Chapter 119

The pitch-black hole bored into the dais stares back at me. It was the only pure… and beautiful thing within this church, filled as it was with bizarre wails and the odor of barley.

‘What in the world is that.’

I was, in some way, captivated, peering into that jet-black opening.

“No matter how you look at it, this seems to be the cause that birthed the Archipelago Fog.”

Then, the arrogant voice of the stag echoed from my right hand. Dajin’s lightning coalesced around the jet-black hole, and soon, a stag no bigger than my palm alighted there.

Within the inky aperture, a grey sphere resided.

That sphere churned and roiled within the sable abyss, as though eager to proclaim its existence to the world.

My survival instinct screamed that the orb was dangerous. But at the same instant, my instinct as a mage urged me to reach out, to grasp it.

A peculiar sensation.

A peculiar sensation, but…

Not the first time I’ve felt such a thing.

‘Spatial magic.’

Yes, this feeling was exactly the same as that magic I experienced in Valoran.

“Ha ha! How amusing.”

Dajin, for some reason invigorated, stared into the hole at the gray orb, clearly enjoying himself.

“Reach out your hand.”

Dajin urged me, his eyes fixed intently on the gray sphere.

‘You could call it…the core of the Archipelago Mist.’

The Archipelago Mist disregarded the laws of physics, emerging abruptly in any location on the continent. Without rhyme or reason.

It shared certain similarities with the ‘collapse of spatial magic’ I had witnessed once before.

“The rules twist, the world distorts. *This* is magic.”

The core of the Archipelago Mist writhed as though it would unleash its contained energy at any moment, only to then, in the next instance, act as docile as a lamb. It repeated its unknowable movements.

‘If I could only stabilize this core, perhaps the Archipelago Mist could escape from this bizarre state.’

It might even be possible to re-stitch the ‘reality’ we know with the other dimension within the Archipelago Mist.

…Well, it should be possible.

“Reach out, Magician. It is a new power.”

Dajin pressured me with his authoritative tone, but I soon tore my gaze away from the hole and descended from the dais.

“What are you doing? A new power is before your very eyes, and you simply leave it be?”

“What do you *think* I’m doing? What misfortune would befall me if I touched some unknown object willy-nilly?”

“Not reaching for the unknown? And you call yourself a magician?”

“…Recklessly reaching for an unidentified power is what makes someone a magician? To me, it sounds like a foolish human.”

I stared at Dajin, a look of utter disbelief etched on my face.

“Scared, are you?”

“Of course I’m scared. Maybe you don’t care, not being the real you and all, but the dangers of spatial magic are beyond comprehension.”

Recognizing one’s own limitations is no shame.

“I haven’t even fully mastered the Lightning School’s magic, and you want me to reach for some unknown, specialized school?”

I’ve felt the catastrophe spatial magic can bring when things go awry, deep in my bones.

As desperate as I am to level up, I’d normally welcome a new power… but this is different.

How many stable, certain paths are there in this world?

“Lightning School magic is enough.”

How many times do you think I’ve saved this world?

Specialized schools? I don’t need such treacherous, heretical magic. Our Lightning School has so many efficient and superior spells.

I might not have a way to use them right now, but still.

Like some manga I read, with great power comes great responsibility. Specialized school magic might possess exceptional power and alluring effects, but it almost always comes with a proportional amount of risk.

I can’t stand the power to tear space and distort the laws of physics with a simple miscalculation.

“……”

Dajin perched on the platform, watching me trudge along the long path with a look of pity.

…Does he not intend to return to my right hand?

‘This Transcendental Being is sulking, is he five years old?’

I sighed and stepped over the dusty threshold.

Transcendental Beings, Continental Peoples, why is there not a single normal person around me?

“Let’s go.”

“…What about Dajin?”

Lierre, having followed me to the doorway, looked back and forth between Dajin, who sat on the dais glaring at me, and then at me, asking with an air of worry.

“Let her live here.”

I’m not her mother, after all.

“Anyway, with time, she’ll come back on her own, you’ll see.”

“Well…that’s probably true.”

“Let’s not waste needless concern on that one. In a day or two, she’ll pop out of my right hand again anyway, right?”

I left Dajin behind and exited the old church.

Sion, seemingly concerned about the abandoned Dajin, stared at the church for a long time. Finally, seeing Lierre and I standing there waiting, he reluctantly came forward.

“Our business is concluded. Let us leave the fog.”

* * *

The first lightning.

Transcendental Being, Dajin.

Dajin was a transcendental being so old that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say she had witnessed the birth of the world.

Time and space held no meaning for beings like her, yet one could confidently assert that she had lived longer than any other entity in this world.

Even the concept of death was but an illusion to her, and so, she wandered the world daily, searching for new amusements.

One day, for no apparent reason, she might split the earth in two. Another day, she might shroud the sky in pitch-black darkness for decades.

This deer, called the father of all lightning mages, his every action stemmed from a reason that was remarkably simple and clear.

Namely, ‘fun.’

Amusement, yes, that was the reason Dajin lived.

Pleasure and joy, a slender ray of light in an otherwise tedious and uneventful existence.

‘Lukewarm.’

So, it was only natural that Dajin found himself intrigued by the boy, Vin.

An overwhelming talent unseen in millennia. Juxtaposed with dreadful limitations. And moves as reckless and daring as his vast talent warranted.

A mage who wielded lightning, yet refused to bow his head, and even burst into anger… displaying the skill to manipulate ‘bio-electricity,’ something even the most esteemed Ninth Circle mages hadn’t conceived of, and in the end, achieving the triumph of victory against even a Grand Warlord.

Dajin found pleasure in observing the boy.

Pleasure, but…

“This action displease me.”

A mage should, by right, boldly reach out to the unknown. They ought to hurl themselves into the pitch-black darkness and, if need be, set themselves ablaze to illuminate their surroundings.

This, Dajin believed.

And so, Dajin encouraged and tempted the boy.

He was too eager to see how the boy would react when faced with the writhing ‘unknown’ within that deep, inky blackness.

But the boy’s reaction was disappointingly tepid.

“Uninteresting.”

For Dajin, this expedition was beyond the pale of even being labeled ‘boring.’ A travesty.

Shion’s shared stories aroused a flicker of interest, but they never amounted to more.

A dwarf in robes, wielding dark magic, was undeniably cute… but it was nothing more than a figment concocted by a mere insect.

There wasn’t so much as a grain of crisis to be found for the boy and his band.

A peaceful and oh-so-tedious expedition.

Some might call this a ‘successful expedition,’ but for Dajin, it was merely ‘tedious, pedantic garbage.’

“Don’t resent it too much. This is all for your own good, you see.”

And so, Dajin subtly shot a blue lightning bolt into the core of the swirling Archipelago Mist beneath the dais.

“If you overcome this hardship, a new vista awaits you.”

* * *

Pure white smoke completely envelops Edward.

A desolate air fills his lungs, injecting him with utter dread. Edward felt his arms and legs freezing over with each passing moment.

A strange feeling, indeed.

These pallid mists concealed monsters of unknown origin, filling humans with a vast, inexplicable fear.

A momentary lapse in concentration could bring forth a monster with enormous teeth from behind, and most of those he encountered were criminals driven mad.

He could easily sense that his life was a mere lamp before a storm.

Even so, Edward continued walking deeper into the mist.

He knew nothing about this fog. He possessed no information, no preparation.

Still, it was easy to tell that the Archipelago Mist was not a welcoming place for uninvited guests. Anyone would understand that much, seeing the countless corpses that littered his path and the massive maggots devouring them.

Why didn’t he flee?

The reason was simple.

His general was at the heart of this mist.

It wasn’t as if he was unaware that the general didn’t want him.

He knew it well.

Edward was merely a deserter who had once brushed past his side.

Even so, he walked on, heading straight into the heart of the fog.

Soon, a cerulean sky and a sprawling cemetery opened before his eyes.

Edward walked slowly, as if led by a spell, toward the very core of the graves.

And then, the corpse of a headless giant materialized before him.

A colossal hammer, as large as a house, had upturned the bones and churned the earth around it.

…Beyond the giant’s corpse lay a wide, empty space.

Edward felt a strange unease as he looked upon it.

It was the only place around where grass refused to grow.

A small clearing, perhaps four hundred meters in diameter.

Edward could only surmise that some sort of structure had once stood there.

“What is this…”

Edward touched the ground of the clearing, lost in thought. But no matter how he considered it, he couldn’t fathom what had once occupied this place.

Crack—!

It was at that moment.

The ground of the clearing began to fracture, like shards of glass.