Chapter 62
Chapter 62
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 62
Chapter Title: Pursuit of Darkness (6)
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While Edn and part of the tracking team were facing off against the Phillips Golem.
Lieutenant Colonel Riten was confronting the black-robed dark wizard.
"You? The one who modified the golem and turned people into those grotesque lumps of flesh."
"Half right, half wrong. The golem was my acquaintance's handiwork. Well, in the end, I suppose I provided the inspiration."
Lieutenant Colonel Riten frowned.
He took issue with the calm tone the man who'd come chasing him was using to reply.
Was there some hidden card up his sleeve?
With that thought, he decided to focus on the enemy right in front of him for now.
He slowly drew up his mana and issued a low warning.
"This is your final warning. Surrender quietly, and I'll spare your life."
"I refuse. We are not bound by such petty constraints."
"Hah, life is petty, is it? Dark wizards truly are an irredeemable lot."
The two men's mana began to swell gradually, growing ever stronger.
Mana bent on slitting each other's throats surged and raced forward.
The vigorous mana couldn't be contained within their bodies and spilled outward.
Pure mana and ominous mana snarled at each other in midair.
The black robe watched the clash of the two forces before speaking.
"Before we begin, your name?"
"Riten Pentin. Yours?"
"Call me whatever you like. I've discarded my name long ago."
"Fine. Raghead."
The black robe's eyebrow twitched faintly, but he held onto his composure.
If anything, he tensed up while eyeing Lieutenant Colonel Riten's mana.
They glared at each other, probing for a moment—then the black robe struck first.
Ominous, sticky mana spread across the ground beneath his feet in an instant, and black figures rose from it.
Arms and legs like a person's emerged from the black puddle.
"The death rattles of the departed. Fatal to the likes of you, one of the living."
"That so? Talkative, aren't you."
Lieutenant Colonel Riten grinned, baring his yellowed teeth.
The black skeletons rising around him didn't faze him in the slightest.
Thud!
He kicked off the ground hard and leaped at a skeleton still hauling itself upright.
In a flash, he seized its head and smashed it into the dirt, then hurled a spell at the one beside it.
"Wind Spear."
The free-flowing wind coalesced into a spear from his hand.
The mana-bound spear of wind pierced the skeleton's skull in an instant.
"Move!"
The wind spear didn't stop at one.
Under the lieutenant colonel's control, it decapitated five in a blink before vanishing.
Meanwhile, ignoring the other skeletons, he charged straight at the black robe.
"Just some grunt summons?!"
"As if! That was merely a warm-up!"
The lieutenant colonel's mana gathered in his clenched fist.
Compressed, it radiated intense pressure.
In contrast, the black robe's mana scattered in all directions.
The sticky mana morphed into all manner of horrors.
Gruesome curse mists, dark phantoms, black tentacles, golems, orcs, goblins, and more.
Attacks that no ordinary human could survive for even a second rained down.
The black robe pulled back, shouting triumphantly as if he'd seized the advantage.
"Dodge that if you can!"
Lieutenant Colonel Riten assessed the onslaught.
Some he'd have to evade; others he could tank.
That way, he couldn't counterattack the black robe but would come out unscathed.
"But I don't feel like playing it safe."
Why should he back down?
Out of weakness?
Or to conserve his strength?
A small but steady flame ignited in Lieutenant Colonel Riten's heart.
He gripped his fist tighter and charged forward instead.
He didn't find it odd—but it was the dark magic's influence.
He'd blocked most of it with his own mana, but some had inevitably seeped through.
The curse spell had burrowed steadily into his mind.
Emboldened, the black robe unleashed even deadlier magic.
He flung open the gates of the underworld, spewing the frigid chill of the afterlife.
A finisher meant to end it all.
But there was one thing he didn't know.
Lieutenant Colonel Riten was a battle-hardened veteran who'd defended the empire across countless fields.
Sure, plenty were far stronger than him.
But not here. Not now.
A mage who pressed forward.
A mage who fought like a knight, with his body.
By all rights, he should've died just as the black robe predicted.
If he weren't Lieutenant Colonel Riten.
"Hup!"
Mana cloaked his body as he barreled ahead like a battering ram.
Assaults poured in from every side, but they glanced harmlessly off.
The curse could burrow no further.
The all-devouring mist failed to dissolve him.
Golem fists, orc swings—they merely grazed past.
The underworld gates had some effect, but they couldn't halt a man with resolve.
"How?!"
"How? Roll in the dirt of battle like me! Not that you'll ever get the chance!"
Now, the distance between Lieutenant Colonel Riten and the black robe was mere inches.
The black robe thrust out his hand, belching sticky mana.
"Don't interfere with our great cause!"
"Ngh!"
Black mana engulfed the lieutenant colonel.
Buried in the viscous stuff, his form vanished.
The black robe allowed himself a faint smile—until it shattered.
The lieutenant colonel erupted outward, mana blasting in all directions.
Shaking off the muck like a man surfacing from water, he clenched his fist anew.
"Spare me your 'great cause' drivel! How many lives have those hands snuffed out? Any regret for them?!"
The lieutenant colonel twisted his face in fury, glaring daggers at the black robe.
With a stomp that cratered the earth, he drove his fist forward.
Mana compressed in his knuckles gleamed like a miniature sun.
For a split second, space itself seemed to warp as it smashed into the man's face.
"Guuuh!"
"Atone in the underworld! The Goddess won't forgive scum like you!"
Boom!
The black robe's head cratered into the ground.
The lieutenant colonel didn't relent, pouring on more power.
Crack.
The black robe tried shielding with mana, but it failed.
The lieutenant colonel's fist pulverized his skull.
"Whew. Lost control there. Can't be helped."
Regret flickering across his face, the lieutenant colonel rose and shook out his hand.
He'd slain the dark wizard—but no capture.
Alive, there might've been an interrogation.
Not that he expected cooperation. No great loss.
"Area clear. Haa. Damn dark wizard."
The black robe's corpse had already vanished.
No trace left. The lieutenant colonel's neck stiffened with a dull ache.
"This is gonna throb."
Head pounding, he scratched his scalp before turning to cleanup.
He ordered the tracking team to handle the rest, then approached Edn.
"It's done. And Edn—good work."
* * *
In the dark forest depths, a corner of the demonic realm.
A place thick with sticky, ominous mana.
The dark wizards' lair, one might say.
Though most roamed the continent and rarely returned.
There lay a single corpse.
Other dark wizards encircled it, chanting prayers.
Devoutly invoking their god, they channeled mana.
In that instant, the central black robe's corpse began to change.
The wizards' mana converged, and soon the gaze of some entity fixed upon it.
⚰️ DIVINE EDICT ⚰️ [Resurrection. Cost. Depletion] "Resurrection is possible, but it demands a price, and you won't be able to act for some time. A pity. In that case, better to leave me dead."
The black robe averted his gaze slightly, turning toward the entity's true form.
Their god conveyed a will like a shake of the head.
⚰️ DIVINE EDICT ⚰️ [Necessary. Resurrection.] "Sigh. Very well."
The black robe was certain their god wouldn't relent.
He could persuade it, but it'd take too long—and they had no such luxury.
Instead of arguing, he accepted.
"Then what is the price?"
⚰️ DIVINE EDICT ⚰️ [Fate. Inspiration. Removal.] The black robe was startled by their god's decree.
He hadn't realized his recent prize would be the toll.
The god spoke of fate—something immutable.
A god, no less, bound inexorably to fate's weave.
The price: the inspiration he'd gained lately.
Lost forever, along with all related knowledge—from beholding Jekyll Hide.
Even seeing it anew wouldn't restore it.
He grew curious.
Why would fate demand this?
⚰️ DIVINE EDICT ⚰️ [Fate. Foe. Edn.] "Ah. Edn Rlangbur wished it gone—and succeeded by slaying me. Makes sense. I never shared the recipe with anyone else."
In other words, his death should've erased the potion recipe forever.
Yet now, he sought resurrection.
Something had to give.
Fate, preserving its original course, offered this compromise to fold him back in.
Had theirs been the only god in the world, things might've differed.
They could've trampled fate to their whims.
But with the Goddess in the picture? Impossible.
For now, acquiescence was the only path.
"Understood. Then, I beseech you."
Their god unleashed a surge of will, and a fragment of the world twisted.
The black robe's fate—expelled from the world's tapestry—was woven back in.
In that instant, he felt life return to him.
He'd slipped back into reality, unnoticed.
"Sigh. What a headache."
"Returned?"
"Yes. I'm back."
The black robe shook his head once, scanning the others.
As if verifying his own revival.
Confirmation complete, he spoke.
"Let's lie low for a while. We've got time aplenty."
"Agreed."
"I need to tidy up my experiments anyway."
The dark wizards resolved to remain silent—for now.