Chapter 219
Chapter 219
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 219
Chapter Title: rsk yv ct ymu bhy 219i
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 219
Chapter Title: Gray Mage Tower Master
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Gray Mage Tower Master.
Dexter.
He was currently in a very precarious situation.
Dexter had clearly been staying in the Proam Barony until just moments ago.
The sole reason he had come from the north to the Proam Barony was one thing.
Recent rumors about the Abyss that he had frequently heard.
Rumors of the Abyss coming from across the nation.
Every one of them was utterly grotesque.
Stories that anyone else would dismiss as mere ghost tales.
Yet, if it involved the Abyss, they were entirely plausible.
'If it's him, he could pull it off.'
Before Dexter's eyes stretched a vast, dark space.
Tiny moths bearing faint glimmers of light flitted their wings as they passed.
They resembled shooting stars streaking across the night sky.
It felt as though he were trapped in the void of outer space.
One moment he had been walking through the streets, and the next, he was ensnared in this realm.
'Impressive.'
Dexter let out a genuine sigh of admiration.
This was undoubtedly a trap spell.
An advanced one at that—even he hadn't detected it.
For the Gray Mage Tower Master himself to miss it.
One might doubt such a thing existed, but it was entirely possible.
Only one person.
The Gray Mage Tower Master knew a mage capable of such feats.
'The Thousand-Year Mage.'
Had he finally emerged to capture him?
'No. If it were his handiwork, there'd be no need for theatrics like this.'
It must have been the work of whoever possessed the trap spell crafted by the Thousand-Year Mage.
So, who was the owner of that Thousand-Year Mage's trap?
The question didn't linger.
'Did the imperial family send someone to take me down?'
Makes sense. Necromancers had been rampant lately.
It was time to make an example.
'They see me as the face of necromancers, do they?'
The Gray Mage Tower Master let out a hollow, incredulous laugh.
After all, he knew of one necromancer far beyond him.
'The Abyss.'
From the hazy depths of his memory.
An image of the Abyss from long ago resurfaced.
Back then, Dexter wasn't the withered old man he was now—he was in his youthful prime.
No, more precisely, much younger.
It was the time when, freshly promoted to mid-tier pioneer, he first entered a mid-tier dungeon.
Heteroraces think humans discriminate only against their kind.
But that's not true.
Humans have hierarchies and bloodlines they shun as well.
Bloodlines enslaved for generations, only recently freed by legal reforms.
Valkuram.
Dexter hailed from Valkuram stock.
Yet law and public perception are worlds apart.
No matter the decrees, everyday discrimination endured.
The brand and tribal tattoo Valkuram bore on the backs of their hands.
As long as he had hands, he could never escape his Valkuram lineage.
That day was no different.
The party he joined for the mid-tier dungeon.
They flew into a rage when he critiqued their flawed tactics, hurling slurs like "for a filthy Valkuram."
By the time tensions soured between Dexter and them.
While camping at the dungeon's heart.
They slipped away during his sleep, abandoning him to fend for themselves.
They'd already reached the midpoint of the mid-tier dungeon.
They took all the rations; mana recovery was finite.
For Dexter, barely a mid-tier pioneer, it was a death sentence.
Dexter pressed on, desperate to escape the dungeon.
But the party trek had taken a full three days.
Could a lone necromancer, bereft of food, water, mana, and rest, claw his way out?
Regrettably, reality proved merciless.
Dexter soon teetered on death's edge.
Swarmed by countless spiders, moments from the end.
A dark elf appeared before Dexter's eyes.
Ink-black hair shimmering with an eerie blue glow.
Pale skin, but the hair and ears betrayed his dark elf heritage.
Abyss, Leyzon.
That was their first encounter.
And the reason Dexter survived.
"Phew."
Dexter owed Leyzon his life from that day.
But that wasn't all.
He was a man who never forgot a debt of gratitude.
Dexter sought Leyzon out consistently thereafter.
As a half dark elf, Leyzon's time flowed differently from Dexter's.
Dexter surged ahead, rising to become a rising star among necromancers.
Leyzon, meanwhile, remained a fixture in the Earthhold Layer, a true local who never strayed far.
An oddity who hadn't even ascended.
At first, it baffled Dexter greatly.
He hadn't known Leyzon was the Abyss back then.
Not until the day he visited Leyzon and met an undead first.
He remembered that day vividly still.
A being that shattered the limits of necromantic undead.
Ghost Princess.
The overwhelming presence radiating from her lingered sharp in his mind.
That day, Dexter finally understood.
The man he'd been visiting was the Abyss incarnate.
Even after, Dexter kept seeking Leyzon.
No longer just gratitude, but to trade insights as necromancers.
Time marched on, and Dexter ascended to Gray Mage Tower Master.
Inheriting the mantle, he learned many tales from his predecessor.
Including unforeseen secrets aplenty.
Especially the former master's words—enough to drive one mad.
Too many secrets turn to poison, or so they say.
As the empire cracked down on necromancers, the Gray Mage Tower was razed by force.
Dexter overnight became a hunted man.
Leyzon sprang to mind.
Whatever his aims, this spelled danger for him too.
Dexter tracked Leyzon down and gifted him a mask.
To aid entry into the Resonance World, he even forged a soul bond.
Then time passed once more.
The soul bond with Leyzon severed.
And now.
The Abyss's name echoed across the world anew.
He'd been en route to Sahā Village, where the whispers rang loudest, to investigate.
Until the unforeseen trap snared him.
"Planning to leave me rotting in this trap, are you?"
Dexter hurled the question into the void.
No reply came.
'Unless it's the Thousand-Year Mage in person, hauling me bodily from this space is impossible.'
Space magic lay beyond conventional bounds.
Only one soul in the world could wield it freely.
Even proxies wielding the Thousand-Year Mage's spell could do no more than this.
No room for improvisation.
'There has to be a ploy at work.'
Dexter leveled his long wooden staff at the emptiness.
"I waited a spell, thinking we might talk. But it seems conversation's off the table."
Very well. He wouldn't play nice either.
Dexter was the Gray Mage Tower Master.
Not the apex, but a necromantic pillar.
No trap from the Thousand-Year Mage could hold him eternally.
Curses cascaded from his staff in waves.
Simultaneously, black butterflies burst from his robe's folds, wings aflutter.
Their numbers swelled, saturating the space.
Soon, butterflies outnumbered the star-moths.
Undead, Hell Butterflies.
Eerie insects: one appears, and their horde multiplies endlessly.
The trap's bespoke realm brimmed with Hell Butterflies.
Wingbeats thrummed in ceaseless echo.
Then, as one, the fluttering halted.
Crash!
The trap space shattered like brittle glass.
Hell Butterflies dissolved to dust and winked out.
In their stead stood an unfamiliar man.
Yellow-and-black streaked hair.
Two swords sheathed at his hips, he narrowed his eyes.
"Craftier old codger than I figured."
The Night Raven's second blade.
Two.
He rapped his hilt and spoke.
"Captain. He slipped the net."
No response.
By then, One was already in motion.
"Phew, fatigue's killing me. No day without a blood gale."
Two voiced his bone-deep weariness, wheeling about.
Primed to hunt the Gray Mage Tower Master.
"Whose blood gale, exactly?"
Until an unfamiliar voice tickled his ear.
Laced with mirth.
By the time Two turned, a crimson shadow had engulfed him.
In the woods near Proam Barony.
A serpent of bone slithered swiftly through.
Dexter rode within.
He had escaped the trap ages ago—and thrown in a decoy to boot.
'Straight to Sahā Village, then.'
The instant his serpent ramped speed amid the trees.
Starlight flickered briefly astern.
Dexter reshaped the serpent on reflex.
Bones compacted into a shield-like mass.
Kwaaaaaang!
An upfront blast hurled Dexter tumbling across the dirt.
Hasty guard or no, it pierced through—damage inflicted.
"Ugh... my back."
No spring chicken anymore.
Hence the instant ache in his spine from the roll.
Dexter leaned on his staff to rise.
There, amid splintered timber and scarred earth, stood a man.
Ink-black locks tumbling long.
'No... a woman?'
His features so finely etched, the thought crossed the mind.
A longsword dragged, tip grazing the ground.
"Who are you, pulling stunts like this?"
Dexter lobbed a probe.
Through the tresses, red eyes gleamed fleetingly.
Ghostly eyes that had reaped countless lives for duty.
Eyes pledging even his own neck to the mission.
In the imperial court, one man alone bore such gaze.
"The Night Raven's sent their knight commander at last."
Night Raven Knight Commander
Sword Ghost, One
A 19-Ascension gold hero-grade monster.
He knew the instant eyes locked.
No parley.
His sole aim: Dexter's head.
Kill.
Or die.
Against him, those were the only paths.
No words needed.
As if to prove it, One launched from the earth—vanished in a blink.
Velocity beyond the eye's pursuit.
Yet Dexter's title wasn't for show.
Bone ramparts surged skyward around him in unison.
The ground split; undead erupted forth.
Kwang! Boom!
Successive crashes of crumbling bone and sundered undead.
Dexter pressed on undeterred, walls rising relentless.
Meantime, his staff struck the soil.
Curse runes bloomed and scattered about.
No common malediction this.
A proprietary hex meddling direct with the soul.
Forged from myriad soul curses entwined.
A shroud of curses whirled about him.
Even a knight commander against soul-scarring hexes...
Slash!
The foremost bone wall toppled; One emerged.
He hurled himself through the curse veil untouched.
Dexter's eyes bulged at the sight.
A soul-direct strike, shrugged off like mist.
The blade speared toward Dexter's nose.
He scrambled for his next incantation.
Dexter himself spared no method in the clutch.
Crunch!
One's frame wrenched aside, catapulted airborne.
Kwaaaaaang!
Shattering trees aplenty, One bowled across the ground.
In Dexter's dazed sight, a girl materialized.
She toed the earth lightly—beauty beyond measure.
Yet instinct birthed primal dread, beauty be damned.
"You..."
"Gray Mage Tower Master."
As Dexter spoke, a voice pierced his ear.
A voice etched indelibly in memory.
His eyes widened slow.
He whipped his head around.
There stood a man donning the mask Dexter himself had forged.
"Long time no see. You've aged even more."
The man bared teeth in a grin.
Abyss, Leyzon.
He appeared utterly at ease.
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