Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 157: Breaching the Contract
A heavy, oppressive night fog, boundless silence, and a single point of brilliant golden light not far away.
The situation was hardly appropriate, yet Myss couldn’t help remembering the past. Only their circumstances had been completely reversed. Now it was the Hero Archdemon floating in the sky, while Saint Myss stood with both feet planted in the mud.
At this moment, they were about to face another battle.
Myss glared at Salaar’s face, wearing that empty smile, and his stomach cramped again.
“I’ll have to deal with you first,” he said unhappily.
Let this version of Salaar follow him to find Marcela? …If Salaar started flinging time-stopping slime around while Myss was dealing with Marcela, the two of them would become the greatest joke in history.
Of course, Myss had already become half a joke himself. Even now, Myss still firmly believed that Salaar wouldn’t leave him with an unsolvable mess.
Truthfully, that trust had almost no basis at all. In the end, Salaar was only a “human” with slightly more memories than most. He made mistakes, he felt sorrow, and he prayed for time to stop like some desperate fool.
Yet Myss still trusted him. He had never been good at denying his own instincts.
So now, how was he supposed to deal with this half-god, half-mortal Salaar?
He had already seen how capable Salaar was of healing himself. Talking him down would be even more useless. Myss suspected Salaar’s brains were currently boiling and bubbling…
Wait.
Myss lowered his head and looked at Fork, who was wrapped around his wrist and too frightened to make a sound.
That was proof of their contract.
Right. If either of them violated the contract, they would immediately lose all their power until the other party willingly forgave them.
If this contract could restrain even Myss as the Chaos Archdemon, then it should certainly be able to restrain Salaar in his current state.
He had to make Salaar violate the contract willingly.
The contract required them to share information, ensure each other’s safety, and remain by each other’s side. With Salaar in this damned state, the information-sharing clause was useless. Salaar wouldn’t deliberately leave him, so the restriction about “staying by each other’s side” probably wouldn’t work either.
Right now, Salaar wanted time to stop forever, while Myss wanted him to stop causing trouble. In their own ways, both of them were trying to ensure the other’s “safety.”
Even if they fought, it would probably be like that battle in bed and fail to trigger the contract’s punishment.
Damn it. Every path was blocked.
Myss grew increasingly agitated, feeling as though even his hair wanted to fall out.
Just then, a lump of cold slime flew past the tip of his nose. Lord Archdemon shuddered all over and quickly leapt backward several steps.
Salaar raised both arms, coated in slime, as though yearning for an embrace. More liquid masses split and changed shape, turning into droplets the size of eyeballs that “looked” at Myss from every direction.
Myss’s gaze sharpened, and he attacked by reflex.
Fork opened its snake mouth wide, and black arrows shot toward the blobs. They struck the approaching slime with perfect accuracy. Gold and black tangled instantly before vanishing into nothingness in silent explosions.
Salaar’s arms lowered slightly, his face still expressionless. But beside him, those damned masses of slime kept seeping from the hourglass as though they were endless.
In the blink of an eye, they split, then split again, shrinking from eyeball-sized droplets into pea-sized ones before taking aim at Myss once more.
Myss: “…”
He had never missed his countless tentacles this much before. Two hands were nowhere near enough!
The murky golden rain fell sideways toward him. Myss quickly condensed a pitch-black umbrella in front of himself, causing the sinister droplets to annihilate on contact.
However, he had to continuously pour power into the surface of the umbrella to keep it from turning into a sieve.
…He couldn’t let this become a battle of attrition. Otherwise, Marcela would absolutely take advantage of both of them afterward.
Myss straightened his right hand, and countless threads of magic twisted together into a warped spear. Using the large umbrella as cover, the sharp spear blasted toward the hourglass beneath Salaar.
With a thunderous boom, violent wind swept through the night fog. The terrifying hourglass was blasted open by annihilation magic, leaving behind a perfectly round hole where golden slime flowed outward like mead.
Myss raised his eyes over the edge of his umbrella, preparing for the golden light of healing magic, but that light never appeared.
Instead, the night fog rapidly churned and gathered before being absorbed by the hourglass.
It gradually solidified, transforming into transparent glass and golden slime until Salaar’s divine body was completely restored.
After the repair, the nearby fog noticeably thinned.
“My… ss…” Salaar murmured. His arms searched aimlessly, while his eyes remained unfocused.
Myss flicked the umbrella aside, his crimson eyes narrowing slightly. A torrent of magic was circling around the two of them, and Salaar was the vortex at its center.
Whenever he healed, Salaar’s wounds were like the drain of a bathtub after the plug had been pulled, sucking magic out of the fog at a horrifying rate. As more magic poured into him, the hourglass became fuller and more refined.
Meanwhile, what little remained of Salaar’s body grew increasingly insubstantial.
His chest and abdomen had already turned into translucent golden slime, through which his ribs and heart could faintly be seen. He looked more and more like one of the insane gods created by an Abnormal Fruit, and less and less like Salaar.
Myss’s fingers tightened.
Salaar was resisting the erosion of this place, yet the more fog his absorbed, the worse his condition became.
When Marcela said Salaar wasn’t yet mature, she probably meant he hadn’t completed the transformation. If Salaar were completely swallowed by obsession and became a god with no sanity left…
Even if “Salaar” remained alive, the Salaar who belonged to him would be gone forever.
Myss tasted blood in his mouth. At some point, he had bitten through his lip.
An annihilation spear rapidly formed beside him, then slowly dispersed again. If he unleashed everything he had, pouring out power as though he had lost control, could he annihilate all the fog?
Even if he annihilated the fog nearby, more from farther away would always rush in and touch what belonged to him.
And when that happened, how was he supposed to deal with a world where both sky and earth were filled with fog?
Despair.
The word abruptly surfaced and pressed heavily against his nerves. Back then, when Salaar had faced him, had he felt this kind of despair too?
Myss raised his head and greedily stared at what remained of Salaar’s face.
Bards always loved glorifying war, especially wars involving heroes.
In their stories, when people faced desperate situations, they always remembered countless moments from the past, those rose-colored memories of happiness… It was all utter bullshit.
Because right now, Myss couldn’t remember anything at all. His mind was blank except for a tangled mess of thoughts growing wildly.
This is mine.
He was going to lose it.
This is mine.
It was going to be erased.
A mere weakened Marcela actually dared to take away his enemy.
His.
Myss wasn’t an expert on despair, but he was exceptionally good at getting angry. Rage burned fiercely, igniting something else inside him—something that made it impossible to think and tightened his chest. It burned through his organs, his bones, all the way into the deepest reaches of his brain.
Pitch-black magic surged around Myss. This time, it was imitating nothing. It simply twisted and changed according to Myss’s instincts, searching for any possible outlet.
From magical threads, to tangled black gauze, to solid blades, and finally into chaotic black mist.
…Then it dissolved into the air.
Right.
He did have a way—a clumsy, crude, immature spell. Yet, it was also the most complex magic he had mastered so far, and the closest thing he possessed to the concept of a “god.”
It consumed enormous amounts of power; he should never have used it at a time like this, but…
Myss drew in a deep breath and dismissed the black umbrella in front of him. “Salaar, come here.”
Salaar quietly looked at him. The golden rain around him began stirring restlessly again.
“You should stop all of this,” Myss said as he poured everything he had into refining that damned spell, his temples throbbing painfully.
“It would be better if you paused the entire world. That way, the apocalypse would never arrive. Only you and me.”
“Myss…” Salaar murmured deliriously, impossible to tell whether he had understood.
Myss held his breath and moved two steps closer, like someone approaching an injured wild animal.
“Look. I’m not gathering power.” Myss’s words were gentle, though his tone remained stiff. “I’ve thought it through. You need to make me a more comfortable blob. I don’t like nests that are too hard.”
Salaar seemed bewildered by the sudden change. He paused, then actually began gathering the scattered droplets of slime.
By now, Myss was already within three steps of him. A faint trickle of blood ran beneath his nose.
Rustle.
The blue-gray fog vanished; the cold, wet mud vanished. All that remained was endless darkness.
The complex spell Myss had cast… No, “miracle” was the more appropriate term.
Every muscle in Myss’s body was straining, even the tips of his toes pulled tight. He felt as though he were balancing an entire stack of plates coated in soap, each one wobbling precariously.
One mistake and everything would collapse.
Originally, he had wanted to drag Salaar’s body inside as well. Unfortunately, he had no time to improve the spell that far. All he could successfully separate into this place were their minds.
“Damn it…” Myss gritted his teeth as sweat ran down his cheeks.
The spell churned his magic like a meat grinder, nearly draining him dry. He had adjusted part of the magical flow by instinct, but actually using it was still brutally taxing.
Myss didn’t want to look up. With Salaar in that state, he genuinely had no idea what exactly he had peeled away.
What if it had failed…
“Myss?”
A familiar voice called to him.
Only then did Myss raise his head.
It was Salaar—the first Salaar in Myss’s memories, identical to the one from the Blind God’s dream. Only his lower body had already vanished, and much of his upper body was peeling away, like an oil painting far too old to survive intact.
Fortunately, his face was still mostly intact.
Salaar was smiling. It wasn’t the hollow smile worn by the divine body outside, but a smile almost of relief—a happy smile.
“So you can still speak like a normal person. I thought you’d gone stupid.”
Myss spoke between heavy breaths. “While you’re still lucid, hurry up and tell me what backup plan you have!”
“You.”
“What-?”
The corners of Salaar’s mouth lifted high. “You’re my backup plan.”
“And I have to say, your technique is even more beautiful than I expected. I didn’t think I would stay lucid this long.”
“I don’t understand.” Myss coughed twice. Something sour and swollen seemed to rise into his nose. “If you dare keep speaking in riddles, I swear…”
“When I went outside with you, I more or less confirmed that the mechanism here is very similar to an Abnormal Fruit.” Salaar spoke gently. With his damaged hands, he cupped Myss’s cheeks and wiped away the sweat.
“I can’t suppress my desires, my obsessions. Those abnormal forces keep seeping into my body and rapidly devouring my reason.”
“I don’t trust my own humanity, Myss. Human nature always has flaws. But I’m willing to believe that even if I completely lose the ability to think, I still won’t abandon my responsibilities. A few days definitely wouldn’t be enough to make me completely ‘mutate.’”
“And you. You would never tolerate me becoming an insane evil god. You would use everything you had to save me.”
His fingertips slid gently downward and smoothed the hair at Myss’s temples.
Myss stared fixedly at that broken figure. There was no filthy golden light here. Inside this pitch-black space, Salaar seemed to glow on his own.
Yes. That was how they were supposed to be.
Myss stared blankly for a moment before remembering to bare his teeth. “Nonsense.”
But this time, he sounded far less convincing. He truly had never considered accepting the situation as it was, not even for a single second.
“Really? Could you bear to let me become someone else’s prey?” Salaar blinked.
“I…” Myss’s mouth opened and closed. For once, no words came out.
Salaar placed both hands on Myss’s body, brought his lips close to Myss’s ear, and spoke with the same cunning tone he always used.
“Hey, Myss. Remember?”
“…I’m really good at mental magic.”
With that, he bit hard into the rim of Myss’s ear. A jolt of searing pain struck, and Myss nearly lost control of the black space.
The bite was vicious, devoid of any of his usual tenderness.
Myss was absolutely certain the action had nothing whatsoever to do with affection. Salaar had genuinely attacked his mind.
Attack?
Salaar had deliberately violated the contract.
So that was it. Salaar knew Myss could never simply abandon him. And for no logical reason whatsoever, he trusted that the Chaos Archdemon would be able to briefly call his true self back.
Even if only for an instant, an instant long enough for him to launch an attack.
“Remember to forgive me.” Salaar licked the wound he had bitten into Myss’s ear. “My life is in your hands now, Lord Archdemon.”
The dark space abruptly collapsed.
When Myss regained his senses, the malformed monster in front of him was already gone. Only Salaar remained, soaked in slime and fallen into the mud.
The Hero of the human world lay sprawled miserably on the ground. His left hand had been injured in the fall. Blood poured steadily from the wound, yet Salaar couldn’t even summon enough magic to heal such a minor injury.
He lifted his pale face from the mud, giving an extraordinary weak smile, yet deeply satisfied.
It was just like any of countless ordinary mortals in the world.
Myss dropped to one knee, muddy water soaking through it. He reached out and gently covered Salaar’s forehead with his hand.
It was warm, but not feverish.
Under the contract’s punishment, all of Salaar’s magic had been sealed away. It wasn’t only his own power, but also the distorted divine power and the fog.
Myss let out a long breath. Before his mind even realized what he was doing, his body had already lifted Salaar onto his back.
Salaar gave a muffled laugh. “Wow. I thought you’d throw me away.”
“Shut up,” Myss said viciously. “I’m making you watch me kill Marcela with your own eyes.”
“All right, all right.” Salaar buried his face in Myss’s shoulder.
Hot blood from his wound soaked through Myss’s clothes and slowly ran down their skin.
“…Why?”
They hadn’t gone far when Myss suddenly spoke.
“How did you dare use me as your backup plan? I could’ve just let you become a mad god and kept you under my control…”
Driven by an emotion even Myss himself didn’t quite understand, he deliberately made himself sound regretful.
“Because you love me too,” Salaar said softly.
Myss came to a halt.
The author has something to say:
Being arch-enemies is also a form of absolute trust. [dog head holding a rose]
Salaar: This is hilarious. Not a single bite of my magic is going to an outsider. [dog head]
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