Chapter 207: The God of Wisdom
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 207: The God of Wisdom
What the hell is with this guy?
White Lion, this is another one of your trap cards, isn't it!
I've never told this bastard I lost my memory.
No, wait. For starters, I'm not even sure myself if I've lost my memory or what.
To put it bluntly, isn't it possible Hyedam might just say, "Oh? My mistake. I re-ran the soul trace, and you are a possessor after all. Sorry about that"?
Of course, the chances of an Eight-Tailed Deep Layer Fox Spirit Shaman being wrong are slim.
In any case, it's strange to hear those words coming from the White Lion.
What do you know about me!
"When you descended into the Abyss with that fox party to face the Master," the White Lion said.
"You didn't seem like an ordinary human. The Master thought you were a joker card sent by Wizus. So naturally, I watched you closely as well."
When did he watch me closely? It was when I was dragged to the magic university as a slave and formed a four-person party with the skinny fanatic, the sweaty fatty, and Yernil.
"But it was strange. The extreme fear, tension, and panic you showed before and after entering the Labyrinth as a slave… no matter how I looked at it, it wasn't an act. You didn't seem like the same human who had descended into the Abyss to face the Labyrinth Master."
It must have been confusing for the White Lion.
The same guy who descended into the Abyss, cast an illusion on Hyedam with fox magic, stabbed and killed her, and summoned a Gumiho to take on the Labyrinth Master, was now having a mental breakdown and struggling with mere 1st-floor goblins and traps.
"So I thought you had been possessed."
The White Lion had been certain of it.
And relieved.
"I thought an assassin from the Ethereal Galaxy, one of Wizus's pawns, had been replaced by some third-rate possessor. But then."
However, an event occurred that threw his mind into utter chaos: my confrontation with Meldini.
"You proved you weren't a possessor while under Lie Detection Magic."
The White Lion looked like he was about to lose his mind back then.
He couldn't tell what was an act and what was a lie, or what the truth was.
But recently, the mystery was solved.
"You said you could break the Lie Detection Magic, didn't you? You even admitted that you were, in fact, a possessor."
When Meldini killed Professor Clay in the west tower of the magic university, I confessed the truth to her.
That I was, in fact, a possessor.
The White Lion heard that conversation.
How did he hear it?
Hmm.
The Spider Doctor could also hear every conversation on the 3rd floor, because he was the eyes of the 3rd floor itself.
It seems Inter-floor Lords can obtain far more information than one might think from the floors they rule.
And the sentries the Gourmet Whale carried in its belly back then were from the 9.5th floor.
Which means the area manifested on the 1st floor of the surface was the 9th floor of the Labyrinth.
The White Lion's territory.
He heard my conversation with Meldini. And so.
"My conclusion is simple. You are a possessor, and you lost your memory after your battle with the Master."
“……”
"And the only person who could have done that is Wizus."
This part was somewhat persuasive.
The Labyrinth Master didn't seem to know that I'd lost my memory.
Instead, he just rambled on about how I was a clone of Wizus, his sworn enemy, and the only foe left for the final eruption.
My memory loss wasn't the Labyrinth Master's doing.
And I still don't know the cause.
"Wizus."
Could the White Lion really be right?
"He is a wizard of time," the White Lion said.
"Let me teach you a little about the Age of Myths. Listen carefully. This is the greatest crime and secret the Ethereal Galaxy has hidden for the last thirty thousand years."
The details of his story were, quite literally, difficult to accept.
But they were not metaphors.
It was a time when the world itself was not yet fully formed, still incomplete.
In the Age of Myths, when rocks had not yet settled on a form and writhed like amoebas, when the sea had not yet chosen its color and the waves shattered in a kaleidoscope of hues with every crash.
For this story is the final chapter of that era.
*
Just as every race has a king, the gods, too, had a leader.
He was called...
The 'God of the Hourglass.'
He possessed an impossibly vast hourglass, and once he turned it over, he wielded absolute power until the last grain of sand had fallen.
The king's authority was something no other god could match.
And he…
"My time, too, is now at an end."
Even the king of the gods could not escape the laws he himself had set. The time in his hourglass had run out.
"But I am glad I found it before the end."
The God-King, who had cared for Wizus, Sanfriel, Nathaniel, Bearhim, and countless other gods as if they were his own children, had found his own tomb.
It was the seed of the end, which had existed since the world's birth.
A passage that would swallow all the sand of the hourglass, the very gravity that pulled those grains downward.
"The Labyrinth."
The God-King discovered a staircase. It was the first staircase to appear in the unripe world, at the very location where the city of Sohen would one day stand.
"The world is a beautiful place, my children. Do not be too sad when I am gone."
The God-King bestowed his power upon each of his children.
To Wizus, he gave a fountain pen and wisdom.
To Sanfriel, courage and a spirit of sacrifice.
To Nathaniel, an abacus.
To Bearhim, the fungi.
"To you, I give a compass."
To his youngest daughter, a goddess as lovely as a spring dandelion whom he cherished dearly, he gave the Compass of Greed.
He did this because she was the least greedy of all the gods.
"With this, you will share all the treasures you find with your friends. I will give you parchment as well, so you may write down what your friends desire."
The God-King descended the stairs.
The first floor below ground was like a dark fortress of well-laid brick.
The God-King told his children who had followed him that far to return to the surface.
He passed through hot, humid swamps.
He crossed snowy plains where his feet sank deep with every step.
He traversed volcanic lands where debris and ash flew and lava erupted.
He crossed the burning sands of the desert.
He passed through forests teeming with mushrooms.
He crossed a sea of endless descent.
He crossed grasslands and wastelands where sparse blades of grass grew.
He passed through the domain of death, filled with skulls and bones.
And he passed through the maze of the world's root, its umbilical cord.
Utterly exhausted, the God-King found another staircase. Even on the 10th floor, there was a way down. And below it…
"Beautiful."
The God-King discovered the Ethereal Galaxy.
A beautiful, sapphire-colored galaxy flowed there, and the seed of a new universe was stirring to life.
The final predator, the one that would kill the God-King and devour this world, was there.
"Labyrinth Master."
He was the master of the Abyss and the creator of the next world. And he was this world's apex predator.
The God-King placed the hourglass before him.
"I have come to give this to you."
The mountain-sized hourglass was the heavy burden the God-King had shouldered his entire life.
The moment he set it down, the God-King tasted a joy of liberation greater than any he had ever known.
"My turn is now over, and yours has begun. Turn the hourglass."
It was the moment the Labyrinth Master's consciousness awakened.
He awoke from a long slumber and opened his eyes. He raised his hand, and the Ethereal Galaxy surged up with it.
He clenched his fist. The Ethereal Galaxy became a wave and began to rush toward the God-King.
It was a mouth.
The Labyrinth is a great intestine, and the Ethereal Galaxy is its digestive fluid.
Now, the God-King and the hourglass were to be digested within it.
But just before the wave crashed down, the God-King sensed an unexpected presence.
Someone had followed him from the surface.
"Wizus?"
Having inherited the God-King's wisdom, he was the only one who understood the God-King's will.
He did not want to let the God-King go like this.
"The world still needs your power."
"My time is up, my child."
"My time is just beginning."
"Your time...?"
The God-King knew what his son intended to do.
He hid the hourglass behind his back as if to protect it.
"Wizus. You cannot handle this."
"I now possess the same wisdom as you."
"The hourglass is not something that can be handled with wisdom alone."
"You will see."
“……”
The God-King was a being who commanded moments.
He would never be bested in such a fight.
However, his hourglass had run out of time. Not a single grain of sand still flowed. His turn was already over.
And he could not turn the hourglass over again, because it had to be passed to the Labyrinth Master.
The God-King's predicament, unable to act one way or the other.
Wizus's wisdom had grown sharp enough to strike at that precise vulnerability.
He was a sinner who had entered the gap between turns and disrupted the system.
In the very instant the Ethereal Galaxy was about to swallow the God-King…
Clang!
Wizus snatched the hourglass and fled.
"No!"
He felt the Labyrinth Master's furious roar echoing behind him.
The Labyrinth Eruption that occurred that day was unplanned.
Like a person who has eaten something foul vomiting the contents of their stomach, the gastric juices poured out. The Ethereal Galaxy erupted.
It chased Wizus, surging back up through the ten floors of the Labyrinth. The surface was flooded.
The Ethereal Galaxy, exploding like a volcano, embroidered the highest reaches of the sky.
From the Abyss, the Labyrinth began to spit out pursuers to retrieve the hourglass Wizus had stolen.
Gods like Bearhim fought fiercely against the Labyrinth, but they were outnumbered.
One by one, the gods were devoured. The survivors fled to the far reaches of the cosmos—into the handful of the Ethereal Galaxy the eruption had left in the sky.
The Labyrinth devoured every primitive being on the surface.
And…
"I must replenish time."
From within the Ethereal Galaxy, Wizus began to use the most dangerous magic.
It was a Tier 10 magic that used the hourglass.
Wizus had no intention of letting his time end like the God-King's.
'Time Theft.'
The reason all mortals on the surface must die.
The reason their time is finite.
It is because Wizus is casting that Tier 10 magic from the Ethereal Galaxy.
He is a wizard of time.
He is the devil who steals time from all beings.
*
"My wife, my daughter... it was Wizus who stole their time. The reason all mortals on the surface must die is also because of Wizus."
The White Lion realized this within the Labyrinth and set down Wizus's fountain pen.
He decided to no longer serve Wizus. He abandoned all the magic Wizus had bestowed upon the surface.
"And that's not all. Where do you think the empty gaps in history—between the Age of Myths, the Age of the Nine Kings, and the modern era—come from?"
“……”
"That bastard can even steal time from within a person's mind."
Time and wisdom are closely related. Because a person can store information from a specific time in their mind.
Sometimes, if that wisdom reaches a significant level, one can even retain the vivid smells, textures, and sounds of a time that no longer exists.
Therefore…
"Wizus is also the cause of all mortal oblivion."
How am I supposed to take a story like this?
"Your memory loss is likely because of Wizus, too. There must be a reason. For example, if you..."
The White Lion said.
"...had learned one of Wizus's secrets."
What kind of secret?
I have one guess. That shattered, giant hourglass in the Ethereal Galaxy.
"Wizus wants to use you like a pawn, too. But since you won't move as he wishes, he stole a portion of time from your mind."
The White Lion said.
"You all."
This time, not just to me, but to all of us.
"Join the Labyrinth."