Chapter 119
Chapter 119
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 119
Chapter Title: Devouring the Night God
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79th floor.
Only darkness existed there.
Havel slowly looked around.
There was no sensation of suffocation or anything like that.
It was literally the feeling of stepping into a massive calamity.
"Havel."
But it was different for Valea.
She gazed at her own body, which was gradually turning translucent.
Proof that the God of Night was absorbing her calamity.
That confirmed it for certain.
The moment the God of Night descends, Tendar will surely perish.
"Valea."
Havel infused calamity into Valea.
Her translucent form sharpened a little.
Calamity was still leaking out bit by bit.
But the higher the density of calamity, the slower the absorption rate became.
"Stay back for a moment."
After handing over enough calamity to Valea, Havel headed toward the center.
The God of Night's calamity was staggeringly vast indeed.
Enough to fill an entire floor.
In the past, even Havel might have been devoured by it instead.
But now, with his calamity having transcended into a calamity lord...
Now, it was fine.
Havel raised his hand.
Then, the God of Night's calamity began flowing into his grasp.
'Too slow.'
The God of Night was still advancing toward Tendar.
This pace wouldn't cut it.
The God of Night was being drawn to another massive clump of calamity.
So Havel felt that simple absorption alone wasn't enough.
'Then.'
Calamity began pouring out from Havel's body in reverse.
Havel had been collecting calamity nonstop since the Demonic Palace, all the way up the tower.
And sure enough, the calamity spilling from his body burrowed straight into the God of Night in an instant.
"Huh."
Valea swallowed hard at the sight right before her eyes.
A new sea was being born within the sea.
Havel's calamity spread without end.
Not only did it push back the God of Night's calamity—it even shoved the God of Night itself away.
And the moment it finally reached the floor's edge...
Boom!
The entire floor shuddered.
Fearful that the shrimp's back might burst in a whale fight, Valea shrank in on herself.
Then, as silence briefly crept over the surroundings...
Thud!
The entire floor shook once more.
This time, the vibrations were sharply felt.
Just from some colossal thing moving, the floor was quaking.
The entire floor.
The entire world began inching slowly toward somewhere.
That motion grew faster, bit by bit.
Before long, acceleration set in.
The entire God of Night was being dragged toward Havel.
Havel began absorbing every last drop of the God of Night's power that had been pulled in.
Perhaps due to the sheer volume of calamity.
Havel's body shook violently.
His nearly white hair whipped about.
Clatter!
Even Havel's teeth chattered from the incoming calamity.
It was that overwhelming an amount—too much for anyone to handle.
Anyone else would have been crushed and exploded by the calamity itself.
But Havel took it all in relentlessly, without a care.
Havel's hand gradually turned black.
His eyes gleamed a vivid blue.
"Havel!"
Valea screamed.
Even from this distance, she could feel how much strain he was under.
But all she could do was hold out to keep from being pulled toward him.
She had no choice but to watch.
Havel drew in a massive breath.
Then he raised both arms.
"Don't worry. It'll be over soon."
Havel awakened the power of the calamity lord.
The calamity lord was insatiably greedy.
Awakening from deep within Havel's body, it yawned its mouth impossibly wide.
All at once, it began gulping down the God of Night's calamity indiscriminately.
Whoosh.
The speed at which the God of Night's calamity was drawn in began accelerating rapidly.
Valea stared in horror at the spectacle.
Cracks were spiderwebbing across Havel's arm, blackened by calamity.
Even his diamond-hard body was fracturing.
It had to be an absurd level of strain, yet he refused to yield an inch.
In Valea's eyes, Havel seemed utterly at ease.
He might be the eye of the storm itself.
But he never shook in its fury, always holding onto that composure.
Yet that was less than half of Havel's true self.
Havel was a walking embodiment of tenacity his entire life.
He had picked up a sword in a Banpellyon that had nothing.
The man who raised himself up to join the Three Great Families.
A hero who forged countless achievements in the unification war wielding a single blade.
Even when all others perished and only he regressed.
Refusing to quit, climbing the Demonic Palace over and over until he reached the summit.
That was Havel.
Tenacity and grit had propelled him here more than anything.
His recent battles had been so effortless that it hadn't shown.
But when needed, he could summon it in spades.
Even if it wrecked his body.
His eyes snapped wide open.
Long ago, as he climbed the Demonic Palace.
His spirit, which had endured the vicious curse of regression to the very end, blazed fiercely.
Crack!
More fissures spread across Havel's arms.
Crack crack crack!
Finally, unable to hold, both arms shattered and fell away.
But Havel kept devouring the God of Night.
Snap!
And when his left arm finally tore free...
Crunch!
Havel clamped down on his ripping left arm with his teeth, holding on with grim determination.
Ruuuuumble!
At last, the moment the entire space warped with a colossal ring...
Whoosh!
A blast of wind streaked past Havel.
Beneath the pitch-black void where not even an inch ahead had been visible moments before.
Far off, Tendar's skies came into view.
As Tendar gleamed below the clouds, Havel's body began its slow descent.
'Feels like it's been ages since I poured out my energy.'
As he plummeted alongside his battered body.
Flutter!
The sound of something soaring up reached him.
Soon after, someone caught his body.
His diamond-hard frame was being cradled with desperate gentleness, as if it might shatter at any second.
Valea, princess of the crow Tendar tribe.
Served hand and foot her whole life.
But none of that mattered to her now.
"Havel!"
Tears welled in her eyes.
The Night Lion had saved Tendar once again.
Even though the Tendar tribe could offer the Night Lion nothing in return.
"Your arm."
She stared at his pulverized arm.
Her eyes quivered.
She could feel just how brutally he had clashed with the God of Night to absorb it.
Powerless to do anything, she felt only helplessness and grief.
"We have to heal it fast."
"No need."
Havel seized his half-dusted left arm with his right hand.
His right hand creaked too, but he paid it no mind.
Then, with practiced ease, he slammed his arm back onto the empty left stump.
Squelch—.
In that instant, fresh flesh sprouted and fused with it.
Valea wore a stunned expression.
Havel then checked his reattached left arm like it was routine.
"I'm immortal. This is nothing."
She looked utterly bewildered.
To wield such power and be immortal on top of it.
"You're like cheating, Havel."
Valea muttered blankly.
But soon, a slow smile spread across her face.
It was a smile brimming with the joy of a flower in full bloom.
"But that's precisely why you could protect Tendar."
As Valea spoke those words and turned to Havel.
For some reason, Havel kept staring off into the distance.
"No, not yet."
"Pardon?"
The moment Valea turned to him with a puzzled look.
Thud!
Suddenly, the entire floor began shaking again.
Valea's face hardened.
From the horizon's edge, Tendar's continent started crumbling.
"Wh-what, why—why?!"
She cried out.
Tendar was perishing anew.
They had slain the God of Night, so why!
"Because the God of Night is gone."
Havel said, gazing at the shattering continent.
"Pardon? What do you—"
Valea's body went rigid as she started to ask.
The God of Night had been Tendar's perfect counterpart.
They were inextricably linked.
When one fell, so did the other.
With the God of Night now collapsed...
Tendar could no longer hold and began crumbling too.
Valea stared at the sight, utterly lost.
The face of one bereft of her nation.
They had struck down the God of Night to save Tendar.
Now Tendar was doomed without it.
No dilemma like this one.
Tears streamed from her eyes.
Her face drowned in profound despair.
"Valea, remember what I told you."
"What you said..."
Valea gazed at Havel with a dazed expression.
"That you could do it."
Valea slowly lifted her head.
"Me...?"
"Your bloodline harbors the Star Sword. It can recreate the God of Night. But."
Havel paused, looking at Valea.
The God of Night would form inside Valea's body.
Meaning she could no longer remain in Tendar.
Baldoran's line would end here.
Valea fell silent, facing Havel.
She knew exactly what he intended.
"So that's what you meant."
Losing her life.
Only now did she grasp the true meaning.
If she awakened as the God of Night, she could no longer be Valea Tendar.
And that was as good as death, even if she lived.
Valea looked down at Tendar.
Her beloved homeland, Tendar.
Gazing quietly at her nation, Valea soon raised her head.
Her eyes shone vividly with starlight once more.
"Havel, thank you. For everything until now."
From the progenitor's era.
Up to this very day.
Havel had intervened deeply in her bloodline.
And it had led to this moment.
"And thank you for saving Tendar to the very end."
Despair was gone from Valea's eyes.
Pride dawned on her face.
"One who receives grace must pass it on."
And that visage strikingly resembled her progenitor, Baldoran.
Havel couldn't help recalling his image.
His judgment of character had been spot on, as always.
Havel's hand touched Valea's chest.
Valea's eyes fluttered shut gently.
Calamity from the God of Night began flowing from his hand.
A kind smile curved Havel's lips.
"Save the thanks."
Havel eyed the text arrayed before him.
"For later."
Havel looked once more at the text before his eyes.
This text manifesting in his vision was none other than the Demonic Palace's will.
The Demonic Palace was aiding Havel in clearing the tower.
These messages were prepared expressly for him by the Demonic Palace.
But one crucial point must not be forgotten.
'The master of the Demonic Palace's 10th tier.'
None other than Havel himself.
In other words...
'What aligns most with the Demonic Palace's will is...'
Havel's own will.
Calamity trickled from Havel's fingertip.
That calamity reached the text before him.
Sizzle—.
Grind—.
A horribly grating sound slowly echoed out.
Following that noise...
The text before Havel's eyes was unmistakably changing.
The shattered text fragmented and vanished.
New letters began embedding in their place, one by one.
The Demonic Palace had proposed awakening Valea as the God of Night.
But Havel had no intention of blindly following that suggestion.
It was Havel—not the Demonic Palace—who was clearing the tower.
'Me.'
Havel's finger halted sharply.
And soon, the completed text gleamed before his eyes.
Crunch!
In that instant, Havel's grip plunged into Valea's chest.
As Valea's eyes flew wide...
Havel yanked out what he'd seized.
Whoosh!
What emerged was something all too familiar to Havel.
The Star Sword.
A single blade that had spanned the 7th hierarchy.
"Ha... Havel?"
Valea, letting out a gasp, belatedly made out what it was.
Without the Star Sword, Valea looked mentally foggy.
Treating her like a distant niece, Havel patted her head.
"You can't repay a debt if you're dead."
He knew from experience with many others.
The dead can't settle their debts.
"So stay alive as long as you can."
With those words, Havel rocketed upward.
All at once, the God of Night's calamity churned in Havel's grasp, then...
Crunch!
...surged past him into the Star Sword.
True to its nature, the Star Sword devoured every scrap of the God of Night's calamity.
But one problem remained.
Even recreating the God of Night with its power...
It would simply be drawn back to Tendar.
Bringing the next apocalypse.
'So, one more time.'
Havel reached out to the Demonic Palace's power once again.
The Demonic Palace's calamity devoured anything with ravenous greed.
So Havel infused a portion of that Demonic Palace calamity into the Star Sword.
This was the tower, after all.
Calamity to feed on was everywhere.
The tower reacted belatedly, but it was too late.
Night's power was pouring from the Star Sword gripped in Havel's hand.
"If you're the one who birthed it..."
Havel's arm muscles swelled.
In a full throwing stance, he drew his arm back as far as it would go.
"...you raise it to the end."
Havel hurled the Star Sword with everything he had.
Whiiiiiing!
Slicing far through the overhead clouds before...
The Star Sword embraced the rift Valea had opened and passed through.
And as it hurtled deep into that space...
Grooo!
The Star Sword ballooned outward explosively.
Baaaaang!
With cataclysmic force, the God of Night's calamity erupted all at once.
The ceaseless torrent devoured every inch of space.
But this God of Night moved differently than before.
Once aimed to swallow Tendar whole.
Now, its path pointed upward.
Toward the tower.
The place teeming with the most calamity.
True to its Demonic Palace-bred avarice.
It sought to devour even its own creator.
Havel watched as he plummeted rapidly below.
Having expelled the God of Night's calamity in one go, exhaustion wracked his body.
As ever, a leisurely smile played on his lips.
Below Havel's descent.
His eyes met Valea's.
Hers were wider than ever before.
And Havel knew this would be the last glimpse.
"Valea Tendar."
To the bloodline of Tendar he'd journeyed with thus far.
"Live well."
Havel offered his final farewell.
The stair's end lay below Havel.
Just like the day he cleared the 6th hierarchy.
"Banpellyon affiliate, Havel."
Havel called out his name.
The name that would echo across the world.
Rang out across the entire tower once more.