Chapter 82
Chapter 82
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: Humanity Reduction Scenario (2)
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The final meeting of AOD, hosted by Baek Do-hyun.
The atmosphere in the meeting was unusually solemn, far from its usual levity.
The Society's atrocities were wreaking havoc across the globe.
Even the AOD members, who normally kept things lighthearted, were taking this crisis with the utmost seriousness.
With Baek Do-hyun leading the way, the members racked their brains tirelessly and spoke up.
How should we resolve this?
How can we achieve a perfect victory over the Society?
Time continued to slip by.
The sky, once a refreshing blue, had turned a murky gray.
Just as a concrete plan to thwart the Society's scenario began to take shape...
Mimir quietly raised her hand. It was an action that didn't suit the timid, passive witch at all.
Mimir placed her hand on her chest and listed out what she could do for all her assembled comrades.
Having lived for centuries as a witch, Mimir had reached a level in magic comparable to Merlin's.
Numerous spells derived from her research to revive her dear friend Anne.
As Merlin's disciple and Zero One's fellow student, she knew how to counter Zero One's magic.
Mimir declared that she would stop the supervolcano.
Her confident demeanor left no one in the room able to object.
A fierce determination gleamed in the witch's eyes.
It was the same light Baek Do-hyun and Zero One had when executing their plans.
The witch departed.
She flew gracefully toward the supervolcano at the heart of the geyser-spewing Yellowstone.
Yellowstone National Park, one of Earth's most famous tourist spots.
This natural wonder, visited and marked by countless people, had now fallen into the hands of monsters.
From the sky, the witch gazed down at the ground.
Countless monstrous eyes hidden in the darkness glared warily at her.
'If the day comes when Anne revives...'
She wanted to see Yellowstone's breathtaking views with the resurrected Anne.
By then, the ground would be blooming with people and animals, not monsters.
She'd save someone in peril from a savage beast and strike a pose in front of Anne for the first time, wrinkles be damned.
She'd tell her that the timid witch of old had grown into a formidable sorceress.
And introduce her to her new friends.
Not that they were fully close yet, but they were the most comfortable humans she'd ever known.
To grasp that hopeful future, she had to avert this disaster.
The witch raised her staff high.
"Wander. As you do today."
"From east to west, from west to east." "Become water, yet refuse to lie flat as water." "Dream only of white foam rising across your body." "As foam, gnaw at the sands whenever and wherever." "Wander, and bar the sea's path." "Even if you end as foam, making the horizon weep..." "Establish that form in the world." ⟨ Tidal Cataclysm ⟩
The essence of magic is simple.
Creating something from nothing.
The purpose of magic is simple, too.
To work the impossible miracle.
And so the witch hoped.
Those who could wield magic were rare.
They needed an irrational constitution to sense mana, one of the universe's dark matter fundamentals.
Thus, mages were anomalies.
Abnormal, eccentric, bizarre.
Born human, yet infected by mana, granted immortality.
One step ahead in evolution from psykers infected by the psychic virus.
For miracle-working mages, "impossible" was not in the dictionary.
A colossal tsunami arose.
A massive wave, vast enough to engulf the world's second-largest supervolcano, formed from nothingness.
The tidal wave bared its fangs.
It writhed to swallow those obstructing the witch's goal.
Water is the mother of all things, yet in savage form, it devours its young.
The tsunami unleashed furious retribution on those who bared hostility toward the witch.
"Gaaahhh!!!"
The tsunami swallowed even their screams.
The witch's magic wasn't over. The miracle she wrought was a calamity, after all.
It set everything ablaze, twisted it, froze it solid.
Yellowstone, swept by this magical disaster, lay in ruins.
Monster corpses, shredded beyond recognition, littered the ground.
"Haa..."
Sweat beaded on the witch's forehead as she exhaled heavily.
It was a strike with her all.
No monster could have survived the calamity magic that ravaged all of Yellowstone.
So Mimir thought.
All that remained was to sing a lullaby to the supervolcano poised to plunge Earth into an ice age.
But.
Life in this world doesn't vanish so easily.
The hardy monsters endured the disaster.
The small fry were swept away and killed. The survivors were the real deal.
The elites gripped their weapons and glared at the witch.
Mimir bit her lip hard.
The staff in her grasp trembled faintly.
"Huu..."
Mimir exhaled. She looked exhausted but kept her smile.
The witch's will hadn't bent an inch.
"Fine. Let's go all the way, then..."
The moment she focused to unleash another calamity...
A flash overwhelmed her vision.
A girl with six beautiful pairs of wings descended upon the battlefield.
No angelic trumpet sounded, but her form unmistakably resembled the seraphim from Revelation.
The girl who hated monsters most in this world flashed her signature shark-like teeth in a grin.
Death's Scythe gleamed in both her hands. Seizing the moment everyone hesitated from the sudden light, she deftly harvested the monsters' necks.
Yubyeol-ha spoke up.
"For someone so full of confidence, your results are pretty underwhelming."
"Y-Yubyeol-ha, how did you...?"
"Call it a hunter's instinct. Good thing I followed you."
She eyed the enemies with a roguish smirk.
Mimir's ferocious magic had felled many monsters, no doubt, but plenty more remained in Yellowstone.
That meant plenty of elites, too. Black sparks began crackling across Yubyeol-ha's body.
Hundreds of monsters surrounded her and Mimir in layers.
Mimir thought it the worst possible situation, but Yubyeol-ha's lips curved into a smile.
There was no reason to think it dire.
This was the perfect moment to fulfill her purpose.
Yubyeol-ha's reason for living was revenge.
Every monster before her eyes had to die by her hand.
With prey boldly offering their necks, how could she not rejoice?
"Mimir."
"Y-Yeah!"
"Those guys are my prey."
"Uh, um?"
"Don't worry about it. I'll slaughter them all myself, so you focus on quelling the supervolcano."
Mimir's eyes widened in shock.
'We should be pooling our strength!'
She meant to scold Yubyeol-ha, but the girl had already whipped up a gale and charged gleefully at the monsters.
Yubyeol-ha began reaping monster necks like autumn rice. Covered in blood, swinging her scythe with abandon, she resembled a reaper more than an angel.
"Ahaha, ahahaha!"
Her mad laughter echoed across the battlefield.
"S-She's insane!"
Mimir fidgeted in place before snapping to her senses.
There was no time. The volcano could erupt any second.
She glared at the massive, churning volcano.
Yubyeol-ha was one thing, but if it blew, the plan was over.
Mimir began rising slowly into the sky.
One monster sensed it and tried to block her path, but...
"You'll die first!?"
Yubyeol-ha intercepted it in a flash.
Those infected by mana evolved from humans into mages, a new existence.
Yubyeol-ha was no different from Mimir and the other mages.
Infected by the psychic virus, Yubyeol-ha had evolved into a psyker, a new being.
She could cloak herself in a barrier field that shrugged off bullets—or even massive explosions—safeguarding her body.
Unlike mages, psykers risked turning into dimensional beasts, but that didn't apply to Yubyeol-ha.
'Zero One.'
Mimir's mind flashed to the pinnacle of mages. Perhaps Yubyeol-ha stood at the peak of psykers, just like him.
Mimir shook her head vigorously. Admiration could wait. Now was the time to prevent the eruption.
Mimir began her incantation. To grant eternal rest to the awakening calamity.
She chanted softly, like a mother lulling a child to sleep.