Chapter 92
Chapter 92
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 92
Chapter Title: Variable (2)
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Grooooowl—!
In the hidden lair of the Oath of Reverse Heaven nestled in the southern wasteland, the ritual was reaching its climax.
"—, ———!"
At the center of the rite, an old man stood before the magic circle, chanting incantations without end.
His eyes blazed with madness as he focused solely on completing the grand spell, utterly ignoring the deafening clamor echoing from all sides.
The bizarre runes etched across the walls and ceiling spewed black light nonstop, gradually drowning everything in darkness.
'It's proceeding smoothly. No issues elsewhere, it seems.'
A burly man watching from a distance nodded in satisfaction.
The preparation period under the leadership of the ritual's elderly officiant had lasted a full thirty years.
Though active preparations in the south had only begun about a decade ago, the groundwork itself had taken those thirty long years.
'Well, I heard the plan was conceived even before that.'
He wasn't sure of the exact timeline since it predated his joining the Oath of Reverse Heaven, but it was a scheme they had poured immense effort into over the years.
By now, the spells planted across the continent through the organization's full mobilization over those long years should be activating simultaneously.
They would provide no small aid to the ritual unfolding here at the heart of the grand spell.
'The moment our labors are finally rewarded.'
Though they had proceeded with utmost secrecy, preparing multiple village-scale sacrificial rites was no easy task.
They had been discovered by passing powerhouses or the Church countless times, and plans had unraveled due to reports from suspicious locals just as often.
Each time, the organization had severed ties and pinned the incidents on lone black mages to downplay them.
Amid those countless failures, they had somehow kept their true purpose hidden.
'If we could have held the ritual in the continent's heart, that would have been ideal, but the Church's influence is too strong there. No helping it.'
Thus, they had chosen this wasteland between the central and southern regions.
With no valuable resources, the forsaken land was the most suitable place to carry out their work.
Grooooowl—
How much time had passed since the ritual began?
From the writhing darkness at the magic circle's base, a beam of black light shot skyward.
The pitch-black pillar pierced straight through the ceiling and stretched toward the heavens.
Visible even from afar, it felt as if it had cleaved the sky in two with a line of darkness.
"Keurgh, cough—!"
The old man leading the ritual vomited black blood.
Dead blood streamed from his facial orifices, and his limbs trembled uncontrollably.
Ignoring his dying body, he squeezed out his last vestiges of life force to complete the rite.
He had yet to reach his desired threshold.
'To come this far and still fail to fully complete the grand spell...!'
In his lifetime, he had never encountered anyone with greater magical talent than his own.
Hailed as a once-in-a-century genius from childhood, he had even been eyed for leadership in his youth...
Yet even he, after thirty years of desperate effort, could not perfect it.
The gate to the 'Abyss' linking to the dimension's depths.
'That figure from a millennium ago feels all the more remarkable now...'
He had scoured the continent for weakened boundaries with the Abyss, sacrificing entire nearby villages to fuel the energy.
And yet, even with the continent's greatest archmage leading it personally, this was the result.
'It's fine... I anticipated this from the start. Everything's going according to plan.'
His goal had never been to fully extract 'it' from the Abyss and become the second Immortal King.
Imperfect would do.
The old man clenched the locket necklace around his neck.
Without hesitation, he offered his soul and very existence as sacrifice.
"Gack—!"
The 'karma' and 'dignity' of an archmage transcending extremes and nearing true transcendence dissolved into the ritual's fuel.
Even then, the gate did not fully open; they could only wrench a hole through it by force.
But his original objective was achieved.
"Kek... Kehihahat—!"
Feeling his soul scatter, he burst into laughter regardless.
His mind was ruled solely by rage and madness.
His thoughts grew hazy, and the cherished pillars supporting him vanished one by one.
Finally, 'it'—embedded deep in the Abyss—began ascending the pillar.
Fssshhh—
As something emerged from the imperfect entrance, most of it shredded away upon contact with the outside, revealing only a single fragment intact.
And that fragment shot from the black pillar...
Pfshk—!
...straight into the old man's heart.
Clang!
The impact snapped the chain of the locket necklace, sending it clattering to the floor, but he showed no reaction.
For now, he was merely an empty husk.
The thing parasitizing the old man's heart—the 'Seed of Madness'—immediately entered dormancy from the backlash of the incomplete summoning.
Having lost over ninety percent escaping the Abyss, it had no choice.
In that process, most of the shattered madness rode the sky-piercing black pillar upward, spreading across the entire continent.
Thus, the second Abyss opened.
And 'madness' took root upon the continent.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 'The Oath of Reverse Heaven bastards opened the Abyss. Who knew they were this insane.'
He knew they lurked in the shadows, but he hadn't imagined they could open the Abyss itself.
Time to revise his assessment of them upward.
To pull off something like this, they couldn't be mere criminals; they had to have ties to high-ranking authorities.
'That's one thing.'
But now, something urgent had come up.
With them going this far, he couldn't just sit back and watch.
[A ritual of this scale... The continent's energies are churning. ...I should go check it out myself.]
He was about to launch his full-scale 'home theater' operation, but this was a variable far beyond his expectations.
He needed to settle things with them somehow.
As Hans focused to trace and teleport to the energy's core...
Wriggle—
Something inside him stirred.
-I won't let you off! I won't forgive anyone on this continent!
'Hm? What's this?'
-Death to the world! Revenge! Drown this continent in death!
Suddenly, a will exploded from within Hans.
The rampaging resentment emanating from what was now his heart—the 'Heart of the Immortal King'.
It rapidly swelled, invading Hans's mind.
-What are you doing! Merge with me at once and blanket the world in death...
Hans scowled at the blazing resentment flooding in.
He grasped the situation instantly, but it wasn't what he wanted.
'The previous Immortal King's resentment. Did the Abyss's opening stir it back up?'
This wasn't the will of the 'Heart of the Immortal King' itself that he'd dealt with before, but the lingering resentment of its previous owner embedded within.
For some reason, it had slumbered while the Abyss was sealed, awakening now due to this incident.
'The second Immortal King? Not the first, surely... ...Or maybe both.'
Its ravings about becoming one suggested the latter was most likely.
'The heart originated from the Abyss too, so this crisis overactivated it.'
Irritation surged at the sudden interruption.
The resentment bloated the data load on 「Mind Hub」, leaving no room for distractions.
His capacity was already tight from the heart itself; the previous owner's will was no force to underestimate.
[Hoo— To think a ghost from the past dares order me around.]
-Join me right now... What?
[Chatterbox for a loser. I'll handle my affairs, so vanish quietly. Your yapping's too annoying to ignore.]
-...Ha...
The resentment streaming from his heart faltered at Hans's rebuke.
But only briefly.
-...Ha, hahaha! You! You've escaped the will of 'death'! You maintain full ego! Of course— that's why you haven't merged with us yet! Hahaha!
The resentment roared with mad laughter, rattling his mind again.
-I... We! Still trapped by 'death'! Aaah—! Death, oh death! Grant us true death at last! Death—! ......Aaah, drown the continent in death! Ahahaha!
'It's utterly deranged.'
Makes sense—if its mind were sound, it wouldn't have accepted the heart in the first place.
And it had spent centuries steeped in the Abyss's deathly aura afterward, so this was inevitable.
'Whether it's a trapped soul or just lingering thoughts hardly matters.'
The issue was that this thing was stalling him when he was already busy.
'It'll slumber again once the Abyss closes, but I can't just leave it be.'
The 'Heart of the Immortal King' was already his.
It had been secondhand before, but unnoticeable enough to ignore—until he found the previous owner's mark carved in. Time to scrape it clean.
Contemplating his heart via the skillized 「Undying Heart」, Hans soon spotted the foreign element.
'Found it.'
A wispy, conceptual resentment clung to the heart.
But now that he'd found it, how to remove it?
'No physical form, not even pure energy. Like the myriad negative emotions embedded in the heart, this resentment is just part of them... Hm? Emotions?'
An idea flashed.
His go-to 「Mind Hub」 wouldn't suit this.
He needed something to directly manipulate emotions... and he had the perfect skill.
'「Persona」.'
Once used to channel his main body's emotions into avatars, it had evolved to amplify and control specific ones.
That was his solution.
'The Heart of the Immortal King is fully one with Hans now. The skillized 「Undying Heart」 proves it.'
Then, couldn't the emotions within also be called Hans's?
Surely he could excise a resentment that hadn't been part of it from the start.
Buoyed by confidence, Hans declared to it boldly.
[Shut up and wait. I'll grant you eternal oblivion.]
-Oblivion...? Oblivion! True death! Vanishing from this world! Death!!
The raving resentment reacted fiercely to his words.
More enthusiastically than expected.
-Ahaha—! If you truly grant me eternal death, I'll give you a gift! Something you should have had but don't!
Curiosity flickered, but what use talking to a madman?
Hans focused inward via 「Undying Heart」.
First came the negative emotions—death foremost among them.
Concentrated in the original heart, they clung too thickly and heavily to touch.
'Not my target anyway.'
He aimed for the resentment mixed in like an impurity.
Short integration time and its alien nature made peeling it off easy.
As Hans used 「Persona」 to dismantle it bit by bit...
-Aaah... It's scattering. I'm dissolving! Eternal death approaches!
The death-obsessed resentment shrieked in ecstasy.
-A gift! I'll give you a gift! It'll aid you in drowning this continent in death!
He quickly grasped what it meant.
The resentment split: its informational part separated from the ego.
Evidently, that knowledge was the gift.
'Not sure how useful, but better than nothing.'
Hans ruthlessly dispersed the ego fragment.
-Aa... Death... that radiant...
The previous Immortal King's resentment faded, unfinished.
Finally, Hans could enjoy some peace.
'Whew, feels good to have that cleared out. But I've wasted too much time.'
Dealing with it had taken longer than expected.
'Wonder what the gift is. At best, 300-year-old info—probably useless.'
Most likely magic knowledge or experience...
But with 「Wicked Wisdom」 and 「Forbidden Knowledge」 from the heart, plus 「Path of the Sorcerer」 encompassing otherworldly laws, he lacked nothing there.
Checking the gift casually, its unexpected contents shocked him.
'Oh...? Definitely gift-worthy.'
It perfectly matched what the resentment called 'something you should have had but don't'.
'A pretty nice variable.'
It concerned the 'Legacy of the Immortal King'.