Chapter 681: The Ceilingless Tower and the Intermingling Humans - Finale
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 681: The Ceilingless Tower and the Intermingling Humans - Finale
They said Saintesses don't harm each other! You call that not harming her? If Shei were just an ordinary, fragile Saintess, she'd be dead already!
Maybe Shei is the one being bullied. While I was genuinely worried, Lankart was calmly observing the situation.
“Huey. That is the materialization of light. It’s a power only the White Tower Master with her Unique Magic can use, and it’s the reason she ascended to that position. The materialization of light has always been the White Tower’s most cherished goal. Fortunately, materialized light isn’t as fast as real light, and like other matter, it has various limitations, so it should be easy to deal with.”
“How the hell am I supposed to deal with that? Only someone like you with a Unique Magic could handle it!”
“Stop exaggerating. You can do it even without a Unique Magic, can't you? Just do that… Huh?”
The moment he finished speaking, a pillar of light descended. Thankfully, the attack was aimed not at me, but at Lankart. The pure white pillar of light that fell from the Genesis Magic Circle and crushed Lankart whole was so surreal it looked like a luminous structure. To feel a sense of mass from light… just how much was it amplified? Not even a corpse would be left.
There was no time for mourning. Before the pillar of light could target me too, I left the crushed Lankart behind and ran.
“Kuh! It feels like I'm swimming in light…!”
I was moving, but my feet were heavy. The amplified light of the artificial sun pouring down from above felt like gravity magic pressing down on my body. I could endure this much with my enhanced strength, but the problem was that this wasn't even a direct attack. It was merely amplified light, and yet I was flailing within it.
Then, I sensed her ominous intent. Seven crystals created by Ruel—prisms that gathered the light of the Genesis Magic Circle—all aimed at me in unison. Seven streams of condensed light became spears of light and were swung toward me.
“Refracting Mirror.”
It was a mirror that gathered and twisted light. Now that the light had been materialized, getting hit by that meant death. My body would be pierced by light, just as Kuram’s had been.
In that case, I had to dodge before the seven converged. I moved a step faster, lowered my stance, twisted my shoulders, and slipped through the gaps between the beams. Four remained. No matter what, I'd have to take at least one hit. I covered my face with both arms and leaped over the light.
I felt a searing pain. A long cut and burn appeared on my body where the beam had grazed me. Blood trickled down the reddened wound, and my regeneration was slower than usual.
Light was the natural enemy of vampires. Even though I had become a Divine, light, with its properties of transformation and purification, hindered my regeneration. I approached Ruel, my blood soaking the earth.
Still, taking one hit is manageable! The problem is!
“…Was that not enough? Then. How about seven times that?”
It's more than that!
Beyond each of the seven prisms, another seven prisms formed. The total was now forty-nine. I could handle being hit by them one by one, but if even two of them overlapped, it wouldn't end with just a cut and a burn. They'd see my corpse, killed by light, and wonder how to write down the cause of death.
Forty-nine intersecting beams of light. Could I really manage to take each one on my body, just once? Tch, I'm not confident about that.
But I wasn't alone.
“Hey. White Tower Master. You're underestimating me. Trying to conquer the world with mere light?”
The pillar of light exploded, and from within, Lankart emerged, wreathed in earth and sand.
Piles of sand and gravel, large and small, orbited around Lankart. Inside the dust storm that had shattered the light into fine particles, lightning and electromagnetic storms flashed. His hair sticking out in all directions, Lankart glared at Ruel with a genuinely annoyed expression.
“You made an aurora appear over my head!”
How on earth does an aurora form over someone's head? And if there's an aurora, is your messy hair really the problem?
It seemed to be a rather serious problem for Lankart. He began to exert his power in earnest. The dust in the World of the Right-Handed orbited Lankart and rotated on its own axis, spinning chaotically before clumping together, colliding, and gradually finding balance. Lankart crumpled the world with both hands and declared.
“Lankart System. Genesis.”
In the World of the Right-Handed, Lankart is the sun. Everything revolves around him. A solar system was born from that one simple principle.
In the center of the earth, dust, electromagnetic storms, and lightning that rotated to recreate a cosmic marvel, Lankart stood aloof like a god and pointed toward me.
“Ring of the Silent Star.”
A portion of the dust, charged with an electromagnetic storm, began to rotate around me. The defensive wall of earth and dust blocked and scattered the light pouring in from all directions. Trusting in Lankart's power, I ran without hesitation. The beams of light condensed by Ruel rained down on me.
The beams flashed, cleaving through the raging electromagnetic storm. Each time Ruel's light shot out, the pitch-black darkness within the dust storm briefly shone bright. The light, possessing physical force, was powerful enough to pierce even rock, but the raging dust storm, even as it was shattered and pushed back, caught and crushed the light. The electromagnetic storm swallowed the light and shot out lightning in all directions.
The fifty beams of light that had been aimed at my life collided repeatedly with the ring protecting me. Pushed by the pressure of the light, the ring stretched into a long oval. Then, at a certain moment, the ring snapped, and the storm lost its power.
But Lankart was still behind me.
“Just because you handle light doesn't mean you can act like the sun. I am the center of the world.”
Lankart threw a small stone he held in his hand. The callously abandoned little stone gradually accelerated, moving away from him.
“Fallen King's Star.”
The star bearing a king's name, small and lonely, broke away from the Lankart System. Just before it escaped, at the end of its trajectory, the small stone Lankart had thrown had accelerated to a cosmic speed. Despite its tremendous velocity, it was silent and still. A cosmic stone-throw was not to be compared to a mere earthly sling.
Above Ruel's head, her half-opened halo trembled. The halo, which had been illuminating the surroundings, announced the presence of the object approaching at super-high speed.
It was a detection system that used the reflection of light. So that halo wasn't just for decoration. Ruel, having detected the Fallen King's Star, reached out without even looking.
“Radiant Dispersion.”
The light passing between her spread fingers split into hundreds of strands. It wasn't visible light, but split into thousands of different kinds of light that seeped into the stone. The Fallen King's Star was destroyed from the inside, turned to dust.
At the same time, those hundreds of strands of light also passed through Lankart. Lankart, who had been preparing his next attack, felt dizzy and staggered.
“Ugh. I'm tired.”
The World of the Right-Handed is strong against physical force, but vulnerable to attacks like that. Lankart was out, but thanks to him, I had an opening. I grabbed my skewer and ran. I used up the rest of the Ring of the Silent Star Lankart had given me, pushing through the light to get close to Ruel.
Once again, Ruel's halo reacted. At the same time, someone who spotted my approach shouted.
“Saintess! Behind you!”
A Paladin came running to block me. Ruel, sensing holy power from him, let her guard down for a brief moment. And just as she grasped a beam of light to stop me…
‘Wait. A Paladin? In this light?’
The halo flickered ominously. Ruel fired a beam of light at the suspicious Paladin. It was a fast reaction for a surprise attack, but too slow for someone who was already wary of Hilde.
‘The Blank-Faced One!’
Ruel's beam of light and Hilde's holy sword clashed. Like a match flaring in the dark night, light flashed. Hilde, briefly showing her true face to the Saintess, smiled apologetically.
“Hehe. I'm sorry, Saintess. But I'd rather rely on Father than on faith without a promise. Both me and Yuel. We don't want today to be the same as yesterday.”
Her faith was over. The holy sword aimed at the Saintess soon lost its light. The remaining beams of light slammed into Hilde's now-empty arms. Without even a scream, Hilde collapsed, powerless and unburdened.
Ruel's halo was still trembling. It must be because I was still here. I scattered cards before me, hoping the metal would block even a single ray of light.
And beneath them, I hid a transparent skewer made of ice.
Unique Magic, Determinism.
Borrowing the Blue Tower Master's Unique Magic for a moment, I transmuted a skewer out of ice in a split second. The perfectly crystallized ice was transparent and invisible to the eye. It wouldn't be blocked by the light Ruel hastily summoned.
Just one moment. If I can just thrust this in.
It was useless. Light is instantaneous. Ruel grabbed the halo above her head and detached it. So it was detachable, I realized, as the halo, now aimed at me, shone dangerously.
“Sacred Radiance.”
An incomparably intense light enveloped my entire body.
So she always keeps light prepared. Tch. Every single Saintess is a cheat. I can't even get close.
“Haa, is this it?”
So I couldn't overcome it after all. The world is just too solid.
As long as the Saintess protects a today that is the same as yesterday, an abandoned person like me can't hope for a different tomorrow.
‘It's over, King of Humans. Tomorrow will still come.’
Again, for that brief moment, the Saintess let her guard down.
I don't stop. The light doesn't push me back. No, it does, but not as powerfully as she wants.
Just before it touches my body, the light…
bends slightly to the right.
It doesn't hit me directly. It veers to the right, grazing my clothes and skin. My clothes tear and blood splatters, but that's all. The light that grazes me burns the droplets of blood, creating a red smoke.
The World of the Right-Handed.
‘This is… the World of the Right-Handed…? The King of Humans can use that?’
The Unique Magic I borrowed from Lankart for a moment. The World of the Right-Handed. It's not like other matter, but light bends too. That's probably because Lankart's Unique Magic is also spatial. It's faint compared to Lankart's, but the fact that I can influence light is the same.
At the last possible moment, a single step. With the card I saved until the very end, I overcame my opponent's final move. A today that is the same as yesterday cannot come. Because today, I gained one more new card.
My skewer touches the nape of her neck.
I win, White Tower Master.
Well, I only beat Ruel as the 'White Tower Master.' I didn't beat Ruel as the 'Saintess of Light.'
Blink.
And time stopped.