Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 1017

“Oh, this is a problem?”

Swish!!

With a single gesture, Lariata, the 7th Apostle, tore off the head of a League sorcerer, tilting her head in puzzlement.

The tidal wave of darkness that had been sweeping and crushing the ground had stopped, creating a temporary lull of silence.

However, regardless of the presence of the Underworld Monarch, those gathered on the battlefield continued their slaughter.

The atmosphere in the center was already grim due to the long-standing war between the League and the Order.

“Gruk…!”

Crack!

She crunched and swallowed the human head she had grasped with her bare hands.

Instead of protecting the Order’s priests, the 7th Apostle was freely rampaging across the battlefield, killing humans.

However, Lariata’s gaze, which had been darting around in the chaos, was now fixed on the dark tower floating in the sky.

“……”

“Lady Lariata…!!”

The priests, who were reciting prayers, called out to her urgently, but there was no response.

Lariata, with her blood-stained makeup, simply stared up at the sky with an expression devoid of any smile.

She stared intently at the still and silent dark tower before muttering in a subdued voice.

“It seems… the Underworld Monarch has regained his senses.”

“……Huh?”

Was it possible that the monstrous being who had been rampaging and destroying everything while being insane during the entire flight had regained his senses at this point?

Was it related to the incident where the tower had collided and changed direction just before?

As all sorts of thoughts raced through the priest’s mind while listening to Lariata’s explanation.

Swoosh!

Lariata cut off the priest’s head with one hand and began to devour it.

Lariata, who had eaten her fill by devouring even the priests of her own Order, wiped the blood from her mouth and tilted her head back.

“Alright, I’ve roughly met my quota, shall we begin?”

Lariata, looking back at the priests who were reciting prayers with pale faces, smiled and turned her gaze.

“Prepare Amrita’s younger sibling’s scale technique. You know what I mean, right?”

“……”

“No, was that not the name? What was the name of the new gentleman who became the 10th Apostle this time?”

The moment Lariata tilted her head with a troubled expression.

Whoooom…!!!

From beyond the dark tower that had turned towards the ground, a chillingly eerie thought began to pulsate.

* * *

Myung’s declaration to personally clean up the chaos in the gate city in place of Lenok.

There was no time to ask for an explanation or hear an answer.

The moment Myung stretched out his hand towards the ground, the overflowing darkness began to pulsate from the horizon.

“Arise.”

With Myung’s declaration, standing upon the tidal wave of darkness, the landscape of the ground was completely overturned.

As his will pulsed, the eyes of the dark giants that had been trampling the ground lit up.

Thump!

The dark giants, who had been moving, stopped and turned towards the ground they had swept through.

The moment the surviving superhumans of the League and the Order stumbled back at the dark giants’ return.

The giants, crossing their arms to their sides, began to form a hand seal by clasping each other’s hands.

Gooooo…!!!

“Ugh, ahh…!!!”

“Crazy…!! A spell-!!”

While the superhumans were convulsing, realizing that the dark giants were directly chanting black magic.

A beam of darkness fell from the sky, becoming a black pillar that plunged towards the ground.

[Direct Black]

Formless thoughts, following Myung’s will, constructed and activated black magic on their own.

Black lines, distorted in the darkness, slashed through space, and black shockwaves burst out thousands of times in succession.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

“Kkyaaaaak!!”

“Save me, save me…!!!”

“Haaah!! Haaah!!”

As the dark waves surged through the space, the surviving people were crushed to death.

Black trees grew on the ground, piercing and killing humans with their sharp branches.

Every time the dark giants trampled and moved across the ground, dozens of types of black magic manifested and were launched from the sky.

Charrrrrk!!!

“Krrrk…!!!”

The sounds of chains and screams, explosions and cries.

Darkness and blood mingled and melted into the withered meadow.

The spells that the sorcerers chanted like they were having seizures, the prayers that the priests recited, and even the barriers of the ability users lost their meaning.

As if the deaths from just before were nothing, an overwhelming massacre began in an instant.

Black plum blossoms bloomed on the cold corpses, casting a dark scent of death.

“Puhah, hahahaha…!!!”

“Hehehehe!!!”

One of the sorcerers, unable to face the approaching darkness, went mad and stabbed himself in the head with a dagger.

The image of death was so overwhelming and vivid that even the sorcerers of the Order, who had been trained in all sorts of battles, could not last long.

“This is…”

“Whether it’s the death of others or one’s own, it’s the same.”

Myung said, withdrawing his hand from beside Lenok.

“The more deeply a being recognizes death, the more impossible it is to escape my law. It’s the same for any superhuman.”

“……”

“It’s about mixing the priority of the will to reject death and the instinct for survival. The will towards life becomes an attractive force, and the fear of death becomes a repulsive force, pushing and pulling each other….”

Myung said, looking down at the carnage unfolding on the ground.

“They won’t even know if they want to live or die.”

“Hahahaha!!!”

“Here it is!! Here it is!!”

“Khehehe…!! Kehehehet!!!”

Crack!

Crackle!!!!

The League sorcerers threw themselves at the dark giants and committed suicide.

The ability users of the vanguard laid down their bodies in the dark waves and detonated themselves with their superpowers.

The priests of the Order stabbed their hearts with dead branches and bowed as if in prayer.

A gruesome scene where those who had been fleeing from death just moments ago were now willingly embracing it.

Kooohhhhhh!!!

The declaration of death falling from above. The waves of thought sweeping across the ground.

Black trees and dark giants tore apart, trampled, and crushed human bodies, rapidly reducing the number of humans.

“Reaching transcendence means this. Not manipulating uncertain and ambiguous concepts, but interfering with cause and effect to twist them.”

“……”

“It means being able to hold the scales of life and death and play with them as I please.”

“Is that… the essence of the Gabihaeng [a ritualistic journey of the soul]?”

When Lenok, who was listening to the explanation from the tower floating in the sky, asked, Myung fell silent.

“Gabihaeng was originally a journey to comfort the soul and appease the spirit before transcendence.”

Myung said quietly, looking down at the ground without a word.

“But the method of my family that I use is to steal the fate of the dead and give them a rest worse than death….”

Myung’s gaze, watching the humans dying on the ground, flickered for a moment.

“I am a sinner. So, in the end, I won’t be able to avoid punishment.”

“……Myung.”

“Ah, I know. You don’t want to kill everyone, right?”

In an instant, Myung’s expression took on an incomparably cruel smile.

“I’ll spare a few. But I can’t overlook the bugs that have extended the most harmful killing intent towards you.”

“Kkya, aaaaak!!!”

Revid, a superhuman whose whole body was stained with darkness, floated up into the air.

The 13th seat of the Ability Awakening Vanguard. A metal manipulation ability user and the leader of the assassination squad that attacked Lenok.

He was convulsing, spewing out acrid darkness from every hole in his body.

The metal scattered around him seemed to be trying to use his ability, but each time, he vomited out lumps of darkness from his stomach instead of blood.

“Kuhhhhh…!!”

“It’s a type of sacrificial magic that converts all internal organs into black magic.”

Myung explained kindly.

“It’s an awakening technique used by a black magician on the verge of death, converting all of their bodily functions into black magic.”

“……”

“Magic that would normally be helpful to the caster can be used as a killing technique if the laws are reversed. The opposite is also possible.”

“Kkkkk, guuuu…!!”

Revid, his eyes even turning black, was dying while spewing black foam.

Until now, Revid had been enduring with his own achievements, but the moment Myung focused his technique on him, he could not withstand it.

Without even properly seeing the face of the being who was killing him, he convulsed like a bug, suffering and dying.

“Superhumans. Monsters. Magicians. Mercenaries. Priests. It doesn’t matter what they are.”

Myung said, slowly clenching and opening his hand towards the ground.

“What’s important is, as I said before, changing the priority. It may sound grand, but if you perceive the sensation, you’ll be able to use it soon.”

“……That’s.”

“Remember this conversation well, Ban.”

Myung said leisurely, placing his hand on Lenok’s shoulder.

“This might be the last time I meet you with my mind intact like this.”

“……”

“Whether it’s the sensation of handling magic or the feeling of reaching transcendence… I wish I could convey it all to you here, but there’s no time.”

Myung’s face, as he lowered his head, was hidden by his black hair.

I remember having a similar conversation with Myung once.

His appearance, advising Lenok on how to manipulate space-time as a result, when he had not yet reached level 8.

Even now that he has regained his senses, is Myung trying to tell Lenok what he needs to learn and refine?

When I think about it, from the first time we met until now, Myung has always maintained a consistent attitude towards Lenok.

He walks a step ahead of Lenok, trying to explain the sensations and tricks he has experienced and learned.

Even in this moment of indiscriminately massacring and killing the humans on the ground, he does not spare advice and counsel to Lenok.

While pondering over his contradictory attitude and reactions, I have hesitated to judge Myung until now-

“What do you want from me?”

“……”

“What does the role you want to entrust to me before the end… mean?”

Lenok, slowly turning towards Myung, asked.

“I cannot choose one thing. So, I cannot move only as you wish.”

“……”

“Not the past or the present, but because I envision the possibilities of the future… I will take everything I have learned as the answer.”

Lenok closed his eyes, leaving Myung in silence.

“Because I believe there is a process more important than the result. If the moment cannot precede the end, then I-”

I have no choice but to create a world where that is possible.

If assimilation, destruction, salvation, and god-slaying are not Lenok’s answers.

I will try to envision a world that encompasses all of that under the myriad of things.

The answer from that day, shared during the meeting with the Commander and the Cult Leader, reaches Myung more closely than anything else.

That must be because Lenok felt that he owed this great black magician that much.

Lenok knew that Myung, who had been watching over him and trying to help him for a long time, deserved to hear the answer.

That there were things that had to be said, no matter how they were distorted.

“I see. So, I thought it would turn out like this someday.”

Did Myung also know what kind of answer Lenok was envisioning?

He chuckled and turned his gaze.

“You are similar to the Commander, yet different. I thought that the closer you got to Pandemonium [a chaotic realm], the further you might move away from it.”

“Then why….”

Why did Myung deliberately drag Lenok into Pandemonium?

Why did he lead him to face the Commander, see his answer, and make his own judgment?

However, even though Myung understood Lenok’s words, he did not answer that.

“You know, Ban.”

He only turned his gaze away, wearing a faint smile as if he would disappear.

“One realization is more necessary for us than hundreds of explanations expressed in words.”

“……”

“You know that all the truths you have awakened to on your own had that much value and reason.”

Having said that, Myung slowly turned around.

“You’re right. There is a process more important than the result, so we must not defile that moment. That was all I wanted from you.”

“Not defile the moment…?”

“Yes, for example-”

In Myung’s eyes, as he looked at the ground, an undisguised cynicism was mixed in.

“The existence of the transcendent being who is watching us from over there is like that.”

“……What?”

Following those words, Lenok inadvertently looked down at the ground and frowned.

The mercenary troops, League sorcerers, and vanguard ability users were being brutally killed by the darkness that Myung was creating.

Corpses were piled on top of corpses, and the bodies with twisted limbs were distorted into grotesque shapes….

They were forming letters.

[BLACK MAGICIAN FAMILY OLD BLOOD]

“……!!!!!”

The corpses scattered on the ground were forming eerie letters.

A chilling sense of déjà vu, where the corpses, stiffened by death, were functioning as the message itself.

Lenok already knew whose method of conveying this language was.

“Jinwa…!!!”

A fallen ascendant located on the outskirts of the central front line.

The greatest linguist who created the common language of the continent, and now a transcendent being who seeks to become a god.

The monster who uses humans as letters had noticed the anomaly in the gate city from the Lost Paradise.

Kiiiiing!!!

At that moment, an intense mental wave crashed down on Lenok and Myung’s heads and exploded.

“Kuh…!!!”

In front of Lenok’s eyes, the actual language seemed to be unfolding with sparks flying.

A thought that seemed to pierce the mind in an instant, twisting and severing thoughts and mental waves into a mess.

On the ground, the cursed words, using corpses as brushes, unfolded in succession.

[STOPPED FALLEN PERPETUATED]

The letters, shaped like corpses, tilted faintly as if mocking for a moment.

[BETRAYED]

Crack, crack…!!!

The pitch-black darkness shattered and broke into mosaic units.

The cursed words, openly unfolding, pierced through the tidal wave of darkness that Myung had deployed in this place.

A persistent and insane will, as if reading the memories of this gate city and forcibly pulling them out.

[ARE YOU TRYING TO OBTAIN AN ANSWER BY SACRIFICING UGLY AND NOBLE SACRIFICES]

“The answer has already been obtained, Jinwa.”

Myung said, forming a hand seal with his hands clasped together.

“You and I have something in common in that we have strayed from the essential answer.”

Myung, who had even replaced simple chanting with dark giants, was now deploying his second black magic against the ascendant.

“That’s why you also sensed my arrival and tried to peek into this place in advance, wasn’t it?”

[YOU FIEND]

Perhaps having sensed something from Myung’s answer.

The moment Jinwa’s language, which was crushing and tilting the corpses, stood up sharply enough to be chilling.

Black Law System Unique Magic

Nature Transformation Myungri Manifestation

Thought Full Burn

[Great Pull]

The darkness, densely gathered in Myung’s hand, rotated and distorted in a circle.

The moment the darkness, rotating as if drawing a yin-yang symbol, deeply subsided and compressed into a single point.

The tidal wave of darkness that had been sweeping the ground began to rise into the sky all at once, defying gravity.

[HOW DARE YOU DEFILE MY GARDEN WITH YOUR MUDDY FEET-]

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The pillars of darkness supported the sky and the ground, covering the cracks in space-time that Jinwa had broken.

The moment the darkness that had dyed the entire horizon black was pulled out as if bending along the path drawn by the giant pillars.

The direction of the Gabihaeng itself was twisted and began to deviate from its orbit.

Kugwagwagwagwa!!!!

The magnificent darkness that had dyed the horizon was moving as if it was turning direction and being pushed away next to the gate city.

Only then did Lenok, who understood the current situation, widen his eyes.

“Could it be, from the beginning, the Gabihaeng was…!!”

The black magic that Myung had just used was, as the name of the spell suggested, the manifestation of the attractive force that leads fate itself.

And Myung, using Jinwa’s existence as a directional key, had changed the direction of the Gabihaeng that he was leading.

Was it because Myung had acted before the gate city was completely swept away and even the civilians who had evacuated behind the barrier were swept away?

However, if the target was Jinwa’s Lost Paradise, then the final destination of this Gabihaeng would ultimately be-

“Ban, when you operate in the center in the future, it would be good to be careful about these things.”

While Lenok was speechless with indescribable shock, Myung said in a calm voice.

“The center where Ars Nova is located is the boundary line closest to the outer sea on this planet. Because the boundary line of the world is faint, all sorts of transcendent beings are observing the center from both inside and outside.”

“……”

“They don’t come for you, but for the death and causality you create. This time I can help you, but….”

The moment Myung smiled and twisted his hand, the cracks that Jinwa had broken were completely covered with darkness this time.

“Next time, you’ll need a means or backing to protect you.”

The darkness on the ground soared into the sky, completely filling the cracks this time.

Kwaaaaaaa!!!

The dark waves, tilted towards the sky, curved diagonally and poured down like a waterfall.

In the darkness that dyed all directions in an instant, Myung turned his back to Lenok.

“She was one of the most sensitive ascendants even before she went mad. So, this will be enough for now.”

“……Myung.”

“I’ll borrow your gate on the way out. After changing the direction of the Gabihaeng, it’s difficult to control, so it would be best not to approach the center for the time being.”

Even after massacring the enemies threatening Lenok from all directions of the gate city to the point of annihilation, Myung did not lose control until the very end.

He even used Jinwa’s intervention as an opportunity to twist the Gabihaeng’s direction, avoiding the massacre of civilians who had evacuated behind the gate city.

And until the very end, he was trying to tell Lenok what to be careful about and wary of in the center.

Thus, at the end of the Gabihaeng, the ending that Myung desires is-

Lenok hesitated, unable to easily speak.

“I am….”

Is this the end?

Is this moment the last time I will meet Myung and receive his will with a sound mind?

I still remember the various assistance I have received from him since the first time I met him.

While Lenok suppressed his complicated feelings and closed his mouth, Myung looked at Lenok and smiled.

“You asked what your role was earlier.”

Myung said quietly.

“You are a signpost, Ban.”

“A signpost?”

“The absoluteness that stems from your talent, which will never exist again… seeing that, I can also change direction like this.”

“……”

“Possibilities that cannot be imitated even in illusions, within the deaths I have appeased and devoured.”

Myung smiled.

“Your existence is the clearest proof that this moment is reality. So, your existence alone is, for me, the process of reaching the end.”

“……”

“So, there’s no need to worry. You are already fulfilling your role.”

Only then could Lenok understand why Myung had quickly regained his senses as soon as he saw Lenok.

Myung, who had gained power through the Gabihaeng, was going mad as he devoured the deaths of those he had killed as a price.

However, even while the distinction between reality and hell was becoming blurred, a being like Lenok only exists in reality.

That is why, even while his mind was unstable and going mad, Myung was able to return to reality by using Lenok’s talent as a direction.

“Meeting you, and this time, I was lucky in many ways.”

Myung muttered, slowly raising his gaze towards the sky.

“So, our ending may not be next time. But I hope it won’t be.”

“……”

“Because my ending not coming at the scheduled moment would ultimately mean the Commander’s failure.”

“While agreeing with the Commander’s answer… you’re leaving the ending to me?”

“The Commander doesn’t change. He was that kind of person from the beginning. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but….”

Myung looked back at Lenok and smiled.

“You will change. Perhaps you are that change itself.”

“……That’s.”

“That’s why I’m going to bet my ending on you.”

Kooohhhhh…!!

The darkness all around swirled and rushed in, being sucked into a single point.

Myung’s figure, turned towards Lenok, was also gradually fading into that darkness.

Myung’s eyes, which had become one with the darkness, were rapidly losing focus and sinking.

“Farewell, Ban. I hope that in the next signpost….”

The time he had regained while meeting Lenok also lost its meaning, and he was once again becoming one with infinite death.

However, Myung struggled to lift his gaze and, at the last moment, uttered the words he had almost forgotten.

“I hope our ending will be in the next signpost.”

Whoooosh…!!!

The dark tower left Lenok behind and continued to rise at an incredible speed.

It swirled as if being sucked into the gate of the Thousand Miles Fragrance, casting a thick darkness beyond the barrier.

Fwoooosh!!

As the darkness that had covered the sky receded, the sky, which was nearing dawn, revealed itself.

The flames of the Thousand Miles Fragrance, which had spread over the swaying barrier, and the starlight faintly twinkling between the dawn sky.

Lenok’s new form, which had fallen through the dark tower, fell through the clouds, creating flames.

The countless forms of death, left behind in the place where the Gabihaeng had swept through.

Whether it was a consideration left by Myung until the last moment, or something he already knew without being told.

“……”

Lenok’s expression, looking down at the ruins of the gate city where everything was over, was stained with an indescribable complexity.