Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 24: A Fleeting Glimpse

Through all that long time, Salaar had never seen Myss’s true face.

In boundless darkness he could feel countless lines of sight coming from Myss. In dim light he had seen innumerable tips of tentacles.

He sketched the shape of that vast alien being in his mind bit by bit. Perhaps It was a soft-bodied creature with innumerable tentacles. Or perhaps It hid carapace, scales, and teeth deeper within.

…Would It be like a bird or a fish? Like a snake or a wolf?

…Would It be like a dragon? Or perhaps the giants of human fantasy?

Now, he had part of an answer.

No, Myss was like nothing at all.

No familiar tentacles, no supple flesh. For one second Salaar wasn’t even sure it was a “living thing.”

Myss hung unnaturally in midair with locked joints. The limbs on one side had been corroded away, and the wounds shed dense black mist.

It wasn’t formless dampness, more like some shattered particles. They moved in a terrifying, seductive pattern and spread outward into a broken radial structure.

It was like a beautiful, pitch-black sun.

It was a strange ethereal beauty. Rather than a wonder born of life, it belonged closer to mathematics: simple, cold, absolute.

A strange thought struck Salaar. If the concept of “end” itself could be observed, it would probably look like this.

Unfortunately, it was too young and too incomplete. It didn’t feel like Myss’s true form at all, more like a tiny corner of Myss’s real body.

Yes, that human shell was only a hole. Salaar could only snatch a glance at the “colossus behind the hole”. Yet the moment the darkness bared a hint of its true face, the “human Myss” shell was about to collapse.

It wasn’t only Myss’s flesh that was collapsing.

Where the black “sunlight” fell, the umbilical cord turned into squeaking fragments. Its regeneration was close to zero and they were on the verge of snapping.

At the end of the cord, the infant writhed uneasily. In its amniotic fluid it opened its mouth and cried without sound.

More memory fragments surged in as if to weave layer after layer of swaddling, desperate to heal its wounds faster. Countless pale red filaments drew back from the dark. Some tips still clung to incomplete Magibases. They ground them up at once and fed the body with purified magic.

Hundreds of Minas crawled over the monster’s surface and bent to stitch the ruptures. They no longer insisted on “restoring the original”. They stacked patches in haste. With such slapdash mending, the monster gradually lost its human shape and grew ever more twisted.

The battle shifted from mutual destruction to a race between ruin and regeneration.

Perhaps the human shell limited His power. Myss’s pace of destruction couldn’t keep up with the Minas’ speed of repair.

He struggled toward one particular direction, yet the monster’s flesh blocked Him again and again, slowing Him to a crawl.

His human body necrotized and sloughed under the black radiation, like a snakeskin about to be shed. If this continued, “Myss” would vanish.

No, Salaar thought. Not now. He still wasn’t sure what would happen.

Myss might die, might lose control. In the worst case His will would return to that boundless dark and then descend upon the world.

“Don’t come closer.” Salaar tossed the words to Kalen and dove for that black sun.

Near that uncanny splendor his own flesh hissed as it corroded and split, then regenerated under the nourishment of golden light.

Enduring the pain of being burned alive, Salaar charged straight to Myss’s back and wrapped both arms around what remained of his torso.

He squeezed every drop of power from his body and poured all he had into healing that shell. Myss’s flesh regrew fast and sheathed the black mist, only to be burst apart by it again.

…Myss himself gave no response, intent only on flying in that one direction.

“Myss.” Salaar forced a voice through a mangled throat. “Myss, no.”

Black blood streamed from Salaar’s eyes, his eyeballs shriveled at speed, then regained luster in a flood of golden light. Even so, he never looked away.

He clenched his teeth, and his flesh began to proliferate unnaturally. He bandaged Myss’s wounds with his own skin and rammed the rampaging darkness back into Myss’s body.

It was a horrifying “embrace”. At a glance he looked like a wax statue melting over a branding iron.

Myss finally sensed the obstruction. His human shell convulsed and gave a broken cry.

It irritated Him—He knew exactly where He should strike, yet He couldn’t squeeze out enough magic, and the body wouldn’t obey His commands. This human flesh was truly clumsy and hard to use.

Right then He wanted only to cast it off and be rid of every hateful shackle. Even if His thoughts and feelings slipped away with it, what would be so bad? He had never needed that noise.

But Salaar’s flesh pushed into His wounds and locked Him tight inside the shell.

The man even bared his own heart; the beating organ pressed to Myss’s back. The instant it brushed that heart, His runaway power froze for a moment.

Just like their first grappling match on arrival. By some unknown law, He simply couldn’t kill Salaar.

Salaar didn’t miss the opening. Dazzling golden light burst outward like an explosion.

New-grown flesh wrapped the black mist and Myss’s body knit together at speed. The agony melted away like snow. In a daze, He recovered a sliver of reason.

Salaar’s build was much larger than Myss’s, and the embrace from behind almost embedded Him in that body.

The enemy’s warm flesh pulsed gently inside Him… within his wounds. The sensation defied description and Myss broke out in goosebumps on the spot.

Myss twisted in displeasure. “You—”

The moment he opened his mouth, something round and plump filled it.

It was a raspberry-flavored candy ball, still smeared with a touch of sweet blood—Salaar’s blood.

…The act was baffling. Myss froze where he was, jaw locked around the candy.

“Such a temper. Looks like you are hungry.” Salaar spoke in fits and starts, and he sounded relieved.

The great hero spoke with ease, yet his body was in tatters. His clothes were rags, and his skin was all torn gashes. The abnormal overgrowth of flesh withered and sloughed away. Cold sweat slicked him, his body trembled faintly, but his expression stayed quite calm.

At last his gaze left Myss and turned to the monster.

A moment ago, Salaar had been busy restraining Myss, and no one had time to attack. The two of them ended up crushed tight in the monster’s embrace, and only Salaar’s protective magic kept them alive, yet—

Crack. The tottering barrier split with a fissure. Warm memories from mothers flowed slowly, and countless women’s arms reached out for them from the shards of memory.

Crack. Myss bit down and shattered the candy. The sweet aroma pushed back that trace of blood.

He still didn’t trust Salaar. But he also knew this absolutely wasn’t the time to argue.

Myss tried to recover the feel of his earlier attack. For the moment his power was stable inside him, and his senses weren’t as sharp as when he lost control.

Fortunately, his new ability hadn’t vanished completely. Myss focused, and his pupils blurred and warped like mist. Through a thousand obstacles he could vaguely see the shadow of the “end”.

“We can only attack that infant. The rest of this thing is kneaded from memories and can regenerate without limit,” he said irritably. “I will settle accounts with you later…”

“There’s nothing in this world that is truly limitless, especially not memory,” Salaar said quietly, without loosening his embrace.

Myss shifted uncomfortably. “Thanks to you, now, even I can’t make these memories disappear. Unless you have Mina’s skill and can twist them all.”

“Twist?”

“Twist, pollute, understand it however you want,” Myss snorted. “Either way, the infant is the true body. It’s constantly drawing on ‘motherly’ memories. As long as the people of Rosha aren’t all dead, it has an endless supply.”

Salaar suddenly smiled.

They were so close that Myss could feel the vibration in Salaar’s chest.

“That is convenient,” he said weakly. “You know I am very good at mental magic.”

“Since it needs happy memories, we only have to pollute them all with painful ones.” Salaar’s tone grew indistinct. “Very good. If the need were reversed, it would be troublesome…”

Myss nearly laughed from anger. “That’s the memory of an entire city!”

“But I’m truly very good at mental magic,” Salaar said in an elusive way. He tightened his hold as if a drowning man clutching driftwood, squeezing Myss enough to make him struggle.

Then he shoved Myss away.

“Go finish what you started,” Salaar whispered. “This time I’ll give you the best footholds.”

Only then did Myss notice the dense sheath of golden protection covering him. Salaar pushed with great force and flung him directly toward the infant.

At the same time, the shield around Salaar shattered on cue. He became the perfect decoy and was swallowed entirely by the monster’s embrace.

In the last instant before the hero disappeared, amid the kaleidoscope of memory shards and the gaps between countless arms, Myss saw that familiar blue eye.

It curved slightly, and that trace of a smile felt like a blessing.

Before Myss could recover, an anomaly burst forth.

It was as if the monster had been splashed with invisible strong acid. The warm memory fragments dimmed rapidly and turned a murky gray-black. The pale red threads withered and curled. Despair spread like a plague… Just as Mina once overlaid their memories, now a tidal wave of pain overlaid them in return and devoured all that was good.

The memory fragments peeled away in layers like dead skin, and the pale red threads snapped to the last. The monster couldn’t keep its footing and toppled toward Myss.

At that moment the shield burst into countless lingering golden shards. Myss stepped lightly on them and shot like an arrow toward the struggling infant.

The monster tried to swing its limbs to block, but with its memories wholly polluted, it couldn’t retrieve a single shred of “happiness”.

Rip!

Hot fresh blood splashed out, staining the spire and speckling the tips of Kalen’s shoes.

Myss pierced the infant’s heart. Pitch-black magic spread without the slightest drag. It split on the spot into several chunks and collapsed into the air.

And the sweetest thing, Myss’s first spoils, was clutched tight in his hand.

It was a thin little girl, curled like a fetus. Shimmering scraps of memory still clung to her skin, and most of her body had already turned to red threads. The girl was probably still alive. Myss could hear her heartbeat.

The distortion and madness ebbed away. The smiling Minas vanished one by one… until only she remained.

Unfortunately, Myss had no time to savor his feast. With the infant gone, the vast body made of memories also turned to ash, and Salaar was about to fall.

As much as he hated him, the guy couldn’t die now.

Kicking off the remaining golden glimmers, Myss streaked straight for Salaar. When he landed again, he had a human in each hand, and luckily neither had shattered.

Myss tossed the half-unconscious Salaar aside, rolled up his sleeves, and rushed the girl. He was just about to deliver the killing blow—

“My God, you’re a remarkable hero.”

Kalen had somehow followed. His face was full of sincere awe, and the black blood beneath his eyes hadn’t yet been wiped clean. “Sorry, sorry. Seeing the way you looked earlier, I misunderstood again…”

“You want to save her first, right? Please, let me!”

Myss: “?”

No, you really misunderstood. I was about to kill her.

He was dumbfounded for only a few seconds before Kalen darted in and pulled something from the girl’s arms—

Myss: “…!!!”

That was it. That was exactly what he wanted!

The thing sent the Demon Lord reeling so hard he nearly lost his balance.

It was a lump of soft black flesh about the size of a round bun. It swayed gently in Kalen’s palm, its surface pulsing slightly, like a heart made of pudding.

Myss wrung out every drop of self-control in his life and swallowed back the saliva threatening to spill out. “You know what this is? …What is it?”

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The author has something to say:

Myss: I’ll deal with Salaar later, for now just let me eat.jpg

Myss: ? Don’t take my food.

Salaar: (secretly observing)

This definitely isn’t Myss’s full form, no way everything gets revealed in Volume 1.

Next chapter reveals the source of the plague, story finale——!

Will the Demon Lord actually get to eat this meal? Food food!

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