Chapter 768: The Source
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 768: The Source
"Next... enjoy... yourselves..."
"..."
Muen and Ariel stared at each other, the atmosphere so stagnant that they both forgot they were still gripping each other's hands.
Unexpectedly, the final words left by Zagu’s soul weren't an answer to Muen’s question, but rather some kind of... party surprise announcement?
"If I’m not mistaken, the 'existence' Zagu mentioned definitely isn't something cute like the Teletubbies or Peppa Pig."
Muen’s cheek twitched.
He never would have imagined the guy had one last trick up his sleeve.
Was this the level of caution expected from a seasoned First Demon General? To have planned a self-destruct sequence from the very beginning in case he lost? Hey, you clearly had a massive advantage at the start; is it really okay to be that pessimistic?
No, it wasn't exactly pessimism. He had simply accounted for every possible outcome from the start. That was likely why he chose this specific time and place to fight Muen and Ariel.
Dammit. He’d won the fight, but Zagu had still managed to screw them over in the end.
Give me back my respect, you bastard! If I’d known, I would’ve burned your body and soul to ashes in one go!
"I don't know what these 'Teletubbies' or 'Peppa Pigs' are, but the problem now is..."
Ariel gave him a deadpan stare and shook off Muen’s hand. She seemed quite annoyed that Muen hadn't let her vent her frustrations on the "corpse" earlier. "What do we do now?"
"What do we do..."
Muen rubbed his chin in thought.
"First, don't panic. We don't know what 'existence' Zagu was talking about yet. Let's look on the bright side—enough time has passed to light a stick of incense for Zagu, and there’s been no movement. Maybe we didn't disturb anything at all?"
Yes, that was the best-case scenario.
It was also the least likely.
Given Zagu’s meticulous nature, it was impossible for him to have miscalculated at a critical moment like this.
Which meant...
Skritch... skritch...
An eerie sound abruptly disturbed the silence of this place where only two living souls remained.
Muen and Ariel’s hearts tightened simultaneously. His Death Premonition hadn't triggered a warning, but a strange sensation was constantly reminding them to stay alert.
It also completely shattered Muen’s last bit of wishful thinking.
He gave Ariel an apologetic smile; in return, he received only a roll of her eyes.
Skritch... skritch... The sound continued.
It was very faint. If one didn't listen closely, it would be easy to ignore.
Yet, it seemed to possess a bizarre magic, causing all other ambient noise to fade away in its presence.
Or perhaps the sound was devouring them.
Despite being a ruin fresh from a great battle, filled with countless background noises, everything was now terrifyingly silent.
"Look."
Ariel suddenly spoke beside him.
They were standing very close, so even though she kept her voice extremely low, Muen could hear her clearly.
"Over there."
Muen followed her gaze.
It was a corridor.
The corridor looked perfectly ordinary—so ordinary that, compared to the wreckage of the botanical garden, it looked like a snippet of everyday life spliced into a blood-soaked war zone. The contrast was jarring.
It wasn't the corridor Muen had come through earlier, but the direction Zagu had come from.
Zagu had emerged from there, passing through those heavy doors to face him and Ariel in their fierce struggle.
And now, those mottled doors had somehow opened on their own, revealing that mundane-looking hallway.
The corridor was bright, its ceiling embedded with many precious magic stones that remained uncorroded even after a thousand years.
But now...
Skritch... skritch...
It sounded like the static of a malfunctioning cassette tape.
Like two pieces of coarse cloth rubbing together.
Or perhaps... like a frail body dragging lifeless feet, one step at a time, advancing with great difficulty.
In Muen and Ariel’s line of sight, there was nothing on the other side of the door. The corridor was empty. Yet, every time that eerie skritching sound echoed, those bright magic stones would extinguish one by one.
One.
Then another.
And another.
An impenetrable darkness crept from the depths of the corridor, rapidly extending toward the two of them like a demon opening its maw to consume the space.
As the "skritching" grew clearer, the darkness spread even faster.
Gulp...
Waiting for the unknown was the ultimate test of one's nerves. Muen’s heart was practically in his throat.
Finally...
"It’s coming!"
Holding his breath, Muen warned Ariel to be ready. Ariel, of course, hadn't let down her guard; her hand was already gripped tight around the hilt of the Heavenly Fire Greatsword.
Skritch.
The massive magic stone above Muen and Ariel, which had illuminated the botanical garden for a millennium, vanished instantly.
Darkness fell.
Muen instinctively moved to draw Elizabeth and cast an Illumination Spell. Regardless of the situation, facing an enemy in total darkness was sheer madness.
However, before he could move...
【DON'T MOVE!!】
A sharp pain stabbed his mind.
The Black Book had surfaced in Muen’s consciousness of its own accord. Its pages flipped open, revealing blood-red characters that were blindingly bright, serving as a severe warning.
【DON'T MAKE A SOUND!!】
【DON'T PRAY!!】
【DON'T LET HIM NOTICE YOU!!!】
Muen had never seen the Black Book act as if it were facing such a formidable foe.
"Wh—"
The question in his mind was strangled before it could be voiced.
Because at that moment, he finally felt an indescribable... Death Premonition.
It was like a sharp blade, bypassing all process and defense, stabbing directly into his heart without warning.
Then it twisted.
Skritch.
The darkness suddenly vanished, allowing Muen to see his surroundings without an external light source.
Yet the environment wasn't bright; it was in a state of dim, blurry haze.
It was as if the concepts of "Light" and "Darkness" were both forbidden from existing here.
The result was a state of chaos. Muen racked his brain but couldn't think of a single color to describe what he was seeing.
Skritch.
However, this seemed to be merely the "foreplay."
As the sound drew closer, everything within Muen’s sight began to distort bizarrely.
Shattered steel oozed blood like rotting flesh; magic circuits piled in corners writhed in a frenzy, intertwining, tearing, and gnawing at each other like a nest of snakes in the heat of mating season.
Stench.
Musk.
Classical music.
Static.
Knocking at the door.
Countless chaotic scents and indescribable sounds slammed into Muen’s senses and psyche. The entire world seemed to have gone completely mad in an instant. Even the lines that were usually straight began a frantic, demented dance. Everything he saw flipped and twisted; even the most insane abstract painter could not have rendered a scene so grotesque and surreal.
Looking down, Muen himself seemed to have been assimilated by this madness. Hideous maws sprouted from his hands, arguing and cursing each other for not pulling their weight. One of his legs grew seven or eight tentacles and suddenly bolted in the opposite direction, declaring its resignation. His kidneys protested the daily exploitation they endured, while his heart, liver, and stomach tore through his abdomen, clasping their newly formed limbs in prayer, sighing with relief at finally tasting fresh air and sunlight.
Whispers.
Hissing.
Crying.
Wailing.
Every piece of flesh was in ecstasy, every bone was screaming, every drop of blood was mutating. In a mere heartbeat, the individual known as "Muen Campbell" seemed to have twisted into a mass of irreconcilable...
Splash.
A wave of coolness washed over him, and Muen snapped back to his senses.
The distortion and madness hadn't truly polluted him yet. His limbs were still intact, and his internal organs hadn't run off to declare "independence."
Aside from the terrifying sensory and mental assault, everything felt like a dream.
But even so, cold sweat had completely soaked his clothes.
He finally understood why his Death Premonition hadn't worked at first. Facing such an existence, so-called "perception" was nothing more than something that could be easily warped.
What kind of being was this? He hadn't even seen its true form, yet he had nearly been polluted into a lump of deformed meat.
Muen instinctively started to turn his gaze, wanting to catch a glimpse of the entity’s true appearance.
No!
His peripheral vision had just brushed past some chaotic, deep lines that looked like a child’s scribbles. Before he could see anything substantial, Muen forced himself to stop.
He shouldn't look. From the moment "He" appeared, he should have known the entity’s true identity.
Fear.
Powerlessness.
Lingering dread.
This sense of despair that made resistance impossible, this horror that, by its mere existence, would plunge the entire world into distortion and destruction...
He had never felt this, even when facing the Withered King, the Silent Moon, or various other Evil Gods.
To this day, only one existence could make Muen feel this way, and that was...
No.
Don't think about it.
Muen quickly terminated his train of thought.
Back in the Old Loli’s illusion, a mere fake existence had been able to lock onto him across a thousand years. To say nothing of being this close—if His name, or even a single word related to Him, appeared in his mind now, it would be game over.
Muen cautiously withdrew all his senses and perception, even forcing his eyes shut, not daring to look in the direction of the "skritching."
"Is it really Him?"
Muen used his formidable body control to force himself to calm down, cautiously asking the Black Book in his mind. Since the Black Book could appear to warn him, it meant the situation was still within its capacity to handle.
Don't move, don't speak, don't pray... it seemed that as long as he followed these rules, he wouldn't be discovered by Him for the time being.
【A phantom.】 Blood-red text appeared on the page again, though it was much dimmer than usual. For the Black Book, this was the equivalent of "whispering."
"A phantom..."
It was just a phantom...
Why would a phantom of "Him" appear in a place like this? And it seemed that high-ranking demons like Zagu were well aware of His presence here.
No, thinking about it, it wasn't that strange. Because the so-called Demon Race was actually...
Muen shuddered. Close one. He had almost let those two words surface in his mind. This natural flow of thought felt as if it were being seduced by some power.
Fortunately, his willpower was strong enough.
Besides, the important thing right now wasn't chasing the "why," but how to...
"Wait, Ariel!"
Muen suddenly realized. He had the protection and warnings of the Black Book—which was usually tsundere and ignored him but was always reliable in a crisis—to survive. But what about Ariel?
She might be directly exposed to His gaze!
"I hope I’m not too late..."
Muen didn't dare open his eyes, nor did he dare confirm his surroundings. Gritting his teeth, he slightly moved the hand closest to Ariel.
This violated the rule of 【DON'T MOVE】.
In an instant, Muen felt the cacophony in his ears rise by several levels. Amidst the indistinguishable laughter, roars, and weeping, a faint but terrifying whisper was gradually approaching.
【#&@&#￥……】
"He" whispered in a language that seemed capable of driving a person insane. Even with his eyes closed, Muen felt as if he could see the entire world collapsing into distortion.
Muen could even feel a bizarre, chilling wind blowing directly against his skin. This meant "He" was getting closer...
"Dammit."
Muen clenched his teeth, forcibly suppressing the terror in his heart and the tremors in his body. After taking a deep breath, his hand suddenly lunged to his side...
Finally, at the eleventh hour, he grasped the only warmth in this eerie place.
The whispering grew sudden, sharp, and shrill, then gradually faded away.
Muen breathed a long sigh of relief. However, before he could do anything else, his hand jerked. At that moment, he felt more than just warmth.
There was also an incredibly powerful soul force.
With the help of that soul force, he felt the external assault on his senses and mind become much easier to bear.
【Don't worry.】
The Black Book finally flipped its pages lazily.
【Her teacher has awakened.】
*
Time rewound to the moment the darkness fell.
"Ariel! Don't speak! Don't make a sound! Seal your senses! Hold your breath! Don't think about anything related to gods!"
As the strangeness arrived, a familiar voice echoed in Ariel’s mind.
"Teacher..."
Out of trust for her mentor, Ariel sealed herself off even faster than Muen. Consequently, unlike Muen, she hadn't even seen the distortion and madness.
But she also felt how terrifying "that existence" approaching them truly was.
One could not fight it, could not touch it, and could not even cast a glance toward it. One could only try their best to retract all traces of their existence and hide in panic.
She had to be grateful that even after breaking through to the Fifth-Tier, she was still just an ant to "that existence." As long as she hid quietly in a corner, she could avoid the fate of being crushed underfoot.
"Teacher, you’re awake?"
"Heh... if I didn't wake up now, I’d be becoming a vessel and breeding ground for pollution right along with you."
In Ariel’s consciousness space, a faint candlelight flickered, illuminating her teacher’s face, which was as gentle as ever.
Her face carried a mix of helplessness and relief.
"...I’m sorry."
"There’s nothing to apologize for. Besides, it’s thanks to you that I finally realized what that sense of familiarity was all about, and exactly where we are."
"Eh? You remembered, Teacher?"
"Sigh, I wouldn't say I remembered. Rather, I can finally match some things here with fragments deep in my memory. After all, the records of this place have likely been completely erased from history." Ariel’s teacher spoke with a tone of lament.
"Then this place is actually..."
"I can't say."
Ariel’s teacher looked solemn and gestured for Ariel to remain silent.
She raised a finger and pointed outside.
"He" was still there.
"I can't give you the details for now, but..."
Ariel’s teacher held her finger vertically in front of Ariel.
It represented the number one.
Ariel immediately understood her meaning.
Then...
That finger suddenly flipped and pointed downward.
"This represents descent."
Ariel’s teacher stared into her eyes, emphasizing every word:
"Do you understand? This place... this Gutons Fortress, is the source of the Great Chaos—it is the place of 'His' descent!"