Chapter 191
Chapter 191
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 191
Chapter Title: Learning the Transcendent's Magic
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The deep.
The deepest place in the Abyss, the bottommost land.
The witches' territory, a realm no demon could easily approach.
The deep was always shrouded in darkness.
Not a single ray of light pierced it, and there were no changes of season whatsoever.
A cursed dark land where even ordinary creatures couldn't survive.
For all the curses of the Abyss flowed straight into this deep.
Only the witches could endure those grotesque and bizarre curses.
If any being that wasn't a witch tried to live in the deep, they would first suffer bodily mutations and mental derangement from the myriad curses.
After that, they would lose their sight and senses altogether, writhing in agony amid the darkness until death claimed them.
That was the deep.
A mass of curses that every demon in the Abyss feared.
And yet.
"Light in the deep...?"
"What is that?"
"Stars... stars."
The witches looked up at the sky.
Suddenly, the sky over the deep had torn open, and pure white stars began pouring down.
But ordinary stars could not exist in the deep.
The deep's darkness would swallow them all.
The witches themselves had never seen stars appear in the deep's sky before, so they could only gape in awe, heads tilted skyward.
"...Magic."
The Black Witch spoke.
Her eyes, too, were fixed on the sky above the deep.
...Those shooting stars weren't real stars.
They were the product of powerful magic.
A transcendent magic so overwhelmingly potent it blanketed the entire Abyss.
Only the Dragon God Sepiro or a scant few transcendents could pull off something like that.
But what on earth was this magic?
'It's magic that erases the roots of the curse.'
Though its effects hadn't quite reached the deep, the visible manifestation of the spell lingered for the naked eye.
A testament to just how absurd this magic was.
From what she could judge, it was clearly ultimate-level anti-curse magic to a witch.
But that couldn't be all of it.
The curse's roots spanned the entire Abyss.
Erasing those roots meant, in other words...
'Magic to become the master of the Abyss.'
It was tantamount to the curse's master declaring their intent to become the Abyss's master.
...Who could have conjured such impossible magic?
She had a pretty good idea.
It had to be the magic from the ancient tome she'd entrusted to Aheta, the one that should be sitting in Aheta's secret laboratory.
"...So the tome's master, the transcendent of magic power, has emerged."
The tome was complete.
And the sealed transcendent within it had appeared.
The laboratory turning into a transcendent Abyss was proof of that.
Yet neither Aheta nor the Black Witch had succeeded in completing the tome.
The fact that someone else had was evidence of their triumph where the two had failed.
How in the world?
The maniacal mana interference around the tome boiled with power, incinerating everything nearby.
Even reaching it after untold hardships was a pipe dream.
Unless one's understanding of magic had reached the absolute pinnacle...
'Only Aheta and I know about the laboratory in the Eternal Lands.'
She shook her head for a moment.
On second thought, there might be two more.
'Demon God Gremory. And the Archmage.'
The two who'd decisively contributed to Aheta's bankruptcy.
They might have been rewarded with the secret lab's location.
But Demon God Gremory likely had no interest in Aheta's possessions.
'...The Archmage. He beat us witches to the lab.'
She pieced it together.
What if the Archmage bankrupted and erased Aheta, pinpointed the lab's location, and rushed there?
He'd have seized Aheta's administrator privileges.
Breaching the entrance wouldn't have been hard.
The real problem came after.
Nine hundred golems.
Golems that should have been wrecked by mana interference were operating normally.
Simply possessing ego wouldn't let them ignore the tome's influence.
Which meant...
'He used powerful blood to become master of all the golems. The blood's owner possessed rank enough to defy the tome's influence.'
She recalled it.
The final scene the witches' orb had shown.
The golems battling the witches, etched with countless blood markings on their exteriors.
Clearly wards painted over their cores to escape the tome's mana interference.
The blood enveloped the mana cores, and the golems recognized him as their master.
Not only that—it let them ignore the tome's influence entirely.
All with mere blood.
'...Blood is essence.'
The very power of life flowing from the heart.
Something only a transcendent—or someone even greater—could achieve.
Such beings were rarer than hen's teeth across the entire Abyss.
"Archmage..."
A name flashed through her mind.
The Black Witch's expression hardened in an instant.
Her eyes brimmed with bewilderment.
"You bastard..."
...There was only one who fit every piece of this puzzle.
A name she absolutely must not utter.
The one who reigned in terror over all demons!
The Black Witch barely forced the name from her lips.
"Sepiro...?"
As the witches lost their power, hundreds of golems instantly surrounded them.
Killing the witches right then would have been easy, but there was another reason they held back from attacking rashly.
-Dragonkin?
-Dragon mana.
-Mana's flowing again.
The man standing behind the witches with hands clasped behind his back.
The Black Dragon Ataraxia had regained the ability to wield his power.
With the tome gone, the mana interference had vanished.
At the same time, the vast mana surging from Ataraxia's body had led to this standoff.
That was when it happened.
"Kuhahahahaha!"
Ataraxia burst into mad laughter.
Guuung-
Guuuung!
His draconic guffaws shook the very space around them.
He wasn't an ordinary dragon, but an ancient wyrm.
A being like the patriarch of his clan.
"...Ataraxia. Stop laughing and help us escape."
"We'll never forget the favor if you do."
"We'll put in a good word with the 'Black Witch' too."
The three witches pleaded desperately.
They'd lost their power to some unknown light.
Their curses and epithets had all vanished.
But with Ataraxia's strength, escaping this place should be possible.
Ataraxia glanced at the three witches.
Then quickly turned his head away.
Their pleas held no interest for him whatsoever.
Instead, he gazed toward the laboratory's center, dropped to one knee, and declared,
"Great Sepiro-sama!!"
This sublime phenomenon.
Even at a glance, it was no ordinary magic.
The Dragon God Sepiro had clearly claimed the item the Black Witch valued above all else.
Recognized by a transcendent.
Using a transcendent's magic.
Aaah.
How magnificent he was.
Always surpassing imagination.
He cared nothing for transcendents' recognition—his name already topped the 'Hall of Fame,' known to all transcendents anyway.
...A transcendent had bestowed their magic.
It meant the transcendent had given everything to Sepiro.
Because a 'transcendent's magic' was singular.
They possessed exactly one spell... their 'authority.'
"Master of all dragons!"
Indeed, the only one worthy to rule the Abyss was his master, Sepiro.
At the same time, horror dawned on the three witches' faces.
"Se... what?"
"Sepiro...?"
"No way that's...!"
The direction of Ataraxia's gaze.
Whoever was inside there was Sepiro, he claimed.
The golems' master was the same.
The witches' faces drained of color.
"Ataraxia! You planned this from the start?"
"You've betrayed us!"
"And after how much the Black Witch favored you...!"
The situation grew dire.
Ataraxia showed no sign of helping them.
Instead, he smirked and said,
"Every action I take, every will I hold, is solely for Sepiro-sama. Betrayal? The Black Witch's favor? That garbage meant nothing to me from the beginning."
He didn't even care.
It was pathetic, these witches wailing about meaningless things.
Ataraxia took a step back.
"Golems. I don't mind them, but these witches could be useful materials for our master. He occasionally dissects them while they're still alive, after all."
-So you're the master's lackey.
-Got it!
-Capture alive.
Despair filled the eyes of the powerless witches.
They realized resistance was futile.
And dissection, no less.
Ripping through a living body at will.
"......"
And from behind them.
Brrr!
Dagon trembled all over, lips clamped shut, watching Ataraxia and the witches.
At that moment.
The transcendents spoke.
―Transcendent Lil's magic.
―Did she complete it?
―Not fully.
―The seal's broken?
―How dare she...
―Traitor.
Their reactions were uniform.
Open hostility toward Transcendent Lil.
But their anger soon subsided.
―A vain dream anyway.
―She'll never achieve it.
―Even Lil couldn't embody that magic herself.
―Too greedy in perfecting it.
―I can feel it.
―She'll vanish soon.
The magic blanketing the Abyss was impressive, but no one in it could fully contain it.
And to complete the magic, Lil had sacrificed herself.
They sensed her existence steadily weakening.
She'd vanish before long.
Her threatening magic would disappear with her.
The transcendents let it go.
As always.
They cared for nothing beyond themselves and perfecting their own magic.
Transcendent Lil closed her eyes.
Her magic, manifested from Park Chan-woo's hand.
Of course, the power sealed in the tome had aided it.
Lil slowly opened her eyes and spoke.
―So you are the magic's true master.
She knew the magic's owner was Park Chan-woo, not her.
She'd created it, but even she couldn't wield it perfectly.
Now she beheld that potential with her own eyes.
―Yet you still don't grasp the essence of magic. In the time remaining, would you care to learn it from me?
It was the first time.
The first time she'd ever felt like teaching magic to another.
She was the transcendent called the master of mana.
Among all transcendents, none handled mana better.
Naturally, her mastery of magic was unparalleled.
Save for one: Sepiro.
The Dragon God Sepiro and Lil were rivals in magic.
Hearing this, Park Chan-woo smirked and replied,
"Shall I take you as my master?"