Chapter 89
Chapter 89
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 89
Chapter Title: Cheat Key
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Black dragon Ataraxia.
He was blocking the center of the Path of Light.
'No one can interfere with Lord Sepiro.'
Dragon God Sepiro!
The foremost among the Twelve Lords, the one and only god who had surpassed even the Absolute Realm to reach the ultimate pinnacle.
All dragons were beneath Sepiro's feet.
Ataraxia was no exception.
The divine mission handed down by the god: guard the Path of Light.
It was worth staking his life for.
Ataraxia was doing his utmost to block Aheta's sabotage in accordance with that command.
Countless doppelgangers, and even Han Shin, had been unable to surpass him.
But.
Ataraxia lowered his head and gazed at his lower abdomen.
"...Impressive."
A piercing wound stretched long toward his side.
The diagonally gouged-out chunk of flesh showed no signs of regenerating.
He had tried weaving mana like threads to staunch the bleeding, but mana kept leaking endlessly from the wound.
Because of that, the threads kept snapping.
'Mana interference phenomenon.'
Some kind of energy was disrupting the mana itself.
Mana is a point.
Gathered into a line, then into a plane, and shaped into the desired form—that's how spells are cast.
But forming that shape requires a considerable level of mana.
Verbal incantations fail to cast spells because they can't properly form the shape.
The essence of 'incantation magic' is exhaling the threads of mana extending from the mind through the mouth to intricately shape it.
Yet now, from the very process of forming the 'mana threads,' interference was constant.
Han Shin.
The wound that bastard had inflicted on his lower abdomen.
Some energy had been smeared there.
Most likely... Han Shin's 'innate mana.'
'When he couldn't dispel my magic, he turned to attacking me directly.'
Ataraxia recalled the course of his battle with Han Shin.
A high-level spell combining all attributes.
When Han Shin realized he absolutely couldn't dispel it, he abandoned defense.
Instead, he adopted a pure offense stance, resolved to a desperate mutual destruction, and unleashed a final strike at Ataraxia.
'A strike infused with every last drop of his innate mana, meant solely to kill me.'
The problem was that its power was anything but ordinary.
It wasn't just dumping remaining mana into an attack.
Han Shin had forsaken all the mana that constituted him.
Even his innate mana from birth.
Innate mana.
Commonly called 'unique mana,' it refers to the energy a being possesses from the moment of birth.
It's like air, necessary even for breathing in and out.
The heart beats, muscles move, and unique mana synchronizes and activates accordingly.
Han Shin had poured out every bit of unique mana that made him who he was.
If he couldn't block it anyway, he would at least take the opponent down with him—that single-minded resolve.
'A tenacious bastard.'
It had been a long time since Ataraxia had encountered someone this ruthless.
In the end, Ataraxia had no choice but to cancel his own spell.
Otherwise, he would have died.
Suffering the humiliation of dying to a human here—what an embarrassment that would be.
His identity as a dragon would be exposed, and worse, it would tarnish Lord Sepiro's reputation.
Such a thing must never happen.
He had barely dodged Han Shin's strike afterward, but sustained a deep wound.
Han Shin's unique mana lingered in the wound, hindering skin regeneration.
Because of that, mana was leaking out.
And mana wouldn't connect properly.
The worst possible state.
But.
If he was in this condition, then that human bastard... what about Han Shin?
'Even so, he can't survive.'
A being that exhausts all its unique mana can never survive.
It means they've discarded even the minimal mechanisms for sustaining existence, the root of life itself.
He may have missed for a moment, but death would come soon enough.
Ataraxia, staring at the oozing blood, looked up at the sky.
At the same time.
...His gaze met 'Aheta's Eye' in the sky above.
'Your incarnation is about to die soon, Aheta.'
Han Shin was the incarnation contracted with the Moon Lord Aheta.
Judging by his exclusive gear and talents, he was someone worth Aheta's attention.
How could Aheta possibly save a human who had depleted his unique mana?
However, leaving him to die like this would be a massive loss for Aheta as well.
He was intensely curious what choice Aheta would make.
Moreover, the matters Aheta had to decide weren't limited to Han Shin's life or death.
He also needed to find the intruder and the one who had opened the Legendary Quest.
Managing the Second Night alone was already overwhelming.
He couldn't handle everything.
He'd lose it all or secure at least one.
But.
'This game is your defeat, Aheta.'
There was no chance Aheta could claim everything.
As long as Lord Sepiro was here, it was predestined.
The sky of the Second Night.
Aheta's blood-red eyes scanned the entire ground.
This 'Second Night' was his domain.
There was absolutely no being that could escape Aheta's eyes here.
No matter how long it took, Aheta never let go of prey he had marked.
And so, finally.
—Found you.
He found him.
The first target: the 'intruder.'
The one sweeping through doppelgangers with powerful magic.
Aheta checked the participant list and instantly confirmed he was a challenger not registered for the Second Night.
However...
—Strange.
It was peculiar.
Too weak to be an intruder, too strong to be just a challenger.
He was wielding magic efficiently, without exceeding human limits by much.
His skill in handling magic far surpassed ordinary humans.
That's why.
A human not on the list.
He thought it might be one of the other Twelve Races, but that man was human.
Then, a list omission?
Not impossible.
Sometimes, under special conditions, entrants to Creative Abyss were omitted from the list quite frequently.
Even the lord of Creative Abyss couldn't know everything.
...Still, it was suspicious.
If he wasn't the intruder, how did he defeat 'Han Shin'?
There was no human on Earth currently capable of facing Han Shin.
A singular talent that the Moon Lord Aheta had personally scouted.
Surpassing that with magic?
A human with no talent for magic whatsoever?
—If not an intruder...
If such a thing were possible.
There was exactly one suspect.
Someone who thwarted him at every turn.
The mage who led the First Night to human victory, stole the arrangements Aheta had personally prepared for Han Shin, and conquered the Tower of Pride.
The Moon Lord Aheta was convinced those three were the same person.
Yet he hadn't found them.
The mage interfered quietly, like an invisible ghost.
This time was no different.
—It's you, mage.
Aheta thought.
That guy might just be the mage.
Finding the intruder was urgent, but locating and eliminating the mage was equally critical.
But ordinary doppelgangers couldn't capture him.
Han Shin was also incapable of continued combat.
No, left alone, he would definitely die.
Aheta pondered.
The tasks he needed to handle were piling up like a mountain.
Managing the Second Night, balancing fugitives and pursuers, endlessly patching and repairing quests that needed maintenance.
A true time for choice and focus.
Of course, among them, the most important was clear.
—The Legendary Quest can't be cleared anyway.
Legendary Quest!
The most important, yet simultaneously the least pressing matter.
After all, it only added a mere 24 hours at best.
Over twelve hours had already passed.
Less than half a day remained.
Was it even plausible to unseal all of Khan's seals in that time?
And that's not all.
Destroying all the shelters to break Khan's first seal was impressive enough, but for the second seal, at minimum, the power of the Ten Realms... level 91 or higher was required.
No matter how exceptional the human, possessing level 91+ power at this point was a pipe dream.
Utter nonsense, beyond even dreaming.
Besides, 91 was the bare minimum.
Even if achieved, breaking through in half a day was impossible.
Thus, the Legendary Quest wouldn't be cleared.
He had interfered several times, but with Han Shin defeated, no more resource-draining battles were needed.
Setting the Legendary Quest aside like that.
Aheta scanned the Second Night once more.
—Then, first... I need to deal with that.
Gatekeeper Azos.
With a level 99 elite warrior at his side, resolving each trial took less than an hour.
'Not even thirty minutes, let alone an hour.'
In just over three hours since entering, he had already cleared six trials and reached the seventh.
Honestly, he had expected resolving the trials in 'Khan's Palace' to be no easy feat.
He needed to wrap it up before the Second Night ended, and 'Legendary Quests' were inherently of transcendent difficulty.
Azos was like a bug in the game—a cheat key.
"Gatekeeper! Why the hell are you going this far?"
The warriors guarding the next trials all reacted the same way.
They recoiled in shock upon seeing Gatekeeper Azos.
"No way... that challenger... you're following that pathetic weakling human?"
"..."
"You're a disgrace to warriors! I'll straighten out that rotten mindset of yours... Gahk!"
The seventh trial ended in one minute.
Azos, having felled the opposing warrior, clicked his tongue.
"You still talk too much, Suera. How many times have I told you enemies won't wait for you to finish speaking?"
Azos knew all the warriors' traits and weaknesses.
He was the sole gatekeeper of the palace.
One of the finest warriors.
"...Let's go."
Azos led the way with a heavy voice.
As they slowly passed through the door to the next trial.
Ten trials existed in Khan's Palace.
He had already passed seven of them.
'Smooth sailing.'
It couldn't be smoother.
Not a bus, but riding a jet.
Yet stable and comfortable, without a single shake.
Like lounging on a luxury sofa while soaring through the skies.
Azos knew the content of every trial.
He was even acquainted with all the assigned warriors.
Resolving them as naturally as flowing water was a given.
"Hm?"
It was then.
The moment they crossed the door.
"Y-You...!"
Azos's face drained of color, turning pale as a ghost.