Chapter 335
Chapter 335
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 335
Chapter Title: The Immortal and the Mortal (4)
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Under the night sky, a darkly shadowed forest stretched out. Drip. A single drop of dew fell, striking the tip of Fernandez's nose. He flinched. Frowning slightly, he quickly checked his physical condition.
His limbs were intact, and his senses showed no anomalies. There were no presences nearby, and his armament...
'A single dagger.'
Only the blunt hilt of the dagger inside his robes. How long had it been since he'd traveled with such light armament? Grimacing, he slowly opened his eyes.
A cool night breeze brushed his hair. His long, unkempt locks scattered messily in the wind.
"This time, it's a rather detailed hallucination."
In that void space he'd arbitrarily named the afterlife, Fernandez had been enduring endless hallucinations to maintain his sanity.
How much time had passed since then? In this cognitive dimension where the concept of time didn't exist, he had lived a thousand years like a single second, and a single second like a thousand years.
And the result was this. Now his mind had advanced to the point where it could conjure hallucinations this intricate. It had reached the stage of manifesting tactile and visual sensations through imagination alone.
'Is this what it feels like to be going mad?'
Long ago, he'd encountered countless wizards dying from addiction to drugs and mana. Those who survived to the end of his previous life were mostly in that state. Pathetic old losers flailing in hallucinations as they died...
It was utterly ridiculous that he'd ended up the same. Perhaps the final fate of a sufficiently mature wizard was always madness.
Crunch.
As Fernandez pushed through the underbrush, he pondered. He knew himself better than anyone. No matter how much of a hallucination it was, since he'd created it himself, it wouldn't devolve into directionless delusions.
This hallucination, too, must carry a message from himself to himself. Regret, grief, hardship, contemplation. Whatever it was.
Rustle.
That said, the forest's shape felt more familiar than expected. He wasn't some seasoned woodsman who could navigate a midnight forest, yet somehow it felt like a place he'd seen often...
"Crimson Tower..."
Reaching the forest's edge, he parted the thick foliage, revealing a wide clearing beyond. Exposed lava glowed fiercely, the ground vitrified by geothermal heat, and intricate geometric black tower adorned with crystal decorations came into view.
The mana engravings etched into that tower's exterior—from the most basic foundations to its pinnacle—were all carved by his own hand. It was only natural they felt familiar. This forest was his stronghold, and that tower was his final abode, his gravestone.
Feizashi's Crimson Tower, and the Forest of Lamentation. That was the name of this region. The grave of countless heroes and warriors. The eye of world destruction. The stronghold of the 'Traitor' Feizashi. The portrait of the Kalmburg Magic Academy and the corridor of the five thrones, where the archdemons convened.
The fact that the hallucination replicated this place so meticulously... There was no need to deliberate its meaning. He caught his breath for a moment, then slowly spoke.
"Were you waiting all this time just to pull off a stunt like this?"
-A stunt?
-Rumble...
The Crimson Tower's entrance began to open with a heavy groan. Thick steel gates parted, and a drawbridge lowered over the moat of flowing lava. Fernandez stood at a distance, arms crossed, glaring into the tower's flickering darkness.
-If you think this is a stunt, you'll die, Fernandez. Well, even if you take it seriously, I wonder if it'll make a difference.
"Are you demanding control of the soul?"
-Before my death, I always existed as myself. Just as you did. As you once said in the past, if you and I can no longer be the same being... Then I shall die as myself.
Fernandez chuckled dryly and stepped onto the drawbridge. At that instant, a scorching wind blasted through the gates. Sticky mana laced with wails began to press down on his entire body.
This wasn't Feizashi's magic. It was merely presence. The presence of Feizashi at his peak in his final years.
A no-mage on par with transcendent realms. A level where magic manifested on its own from mere breathing, subtle gestures, glances, breaths, and footsteps—mana engraving itself without effort. The presence of one who had reached that supreme height.
The pinnacle of wizardry. The dignity of a grandmaster who founded his own school, unifying all black magic of the era into a new lineage called Enmagicka, materialized as mana crushing down on him.
Feeling it from another's perspective was a novel sensation. Fernandez rolled his shoulders lightly and strode into the drawbridge.
-Face your past, Fernandez. I'll grant you the right to die wholly as yourself.
"Amusing. Has my mind finally given out?"
-What?
"It's the kind of thought a proud old wizard too arrogant for suicide might have at the last moment, unable to endure eternity. Resorting to such a convoluted method of killing himself."
-Hah, if you see this as suicide, will you hand over your soul without resistance?
"Hey, Feizashi. Even when I was you, I never gave up."
Red eyes glowed in the darkness. On the high landing of the corridor's stairs, an old man looked down at him, smiling.
Fernandez met his gaze squarely and smiled back. Their twisted smirks mirrored each other perfectly.
"I've always wondered."
-The me from back then, and the me now. Which is stronger?
"Whose prime was truly purer, which life traced a more righteous path?"
-That's... Yes, put it that way, and it's clearer.
-"Was my choice truly my best?"
The choices of the past me, and the choices of the current me. From completely divergent paths. At the culmination where each possibility had bloomed to its peak. Could one truly claim which was right?
Fernandez drew the dagger from his robes. Gripping the hilt, he spun it once. As his thoughts aligned, the dagger in his hand transformed into a massive greatsword.
A familiar sensation. This ancient relic, unmarred through countless brutal battles over long years. Now, the totality of sword intent deeply etched into some corner of his soul. The swordsmanship forged by melting King Dane's compassion into it.
It had been years already. Since passing King Dane's trial and their souls mingling, this essence that had sprouted deep within his soul was now gripped in his hand.
Its conceptual significance was Invincibility. The resolve that would not bend or break, no matter the hardship. Fernandez hadn't forgotten it from that day to now. Transcending his own life's attitude, the soul of King Dane he'd inherited served as coordinates guiding his life's direction.
"Yeah, Feizashi. Let's commit suicide."
Two possibilities built from the same origin, utterly different, charged toward each other in this ancient corridor.
* * *
A red robe embroidered with intricate golden thread, assorted sinister artifacts, geometric tattoos covering his entire body. Every ornament and pattern held distinct meanings as magic tools.
With a wave of his hand, four mudras formed from one hand. Quadra spell via single casting. Impressive enough on its own to call him a grandmaster of magic—
-Jingle!
A crystal bracelet on his wrist clashed with ornaments on the robe's hem, birthing new spells. Mana flashed between the accessories, their motions intersecting to draw varied constructs!
-Rumble!
Thus, seven spells summoned from a single gesture. Like arrows or lightning bolts. Twisting mid-air, they leaped toward Fernandez's body—!
-Clang!
A silvery trajectory pierced the gap. Cleanly bisecting the red flashes, one strike! Fernandez's body spun, chaining into another trajectory.
-Crash!
The barrage of spells reached their peak manifestation. Just before materializing in reality, he shattered them one by one, as if driving mana wedges. Without blinking, staring straight at Feizashi's face, Fernandez charged relentlessly without pause.
Like a storm of steel. A destructive charge that left black afterimages in its wake. Even as spells fired and curses bound him, in every moment, his sword pierced magic's structural nodes, tearing and destroying as it advanced.
-Boar-like bastard!
"Feels like I've heard that before."
-Hah, speaks to who founded the Demonica!
-Boom! Crash!
Having reached the pinnacle in their domains, the two laughed leisurely, traded jokes, swung swords, and wove spells. As clashes of incantations and steel continued, their distance gradually closed.
Touch him, enter this interval, and he could kill. Fernandez's eyes seemed to say. Feizashi burst into incredulous laughter at that moment.
-Waging a magic battle at sword's edge. Truly like me.
He knew every trick inside out, to the point of exasperation. Before mudras even formed, from arm angle and trajectory, he anticipated the spell and thrust his blade. Pinpoint strikes at vulnerabilities!
This was a high realm of magic battle. Merely substituting mana wedges with a crude greatsword. Feizashi grinned, baring his teeth.
-Fernandez. Your grasp of me comes from experience, but...
-Rumble!
Mudras formed in both hands. Simultaneously, hands extended from behind his back. Three heads, six arms. This auxiliary spell from peak Feizashi heralded great magic rivaling signature spells.
Fernandez kicked off, leaping high. The remaining distance was barely five meters. With his leap power, reachable before a single breath, to cleave him down.
In that interval, Feizashi's words continued.
-My counter to you is analysis.
The Feizashi in Fernandez's memory was a past ghost, merely a fragment of retained memories. As experience's product, he knew all Feizashi's methods. Naturally. Feizashi was his past life.
But Feizashi viewed Fernandez through observation. Over three years, that brief span allowed coldly analyzing transforming swordsmanship, techniques, and the body's limits from an observer's viewpoint.
Always running with death at his heels, he knew better than anyone what that body could do. If such a day came, how to cope. What form would the battle take.
How to face a swordsman at the peak, who understood wizards—Feizashi's magic—better than anyone.
This was the fruit of analysis, prediction, and research.
The domain of wizards. A feat only wizards could achieve.
-Rumblerumble!!!
Mid-air, Fernandez's body halted abruptly. Close enough for breaths to mingle. His sword grazed Feizashi's beard tip, stopping a hair's breadth from his throat.
"Stasis... field?"
Fernandez's mouth twisted with a grinding sound as it opened. He forced his stiffened tongue to continue. Feizashi chuckled at the sight.
The spell from Feizashi's right hand: stasis field. Too crude for a signature spell, easy to break, and at Fernandez's level, barely even resistance—a simple defensive incantation.
Fernandez's eyes darted aside. To identify the spell halting him. If that was defense, then this was—
-Stasis field.
The left hand's mudra: also stasis field. And.
Four spirit hands extended from his back. The auxiliary spell's mudras from three heads six arms: all identical stasis fields.
The magic circle formed by mana tools entwining his body indicated... stasis field.
-Heavy amplification stasis field. Linking each spell in parallel, all structural points meticulously... biting start to end in infinite chains.
Not mere amplification. Overlapping identical spells doesn't double power. But connecting start and end in endless loops—
Ultimately making the spell itself a single incantation. Mana so pure it bordered on divinity. Purer than any signature spell of that era, infinitely close to magic's essence: manifesting phenomena through mana.
The culmination of understanding and knowledge of mana, forged by an aged, mature wizard rising from death through relentless research.
-Feizashi's Horizon.
A spell filtering the concept of stasis to infinite purity, capable of halting even time. Fernandez inwardly smiled, suspended in air.
This monster. Still evolving even in death.
While his other signature spells focused solely on destruction, this was entirely different. Near artistry piled through mana. Fernandez couldn't help but admire the old man before him.
Magic cannot reach divine realms. But if magic embodies mystery into divinity, wouldn't it look like this?
-Now you have to admit it, Fernandez? You're weaker than me.
The god chuckled mischievously, beaming triumphantly.