Chapter 240
Chapter 240
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 240
Chapter Title: Throwing Sparks (6)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
He assumed his stance. Drawing his sword to the middle guard. With momentum enough to cleave the heavens in a single stroke. King Dain's greatsword, that dark steel sword rippled black as if devouring the light.
A foreign sensation sizzled inside his veins—chiiik.
Divinity rejects mana. Priests, especially Demonica, cannot harbor mana within their bodies. Therefore, even if they had reached the pinnacle of skill and karma, a priest could never match the power of a perfected warrior.
However—
-Chiiiiiik!!
His veins bulged as the divinity coursing through them rebelled violently. But he suppressed it, containing it. Every instant, he recaptured the scattering mana and drew it back in. One full cycle like that.
Mana flowed through his entire body—thin strands of it.
-Sruruk.
His hair floated up on its own. A phenomenon that appeared when a swordsman at the peak prepared for battle. Cautiously stepping over some boundary, one step forward.
[Parallel lines, then.]
Lavirata's lament echoed. From beyond his feverishly heated mind and the faint tinnitus ringing in his ears.
-Use magic.
Today, he hadn't used even his once-per-day spell. The Bronze Throne's reserves were ample, and Lavirata was weakened from deploying great magic. If he used magic now, he could easily repel her.
But he wouldn't. Call it arrogance, curse him as a fool—it didn't matter. He wouldn't use magic.
It was a conviction.
Feizashi's life was a mold. A tragic, fragmented tale riddled with regrets. And this moment now was another tragedy born from carrying on that karma and deeds. So never... never. Even if there was an easy, quick, simple way, never.
Thus, this was penance, obedience, and also...
[I shall oppose you. Savior. Even if our fate ends in apocalypse, I shall stand against you. Even if commanded to bail a river with bare hands, so I shall do.]
Pity.
[I... can never die. My death is unlike the deaths of the past. My death means the death of them all. Death? No—if our souls are mere copies of the past, our halt is not death but annihilation. Never, I shall never let my people... never... rot away as dust beneath Sato, forgotten eternally!!]
Pity for those wretched beings.
"Do as you will."
Every instant, his blood surged wildly. The blood infused with divinity boiled fiercely, heat haze rising from his entire body. Without the utmost precise mana control, the mana inside his flesh would have already dissipated.
The thin strands of mana raced along his veins. Consumed every instant, replenished every instant. Beyond the blazing divinity. Like lightning, the mana surged.
Fernandez gripped the sword hilt tight, steadied his stance... and charged.
* * *
The blade slashed through empty air. Straight down from the heavens above.
In that instant, the maids flanking Lavirata leaped in. Lavirata stepped back one pace and formed hand seals.
-Piiiik!
Lavirata's jade throne—the hawk perched atop it let out a shrill cry and spread its wings. The hawk soared into the sky, and mana began to whirl into motion.
-Kang!
Fernandez battered away the pincer attack coming from both sides. The maids' sword auras were no joke. The two swung their curved blades in crossed hands.
-Kang! Kaduk!
This was just buying time. Swordsmanship flowing with intent, remarkably refined... but devoid of will. Their eyes beneath the masks gleamed with spirit at best, but no soul.
-Kang!
He flicked the blades away and pressed forward. Their lithe bodies soared through the air. At the same time, he spun, blocking with a whirl of his sword. Another maid dove in sharply, her thrust glancing off the greatsword's blade and rebounding. He swept it in a half-circle to shove her back and surged through the gap.
Three steps from Lavirata. In that span, the maids' chain attacks thrust at him thirty times in total. He parried them all and advanced another step!
[My people shall not be forgotten!]
Lavirata's cry rang out. Fernandez's blade hurtled straight for her throat. Just before it touched—in that fleeting instant—
Her hand seals completed, and immense mana plunged from the heavens into her body.
In that moment.
In an instant of perception stretched to extremes, as if all had frozen, Fernandez "understood" Lavirata's hand seals.
'Construction, formation, erection, sacrifice...'
-And illusion. Damn it. This much power...?
'Five seals in that split second?'
The more hand seals layered, the exponentially harder the spell. Hand seals were diagrams combat mages formed with their hands in place of magic circles. A method to modulate mana flow by substituting finger knots for the computational formulas of mana circuits.
Operating multiple seals simultaneously caused variables in the mana passing through circuits to multiply arithmetically with each layer. From the caster's perspective, who had to control every variable, the computational difficulty squared.
Thus, five seals.
Even formed slowly with care, an unstable high-difficulty incantation—and she did five in the time to swing a sword once. What she was casting now...
'She's staking her life on it.'
Regardless of completion. Spells above a certain difficulty demanded backlash. Usually circuit overload leading to mana loss or internal injuries from reversed blood flow. But such an extreme incantation would burn the soul.
A desperate gambit more likely to kill her even in success.
Yes. Desperation. Refusing to die easily. Lavirata, deploying a spell to breach walls at the cost of backlash for one strike. If this was her desperation, how vicious would it be...!
-Block it.
'No. Break through.'
But he would break through. Not confidence or arrogance. This was karma.
Fernandez reversed his sword, steadied his stance, and faced her squarely.
Magic completed in Lavirata's hands.
And the world flipped upside down.
* * *
A sandstorm swept over the altar like a tidal wave. Fernandez slammed his greatsword into the ground and gritted his teeth to endure. If his grip slackened even a moment, he'd be swept away.
-Shooooaaa...
Sand grains pelted his armor with sharp cracks. Friction fierce enough to spark. His exposed hands and cheeks were already gashed and torn, blood oozing thickly. And soon.
-Shooooaaa...
The sand ceased. Fernandez shook his blurred vision and raised his head.
A blue sky, and vast earth spread before him.
-An illusion.
'I know.'
Not a mere spell conjured illusion. To implant one on him with a spell alone would require at least Mumto-level power.
Lavirata's incantation was subtler, more cunning—mobilizing sound, light, mana, and touch alike.
The moment the sand struck, Fernandez had perceived the illusion spell. Perceiving it aside, he couldn't attempt to dispel it. The spell was already complete.
-Sruruk.
Wind blew. Below the altar where he stood stretched the panorama of a vast city.
A colossal city.
People laughed and bustled about vibrantly.
The scene as it once was, when the city belonged to the living.
A waterfall cascading from the massive royal palace formed a river, branching out to supply drinking water across the city.
Aqueducts of flawless masonry, women washing clothes atop them, children splashing or bathing.
Far off, beyond the grand outer walls, soldiers marching with gleaming spears and swords...
'Asit.'
The Upper Asit Empire in its intact days. Fernandez lowered his sword and said,
"Why show me this?"
"Who knows... Does not even your rock-hard heart feel something?"
A woman approached from behind him. Draped in ornate, light garments that revealed her silhouette almost fully. In the guise of the great pharaoh. Tap, tap. Bare feet padding lightly across the altar.
"There was a time I thought: because it was once great, it would remain so eternally. A time when death was merely personal death. When eating, drinking, laughing, chattering—all held truth."
Lavirata spoke with a languid expression. She soon chuckled softly.
"As you said. We—the conclaves—rose beyond death by Mumto's hand and lost our true forms. We lost the karma and stature built in our lives, reduced to... fallen shadows and puppets. Yet we clutched elements proving our lives."
"What were they?"
Lavirata flicked her hand. Light shimmered in the air, sketching a map.
Soon, sections glowed at her touch.
"Mahras's Altarak held honor. Ptahha's Tutan Gartep, conquest. High Priest Pafatet, collection. Tanis's Apotajar, survival."
Four points. A map Fernandez knew well. Details varied, but all marked conclave seal sites.
"And I, Lavirata of Ivaris. I hold protection."
"So you made enemies of other races."
"Yes. To the living, we are mere monsters."
Lavirata nodded. Her spectral legions were utterly exclusionary toward all material world's nations. Yet they hadn't launched full conquests.
They simply fortified their resurrection sites into citadels, expanded cities, awakened others still buried underground, and endured.
Why? Fernandez, who assumed all pharaohs craved dominion, couldn't fathom it. Stockpiling power? What were they plotting?
Thus, variables. Unpredictable future events they deemed must be eliminated to steer fate their way.
But... to a wraith who simply said, 'I want to live.' What words to offer?
"A tall order, is it?"
"Using a spell like this just for persuasion? Can you handle the backlash?"
"Who knows. I judged I couldn't kill you."
Lavirata gazed at Fernandez with somber eyes, her face expressionless.
An enigmatic mortal. In her living days, she'd met countless heroes and warriors, but none like him.
Eyes that pierced her mana at a glance, mana waves interfering brazenly with her circuits, divinity racing through his veins. Strength to shatter mightiest war engines with a single sword.
Thus, her chosen tactic: persuasion.
"Even if I could kill you, what remains after?"
If she killed this man, would humans withdraw? Likely not.
Spectral legions' powers were limited by their pharaohs. The great magic at the outer walls had inflicted irrecoverable damage on Lavirata's forces for now.
Focusing on killing him would unravel the other spells sustaining the battlefield. Then?
Her troops, reduced to mindless standing, would fall helplessly before the handful of survivors.
A dead end either way. No outcome better than death. So Lavirata attempted persuasion. Toward the mysterious assassin charging her.
"They, I... we. We do not wish to be forgotten."
Mortals face pantheon judgment post-death. Passing to gods' realms, eternal life under their patron deities.
But wraiths. These half-twisted risen by Mumto had no such future. Spirit, soul, po, seong—all shattered and scattered at destruction's moment.
True annihilation. All sustaining their spirit forms reduced to faint ether, dispersing; their remains eroded by time into dust.
She didn't want that end. Didn't want to vanish like that. But what could be done?
Lavirata lamented. What could be done...
Even if this man withdrew, or she killed him, or expelled all intruders now. What next, and after?
Soon... humans would dismantle them.
Without pity or mercy. Like clearing a spiderweb from home. Willingly.
The faces of the living were too unfamiliar; she couldn't compose her expression. Expressionless, unchanged, Lavirata shed tears.
"Let's make a deal."
When she looked up, Fernandez gazed down at her and said.
'Change the plan a bit.'
-Pitiful sympathy?
'Call it complex factors. If Lavirata declares complete neutrality toward the material world, and the pharaoh's legions submit to me. Not a bad piece secured.'
-Bury these skeletons under sand, same result. This region's ruled by beastfolk and Duke Erv anyway—both our pawns eventually.
'For the future, more soldiers remaining is better.'
-Tch.
Fernandez spoke thus, slowly forming hand seals. One by one, meticulously. Flames roared—a black halo blazing behind his head. Soon a chain slithered from his hand, looping around Lavirata's neck.
"This is..."
"I affirm your existence and guarantee your survival."
"And the price...?"
"Everything you have."
Lavirata looked up blankly. Staring at the shadowed man's face, she hesitated briefly.
"So be it."
Beyond submission—it meant the great wilderness conquered. Fernandez took her hand, thinking. Apotajar sided with the strong; the wilderness beastfolk in his grasp. Erv would be the hero he forged.
From imperial west to great wilderness—a vast region under his command. Change plans. With this host, he could challenge the emperor.
Not long now.