Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 159: The True Body
Tass was extremely displeased.
Ever since a little while ago, everyone had been acting unbelievably strange. His condition really was poor. In the night fog, he was so weak that he couldn’t even spread his wings.
With his entire body soaked in the mist, Tass’s senses became even duller, as though he were submerged in a warm bath that made him drowsy and sluggish. He had just been about to force himself to perk up when his teammate nearly threw him away.
“I heard everything… Has anyone ever told you that you’re terrible at lowering your voice?” the Dragon Fae said miserably.
He had heard Myss’s muttering loud and clear. What did he mean by “his magical aura is exactly the same as Marcela’s”?
Before this, Tass had only known that Marcela Memi was one of the Archmages. This was the first time in his life he had ever seen that human. Even taking ten thousand steps back, were they really going to throw him away just because their auras were similar?
Tass had long expected Myss to be this outrageous. But even Father Kalen had tried to throw him. Something about that was definitely abnormal.
Kalen stammered a bit before rummaging through the luggage until he found a gleaming little knife. Using it as a mirror, he held it horizontally in front of Tass.
By the faint glow of magic, Tass saw his reflection in the metal. The next second, he was so frightened he nearly launched himself away.
“…You really can’t feel anything yourself?” Myss caught the wobbling lump of flesh in time.
Tass’s mind finally cleared a little. Terror immediately transformed into energy.
“I, cough, my body was already weak, and my head isn’t clear either… and this fog, this fog…”
For a moment, the Dragon Fae had no idea how to describe it. Ever since coming outside, he had inexplicably stopped noticing his own body. It was like someone completely absorbed in reading a book and failed to notice what was happening to their toes.
“…I don’t know,” he finally concluded pitifully. “Nothing like this has ever happened among my people…”
Kai’s eyes lit up. As expected, whenever he followed these two, he always got to see things no one had ever witnessed before. Still, so as not to seem too rude, he cooperatively put on a grave expression.
“There’s nothing like this in the Stargazers Society’s records either.”
Myss squeezed the limp lump of flesh in his hand.
After thinking for a moment, he tore a strip of cloth from Salaar and used it to suspend the piece of meat. Under everyone’s utterly baffled stares, Myss stretched out his arm as though holding a pendulum and gently swung Tass back and forth.
Tass struggled. “What are you doing?!”
“Oh, this makes it easier to find Marcela,” Myss said. “Your magic is so similar. This saves me some effort.”
Magic was somewhat like a scent. Rather than searching purely from memory, of course it was faster to smell the fragment first and then find the target.
Myss didn’t care what earth-shattering secret might lie behind Tass’s origins, nor was he especially concerned with why Tass had turned into this.
As long as he killed Marcela, all of that could be handled afterward. Tass still seemed reasonably energetic. Salaar, on the other hand, was genuinely bleeding.
Kai and Kalen looked like they wanted to say something, but ultimately neither stopped him.
As for Lawler… He was still completely consumed by worry. He sat anxiously at the very front of the puppet, with no attention to spare for this “minor disturbance.”
Tass swayed gently beneath the strip of cloth and curled up dejectedly.
To be fair, Myss wasn’t being especially rough. But after being swung back and forth like this, Tass felt as though his brains were about to be shaken smooth.
A mess of memories and thoughts filled his mind. Everything felt like a half-lucid dream.
The last time Tass had been in such bad condition was when Antis rescued him. His friend Antis might have been a little wooden, but at least he had some humanity.
Antis would carefully ask Tass about the Dragon Fae, such as where they were born and that legendary Gemstone Lake…
In truth, Dragon Fae didn’t remember much.
At the moment of birth, their consciousness was hazy and sluggish.
Older Dragon Fae had to guide them with magic, making them drowsily follow instructions as they took form within the waves of magic.
Tass’s first impression of the world had actually been outside Gemstone Lake.
An older Dragon Fae lifted him from the lake and gave him the name “Tass Ga.” At the time, Tass didn’t look toward the being who named him. Instead, his eyes lowered unconsciously toward the place of his birth.
The gently rippling lake water… was unexpectedly murky; a greyish-white, like a clouded film over a dead person’s eyes.
Why was it called Gemstone Lake? How strange.
It was only a broken thought, a tiny bubble of a question. He quickly threw it to the back of his mind and never investigated further. After all, the next time he saw the lake should be when his natural lifespan came to an end.
Now he thought of it again.
The Dragon Fae looked at the rolling fog around him, and tiny bubble-like unease began rising in his heart. Perhaps the scenery had simply stirred old feelings, he thought wearily.
……
When they approached Marcela’s aura, or at least what Myss believed was Marcela’s aura, Myss put away the strip of cloth.
The scenery nearby hadn’t changed. There was still nothing but endless night fog and wet mud. But he simply knew that something was hidden within the mist not far away.
Myss casually stuffed Tass into his pocket and jumped down from the puppet.
“You stay here. Priest, handle defense. Remember to take care of Salaar,” Myss said solemnly. “I’ll go over there and take a look first.”
Salaar’s gaze dimmed slightly. His eyes seemed to have hooks in them, almost enough to tear the fabric at the back of Myss’s collar.
Unfortunately, his condition was far too poor, so he had no choice but to obediently remain on the puppet.
Planning ahead, Kai pulled out a bottle of “Resolve to Elope” and prepared to distribute it to everyone, though even he didn’t know how much effectiveness the potion still had left.
Just as Myss was about to start walking…
“I want to go with you,” Lawler said.
Myss couldn’t be bothered to turn around.
“Even if you’re in danger, I won’t help you.”
“…I want to go with you,” Lawler repeated. “I know you’re going to see Teacher. I… I just want to see her one more time.”
Myss gave a noncommittal hum and continued forward indifferently. Lawler took that as permission and hurried after him in small steps.
To ensure Salaar’s safety, Myss hadn’t allowed the puppet to stop too close. He walked for around ten minutes before the surroundings gradually began to change.
Chunks of flesh.
Many fist-sized pieces of flesh lay scattered over the ground, connected by strange membranes resembling slime mold. The membranes had a filthy, murky pink color and looked thoroughly unpleasant.
Every so often, one of the flesh chunks would spray out a puff of dark mist, collapse completely, and then be smoothed flat by the surrounding membrane. Other chunks writhed violently and absorbed the nearest piece of flesh into themselves.
In this way, the flesh sparsely covered the muddy ground. They squirmed continuously, while dark clouds of smoke burst up here and there around them, like some kind of purplish-red fungus.
Their texture was somewhat similar to Tass, Myss thought. But they were smaller than Tass, thinner, and more fragile.
The closer he came to his destination, the denser the strange flesh became, and the thicker and more active the surrounding magic grew. It turned into a tide-like torrent. Myss had to deliberately exert force to resist it just to keep his footing steady.
He focused his mind and lightly stepped over the sticky flesh without touching a single piece.
Lawler wasn’t nearly so lucky. He had grown up in the countryside. When had he ever seen a hellscape covered in rotting flesh like this? He walked trembling with fear and nearly tripped over the strange meat several times.
Worse still, whenever he accidentally stepped on one, the flesh would let out a faint high-pitch shriek. Lawler shuddered violently, and his hair nearly stood on end.
Lord Archdemon strictly kept his promise. He didn’t turn back to look at Lawler at all. All his attention was focused ahead.
That was the culprit who had nearly ruined Salaar.
But within the fog, he found nothing resembling “Marcela.” He only saw something… Something he had no idea how to describe.
The fog around it was relatively thin, allowing Myss to see clearly. Judging only by its appearance, it looked like a gigantic diseased dandelion.
The scattered chunks of flesh and membranes gathered from every direction and twisted together in the middle into a thin stalk. The flesh crawled upward along the taut membrane until it finally formed a writhing giant sphere at the top of the stalk.
The massive sphere methodically absorbed the fog. Every so often, a plump, oversized piece of flesh detached from its top and vanished into the thick fog above.
If one ignored the maggot-like flesh writhing across its surface, the thing was actually remarkably symmetrical, possessing a kind of orderly beauty.
Unfortunately, across the exceptionally regular sphere at its top were several savage wounds.
The wounds looked as though they had been viciously torn open by an enormous mouth. They glowed with an ominous blackness. Not a single chunk of flesh grew around them, only rolled and proliferating membranes.
The wounds twitched from time to time, causing the entire monster to tremble. It was obvious those injuries were causing it tremendous pain.
Marcela.
Myss raised his head, the outline of the monster reflected in his scarlet eyes.
Yes. That was the aura. That extraordinarily complicated, extraordinarily rich aura.
It was completely different from every “god” he had encountered before. If those earlier beings were merely fruits and vegetables nowhere near maturity, then the monster before him was a pot of richly fragrant stew.
Myss didn’t even need to smell it. His instincts were already stirring restlessly in his heart.
But the moment he thought of Salaar’s miserable state, that intoxicated delight was suppressed by anger once again.
“Teacher!”
The moment Lawler saw the monster before them, he actually brightened.
He drew in a deep breath and recklessly charged toward it.
“Teacher, I have to talk to you…”
Puff!
A chunk of flesh shot out like a cannonball and struck Lawler directly in the abdomen. He was blasted backward more than ten steps and crashed into the mud, leaving a long trail behind him.
At the same time, the fog seemed to gain consciousness. It transformed into countless gray-white columns of smoke that slapped toward Myss like giant hands.
Perhaps because they were closer to the true body, the fog came far more violently this time and was much more aggressive than when Salaar had been there.
It seemed to have prepared itself in advance. The thick mist was like an ambush force leaping from the trenches, bombarding Myss again and again.
In only a few seconds, it struck back and forth hundreds of times, as though determined to churn Myss apart alive with fog.
Myss stood quietly in place, not budging an inch.
He, too, had prepared as well.
Pitch-black magic dispersed outward, so faint it was almost invisible. It didn’t turn into a hazy mist. Instead, it concentrated by itself and constructed an unsealed space.
Myss didn’t make it too complete. He merely let that layer of power cover him like a fish tank. Through the unfinished black-gray barrier, he could still vaguely see what was happening outside.
The instant the fog touched that boundary, it vanished in a horrific hiss, like drops of water striking a red-hot iron.
Sure enough, this complex “magical space” was more useful than simple magical defense.
If Salaar had been the one attacked, it really would have been dangerous. Unfortunately, Myss was nothing like that unlucky “Saint Salaar.”
This was a clash of predatory forces, a plundering against plundering, a conquest against conquest. Interference at this level couldn’t compare to his annihilation.
And besides, this thing couldn’t even focus completely.
Within the distant fog, Lawler barely managed to get back to his feet. He had only taken a few steps before another chunk of flesh sent him flying.
“Teacher, we can talk!” he pleaded hoarsely. “Maybe there’s some misunderstanding. Don’t attack…”
“Interesting. I thought you were like me and didn’t care about him at all.”
Myss withdrew his gaze indifferently. The instant the fog dispersed, he dismissed the spatial barrier as well.
Rustle.
Several masses of dark mist seeped from the wounds and condensed into a crooked humanoid shape.
“What… exactly… are you?”
Its voice was a warped version of Marcela’s. The sound was sticky and wooden, like an imitation of speech produced by flesh rubbing together—hardly could be considered human.
Yet Myss could hear the shock and wariness within it. To his surprise, he discovered that he quite liked this tension in an enemy… Or rather, fear.
He simply didn’t like seeing it directed at Salaar.
The thought that Salaar might have felt even a moment of worry or panic when he lost control because of this thing made Myss instantly furious again. This bastard had actually tried to steal his enemy.
“I’m the owner who came to execute the thief.”
Pitch-black magic surged outward and condensed into a twisted spear in Myss’s right hand.
Fork silently coiled around his right wrist. The snake opened its mouth wide, aiming directly at the flickering humanoid figure.
……
Near the puppet.
Salaar’s wound was too deep. Blood quickly soaked through the bandages.
Father Kalen had no choice but to rummage through the supplies, pull out the gauze he had been saving for emergencies, and treat Salaar’s wound yet again.
Kai hugged his door panel and tried to lighten the atmosphere while writing.
“Is it really okay to let Lawler go over there like that?”
Father Kalen sighed. “I think he has made his choice.”
Kai grunted in response. “I thought you would go with him, Father.”
Kalen smiled bitterly. “I have to take proper care of Mr. Salaar. Leaving just you two here would be far too dangerous… Mr. Salaar?”
Salaar had no intention of joining the conversation.
He removed the brooch from his chest, dipped it in his own blood, and rapidly calculated something on a piece of cloth. However, what he was writing was far too complex that Karen couldn’t decipher a single character.
“You should rest properly. Mr. Myss expects that too,” the priest advised softly.
“I am resting, and besides…”
The corner of Salaar’s mouth curled.
“Believe me, he’d much rather have me right by his side.”
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