Chapter 256
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 256
Chapter Title: The Moving Cliff
A moving cliff outside the city walls.
Leyzon slipped through the window, following the middle-aged woman who had fled inside.
The interior of the cliff resembled a kiln.
Inside the earthen structure.
Traces of daily life were scattered here and there.
He suddenly felt like an intruder, but there was no other choice.
He had to make contact with the earth beasts somehow to gather information.
'I need to find Carmen.'
She was his only hope.
So he decided to pursue the fleeing woman.
He pointed the Staff of Abundance downward.
"Shadow Castle."
Shadow Castle
Shadows rise from beneath the feet, spreading instantly across the entire space.
Shadows surged up from beneath Leyzon's feet.
They slipped through the closed door and spread throughout the entire space in an instant.
Every detail of the corridor flowed into him through the shadows.
'About twenty people.'
They had heard the middle-aged woman's words and were tense, their faces stiff with alertness.
The men were grabbing weapons, while the women tried to shield the children and elders.
The interior of the cliff wasn't that large.
It seemed they only hollowed out a portion of it for living.
Still, they might know something.
Leyzon decided to approach them as amicably as possible.
He opened a passage in the shadow beneath his feet.
Then, with leisurely steps, he emerged atop the shadow a moment later.
"Block the front!"
"Pile up cover!"
There, the men were desperately barricading a single passage.
The women, children, and elders were frozen in terror, not knowing what to do.
Leyzon appeared behind them.
"Hello there."
He offered a greeting first.
"……."
A heavy silence soon blanketed the area.
People's gazes slowly turned backward.
The moment their eyes met Leyzon's.
The men charged with desperate shouts.
The women huddled over the children, crouching low to the ground.
"Stop!"
At that moment, one elder bellowed loudly.
His eyes bloodshot, he stared at Leyzon.
Then, cautiously, he bowed his head.
"O Prophet, we are merely cliff beasts clinging to the edge of a precipice.
We possess nothing of value.
There is nothing here that would satisfy you.
Please, show us mercy just this once?"
The elder pleaded earnestly.
Leyzon watched them quietly for a moment before raising his hand.
"First off, could we maybe just talk?"
As an upstanding citizen, this was awkward.
Leyzon first clarified that he was not a prophet.
He had no idea why they were treating him like one in the first place.
He'd only ever clashed with prophets, grinding his teeth in enmity—never been on friendly terms with any.
When he asked about it, the elder hesitated before answering.
"It's an instinct engraved in the senses of us earth beasts."
"Is it related to the black plague?"
The elder nodded with a bitter expression.
The black plague spreading among the earth beasts.
A vicious contagion planted by prophets who served the transcendent plagues.
That black plague had one peculiar benefit.
When facing a prophet, their bodies reacted instinctively.
"It's probably sensing the presence of other transcendent beings and reacting."
The elder candidly shared his thoughts.
He'd shrewdly picked up on what Leyzon wanted to hear.
Leyzon now understood why they called him a prophet.
'The real Leyzon is aiding my cause in the transcendent realm.'
Moreover, he himself was undergoing the process of becoming a transcendent.
A path he'd unwittingly committed to.
It wasn't strange at all for the earth beasts to see him as a prophet.
'This is a bit tricky.'
He needed the information they held, but they were wary of him.
This wouldn't be easy.
Even now, the elder and the cliff beasts were trembling together.
Though Leyzon had said it himself that he wasn't a prophet, they still didn't quite believe him.
Seeing this, he could tell how terrifying prophets were to them.
Fair enough—the ossuary wasn't ordinary.
If a prophet like the ossuary took charge, it would be no different from a catastrophe.
'I don't have undead like Syria with me right now.'
Leyzon's greatest trump card was undead fusion.
Without a single undead, he'd lost a major part of his power.
'I should avoid prophets myself.'
It might instill fear in the earth beasts, but who knew what reaction a prophet might have to him.
If he had to fight someone like the ossuary, victory wasn't guaranteed.
Leyzon steeled himself and continued.
"In that case, how about I make a proposal?"
"……A proposal?"
The elder hesitated slightly.
He seemed to view Leyzon as an unusual prophet.
"I can cure the black plague you're all suffering from."
But the moment those words left his mouth, the elder's eyes widened slowly.
The black plague tormented all earth beasts relentlessly.
No one knew when or where it might strike, making every day a brush with death.
For the earth beasts, there could be no greater pressure than this.
Leyzon offered to resolve it.
Normally, they would welcome it with open arms.
"Th-then, what must we offer in payment?"
But that was only if it came from a fellow earth beast.
Leyzon had appeared out of nowhere.
The elder couldn't presume what he might demand.
The cliff folk had nothing to give.
Only their lives.
As the elder trembled in dread,
"By any chance, do you know an earth beast named Carmen?"
Carmen.
At the mention of her name, everyone fell silent.
'As expected.'
Her name hadn't spread even to a remote group like this.
He gave up on finding her right away.
"Then tell me where earth beasts gather in large numbers."
Surely in a big city, the information would have circulated.
He'd have to search there.
The elder flinched at Leyzon's proposal.
He didn't answer immediately, his eyes twitching with conflict.
It was the expression of someone wrestling with guilt.
The others averted their gazes, unable to speak.
Doubt showed on Leyzon's face.
'Ah.'
Then he realized the situation.
The elder and cliff beasts still saw him as a prophet.
What he'd just said sounded like: spare these lives, but sell out the other earth beasts.
It was an embarrassing misinterpretation for Leyzon, but understandable.
"There must be some misunderstanding. I truly have no intention of being hostile to the earth beasts."
Curing their black plague could make them allies.
Why would he antagonize them?
Leyzon tried to defend himself, but it fell on deaf ears.
He felt utterly wronged.
"If you need proof, I'll show you right now. Is there anyone here whose black plague needs urgent treatment?"
He could just cure it on the spot.
Silence followed his question.
Finally, it was the elder who raised a trembling hand.
"I-I'll do it."
He looked like a volunteer stepping onto the experimental table.
Sighs of pity rose from behind.
Leyzon exhaled as the elder approached.
He hoped the others wouldn't suddenly clamoring for treatment afterward.
"Lie down."
"Yes."
The elder lay on the floor and squeezed his eyes shut.
Leyzon placed his hand on the elder's gaunt body.
Then, he activated the skill.
Auto-Evolving Undead Creation [?EX]
Skill activated.
A purple light spread from Leyzon's fingertips.
With Carmen, he'd turned her into an undead to offset the black plague.
Since it only affected earth beasts.
This time, he decided to change his approach.
'Extract the black plague outward.'
The black plague was akin to a curse.
A curse rooted deep in the body.
Leyzon's undead creation skill had advanced leaps and bounds since then.
Now, he could even reverse and pull out the black plague.
Soon, a black sludge trailed up from his fingertips.
A acrid stench wafted from the elder's body.
The smell of death.
The people squeezed their eyes shut.
But Leyzon gradually gathered the fluids emerging from the elder.
A moment later, a droplet of black liquid formed atop his finger.
The black plague that had tormented the elder for so long.
'……No way.'
Then Leyzon discovered an unexpected use for it.
'It's almost identical to decomposed skills.'
Come to think of it, the black plague was planted by prophets borrowing transcendent power.
In essence, it was a fragment of transcendent might.
Leyzon had steadily absorbed skills—the transcendent's nourishment.
There was no reason he couldn't absorb the black plague too.
'An unexpected gain from an unforeseen angle.'
He'd thought skill decomposition was only possible in the empire.
Who knew he'd get such an opportunity outside the walls.
Without hesitation, Leyzon activated Skill Decomposition [Special].
Skill Decomposition [Special]
The black plague droplet decomposes and is absorbed.
The droplet containing the black plague decomposed and was absorbed.
There was no particular change in his body.
Just a sensation of being slightly closer to evolution.
'Now I have even more reason to resolve the black plague.'
He could evolve even outside the walls.
No need to hesitate anymore.
'When I return to the empire, I'll have to face the Millennium Mage again.'
Growing stronger was essential.
"How do you feel?"
Leyzon asked as he finished treating the elder.
A moment later, the elder's eyes widened in surprise.
"M-my body feels incredibly light."
Of course it did.
Because he'd become an undead.
Leyzon hadn't overhauled the elder much.
There were countless earth beasts.
He couldn't turn every single one into a proper undead.
So he'd used just one thing from the undead creation.
The elder's own bones.
Those bones had been undead-ified.
Especially, he'd cleared up any chronic bone ailments.
This was a service for the elder who'd stepped up first.
It would keep him sturdy for years to come.
"It's really, truly gone—the black plague!"
The elder cried out in overwhelming emotion.
"Everyone else, come check too."
Leyzon called the hesitant cliff beasts at the elder's fervent reaction.
They approached and examined him.
"You look years younger."
"That hunched back is straight now."
"No trace of the black plague left!"
The cliff folk exclaimed in astonishment one after another.
Their eyes turned back to Leyzon.
Only now did they truly realize he would heal them.
"P-Prophet, me too, please!"
"Just a little more mercy for us!"
"At least for our child, please!"
The cliff folk began pleading with Leyzon en masse.
They'd suffered the plague their whole lives.
If it could be cured, they wouldn't care about anything else.
For Leyzon, who was gathering evolution materials from the plague and information too,
There was no reason to refuse.
"Alright, form a line."
He didn't know when they'd drop the prophet misunderstanding.
For now, he'd faithfully play the role of their savior.