Chapter 69
Chapter 69
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 69
Chapter Title: The King Now Stands Purely Above It, Advancing Before the Sun. (1)
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His heightened senses registered each falling raindrop, while his body teetered on the brink of collapse.
Fernandez yanked the chain with one arm. The slack chain grew taut, channeling mana.
-Whoosh.
The rain pouring over his head ceased. Without turning his gaze, he knew Abelessa had spread her wings to shield the sky. Not just the rain, but the prying eyes of Mumto as well.
Beneath this space, Mumto could no longer intervene. An ancient god active during the War in Heaven long ago. Abelessa, inheritor of Melrsildur's divinity, had reached the stature of a demigod in her own right.
The sealed Mumto lacked the power to interfere with them now. Abelessa's massive form blocked the moonlight, plunging the audience chamber into darkness. But neither the spirits of the Necropolis nor Fernandez needed sight.
-Rumble.
The mana of the Necropolis and the dragon swirled within the audience chamber. Winds born from the mana flows scraped at the stone pillars and murals. Layering over them, like painting anew upon the traces of the past, crafting a new tale.
‘How much time does Abel have left?’
-Not long.
‘Let’s end this quickly.’
There was an old adage among warlocks: no power is omnipotent. Omnipotence is an ideal, little more than an illusion. Even for gods, even for demons.
Fully resurrecting a dragon dead for fifteen hundred years. Or fully resurrecting a god dead for fifteen hundred years. Even a thousand miracles stacked a thousand times over could not achieve it.
Reviving Abel and setting her in motion now relied merely on the faint remnants left by Melrsildur. A finite, expendable resource. Fernandez had advised her never to transform into a dragon.
She had likely forsaken her own well-being due to the unique circumstances of the Dane Kingdom and the Buried Church. She claimed she was not mired in grief. Yet Fernandez could sense her sorrow through the chain of domination.
-Do you regret it?
‘Once is enough for regrets. More is a waste of time.’
My regrets were left behind the moment I closed my eyes. Fernandez murmured quietly to himself as he took a step forward. Clink, the chain followed him. He felt the spirits’ gazes upon him.
What can you do with one arm, unable even to form seals? He could almost hear the Old King’s mocking sneer.
-Thud thud thud.
Running with one arm missing threw his balance into strange disarray. Fernandez dragged the chain straight toward the throne room.
-Krrrack!
A bolt of dark green lightning ricocheted, slamming into his body. He felt his right leg’s nerves sever, muscles contracting. But it was not yet time to draw on Abel’s mana.
-Crrrack!
One more step. Now almost dragging his feet. A red spear pierced his chest, supporting it. It missed his heart by three inches. Two ribs cracked. Bone shards stabbed his lung, breath catching in his throat.
-Thump. Thump. Thump.
The Demonica heart detected the crisis, pounding harder than ever. Blood surged wildly, arteries swelling near to bursting, head burning hot. Endorphins flooded to suppress the pain, his body feeling as if afloat.
But one more step.
Past the audience chamber’s barrier, to the king’s side.
-Crrrack.
His mana clashed with the foe’s, birthing a massive vortex. Now beyond either’s control. Pure rampage. Fernandez felt his mystic vision overload, unable to parse the mana’s frenzy.
-Crrrack!
The mana devoured the chamber’s walls. Scars multiplied, epic murals of Dane’s kings peeling away. Monsters of the swamp. Undead legions. The Buried Church. Praising knights. Shild’s blessing. Now, a dragon soaring over the plains.
[Die, die! Fall! Fall now!!]
The foe’s frantic cries echoed from afar. Not physical distance, but mental. Oxygen thinning in his blood, a dizzying metallic tang burst at his nostrils.
“Huuu…”
With rampaging mana and one hand. Unable even to form seals. Fernandez drew closer, step by step. The king retreated, tripping over the throne. He faltered, trembling hands fumbling seals.
[You’re a monster!!]
“Familiar words.”
How many in his past life had branded him a monster? Fernandez nearly laughed at the memory. Instead, only a dry cough emerged, mingled with dead blood and organ fragments.
-Crunck!
A sword plunged above his navel, twisting. The Old King swung whatever came to hand, bereft of focus for spells. Fernandez lacked the stamina or time to dodge even after perceiving it. The ceremonial greatsword buried deep in his gut.
Flesh tore, blood spurting along the blade’s fuller. Fernandez gripped the greatsword with shaking hand. He saw the Old King’s twisted grin.
[I did it. I did it! Hahaha! Die, you monster!!]
“Pray, Papftet.”
[What?]
Strength surged into the hand clutching the greatsword. Shild’s blessing lingered still. Vital force remained to burn. Burning all remaining life in one go, in exchange for blazing power. He yanked the Old King’s hand close.
Near enough to feel each other’s breath. Fernandez released the hand, seizing the king’s forehead. Unbelievable for a body riddled with mortal wounds. A vise-like grip clamped his skull.
With the growl of Hell’s archdemon. With the intonation of a heavenly god’s decree. Fernandez stared into the Old King’s eyes. Into the abyss of those black orbs, at the trembling spirit within. With blazing eyes.
“To any god, any words. Earnestly.”
[…You. You, you die here! I, I will go. My victory!! I am immortal!]
The abyss in the Old King’s eyes receded. The spirit clung to the king’s body fled in terror. Fractured mystic vision caught its ethereal form one last time.
-Rumble!
Papftet’s spirit rose above the mana-whipped audience chamber. It headed for the leap spell at the center. A spatial jump impassable to flesh. As a spirit, slipping through to hide elsewhere would hand it victory.
Amid the vortex, its foul grin appeared. Terror fled its eyes. Fernandez, feeling his body cool, cried out.
“Abel, never transform into a dragon again.”
[No. No! What are you plotting?!]
Abel, who had stared blankly at Fernandez, hastily reached out to grasp him. Somehow, somehow save him. Surveying his wounds, she cried in panic.
[Don’t leave like this. You can’t leave like this!]
She knew nothing of his stigmata. He had never died easily before her, or anyone. Fernandez smiled, sensing her grief in her eyes, her emotions through the chain.
‘This life was worthwhile, at least.’
He hadn’t heard hatred and screams until the moment his corpse formed. Better than his past life. Feizashi’s mocking laugh echoed at his words. ‘Hurry and do what you must.’ ‘Yes, I will.’
-Rumble!!
The chain began to fracture. Abel’s arm froze. As the domination rite severed, scattering mana recoiled into her. Like iron filings to a magnet, strength flooded her body in an instant.
And in time slowing to a crawl. The chain’s end split and burst. Black chain fragments powdered the air. Mana absorbed, the spirit’s movements lagged—
-Clank!!
Fernandez whipped his arm, lashing the dangling chain. The rapidly evaporating domination chain sliced the air, snaring the spirit’s neck!
[Kuh—ghk!]
“For severing a nation’s wealth. For scorning a nation’s dynasty. For meddling in the living’s karma as an emissary. For bewitching the people as a false god, daring to usurp divine authority!”
-Clank!!
The chain tautened, yanking the spirit to the floor. It swiftly formed seals to dispel the magic, but Fernandez’s hand moved faster.
Dragged across the floor, it clawed at the chain around its neck with one hand, frenziedly sealing with the other. Desperate gestures: release, release, release!
-Clank!
“Holy Pantheon, grant your blessing.”
Along the domination chain, Fernandez’s final mana—the scant thread that never reached Abel—flowed into the spirit’s mana circuits. With the precision of threading a needle blindfolded. Shattering all its spells!
[Is this a feat granted to mortals?!]
“The defendant’s sentence is eternal imprisonment.”
-Clank!!
The domination chain fully coiled its neck. The spirit scraped the floor, shrieking in terror. Fernandez’s dying form loomed gigantic, an unknowable abomination.
Against a backdrop of blazing earth, cloaked in jet-black shadow. Worshipped by myriad demons, impaling countless heroes’ corpses on pikes—the arch warlock’s visage flashed in the spirit’s hollow eyes.
-Clank!!
This could not be the end! It could not perish eternally with him. The domination chain pierced its soul and spirit, binding them. In horrific unity, the spirit wailed.
[Even if I perish, I’ll grant you the most gruesome death!!]
The spirit charged. Before its soul shattered fully, with all its might! Dragging the chain. Fernandez’s limp body followed its motions. The spirit leaped toward the spatial jump spell, crying.
[Your death will receive no elegy. You’ll rot alone in the Great Master’s domain!! My victory!!]
Shild’s blessing offered no more vital force to burn. Fernandez relaxed, dragged leisurely by the chain. As his life ebbed, the bound spirit’s form crumbled too.
The Necropolis conclave. Papftet, guardian of the fifth pillar. One down made breaching the Necropolis far easier.
Fernandez smirked at the fracturing spirit. It was half-submerged in the spatial jump spell. From the black sphere’s darkness, its split face grinned vilely.
-Clank!!
The chain pulled, sucking Fernandez’s body into the leap spell’s sphere.
‘Just as I hoped.’
Fernandez’s vision drowned in darkness. Simultaneously, the spatial jump portal sealed. He chuckled at the dramatic flair. Ugly, painful, fearful descent. All too familiar.
He smiled as space warped, grinding his flesh with pressure.
*