Chapter 124
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 124
The edge of the Sky Mountains.
Turan crested the highest point in the world and widened his eyes at the sight unfolding before him.
What on earth is that…?
Turan had resolved not to be surprised by anything he found up here. It wouldn't be strange for anything to exist in a place no one had managed to cross for thousands of years. However, he had never imagined that the sky itself, let alone the land on the other side, would be so fundamentally different.
Beyond the ridge lay a vast expanse of pure white.
This was a place so high that even snow could not fall, yet that mysterious white substance filled the far side of the mountain range and the very heavens. It was so immense that it was hard to fathom why it couldn't be seen from a distance.
As Turan stared blankly, he realized his perception of it being "white" was an illusion.
There was red, blue, and green; there were yellows, cyans, and purples derived from them—every conceivable color mixed together. There were even more diverse shades of light that could only be perceived through the vision of the Illusion bloodline. It only appeared white because it was the result of all those lights being gathered and stirred together.
The stimulation wasn't just visual.
His keen sense of smell, capable of detecting the scent of blood from kilometers away, picked up a myriad of odors wafting from within that he hadn't sensed until a moment ago. The smell of burning wood, animal droppings, simmering strawberry jam, the sour tang of sweat—hundreds, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of scents were contained within.
When he listened closely, sounds reached him as well. From the murmuring of people to the cries of beasts, the sound of rolling stones, a strange buzzing, and songs played on unknown instruments.
Looking closer, it was difficult to even define it as "matter." It scattered like gas, surged and flowed like liquid, and hardened like a solid only to shatter upon impact…
Suddenly, a realization struck him. That substance was nothing in itself, yet it was also everything in this world.
"Ah."
As he forced his mouth open to let out a groan, he realized that the sound he just made was also part of that substance. No—looking down, he saw that most of his body was now composed of it as well. What could be called his "true" body was only a tiny fraction mixed in.
Had it always been this way? Or was it because he had reached this place and observed it?
With that thought, his entire body immediately went limp and began to melt, being absorbed toward the edge of the cliff.
Wait…
Contained within the substance flowing out of him was all the information that defined him.
Turan, child of Karim and Vizella. The hunter who chases the wind and hides within the lightning. The Savior of Kalamaf, the Three Chief Gods of the Southern Border, the Night…
"Stop—!"
The moment he shouted with all his might, his breath caught. Only then did Turan realize he was at the summit of the Sky Mountains, a place where even a handful of air was scarce.
No, soon even that suffocating feeling vanished. The muscles, blood vessels, and even the lungs that were supposed to receive oxygen had all flowed away. All that remained here was a tiny fraction of what should have been his essence—something no better than dregs.
No, perhaps that tiny bit of something was—
"Turan, Turan! Wake up, hurry!"
Turan opened his eyes to a shrill voice and felt a hard sensation against his back. Through his blurred vision, he saw Meisa with tears in her blue eyes and Solif with a deeply furrowed brow.
I’m alive…
He could vividly feel everything, from his hands touching the ground to the air filling his lungs as he inhaled and exhaled. It was as if the sensation of melting away just moments ago had been a lie.
However, for some reason, he was completely naked.
"Where is this?"
"Right below the Sky Mountains," Solif answered. "You climbed up alone and fell. Don't you remember?"
"Not at all…"
Turan clutched his throbbing head and recalled the sight he had seen. The mysterious substance that covered the land beyond the mountains and even the sky. Perhaps because he had stared at it for so long, a headache washed over him as if every fold of his brain was being finely crushed.
"More importantly, you said I climbed up alone? Didn't we arrive together?"
"The rope suddenly snapped halfway," Meisa explained. "I called out to you as loud as I could, but you ignored me and kept climbing."
Turan had taken the lead because his Earthkeeper bloodline made it easier to carve handholds into the cliff. Given the speed of climbing using those handholds, Solif, with his Guardian bloodline strength, should have been much faster. Yet, no matter how hard Solif climbed at full speed, the distance between him and Turan only grew.
While Solif was panting and hanging on for dear life, Turan had suddenly fallen from above, completely naked. Seeing this, Meisa had quickly dived after him, caught him with flight magic, and brought him down.
"I… I saw it. Up there—"
Turan started to speak but realized it was difficult to explain what he had seen. A substance that was nothing in itself but simultaneously everything in the world. It was impossible to convey its reality without seeing and feeling it directly.
No, was any of it even real? Perhaps it was a hallucination brought on by the lack of oxygen. But considering his clothes were gone, the fact that his body had melted must be—
"Wait, where's Bije?"
"She was with you," Meisa said, looking around.
"I didn't see her fly off anywhere," Solif added.
Only then did Turan realize that Bije had been clinging to his side as they climbed, but she was nowhere to be seen now. Racking his brain, he remembered that when his body melted, Bije had also melted and flowed out with him.
Could it be that she couldn't come back and went over to the other side?
—I'm here!
Just as he felt a dizzying sense of despair, a thin, girl-like voice echoed in Turan's head. Startled, he turned his head, but Solif and Meisa looked confused, not understanding his reaction.
"What's wrong?"
"I just heard a voice."
It was a voice he was hearing for the first time, yet it felt strangely familiar. It didn't take long to realize what it was. A golden eagle with a familiar appearance suddenly popped out from the center of Turan's chest.
"W-What!?"
"Bije!"
Bije, having emerged from Turan's body, let out her usual chirp and perched on his head. Looking closely, her physique seemed a bit smaller than before. Unlike the average-sized golden eagle she used to be, she now looked almost like a kestrel—a golden eagle chick to any outsider.
"What happened?"
—We merged when we melted! Now I can go into the perfect place!
It was a cryptic answer, similar to when they first met. But this time, he could roughly grasp the meaning. The souls and essences of Turan and Bije had melted and tangled together, allowing not just their souls but even their physical bodies to become one. Furthermore, because the soul bond had grown stronger in the process, they could now communicate their thoughts through voices.
Come to think of it, magic that can manipulate souls already existed.
A Tamer's soul-binding magic links the souls of a human and a magical beast, allowing for a weak level of emotional exchange. Though it was a very primitive level, it was clearly a magic that interfered with the soul. He wondered why he hadn't thought of this until now.
Solif waved his hand and spoke. "Well, I'm glad you seem safe, but let's start by recovering the things you dropped. It'll be bad if someone picks them up. And for heaven's sake, put some clothes on."
*
As a result of checking with tracking magic, important items like the Mimic Relic, the Guardian magic tool, and the high-capacity backpack were all found nearby. Since they were heavy, they had fallen straight down.
However, the clothes he had been wearing had been carried far away by the wind. Since they were clothes he had worn for a long time, he could find them with tracking magic, but because they had flown tens or hundreds of kilometers away, it seemed he would have to fly around on Bije for quite a while to get them back.
"I'll just make you new clothes," Meisa offered.
"I need to find them because some were gifts," Turan insisted.
"Asiz wouldn't want you to run around looking for clothes without resting in this state."
Although there was nothing physically wrong with him, Turan was suffering from an immense sense of lethargy. For a normal person, it would be like having a severe case of the flu. Since it was never a good sign for a noble—who doesn't catch common diseases—to be in such a state, what he needed now was rest.
Following Meisa's persuasion, Turan took out some disguise clothes from his high-capacity pouch, changed, and returned to the hideout. The Baraha couple, who were planting edible plants in the garden, were startled to see them return so soon.
"Oh, are you back already?"
"Don't tell me you succeeded…"
"No, not yet," Solif answered. "We just came back to rest for a bit. I'll tell you the details later."
"Will you be having dinner here? I'll set the table in advance."
"We'll see!"
Ignoring the conversation between Solif and the Baraha couple, Turan lay down in a spare room with Meisa's support.
"Do you want something to drink?"
"I'm fine. More importantly, let me tell you what I saw."
The two of them sat on the edge of the bed, eager to listen. After all, how could anyone in this world not be curious about what lay beyond the Sky Mountains?
Turan explained the scenery he saw atop the mountains as vividly as possible, exactly as he had felt it. The world beyond the mountains, the mysterious substance filling the land and sky, and the phenomenon of being sucked in just by perceiving it.
"Sigh…"
"At least the kind of hideout we imagined won't be possible," Meisa noted.
"Right. Not a chance."
From what he had seen, it was not a place where humans could dare to live. He guessed even the heads of the Great Families would be no different. The fallen gods must have also guessed the secret of that place to some extent, which is why they didn't bother trying to cross it.
"And I'm not sure about this, but that substance seemed to wrap around the world in a giant sphere. Even if you tried to cross from another region, or go high into the sky or deep underground, you'd probably be blocked."
"That kind of scale? I can't even guess what kind of substance it is just by hearing about it."
They discussed the identity of the substance blocking the outside of the world for a few minutes. Solif, as if suddenly remembering, pointed at Bije and asked, "By the way, what was that just now? Bije going into your body and coming out. Is it a new magic you learned?"
"This? I'm not sure how to explain it."
When Turan held out his hand to Bije, she poked his finger with her beak and then slid inside, disappearing. Even though she was smaller than before, a bird larger than a fist vanishing in an instant was a surreal phenomenon even by a mage's standards. A few seconds later, she emerged from his other hand and chirped.
"After our bodies were separated and then merged… just as the Judgment Light mixes fire and light, it seems our souls and mana have taken on the same properties and can now merge. That's my guess."
Additionally, perhaps because Bije's body itself had become half-mana, she was now able to adjust her size to some extent. To demonstrate, Turan grew Bije from the size of a kestrel to her original size, then to the size of a large dog, then to the level of a large predator, and even larger.
"Whoa."
"Wow…"
When the room, which had been quite spacious until a moment ago, was suddenly filled, she returned to her small size and did a little tail-wagging dance on Turan's hand. Meanwhile, the voice "Don't I look cool?" echoed in Turan's head.
"Is that all?"
"Probably. Of course, getting bigger isn't always good. The density of the mana composing her body thins out."
If the body gets bigger while the amount of mana stays the same, there would naturally be a loss in density. She might be able to exert more physical strength as her muscle mass increases, though. Still, being able to adjust these characteristics according to the situation was a huge advantage.
"And this is really the last thing."
Before they could ask what it was, Bije took flight from Turan's hand and vanished. After staring blankly for a moment, Solif let out a groan and clutched his forehead.
"How is it?"
"…Is it what I think it is?"
"Yes. Now Bije can also borrow Stealth and Tracking abilities from me."
Solif muttered, "This is truly insane. It's the end of the world. Even humans only have three bloodline abilities, but a bird? Seriously?"
Bije reappeared and pecked Solif's forehead, murmuring for him not to say bad things—though with a force too weak to break the head of someone with the Guardian bloodline.
"The form of the soul Bije originally had was probably compatible with Arabion, but as we mixed this time, you could say the Zahar form was engraved… something like that."
Stealth was one thing, but Bije being able to use tracking magic was a massive advantage. The essence of tracking is to amplify the senses toward a specific object. While Turan and other Zahar nobles used their superior sense of smell for this, Bije would be able to perceive targets with the superior eyesight unique to a golden eagle. She could fly high in the sky and look out over a radius of over a hundred kilometers.
Hearing this, Solif grumbled, "Won't a magical beast with a matching wavelength show up for me too?"
"You'll meet one if the opportunity arises."
"What if I just take any magical beast and go up there…?"
"I don't even know if you can make it up there, but even if you could, you'd better not."
Turan still remembered that dizzying sensation at the summit. The feeling of his entire body melting and flowing away, leaving only remnants that were hard to even recognize as his own. Without knowing how he had returned from that state, it was madness to climb back up expecting luck to strike twice.
*
A few days had passed since the attempt to climb the mountain range. While Turan rested quietly to recover, the others spent their time in different ways.
First, Meisa selected a few of Turan's spare clothes and began refining them into magic tools. She mobilized all of her vast mana and even borrowed the power of the Guardian bloodline from Solif. Considering that an Enchanter's power is the primary factor in a magic tool's strength, and the power of the person lending their bloodline ability is the second, the resulting performance was formidable. Of course, since creating such items would deplete her energy, she had to imbue them with a moderate level of power.
"How's your body?"
"So-so."
"Try some of this. It's tea made from herbs I picked a while ago."
Meisa also put all her effort into taking care of Turan, brewing tea from crops grown in the garden. For this, she received help from Romi, Solif's mother, who was familiar with the medicinal tea culture of the Baraha. Meisa demonstrated her resourcefulness by using plant growth magic to quickly grow the crops and applying the decay magic Turan had taught her to ferment them rapidly.
Turan, gulping down tea that tasted bitter, sour, fishy, and foul every day, slightly regretted teaching her that magic.
Solif mostly spent time with his parents, aside from occasionally helping Meisa with magic tool production. Since there were no servants to do chores, he had a lot to do, from teaching them simple house maintenance to procuring items they hadn't managed to get. Since it wouldn't do to expose their traces by visiting nearby villages, he bought items from a distant city that required over half a day's flight on Bije. Every time they went, they bickered so much that they always returned with minor scratches.
Finally, Bije was busy roaming around, except for the times she carried Solif. She was completely absorbed in playing with her newly transformed body. Normally, she maintained her smallest form, about the size of a kestrel, but when she felt like it, she would become a giant golden eagle with a wingspan of ten meters and hunt terrified animals. Thanks to her stealth ability, she could snatch prey silently even with that massive size, making her a true predator of death. She even showed the cunning of shrinking back down when eating so she could get full easily.
About two weeks passed. Finally, Turan was able to leave his bedroom.
I'm a bit dizzy, but… still, it's much better than before.
Walking into the garden without support for the first time in a while, Turan basked in the sunlight. Both his body and mana had long since recovered, but for some reason, his health had been slow to return. He now knew why that was.
I never imagined I'd succeed like this.
He thought of the introductory book on soul magic he had obtained while plundering the Baraha stronghold. Even while meditating faithfully according to it, Turan had often felt like there was a layer of skin he couldn't break through. However, a few days ago, while immersed in meditation with nothing else to do, he suddenly realized the truth.
The remnants that had resisted absorption at the summit—that something, which seemed like mere dregs, was his unchanging self. It was the medium that had pulled back his reality when it had almost been absorbed into the "outside." Because that newly awakened, weak power had forcibly pulled back such a massive reality, it had become paralyzed as if suffering from muscle pain, and his physical condition had worsened as an aftermath.
Click.
With a feeling like pressing a button inside his head, Turan awakened his Spiritual Awareness.