Chapter 268
Chapter 268
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 268
Chapter Title: Faith is a Lantern (2)
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The emperor's face hardened in an instant at the sticky, blatant hostility seeping from those words. An unnatural shift in expression. To a Religiosa Demonica like Fernandez, who could dissect even muscle contractions down to the fiber, it was all the more obvious.
The human body is merely a shell. In that moment, Fernandez inferred other details.
The man had been fully demonized, even down to his core. Cases where a human's soul and flesh mutated into a demon while still existing in the material world were rare, but not impossible. It was the very kind of offer Tyban had made to him in his final days.
Suppressing a surge of revulsion with feigned calm, Fernandez thought. He needs that human exterior. In other words, he has a reason to maintain his position as emperor.
What could it be?
"Fool. Do you dare oppose me?"
"Is that all?"
A fly buzzed past with a whine. Insects began wriggling out from the emperor's body, no longer hiding his corruption.
Little by little, through tiny gaps in the shell. Cockroaches, flies, centipedes, scorpions... all manner of venomous bugs crept forth. Whine, buzz, hum. The flapping of wings grew louder, and amid it, his voice took on a strange echo, growling.
[How dull and insignificant. You have already received the blessing of the 'Great Sovereign.' Do you not know your place? At this very moment, if the Sovereign desires it, your life is no more than a candle flickering in the wind—neither more nor less!]
The plague lurking in Fernandez's body writhed, spewing toxins. He could feel his fingertips turning black, his limbs rotting away. Yellow blisters burst from the wrinkles heated by fever.
His body's functions dropped to three-tenths. No, less than that. A corruption beyond even the curse of a king-class demon. The toxin carried mana potent enough to reduce an ordinary person to bloody sludge with a mere handful.
The reason he could endure and stand was his will, which regarded pain as nothing more than functional errors of the flesh, and the inherent divinity unique to a Religiosa Demonica. Even that was gradually crumbling under decay.
"A candle in the wind."
Fernandez muttered, cracking his fingers. The curse burrowing into his body... that sticky mana unique to hell. A vile power that gnawed not just at the flesh, but at the soul, nature, and essence itself.
-Crackle, pop!
Sparks flew. Dust and flying insects floating near Fernandez ignited on their own with crackles. Eerily cold, bluish embers sparked around him.
Pop, crackle. Pop. Ever more densely.
[...Pathetic.]
Bored, the emperor flicked his hand. At once, the mana that had burrowed into Fernandez's body responded to the gesture, activating en masse. It surged through his bloodstream, spewing toxins freely.
Thump—his heart heaved like it was vomiting blood. Multiple organ failure, internal bleeding, the searing heat from clashing recovery forces. And the lingering echoes of mana scattering around.
-Crackle.
"It's been a while."
-Ah, good. Haha, hahaha! This feeling, this sensation!
The euphoria hell's mana brought. The omnipotence from that sticky power racing through his veins! The gaze of an absolute being lording over the world from on high. The kind of omnipotence only those who transcended material limits could possess—it tingled, coursing up his spine!
They called it a curse that consumed soul and flesh. No, in their words, it was a blessing. A blessing directly from a great demon was no different from a curse in itself.
Yet, in essence, this power was a 'blessing.' An unlimited outpouring of plague-curse into human flesh. A sticky deadly poison, enough to turn an ordinary person to sludge with a handful!
-A fragment of my prime... I've grasped it.
Feizashi whispered with a sinister grin. Yes, he'd grasped it. The power from those days when mana knew no limits, when thought alone made it real.
A far cry from the bronze throne's strained refinement of ambient natural mana, jammed into frail circuits. The power of a great demon. So potent it held divinity of its own—the power from the War in Heaven.
That curse, that mana, swimming through his blood to kill him right now.
-Crack!
His withered, twisted fingers slowly extended forward, clenching the empty air.
Got it.
Amid the silence, Fernandez smiled and twisted his clenched fist.
The soul-burning curse shattered, its chains snapping into fragments of mana. The splintered mana screamed within his body, gnawing at his flesh.
Strength drained from his melting forearm. Tendons slackened, muscles scattered, blood coagulated. Death was near. At the razor-edge boundary where life flashed before one's eyes—
But the body was merely consumable.
The Religiosa Demonica's flesh, infused with divinity, rejected the mana...
At the boundary of life and death, he could finally pin true magic beneath his hand.
'Isn't it ridiculous? We must die once to truly become mages.'
-A power lost in one death, reclaimed in another. Poetic enough.'
'Good. Self-deprecating enough.'
Fernandez smirked, lip curling. Thump. His heart spat blood in its final death rattle. Bodily functions now below one-tenth. Medically, he was as good as dead.
[Suicide...?]
"There are things only death reveals."
A shiver resonating through his soul coursed his body. Along that flow, veins writhed like snakes atop his clenched fist.
He'd show them the example. Wasting great demon mana on something as trivial as him was a squander. He'd teach how to wield it properly.
Baring his teeth, Fernandez whispered.
"Feizashi's grasp of the five thrones."
* * *
"Check it now! Immediately!"
Shouts of alarm erupted from every magic academy in the capital and its outskirts. Figures equivalent to academy heads rushed about, senses attuned to the massive spell unfolding above the city skies.
Great magic of a certain scale always had precursors. But this was too short. Too fast. As if cast by a single person.
No. Impossible. Clashes raged in the mages' minds between reality and their knowledge.
The magic academies of Paltennoia checked each other. To counter sudden magical incidents from rival groups, they had measures to monitor and defend against each other's great spells.
Yet now, this colossal magic over the palace appeared without warning, abruptly extending from the skies toward the ground.
Its shape was like a hand. A rough, violent demon's claw clutching the earth. Built solely for destruction.
Every mage who could see mana with the naked eye stared dumbfounded, murmuring.
"A spell that devours phenomena."
Its scale was immense, but the mechanism was ridiculously simple. A incantation destroying all phenomena in swept spaces. He could clearly envision the dozens of layered defensive wards around the palace melting away without resistance.
"That's a catastrophe. Inform the palace. Our tower has no part in this... And seal the academy until the situation calms! Notify the Holy Pantheon churches of our innocence! Hurry!"
Given the church's recent dynamics toward the empire, such magical disasters would ignite inquisitions to hunt the culprit. High chance of heresy investigations—and if they probed magical catastrophes in the capital's heart, the academies would bleed first.
That night, all seven great and small magic academies in Paltennoia simultaneously sealed their gates. Unsure which among them caused it, they chose silence over sharing intel.
* * *
"A monster...!!"
The mages of the Shadow Academy, now called Maladica, whispered blankly at the sky. Five massive pillars thrust toward the ground, crushing the palace like an eagle seizing prey.
No prior warning, so even they didn't grasp it easily. But no other culprit possible. It was 'his' magic. Undoubtedly.
"I wasn't too rude back then, was I? Right? Tell me I wasn't."
The Maladica trembled, murmuring to each other. To have opposed—even briefly—one who could casually unleash that in the palace heart was terrifying.
"Not even considering the aftermath?"
"He's an inquisitor, isn't he? With Beitasser's church antagonizing the palace lately, this is his chance to uproot them."
"Inquisitor...? Ha, that?"
They weren't keen on good-evil divides, but strictly speaking, that wasn't the power of the Holy Pantheon of Good Gods. Closer to a demon's. A force invoking only destruction and death.
"I'd sooner believe it's a grandmaster of black magic."
* * *
-Rumble!!
The palace screamed. Countless protective spells on the citadel, overlaid with dozens of great hell-borrowed incantations, shattered at once. Fragments cascaded, crumbling ceilings and spires.
The emperor watched in bewilderment. His vision transcended human limits, perceiving the events here more accurately than anyone.
[What... is this...?]
Five tendrils gripped the palace. Literally. Protective spells shattered instantly, with power left to inflict physical damage.
With a single gesture? Impossible. It had to be. Not a power permitted to humans!
[What is happening?! How?! What have you done?!]
"This is what one backed by a great demon's authority can achieve. Its pinnacle."
Unlimited mana. If one could wield mana densely packed to hold divinity. This was the proper use.
A normal mage would have died under the pressure. Normal circuits would have burned away.
But if possible, this was the optimal. Fernandez declared as much, moving his hand.
The emperor stared blankly, unable to look away. A limp, unrefined gesture. Yet anyone knowing even spell fragments would marvel—a mudra of that caliber.
Beyond precision, a law unto itself. An ultimate technique allowing no error in a thousand attempts, unfolding before his eyes.
One move. A spire crumbled. Another, and the demon power dwelling in the emperor's body lost its master, stolen away.
[This...!!]
His demon power stolen. Hell's favor from countless sacrifices. It bowed to that man's gesture in an instant. Not just power fleeing—his very existence, his spiritual presence, melted like sugar!
[Why don't you die?! How can you withstand that power?! Humans can't! Who are you?!]
-Rumble!
The emperor resisted fiercely. What Fernandez did was tantamount to hijacking a contract. The burden of hell's pact fell fully on the emperor, while he stole only the reward.
He couldn't comprehend how—or by what means. Even observing revealed nothing.
But he couldn't yield. His eyes blazed crimson. Compound eyes opened within, sharp insect chitin burst from under his silks.
-Crack!
His hands became pincers, jaw split, fluids dripped below. Back tore open, wings sprouted. A demon's form. A blood-drinking fly.
[Father! Great Sovereign! Revoke your blessing from him!! Have you abandoned me?!]
The emperor screamed. His thinking was simplistic. Witnessing a human wield impossible power, it was perhaps natural.
Urkasia. His power. Aiding that human. But why? Why abandon him?
Of course, Urkasia intended no such thing, nor was lending power.
The mana raging in Fernandez's blood rapidly ebbed. The unlimited mana wrapping his body receded like tide.
-He's panicking.
Feizashi cackled. Fernandez shrugged, eyeing his hand. Plague signs vanished instantly, strength returning to his body.
Functions recovered. Mana no longer mobilized as backlash. The curse-ravaged body remained wrecked. But as omnipotence faded, vitality surged.
-Shing.
No mana? Then strength. Fernandez reversed his grip on the hilt, slowly drawing while thinking. Unlike his past life, his power wasn't just mana.
The mage's time ended. Now, it was the inquisitor's turn.