The Serpent of Origin

For an instant, it seemed as if its heart had stopped.

The serpent felt for the first time the chilling sensation of its entire body stiffening.

It didn’t take long to recall that this word was fear.

Thud!

The serpent pounded the walls, dropping rocks on Pernok.

At the same time, it severed the darkness Origin connected to the blades.

It wasn’t a knowing action.

Instinctively feeling this was a means that threatened itself, it sealed the darkness Origin.

‘This power rather favors the human.’

The serpent possessed one special ability besides Origin.

It could learn the intelligence of tributes it devoured and make them its own.

The tributes’ experiences cried out.

To face Pernok, it must raise its incomplete flesh.

‘Return to the Origin most familiar to me.’

The dark blue horns turned blue.

At that moment, seawater from all directions pressed Pernok in various forms.

Simultaneously, the serpent rapidly charged while riding the water currents.

‘It chose the sea instead of darkness?’

Pernok leaped beyond the door.

Once the serpent began spreading its wings in earnest, he couldn’t fight a battle that would destroy the sacred site.

No matter how sturdy the recording tablet was, if it were swept by the serpent’s tail even once, it would shatter to pieces.

So that the clue he barely found wouldn’t vanish futilely, Pernok widened the battlefield.

He rose to the midst of the sea, which was advantageous to the serpent that ruled the sea’s Origin.

‘The bubble’s remaining time is about 1 hour.’

Origin differs from magic.

A handful of seeds can manipulate this entire sea at will.

Until that mental strength exhausts, Origin absolutely never extinguishes.

The serpent’s mental strength was at a considerable level even by outward appearance.

Long-term battles were also disadvantageous to Pernok, who absorbs mana.

“Battles between Magi must absolutely never be dragged out into long contests. Due to the characteristics of dominating space, thinking becomes excessively wide and gaps inevitably occur. And enemies aim for small gaps. Magus battles are decided by who tears open momentary gaps.”

Like Ruin’s words, he must settle it with a short-term contest.

Pernok’s spatial domination power was merely a small marble before this vast sea.

Rough currents narrowed like nets from all directions, trying to crush Pernok’s domain.

When his body was being heavily pressed down, the serpent charged with its maw gaping.

‘I’ll pour out all magic.’

Pernok overlaid ice on the circular barrier.

Even after the serpent chewed the ice sphere thoroughly, no fishy blood taste was felt.

The serpent immediately raised its head.

This entire sea became its arms, legs, and eyes, all moving.

Even if he hid his appearance, as long as he remained in the sea, everything could be grasped.

Boom!

When the serpent swung its tail, explosions occurred in the empty waves.

Before long, the surroundings had completely filled with Pernoks.

One of the Dark Squad’s Five Stars.

Level-7 illusion magic simultaneously pounded the serpent.

Boom boom boom!

Though roars erupted everywhere, the serpent didn’t budge.

The serpent’s scales were harder than iron lumps, and ordinary wounds regenerated immediately when moisture touched them.

Pernok’s continuous strikes were merely like annoying gnats clinging.

The serpent put Origin into the sea, making needles, and shot them at the illusions.

Hundreds, thousands of water thorns penetrated the illusions and rushed again toward the empty waves.

Crackle!

Before the thorns gathered together, they all began freezing.

[Trivial. Do you dare think you can hide your appearance before a god!]

Pernok, released from stealth, pounded the ice.

When fragments shot in the opposite direction, the serpent flicked its tongue while shaking the sea.

In an instant, eight vortexes generated, chewing ice crystals while narrowing in on Pernok.

‘Has it severed the connection?’

As when he faced the darkness Origin head-on, he raised water magic with the intention of intervening in the sea.

However, the vortexes didn’t respond. The serpent had amazingly learned Origin combat methods.

’30 minutes.’

Pernok, who calculated the bubble’s remaining time, opened all his mana.

When the area’s space fell into Pernok’s hands, the vortexes scattered futilely.

The serpent examined that appearance, then moved the outer waves with a sinister eye-smile.

Kwaaaaa-!

The sea pressed Pernok’s space from all directions.

[This sea is mine, thus your struggles were futile.]

Pernok smirked, adding pure white colors to his mana.

Rakis Empire’s Magus Knox.

His Magus Arts’ light evaporated all the water trying to squeeze into the space.

As if eyes would go blind from the brilliant flash, the serpent frowned.

Crackle-!

Flesh began burning.

Light was faster than thinking, so when thoughts arose, it had already filled the escape routes.

‘A space within space.’

The Magus’s domain that even the sea’s Origin couldn’t approach accelerated the serpent’s thinking circuits.

‘It must be maintaining it with that appetizing power.’

The serpent, who saw through the raw material of mana, smiled.

[Human abilities have their limits.]

The serpent shed its melting skin.

Instantly, the skin overlaid the interior filled with light, and the sea outside was refined like blades, pounding the domain.

Crackle-!

Like shells shattering, cracks formed in the domain, and the serpent’s tail mercilessly smashed it.

Bang!

Whenever the light transformed into fine particles and shattered, the serpent’s smile deepened.

‘This must be that guy’s last struggle.’

The light was dangerous magic that, if tolerated as is, would have melted the serpent’s skin several times and reached its heart.

Since Pernok had poured out his full strength, the serpent was confident that no means greater than this existed.

‘Ah, so appetizing!’

Mesmerized by how delicious the light decorating Pernok’s surroundings was, the serpent drooled at the thought of learning his abilities and memories together.

Then, Pernok snapped his finger.

Snap.

At that moment, the serpent’s world distorted.

In the blink of an eye, the serpent was floating on the water surface.

[…?]

Was this a dream?

Why was Pernok floating in the sky while it wasn’t in the sea?

At the incomprehensible reality, Pernok snapped his fingers again.

[Dream Lv.7]

Intervenes in the thinking of targets who have absorbed mana.

For a maximum of 10 seconds, targets perceive illusions as reality.

All five senses during this time remain in the illusions.

Pernok had first sent mana flowing to the darkness Origin.

At that time, he attempted one preliminary work.

Because the serpent blocked it, the desired amount of mana didn’t seep in.

However, the second time.

When the light Magus Arts activated, the serpent shed its skin, and all of Pernok’s mana stuck to the flesh momentarily revealed.

Dream activated at that moment.

From the moment the Magus Arts shattered, the serpent’s appearance pressing down on Pernok was all a fabricated illusion.

Pernok, who judged he couldn’t inflict fatal damage in such a short moment, led the serpent to a new battlefield.

To the sky that was advantageous to him.

[Aim complete!]

[Shall we start!?]

Urgent voices burst from the castle backed by the full moon.

Pulling the serpent to the water surface was precisely to deliver fatal strikes that would shatter its shell.

Pernok carelessly pointed at the serpent still intoxicated by the dream, not yet buried in the waves.

“Fire.”

Before deploying the Mana Flash Cannons, one defensive function existed in the floating castle.

That was a self-defense measure to block others’ intrusions when floating the castle on the sea.

It contains the ultimate of alchemy that Baudelaire initially planned, directly sucking in and amplifying the core’s energy.

Concentrating all the castle’s functions at once above the tower.

Power emitted through concentration and amplification at the risen alchemy sigil.

The floating castle’s original grand strategic weapon, with Ruin’s delicate magical knowledge added, finally holds Lionic and bursts into cries.

Trident Force.

A pillar of brilliance swallowed the serpent.

[…!]

Before the overwhelming power that even swallowed sounds, the serpent and sea were pressed together.

For an instant, a massive hole was drilled through the sea.

The serpent sank to the bottom, bursting out shallow breaths.

Though smoke ripening from its body emerged and most scales had peeled off, its eyes still hadn’t died.

The horns also remained intact.

When the sea refilled the hole, the serpent would recover and rampage.

[O-output is dropping!]

A second shot was impossible.

After all, this was the castle’s final self-defense measure.

But it doesn’t matter.

The moment the serpent’s shell peeled, Pernok’s Observation Eye had grasped dozens of weak points.

Whooooong!

When power shining more brilliantly than moonlight gathered to Pernok, the serpent recalled that voice it could never forget for even a moment.

“You are a failure.”

That human dared to consider itself the creator, and when it didn’t obtain satisfactory results, said such words and left.

The serpent wanted to prove.

To the things that abandoned it, that this power ruling the sea was authority virtually approaching godhood.

However, Pernok displayed fierce momentum strangling the heart, as if mocking the serpent.

“Do you know what happens when Origin practitioners leave Origin?”

Different energies dwelt in both hands as he grinned like someone who discovered a toy.

The fist gripping the glove operated Circulation Link for Over Impact.

The other hand held Divine Punishment, which concentrated spiritual power.

It was a thought that suddenly occurred.

If he didn’t tire when using different powers sequentially, what would happen if he activated them simultaneously?

It was a concept possible because Pernok handles spiritual power, artifacts, and mana.

On the solid experiment table called the serpent, Pernok burst out questions he’d long harbored.

Rumble, kaboom!

Over Impact, which absorbed surrounding energy, first descended while tearing the atmosphere, and Divine Punishment radiated lightning as if adding propulsion to it.

The two gathered powers didn’t conflict but all shot at the serpent.

Hisssss…

Burning sounds were swallowed by the seawater, growing faint.

Pernok stepped his foot on the water surface.

Though both arms tingled, it was about the time he felt the two powers complemented each other better than expected.

Bubbles rose on the surface as a massive body floated up.

[Grrrrk…]

The serpent, with half its body burned pitch black, spits out painful cries.

The radiant red eyes and blue horns lost their light, and the sea no longer embraced the serpent.

The sea’s Origin had been gnawed by Divine Punishment and shattered to pieces.

“Tough and hard. I’ll use your remaining body as the castle’s materials.”

Pernok transformed the artifact into a greatsword and stabbed the fully cooked serpent’s head.

And when he burst the final Over Impact, the serpent fell while shedding bloody tears.

When he pulled out the greatsword, brain matter flowed through the split cracks.

Pernok swept over the motionless serpent’s body.

The moment Observation Eye captured pitch-black crystals, he stabbed the greatsword without hesitation.

Cutting and tearing open the flesh, darkness Origin was contained within.

“…”

What was embedded in the heart was a faded ring.

[Master. After all, rulers must have dignity! The disciples prepared gifts to make Master stand out, so please don’t be disappointed!]

The day they swallowed half the continent.

A ring the disciples had processed and gifted.

Obsidian that stayed with the Lord of Despair until the moment of death.

“So it was because of this.”

Pernok slowly extracted the obsidian.

It was a ring with no particular advantages besides being made from the hardest metal of that era so it doesn’t easily break.

However, the Lord of Despair always wore it, and whenever he activated Origin, darkness seeped into the ring.

Though it only unintentionally absorbed the Lord of Despair’s remnants, darkness Origin flows from the ring.

Though long ages have passed, the Lord of Despair’s appearance that never extinguishes freshly recalled itself.

[If I had met you all while alive, I would’ve dropped everyone into the abyss at once.]

Recalling the Lord of Despair who confidently shouted while gathering Netherworld’s absolute beings, Pernok smirked.

‘If your disciples’ descendants are discovered, I’ll gift this obsidian.’

It didn’t seem bad to teach methods of ruling darkness using the remaining Origin.

It was while Pernok was smiling and putting the obsidian in his pocket.

Before long, thousands of Scale Tribe had floated around.

Krade at the front looked at Pernok with an unbelieving expression.

“Did you truly kill the god?”

“You’re still elevating a mere creature—you’re quite lacking in experience.”

Pernok trampled the serpent’s head and shouted.

“The time for entrusting your fate to a creature has ended! I’ll grant you all a wider world!”