Chapter 50
Chapter 50
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 50
Chapter Title: What Happened That Night (5)
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18장 : 그날 밤 있었던 일 (5)
To Gav, the term '7th Class' was taboo.
If anyone so much as mentioned it, Gav would kill them in the most gruesome way possible.
He didn't care if they were black sorcerers from his own faction.
The fact that he hadn't reached 7th Class was his reverse scale.
And Jamie had touched it perfectly.
"Ahh...!"
Vena looked at Jamie with a face full of shock.
He was smiling leisurely, as if he found something amusing.
Gav was insane. Hadn't she just seen it? He was the one who had casually subjected her to ten years of horrific torment to turn her into this.
Provoking him recklessly could lead to unimaginable consequences.
Sensing Vena's gaze, Jamie glanced at her and said,
"Watch closely."
She didn't need to ask what to watch.
The black mana flowing from Jamie's body answered for him.
'Let's see what he's got first.'
He had provoked him properly, but his opponent was a 6th Class Master black sorcerer.
Moreover, he had accumulated countless experiences over long years of practicing black magic.
Regardless of failing to reach 7th Class, he was undoubtedly a formidable foe incomparable to Salomon.
Jamie commanded the undead soldiers positioned around Gav.
"Kill him."
With Azad and Raiza at the lead, the undead soldiers charged.
Gav bared his full fury as he watched the undead swarm toward him.
"I'll give you a taste of utter, horrifying despair!"
Along with punishment for his insolence, he would make him reveal his affiliation clearly. And he would exact compensation for all the damage done today.
To do that, he needed to win this fight.
Gav didn't think it would be difficult.
'Curses and poison don't work on undead.'
The most lethal force against them was divine power, but black sorcerers couldn't wield it.
However, there was another attribute fatal to undead besides divinity.
Gav channeled mana into his cobra staff and slammed it into the ground. Crimson flames burst from the cobra's maw.
The flames erupting from the staff twisted into a thread-like form, then became a single ferocious serpent.
The flame serpent split into multiple branches, increasing its numbers.
Soon, there were nine of them.
They took the form of the mythical beast wreathed in flames and swept through the undead soldiers.
Jamie smirked as he watched the nine flame serpents engulf his minions.
'Hydra, huh.'
It had been ages since he'd heard that name.
The nine-headed serpent with deadly venom that even heroes of myth feared.
Of course, this was just mimicking the form. Even so, it was magic cast by a 6th Class Master.
His current undead soldiers clearly couldn't withstand its power.
However, Jamie thought differently.
"Spread out!"
Azad's shout.
He dodged the charging flame serpents while commanding the soulless corpses.
"Follow me and close in on the enemy!"
"The rest of you, protect the Master with me!"
Next was Raiza.
He severed a serpent's head and guarded Jamie's front with three undead soldiers.
"Why are you two here?"
"There wasn't much to do inside."
Jamie let out a hollow chuckle at Raiza's words.
He hadn't given Azad or Raiza any specific orders. He'd only told them to stay within the Gate of Defying Heaven.
Yet the two had trained the other undead soldiers without being asked.
They had even volunteered as commanders. Coming from criminal organization executives, their tactics were rough around the edges, but their command structure was solid thanks to their experience leading underlings.
"There! There! Don't just charge like idiots—predict their movements!"
Azad barked orders like he was commanding street thugs.
Two undead soldiers narrowly dodged the flame serpents.
Undead shouldn't understand speech, but after repeated training, they followed perfectly.
"That's it!"
Azad shouted in satisfaction.
Then he kicked off the wall and leaped high.
Another undead blocked a serpent head lunging at him. A reckless method possible only for the undead, but highly effective.
Using the soldier's back as a springboard, Azad shot straight toward Gav.
Dark energy gathered on the reverse-gripped dagger. After absorbing Jamie's black mana for a week inside the Gate of Defying Heaven, he could now produce it naturally.
"Die!"
Azad slammed the dagger down at Gav with all his might.
Gav looked slightly surprised, but the dagger didn't reach him.
"Shield...!"
"An intriguing undead. But do you think a mere attack like that can touch me?"
The cobra staff's power surged.
As it tried to devour Azad, undead soldiers caught up from behind and shoved Gav away.
"What the—!"
He was pushed back shield and all. Well-crafted undead surpassed ordinary human strength. Especially those raised by Jamie's power of Defying Heaven.
Seizing the chance again, Azad spun and unleashed a powerful back kick with all his strength.
Boom!!
Gav's eyes widened as he saw his shield dent inward.
Crack. A faint crack appeared on the transparent shield.
It didn't shatter. But it nearly did.
This wasn't even a high undead like a Death Knight or Dullahan. Just a slightly special undead, that's all.
'How is it damaging my shield...?'
It wasn't fragile enough to crack from a single kick.
He was furious.
To suffer such humiliation from a mere vermin undead.
Black mana condensed over long years flowed from his body. A repulsive power absorbed by extinguishing countless lives in agonizing ways.
Jamie's eyes narrowed. That wasn't black mana. True black mana wasn't so vulgar.
But the power was real.
"You vermin!"
Boom!!
A black shockwave blasted Azad and the undead soldiers away.
Raiza and the undead guarding Jamie were also slowly pushed back by the shockwave's force.
Vena clutched her wildly whipping hair and clung to the wall to avoid being flung back.
Only Jamie stood still, gauging Gav's power.
'Strong.'
Indeed, purely in terms of realm, the gap was significant.
Just one class difference, but a 6th Class Master was on the verge of 7th Class.
Black flames flickered in Gav's eyes like embers.
"You've crossed a line you should never have. Even I, in my generosity, cannot forgive this."
The black sorcerer known as the 'Curse Master' stepped toward Jamie.
"I won't just kill you."
At those words, Jamie smirked and said to the undead soldiers,
"All of you, fall back."
"M-Master. We can fight more."
"Give us one more chance..."
Azad and Raiza pleaded, but Jamie shook his head.
Their growth in that short time was impressive, but against Gav, they'd only lose more soldiers.
"You did well. Go rest."
The Master's command was absolute.
The two bowed without protest and entered the Gate of Defying Heaven with the undead soldiers.
The gate closed, and iron chains wrapped tightly around it.
Jamie unsummoned the gate and took a deep breath.
"You could've gained some chance of victory by sacrificing even a few of them?"
Gav taunted, but Jamie ignored him.
Instead, he slowly drew up his black mana.
While Azad and Raiza bought time, he had recovered most of his mana through the Full Body Breathing Method, if not completely.
His emerald eyes deepened to a rich purple.
"Black."
Jet-black membranous wings unfurled from his back.
Then they were sucked into his body.
He had fully assimilated Black's power to boost his output.
"Shall we begin?"
Jamie's black mana began pushing back Gav's black mana.
Gav stared at Jamie in disbelief.
'What the hell is that guy's black mana?'
A black sorcerer's black mana was usually filthy and repulsive just to look at. Since it grew by harming lives, it was perhaps natural.
Jamie's should have been the same. Yet what emanated from it was neither filth nor repulsion.
'It calms the mind.'
It reminded him of his mother's embrace from a time he could no longer recall.
He had thrown away such memories long ago with the evening trash, so why were they surfacing now?
'Dangerous.'
He couldn't let himself be drawn in any longer.
'No. Kill him and study that black mana.'
Now he saw it not as a potential partner, but as a lab rat.
No reason to hesitate further.
'First, crush his mind.'
His undead control was impressive, but that was it.
Everything else was on par with Salomon.
Nothing to worry about.
Or so it should have been—until the fog rolled in before his eyes.
"Your reactions are too slow."
The voice came from nearby.
But the figure was still lost in the fog.
That meant his mind had already been infiltrated.
"Different from Salomon, eh?"
Gav chuckled dryly and pressed the staff's tip to his temple.
"Urgh...!"
Black sludge oozed from his temple. The pain felt like his brain was being crushed, drawing out an involuntary groan.
The fog vanished as if it had been a lie.
He had forcibly extracted the power trying to erode his mind.
"Tough guy?"
Jamie clicked his tongue watching Gav pull the dark energy from his head without hesitation.
That pain was indescribably excruciating.
Yet he did it without flinching, meaning he had experienced it many times. Likely repeatedly testing and dismantling mental magics on himself.
The title 'Curse Master' wasn't earned lightly. But Jamie had already seized the initiative.
"Don't get too cocky, though."
Crunch—
A zombie that had sneaked up bit into Gav's right thigh.
A chunk of flesh tore grotesquely away.
Gav grimaced and erased the zombie into nothingness with darkness. In that brief moment of clearing the fog, he had summoned more undead.
'Interesting.'
He had succeeded with mental magic against someone a step above and followed with a meaningful linked attack.
Though Gav had yielded the first move, he was still quite shocked. The opponent had exceptional combat sense to bridge the realm gap.
"Get careless for real, and you're done for."
"Is that what you're telling me not to say?"
Gav's eyes widened.
He was clearly standing in the faction's lab corridor.
Yet now...
Curses were ultimately black magic that stimulated the mind.
And Gav was a curse sorcerer skilled enough to be called Curse Master.
Yet he had fallen to successive mental magics from his opponent.
It was getting more and more fun.
Gav grinned up at the purple eye floating in the sky where the moon should be.
"Is that all?"
Die consumed by terror.
All manner of grotesque creatures began rising from the abyssal ground.
At the same time, his senses started fading.
His vision blurred, sounds muffled, skin numbed like paralysis. He hadn't smelled anything from the start, nor tasted.
"Hm."
An excellent Abyss.
To maintain something like this with power below 6th Class must strain his mana terribly.
"This is enough."
Gav raised the hand gripping his staff casually, even as his senses nearly vanished.
Jamie muttered watching him.
'Directly intervening in his own brain to control it.'
Impressive skill, but too late.
A dark spear materialized in the air and shot toward the stationary Gav.
And then—positions swapped.
"...!"
Jamie barely dodged the incoming dark spear.
Kaboom!!!
The spear pierced the wall and erupted in pitch-black explosion.
A section of the corridor wall vanished without a trace in an instant.
That wasn't the problem.
"...So this is what a 6th Class Master amounts to?"
Jamie gave a wry smile at the abyssal space.
It was the mental prison he had created.
Gav's voice echoed from within.
'Sending my Abyss back at me... With a higher realm, it's possible, but.'
He had to comprehend the incantation and perfectly analyze the attribute's structure.
He had accomplished that process in mere moments.
Even without being a grand magus, he had pulled it off. Truly worthy of someone who devoted his life to curses.
The abyssal monsters closed in.
His senses faded rapidly.
To escape, he'd need the same method. But with his current power, it was impossible. Even if successful, he'd have no mana left, and Gav would reflect again.
Jamie became unable to see, hear, or feel. Yet his expression didn't waver.
'One chance.'
His current mana allowed only once more.
That would suffice.
'Timing...'
Black mana shook his brain.
Senses awakening bit by bit.
Gav's method. Jamie could do it too. But he didn't act immediately.
He needed to wait a little longer.
'That guy will definitely give me an opening.'
The fury when his pride was scratched earlier.
For a seasoned veteran, he was surprisingly emotional.
He pretended calm, but once convinced of superiority, he'd let his guard down endlessly.
And that moment arrived.
Gav watched Jamie standing blankly, eyes unfocused.
Trapped in his own Abyss in reverse, deprived of senses, being torn apart by monsters—it made him laugh.
But that wasn't enough.
Since it was his Abyss, he'd break it eventually.
It would get annoying. A smart one wouldn't fall for the same trick twice.
'Then I need to shatter his mind completely. Time to use this.'
Gav smiled in satisfaction.
The ultimate curse he had crafted over long years, with no prior chance to use.
He would etch it deeply into that body.
Ominous words poured endlessly from Gav's mouth.
Like a dirge of ruin, it felt as if all life in the world was being sucked into an abyss.
The black magic perfected by a black sorcerer at the cusp of 6th Class after decades of research.
[From now on, you will plunge into eternity within an instant.]
⟨ Aesthetics of Slow ⟩
What happens to a human when 1 second is fragmented into 1/10th, 1/100th, 1/1000th?
Cognitive dissonance to everything.
The alienness of supernatural phenomena in reality.
Endless persistence of the phenomenon.
Even just 1 second—could a human endure time splintered that way?
"This is my ultimate curse!"
The most horrific and vicious among the curses Gav devised was the 'adjustment of perceived time.'
No matter how strong, anyone struck by 'Aesthetics of Slow' would undoubtedly go mad.
No need to maintain the Abyss anymore.
In unending instants, all minds would lose value and burn away like trash.
"Now, where should I slice first?"
No time to waste going to the lab.
He'd gut him right here. Dissect every inch, uncover the black mana's secrets, make it his own...
"What are you doing?"
Gav was about to place his greedy, saliva-dripping hand on Jamie's slender abdomen.
The voice came from directly above.
"What are you doing, I said."
"You... how...?"
Gav's eyes trembled.
'Aesthetics of Slow' had definitely succeeded. His mind should be locked in a temporal prison, unable to do anything.
So why was he speaking, looking down with eyes like he was gazing at a bug?
"Doesn't matter, right?"
Jamie grinned.
His hand glowed crimson.
"Get that ugly mug out of my sight."
Bang!!!
The 5th Class explosion magic 'Explosion' blew Gav's face clean off.
Jamie's perfect cell shimmered brilliantly.