Chapter 132:
My fighting spirit was set ablaze as I reflected on what the ash haired man said.
He was a lunatic that caused a mass murder of easily more than a hundred people .
But rather than the anger of the mass annihilation, I focused on my intent to get the answer to the question buried at the back of my head.
‘Divinity.’
It was already my third time hearing about divinity.
God of Proof, god of Battle, and this ash haired man….
Just what was that divinity for them to act like this?
Perhaps this would be the place where I can get the answer to that question.
At that thought, my heart started to beat faster and energy coursed through my body.
‘I have no time. I need to subdue him before anyone else gets here.’
I activated my mana circuit to its max and attacked him.
Crash…!
I’ve simultaneously activated the Grace of Wind, Instant Acceleration, plus other physical enhancements.
To say the least, I was confident that I’d be able to subdue most challengers within a few seconds with all of these.
But the opponent must’ve had their fair share of battles.
The ash haired man quickly reacted to the attack.
“I-invisible!”
Fwoosh.
The mans’ figure melted into the black orb and disappeared.
Seeing how he had to speak the title, it seemed like he activated a skill rather than magic.
Seemingly lacking in proficiency as he needed to speak out the name of the skill…
It was quite odd considering all the other challengers from alternative dimensions despised using their skills or powers.
‘Unlike the martial artists, the magicians seem to have no qualms on using skills.’
The skill would most likely be not one based on their pure abilities seeing him yell out the name of the skill in haste.
Perhaps a skill or power, if not, the exclusive effect of an item.
I clicked my tongue at the raised difficulty of this situation.
―Ha, haha! You dared to enter the magician’s area! Are you that ignorant?
The man’s voice echoed all throughout the black space.
‘If he was in front of me, I would’ve slashed him at sight.’
I suppose, there’d be no way for him to give me a hint on his location after going through the trouble of hiding himself.
―I bet that the god in this puny dimension would also be a lowly being. You must be the only apostle.
―That’s too big of a power for an apostle without a deity to have.…….
―I wonder how your god would react if I took that away from you.
It was absurd hearing the echoing voices while I was trying to focus on defense.
‘Is he doing a one man show or something?’
All I did was to activate the divine powers, but he started to ramble about all types of his delusions.
Seeing his tone of voice, it was evident that he was trying to get a rise out of me, but it was useless.
After all….
I’ve never believed in a god, nor am I an apostle, and most importantly, there is no god on Earth.
After the great upheaval, no powers like divinity appeared nor priest-like hunters.
It wouldn’t be too far of a reach to assume that I am the only one on earth to have divine powers.
My silence must’ve let the opponent know that provocation is not working, as he started to attack me instead of talking.
Crack!
Tens of ice arrows manifested in the air aiming my way.
Once all the arrows were blocked, blue flames started to explode around me.
Of course….
「Activating skill ‘Counter Shield’.」
I took little to no damage by blocking them all using the counter shield.
But I felt a sense of loss charging the counter shield with small attacks.
The damned magician was not set on battling with me like before.
‘……is he planning on dragging this out?’
A prolonged battle when other challengers are about to come in….….
Of course it’s not like he chose the prolonged battle knowing that, but it was not an optimal outcome.
I thought about it for a bit and decided on the next course of action.
‘The magician must also be within this black orb somewhere.’
This orb was large, but it was not infinite.
If it was, the ash haired man would’ve never faced me in person.
But he saw me, chose to hide in a hurry, and fight me in a prolonged battle.
Which meant that he could hide, but had no way of escaping.
‘He shouldn’t be able to escape an attack that will destroy this entire place’
After realizing that fact, I quickly charged up the shield by receiving every attack with it.
And….
「The skill ‘Counter Shield’ releases the accumulated damage at once. 」
I sheathed both swords and turned the counter shield into a form of a sword.
「Activating the <imprint skill="" :="" blood="" fortify="" (b+)=""> of Real Heavenly blood Demonic sword.」</imprint>
After activating the Will Reinforcement taken from Nam GungHyuk through Blood Eat, I rotated my sword.
「Activating the Exclusive Skill of ‘Harmonic Soul Demon Sword’, ‘Double Attack’.」
Rolling Sword of Blue Sky.
The sword technique that cuts down everything within an area stormed out.
»————- ★ ————-«
To be honest, it wasn’t certain that this one technique would turn the tide of the battle.
It was concerning that the enemy could use a skill known as the magic area, however, the enemy mainly used techniques rather than skills.
A skilled one at that, being able to subtly include skills in their attacks. Thus it was natural to assume that he would be a difficult enemy to take down.
But…….
“C,cough…….”
With a single technique, the ash haired man has fallen over and trembling as if he was having a seizure.
They must’ve succeeded in blocking the Light Saber as they did not have any visible injuries..
‘……I guess, they only look fine on the outside.’
They did not fall into the futility area due to being the master of this area…..
But seeing their unfocused eyes, and rough breathing, it was clear that they would be unable to continue the fight.
I thought that they were a strong opponent due to them being a skilled magician and using all these types of skills without an issue.
But that must’ve been a mistake on my part.
‘No wonder my Indomitable Will didn’t activate…….’
I was wondering why my Indomitable Will skill wasn’t activating against such a strong opponent, but now it made sense.
An enemy who can’t even properly face a combination of skills would not be categorized as a strong opponent no matter how many skills or powers they possessed.
‘What an outcome it is…… I guess, this in itself ain’t half bad.’
I used the Wind Spirit’s Boots to approach the ash haired man.
Then I held the man’s hair to raise his head.
“C,cough……. H,how can a monster like you, in this puny dimension…..”
The man’s unfocused gaze was returning.
I did not answer the man, but asked the man one sidedly.
“Stop talking about useless things, and get rid of the black orb.”
“The black orb….?”
“Get rid of the futility space.”
“Bull…shit…… do you know what I had to go through to create th…..?”
Thud.
I let go of his hair before he continued on.
Well, I knew that it would end up like this in the first place.
But luckily, I managed to acquire a skill from the 13th floor just for situations like these.
「Activating skill ‘Pain Increase’.」
「The receiver of your attacks will now feel twice of the pain inflicted.」
Without hesitating, I grabbed his right arm and twisted it.
Crack!
“Ahhhhhhhrg!”
“Dispel it.”
“F-Fuck you! You son of a bitch! Do you even know who I am?! You dare treat me, the one who will become the great mage of the empire….!!”
“Dispel it.”
Craaack!
Seeing how he couldn’t come to his senses, I broke his left arm this time.
He squirmed and screamed in pain with his arm twisted like a dirty rag.
“Kuaaaaaah!”
“I’m not going to say it again. Dispel it, right now.”
“Damn you! I can’t dispel it! I can’t! It’s not something that I can dispel! I’m not lying!”
“……you can’t dispel the area that you created yourself?”
“Y-you asked why I murdered the people of this dimension? This magic area is made using the life force of those people. So unless their life energy is exhausted, it will never disap.….”
“I’ll know for sure once both of your legs are broken too.”
I moved to break both of his legs per my intentions.
This challenger caused a mass annihilation, thus I planned on giving them no mercy.
But the man added on with his blood drained face.
“I-it can’t be dispelled. But I can get rid of the Futility Area’s skill itself!”
I stopped my attempt to break his legs at that and tilted my head.
“Explain.
The man hastily spoke analyzing my mood.
“S-so…. This futility area absorbs all the life force around it. Eventually, all the citizens of this country might die from their life force being drained. And you’re against that. R-right?”
I stayed silent at his speech.
“…….”
After all…….
‘I had no idea exactly what this barrier was doing…….’
All I wanted was that the other challengers would not get meaninglessly sacrificed from coming inside this space.
And the moment I realized what type of ability this barrier had.
‘This lunatic is crazier than I thought.’
I felt an unbearable disgust and contempt.
A device to absorb all the life force of the people in London…….
This prolonged plan would’ve caused the destruction of an entire country if I did not step in.
“B,but If i stop the function of the futility area, no one will be able to come into this area and naturally disappear within hours.”
This man who did not know that continued to passionately talk about the demise of this field.
If this man stops its function, the other challengers would not get involved.
And hearing that the futility area will naturally be dispelled in a few hours, I had nothing else to worry about.
「Every function of the Magic Area ‘Futility’ is stopped.」
「Other than the master of the area, access will be denied.」
「The Area will naturally be dispelled after 8 hours.」
The effect immediately took place after I told the ash haired man to stop the futility area.
‘Now I can stand comfortably.’
The empty space changed to feel like a solid surface and I was able to stand without flying.
Additionally, few penalty effects disappeared so I stopped using my skills and powers.
‘Since access is forbidden now, I don’t have to worry about other challengers.’
After confirming that, I asked the man on the floor.
“Name of dimension, your name, and reason for coming to Earth.”
“Um, before that, can I make a deal? I-I’m sure that it would be useful to you and your god…..”
“Answer.”
“A-Ares is my home dimension, and the name is Seindal! Puny dimension, um…. The earth. I came to receive faith…..”
“What does it mean to receive faith?”
“Huh? You came to me without knowing that…?”
Before he could continue further, I stepped on his left leg.
“W-wait! I’ll tell you! Please! Move that leg of yours!”
“Get to the point.”
“……In a secret ancient ruin, there was an ancient document that said that distinguished magicians or knights can break through their limits through faith.”
“…….”
“Through the faith of people, divinity would accumulate in the heart with mana circles. And with that, you can reach a higher level of magic to become the grand magician…….”
“And what does that have to do with mass annihilation?”
“……Fear towards a tyrant is a type of faith as well, so I decided that it’d be more efficient to instill fear in people than saving the people.”
“Crazy bastard,”
I looked at the man with a cold gaze and activated the Fire Dragon’s Eyes.
「Skill ‘Fire Dragon’s Eyes’ detects no lie.」
He did not lie, and that made me despise him more.
‘He attempted to destroy an entire country just so he could become stronger?’
I was flabbergasted, but his thoughts were not wrong to be honest.
And I could tell because I had divinity.
Attaining divinity would certainly turn him into a strong magician.
But it was questionable on this specific method of receiving divinity.
They should be able to receive divine powers through believing in other gods, so why all this?
So I asked Seindal for the reason, and he hesitated but replied.
“The ancient document said that the divine powers with the trace of other gods, will not be useful in ascending me as a magician….”
To summarize what he said,
Only pure divinity would ascend the level of the 9 distinct levels of circles.
And that’s the reason why he came to a smaller dimension with no gods to reach the 6th circle, a realm of great magicians.
But, contrary to his expectation, because of me, he was unable to gather faith and ended up in a state of near death.
Now that I got the answer to most of my questions, it was time for the final question.
“…….Now my final question. Do you know anything about the god of proof and battle?”
To be honest, I was the most curious about them.
But, I was not expecting too much from this guy since I thought he couldn’t know that many things.
“I-I’m not sure if such gods exist…..”
「Skill ‘Fire Dragon’s Eyes’ detected a lie.」
My eyes widened in surprise at the perceived lie.
He knew.
Seindal definitely knew something about both gods.
To the point where he suddenly had to lie after saying the truth all this time.
I felt that whatever intel he had, would undoubtedly be useful.
“I understand. The more important the information, the less you want to share. But…..”
I activated another skill acquired from the 13th floor looking at him.
「Activating skill ‘Torture Technique’.」
「You can use a more effortless torture techniques from now on. 」
「It becomes easier to instil fear on the receiver and every torture technique’s efficiency raises by 10%.」
“I wonder how long you can keep that important information to yourself.”
It would be quite the painful session for Seindal from now on.
[To be continued.]
TL’s notes:
*One against a thousand- the word used here is a hanja word ????(一騎當千) meaning one man winning against a thousand enemy forces. It can be a title given to those who demonstrate excellent martial skills, or used to describe someone of extreme caliber.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢