Chapter 17
Translator: True Detective
Chapter 17: To You, 1000 Years Later (2)
Eleanor, manifested borrowing Rihan's body, slowly raised her head.
The fear of death that dominated Rihan until just now evaporated without leaving a single trace.
What filled that vacancy was something heterogeneous and overwhelming that human senses cannot possibly gauge.
Cassian realizes instinctively.
The person standing in front of him is not the man from just now.
"......You, what is your identity."
It was the moment Cassian, flustered, tried to pull up magic power.
"Kneel."
A low command fell from between Rihan's lips.
Kooooong—!
Cassian's face was shoved into the floor without even being able to scream.
A sensation as if a huge mountain range settled on top of his head.
There was no gap to resist, nor leisure to weave formulas.
The shoulders carrying the pride of a 6th Hierarchy mage snapped helplessly.
The hard basement floor, unable to withstand that pressure, was crushed, and spiderweb-like cracks stretched out vividly in all directions.
10 years ago.
That sensation which left him a lifelong nightmare was flowing out from the young man in front of his eyes right now.
'That cannot be. Such an existence cannot possibly exist again in this world.'
Even in the fear paralyzing reason, Cassian gritted his teeth.
He knew.
If he collapses here, the Estal family disappears into history.
Not only the honor of the Estal family, but he cannot even guarantee the safety of his family behind him.
As a 6th Hierarchy mage, as the Duke of Estal.
He decided to pour out everything he had.
"No matter if the momentum changed, that body is merely 1st Hierarchy.......!"
High-density mana bursts out around Cassian.
Magic unfolds in an instant.
Cold blue flames swirled around him.
Wavering pale blue flames.
Cassian's original magic.
Ice Phosphorous Hellfire (Bing-rin-eop-hwa).
Cold flames that freeze everything they touch rush towards Rihan, freezing the ground white like a snake twisting.
But Eleanor swung her left hand indifferently, as if she didn't even think of dodging.
Crack—!
Following the trajectory Rihan's fingertips drew, the space in front shattered like a mirror.
The cold flames Cassian created were sucked beyond the gap of that twisted space and annihilated vainly.
"......Uh?"
Despair dwelt in Cassian's eyes.
To think the unique magic he completed by devoting his whole life disappeared with just a single wave of an arm.
Eleanor looked down at him dryly from beyond the fragments of broken space.
"You discuss mana in front of me. Pitiful, descendant."
She took a light step forward.
"This lady never taught Selene von Estal like that. Why has the state of the guy called a descendant become so pathetic."
"That name...... How do you know it? The Founder's name!"
A thin sneer lingered on the lips of Eleanor borrowing Rihan's body.
"I am none other than the teacher of Selene von Estal."
Cassian's face crumpled.
"Absurd remarks......! Such a mythical existence cannot exist! By what evil art did you find out our family's secret history!"
Kwaaaaang—!
Mana spewed out from Cassian's whole body as if exploding.
The fear of extermination and the premonition of death pull his reason taut.
Tens of thousands of questions arose in Cassian's head.
'......What went wrong.'
He lived taking pride in being one of the best mages in the Empire.
He devoted his whole life for the family and for those he had to protect.
But why.
Why must he be trampled so helplessly by a young man he considered merely 1st Hierarchy.
'Are we merely horses following a determined prophecy?'
The world is absurd.
Effort is betrayed, and justice kneels before power.
'If the laws set by the world are this unfair.'
Yveline's laughter flashes through Cassian's mind.
The sound of his wife's breath sleeping soundly trusting him seemed to linger in his ears.
Estal's pride handed down for hundreds of years and the precious life trajectories they protected.
If all this is merely a stage setting for someone's amusement.
'......I cannot acknowledge such laws.'
He couldn't end it like this.
No, he shouldn't end it.
He wasn't born to be a scapegoat of prophecy.
He has absolutely no intention of remaining a supporting actor to complete someone's script.
Desperate tenacity burns his heart.
If the absurd world crushes him.
He just has to twist the laws of that world itself.
Crack, crunch—!
Bizarre friction sounds echo in the basement hallway.
"........."
The iron fortress-like wall of the 7th Hierarchy that blocked him for 10 years.
That wall began to break miserably due to external pressure and internal realization.
"Ah...... Aaaaaah!"
Cassian's pupils rolled back and blood vessels all over his body bulged out.
The rise of hierarchy is like a drug.
The burning sense of omnipotence as every single brain cell forcibly accepts the principles of a new world drives him into madness.
7th Hierarchy.
The pinnacle of the human realm a mortal can reach.
And the tactical-class state that determines the fate of a nation alone.
A fishy smile hung on Cassian's lips.
"I reached it. Finally...... reached it! Hahaha!"
He burst into laughter as if he lost his mind.
Purple mana swirls like a storm around Cassian.
"Thank you! Thanks to you bastard, I broke the stagnation of 10 years and finally broke through the limit!"
Terrain changes just with the spewing mana.
The ancient alloys of the treasure vault twisted like taffy and black flames flickered in the empty air.
But even in that destructive sense of crisis.
"......Did you break the wall of hierarchy in the face of fear after all?"
Eleanor borrowing Rihan's body didn't even budge.
She was calmly accepting the pressure of the 7th Hierarchy Cassian emitted as if it was some entertainment.
Cassian recited lowly.
"......All light fades, and only the abyss shall remain."
7th Hierarchy Magic, Eternal Black Night (Yeong-geop-ji-heuk-ya).
Not extensive destruction, but ultimate anti-personnel sniping magic solely to annihilate the target.
All radiance in the treasure vault was swallowed in an instant.
Absolute darkness shoots like an awl towards Rihan's heart.
"Truly magic seen after a long time."
Eleanor's relaxed laughter echoed in the darkness.
At the moment the desperate density of magic power, which decomposes even the soul the moment it touches the target, reached right in front of Rihan's nose.
Eleanor whispered towards Rihan's ego floating in the empty air.
"Watch and learn well, Rihan. This is the destination you must reach someday."
It is not a dimension of simply pouring mana.
The huge cogwheels constituting the world.
The primeval teaching to penetrate that concept itself.
"Mediocres pour mana to create phenomena, but a true mage twists the Principle (Yi-chi) itself by which all things flow. The state of the 10th Hierarchy means reaching out to the Origin (Geun-won) of the world and reweaving the already determined laws according to one's will."
Eleanor slowly reached out her hand.
"Causality Reversal (In-gwa-yeok-jeon)."
No explosion or shock.
The moment the Eternal Black Night Cassian devoted his whole life to shoot touched Rihan's palm.
That overwhelming energy of destruction became a handful of haze and scattered vainly.
The cause that the attack hit was substituted with the result that the attack did not exist.
"No way......."
Cassian's complexion turned pale.
He broke through the wall of the 7th Hierarchy.
He rose to the rank of transcendent, of which there are only two in the entire Empire.
But how is such a thing possible.
'Then does it mean this man in front of me...... is stronger than the Great Sage Elysia, the current best mage?'
Cassian realized.
The sensation when he faced that monster who prophesied the family's extermination 10 years ago.
Even though he broke the wall of the 7th Hierarchy, the existence in front of him was in a place distantly far away.
Cassian, having lost his reason, eventually decided to cross a line that shouldn't be crossed.
Crunch!
Cassian bit his own back of the hand mercilessly.
Flesh was torn off and dark red fresh blood spewed out.
With trembling hands.
He began to draw a bizarre and ominous pattern on the basement floor using that blood as a medium.
He thought that was the last choice he could make as a family head and as a father of a family.
"Pathetic. To intend to act such ugliness until the end even with your ancestor in front of your eyes."
Eleanor recited coldly and spat out the second Truth.
"Manifest (Hyeon-si)."
Kugugugu—!
Purifying the turbid basement air at once.
A noble and sharp storm of mana swirls.
Dazzling particles of light swirled behind Rihan's back.
And from that brilliant center, a woman who crossed a thousand years revealed her appearance.
Pink hair and jewel-like blue eyes.
Founder, Selene von Estal.
Cassian's hand, which was chanting black magic while shedding blood, stopped on the spot.
The living myth he only saw in portraits was looking down at him coldly right in front of his eyes now.
"......F, Founder?"
Cassian's voice trembled shabbily.