Chapter 286 |
It was invisible, yet its presence was palpable.
The sky trembled, and a hellish heat rapidly scorched the interior of the domain.
[Aaaaaah!!]
Only then did Walter realize his predictions had been entirely off the mark. He screamed madly and thrashed about in desperation.
The Apostle, who had shown no movement until then, suddenly unfurled dozens of legs.
The armor near its head split open, revealing a maw that bellowed a majestic roar.
Bwoooong!!!
A grating noise like thousands of insects buzzing their wings.
Hundreds of eyes that gleamed between the armor plates began to flicker in distinct patterns.
[Demonic Frost Liberation preliminary connection confirmed]
[Erased data recovery complete]
[Eternal Frost Cocytus loading in 5 seconds.]
A massive vortex of cold air spun above the Apostle's head, transforming into a gigantic storm of chill.
Shaaaa!!!
The eerie glow embraced the cold storm, engulfing the ashen plain filled with cinders.
The dry ash held not even a trace of moisture.
Yet the cold air that swirled above the Apostle froze and solidified those ashes in a way that defied possibility.
A chill that interfered not with matter, but with the conceptual components themselves. It was no longer the concept of cold that could be defined by words.
Crackle!!
The ashen plain beneath Renok's feet swiftly transformed into a pristine white sheet of ice.
The chill of the Outer Sea, which froze space itself, began to invade Renok's innate domain.
[This is the power of the great god!!]
The core of the domain Renok had deployed was undoubtedly that ashen plain.
Walter, convinced he had subdued it, bellowed in an ecstatic tone.
[The power of the outer realms, transcending the fixed spacetime of the future, reachable only by the chosen one...!! We have succeeded in grasping a fragment of it right now!!]
Crackle!!
The innate domain, complete as its own world, began to freeze entirely, blurring the boundaries of space.
The ultimate technique of Demonic Frost Liberation, unleashed by Walter with all his might the moment he was reborn as an Apostle.
If left unchecked, the innate domain—gathered to its utmost limits—would collapse completely.
Yet Renok, even after he witnessed Walter's desperate frenzy, silently gazed up at the Apostle's grotesque flesh.
[Dieeee!!!]
Sizzle!!
The Apostle's full-force strike, infused with killing intent. The torrent of Eternal Frost Cocytus approached Renok, who stood tall on the ashen hill, closing in right up to him.
Even so, Renok merely cast his gaze toward the sky.
[...?]
A sense of incongruity in his reaction belatedly surfaced in Walter's mind.
Why, when no traces of ominous flames or lingering embers remained in this area, did the heat continue to intensify?
No matter the power of the innate domain, it would have been impossible without a heat source that had burned everything and still persisted here.
If the answer lay at the end of the mage's gaze, then it was—
"The principle of Black Obsidian Divine Fall is not complicated."
As if sensing Walter's thoughts, Renok spoke.
"A intense heat source that condenses the essence of pyrothermal element. It's simply dropping that aggregate straight onto the earth."
The remnants of the total solar eclipse that had illuminated the ashen plain.
The star he had thought was merely blocking the sky fell toward the ground.
What had darkened this vast domain was no satellite eclipsing the sun, but a blazing black sun itself.
The localized heat source manifested as a star and plummeted down.
The intense gravity and heat that pressed down on the earth whipped through the plain mingled with ash and ice.
The mass of scorching heat, burning with pitch-black flames, descended, and the darkened sky began to brighten rapidly.
Renok smiled as the domain's sky, now illuminating his face, greeted him.
"You chose the wrong place to lend your power."
[You bastard!!!!]
Walter's utterly desperate scream echoed out, but it was already too late once he realized.
Origin Attribute Hierarchy incantation manifestation
[Celestial Chain Descent]
The small black sun, burning fiercely, slowly rotated as it fell directly onto the Apostle's head.
Kwaaaaa!!!
The sun that spewed black flames shattered the Apostle's armor as if it were nothing and began to madly incinerate the flesh within.
The culprit that had turned an entire mental image into ashes now poured its full fury onto the external intruder in this domain.
Sizzle!!
The heat that bored into the Apostle's flesh instantly ravaged its massive body, turning it into kindling.
The agony as if its soul were aflame. A wretched full-force strike resounded.
[Kwaaaaa!!!]
Crackle!!
The Apostle's body, burdened with black flames blazing on its back, plummeted to the ground.
Its legs, sluggish from the cold of the Outer Sea it had unleashed, froze solid, but the overwhelming heat of the flames coursing through its body left no room for concern.
Kaaang!!
As the Apostle's colossal form crashed into the ashen plain, the innate domain shattered, revealing the ruins of the mansion.
Yet the black flames consuming Walter's body showed no sign of stopping, incinerating his flesh and mind entirely.
[Aaaaaah!!! Hahaha!!!]
The Apostle's body, emerging amid the empty mansion ruins, rolled across the ground, indiscriminately demolishing the surrounding streets.
Dozens of legs extended into the streets, convulsing wildly, and the black flames between them turned the area into a sea of fire.
The earth trembled as massive vibrations spread, and the walls of flame racing through the streets surged like waves, sweeping over the citadel's central district.
Kugugugugugu!!!!
At the center of that spectacular destruction, Renok slowly backed away and leaned against the crumbled wall.
Thick beads of sweat dripped endlessly from his forehead as he slightly bowed his head.
"Hoo, hoo...!!"
An immense mana consumption made it hard to maintain his sanity.
He had deployed the innate domain, manifested the mental image, and then sustained it while dropping the miniature sun—it was impossible.
He had wanted to keep Walter trapped inside the domain until the Apostle's body was fully incinerated, but if that was unfeasible, leaving the manifested incantation was the best he could do.
Just maintaining the black flames incinerating the Apostle right now drained every last drop of mana from his body.
"Da, Dabi...!!"
With trembling hands, he reached into his pocket but gave up and called the cyberbrain spirit's name.
Manipulating mana to the extreme just to sustain the incantation overwhelmed him.
In this state, he could not rule out the risk of dropping a mana recovery ampoule while trying to retrieve it.
Dabi said nothing.
Instead, it swiftly extracted a blue-filled ampoule from inside Renok's coat and inserted it into the back of his hand.
Pshuk!
"Ugh...!!"
External mana injected directly through the skin into his veins.
The pain of mana addiction syndrome, where muscles and cells innately rejected mana, gnawed at his body in an instant, but in this situation, there was no choice.
He had avoided mana-related ampoules for this reason, but their effect would be faster than any ingested elixir.
Fortunately, thanks to regular treatments from the Medicine Immortal that mitigated the side effects of mana addiction syndrome, he could even attempt this method.
Dabi nimbly climbed onto Renok's shoulder and flicked its tongue.
[Master. I will blow up the nearby intersection's sewer. Please brace for impact.]
Boom!!
An explosion echoed from afar, and a geyser erupted from the ground, pouring toward the wall where Renok stood.
The incoming heat instantly evaporated the water, but the scorching temperature on his skin began to drop rapidly.
"Hooo!!"
With his breathing finally easing, Renok hastily gathered mana and focused the firepower on the Apostle's body.
Kugugugugu!!!
The flames that had burned away the armor's interior without mercy now consumed even the convulsing cephalopod legs.
Heat and pain beyond limits. At the center of this self-destructive conflagration, Walter, realizing his mind was fraying, screamed.
[This can't... happen... Even receiving the Outer Sea's will, I must accept death...]
"..."
[In the end, without challenging ascension, I cannot escape the mortal coil...]
The dim glow between the armor plates turned toward Renok.
Even receiving that gaze from an incomprehensible form, Renok met it silently.
After a brief silence, Walter's laughter leaked from the Apostle's body.
[Heh, heh... Very well... This is unavoidable... For the sake of my wandering brothers between past and future fragments...]
"What... do you mean?"
Walter gave no reply.
He abandoned resistance to the flames consuming his body and simply lay his remaining flesh comfortably in the street.
[From the other side where my heart is fulfilled... In the name of the great god... I curse you to the end.]
"..."
His keen intellect and aspirations were all engulfed in flames, turning to ashes, and even in that scorching heat, only viscous hatred remained, swirling until the last.
Renok felt that blatant remnant will of resentment plainly but stared blankly at the smoke, leaning against the broken wall.
His coat was soaked from the flood created by bursting the sewer, and his body sagged in exhaustion from the drug's aftereffects.
Gazing up at the wall of black flames, Renok murmured absentmindedly.
"Things don't always go as planned..."
Even after he expended all his mana, the flame wall Renok had ignited continued to burn without extinguishing.
The black flames, deprived of their power source, greedily devoured the surroundings like a living entity to avoid dying out.
It narrowed the distance toward Renok, whom even its master no longer recognized.
Amid the rising inferno, Renok pondered with a cigarette in his mouth, his body limp.
The connection with Blaver Magic Tower, and among the countless branch points that followed, the future most likely for Renok if he chose it—had manifested as his innate domain.
The power of manifesting and dropping that localized miniature sun was truly overwhelming.
But the problem was that the scenery of Black Obsidian Divine Fall he had manifested was not what Renok intended.
The direction of manifesting and dropping a small sun was correct, but the landscape below was entirely different from his conception.
A vast plain turned completely to ashes, its mind incinerated. Was that the future awaiting if he chose Blaver Magic Tower?
It was not impossible.
If he were not the self completing his answers as now, but the factory worker who wavered and hesitated back then.
Even if he envisioned only a barren plain at the end of an endless war, it would not be strange.
The innate domain's branch point observation reflected even such futures from Renok's heart.
'It's precarious... It's getting harder to control.'
Renok's innate domain was not a completed technique as a concept but closer to an unfinished blueprint with much potential left.
An ultimate technique that he could barely manifest by drawing on all his capacity and talent, forcibly heightening his condition with multiple layers of doping.
Unlike other incantations perfectly controlled in his hands, this innate domain was like delicate glasswork.
Beautiful, intricate, seemingly flawless, yet it could shatter into pieces in an instant if mishandled.
The same applied.
The endless talent, vessel, and capacity created branch points.
The mental image's direction toward futures that should not exist twisted and degenerated bizarrely.
It was because Renok's talent had reached a dangerously high level.
The desolate ashen plain shown by Black Obsidian Divine Fall was, in essence, a warning of another self's conclusion veering in a different direction.
With a complicated expression, Renok sighed and stubbed out his cigarette.
"Hoo..."
He could not stay like this forever.
Before the flames escaped his control and consumed even him, he had to flee this street as soon as possible.
Had Asui escaped safely? As such thoughts crossed his mind, he forced his trembling legs to stand.
"Ban!!"
A light wind stirred from the far end of the street, and a woman with long indigo hair descended from the air.
"Ban-nim!!"
Asui, carried on her back, waved with a bright expression.
"You succeeded!! I believed in you!!"
"Talk later."
Suryeon, with a slender crescent blade slung over her back, hurried over and supported Renok.
Even the narrow path Suryeon had passed through was rapidly being devoured by the black flame wall.
"We need to get out of here right now."