Chapter 167

Huu—hu—

My mouth tastes fishy with the ocean’s scent. Not a good sign.

This body made of Philosopher’s Stone feels discomfort just from being in the deep sea?

The sharp, penetrating ocean scent is merely a signal that my body is losing control and crumbling.

The magical power I’ve been exposed to through relentless combat without yielding even an inch has now reached an unignorable level.

To think that Philosopher’s Stone, which harmonizes with magical power better than any substance in the world, is being shaken to its very foundation… If I lose even a bit of concentration, it’ll be the end.

Once the Philosopher’s Stone goes berserk, I won’t be able to hold it together with my mental strength.

I’ll lose consciousness and scatter like water and wind.

‘Damn it… She really is strong.’

There wasn’t much difference in our magical power quantities… yet it’s one-sided. Not even directly hit by her attacks—I just endured the aftershocks from beside them, and it’s still this bad.

‘I’m really learning today just how much stronger you can become through the way you handle magical power alone.’

If the Prophet’s combat sense had been just a little better, I would have already become sea dust.

But in the end, the Prophet couldn’t kill me, and I finally found my opportunity.

She started it herself.

She was just as impatient as I was.

Thud!

After another attack missed, she rushed at me without even steadying herself and grabbed me by the collar. The moment I was caught, tremendous pressure crashed down on me. The magical power wrapped around her entire body crushed me, making [Spatial Leap] impossible. She seemed urgent too, showing clear signs of haste.

‘Ugh… Just being held like this feels like I’ll be crushed to death?’

As if thinking this was the end of our lengthy confrontation, the Prophet’s eyeballs flashed with fierce light.

“This is the end. You slippery bastard…!”

She pulled back her fist greatly. Magical power blazed in her clenched fist. The magical power directly controlled by an Outer God was alive, and despite its quantity, it was absurdly strong. Though it was only 6th Circle level magical power, the Prophet’s fist fell like a meteor that would destroy a planet. The moment she moved, it was already reaching me.

That was the moment I’d been waiting for, and my last chance.

Bang! Bang!

Following the principle of <Collapse Strike>, explosions occur in my magical organs. The amplified force erupts directly through my magical skin.

I grit my teeth. I brace for the impact.

And…

I make one [Wish].

‘Let me reflect her attack right back at her!’

Flash!

The ‘Reaction Necklace’ gifted by Refinement illuminated the battlefield brilliantly. A necklace possessing the power of Lytol’s secret technique <Rainbow Shield>. Originally, it had enough power to reflect a 6th Circle spell once, but [Wish] shattered that limitation.

The Prophet’s fist touched the ‘Reaction Necklace’.

And the world fell silent.

Everyone falls.

At first, I couldn’t understand why. Only after seeing the guardians I’d summoned spread their wings of light, and seeing those wings ripple against the distant ‘wall of water’, did I grasp the situation.

‘All the seawater has been pushed away.’

The blow the Prophet delivered with all her might squeezed to the very bottom was reflected back at her intact. The shockwave blew away all the seawater within a radius of several kilometers, and the mages and guardians who barely managed to steady themselves drifted soundlessly in the vacuum.

The Prophet’s skull gaped open. If we could hear sounds, she would probably have been letting out choked screams.

Her arm was grotesquely crushed and she couldn’t even maintain her posture.

I felt like my body would also shatter, but I barely held onto my sanity. I gripped the divine hammer as tightly as wringing out a rag. I couldn’t miss this opportunity.

‘Gyeolli. Can you give me strength one more time?’

—Ugh… ugh… I’ll… do it… I can’t… lose to… such a… cheap bastard…!

Gyeolli, who had been groaning from injury, burned with fighting spirit again. I felt sorry, but there was no choice. This wasn’t an opponent I could fight while thinking about the future.

In the vacuum filled only with silence, I chant the spell alone.

“The administrators have perished and reason drifts. Upon the ash of destruction, the sins of world-ending pile up, making the world this turbid. But I remember my covenant with you. I gather the fallen pillars to raise clear and pure bedrock again. I collect mud to shape vessels and hold the bright sky within them once more.”

Perhaps because of the situation, each word of the spell felt desperate.

My vision flickered as if it would go out at any moment, and I couldn’t even feel sensation in the hand gripping the hammer, but I threw myself forward with just one wish as fuel.

I, here, will drive out the Outer God. I won’t let some Outer God wield power in our world!

“Listen! Behold! This is the beginning of the final creation! The Divine Wizard opens the heavens once more!”

[Opeeeening Heaveeeen!!]

Rumble!

Inggolli and determination create the supreme ultimate, Ari creates the eight trigrams.

They tear the Prophet apart.

* * *

The massive deep-sea tsunami created by the collision between the Prophet and Baek Jun-woo swept away even the ominous atmosphere between Evan and the knights who were about to fight.

The high knights wearing 7th class combat suits were blown backward like fallen leaves before barely managing to steady themselves. After being battered by the rushing seawater, they couldn’t even collect themselves, just blinking dazedly.

The lords and grand knights wearing 6th class combat suits held their ground firmly but swayed just as much, unable to maintain their balance.

Only Evan and Zeros maintained their stance facing each other without wavering.

“Your skills have improved.”

Though there was no air, Zeros’s voice transmitted clearly through his combat helmet.

“It’s not just skill, but conviction that’s different.”

Evan’s reply had thorns in it.

Heh.

Zeros found himself unconsciously smiling, remembering the days when he taught Evan. But faster than his smile, he darkened the atmosphere again.

“Right. Let’s see then.”

Zzziiiing—

Just as Zeros’s beam hilt began emitting a deep navy beam, <Opening Heaven> erupted from far below. Feeling the immeasurably massive force surging, Zeros clenched his teeth.

‘As expected, it’s too dangerous. Isn’t that exactly the kind of power that could destroy the world?’

Precisely, it was magic that created the foundation for birthing a new world, but Zeros, who had no knowledge of magic, only feared the power of <Opening Heaven> that erased existing things.

‘Baek Jun-woo. That mage must die here without fail. If you interfere… I’ll cut you down, Evan.’

Zeros made up his mind. His beam hilt moved slowly. So slow you couldn’t see it even if you stared intently. But it accelerated exponentially with each moment. A blade that accelerated enough to radiate to infinity was always ahead of where opponents expected it. Even the ‘Protection Necklace,’ an essential magical device for mages that automatically intercepts enemy attacks, couldn’t react to this single strike. Zeros’s secret technique that even Evan had never learned.

‘Immeasurable Sword!’

Zeros believed he could cut down Evan with this single strike.

Clang!

Until he felt the rebound that made his fingertips and entire body go numb.

“How?”

The eyes of Zeros, who failed in his attack, and Evan, who blocked it, met. Zeros’s pupils shook while Evan’s eyes blazed fiercely.

“Master. ‘To those without hesitation or doubt, the knight’s armaments lend their strength.’ Who was it that taught me this commandment? Looking at you now, it seems you don’t have as much conviction as you thought, Master?”

Evan’s mockery.

And the notification sound reaching Zeros’s ears from his 5th class combat suit.

-Synchronization rate 78 percent. Significantly lower than normal synchronization rate. Immediate retreat and rehabilitation training are recommended.

’78 percent?’

It was a figure he’d never heard before. Ever since he became a lord, no matter how poor his condition, his synchronization rate had never dropped below 95 percent. No, even when he first wore knight armaments, his synchronization rate was higher than this. He was called a once-in-an-era genius, after all. But suddenly 78 percent?

The more shocking fact was that Zeros himself hadn’t noticed until it reached this point. His synchronization rate had dropped to 78 percent, yet he hadn’t even thought it was strange? Why?

‘Where did I leave my mind?’

Zeros was confused.

‘Could it be… I did that? Some corner of my heart agreed with Evan’s words? That can’t be… An alliance with mages? That’s impossible!’

Confusion soon became anger. Shaken by unprecedented turmoil, Zeros lost his composure. This too was unprecedented in his lifetime.

“Shut up, Evan!!”

The navy beam surged roughly. Not smoothly controlled power, but power scattered wildly in all directions.

Watching this, Evan frowned.

“Ah, really! Master! Stop making such a fool of yourself!”

A blue beam blade shot up smoothly to face Zeros.

But just before the two prepared to kill each other in earnest, water poured down once more.

This time neither could maintain their stance.

Crash!

The enormous seawater that had been blown away by the shockwave came pouring back into the vacuum once the impact’s aftereffects passed. With even fiercer momentum than when it was pushed out. As if the vast ocean wanted to grind up the vermin inside it.

Rumble!

Formation and distance became meaningless. Mages and knights who had been far apart got mixed up everywhere.

The only things that didn’t sway were the large jellyfish-shaped monsters—the Outer God’s servants.

These beings, who could ignore the laws of this world to some extent, weren’t shaken by the seawater either. Moving like lightning against the current, they snatched away the lives of mages and knights tossing about everywhere.

Zeros witnessed this scene clearly even while being swept around.

Their long tentacles pierced through the knights’ combat suits. Then the combat suits showed strange reactions. They began spouting lightning in all directions and unleashing dozens of times amplified power.

Bang! Crash!

Here and there, knights struck by jellyfish tentacles exploded. Exploding while… inevitably taking one jellyfish as a companion to the afterlife.

‘Equipment overload? And… self-destruction?’

It was absurd.

That wasn’t a technique just anyone could use.

Even experienced high knights needed full preparation and mental concentration to execute such a technique. Self-destruction, no less? There had been occasional records of such things in knight order history, but no one had ever systematized the technique. Yet the knights struck by those disgusting jellyfish all demonstrated the combination technique of equipment overload and self-destruction without exception.

The reason they could do so.

Zeros would soon understand that reason too.

Suddenly, notification sounds rang in his ears, making Zeros groan.

“What…? Alien order… interference? To eliminate external variables… activating self-destruction sequence and entering standby mode?”

The anomaly

began with the dying Prophet.

* * *

“Kehe-huk… I am… Master’s first priest… There’s no way I’d die in a place like this…!”

Tiresome. Really tediously persistent. Even after taking <Opening Heaven> and becoming a rag, the Prophet didn’t die. While being tossed around by the seawater that poured back in afterward, she kept moving her mouth, claiming she was immortal and whatnot.

But when I approached to finish her off completely, what I felt was bone-chilling terror.

“Kaaa-ack!”

A transparent, long tentacle slowly crept out from the Prophet’s torn belly, struggling to emerge. A tentacle having trouble getting out because the passage was too narrow. The space around it bent in layers. The Prophet, who had become a dimensional rift itself, couldn’t withstand the internal and external pressure and died instantly. She couldn’t even make an “Ugh!” sound. Her large eyeballs burst first with popping sounds, and the skull visible beneath her skin made a creepy noise as it crumpled flat.

Just watching made me feel spine-chilling terror.

That thing… shouldn’t appear here.

[Time Reversal!]

<Saíl!>

I reflexively chanted the spell. The damage I received from the Prophet wasn’t properly healed even using [Time Reversal]… but I didn’t have time to be picky.

I draw the brilliant bow summoned before my eyes.

I aimed at the transparent tentacle breaking through space and emerging.

-…Finally, I’m shooting an enemy worthy of my purpose.

A faint voice brushing past my ear. It was a message from the bow used by ancient gods transmitted to me.

Thump thump, the <Saíl> bow pulsing as if alive. For the first time, I heard its voice. It wasn’t very comforting. It meant that the ‘thing’ before my eyes was that fearsome an existence.

The bow that shot down the sun. An enemy truly worthy of that purpose…

-Draw the string to the very end.

A calm, arrogant voice.

Damn it, easier said than done…!

Creak!

I pulled the bowstring with desperate resolve, but I stopped after pulling only 15cm. My mind spun and my arms trembled violently.

What, what’s this? The string became heavier?

-Of course. This is the first time you’ve summoned me completely.

Ah, was that it? Come to think of it, did I just pronounce <Saíl!> cleanly? But even so, isn’t this too heavy?

-Draw it to the very end.

Someone who treats me like I’m pathetic, wondering who’s the bow and who’s the master.

-Ari! Inggolli! Help me!

Even with the spirits clinging on to help pull the string, I barely managed to pull it just over 18cm.

Meanwhile, the tentacle continued breaking through the dimensional rift, pulling out its massive body moment by moment. This is insane. Just watching makes me want to go crazy. I need to shoot before it’s too late?

-If you shoot now, you won’t be able to handle it. Draw to the very end.

Damn bow bastard!

This is infuriating. I want to pull more too! But I don’t have the strength or time!

Just as I was screaming internally, flashes of light streaked past me and struck the transparent tentacle.

Flash’es’.

-Trident. Confirmed hit on unidentified enemy.

It was Nadia A’s voice, having seized control of the underwater city.

“Tsk! Even after taking Longinus’s spear?”

That was Evan’s frustrated voice.

And…

“Summon Indra’s Wrath!”

“Summon the waters of the Yellow Springs!”

“Hmm… Good thing I attached a retrieval device to the coin just in case. Summon the branch of the World Tree.”

These were voices I’d never heard before.