Chapter 218
Chapter 218
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 218
Chapter Title: Heaven's Disturbance (5)
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Canis gasped for breath. His head was spinning, so much so that it felt like his brain was melting.
But he couldn't rest yet. He had to fight for Arin until the very last moment.
“Baalv, you're in a sorry state.”
Baalv's body flinched at Cariel's voice.
“My apologies, Lord Cariel.”
Canis's face went blank. He was sure he had shattered every bone in its body. How could it possibly still be alive?
No, it wasn't just alive.
Its various organs were transforming into strange new forms.
Insect-like legs encased in carapaces sprouted out, and tentacles resembling those of a mollusk extended.
“Thank you for permitting my Demonic Awakening.”
As Baalv's body swelled to the size of a mountain, everyone had to crane their necks straight up.
It was a colossal creature, a chaotic mishmash of all sorts of life forms.
A mishmash was the perfect word for it.
It looked exactly like what you'd get if you threw an octopus, cockroaches, flies, maggots, and snakes into a cauldron, boiled them, and then dried out the remains.
“Kikiki! It's been two thousand years since my last Awakening.”
“Is this… the end?”
Canis's hope vanished like a bubble. The Objets were nothing more than… toys for the Mara.
By the time he realized he had risked his life on an impossible task from the very beginning, it was already too late.
@
“Rian, Rian…”
Peope looked back at Rian, her eyes welling with tears. Even when everything had come to nothing, he was still fighting.
No, he was holding his ground.
Having coughed up blood from the first clash, Rian had embraced Imir and engaged a mental lock.
He would break before he bent.
The price for choosing such a dangerous path was a physical ability comparable to Schema.
Realizing the lock would never break unless he shattered Rian's body, Imir relentlessly threw his fists.
Each time Rian's body shook from the impact, the greatsword wavered.
“Kugh! Not… yet…!”
As the situation dragged on, a strange thought occurred to Imir.
The quality of his strength was hard as iron. It wasn't the kind of raw power a living being could produce. Besides, after turning his insides into a mess, he shouldn't have been able to muster any strength at all.
‘Extremely rare for a human to be able to use this.’
He'd encountered such individuals with very low frequency over countless battles. But without exception, they had been the strongest warriors representing their civilizations.
To place a human who couldn't even use the Giants' Art on the same level would be a disservice to their memory.
“Keke! Let's see this through to the very end!”
Imir threw an uppercut from point-blank range.
The moment his abdominal muscles ruptured, Rian's eyes shot wide open. His body lifted off the ground, and as he landed, his knees buckled, but he held on, clinging to Imir.
The next moment, Rian released the mental lock and pushed Imir's shoulders.
The clinch, which seemed like it would never break even in death, was over. Imir looked on with a puzzled expression.
But did it matter? He was the strongest, after all.
Any creature that dared to face the King of Giants would end up like this.
“Giving up, are you? You lasted long for a human. As a reward, I'll make it painless.”
Imir stepped forward with all his might and threw a punch. Even at close range, his power could tear muscle; if a blow with his full weight behind it landed, Rian's body wouldn't stand a chance.
But Rian didn't seem to care. He was smiling at Imir, his eyes fixed on something over the giant's shoulder.
“You're here, Shirone.”
@
Shirone covered the one-kilometer distance in thirty seconds.
As he neared the Grand Celestial Tournament, he saw the giant swinging its fists and a battered Rian.
“Riaaaan!”
Imir flinched. But his fist, filled with immense power, continued its trajectory toward Rian's abdomen, driven by inertia.
Shirone cast Shining Chain. A chain dozens of meters long coiled tightly around Imir's body.
“Huh?”
The moment Imir realized what was happening, his body was yanked away at incredible speed.
“Kuuuuugh!”
Even while suspended in the air, Imir tried to destroy the chain by pouring his strength into it.
The giant's raw power pushed against Shirone's mind. But he had no intention of entertaining such a foolish challenge.
Shirone manipulated the chain and slammed the giant around.
Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash!
Imir's body, wrapped in the chain, was repeatedly slammed into the ground in a parabolic arc. The final impact made the floor ring with a sharp crack.
Imir lay sprawled out, motionless.
It was a humiliation.
His body burned with rage at the fact that his physique had been mocked by a mere human mage.
“You think slamming me into the ground will break me? I'll shatter this chain right now! Feel the true strength of my body!”
Imir flexed his muscles, and the chain strained. Shirone's brow furrowed. But if an opponent came at him head-on, a mage's way was to counter indirectly.
“How about this?”
Shirone swung his arm, and the chain unraveled, sending Imir flying off the side of the bridge.
Suspended in mid-air, Imir stared at Shirone with a blank expression.
“You…”
Just as he was about to say something, gravity took hold, and his body plummeted from the bridge.
7. Heaven (1)
As he fell, Imir watched the bridge recede. It wasn't until the landscape was obscured by clouds that he could shake off his feeling of futility.
“Mages, honestly…”
He didn't mind crashing into the ground. It would be far more amusing to have a contest of durability with the earth waiting below than to dally around as a 'Part'.
Or so he thought.
But the moment the boy appeared, he had smelled it again. The acrid, metallic scent unique to the battlefield.
Nothing was over yet. The hottest place in Heaven was still the Grand Celestial Tournament.
“I can't miss out on a place like that.”
He had to get to the Grand Celestial Tournament.
Attempting to leap would weaken the power of his 'Part' even further, but the smell of blood from the battlefield was calling to him, so there was no need to hesitate.
“Huuuuup!”
Imir sucked in the air, his body swelling.
As he cut off his oxygen, his skin hardened like porcelain. The color drained from his face, and the light faded from his eyes.
His lips parted, and his pulse stopped.
And so, Imir died.
Bang! The front of the corpse exploded, and an identical Imir burst out.
Carried by the powerful propulsion, Imir leaped dozens of meters and dug his fingers into one of the pillars supporting Jevoule.
“Hoo, this is irritating every time I do it.”
For one who pursued martial might, the weakening of his power was an unbearable frustration. It was especially unpleasant to be reborn from a Part to a Part, as it required passing through death.
He endured all this humiliation for one reason: to witness the end of the battle with his own eyes.
Hanging from the pillar, Imir planted the soles of his feet against it and let his shoulders go limp. The moment he pulled himself up and kicked off, his colossal body shot upward, defying gravity.
@
-Art of Life, 80 percent progress.
Shirone looked back at the Grand Celestial Tournament. As he approached the entrance, Peope transferred her memories of everything that had happened so far.
Shirone looked down at the bleeding Rian.
“Are you okay? Sorry I'm late.”
“No. You're not late. Go in and save the women.”
Rian was a complete mess. He would need time to at least recover his stamina if he wanted to go home.
“Shirone!”
Amy shouted. The emotions she had been holding back burst forth, and tears welled in her eyes. She thought she had been holding up well, but it seemed she had been secretly overwhelmed with sorrow.
“There's no time! It's over if the information is transmitted!”
Shirone knew what she meant. He was so angry his fingertips trembled.
Until now, he had never thought that Amy needed his permission to do anything.
But faced with this situation, he finally realized.
Without his permission, no one was allowed to treat Amy carelessly.
Canis rose from Shirone's shadow.
“What happened? Did you find a way to escape? Did Ikael agree to release the women?”
“Ikael isn't coming.”
“So it was all for nothing?”
“Maybe. But I'll take it from here.”
Shirone walked toward Baalv. But his glare was fixed on Cariel, who stood beyond it.
“If you release the women now, I will simply leave.”
“And what difference would that make? You cannot escape annihilation. The final war will happen, and the only thing humans can do is wait for death.”
“No. You can't destroy us.”
“I don't know on what grounds you spout such nonsense. The power of Heaven is absolute. If Ra did not exist, your world would not exist either.”
“That may be so. But Ra is not a god.”
It wasn't a statement made out of spite, nor was it sophistry. Shirone genuinely believed it. And so did Miro.
-Shirone, a god isn't some great being. They're just the world's architect.
When he first heard those words from Miro, he hadn't understood. He thought it was just an Unlocker who used Scale Magic, overconfident in her abilities and belittling a god.
But now that he understood the secret of Heaven, he knew that wasn't the case.
Miro had known. A being that merely considers itself great cannot be a god.
There is only one God. The one who designed the world.
“Humans are not as foolish as you think. A being we can see, feel, and analyze cannot be a god! We will fight! If the final war comes, it will be Heaven that is annihilated!”
Cariel's expression soured. It had probably been a long time since he had heard such blasphemy.
“This confirms it. Humans deserve to die. Baalv, execute them.”
“That would be my greatest pleasure, Lord Cariel.”
Baalv's ponderous body began to squirm. With every movement of its colossal frame, nameless organs flailed about meaninglessly.
“Canis! Get back!”
Countless photons materialized around Shirone. The tension of the vibrating light was terrifying, as if it would burst forth at the slightest touch.
The moment Baalv lunged at Shirone, a dozen Photon Cannons were fired.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
Amazingly, Baalv's body was pushed back. A piercing shriek erupted.
The Photon Cannons relentlessly pounded the massive body.
The insect legs broke, and the mollusk tentacles lost their elasticity, as if they'd been chewed by molars.
Baalv's body was completely overturned. Even so, it was pushed back toward Cariel, battered by the barrage of cannons.
Only then did Shirone stop his magic. It was an attack that had unleashed all his pent-up fury at once.
And yet, he wasn't tired. Despite the increase in the power of each shot, he couldn't even feel a hint of fatigue.
Watching this, Canis felt a sense of futility. Was it possible for a human to raise the power of their magic by a whole level in just a few hours?
It's not uncommon for people to make new discoveries on the battlefield, with their lives on the line.
But Shirone hadn't undergone a mental transformation. It was as if every stat that constituted him had been uniformly boosted.
‘This can't be. He can't get this far ahead.’
Just a few months ago, when he fought Shirone, the gap hadn't been this wide. And after losing to light magic, he had trained harder than anyone to surpass him.
But now, Shirone was much farther away than before.
Why doesn't he ever despair? What is the source of the power that makes him who he is?
Cariel spoke to the fallen Baalv.
“Enough playing around, Baalv.”
His expression was unwavering. Of course, for a human, Shirone's magic was certainly impressive. By the standards of the heavenly citizens, he would easily rank within the top 40 percent.
But that wasn't enough to defeat a Two-Horned Mara.
According to the Laws, even ten Shirone's couldn't match the might of a Mara.
“My apologies, Lord Cariel. It seems the Grand Celestial Tournament might get a little broken.”
“Permission granted.”
As Cariel gave his consent, the floor began to shake. The countless biological organs that made up Baalv all turned toward the ceiling and began to thrash about.
“Kikiki! To awaken my cute little test subjects from their slumber. This will be a nightmare for you.”