Chapter 129
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 129
Chapter Title: Avici (5)
Asma didn't go against his instincts and chose to flee.
His slender human legs vanished, replaced by enormous legs like those of a monstrous bird.
A beast's head on his solar plexus, a goat's head on his shoulders, and now the legs and massive wings of that freakish bird.
The moment Asma, now nearly in his true form, flapped his wings to escape—
a heavy weight settled on his sole remaining human head.
'When did that happen?'
His head had been grabbed by someone.
It happened so fast that he only understood the situation belatedly—the phenomenon outpacing his cognition.
Just a single hand on his head, yet Asma's entire body froze. He couldn't fly as he wished.
Asma forcibly lifted his stiffened head.
There, hovering in the sky, was a man flapping black wings utterly different from his own.
Gray hair, a silhouette akin to a human's. But that was just a shell.
He couldn't be human. Asma was certain of that.
"Who... are you?"
"…."
The man wore a faint smile but didn't answer Asma's question.
Instead, his black eyes seemed to draw Asma in deep, as if sucking him into their abyss.
In truth, Asma felt that strange pull toward them.
And beyond those eyes loomed a colossal presence. A faint silhouette, but unmistakable.
No—he felt it.
He couldn't win.
His instincts had been right.
Not a great being... but perilously close.
'Where did a monster like this come from...?'
Asma summoned his strength in a fury to shake off the helpless sensation of being devoured.
He needed to snap out of it.
The first phase of the plan was complete. The chaos unfolding from this moment couldn't be easily stopped, even if he stepped away briefly.
Unforeseen chaos that no one could predict.
So he just needed to survive.
The breach of Avici itself would signal to the other Transcendents that something was wrong with its creator, the great being.
And exposing that anomaly was what the Lord desired...
"Hoo."
As Asma's thoughts raced, the man gripping his head finally spoke.
"Feels like I've seen you somewhere before."
"...You know me?"
Asma posed the question cautiously, but his attention was elsewhere entirely.
The goat heads embedded in both shoulders creaked as they turned, their eyes flashing toward the man.
Soon, those goat eyes unleashed a piercing gaze.
It was a unique intellectual magic from Asma's true form, designed to rattle the opponent's mind.
Yet the man before him didn't flinch.
He simply maintained that unsettling smile from Asma's perspective.
"Tricks like that don't work on me to begin with."
"…."
"I get that you're aiming for a weakness, but unfortunately, I don't have any."
Asma's insides twisted.
He tolerated no one but the Lord looking down on him with such leisure.
"To strike a weakness, you'd first have to prove I have one."
Words that would normally ignite his rage outright now only drew cold sweat from Asma.
Moreover, the man's gaze had shifted away from him at some point.
With one hand casually holding Asma's head, he scanned the surroundings.
Yet Asma couldn't escape that grip, which only boiled his frustration.
'Am I not even worth his attention...?'
Humiliation surged within him.
And then he realized it belatedly.
This man was enduring Avici's constraints with his very body.
Asma himself was inside the Black Pearl.
Within the Black Pearl's dark veil, those connected to the Lord's system could function fully.
In other words, anyone not aligned with him would be fully restrained.
This man clearly wasn't human...
Which meant he was overwhelming Asma with nothing but his innate power.
Overwhelming might.
The man's gaze still passed over Asma, fixed elsewhere.
Asma knew what lay there.
Avici's sole warden. Probably writhing in mental agony even now.
'Is now the chance, while he's distracted?'
The thought had just flashed through his mind—
when the man's eyes pierced Asma once more.
"Any reason I should let you live?"
"…."
"Hmm, should I even bother asking?"
Ask what...?
To whom?
Just then, Asma sensed a new presence piercing the Black Pearl.
'Does he have another ally?'
In that instant, Asma briefly regained his freedom. The man's grip slackened.
But what followed was an overwhelming force crashing down like the sky itself.
By the time I arrived late, a bizarre corpse was already floating split in half before the Tower of Intellect.
...Is this Asma of the Forces of Evil?
Already dead?
There were no traces of a prisoner ascending from Avici. And while this black-veiled figure seemed to fit Asma...
I asked the Tower of Intellect.
"Is he dead?"
"Nah, not dead."
Despite the mangled corpse right there, the Tower of Intellect shrugged and shook his head.
"This guy's got some freaky abilities, just like he looks."
Freaky abilities, huh...
Looking at the bisected body, I could sort of see.
What can I say... It had a dragon-like head on the upper body, plus goat and human heads in their own spots.
Even the feet resembled a bird's.
A body like mismatched parts stitched together, evoking a chimera.
"No matter how I look at it, he resembles the Palamat race..."
The Tower of Intellect muttered to himself.
"...A mutant?"
"What're you talking about?"
"Nah, just an old memory. There was a story about the Palamat species breaking ancient taboos by mutating into hybrids, all getting locked in Avici. But this one's got traces of at least five mutations."
"Five mutations—that's a lot?"
"From what I heard, the max was two. If that's true, he's likely still alive. They say successful mutations leave behind a core nucleus."
Since becoming a Transcendent, I've run into so much I don't understand.
Makes sense—this continent's history runs deep.
Of course I'd be clueless about ancient races.
"Well, recovery'll take time anyway."
The Tower of Intellect seemed to lose interest, turning away from Asma's corpse.
"That must be Blazing Glory over there."
I followed his gaze.
On the cracked, split earth, a massive figure knelt in torment.
"What're we doing with it?"
"Avici's already open, it seems..."
Avici had layers, apparently.
I couldn't yet tell if this rift had opened all layers or just the first.
And the one to ask was already dead by the Tower's hand.
Then I felt it—the presences rising from the rift toward the surface drawing nearer.
The Tower's senses were warped right now, but unaffected, I could tell.
Prisoners locked in Avici.
Probably powerhouses beyond my current strength.
I told the Tower of Intellect,
"First, we secure Blazing Glory."
"And then?"
"We hunt."
I still had business here.
Thwarting Asma's plan was secondary.
More important was finding the one the Merciful Crown mentioned here.
The key to lifting the Merciful Crown's curse.
I already knew who it was.
Serkanos, the Merciful Crown's father, now a great being.
He was once a comrade of the hero.
And the one who served that Serkanos.
That's who I needed to find.
Of course, he might not be on the first layer. He could be deeper.
But the Merciful Crown said the odds were low.
'But how do I find him among the prisoners pouring out of this massive rift?'
The thought had just crossed my mind when a faint tremor rumbled from the ground.
It repeated several times. Prisoners were starting to emerge from the rift below.
The first to appear was... a pulsing mass—maybe a globe? Or a heart?
Its surface writhed with a texture of polluted tentacles and scales, while eyes—or slits?—flickered in and out between them.
'What the hell is that...?'
I knew these were long-lived species that mocked human lifespans, but I never imagined this.
Next came silhouettes of other prisoners rising one by one.
A form with translucent skin revealing organ outlines. A skeleton blending human and spider, grotesquely fused; joints bending repeatedly as it swam through the air.
More freakish beings, too bizarre to grasp at a glance, kept ascending. All enormous.
They sensed us—some glanced our way, even approached.
Seeing their forms up close sent chills down my spine instinctively.
But only for a moment.
They halted at a certain distance. Then resumed their paths.
The curiosity that drew them vanished; they lowered their bodies or veered away quietly.
'...Because of the Tower?'
That realization let me notice: each prisoner glanced at the Tower of Intellect once before giving way.
As dozens passed, this vast space started feeling like an aquarium.
'This is working out... right?'