Chapter 133
Chapter 133
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 133
Chapter Title: Screams in the Vortex
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Whirling chaos. An incomprehensible tangle filled with the monstrous howls of tormented souls, and the despair buried within it.
Chunks of flesh made of crimson meat and blood writhed ceaselessly, screaming. This was the work of the lich who had introduced itself as Parhel.
"Not even gathering souls with grudges, huh."
Parhel snapped its fingers, and sharp bone shards erupted from thin air, flying toward me with eerie wails.
I didn't even need to move my spear. The blue trajectories hovering around me slashed through every incoming shard without fail. In the meantime, I leaped toward the enemy floating in midair.
"Oh come on, it's just the order that's switched. Don't be so petty."
Gather the souls first, then torture them into wrathful spirits. That's how the corpse in front of me had built its power.
"You don't seem to grasp how big a difference the order makes. Ever heard of bride kidnapping?"
Marrying first and then making her fall in love is a crime, you lunatic. Loving first and then marrying is the normal way.
"No clue."
Flesh erupted from behind Parhel's back, squelching as it morphed into a massive maw that lunged to swallow me whole.
"Nom nom."
Parhel giggled, making that childish sound. Inside the pitch-black mouth, I swung my spear and activated the blue trajectories. An explosion ripped through, shattering the lump of flesh that had engulfed me.
Chunks wrapped in black flames rained down onto the floor.
"Nom nom, my ass."
I've told you a few times already—I'm not edible. Enveloped in the blazing black flames, I stared down Parhel.
I might act all casual, but the Paradox Flame burning through this room was steadily gnawing away at Parhel's power with clear, intense force.
Parhel probably knew that much. And yet it could afford to stay relaxed. The reason was simple.
"Looks like you can't fight at full strength here anyway."
"Yeah, the space is a bit cramped."
If I managed to take down this lich here and smash the corrupted idol, I could guess what would happen next.
Given the right conditions to unleash its full power, this lich was undoubtedly stronger than Choi Yeoreum. But right now, in this space under the crown's influence, it was clearly weaker.
"In that case."
It meant I could definitely win here. My heart pounded, mana surging through my veins.
I predicted my moves and the enemy's reactions. Then, for each possible reaction, I mapped out my choices.
A starting gun cracked in my mind—tang—and my body accelerated in a burst of explosive force.
"Hey, don't do that."
Parhel struggled to track my movements with its eyes. Tentacles burst from the ceiling, walls, and floor, reaching for me.
It could barely keep up with my motion, let alone land precise strikes. The tentacles weren't aiming exactly at me—they were blindly thrashing the entire space I raced through.
"A bit more."
My body reaccelerated. Hands mimicking human shapes sprouted sporadically from the walls of meat filling every direction, trying to hinder me somehow.
But they couldn't withstand my momentum. The protruding hands crumpled under my feet, instantly reduced to chunks of flesh.
"Ah, so pretty. Like roses!"
Even in that moment, Parhel murmured at the sight of the crushed hands under my boots, as if the crisis it faced meant nothing.
Flesh tore from the walls and gathered around Parhel, forming square panels. Glossy on the surface, they looked like grotesque engravings carved from ruby.
Six of these square panels orbited Parhel, shielding it.
"..."
My swung spear smashed into one glossy panel. A sharp clang rang out, the panel vibrating lowly as cracks spiderwebbed from the impact point.
It had withstood my attack.
"Not as tough as I thought?"
"Save the trash talk after blocking the next one."
I stomped on a sturdy panel, launching backward, then kicked off the ceiling and shot toward Parhel like an arrow.
At the same time, the hundreds of blue trajectories encircling me trembled in unison. Their vibrations resonated with the mana in the air, spreading outward.
The panels guarding Parhel also resonated with the vibration, emitting eerie sounds—like cracks forming on a thin layer of ice over a lake.
Parhel's leisurely spectator expression hardened slightly.
"You... how the hell do you even..."
"Learn a trick like this? Why would I tell you?"
My spear swung at another panel, producing a different result. The red panel shielding Parhel shattered into dozens of pieces. Beyond it, I caught sight of Parhel itself.
Resonating the ambient mana to weaken the enemy was just the start. The blade of my spear in my hand was vibrating at an extreme frequency too.
This turned it into an ultrasonic cutter, maximizing cutting power. The magic circles Parhel had floating around kept collapsing and reforming due to the mana vibrations in the air.
"Guys who think they're hot shit at magic turn out to be total weak sauce against this."
"...To fight like this, you'd have to successfully analyze the properties of my mana first?"
I grinned and extended my spear toward one of Parhel's floating magic circles. The vibration transmitted directly, causing it to crumble and shatter in an instant.
"What, you think I can't analyze a puny lich's mana like yours?"
Not that it was that simple. If I'd analyzed it sooner, I could've ended this in a flash. The fact it dragged on meant analyzing this lich's mana was that damn tricky.
But who cares about truth when you're just trying to piss it off?
"Oh, really?"
It looked seriously pissed. Anyone would flip if their lifelong efforts got dismissed like that.
A crack split across Parhel's face—something lurking beneath itching to burst out.
"Ah."
But Parhel quickly regained composure, stroking the crack on its face with a finger. The fissure sealed shut following its touch.
"Not here. Not now."
Meaning there'd be a next time. As I charged again, Parhel smiled and released all its protections.
Thud—my spear pierced its gut.
"Nngh, wrong spot."
Parhel met my eyes while staring at the spear impaling its stomach, then pointed to the center of its chest.
"Here. Stab quick. And you can enjoy it for a bit. Feel the satisfaction."
Black liquid leaked from its eyes like tears. Its smile deepened, lips splitting grotesquely to its ears.
Until moments ago, it had the look of a pretty girl. Now, its face was pure horror.
I yanked the spear free and thrust it into its chest. Staring into Parhel's eyes leaking thick black tears, I replied.
"As you wish."
A crunching sound echoed as Parhel's body crumpled like a stomped can, shrinking before spewing a wisp of black smoke and vanishing without a trace.
"Just the opening act."
That bastard didn't die. It had abandoned this room—and all the bodies it'd used so far—fleeing somewhere.
"Can't burn its soul yet."
If I could've, that last strike would've finished it. Time to prepare for round two. It hadn't suicided—it deliberately took the hit.
Through my in-ear comm, I told Jeong Oh-hoon and Han Sang-ah.
"Blow them."
Now was the time to destroy all the secured teleportation jammers and send reinforcements to Ramin.
Once Han Sang-ah and Jeong Oh-hoon wrecked the devices, I'd smash the last idol.
That'd end this gimmick. And the next one would be waiting.
I'd bet on it: we'd face that lich Parhel again in the next gimmick.
― We're done here.
Han Sang-ah finished first. Moments later, Jeong Oh-hoon chimed in.
― Wrapped up on my end too. Reinforced the troops via the crystal you gave me.
Perfect. I swung my fist at the statue before me. It shattered completely.
That was it. My vision darkened. We were being transported somewhere else.
"Battlefield?"
Ruined walls dotted the landscape, the clash of weapons ringing out.
Soaring flames and scattered, mangled corpses came into view.
The stench of burning flesh mixed with rotting bodies and blood.
A muddy hell where the dead and living tangled in combat.
Han Sang-ah, Jeong Oh-hoon, and I had teleported to the same spot. We silently surveyed the battlefield.
"So, what are we supposed to do here?"
Han Sang-ah voiced what we were all thinking. What now? Join the fray and wipe out those corpses?
"An honor to meet you in person. I'm Ramin."
A man in battered, scorched armor approached, greeting me and introducing himself.
"Thanks to you, we can mount a counterattack. Our forces have swelled massively. We'll win. It's all because of you..."
As Ramin continued, the ground quaked. Earth split open, swallowing fighting soldiers and corpses alike.
The remnants of the walls collapsed entirely. So much for just winning the fight.
I spotted something taking form in the distance and gave a wry smile.
"Ha, no way it'd be that easy."
A colossal mass the size of a mountain slowly solidified. The writhing crimson lumps were all too familiar.
Parhel.
"That's why it offed itself on purpose."
And that was the means it needed to unleash its full power.
"What the hell is that? Some giant organ?"
Jeong Oh-hoon muttered at the structure writhing into completion far off.
A massive organ, hundreds of meters tall. Grotesque pipes carved from enormous bones stretched out in rows.
"That organ's framework... it's the obelisks we took out from outside. Bound together with tendons and flesh."
Jeong Oh-hoon, with the sharpest eyes among us, swallowed hard and murmured.
"Ugh, headache."
I tried tracing the mana flows through the organ to guess its effects, then squeezed my eyes shut. Filthy complicated. Just looking made my vision spin.
This wasn't something guys like me could analyze. Real mages would need months diving in.
"It plays."
Starting with a foghorn-like note, the organ resounded.
Not music affecting us. Nor anything that should exist in this world.
Between notes, bizarre tones that shouldn't be wove in—heavy, slow.
"Funeral march."
A funeral march isn't defined like a concerto or symphony. But hearing those immense pipe organ tones, anyone would think of one.
And the corpses battling Ramin's forces began reacting to the dirge.