Chapter 437
Chapter 437
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 437
>Chapter Title: Is This the Right Place?
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With a single step forward, the encroaching night advanced steadily. The 5th Elder watched the approaching presence with wide eyes.
The situation had long since spiraled beyond his comprehension.
Crunch, cruuunch.
Chomp, chomp, chomp.
Chewing sounds echoed from all directions. Jaws rising from the darkness tore into the undead.
Some jaws chewed savagely, while others gnawed away bit by bit.
*What in the world...*
What was all this?
The 5th Elder took a step back, looking around in bewilderment. Fortunately for him, his subordinate Golden Horse Riders and black mages had already entrusted their minds to him, so there was no panic. At any rate...
These things.
They had no physical form.
A voice rang out at that moment.
"Old human. Why no answer?"
"......"
The 5th Elder stared at her. A woman standing at the heart of the pitch-black night, blazing red. But it was a settled crimson, like blood, rather than a dynamic blaze.
And what did she just say?
The 5th Elder recalled the woman's words.
- Answer me. Your answer will become your torment.
What nonsense was this?
- You will suffer as many times as the souls you toyed with, tormented in the very ways you toyed with them.
Toyed with them? What did that even mean?
It was incomprehensible.
- And I will torment you with the same intent you had when you toyed with them.
What intent?
No, none of that mattered now. The 5th Elder pushed aside his thoughts and focused on the woman before him.
"What are you?"
"I did not permit questions."
One step. As her presence loomed closer, the 5th Elder retreated another step. Fear writhed in his heart.
At the same time, a sense of awe welled up.
"This... is not a power permitted to humans. How did you acquire such strength? And what is this overflowing life force?"
"I clearly said no questions were permitted..."
The woman's bored eyes fixed on him. Soon, the surrounding darkness surged forward in response to her emotion. The spirit reacted at that exact moment.
[Don't, come. Don't come. Don't come. Don't cooooome...]
The spirit, now in the form of a boy, whimpered. In response, a powerful surge of black magic energy radiated outward. The wave was so intense that even the encroaching night shuddered briefly, and the 5th Elder glimpsed hope in that sight.
*It can be done.*
If it was the Family, it could certainly hold back that being.
With that thought, the 5th Elder relinquished control of all his undead and focused his entire mind on the 'Family.'
The Family was an aggregate of souls the 5th Elder had collected over a millennium.
Lich.
It had originally been an attempt to create one, but in the end, it became a collective of souls.
Not as perfectly singular as a true lich, but as a gathering of souls with innate magical talent, it could perceive transcendent time and wield magic.
The 5th Elder alone could draw out only 30% of the Family's power.
But...
As the mental forces of dozens of Golden Horse Riders and hundreds of black mages converged on the Family, it let out a wail.
Grrrrrind!
Thud!
Screeeeech―!
A lament beyond words swept through the area as vibrations. The Family's form shifted dozens of times, each into different shapes. Sometimes an old man, sometimes a woman, sometimes a boy, sometimes a young man...
The souls the 5th Elder had gathered revealed themselves one by one.
And when the form finally stabilized—
[Ah, ah. Aah...]
The Family stood in a form that was no longer man or woman, elder or child, nor youth.
Faceless, without a face.
Genderless, without sex.
Emotionless, without feeling.
Dozens of souls—born with innate magical genius or those who achieved great feats—blended together into this being.
It was something defined merely as a 'collective.'
Yet it retained one singular trait.
[Truth... is resplendent.]
The Family descended to the earth in the guise of a traditional mage: tattered robe and staff in hand. Though a spirit, it appeared to possess physical substance, and its staff pointed at Shine. And then...
Kwaaaaa―!
Black energy erupted from the staff's tip.
Shine shifted one step aside, evading the trajectory. She then took in the path of the black energy with her eyes. Only afterward did her gaze sink deeper.
Tss, tzzzz―
...The encroaching night split open.
The night tore along the beam's path.
It resealed itself soon after, but that alone showed how threatening the ray was.
[Resplendent... truth. Inscrutable... divine law.]
The Family's staff pointed to the sky. Soon, the encroaching night parted, and a strange energy rippled from the heavens above.
Kwaduduk, kwadudududuk―!
High in those clouds, rocks forged from black magic writhed. They swelled in size in an instant.
[Stars... falling...]
"How is that a star?"
Shine regarded the Family with sunken eyes. She drew the sword from her waist and slashed at the sky. And then—
Slash―!
The clouds parted. The rock shattered in two, and the spell broke. Was it the aftermath? The Family's form flickered and wavered. Shine ignored it, moving her sword again.
It took little time for the bisected rock to crumble into dust.
Shine then turned to the Family.
[Truth... magic. Resplendent wisdom... does not lose its light...]
Black magic rippled once more at the tip of the muttering Family's staff. Watching this, Shine gripped her magic sword Protius with sunken eyes. And—
"...I cannot say what is right. Whether existing is right, or vanishing is right. Thus, I will not judge right from wrong. As you desire, I will grant you liberation."
As Shine finished speaking, Protius turned pitch black.
Keeeeing―
Cracks formed in the space Protius occupied. As if some perception-disrupting magic had been cast, its form distorted.
This was...
Activation.
Just as grimoires bestowed the 'pinnacle of laws,' magic swords offered similar capabilities.
But what Shine sought now was not Protius's specialized function. Rather, it was a ability shared by all magic swords.
...Even for Shine, who elevated the act of 'cutting' to the conceptual realm, something she could not do.
"I grant you freedom."
[Truth... resplendent... night darkens...]
Shine slashed at empty air with the blackened Protius. She cut the space between the Family and the 5th Elder, and change came soon after.
"Wha-what, what, what...!"
The 5th Elder, first to notice, stared at Shine in horror. He had every reason to.
It was severed.
What?
...The link.
The master-servant bond connecting him to the Family had been cut—an impossibility.
The pact between summoner and spirit was an unbreakable 'law.' To interfere required magic as the medium.
Yet she had...
*...with a sword?*
It was like a being from a 'two-dimensional plane' interfering in 'three-dimensional space.'
Amid this absurdity, the 5th Elder reeled in confusion...
[Uh, ah. Ah? Uh...]
The Family let out a bizarre gasp, creaking.
The 5th Elder snapped to awareness.
"No—!"
How could he lose such a masterpiece?
He used the mental forces of the Golden Horse Riders and black mages to reconnect the severed link. Something no Golden Horse Rider could do—only he could.
But.
Snap.
A strange rupture echoed in his ears. No, the rupture didn't just echo in his ears—his body shook.
...Why?
The 5th Elder looked down instinctively. And understood. The source of the rupture.
Space yawned empty below his left shoulder. What should have filled it lay on the ground.
As he grasped that, a voice echoed in his ears.
"Stay still. Aren't you happy?"
Happy...?
The 5th Elder looked at the woman. She stared at one side. Following her gaze, the 5th Elder narrowed his eyes.
[Ah, aah? Aaaah—?]
The Family stood frozen, creaking like a broken doll. Its rigid body swayed, form shifting endlessly.
From woman to elder, elder to child.
And those faces...
"See? It's smiling."
Though the form changed constantly, every face bore a smile. Not the eerie grin of a deranged mind, but a genuine smile of joy.
Shine approached the Family, leaving the 5th Elder behind. She posed a question.
"Speak."
[Speak?][Do we?][What?]
"Do you wish to be freed from torment, or do you wish to continue existing despite it?"
[Freed?][Continue existing?]
"Yes. Whatever you desire, I will make it so."
Shine watched the Family as she spoke. The Family met her gaze with ever-shifting faces. It seemed not to fully grasp her words yet, but its mouth opened soon after.
[I?][We?][Desire][something.]
"Speak."
The Family, staring at Shine, turned its gaze.
To... no, they gazed at the 5th Elder.
Their wish was simple.
[Revenge][Revenge][Revenge][Revenge][Revenge]
Dozens of voices united in a resounding cry. Intense will. Shine fell silent for a moment before that resolve.
How could the grudge be so deep...
[Block?][Us?][You block][us?]
Hostility gleamed in the Family's eyes. But Shine shook her head.
Block them?
By what right would she block them?
Revenge begets revenge... and ends in emptiness, blah blah. Saints spout such nonsense because they've never felt their hearts torn.
Even if they have, it's merely a choice. One that doesn't prove moral superiority.
Thus.
"Do it."
Shine stepped aside as she spoke.
"These things dare spout such nonsense— Gahk!"
The 5th Elder spasmed in rebellion, but Shine struck his face with the flat of her blade and slammed his head into the ground. Then—
Crack!
A rupture echoed as she smashed the center of his wing-like appendage.
"I didn't destroy the core. You need to stay alive for this."
She had merely scrambled him to prevent any tricks.
And the Golden Horse Riders and black mages...
[Those][ones are][mine, ours.]
Shine nodded at the Family's words. No need to act; they vomited blood and collapsed as the 5th Elder was neutralized.
Now, all that remained was...
"Proceed."
Shine stepped back. The Family didn't respond. It merely glared at the 5th Elder with murderous eyes.
And as its hand extended.
"Ah, ah, no...!"
A scream rang out.
A wretched scream.
...But alas, the Family's revenge—cherished for nearly a millennium—did not last long.
The reason was simple.
Kwaduduk, kwaduk―!
A bizarre rupture.
Space tore open, and a face popped through the rift.
An innocent face, clear eyes.
"Is this the right place?"
...The one who tore through space was Three Fingers.