragon demon sword. And stop staring like that. P-Pervert.]
Her face suggested she was embarrassed even to say she was embarrassed.
So Cheon-ho paid it no mind and continued examining the blushing demon sword Mitra.
She was fundamentally the same as the holy sword Mitra—the woman with golden eyes—but there were differences here and there.
As before, her sword-and-red hair and red eyes.
The changes were the horns sprouting from her head and her pointed ears.
“Hmm, feels like something’s missing.”
[I’m not missing anything! These horns make my head super heavy!]
Two horns protruded from each side of demon sword Mitra’s head, totaling four.
The typical upward-curling demon king horns from novels and comics—one pair—and below them, a smaller pair of straight horns.
The distinctive part was that they were yellow, not white.
Gazing at them, Cheon-ho extended his hand and said.
“Can I touch?”
[Hey! Wait! You’re already touching!]
Indeed. The moment he asked, Cheon-ho reached out and was fiddling with demon sword Mitra’s horns.
The texture was hard yet soft—quite nice.
[Ugh.]
Whether holy sword or demon sword, she was a pushover either way.
Cheon-ho grabbed both horns with his hands and gave them a slight shake side to side.
“Steering wheel.”
[It’s not!]
She reacted sharply but didn’t swat his hands away.
Cheon-ho chuckled softly, released the horns, and asked.
“Nothing else?”
[Like what.]
“You know, a tail or wings.”
[I don’t have any of that? And shouldn’t you be asking about performance changes?]
After all, she had absorbed not just the dragon sword but a divine artifact.
“Well, true.”
He had skimmed the light windows already, but hearing it directly from her was different.
Demon sword Mitra pouted her lips a few times, touched her own horns, and said.
[For starters, I mostly absorbed the dragon sword’s power. You could say the dragon sword is tailor-made for me.]
Cheon-ho hadn’t seen it, but right after absorbing the dragon sword, only the demon sword Mitra had changed appearance.
The holy sword Mitra becoming the golden-eyed woman happened after absorbing Evnail’s divine artifact.
“So the divine artifact only affected the holy sword?”
[Yeah, probably. But as you’ve guessed, I couldn’t fully absorb it. It’s more like Evnail’s divine artifact is dormant inside the holy sword Mitra? I took some of the power.]
At ‘shared,’ Cheon-ho tilted his head momentarily but soon understood. He answered reflexively.
“Lucille.”
[Right. Lucille took a bit of the divine artifact’s power. Thanks to that, we could control it to some extent.]
Just as demon sword Mitra said. The holy sword Mitra had been able to fully unleash Evnail’s power once because of Lucille’s help.
No—without Lucille, they couldn’t have absorbed Evnail’s divine artifact at all.
[Lucille’s soul wavelength is similar to mine. That’s probably why we could share the power.]
Even demon sword Mitra didn’t know the exact mechanism.
It had all happened in such a frantic moment.
“Hmm, well, it worked out. We can gradually absorb the divine artifact’s power.”
[Yeah.]
“Anyway, what changed from absorbing the dragon sword?”
[I got stronger overall. And my understanding of you deepened.]
“Of me?”
[Yeah. The dragon sword was made from your rib and your mom’s.]
“Wait, rib?”
[Yeah, you’re missing one rib compared to others. Didn’t know?]
As demon sword Mitra asked with a big grin, Cheon-ho nodded.
He really hadn’t known.
‘What, like Adam and Eve?’
Touching his chest unconsciously, Cheon-ho looked back at demon sword Mitra.
“Anyway, greater understanding?”
[Yep. The dragon sword’s practically your clone. I probably know your body better than you do now?]
At the end, demon sword Mitra flashed a sly, lecherous grin.
Cheon-ho flinched involuntarily and leaned back slightly as he said.
“I-I see.”
[Exactly. So now, ability sharing works even better.]
“I see.”
[Holly Sword Skill: Enhanced Ability Sharing Lv7]
‘Enhanced’ had been added before Ability Sharing.
Recalling the battles, it seemed he could now add nearly all of Mitra’s power directly to his own.
“Hmm… So for Sun God Incarnation, should I use the demon sword side now?”
[Umm… I’d love to say yes, but no. Sun God Incarnation doesn’t mesh well with me. Better to work on using the dragon sword’s power with the holy sword too. After all, it is a holy sword at heart. With effort, it’s possible. Try the reverse too while you’re at it.]
To draw out Evnail’s divine artifact power even in demon sword state.
Cheon-ho nodded.
Using Mitra the dragon holy sword in Sun God Incarnation state, and in Yaksha God King state, the dragon demon sword or divine sword demon sword Mitra—that was optimal.
‘The so-called perfect match.’
Demon sword Mitra would deny it, but overall, it amounted to the same thing.
[Ah, anyway, how is it?]
“How’s what?”
[That…]
“That?”
At Cheon-ho’s prompting, demon sword Mitra hemmed and hawed before slightly lifting the hem of her skirt and saying.
[Doesn’t your Torment Force just surge?]
She was no longer a girl.
She had become a goddess-like, beautiful mature woman.
Demon sword Mitra was right.
Unlike the holy sword Mitra, she had a seductive allure, making her not just stunningly beautiful but irresistibly alluring.
But facing her—face flushed, eyes mixing shyness and anticipation, provocatively lifting her skirt hem ever so slightly—the thought that came to mind was singular.
“How cute.”
At Cheon-ho’s assessment, demon sword Mitra’s face turned beet red, and Cheon-ho thought once more.
‘Mitra through and through.’
Demon sword, dragon sword consumer, divine artifact absorber—she was still Mitra.
[Holly Sword: Sucker level has risen.]
[Holly Sword: Sucker Lv8 achieved.]
A smile spread across Cheon-ho’s face.