Chapter 192
Chapter 192
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 192
Chapter Title: The King of the Turbid Flow
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While moving alongside Paulo after finishing our training, I suddenly sensed an unnatural energy.
That aura was something alien, utterly impossible to arise naturally in a forest brimming with life force.
"This energy...?!"
Feeling it emanating from the direction of the World Tree's outskirts, Paulo didn't respond with words—instead, he urged his movement faster.
"Milia! Stay back with Rena and take it slow!"
I shouted urgently to Milia as well, then accelerated my Moon Step.
Shuuuk! Shuuuk!
Paulo's footwork through the forest was nothing short of miraculous, like chaining short-range teleportation spells with Blink.
Even I, using Moon Step, or Rampang drawing on the Beast King's power, struggled to keep pace.
The saying that even those who had ascended to the Jade Throne had to yield a step to her in the forest didn't seem like empty rumor after all.
But Paulo's hardened expression, as he pushed his speed, showed no sign of easing.
A sinister energy was growing ever thicker from the outskirts, where the World Tree—Yggdrasil—had been reverse-summoned to the Spirit Realm.
Gloop. Gloop.
Bizarre. What else could be said?
Yes, the sphere that had perfectly shielded the man from the onslaught of supreme spirits and elders was bizarre beyond words.
At a glance, it resembled silver, yet it undulated like flowing water, defying any simple label.
"Hmm... this doesn't feel like part of my body. Or is it? Maybe it's the lingering will I left behind in life, given form."
The man ignored the elders and spirits before him, utterly absorbed in assessing his own state.
"Eh, doesn't matter. Anyway, breathing the outside air again feels damn good."
He chuckled in satisfaction. His expression evoked a saint, grateful even for the smallest things.
This moment, with his mind elsewhere, was the perfect chance to strike.
Yet the man's leisurely air, devoid of any exploitable gaps, held the elders back from acting.
The first to realize this was Dodinel, handler of the supreme fire spirit.
"How dare you act so carefree in our presence!"
Roooar!
Dodinel's arrow drew in a vortex of the supreme fire spirit, Phoenix's aura.
Though it was merely infusing spirit energy into an arrow, its power far surpassed the shots Rena had once loosed at Jerome.
Ping!
With a sharp ring, Dodinel's arrow flew unerringly toward the man's face.
'I'll shatter it without a trace!'
Dodinel expected the man's head to vanish the instant the arrow arrived, even as it closed in right before his unmoving eyes.
Shing!
But the sphere at the man's side writhed briefly, then cleaved Dodinel's arrow in two in an instant.
"What...?!"
Dodinel gaped in shock as his fully empowered arrow splintered harmlessly, but the man merely frowned slightly.
"Tch. Don't you know the beauty of patience? You've been annoying me nonstop. Time to teach some manners to a brat who doesn't know courtesy."
Snap!
The man flicked his fingers, and the silver sphere began to ripple.
"...Punishment is in order, right?"
Screeeeech!
Like a snake coiled in a tree, waiting for prey to drop, the rippling sphere stretched long and lunged at Dodinel.
"Gah! Phoenix!"
The startled Dodinel called his spirit, and Phoenix spewed flames at the sphere.
Roooar!
Given how it had blocked every prior attack, these flames would likely fare no better. It was just to buy a moment to evade.
But mocking Dodinel's expectations, the sphere shifted mid-lunge—like a snake constricting its meal.
Its target wasn't Dodinel, but Phoenix itself.
Kraaaaa!
-Kreeeeeh!
Phoenix shrieked in agony, crushed and coiled by the sphere's immense pressure.
And then.
Boom!
The supreme spirit Phoenix burst wretchedly within the sphere's coils.
"Th-that...!"
Thuk!
Dodinel flinched as a sharp sting hit his brow, followed by a stabbing pain that raked his brain.
That was it.
Shuuuur.
The sphere retracted its thin, elongated tentacle from Dodinel's brow as if nothing had happened.
'Wh-what the hell just happened?'
Tristan's mind went blank at the surreal sight.
Elder Dodinel was dead. The one who'd shared over a century of trials and seclusion with them.
'This can't be real...!'
"Hmm. What is this?"
The man scratched his cheek, equally surprised.
"For something you summoned so confidently to kill me, it's awfully weak. Ah, did you summon the wrong guy by mistake?"
His casual tone—like accidentally stepping on an ant—infuriated the other elders into action.
"You bastard! How dare you to Elder Dodinel!!"
"I'll kill you!!"
Rooooom!
Lucan, master of forest spirits, and Kador, of ice spirits, charged at the man.
Tristan snapped out of his daze.
"No! Damn it!"
He hastily loosed an arrow laced with spirit winds.
But the silver sphere protecting the man had morphed into blades, already slashing at Kador and lunging for Lucan.
Rumble!
In that instant, an earth wall erupted before Lucan, blocking the sphere long enough for Ibein to scoop him up and roll aside, dodging the blade.
"Kuhuk!"
But it wasn't a clean escape—Ibein's back was torn open wide.
"Ibein! Damn it all...!"
Tristan, now cloaked in spirit blessings, arrived at their side and gritted his teeth protectively.
"Kuhuk... See... I told you... we shouldn't... decide this rashly... on our own..."
Ibein spat blood, blaming himself, but Tristan was speechless. To him, that thing was a monster.
They'd thought too lightly of it. They should have heeded the spirits' warnings and Ibein's concerns.
"Regret always comes too fast and too late."
Squish, squish.
The man approached the elders leisurely, hands behind his back like a man on a stroll, his sphere slinking along beside him.
A mere round object, yet now more terrifying than any monster.
"Don't worry. I won't slaughter all you pointy-ears. My goal is wrecking the World Tree, not killing you lot. Ah, but I can't let you live, you get that? You woke me up, and from your auras, it looks like you've been guarding it all this time."
Swoosh!
The man raised his hand, and the sphere rippled again.
'...We were far too arrogant.'
Over a century of communion with supreme spirits had filled them with a sense of fulfillment—mingled with the ennui of being bound to this place—clouding their judgment.
That one flawed decision had led to catastrophe.
"Well, farewell then. My gut says without you, withering the World Tree will be a breeze."
Snap!
At the man's signal, the silver sphere split into tendrils, flying at the elders like a beast's fangs.
As the three elders faced being torn apart.
"Don't give up!"
Pong! Pong! Pong!
The water bubbles conjured by Lionel's summoned spirit, Nereid, slowed the sphere's advance.
That fleeting moment saved their lives.
Not by dodging.
Boom! Bang! Kaboom!
Arrows from afar—leagues beyond the elders'—struck, buying time to repel the sphere.
Ten arrows from different directions hurtled toward the sphere and man, brimming with unified intent to kill.
"Whoa, that's scary."
The sphere's tendrils whirled back, shielding the man from the arrows.
In that gap, two figures appeared before the elders.
Jerome and Rampang.
"Everyone alright?"
"You two...?!"
"Leave the rest to us and fall back."
"But...!"
Tristan hesitated, shame and humiliation surging, when a clear voice rang from the arrows' origin.
"Do as the young one says. We'll pass judgment on this mess later."
Click!
Paulo emerged, having retrieved and stowed the deflected arrows in the quiver on her back.
"Dealing with this intruder causing chaos in Elrunheim takes priority."
The man whistled at Paulo, Rampang, and Jerome.
"Whew. Impressive. Two who've crossed the wall, and one right on the cusp... Oh? Those two are from the same line of work? Yeah, this is more like it."
Even with two Jade Throne ascendants before him, the man showed no tension—only satisfaction.
"Unlike those pathetic pointy-ears, you lot qualify to hear my name. Greetings. I'm Maya. Long ago, I led the Turbid Flow."
"Maya... Maya?!"
They'd heard a Black Lion wielding poison potent enough to taint the World Tree was no ordinary foe.
But this man was far grander.
Maya. The tyrant who once ruled the Turbid Flow, the Black Lions' fierce pinnacle for ages. His legacy made even the Holy Empire wary of Black Lions.
"Oho, juniors know me? Ha, guess I'm not fully forgotten."
His flippant tone clashed with his towering infamy. And that silver sphere beside him matched records from Black Lion histories perfectly.
'Now I see how he could corrupt the World Tree.'
Maya's Heterogenous Power. That silver sphere, its symbol, was utterly antithetical to all natural, living things.
"Nice seeing juniors after so long, but you don't look like my side, and you woke me to slay me, so... I'll just kill you? No hard feelings."
Twitch!
As Maya willed it, the silver sphere vibrated and stirred.
That sphere was his power, his emblem: mercury.
But those present weren't pushovers to be toyed with.
Leaving me aside, Paulo and Rampang were two of the continent's eleven absolutes.
Swoosh!
Paulo nocked another arrow.
"A ghost from the past still shambling about—disgusting. I'll send you back to nature."
Tzzzzz!
Rampang channeled the Beast King's power with a scoff.
"Ha! King of the Turbid Flow? Hilarious. I'm the one leading the continent's Pure Flow now, old timer."
Even facing two absolutes, Maya's eyes held no tension.
"Well, let's see if you can stop this."
Zzaaaap!
The silver sphere—mercury—struck at Paulo like lightning, kicking up a dust cloud with a thunderous boom.
Maya's mercury wasn't natural. It was artificially forged—by Maya himself.
Thus, all living things save its creator were doomed to its toxicity on contact.
That's how he once reigned over the Turbid Flow's savage Black Lions.
Maya assumed Paulo had dodged or clumsily parried with an arrow, suffering grave wounds.
But amid the lingering dust, a blue glow flickered.
Flash! Thuk!
The blue light became a bolt, piercing Maya's shoulder—Paulo's arrow.
"Guh?!"
Maya clutched his spurting shoulder and staggered back, stunned.
How long since his last wound?
'He overcame the mercury?! How?!'
Shhhh.
As the dust cleared.
Screeech! Screeech!
Where the mercury had struck stood not Paulo, but another blocking it head-on.
Arms crossed, dyed black from overly dense golden light.
"That power...?!"
Maya's eyes widened, recognizing Jerome's power somehow.
But no one here would wait for him to gawk in awe.
"Griffon, Wing!"
Rampang, phantom griffon wings sprouting from his back, closed the distance to Maya in a flash.
"Filthy beast!"
Screeeeech!
Bundles of tentacles erupted from the mercury to impale Rampang.
Bam! Bam! Boom!
But Rampang's ghostly maneuvers evaded it, smashing only the innocent ground.
"Daring to mock me?"
Piiiing!
Paulo's arrow sliced sharply at Maya once more.
"Hmph!"
Part of the mercury formed a defensive wall, swallowing, deflecting, and repelling the arrow.
As Paulo's arrow failed to pierce, Rampang followed up.
"Grizzly, Arm!"
Rooooom!
The continent's most fearsome beast's forepaw pulverized the mercury wall.
Through the shattered mercury wall, Maya's view filled with Jerome—arms cloaked in golden aura.