Chapter 255
Chapter 255
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 255
Chapter Title: Beyond the Walls
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My head throbbed with a splitting pain.
The sun beating down from the sky was overwhelmingly intense.
Soon, Leyzon's eyelids slowly fluttered open.
He blinked.
What filled his vision was sunlight so blinding it stung his eyes.
I'll go blind at this rate.
Leyzon shook his head and pushed himself up.
His mind felt foggy.
He looked around, taking in the barren wasteland.
Cracked, parched earth everywhere.
Oppressive, stifling heat.
It felt just like a desert.
'...Where the hell is this?'
Leyzon staggered to his feet.
His memories were hazy.
He remembered heading to the Dragonkin Realm with everyone.
But everything after that was a blank.
His brow furrowed.
As he rubbed his forehead, fragments of memory began to surface.
Leyzon's eyes gradually widened.
"Uh."
He scanned his surroundings.
The last point before his memories cut off.
Back then, the one he'd faced was unmistakably the Millennium Mage.
The mad sorcerer who halted time itself.
He'd been defeated by that mage.
His mind flashed pure white for a moment.
Leyzon raised both hands.
Slap!
Then he slapped his cheeks hard.
It was something he'd done once before.
The spirited slap snapped him back to full alertness.
His eyes sharpened, returning to their usual focus.
He couldn't afford to sit there dazed just because he'd lost.
He needed to assess the situation immediately and act.
'The Millennium Mage didn't kill me.'
Why go out of his way to spare me?
'No.'
More accurately, he couldn't kill me.
'Even transcendent magic has its limits.'
Leyzon's transcendent skill, Auto-Growing Undead Creation [?EX], had the constraint of evolution.
It didn't grant instant power; strength built gradually over time.
If the Millennium Mage operated under similar rules...
'A limitation where he can't kill while time is frozen.'
Otherwise, there'd be no reason to let him live.
To the Millennium Mage, Leyzon was clearly an obstacle.
Of course, this was just a hypothesis.
It could be pure coincidence.
He'd keep it in mind but not rule out other possibilities.
He'd survived.
Having survived, he wouldn't lose next time.
Leyzon steeled his resolve and reviewed the situation once more.
Right before blacking out, he'd been in the Dragonkin Realm.
With his undead and hero-level pioneers.
Yet none of them were anywhere in sight.
Where had they all gone?
'It's not that they went somewhere. I was sent somewhere else.'
Leyzon calmly gathered his thoughts, questioning and answering himself.
The area was an empty expanse, devoid of anyone.
Not even a hint of his undead's presence.
This was a drawback of Auto-Growing Undead Creation [?EX].
He couldn't track the location of his created undead.
'I know the terrain better than anyone.'
Leyzon had played Dungeon Replay countless times.
No matter that a century had passed; he couldn't forget a wasteland like this.
"Bone Broom."
A faint headache lingered, but his mana flowed smoothly.
His body felt a bit heavy.
He'd need to get used to it quickly.
Leyzon shot into the sky and raced through the air.
The barren plain stretched on endlessly.
He'd never seen a flatland this vast before.
Still, flying through the wind cleared his head further.
'What was it that guy said back then?'
Right before the Millennium Mage had flung him away.
He replayed the mage's parting words.
「Don't come back to the Empire.」
The Millennium Mage had said exactly that.
Screech―
The Bone Broom halted mid-air.
A realization had hit Leyzon.
"No way."
He looked around again.
A boundless wasteland to the horizon.
Land so vast, the Empire seemed inconceivable here.
He'd never seen terrain like this before.
So where was land he'd never encountered?
And what did the Millennium Mage mean by not returning to the Empire?
"...Outside the walls."
Leyzon muttered blankly.
The Millennium Mage.
He'd hurled Leyzon beyond the walls.
He'd reached beyond the walls in a way he'd never anticipated.
Leyzon spent three days flying solely through the sky to confirm it.
This was truly outside the Empire's walls.
"That lunatic bastard."
In Dungeon Replay, spatial magic was the stuff of dreams.
Yet the mage had wielded it.
It drove home just how absurd the Millennium Mage was.
And it made him feel the sheer scale of the lands beyond the walls.
In the Empire, three days of flight would reveal settlements in any direction.
The Empire had high population density.
But beyond the walls, no matter how far he flew, there were only endless lands—no settlements in sight.
"How vast can it be?"
Leyzon pulled his robe's hood tight.
Unlike the Empire, the sun here blazed mercilessly from above.
At least food wasn't an issue.
His bag was always stocked with preserved rations.
Over these past few days, Leyzon had verified several facts.
'First off, I can't access the Resonance World.'
The world entered via the soul, the Resonance World.
Beyond the walls blocked even souls; entry was impossible.
Pierthiran was completely out of contact as a result.
On top of that, his skills didn't feel as responsive.
In the Empire, mana recovered swiftly even with heavy use.
Here, circulation was sluggish.
'Probably the difference with or without transcendent corpses around.'
Now he understood why the Earth Beasts coveted the Empire.
Unlike inside, this arid land was far too harsh for survival.
'Still, there must be places where the Earth Beasts live.'
According to Carmen, all Earth Beasts suffered from the Black Plague.
Leyzon could cure their Black Plague.
If he met them, he could earn their favor.
Gather info, link up with Carmen.
Then re-enter the Empire.
That was his current goal.
'The problem is finding them.'
Three days of flight, and still nothing but empty land.
It was maddening.
For a moment, he wondered if the mage's spell had doomed him to wander forever.
But he shook off the pessimism.
The worse the situation, the more positive he had to stay to endure.
The Millennium Mage had told him not to return, but he would return.
Leyzon glared with steely determination.
Then.
Rumble―
A vibration rumbled from underground.
Leyzon's gaze snapped to the ground.
Roooar―
Something stirred beneath the earth.
'Something's there.'
An Earth Beast, maybe?
The first change in three days was welcome, but he couldn't rush in blindly.
"Shadow Veil, Attribute Fusion: Landscape Painting."
Shadows cloaked his body, disguising him as a landscape painting.
Leyzon ascended higher and pursued the vibrations.
BOOM!
Moments later, something enormous burst from the ground.
Leyzon's jaw dropped at the sight.
Sand shot skyward.
And spewing it was a whale from underground.
A colossal whale.
It swam freely through the earth, blasting sand from the blowhole atop its head.
"...A Phantasmal Beast?"
Similar, but no.
This was...
'...An Apostle.'
Leyzon recognized its identity from the aura.
The bizarre entities transcendent beings sent to the surface.
Apostles.
This whale was an Apostle under a transcendent's command.
An Apostle roaming the surface openly.
Unthinkable in the Empire.
'Now I get why Carmen dismissed Empire-born Apostles as fakes.'
The scale was entirely different.
It highlighted the transcendent's domain's immense influence.
The Apostle Whale swam onward through the earth.
He'd been flying straight anyway, with no direction in mind.
Leyzon decided to tail it.
After maintaining a safe distance for a while.
He spotted an unexpected sight at the horizon's edge.
The land ended.
A massive cliff plunged downward.
Clouds shrouded the base, its depth impossible to gauge.
A colossal cliff stretching to the horizon.
Roooar!
Reaching the edge, the Apostle Whale turned and swam back.
Leyzon called off the pursuit.
Instead, he focused on the cliff below.
'Makes the Empire feel so small.'
A cliff to the horizon's end.
Leyzon stared down for a long time.
Then he made his choice.
Better to head down than wander the wasteland again.
With that, he turned his Bone Broom downward.
Leyzon descended slowly, without gaining speed.
Soon, he entered the misty clouds.
His eyes glowed purple amid the fog.
Was he ascending or descending?
The fog was too thick to tell.
Trusting the Bone Broom's senses, he plunged deeper for a while.
Finally, the clouds thinned to an end.
Rooooaaar!
Suddenly, the entire cliff trembled.
This massive cliff spanning the horizon.
The ground shook like an earthquake.
"What now?"
As Leyzon scanned to assess.
His eyes widened in shock.
Below the cliff.
The cliff itself was moving.
Like legs, it moved.
Slowly, but step by step.
The cliff advanced forward.
An unbelievable sight, even seeing it.
'...This isn't just a cliff.'
A living being of unmeasurable size.
Leyzon finally realized where he'd been all this time.
And why the wasteland never ended no matter how far he flew.
He'd been moving in the same direction as this colossal monster.
Hence, no end in sight.
"Ha, insane."
He'd only heard tales of the lands beyond the Empire.
Never imagined this.
Speechless.
Creeeak―
Then, a sound like something opening reached his ears.
Following it, he looked up—between cliff faces, a window appeared.
Was this a living space?
A middle-aged woman leaned out, brushing dust from her clothes.
Her casual demeanor screamed routine.
As Leyzon stared blankly, their eyes met.
The woman blinked.
Leyzon blinked back.
Her eyes slowly widened.
"P-Pro-Ph-Prophet!"
She shrieked and fled inside.
Leyzon watched, then felt certain of one thing.
"Earth Beasts."
A misunderstanding, but after twists and turns, he'd finally met Earth Beasts.