Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 155: A True God
Salaar was running a fever, his body hot and heavy. The instant that warmth vanished, the icy fog rushed straight against Myss’s back, and every hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
Myss spun around almost as if entering a combat stance and immediately saw Salaar standing several steps away.
The whites of Salaar’s eyes were darkening rapidly. At this moment, he looked nothing like the radiant Hero described by bards. Instead, he looked more like a demon that had crawled out of the abyss.
Those altered eyes stared steadily at Myss, just as they always had. But his pupils were somewhat unfocused, and Myss couldn’t find that infuriatingly clear awareness he was so used to seeing.
Before this, Myss had never particularly liked the clarity in Salaar’s eyes.
Salaar was clearheaded about the immense catastrophe the Night Scourge had brought upon the human world, so he didn’t hate the Chaos Archdemon. Salaar was equally clearheaded about his uncontrollable love, so he didn’t cling to a false dream.
Even in that dim bedroom, during the most absurd and delirious moments between them, the clarity in those lapis-lazuli eyes had never gone out.
It constantly reminded Myss of the ending between them, the one and only ending in which one of them would die.
Even if they had deviated slightly, they were still moving along a path toward destruction. Salaar seemed to have calmly accepted that fate, and that irritated Myss more than anything.
Yes. That damned clarity had seriously reduced the effectiveness of Myss’s “love torment.” After all, compared with certainty, hope was what made people suffer more.
But at this moment, Myss missed it desperately.
“Did you accidentally fall off?” Myss asked in a dry, hoarse voice. He sincerely hoped that was what had happened.
Salaar stood amid the chaotic fog, his cheeks even redder with fever. In the dim night, that redness looked more like an unhealthy bluish-purple, and Myss could barely make out his expression.
Salaar parted his lips slightly, letting the thick fog wrap around his tongue.
“I jumped down myself,” he said.
The fog was nearly swallowing him, yet Salaar showed no intention of coming closer.
“So you’ve recovered,” Myss said forcefully. “But you can see what things are like around here too. We can go back, rest for a while, make some preparations, then try again.”
Salaar shook his head and gave a somewhat weak smile.
“Before, I wanted to live a little longer so the seal could hold for a few more years. But actually, from that time onward… from that time onward, I had a terrible and selfish thought.”
“Sometimes I thought that having a short lifespan might not be so bad. Because then, I could spend my entire life beside you.”
“Do you know, Myss? In that seal, the moment when I thought I was about to die was the happiest moment of my life.”
His gaze shifted away from Myss and toward the rolling fog.
“I hadn’t betrayed the human world, and I wouldn’t have to witness your death… How wonderful.”
Myss stood frozen in place.
Perhaps he should have rushed forward, restrained the emotionally unstable Salaar, and forcibly dragged him back to the house. But those words nailed his feet into the mud. He couldn’t take a single step.
He should have found it ridiculous or contemptible, Myss thought. But instead, he only felt… uncomfortable in his chest.
“What are you trying to say? Are you planning to die right now and experience that happiness again?” Myss hissed the words through clenched teeth.
“I’m not that kind of coward.” The amusement in Salaar’s voice became more obvious, even as his words grew increasingly blurred. “I think I’ve more or less figured out what’s happening here. It singled us out because… I’ll be fine…”
A flash of clarity appeared in his eyes. Salaar seemed to be trying to convey his discovery to Myss. But it was quickly swallowed by an even deeper haze, leaving only delirious nonsense behind.
“I’m going to make all of this stop…” He murmured as he stepped backward, his face disappearing completely into the fog.
Myss lunged forward and caught nothing. His hands closed around empty mist, and his heart dropped violently.
Salaar moved quietly. He had concealed his presence, while the flow of power within the fog was far too chaotic. The former Hero vanished into the mist like a grain of sand sinking into a tsunami.
Salaar didn’t have a locating communication device on him. Myss had imagined Salaar’s condition worsening until they were forced to go back. He had imagined Salaar stabilizing and the two of them continuing onward together. The one thing he had never imagined was Salaar running away right in front of him.
For more than three hundred years, Salaar had never left!
Myss swayed slightly, like a solitary boat that had lost its anchor.
Then he gritted his teeth and extended black threads of magic in every direction, trying to use them to search for Salaar. But the threads had barely spread before the rolling night fog corroded them away completely.
They were still too thin, too fragile.
The power here used a relatively crude method of “plundering,” but in terms of sheer strength, it was absolutely no weaker than Myss without his true body. Unless Myss projected his magic outward without regard for the consequences. But that would only weaken him.
Boom!!!
Annihilation magic exploded around Myss, blasting a massive crater into the ground.
Displeasure spread through him like poison. Myss’s hands and feet went cold, his eyes turning frighteningly red, faint blood vessels creeping across the whites.
Everything at his side was empty. Everything felt hollow. His stomach churned with an uncontrollable urge to vomit. Even though his limbs were cold as ice, the back of his neck felt as though it were burning, his entire body drawn painfully tight.
Yet amid that abnormal fury, Myss’s thoughts were extraordinarily clear.
Salaar was extremely skilled in mental magic. He probably hadn’t been controlled by some external force. His own thinking had simply become unbalanced. Salaar’s objective had changed. He hadn’t become stupid.
There was a contract between him and Myss. If Salaar truly abandoned him, he would instantly lose his magic. That meant Salaar couldn’t go too far away from him, and he had to ensure Myss’s safety.
Right now, Salaar simply didn’t want Myss to find him.
Myss turned around, clutched the locating communication device on his collar, and sprinted back toward the house they had come from.
In twenty-four hours, the humans would all be dead. It was impossible to know how long the Dragon Fae could last. Kalen had no magic. And now Salaar had been affected too…
He had to uncover the truth of this place as quickly as possible.
Time was running out, and from this point onward, he couldn’t afford a single misstep.
……
Archmage Marcela’s residence.
Kai leaned against the door and did his best not to look at the cracks on the back of his hand.
Everyone else had gathered around the fireplace. Both of Earl’s lower legs were gone, and he was still unconscious. Kalen was doing his best to care for him, feeding him some herbal juice to restore his strength.
Two steps away, Lawler’s expression looked frighteningly awful.
Kai’s gaze stabbed toward Lawler. “Strange. You seem to be completely fine.”
“I… I don’t know what’s going on either,” Lawler answered awkwardly. “There’s never been fog this thick around here. At least, I’ve never seen it before…”
As he spoke, he kept staring at the floor, as though some astonishing secret had secretly been written there.
Kai gave a quiet hum. “So you’ve been here before.”
Lawler fell silent. After a long while, he finally spoke somewhat stiffly.
“I’ll go ask Lady Marcela again.”
Kai shifted slightly. At that moment, carved into the door behind him were the words: [Beware of Marcela.]
“There’s no need to rush. I understand what you’re thinking. Lady Marcela bears no ill will toward us. She hasn’t acted, so perhaps these abnormalities aren’t anything serious. Maybe the fog causes hallucinations.”
He spoke in a friendly, reassuring tone. “Let’s talk first. How do you know Lady Marcela?”
“N-nothing special.” Lawler seemed to relax a little. “I should still go upstairs and tell her. Maybe she doesn’t know what’s happening down here.”
“Wait here. I’ll be right ba-”
His words were cut off by a violent crash against the door.
Myss slammed through it so hard he nearly knocked the entire door off its hinges.
Kai had been leaning against it with his left foot hooked behind his right ankle, striking a reasonably stylish pose. Now he stumbled forward several steps and nearly fell flat on his face.
“Mr. Myss, you’re back already? What’s it like outside?”
Kai had barely regained his balance before firing off questions in rapid succession.
Myss ignored him completely. He strode through the startled group and headed straight for the second floor. Salaar was no longer inside the house, so neither were his reservations.
Lord Archdemon didn’t mind making Marcela suffer a little.
Realizing that Salaar wasn’t with Myss, Kai and Kalen exchanged a look. Kai gave a slight nod. Kalen breathed a sigh of relief, stuffed Tass into his pocket, and hurried after Myss two steps at a time.
Lawler opened his mouth. After struggling for two seconds, he hurriedly followed as well.
Marcela was still standing in front of the window.
The magic in Myss’s right hand condensed into a short blade. Its absolute blackness stood out even in the night. Without the slightest hesitation, Myss stabbed toward Marcela’s back with full force.
Even if the old woman’s entire body was made of fog, his power would still pierce straight through her.
“Useless,” Marcela said with extraordinary calm. “Human magic can only…”
Halfway through the sentence, her eyes suddenly widened in shock. The tip of the black blade protruded from her abdomen without the slightest damage. The fog around the blade immediately became chaotic.
It seemed to be trying to plunder the annihilation magic within the edge just as it had plundered Divine Blood. But Myss had learned from experience.
He compressed his power to the limit. Before the fog could gnaw away at the magic, the annihilation power instantly consumed the fog instead.
Marcela turned around, trailing a mass of black mist. There was now a hole through her abdomen, yet her movements showed no sign of slowing, as though she had lost all sensation.
Myss had no intention of being polite to her. Before Marcela could speak, he struck again with a backhand slash. Thanks to that first attack, he had roughly estimated the concentration of power required to avoid being plundered.
In the blink of an eye, both of Marcela’s arms had been severed, while black fog poured from the damage in her abdomen. Her two arms fell to the floor one after another, bursting into two masses of mist on impact.
“What a… surprise.” She craned her neck, her eyes bulging unnaturally wide.
The severed black fog condensed again. But instead of returning to their original positions, the mist transformed into rows of pitch-black human teeth that swarmed toward Myss.
Myss shifted his center of gravity expressionlessly and was just about to continue when…
“Myss?!”
“Teacher!”
Two shouts came from the stairway.
Myss didn’t pause for even an instant. Black arrows formed from magic shot directly toward the flying black false teeth. But when she heard Lawler’s voice, Marcela stiffened.
The black teeth dispersed on the spot.
“What… What is going on?”
Seeing Marcela with both arms cut off and Myss bristling with aggression, Kalen instinctively recoiled.
“I’m guessing you know exactly what’s going on,” Myss said. “Normal humans bleed. They don’t leak fog.”
“Salaar has been affected by this cursed place. Either she tells me the truth, or I’ll dismantle her until nothing remains but a set of dentures.”
Kalen’s back tensed. He had never heard such overwhelming malice in Myss’s voice before.
Lawler scrambled between the two of them and blocked Marcela with his body.
“There must be some misunderstanding, sir. Please calm down…”
“Ha ha.” Marcela suddenly began to laugh.
Her damaged body remained motionless, while her tone carried a terrifying sense of comfort. “That child… is about to mature.”
“What a… bountiful harvest.”
Lawler’s body trembled. He turned his head toward Marcela in disbelief.
“I know this cursed place is desperately absorbing magic. I only need you to tell me what exactly is happening to Salaar. Otherwise, today, right here, I’ll make sure not a trace of your corpse remains.”
Myss’s voice grew increasingly murderous.
Marcela’s thin body bent slightly. Then, extremely slowly, she turned sideways and revealed the window behind her.
“Look… for yourself.”
Outside the window there was no longer darkness.
Myss saw golden light, but it wasn’t brilliant and clear like sunlight. It resembled rotten pus. Accompanied by a dizzying, sickly-sweet scent, the fog outside the window had thinned considerably.
Within the sparse mist, a strange form emerged.
If one had to describe it, it resembled an enormous hourglass.
It was roughly the size of a single-story house, and the two sides weren’t perfectly symmetrical.
The inside of the hourglass was brilliant gold, but what filled it wasn’t fine grains of sand. It was a strange slime. It had the thick consistency of honey and slowly wriggled at the narrow center of the hourglass, looking utterly incapable of measuring time.
The hourglass had slightly curved ends and four warm-white supporting pillars. On closer inspection, those pillars were clearly formed from countless bones fused together, with innumerable skull sockets merging into one another. Seen through the fog, they looked almost like delicate carved patterns.
It floated horizontally in midair, like a cocoon waiting to hatch, or a symbol representing infinity.
And Salaar himself sat at the very center of the floating hourglass, in its most fragile point.
A considerable amount of brilliant golden slime clung to his body as well. It was difficult to tell whether the slime was holding him in place, or whether Salaar himself was melting.
His head was tilted slightly upward, his face wearing an almost peaceful expression. Yet framed by that grotesque giant structure, the tranquility didn’t look sacred at all. Instead, it carried an uncomfortable sense of blasphemy.
The filthy light pierced through the fog without feeling bright in the slightest.
Salaar’s unfocused eyes didn’t blink. They gazed gently at Myss. Myss swallowed with difficulty, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up once again.
Marcela slowly straightened, black fog still flowing from her wounds.
“I… never… imagined.”
She raised her head and released a long sigh filled with yearning.
“I could… plunder.”
“A true god.”
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