Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 1098

9 Level (17)

Kundara, the Outer God City. The Ten Thrones stood at the end of the Old Aeon.

A massive tomb and repository where Kaise Bajur’s end was enshrined.

However, the appearance of the corpse within was something Lenox had never even imagined.

A gruesome sight: nothing remained above the neck of the man enshrined on the throne, his blood vessels still connected.

As if cleanly severed, there was nothing above the neck, only an empty cross-section remaining.

Lenox, staring blankly at the sight, moved his lips, speechless.

“……”

At the bizarre and unbelievable tragedy, his thoughts seemed to halt momentarily.

Kaise Bajur’s head was gone.

Kaise Bajur’s corpse was desecrated.

The end that Kaise Bajur had met, that meant-

“……!!!!!”

Belatedly realizing the situation, Lenox’s vision turned crimson and shook.

Blood rushed to his head, and a dizziness close to vertigo washed over him.

As if forcibly understanding and accepting an incomprehensible phenomenon, Lenox’s thoughts began to race wildly.

‘His head was cut off… and he died?’

He had imagined and hypothesized over a thousand scenarios for Kaise’s end after the project failed, but.

He had never even considered that Kaise Bajur would be found dead in such a way.

He was certain that someone who had tried to gather all the failures of this world would have met a far more bizarre end.

Whether his body became part of the outer sea, decayed and twisted, or turned into a completely different form or object.

Lenox was prepared to accept and move forward with any of those possibilities, but this-

“……”

No, he knew why, somehow.

The Kaise Bajur that Lenox knew was a genius who had buried all the secrets of the project with his death.

He thought that someone who had designed the project and commanded countless transcendents while seeking answers would never have met such a death.

That was what he had unconsciously thought.

Even amidst the confusion, Lenox’s eyes naturally scanned the corpse sitting on the throne.

The cross-section of the neck was unusually clean.

It looked as if it had been artificially severed rather than forcibly torn off or stolen.

Traces that made it seem as if Kaise Bajur had been ‘executed’.

If the end that Kaise had met was not self-inflicted but the result of external forces.

And if his corpse was kept here to hide that very end.

Where is Kaise Bajur’s head?

“I’m glad I could keep my promise to you.”

Suddenly, Maleon’s voice came from behind Lenox.

The soft, low voice of a transcendent who felt self-satisfaction and fulfillment.

A quiet sigh as if relieved after finishing something big.

“I’m glad. That I could hold out until now. That I could repay the favor you gifted me.”

“……”

“I hope that you have found the meaning you sought here, as you wished.”

“……Maleon.”

Lenox said in a subdued voice.

“Don’t you feel something… strange?”

“Hmm? What are you talking about?”

Maleon asked back, looking puzzled.

“I don’t know. Are you perhaps saying that this place isn’t the end of the Old Aeon?”

“……”

Even with a headless corpse sitting on the throne before his eyes.

Even while being openly supplied with the true blood of a long-lived species, Maleon didn’t seem to feel any discomfort.

As if that fact itself was not a big problem for Maleon.

Was it because Maleon’s Gnosis [a form of higher knowledge or understanding] already knew about the being enshrined in the Ten Thrones?

Or was it because Maleon, conversely, had no interest in the existence of the Ten Thrones?

No, Lenox knew that it was neither.

Maleon Gnosis had clearly kept his promise to take Lenox to the end of the Old Aeon.

In that process, he had no ulterior motives or changes of heart.

Maleon Gnosis did not betray Lenox until the very end.

However, the sense of fulfillment felt in his voice now-

Was not an emotion felt because he had kept his promise to Lenox.

“Ban, can you hear it?”

Maleon asked with his eyes closed.

“I hear singing… a very beautiful melody.”

“Maleon.”

“It’s so beautiful that just listening to it seems to calm my heart…”

“……Maleon.”

Lenox said with a stiff expression.

“There is no melody. There is… no music here.”

“Is that so? Listen carefully.”

Maleon said that, and slowly began to walk past the throne.

Beyond the glass partition where the darkness of the outer sea was visible.

While quietly looking at the other side of that void, Maleon hummed softly.

“It makes such a beautiful sound, but you still can’t hear it?”

“……”

After arriving at the entrance of the Ten Thrones, Maleon said he could hear a melody.

What he had thought was a simple metaphor became closer to a certainty as time passed.

Yet, without ever hearing it, Lenox turned towards Maleon.

The melody that Maleon was talking about, from the beginning-

“It’s singing to me.”

Maleon whispered.

“It was by my side from the beginning. But it’s only now that it has finally become audible to my ears.”

“Maleon!!!”

“It’s singing.”

Slowly, Maleon, who had turned towards Lenox, spread his arms.

As if entrusting himself to the immeasurable beautiful melody, as if surrendering his own existence and answer.

Crack, crack…!!!

Veins popped on Maleon’s neck, and the sound of muscles and joints rupturing echoed.

He had exerted so much force that the scales covering his neck began to fall off, and blood began to flow.

Whoooosh!!!!!

The starlight that enveloped Maleon’s entire body rotated at an incredible speed, lifting his body into the air.

A powerful heat source swept away everything except the throne and pressed down on space-time like a storm.

“Ha…!!”

Lenox, looking up at the sight with a pale face, gritted his teeth and pulled up his magic power.

Having come this far, he could no longer delay.

The moment he began to chant the only countermeasure he had prepared against Maleon Gnosis.

[It’s singing to me.]

Maleon pressed his eyes with both hands as if they would burst, and tilted his head back.

As if wanting to shout that fact until his throat burst, he shouted as if he couldn’t bear it.

[The sea, it’s singing to me……!!!!!!!!]

“Maleon Gnosis!!!!!”

At the same time, Lenox, who had taken out his grimoire, opened a page and slammed it down hard.

Celestial Art Deployment

Model Garden: Celestial Sphere Formation

Spero Sphaera

Fwoooosh!!

The light that surged from the grimoire expanded, drawing a huge celestial sphere above the page.

The huge celestial sphere that unfolded above Lenox and Maleon’s heads began to rotate majestically.

The celestial art of the Heavenly Realm borrowed from the Library of Darkness: Model Garden.

It was a technique borrowed to twist the veil and head to Kundara, but Lenox had not forgotten the explanation Clarice had given.

The celestial art of the Heavenly Realm. One function hidden in the Model Garden, which is the origin of the magnetic field.

The ability to forcibly draw out the true form of a long-lived species by forcing the expansion of consciousness through the Model Garden.

A countermeasure he had remembered immediately after realizing that Maleon Gnosis was trying to hide his true form.

The moment Lenox finally took it out and forcibly covered Maleon with it, stripping away his disguise.

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!]

Maleon’s entire being exploded with a mixture of joy and screams, and a brilliant silver radiance enveloped his body.

Kwaaaang!!!!

From within the light, the huge forelegs and hind legs of a dragon emerged simultaneously.

A torso covered in dazzling scales and a tail that stood firm like steel bars. Huge wings that flapped slowly.

And, ‘two heads’ attached to the beautiful body of a jewel dragon.

“……You.”

Only then could Lenox understand why Maleon had tried so hard to hide his true form.

The jewel dragon, said to be born once every thirteen generations, was not one person.

A mutant with two heads attached to one body.

Maleon Gnosis was a conjoined twin.

[Don’t look!! Don’t look at me!!!!]

Kwaaaang!!!!

The huge dragon’s head flashed with its inner light and raised its gaze, while the other one drooped.

Only one of the two heads was functioning properly, and the other was dead, without even a life reaction.

The living dragon’s head roared fiercely in Maleon’s voice.

[Don’t put my appearance in your eyes!!!]

“……”

However, only now could Lenox properly understand all the discomfort he had felt towards Maleon.

The reason why Maleon Gnosis had left the dragon’s head even after disguising himself as a human.

It wasn’t that Maleon hadn’t changed his own head into a human form.

Even though he had already completed his disguise as a human, there was one more head left that the disguise hadn’t been applied to.

‘The reason why he had such an unusually stable hierarchy.’

Because he shared two heads in one body, Maleon’s consciousness was overwhelmingly vast compared to others.

That was why he was able to quickly stabilize his hierarchy even after transcending it, using that vast consciousness.

‘That’s why he was so weak to thought absorption, unlike a transcendent.’

One of Maleon’s heads was alive, and the other was dead.

Because he had a dead head, he was relatively more sensitive to and closer to accepting thoughts.

Even the fact that Maleon, who had become a transcendent, was unusually shaken and tormented by thought absorption was because of that.

Why he didn’t undo his disguise until the moment he was reborn as a transcendent.

Why he had the most stable hierarchy of all the level 8s Lenox had met.

Why he was shaken while absorbing the thoughts of the founders, unlike a transcendent.

It was because the being called Maleon Gnosis was not one person in the first place.

[Aaaaaaaaaaah!!!]

Maleon, unable to bear the fact that his true form had been revealed, roared while shaking his head madly.

Lenox, reading Maleon’s thoughts and emotions that were pouring out without restraint, could understand the reason.

It wasn’t because he was ashamed or hideous of his appearance with two heads.

He was unbearably afraid of the fact that his other head was dead.

“……Maleon.”

Kaise’s death. An unexpected end.

Maleon’s rampage and his identity.

In this space filled with only confusion, he tries to organize his thoughts somehow.

He grits his teeth, kills his emotions, and searches for the best course of action.

Lenox, calling Maleon’s name in a subdued voice, said.

“What you’re hearing is not a melody. It’s not even music.”

[……No, don’t look…….]

“Even the calmness and relief given to you are false emotions. Look at me.”

Lenox said, pointing to himself, exhausted and disheveled from the fierce battle.

“I’m here. Whatever problem you have, I can help you.”

[…….]

“Just like in the ascension ritual, I can help you now.”

Did Lenox’s calm voice, without highs and lows, reach beyond Maleon’s confused mind?

The mental waves of Maleon, which had been shaking incessantly, were felt to be gradually calming down.

But Lenox did not let his guard down until the end and said.

“Tell me what the problem is. Tell me what you’re afraid of first.”

[……Ban.]

“Even if you have become a level 9 transcendent, if it’s me-”

“Ah, that’s the wrong answer.”

At that moment, someone’s voice cut in between Lenox and Maleon.

Lenox’s expression froze as he instantly located the source of the sound.

The second head hanging on the chest of Maleon, who had transformed into a dragon.

It was because the dragon’s head, which had been drooping dead, was moving its mouth and speaking.

“The reason Maleon Gnosis was shaken was none other than you.”

“……What?”

“Through the ascension ritual, he experienced your talent and existence with his whole body, and at the end, he felt the difference in the answers he had reached.”

But the head continued to speak fluently, not caring about Lenox’s reaction.

“Thanks to that, a miracle happened where a ritual that should have failed succeeded, but he couldn’t do anything about the gap in his heart that was created as a result.”

“……”

“He was already shaken before accepting the thoughts. The only reason he could hold on was because he was holding himself together with the promise he made with you as a knot.”

It was as if the eloquent speech was a lie, considering he had been silent without a word until now.

“That was possible thanks to Maleon’s own strong will and his excellent self-control to separate his emotions despite his unbearable sense of defeat, but….”

The dead second head slowly raised its gaze and looked at Lenox.

“Thanks to that self-control, I was finally able to awaken, so everything is like two sides of the same coin.”

“Who are you?”

“As you know, I’m not the jewel dragon called Maleon Gnosis.”

The dead head smiled.

“The thoughts left in this space gathered in this dead head and regained their memories, so if you really want a name-”

The two dragon heads looking at Lenox tilted at the same time.

“Transcendent’s Good End. You could say I was the being called Paud Older.”