Chapter 91
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 91
Chapter Title: Such a Boring End
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Burning leaves danced and fell at their feet. A log, long settled on this mountain, crashed against other trees, making a clamorous noise.
The old mage, who had taken cover with the soldiers under the shadow of the trees, sensed a chilling aura and quickly raised his staff, beginning to cast a defensive barrier.
The white-haired boy and the orc standing beside him wore expressions of utter disbelief, unable to comprehend the scene unfolding before them.
“Torn flesh. A molar knocked back behind the throat. A broken tusk.”
The Overlord began to chant his spell.
A tremor ran through his lungs. The chilling air entered the boy’s nose and stabbed at his insides. His heart constricted painfully. The thought that there was no escape consumed his mind.
The darkness spewing from Maltiel’s palm continued to swell in size.
‘The spell’s execution isn’t perfect. The ratio of wasted mana is too high.’
Just as the boy analyzed, the spell Maltiel was casting was far from perfectly executed.
If one assumed Maltiel was currently expending 100 units of magic, only about 30 were being manifested into the spell. The other 70 were scattering uselessly onto the ground.
Academically speaking, Maltiel’s spell was as good as a ‘failure.’
It was a natural outcome, in a way. Not everyone was born with the same innate talent as the boy.
This was Maltiel’s first attempt at a ‘spell.’ It would have been unnatural if there were no flaws in his magic.
‘…But this magic is dangerous.’
Despite this, the boy couldn’t ignore the chill that filled his lungs.
Regardless of the spell’s efficiency, the absolute value of the magical energy Maltiel was pouring into it was simply too high.
Seventy percent of the mana an Overlord could store in his body.
Though the boy didn't know it, Maltiel was stuffing seventy percent of his total mana into this single spell.
He was overwhelming the fatally high mana leakage with an even more overwhelming amount of raw power.
Academically, it was an incredibly inefficient and brutish method, but tactically, it was the best possible choice Maltiel could make in the current situation.
The boy quickly moved his frozen limbs and stood in front of the red-skinned orc.
Tinnitus and a pitch-black light.
An immense energy, beyond the scope of comprehension, began to rush toward the boy. Simultaneously, a faint blue barrier enveloped him.
The boy’s head throbbed as if it would burst, overwhelmed by a deafening ringing. Annoyance flared to its peak, and his hands and feet trembled.
“…”
The orc, who had curled his body to fit inside the boy’s protective shield, came to his senses and was rendered speechless by the sight that surrounded them.
The mountain had vanished entirely. The slope, the trees, the soil—all gone.
In its place was a vast, sprawling crater, and at its center lay a small sphere, about the size of a fingertip.
Soon, the boy and the orc began to fall. They had been standing on a mountain slope, but with the mountain itself obliterated, they were now plummeting through the empty air with a few handfuls of dirt.
Below them, a deep pit was gouged into the earth, revealing the bedrock.
Even the seasoned orc warrior had no idea how far they would have to fall to reach the bottom.
Suddenly, a tremendous wind blew from behind them. The massive energy had exploded, turning everything in its vicinity to nothing. It was only natural for an incredible gust of wind to rush in to fill the vacuum at the center of the blast.
The boy and the orc were swept up in the immense aftershock and thrown apart.
Rex belatedly came to his senses and reached out for the boy, but it was far too late.
“General!”
Rex shouted for the boy with a booming voice, but the boy’s ears and eyes had not yet recovered their function.
The ‘Spirit’s Protection’ he possessed had shielded him from the immense heat and wind, but it hadn't protected him from the blinding light.
The boy was in a state of disorientation, like someone hit squarely by a flashbang. His senses were numb and distant, and his brain was incapable of forming any thoughts.
“…I’ve won.”
From the center of the storm, in the deepest part of the deep crater, a sneering voice echoed.
From the pitch-black sphere, no bigger than a fingertip, flesh and bone slowly sprouted, beginning to form Maltiel’s body.
Maltiel’s regeneration was noticeably slower. It was the result of consuming an enormous amount of mana and then taking the full force of the massive explosion created by that very mana.
Maltiel rashly tried to move his legs, which were still just exposed bone. He wanted nothing more than to tear the boy’s heart from his chest as quickly as possible.
However, the Overlord’s skeletal legs were caught in the storm converging on the epicenter and broke again and again.
In the end, Overlord Maltiel was unable to move while his body recovered.
“Hmph.”
But after a moment, Maltiel seemed to accept that he couldn’t move to finish off the boy and stopped trying.
Looking at the boy, it seemed it would take more than ten seconds for his eyes and ears to recover. And ten seconds was more than enough time for the boy’s body to be smashed against the ground.
‘With his brain not functioning, using magic will be impossible. He can’t deploy a shield.’
The boy would fall to his death in a matter of seconds. His fragile body would be reduced to a pulp on the dirt floor, his bones crushed to dust and scattered in all directions.
Maltiel came to this conclusion and waited with patience for his body to fully regenerate.
“That orc… he has an annoying artifact. Better to finish him off.”
Maltiel turned his gaze from the boy to the orc, who was falling with an axe and a horn in his hands.
*Crack!*
Rex’s large feet met the bottom of the crater. The sound of breaking bones was clearly audible even to Maltiel, who was dozens of meters away.
“…You, bastard!”
The orc, his leg bones shattered from the unprepared fall, was swept sideways by the aftershock still raging within the crater. Maltiel, his body almost fully restored, took careful steps toward Rex.
It was at that moment.
“Death by falling? I will not accept such a boring end for a toy I haven’t had in so long.”
The Origin of Magic.
The First Lightning.
The Chained Transcendent.
The voice of an existence more ephemeral than a fleeting cloud, an existence with countless titles and absurd legends, was heard.
Maltiel immediately spun around at the sound of the omnipotent voice coming from behind him.
“At least die fighting. This is so absurd I’m at a loss for words.”
There stood the lightning spirit, Dajin, carrying the white-haired boy on his back.
* * *
“…Well, it’s over.”
In the vast, sprawling desert in the western part of Vellaland.
Overlord Mikael muttered with a hollow expression in this wide desert, commonly called the ‘Golden Sea’ because eighty percent of its sand was gold dust.
“If you’re going to give up, you might as well tell me the core’s location. I’m a bit busy right now.”
The one blocking Mikael’s path was, of course, the Sword Saint.
“…I can’t do that. It is my duty to tie you down until the moment of my death. To save even one more Overlord by doing so.”
Mikael began to cover his body with pitch-black barriers.
With swift and concise magical calculations, he layered more than ten barriers around his body in less than three seconds.
‘I must cover myself with as many barriers as possible. I have to hold on for even one more second.’
The Sword Saint wouldn't be able to leave this desert until he had killed him. Mikael intended to exploit that fact to the fullest.
‘The difference in skill is overwhelming. A clumsy offense would be more of a poison. What’s important now is how long I can last.’
“You’re not even going to fight?”
Mikael couldn't answer. His mouth was, even at this moment, chanting spells for a more solid defensive barrier.
Just make it harder, just make it thicker.
Mikael’s goal was to delay his own death as much as possible, not to fight and win against the Sword Saint.
“You’re so wretched, it’s shameful to watch.”
The Sword Saint’s words were laced with a deep disgust whose origin was impossible to trace.
“Will you not even put up the minimum struggle of a living being? You are simply pitiful and revolting.”
Watching Mikael accept death without any emotion, the Sword Saint slowly settled into his stance.
“For what purpose were you even born? Simply to kill something?”
His two legs slowly spread to shoulder width.
“What is left for you after killing other living things like that? What do you gain by so diligently carrying out the orders of that thing you call the Demon King?”
His knees bent slightly in preparation for the coming impact.
“I have yet to meet a single Mazoku who can answer such simple questions.”
His two hands gripped the hilt of his sword so tightly it seemed they would break it.
“And you are no different.”
He slowly raised his tightly gripped hands to his eye level.
The chilling tip of the blade was aimed where the Sword Saint’s gaze was fixed.
“You make me sick.”
He swung the blade diagonally with all his might.
The sword cut through the barriers and into Mikael’s body, again and again. Trapped and with his movements restricted by the barriers, Mikael was finely butchered.
Approximately 6 minutes and 20 seconds had passed since the Sword Saint arrived in Vellaland.
The third Overlord had lost his life.