Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 162: Deadlock
Myss gave a grunt.
Truthfully, he wasn’t entirely confident. When attacking an opponent, he rarely considered how to hold back.
Myss flexed his remaining left hand, his throat going dry. His transformed right half was filled with power, but he had the strange sensation of driving a heavy carriage, making it even harder to control his strength.
And the Marcela before them now looked even more like a colossal elephant than Gentry did. It was weak. It was bleeding. But it was still stubbornly standing there, struggling desperately to survive.
The only reason Marcela hadn’t attacked yet was that it hoped they would recognize the difficulty and retreat, minimizing its losses as much as possible.
Even without Salaar pointing it out, Myss understood. If they truly cornered this thing, Marcela absolutely wouldn’t mind ending things in a spectacular “lose-lose” outcome.
Myss looked again at Salaar standing in front of Marcela.
Salaar currently had no magic. He was nothing more than a fragile lump of soft flesh. Even so, he still boldly stood between two ferocious gods without the slightest fear on his face.
Noticing Myss’s scrutiny, the bastard even blinked expectantly at him, radiating that familiar, infuriating aura.
It had to succeed in one strike. Myss drew in a deep breath.
…Otherwise, Salaar would be the first one caught in the fallout.
Myss had never woven magic with this much effort before.
To avoid alarming Marcela, he compressed the rapidly circulating magic around himself and tried his best to make it invisible.
Perhaps because he had recovered part of his true body, the process felt less like creating something from nothing and more like perfecting an ability hidden somewhere inside his instincts.
Myss concentrated so intensely that he grew dizzy. For a moment, he couldn’t even tell whether he was creating something or remembering it. If the “black space” spell he had tried to weave before was like a cub trembling as it learned to stand, then now he was learning to run—stumbling, flailing, utterly awkwardly running.
Paw pads touched the ground—
The violently surging magic gradually became obedient and precise.
Claws dug into the mud—
The space had to be broader, more stable.
All four limbs exerted strength at once—
A brand-new order emerged from nothing in an instant.
Rustle.
The night fog plunged into absolute darkness.
Everyone nearby, though Myss had no idea whether the priest farther away had been affected too, was swallowed by the black night. Heaven and earth changed in an instant. The mud beneath their feet disappeared, replaced by cold sand.
Salaar immediately dropped to one knee, pinched up a little sand, and brought it to his nose to smell it. He raised his head, and some of the relaxed expression on his face faded.
Everywhere they looked, there was only absolute emptiness.
Myss panted from exhaustion for quite a while. He couldn’t manipulate other people’s minds as casually as Salaar did, but he could cleanly and elegantly peel them away.
Although everyone still maintained the appearances they had possessed moments ago, the only things present here now were their so-called “souls.”
The instant Marcela realized that, she let out a truly terrifying shriek. The flesh sphere surged wildly and began attacking the ground in a frenzy, as though that alone might let her escape.
“You.” Myss squeezed Tass and spoke through clenched teeth. “Imagine the form you’re most familiar with.”
The flesh-lump Tass froze. A few seconds later, the mass of meat began writhing violently. Like an embryo rapidly taking shape, the Dragon Fae returned to his delicate, beautiful appearance.
The only difference was his wings remained completely black.
Tass stared at his recovered hands and nearly burst into tears from sheer grievance. Fortunately, without his physical body dragging him down, that terrible weakness had vanished without a trace.
He felt as though he had returned to his peak condition.
“This consumes too much. I can’t maintain it for long,” Myss said between breaths. “You. Go kill that thing. It doesn’t have that troublesome divine body anymore, so it’ll be easier to kill.”
Tass froze. “Me? By myself?”
“You’re part of it. You won’t be bewitched by Its power.” Myss snorted. “I have to stabilize this place. Hurry up and do it.”
Hearing that dreadful fact again, Tass fell silent.
Dragon Fae had nothing to do with the word “slow”; he had already sensed something was amiss.
Tass’s abnormal condition had started before they even came here. Theoretically, Marcela could not eat “Herself,” nor could she force “Herself” to become a god. To Marcela, Tass was more like a fatal lesion.
On the other side, Lawler seemed to sense the change in the environment. He instinctively recited an incantation and raised one hand, summoning a ball of light. There was no fog here consuming magic, so the light remained stable and bright.
By comparison, Lawler himself looked much more miserable. His clothes were covered in mud and torn in several places, and a large bruise darkened his face, probably from being thrown earlier.
Using that dim light, Myss curled one strand of the vortex making up his right half and pulled Salaar over beside him, sheltering him beneath that portion of his true body.
The next second, a black shadow streaked through the dim light. Like a bullet, Tass shot toward the crazed “Marcela.”
The flesh sphere that even annihilation magic had failed to pierce was blasted open by Tass, leaving a bloody hole.
“Marcela” finally calmed down. She stopped curling inward and unfolded her body again, revealing countless writhing chunks of flesh across her surface. The humanoid figure formed from fog floated into the air and looked coldly down at the Dragon Fae.
Then the space trembled, and all those chunks of flesh changed shape.
They became them.
Countless young Dragon Faes curled up against the dark-pink “dandelion.” Their multicolored scales glittered beneath the faint light, creating a scene straight out of a fairy tale.
Where Tass had attacked just moments earlier, a horrific wound now appeared. Near the opening, several severed Dragon Fae limbs dangled precariously.
Even though he knew these were only mental projections, Tass still swayed where he stood, his face turning frighteningly pale.
He forced himself to stare directly at the terrible hole. Waves of magical fluctuation once again gathered around him in preparation for another attack.
Seeing the situation turn unfavorable, the thing drew Its massive target-like body inward and completely transformed into the appearance of “Marcela.”
Then it, she, erected layer after layer of magical defenses around Herself, like a clam hiding inside its shell. But before the defenses could fully form, Tass had already charged. He directly merged into the defensive magic, then struck like a cannonball again, punching through Marcela’s right shoulder.
Without the fog replenishing her, the wound couldn’t heal.
Two glaring black holes now remained embedded in her body.
“You’ve done… such a thing.” Marcela’s voice was filled with grief and fury, like a trapped beast in a cage. “That scourge… should not have… this kind of ability.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Tass said, his own voice dry. “I only know I don’t like the way you do things.”
“I only want… to live!” Marcela roared.
The defenses around her began to break apart, once again transforming into countless giant mouths. “Kill me, and you… won’t survive either!”
The Dragon Fae finally snapped. “Shut up!”
“No one is condemning you for wanting to live, damn it! You clearly had better options!”
“Even if taking Marcela’s identity was something you had no choice about, afterward you could have cooperated with the other Kingdom Archmages. They absolutely could have found a way to supply you with magic!”
Trade unforgivable criminals for the knowledge of a gravely wounded god. No one would refuse.
Marcela could obtain enough magic to survive, while humanity could use the opportunity to glimpse a corner of the unknown.
…But now, everything was already too late.
Marcela fell silent for a moment.
A bitter ache filled the Dragon Fae’s throat.
He thought again of Antis, the human who had saved his life and awkwardly asked him about “Gemstone Lake.” The fool who had gathered the courage to kill his own father and eventually walked into his own destruction.
Back then, Tass hadn’t really understood Antis’s courage in rebelling against his father. He had even once felt fortunate that free Dragon Fae didn’t carry such heavy shackles of blood.
Tass almost wanted to laugh. He really wanted to tell Antis that they truly deserved to be friends. Even the way fate tripped them looked exactly the same.
And now, he could finally answer that question. Gemstone Lake wasn’t dreamy at all. It wasn’t warm. It had swallowed countless corpses and imprisoned a nearly insane nameless god.
What a bitter and magnificent secret.
For the first time in his life, Tass wished he had never learned it.
“You were never truly forced into this. You simply thought eating humans was more convenient, so you treated them as nothing but food.”
The Dragon Fae’s voice was filled with anguish.
“You never even considered communicating with them—whereas I have friends!”
Marcela remained silent.
Only this time, a trace of confusion flashed through her eyes. Tass simply couldn’t tell whether that confusion came from the word “communicating” or from the word “friends.”
So that was it.
Not every living thing capable of emotion — of joy or anger—possessed a “heart.”
Tass closed his eyes.
Another impact. A third hole opened straight through Marcela’s chest. She seized the opportunity to sweep out one hand.
Several enormous mouths swarmed forward and tore apart the Dragon Fae’s wings.
Tass immediately let out a piercing scream.
Just as he began to fall, a black thread of magic wrapped around his foot and repaired what was missing.
The Dragon Fae gritted his teeth.
Before Marcela could react, he spun and once again punched through Her lower abdomen, leaving another black hole behind.
A spirit couldn’t truly bleed.
Marcela bent at the waist, her eyes filled with resentment.
“You… traitor…”
It was over.
Marcela could see the outcome of the battle. Her power could never compare with “that one.” The mutated Dragon Fae was reckless too. He could ignore her authority and use himself as living ammunition.
Her spirit would continue to be worn away until it disappeared completely. Her physical body would become nothing more than spoils for these people to control however they wished.
…And yet, she still didn’t want to give up.
Ever since falling to the earth, she had struggled unwillingly for so long. She had waited in pain for so long. And in the end, she was going to die like a joke?
If she was destined to die here, then she would make the other side taste the same despair. Marcela suddenly reached up and tore at her black wounds.
The giant mouths around her stopped attacking and simply dissolved into the darkness.
“Fine. Go ahead… attack.” Her voice nearly changed pitch, becoming something no human throat could possibly produce.
Has this thing gone insane? Tass frowned.
But he sensed no abnormal magical fluctuations, and his attack didn’t hesitate.
Strike after strike, piercing through again and again. Tass attacked the thin body like a cutting blade. Before long, Marcela’s body had been smashed apart. Her heart split open, her torso shattered into pieces. Only a single head remained, its flesh distorted.
She stared at Tass with those corpse-like eyes, wearing nothing but that familiar yet unfamiliar smile.
Tass stopped moving.
Marcela had once again chosen the most troublesome possible defense. She had completely abandoned the idea of counterattacking and poured all Her power into one point, returning entirely to defense.
The crooked human head faintly resembled the flesh sphere from the outside world. Only this time, the defense…
“My desire to live… will not lose.”
The head spoke in a dry whisper. “You cannot destroy… this.”
“Then you cannot destroy… my spirit.”
“I will… drag this out… until this place collapses.”
Even if she was destined for destruction, she intended to hold out until reality returned, then die there and drag everything into the abyss with her.
Myss wrinkled his nose in displeasure and looked down at Marcela in the distance. This thing didn’t have the upper hand, but it was exceptionally difficult to kill.
He hadn’t expected its survival instinct to be this tenacious.
Salaar had no magic. And if Myss recklessly used too much annihilation magic, he might not be able to maintain this space.
How troublesome. He needed to think of something.
“You’re going to kill her, aren’t you?”
A voice filled with fear rang out.
Lawler stumbled over, his face even paler than a corpse. The filthy pink membrane covering his eyes had fallen away the moment Marcela abandoned her body.
To the young man, the scene before him was indistinguishable from hell.
Under the faint light, Myss floated in midair with only half a body remaining. His right half was concealed by shadow, and something was writhing inside the darkness.
Goosebumps covered Lawler’s body. Instinctively, he didn’t look too closely.
The Dragon Fae and Salaar still looked normal.
But his teacher…
His teacher…
Lawler rushed forward and cradled the head on his knees. His mind couldn’t comprehend anything his eyes were seeing. His whole body trembled as he muttered repeatedly. “Stop… Don’t kill her…”
This guy was interfering again— like an endless buzzing fly
From this idiot’s perspective, the whole situation probably looked like “monsters disguised as outsiders assassinating Kingdom Archmage Marcela.”
Myss had no interest in explaining. His magic was draining away like water. He had to execute her as quickly as possible.
Salaar suddenly moved.
“Myss.” He raised his head and looked toward his terrifying enemy. “Say that you forgive me.”
“You want your power back? Now?”
Myss sounded displeased.
“What if this thing manages to drag things out until we’re back outside, I run out of magic, and then you get affected by the fog again…”
At that point, the entire situation would reverse completely, unless Father Kalen could summon the Lord of Shadows on the spot.
Salaar was normally so steady. Why would he take a risk like this?
“Say that you forgive me.”
Salaar repeated softly. For some reason, his voice sounded sad.
Myss: “…”
Did this place resemble the seal too much?
For an instant, Myss almost thought they were still trapped inside it.
Salaar had worn the same expression when he buried his final companion, a man he had executed years earlier who had been left as nothing more than a walking corpse.
“What are you trying to do?” Myss asked quietly.
“Thanks to you, I know how a heart grows,” Salaar said.
“So I also know how to kill a heart that never finished growing.”
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