Chapter 186

Apostle of the Outer God.

This sinister bastard had bent and twisted dimensions, hiding its source in the gaps between them.

-I’ll open the path. Win and come back, Administrator!

Floating Island Sion’s main cannon, <Horus’s Tears of Blood>, fired.

A single strike realized by forcibly expending magical materials precious enough to feed several continents for decades.

The pale light surrounding Sion gradually turned yellow, then red, then variegated colors, before suddenly twilight descended upon the empty universe.

The <Horus’s Tears of Blood> that Sion fired painted Rain across the empty cosmos. A horizon, a long twilight band was carved into space. It appeared like lightning and scattered like flower petals.

When the twilight faded and the universe was revealed again, it was very different from before.

The dimensional refraction that had hidden the fifth apostle’s source melted away, and a straight path opened directly to its core. Others wouldn’t notice the difference. But my senses, having reached 7th Circle, barely managed to catch that change.

I dropped down into it.

Past the mages clinging endlessly to the apostle’s outer shell, carving spells into it, past the knight orders summoning ancient weapons and wreaking havoc, past the ‘Night That Devours Continents’ biting and thrashing at the apostle’s limbs.

Endlessly.

Somehow… it reminded me of that famous little girl from Earth, from a country called England, who liked orange marmalade and fell down a rabbit hole. I fell endlessly like that.

And finally, I arrived at its source.

I didn’t feel anything particularly special. It was still dark and damp somewhere. That was due to the difference in rank. Even with my realm of reaching 7th Step where Circle and Ki-blood integrate, even with my cognitive abilities having completed the magical power peripheral nervous system, our enemy was so massive and possessed such high rank that I couldn’t properly grasp it. Just as a human walking on the ground cannot know Earth’s true form, and cannot know the true form of the moon floating in the sky, the apostle’s source still felt like meaningless background to me.

Still, I had to fight.

After all, that’s what being a mage is like.

We all fight the world.

Some with small pebbles or tiny ripples. Some with large trees and fierce winds, some with mountains and tsunamis, some with the vast sky and endless earth. Though each person’s portion differs, we’ve all fought like this. So… even now, I must be fighting this Outer God’s apostle whose true form I cannot see.

I felt it.

The Outer God’s apostle writhing as it fought with Night That Devours Continents.

And the mages and knights who died, blown into space by movements that were trivial to the apostle. The apostle’s small movements became calamity-level storms for us, and the small wrinkles it created became despair more terrifying than landslides. Everyone clung to such a world, sacrificing their lives to scrape away even a single pebble.

Ugh.

Uuugh.

The sound of thoroughly chewed and swallowed screams was sadder than screams that rang out.

This was my mission—to ultimately destroy this monster.

So I had to resort to extreme measures.

What I was about to attempt had yielded different results each time I ran [Simulation].

In other words, it was something that had never been recorded in this world before.

Anyway, as long as there was possibility, I would succeed.

Divine Body Sculpting Equipment.

A small scalpel taken from Cube’s dimensional workshop. With it, I cut away my body’s magical power.

I had experience disassembling and reassembling Kaisel’s magical power, but this was far more difficult. Not only did I have to perform surgery on my own body, but the surrounding environment was extremely hostile. And above all… while disassembling magical power, I also had to disassemble the Philosopher’s Stone that comprised my body.

I thought of myself as a ball of yarn.

Among the threads unraveling strand by strand, there was an unwinding core in the center. With that core, I grasped the unraveled threads. Pulling and releasing, adjusting. Flying a kite into the void.

‘Ari. Inggol. Even if I go crazy, you have to pull me back together.’

-You have to hold yourself together. Of course, I’ll hold on as tightly as I can to keep you from scattering. But in the end, it’s you who has to reassemble yourself. You have to keep a tight grip on your sanity.

-Grrrrowl. I’ll hold on. Until you regain consciousness.

I felt tension in the spirits’ voices too.

‘Gyeol. You must not let go of my mind. You know, right? Only you can do this.’

-I absolutely won’t let go.

A voice trickling from inside my body. Hearing that voice, I felt a little reassured.

Of course, Ari and Inggolli’s roles were important too. They had to recollect my body as it scattered into fire and wind.

But water spirit Gyeolli was the only spirit that had fused with me. Only Gyeolli could help prevent my ego from collapsing. Gyeol and I together would hold the spool around which the thread was wound.

‘Good. Then I’ll begin.’

Crackle! Crackling!

First, my hands and feet became flames. Then my face and eyes became water. Finally, my hair and nails became wind.

Let’s become nature. Since Philosopher’s Stone can become anything anyway, let’s become nature.

Fire spirit Inggolli seeped into my hands and feet that had become flames, wind spirit Ari into my nails and hair that had become wind, and finally water spirit Gyeolli into my face and eyes that had become water. The spirits and I became one. I became an existence greater than myself.

Even in the midst of this, I busily cut away my magical power with the divine body fragment scalpel. My body, having become nature and grown massive, needed correspondingly expansive magical power structure. I cut the magical power to make it sparser, but wider and more elastic. I gathered black magical power with black magical power, red magical power with red magical power, collecting white, blue, and green by color to make threads and weave them harmoniously.

Combining the impiety of black magical power and the ferocity of red magical power, the harmony of green magical power and the precision of blue magical power and the greatness of white mana—I created a single spell.

“Aether On.”

Here in this place where the Outer God’s source dwelt, the system by which spirits had once regulated the world in primordial times opened.

‘Uh, uhhhhh…’

What? Why is this so terrifying?

With the opening of the aether dimension, consciousness plummeted. No, it soared beyond soaring to transcendence. Ari, Gyeolli, Inggolli swelled within my body. Thoughts exploded. Senses exploded.

‘Uhhhhh.’

I couldn’t keep up with the flow of my own consciousness. No… who was ‘I’? Ari? Inggolli? Gyeolli? Baek Jun-woo? No… something much greater…

‘Wait. Wait… if this keeps up, I’ll be swept away completely.’

An unmanageable speed.

I had transformed my body into fire and water and wind, dismantled all my magical power, and on top of that summoned the aether dimension… Yes, that’s right. It was all according to plan. I had forcibly transcended mortal limitations according to plan. But… this is too excessive, isn’t it? At this rate, my ego will melt away in an instant…

-No way! You have to go all the way! Don’t try to accelerate and decelerate at the same time! Fierce rapids carve paths, but hesitant currents only scatter in all directions!

Gyeolli’s cry struck my head like thunder.

Hey, hey you! Gyeolli! You said you’d hold my mind together! In this state, I’ll be blown away instantly.

-Fool! How can you grab someone being swept away by a tsunami from outside the water? Jump in! Keep going! Faster!

Hey! That’s easier said than done…

-You! You’re not fixed. You! You’re flow. Send the front wave, then the next wave, then the wave after that. Keep going, keep connecting! It will connect! Let it flow! You’re not yourself right now. Right now you’re us! Bigger and stronger than you think!

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh!

Screw it all!

I threw away the self-awareness called ‘me.’ And quickly followed. Following, and when it became too much, throwing it away and following again. Countless ‘me’s seemed to appear inside me, following tail to tail. Or was it countless Inggolli? Ari? Gyeolli? What did it matter? Our existences mixed together to create a fierce flow of consciousness. Scraping an untrodden field to carve waterways.

Thus ‘we’ achieved temporary transcendence.

Only then. I could see properly what the Outer God’s apostle looked like.

It was like a dragon writhing across eleven dimensions. Something long that poked holes throughout our world, devoured it, and excreted the Outer God’s world. Ugly bastard. And I was now inside that ugly bastard’s belly.

It finally noticed my presence inside its belly.

[Vermin. I will turn you and your vermin inside out…]

I’ll omit the rest.

It conveyed a curse so terrible it couldn’t be described in words.

If we weren’t in a transcendent state right now… we probably would have been harmed by that curse alone.

But well, whatever. Right now…

[It’s our turn, bastard!]

Ari and Inggolli and Gyeolli and my voices rang out simultaneously. The magical power I had loosely unraveled trembled together. Ominously delicately, impiously greatly, harmoniously.

Right now, in this moment, we had barely touched 8th Circle together. Fire and water and wind mixed to create the supreme ultimate and eight trigrams, emptying the world. The power was different from the previous <Opening Heaven>. It truly felt like we could birth a new universe at this rate. It was a force that was nothing short of natural enemy to the Outer God’s apostle, which represented the order of one world.

But the fifth apostle was still arrogant. Even though it had been ambushed, had its limbs bound, its entire body torn to shreds by the attacks of mages and knights clinging to it like ants, and finally had me enter the center of its body and shake its foundation with the world-birthing power of <Opening Heaven>, the bastard endured. It aimed for a counterattack.

With just its trembling body movements, it shook off and killed countless mages and knights while glaring directly at me.

[So it’s you. Yes, the child the Magic Emperor staked his life to protect. How grateful I am that you’ve come to find me yourself…]

Its attitude suggested our attacks weren’t threatening at all.

But,

[Time Stop]

Time stopped. Temporarily, just for now, even the fifth apostle couldn’t completely avoid my [Time Stop].

<Opening Heaven>

In the stopped time, only we moved. Once again fire and wind and water formed the supreme ultimate and fluttered.

The moment passed and the stopped time was about to flow again,

[Time Stop]

<Opening Heaven>

[Time Stop]

<Opening Heaven>

[…..]

I don’t remember how many times I repeated it. I just repeated until Gyeolli tore me away from it.

And finally… the stopped time was released. Filling the fifth apostle’s belly with supreme ultimate.

This was the secret of the Magic Emperor, who used to bring down stars in a single strike. When condensed power is released all at once, its might cannot be calculated by simple addition.

[Graaaaaahhh! Too much! Graaahhh! Oh God! Forgive me… this humble… Graaaahhh!]

Finally, I heard its scream.