Chapter 131
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 131
Chapter Title: Enverman (4)
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A 7th-circle mage—what kind of being is that?
Those who have surpassed the 6th circle enter the realm of creation. They drag their own ideologies and philosophies into reality, building unique worlds of their own.
So, what kind of world had Sergei constructed?
No need to say it aloud. Fire.
Flames that would burn the world to ash.
That was the realm of the 7th circle he had achieved.
The [Mental Image Realm: Active Volcano] he had witnessed in the past at the Volcanic Mage Tower was a prime example, fragmentarily showcasing his inner imagery.
So how do 7th-circle mages bring their inner imagery into this world?
Through the construction of an environment.
Building an environment to manifest their inner imagery.
And thus, Sergei had summoned the image most familiar to him: 'flames.'
A volcano harboring a volcano.
Sergei's unique spell, born from the imagery of himself as a colossal cosmos cradling a volcano within.
The ground began to boil, and immense heat created shimmering mirages.
A massive fire-element magic circle spread out from Sergei at its center.
Crimson flames traced the magic patterns, completing them as the spell's range gradually expanded.
'He wasn't bluffing about abandoning his body.'
To manifest a spell requiring such delicacy without any preparation.
Most mages would have their mana circuits burned to cinders and met their end in the process.
But not Sergei, who had undergone Enverman's procedure.
"Huuu..."
Jun took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
A slender syringe clattered to the ground. Purple liquid raced through his veins from his arm straight to his heart.
Drip, drip, drip.
As the purple liquid reached his heart, the changes came swiftly.
"Kuh."
Swallowing a faint groan, Jun opened his eyes to a sensation both alien and familiar.
His pupils had elongated vertically like a lizard's, and scales began sprouting from his skin.
"W-What is that?!"
Spotting it, Enverman screamed, forgetting he was even in combat.
It was the ancient alchemists' secret art he had so desperately sought.
The purple liquid was none other than the mutant potion crafted by those ancient alchemists.
A liquid Mashar had refined using the recipe Jun had acquired, through his own unique methods.
Its effects were brief, but he had boasted that the side effects were minimized accordingly.
From the user's perspective, however, that wasn't the case.
'Feels like bugs crawling through every vein in my body.'
An itchy, agonizing, unfamiliar energy that made his own body feel foreign.
'Still, the effect is undeniable.'
Jun surveyed his surroundings.
Mana gathered.
An immense amount of mana.
'Right now, I can control it.'
Reducing the influence of 'Odyssey of the Lazy Pilgrim' by 30%.
The maximum he could handle at 5th circle was 25%, but with the temporary mutation in progress, 30% was well within his grasp.
Omnipotence stabbed at his brain, but his mutated body, [Unyielding Will], and [Steadfast Heart] teetered on a knife's edge, suppressing it.
'Right now, there's no way to fully block a 7th-circle mage's fire-element mana.'
No helping it.
No matter the [Demon God Body], spells he didn't possess wouldn't drop from the sky.
Even stacking [Ice Break] repeatedly wouldn't suffice against the volcano Sergei was summoning.
'So, only one option remains.'
A method he had employed countless times before.
Sometimes unconsciously, other times deliberately.
'Mana manipulation.'
A mage handling their own mana should be as natural as breathing, but manipulating another's was an entirely different matter.
Yet Jun had induced such phenomena repeatedly.
First, it was the Goblin Lord's sorcery.
After that, he had interfered with others' mana multiple times, distorting it.
He had even done it within Sergei's [Mental Image Realm].
'But attempting it with a 7th-circle mage right in front of me is borderline delusional.'
Thus, Jun had devised a way to temporarily seize dominance over fire-element mana from Sergei.
Mutation, and overriding the Word of Command's limits.
'Right now, it's possible.'
The intuition struck him.
He seized the ambient mana.
It felt like wielding an invisible third hand.
Then he scattered the seized mana throughout the area.
Infusing it with his own imagery.
No spell was needed for this act.
Yet the mana devoured his imagery indiscriminately.
So, what imagery had Jun instilled?
'Greedfire.'
The essence of flame he had witnessed as a child.
Greed.
He internalized the greed he had mixed into spells before and injected it into the mana.
The ambient mana then greedily consumed all surrounding energies.
But that wasn't Jun's intent.
He reined in the rampaging mana.
'Stop.'
Your prey isn't everything around you.
The target was singular.
The mana swirling around Sergei.
He couldn't cancel Sergei's spell outright, but he could devour its mana instead.
However, the mana resisted moving as he willed.
From its perspective, easier prey abounded—why target the tough mana of Sergei?
A clear refusal emanated from the mana.
Jun amplified his presence in response.
He spun his circles furiously, focusing harder on [Demon God Body].
He sternly warned the mana defying its master.
The greed-tainted mana cowered slightly.
Seizing the opening, he clearly marked the prey for the mana.
The mana, eyes rolled back in hunger, surged toward the designated target en masse.
Like a shepherd herding sheep, the mana began coveting Sergei's mana.
'Insane mana manipulation...!'
No magic circle, yet wielding mana like that—he had never heard of such a thing.
Sergei couldn't hide his astonishment at the scene unfolding before him, but he couldn't afford to gape forever.
Roooaaar!
He accelerated his body's collapse, countering Jun's mana that greedily devoured his own.
A fierce clash between the mana stirred by two mages.
Yet as time passed, both sensed they were growing disadvantaged.
Jun's mutation trembled precariously, on the verge of collapse from grasping such vast mana.
Cracks began spiderwebbing across Sergei's body as well.
'Seize the chance in one go...'
'Reverse the tide in a single stroke!'
Jun invoked 'Phantasm' to cast [Flare].
Sergei gathered mana in his mouth, preparing a breath attack.
The die was cast.
"Lady Eleanor!"
Right after Jun and Sergei's standoff began.
The heat radiating from Sergei was intense enough to melt anything it touched.
With no way to approach the monster, Aiden had rushed to Eleanor while Jun bought time.
He had caught the glance Jun had thrown her in that split second.
"Wait a moment!"
Thanks to the knights' ironclad defense, Eleanor finally broke away from Enverman, loosing a light arrow before retreating.
"What's wrong?"
"Sunbae is in danger!"
"Agh..."
For a brief instant, Eleanor's gaze flicked to the Black Guard knight order.
Enverman, injected with the Butcher Saint's serum, had already slain two knights.
And with each kill, his power swelled monstrously.
Even the 7th-level knight captain, Terdin, was struggling.
If Enverman grew stronger here, the encirclement would crumble in moments.
But Terdin resolved her dilemma.
"Leave this to us!"
He couldn't defeat the serum-enhanced Enverman outright, but he wouldn't be overwhelmed instantly.
Terdin opted to stall rather than chase the chimera's master. Enverman realized this and tried to shake him off, but the knight captain proved no pushover.
"You bastard!"
"Clinging like a leech...!"
With time secured, Eleanor hurried after Aiden.
"Haa, what a shitshow..."
"No way to approach him!"
"What do you want?"
"To strike him from afar using Lady Eleanor's staff."
"My holy magic won't hurt him. It'll burn up before it reaches."
"Then use my mana."
"...Ah."
Eleanor knew well the domineering mana Aiden possessed.
Harnessing it could deliver a solid blow to that monster.
The two placed hands on the staff at once.
"Focus. Imagine transferring your mana into this staff."
"..."
Aiden offered no reply to Eleanor's instructions.
Instead, she sensed an overwhelming surge of mana flooding into End of Lamentations.
'Truly... overwhelming mana density.'
She had seen it many times before, but Aiden's mana remained shockingly domineering.
If only its quantity matched its quality, it could cleave anything in the world.
As the two continued the [Transfer],
Jun and Sergei threw down their gambles.
Sergei had no choice but to acknowledge the mage before him.
'Even if [Demon God Body] is innate, controlling it is another matter entirely.'
He recalled the mana remnants from the ruined Damien Mage Tower.
The blessed talent that had elevated him to 7th circle merely from those traces.
Yet he had also grasped how perilously dangerous that power was.
If succumbed even slightly, body and soul would be swept away by the mana waves, lost forever.
Yet this mage before him balanced on that tightrope, extracting maximum power amid the danger.
One could scarcely imagine the temptations and perils he had overcome to reach this height.
But.
He understood the mage's weakness well.
'The moment you waver, that tightrope snaps, and you'll plummet into the abyss.'
So, he needed to shatter his composure.
Make him crave more power.
Topple that precarious balance.
And what caught his eye were Jun's comrades preparing something toward them.
A radiant golden-haired man and a priestess with a black eyepatch.
Flames drawn from his lungs' depths blasted toward the two, and Jun's gaze followed.
Confirming his flustered expression, Sergei knew his choice was right.
Sergei's choice was correct.
The instant the breath targeted his comrades instead of him, Jun ignored the gaping Sergei and unleashed [Flare] toward Aiden and Eleanor.
The mana gathered to its limit, stacked via 'Phantasm,' blocked the breath.
But a 7th-circle mage's mana, inherited by a 7th-level Balrog's breath, couldn't be fully stopped by mere 5th-circle magic.
'Not enough...!'
The breath had strengthened from the fire-element mana converging on Sergei.
To block it, he had to manipulate mana to devour even the breath itself.
But his current reserves fell woefully short.
'More mana...!'
Gathering more would overwhelm his body.
Yet hesitation was brief; action swift.
Biting his lip until it bled, Jun drew mana into his circles.
'Too slow!'
The ambient mana was already maxed out by Sergei and himself.
Desperate, Jun even pulled mana fluid from his dimensional bracelet.
The fluid filled his hands, absorbing into his circles from the cylinder.
In that instant, omnipotence pierced his brain, his body shuddering, reality slipping away—
"Now!"
Aiden's shout rang out.
And Eleanor began her holy incantation.
A colossal holy spear.
Red energy swirled around the holy spear, absorbing into it, before Eleanor launched it.
[...?!]
The massive spear hurtled forward.
The breath, which had been pushing back Jun's [Flare], met the spear and began to yield.
Sergei's eyes widened in shock.
The pests he had ignored were dismantling his breath!
Roooooooaaaaaaaaar————!!!
The flame breath split in two. Proportionally, the holy spear began crumbling too—
"Huu... That was close."
Aiden's cry snapped Jun back. He unleashed his mana.
Greed-laden mana surged like waves, pressing Sergei.
'How, while sane...?!'
"This isn't the first time I've pulled something that insane."
It was hard-earned know-how from brushing death's door repeatedly in the Aricleotos Church's holy site.
Experience.