Chapter 109
Chapter 109
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 109
Chapter Title: Wildcast (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
*
-Rumble...
[What is this...?]
The first to sense the anomaly in the canyon was the legion's sole burial priest. Imart gazed at the flow of mana crossing the sky before hastily sinking into the spirit realm.
For the ghosts of Ivorysheet, stepping into the spirit realm—the underside of the material world—was an act that evoked terror and disgust. It was traversing the domain of the archdemon who had killed them, raised them, and subjugated them.
Yet for the burial priests borrowing death mana from Mumto, and for Ivorysheet's nobles, it was an indispensable necessity.
-Hwoooong.
Flesh, skin, and muscle began forming on his body, which was little more than bones. Color drained from the wasteland, and above the sky loomed massive iron chains, eyes, and swirling mana vortices.
Pale gray winds circled the wasteland. Before his eyes appeared the Ivorysheet legion marching into the Sario Canyon, retaining their appearances from life.
"Hoo..."
Mumto's gaze slithered over him stickily. A gaze thick with greed and hatred. Weakened beneath the great seal to the point of losing dominion over his minions. Yet still wielding mana mightier than any mortal.
All the dead feared Mumto. He was a being who had lived to become a god, who had slain even gods that defied him. He was a legend. The legend of apocalypse that brought ruin to Ivorysheet.
He was the one who, in a single instant, turned the world's mightiest empire—boasting vast steppes, fertile lands, and expansive territories—into a wasteland and graveyard.
"I am not afraid of you, Mumto."
Imart forced himself to ignore the gaze. He had not entered the spirit realm to feel Mumto's scrutiny. Imart stared at the massive mana flickering at the canyon's edge.
Mana vortices descended from the heavens, and the mana stones forming the canyon floor resonated in unison, glowing brightly. Between them flitted unfamiliar harmonies and incantations of mana, brushing past him.
Imart slowly formed hand seals. He brought his eyes to the gap between his crossed index and middle fingers. Mana gathered in that crevice, and soon the canyon magnified before him.
"...A human?"
In the spirit realm, all beings revealed their essences; even he, a mere ghost, would appear here as a neatly robed priest.
But the man standing atop that canyon cliff...
Was he truly human? Right there, Imart beheld a being forming different hand seals with three pairs of hands, attuning mana.
*
-Hwoooong...
Mana coiled around his wrists. The sharp, icy mana of the spirit realm. Feizashi Wildcast cackled as he moved his hands.
-Kuduk!
His wrists twisted, veins pulsing. Divinity raged against the spirit realm's corrupt mana. The divinity within his blood roiled through his body like shards of glass, producing excruciating pain.
Yet to Feizashi, that pain was sweet. How long had it been since he felt such agony—not mental torment, but physical?
All those sensations were dear to him. Hot blood coursing through veins, a heart pounding madly in his chest, a dizzying head flushed as if scorched by fire...
'Pointless endeavor, Beitasser.'
The divinity in his blood rejected his soul. The intense dissonance and alienation stimulated him fiercely. Skirting the razor's edge of ejection from his body like an acrobat—
-Kwaduduk!!
He forcibly twisted his shattered wrist. Not with muscle or strength, but with delicate mana control directly manipulating muscle fibers, nerves, ligaments, and meridians!
-Chaarruruk!
Iron chains from the spirit realm's heavens wrapped around his body and descended. All who used Mumto's mana inevitably became his slaves. However, however.
'I was never Tyban's slave when wielding his mana either, Mumto.'
-Clang!
The heavenly chains snapped. An omnipotence washed over him, as if all existence bowed beneath his feet. The omnipotence from his days as lord of the Crimson Spire, called the world's end.
That longed-for omnipotence.
-Hwoooong...
He finely attuned the mana flowing through his wrists. Mana stones embedded in the earth's ley lines transmitted mana to him at his will. Half in the spirit realm, with a soul half-shredded by Necropolis's curse, a body defying his will.
Even casting a single spell came with such constraints. There was no easy path in this world. Feizashi grinned stickily.
It was precisely because nothing was easy that the world was enjoyable.
He drew mana like threads, draping it over his entire body. The arms protruding from his back formed varied mudras, with threads strung between them.
Like a marionette, his flesh hung amid them. Like prey ensnared in a spiderweb. Yes. Like an insect caught in a web, pitifully.
Feizashi savored that nuance. The mana threads bound his resisting body, forcing attunement. The divinity resisting mana in his body began moving at his will.
First, [Inscription]. His tattered left hand was forcibly spread by mana, forming a mudra.
Again, [Binding]. His right hand pointed to the sky and slashed downward. With supreme focus and precision. At the perfect angle and timing!
-Chuk!
The hands lining his back simultaneously shifted mudras. Faint black flames rose behind each hand.
-Chuk! Chuk!
Mudra shapes changed, four seals forming in unison. [Sacrifice], [Pain], [Banishment], [Inverted Cross]. And the black flames encasing the hands blazed vividly.
-Hwaruruk!
The halo floating behind Feizashi's head morphed into a crown of thorns. The swirling mana converged momentarily into his palms—
-Sruk.
Feizashi's eyes closed. His head drooped, black hair covering beneath his eyes. Beneath his gathered hands writhed immense mana. The six hands behind him suppressed and compressed that vast power.
A spell from his prime. One of the five magics prepared to repel four great archangels.
A spell's three elements: incantation, ritual, sacrifice. And Feizashi had plentiful useful sacrifices strewn about. From the canyon below, the blood and flesh of dying tribal warriors in the material world flowed into the spirit realm.
Pharaoh's burial priests were preparing rituals to claim their souls and bodies, but they were already too late.
Far too late.
-Sruruk.
Feizashi's eyes opened. Ssss, fragments of his soul shredded by Necropolis's curse leaked from his parted lips, flying toward the sky.
Death was near. Nearer than ever. From his back, Beitasser's stigmata blazed intensely, reviving his soul. The lifeline bridging life and death.
Feizashi found it amusing. No matter how much Beitasser hated him, he could never abandon him.
"Feizashi's, grasp of the five thrones."
-Hwoooong...
Spanning his era and those before. The pinnacle of magecraft none had reached. The mightiest sorcerer since Mumto, founder of necromancy.
Founder of ensorcery, practitioner of black magic. One of the incantations crafted in his prime to slay a god's champion.
The incantation he had used only thrice, even up to his dying moment, now fully manifested at his fingertips.
*
-Hwoooong...
A momentary silence. Nepherka was the first to notice the anomaly. The countless protective wards upon him shattered simultaneously, like glass fragments.
-Chaarruk!
[What... is this...?]
Nepherka stared at the protections flowing down from his chin, his posture rigid. Clatter, the incantation beads and brass pieces linking them scattered across the floor.
He tilted his head, picking up the gem shards from the ground. His intricate protective amulets had all lost power and withered away.
And—
-Pasak...
His attendant disintegrated into dust in an instant. The attendant's form had been sustained by Nepherka's spells and those of his burial priests. Nepherka gazed at the scattering remains briefly, then shuddered at a chilling sensation.
If his spells had withered, then...
[Th-this?!]
His legion was crumbling into bone dust. The troops writhed in unison, slowly dispersing. Vision blurred as if in a sandstorm, whipped by hot winds into clouds of bone powder. Nepherka beheld mana streaking like lightning amid it all, and screaming souls.
[What is happening?!]
Nepherka sprang up, looking around. Nearby were minions not yet raised by magic—those retaining reason from life: burial priests and high nobles' souls. Nepherka frantically sought them.
[Anyone, come here!]
"Very well."
Through the thick sandstorm of legion bone dust, a voice rang out with eerie clarity. Nepherka instinctively gripped his blade. He thrust it toward the voice's direction.
-Kwaduduk!
The blade piercing the sand was repelled by brute force. As Nepherka leaped back, the storm parted, and a man strode forth.
-Step.
A living human youth with gloomy blue eyes flashing. Nepherka narrowed his eyes, red glow emanating. Beneath his linen wrappings, wrath blazed azure.
[Who are you?!]
"That doesn't matter."
-Hwoooong! Kuduk!
Nepherka's blade clashed against a black greatsword, locked in midair. Kuduk, the worn blade bit into the greatsword's crossguard, twisted and jammed.
Realizing he couldn't withdraw, Nepherka glared at the youth blocking him.
"Who I am, what I can do, what this situation is—such trivialities don't matter, ghost. What matters is what you can be to me, don't you think?"
[What nonsense...!]
-Kwaduduk!
The greatsword crushed Nepherka's blade and descended toward his head. Nepherka barely parried with his half-remaining sword. The blade, embedded nearly to the hilt, halted just above his brow.
The youth shortly readjusted his grip and stepped closer. Fatigue-clouded blue eyes flickered before him.
"If there's something you know that I don't, I'll spare you."
The youth—Fernandez—twisted his blade and flicked his wrist. Nepherka's sword flew from his grasp, rolling across the ground.
His condition isn't normal. I tried to sever the wrist, but. Fernandez smirked. Muscles trembled, gravel rattling through his veins.
Damn Feizashi. Fernandez wiggled numb fingers, gripping the hilt tightly. Looking down at Nepherka cowed by fear and shame, he grumbled at Feizashi, arms crossed behind him.
-A deal's a deal, Fernandez. I've had some fun these past few days.
'That means nothing. How many left?'
-Hmm. Not as many as you'd like.
White strands conspicuously mingled in Fernandez's black hair. How much lifespan remained? As Feizashi said, not leisurely.
But a necessary investment. Fernandez thought, gazing at Nepherka. His life and body were mere consumables.
"Inform your king of my existence."
[Why should I? Death isn't much of a threat to me.]
"You will."
-Chaarruk.
Chains snaked from Fernandez's wrist like serpents, coiling around Nepherka's throat. Nepherka let out a choked gasp.