Chapter 129
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 129
The silent night forest had transformed into a nightmare of light, fire, blood, and lightning.
The forest animals had long since fled, leaving only the deep-rooted plants to fall victim to the overwhelming violence.
Kadram, an Arabion noble and one of the hosts of this macabre festival, swept his hand to deflect a blade of wind. He retaliated by launching a translucent sphere; upon impact, it imploded, annihilating the surrounding air and creating a localized vacuum.
"Whew..."
Seizing a brief moment of respite, Kadram exhaled a long sigh.
Setting aside the fact that Turan had gained new abilities and Ymir had made his exit, the tide of battle wasn't yet entirely unfavorable for Kadram. Just because Turan had discovered the secret of the symbol combinations didn't mean the wounds he had sustained until moments ago would suddenly vanish.
The problem was that his mind, which should have been focused entirely on the fight, was cluttered with complex thoughts.
To use a combination technique involving soul magic... has someone already taken over his body? I didn't sense anything at all when we were talking earlier.
They had remained in this world for thousands of years. Of course, there were periods when they rested without occupying a physical vessel, and they had been separated for long stretches of time, so it was difficult to say they had known each other perfectly for that entire duration.
However, when they met in person and spoke, they usually recognized one another. Their unique personalities and the distinct mindsets of those born and raised differently from commoners tended to bleed into their speech and actions.
Furthermore, the fact that he was using techniques involving the power of the Storm Bloodline was shocking. Not even the bloodline of a Mimic or an object imbued with such power should be able to replicate that.
That meant Turan’s body was either a possessor of four bloodlines, including the Storm Bloodline, or the nameless ghost dwelling within him could wield the power of the storm itself.
There are hardly any whose souls are imprinted with the Grand Mage or Thunder Master types. And a combination of the two is unheard of...
Could it be that one of those thought to have perished in the distant past had returned? Like the rumors of Otas returning from the dead?
No, that seemed unlikely; his execution of the techniques was visibly amateurish. It was a stark contrast to his proficiency with wind manipulation magic itself. To any observer, he looked like a novice who had only just succeeded in combining the Storm-type and was desperately trying out any technique he could think of.
"Ugh!"
His thoughts were cut short as a searing heat flared in his ankle, drawing a groan from Kadram. A platinum-white whip slithered back like a snake.
While distracting him with wind blades as before, Turan had subtly closed the distance and hidden a strike of Judgment Light beneath him. It was a trick Kadram wouldn't have fallen for had he been fully focused, but his overthinking had proven fatal.
Dammit...
He hurriedly used flight magic to soar into the sky, hoping to minimize the loss of his ankle, but just as before, Turan used wind magic to destabilize the air, making flight nearly impossible.
The way he channeled wind magic to his limbs with such varying force and precision... Kadram had noticed it before, but the boy’s talent was staggering. It was as if a pile of ocean debris had been tossed by the waves and somehow washed ashore as a fully functional aircraft.
The man who had elicited such awe from Kadram, Turan, was currently shivering from the chills of excessive blood loss while gauging the "handles" within his mind.
This one is the vortex, this one is the wind blade, and this one is the wind barrier.
At first, he had been grabbing whatever he could reach, like a child fumbling with a complex tool, but he was starting to get a feel for what each handle did. He could tell if a handle was too heavy to pull right now, or if another was imbued with the power of the wind attribute.
Naturally, he avoided touching the handles that wielded the power of lightning. If that armor was the "Heavenly Guardian" he had heard about from Meisa, lightning attacks would only serve to recharge its power.
To think my experience in the Arena would be helpful again.
Maintaining coherent thought while in the throes of agonizing pain was no easy feat. No matter how bold a person might be, facing death was a rare experience.
However, Turan had been wounded even more severely than this while fighting Meisa and Solif. For an ordinary person, those memories alone would have become nightmares. But for Turan, they served as a forge to further temper his mind.
Next is this one.
Click. He pulled an unfamiliar handle, and his body accelerated. It was a sensation entirely different from the thought acceleration of lightning magic; it felt as if his physical body itself was moving at high speeds.
Sprinting across the ground as if half-flying with the aid of flight magic, Turan maintained a proper distance from Kadram and sprayed a massive amount of the Water of Death.
The opponent's relic, the Heavenly Guardian, sensed the harmful substance and immediately evaporated it, but the resulting steam of the Water of Death was incredibly toxic.
"Cough, hack...!"
Inhaling the toxic air, Kadram tried to blow it away with wind magic, but Turan had no intention of letting him. In a contest of skill between wind magic users, Turan was the overwhelming victor.
As the toxic steam was pushed back toward him every time he tried to clear it, Kadram was forced to hold his breath and flee on his one good leg, limping away.
As I thought. Since his technique involves seizing control of magic, he can't deal with this kind of indirect attack.
Turan continued to spray the Water of Death, creating toxic clouds and driving Kadram into a corner with wind blades and vortices. He avoided aiming directly for the head or torso, as those were easily parried or dodged, and instead systematically targeted the limbs.
A few Arabion mages, realizing their leader was in peril, tried to intervene, but after seeing their comrades decapitated by a casual flick of Turan's hand, they dared not interfere further. They could see well enough that the battle between these two had transcended the realm of ordinary mages.
One minute passed.
After a desperate pursuit, Kadram, with one arm and both legs severed, tumbled helplessly onto the ground. Turan looked down coldly at his neutralized opponent.
"...I don't suppose you'll tell me who you really are if I ask?"
"Obviously not," Turan replied curtly.
He noticed that while Kadram's face showed signs of frustration, it lacked the fear or despair typical of those facing imminent death.
"Are you not afraid of death?"
"Well, I wonder."
Kadram mimicked the ambiguous tone Turan had used earlier, a mocking smirk on his face. He was an immortal who had lived for thousands of years and would continue to do so. To him, the death of this physical shell was merely a single failure.
Likely, Ymir's attitude earlier—exiting because his time was up—stemmed from the same sense of security. If it had been a fight they truly had to win, if a single victory were desperate, they would have fought until their very last breath.
Turan found this stoic confidence utterly loathsome. While he and his companions fought with their one and only lives on the line, these beings were allowed to try dozens or hundreds of times, swapping bodies like changing clothes.
It was time to change that.
"Then I shall give you a reason to be afraid."
Before Kadram could even ask what that meant, a wind blade extending from Turan's hand severed his neck.
*
As his vision spun, Kadram inwardly sighed at the sharp pain.
Tsk, I died.
He had expected Turan to keep him alive to extract information. Then again, the battle wasn't over yet, so there was hardly time for the luxury of taking hostages.
As he felt his soul slowly drifting from his body, Kadram's first thought was of his superior's reprimand. A being who was once an equal—perhaps even someone Kadram had once looked down upon—but who had now become someone he dared not defy.
Due to this failure, he would likely have to spend some time at the bottom of the hierarchy among his peers. He might get another chance if he found a body with the right affinity and talent, but the power he currently wielded, controlling a Great House, would likely be given to someone else.
I'll have to put in some effort for a while. And shift the blame to Ymir...
As he contemplated the aftermath, Kadram suddenly felt that the speed at which his soul was drifting away was far too slow. No, it felt as if someone was holding onto him—
[Where do you think you're going?]
Along with a spiritual voice he had never heard before, his spirit body began to be violently dragged somewhere.
Only then did Kadram realize that Turan was standing before him, having also extracted his own spirit from his body.
Turan's spirit, manifesting from the sanctuary of his mind to take human form, was far from ordinary. While basic features like hair, facial features, and build were the same as his physical body, two wings sprouted from his back, and deer antlers grew from his head.
As an expert in soul magic, Kadram knew these signified the Storm Bloodline. The deer antlers symbolized the dragon that commands lightning, and the wings symbolized the bird that flies through the wind.
Unlike the physical world where such traces were hidden, they manifested clearly when a complete spirit body was manifested in the spiritual realm.
The problem was that these weren't his only changes. His pupils were slit vertically like a snake's, and black dust drifted around his body. Those two were unmistakably the characteristics of the Pursuer and the Hunter.
Four traits...
Of course, the fact that Turan's spirit showed four traits wasn't entirely surprising. He had already suspected Turan was one of "those who crossed over," and their souls invariably possessed four powers.
What Kadram couldn't understand was the combination. A Thunder Master, a Grand Mage, a Hunter, and a Pursuer? Traces left on the soul should be entirely separate from the bloodline of the possessed vessel; if so, it meant his very essence was composed of that combination.
Surely none among them possessed such a bizarre combination—
[This is where you belong.]
As Turan's spirit reached out with those words, a massive gravitational pull was generated, sucking in Kadram's consciousness.
The source of the pull was the small jewelry box held by Turan's physical body. Kadram realized that it was an object created by his leader, a tool specialized for snatching and binding spirit bodies.
[How!]
Ymir was supposed to have lost that item while trying to use it. Only then could Kadram be certain that Turan was one of the mysterious group that had claimed to be descendants of Otas back then.
Could it be, really Otas? No. That guy is dead. But then what is this—
His thoughts were cut short as Kadram was forced into a spiritual brawl with Turan's lunging spirit.
Naturally, the fight was a one-sided slaughter in Turan's favor. Unlike Kadram, who had lost his body and was little more than a rootless spirit, Turan was anchored by a clearly living, breathing body, even if it was heavily injured.
Since spiritual combat also consumes a form of resource, the side with a functioning source of supply was naturally stronger. No, it wasn't just that. He could feel that the power of Turan's soul itself—his so-called "weight class"—was superior to Kadram's.
It was just like when he had the Ruler-Tamer bloodline in his body...
[Wait, spare—]
Feeling a sense of crisis for the first time, Kadram cried out desperately, but Turan's spirit ignored him and continued the beating.
The health of a soul is its willpower. As impacts that would have shattered bones and knocked out teeth in the physical world continued, Kadram's consciousness began to fade.
A moment later, Turan's spirit, holding the tattered remains of Kadram's spirit, stuffed him into the jewelry box that existed simultaneously in the physical and spiritual worlds.
*
"Aaaah!"
"R-Run! It's a monster!"
After launching a spear of flame at the fleeing Arabion mages, Solif groaned softly at the pain. His body, beaten, cut, and pierced, was screaming in protest.
"Ugh, I'm seriously gonna die..."
Kicking away the snow leopard that had died with a broken neck earlier, he saw Meisa plunging a sword into the body of an Arabion Elder in the distance. Beside her, another who appeared to be an Elder lay half-charred; it seemed that fight was over as well.
Searching for somewhere else to help, his gaze eventually landed on Turan. For some reason, Turan was standing with his eyes closed next to Kadram's corpse, holding the jewelry box. Bije sat atop his head, eyes glowing as she kept watch for enemies.
"Oh, you won?"
Perhaps happy about the four-on-one victory, Bije simply nodded in response.
Just then, Turan snapped his eyes open and closed the lid of the jewelry box.
"Got him."
"Who? Don't tell me, Kadram?"
"Yeah."
Turan could finally smile at the fact that he had won an overwhelming victory in his first spiritual battle.
"I hope Kadram doesn't end up hurting the old Librarian in there."
"It's fine. I've partitioned the space inside."
Back when he knew nothing of soul magic, Turan could hardly use the jewelry box, but after awakening his Spiritual Awareness, he had learned several more ways to operate it. One of them was partitioning the space within the box for different purposes.
Using this, Turan had designated the area where the Librarian stayed as a "guest room" where he could leave freely when the lid was open, and created a separate "prison" to bind Kadram and any other gods he might capture later. Of course, there was also a separate "storage" for the soul fragments he had obtained previously.
"Never mind that, let's treat our wounds first. We're in terrible shape."
"True..."
Turan took a recovery potion artifact from his pouch, injected mana, and gulped it down. It was no longer an item capable of dramatic healing, but it could at least restore the stamina lost to bleeding.
Meanwhile, Solif and Meisa rounded up the surviving Arabion mages who hadn't fled or couldn't. Since there were many magic tools suitable for capture or containment—likely intended for Turan and Meisa—there was no shortage of equipment for the task.
"...Please, just spare our lives."
"Lady Meisa, do you remember me? We dined together back then—"
"Traitor! Filthy harlot!"
"How dare you abandon the family and side with outsiders!"
The reactions of the dozen or so survivors were varied. Some begged desperately for their lives, while others spat out their rage.
Seeing those who insulted her, Meisa's gaze turned icy. It seemed she would have killed them all if Turan hadn't told her to keep them alive beforehand.
"Everyone, please be quiet for a moment."
As Turan stepped forward to speak, everyone fell silent.
Because the battle had been so fierce, they hadn't fully grasped the situation, but they all knew one thing: the power of Kadram Arabion and the Nagin noble who accompanied him was truly immense, and Turan had emerged victorious against both. They didn't know that Ymir had essentially self-destructed by using power his vessel couldn't handle.
After a brief silence, a noble from a vassal family with the Frost Bloodline gnashed his teeth and snarled.
"...I know who you are, Turan Zahar. A Zahar lackey who drove a wedge between us and made off with our successor, right? No matter what you say, I won't be persuaded, so kill me if you're going to! My family will avenge me!"
As expected, the Arabion leadership, including Kadram, had fed their subordinates this narrative in advance. After all, these people weren't mindless dolls; they wouldn't have accepted orders to station themselves in this forest without a proper justification.
Turan looked at them, slowly choosing his words. He had a plan in mind, but it needed one final review before he spoke.
First, I can't reveal the existence of the gods to them.
The reason for keeping the fact that fallen gods were stealing human bodies a secret went without saying. If this truth were revealed, mages who were destined to have their bodies stolen, like Turan's group, would revolt.
But conversely, for those who worshipped the gods, this would actually strengthen their legitimacy. Regardless of the method, they were the great saviors of humanity and the ancestors of mages.
Therefore, Turan planned to frame them with a different lie—a deception crafted by mixing the information he had gathered in Lavitas.
"Do any of you know that the Arabion leadership has been occupied by White Elves since ancient times?"