Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 653

Whioooo!!!

“Everyone, step back!! Don’t touch the gate, no matter what!!”

“Even a slight mistake and you’ll be sucked in. Make sure not to approach the gate!!”

Every member of the Cy Squad retreated, sweating profusely.

“Contact Ex Machina. Request an immediate reevaluation of this operation!!”

“We can’t reach them. The communication network is completely cut off…!!”

Thud-

At that moment, a dull roar, as if the sky itself was breaking, echoed through the air.

Immediately after, the Shadow Squad members were crushed on the spot, exploding into a mass of blood and flesh.

“Kuaaaak!!”

The desperate screams of the struggling members faded as they were sucked into the giant ring of light.

At that moment, Hermes’s vacant eyes seemed to briefly regain focus.

Every time Hermes gestured blankly, all matter with mass was crushed and sucked into the gate.

The massive gate devoured all humans and natural objects except for the forge of Hwadeokjin, which stood firmly supporting the gate’s foundation.

Hermes, sitting on the pure white throne, stared intently at Lenok’s face and smiled.

“Even while falling asleep, I was very curious about that face. It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to see someone’s face.”

“……”

“What do you think of this gate?”

Hermes asked without waiting for Lenok’s reply.

In a languid manner, as if he would fall asleep at any moment, he sat heavily on the throne.

He asked Lenok while gasping for breath, as if even continuing to speak was difficult.

“The greatest failure of the Machine City. There won’t be many falls as miserable and perfect as this in the entire Eastern Continent.”

“……”

“But the people of this city, to preserve this failure, have nonchalantly offered their fates beyond the gate.”

Hermes smiled.

“Amidst that lingering attachment, obsession, stubbornness, and delusion, I responded—”

“People who offered their own fates beyond the gate.”

Lenok interrupted Hermes and asked.

“Was Hwadeokjin one of them?”

“……”

The beautiful form of the forge tower, with multiple palaces stacked like layers.

The remains of the Ascension Gate, revealed only after overturning the entire forge facility, and the white throne in the center.

It would be strange if there wasn’t someone’s arrangement in this space, which seemed ready to open the gate at any moment.

And it seemed certain that the person who designed this setup was Hwadeokjin, the creator and owner of the forge tower.

Hwadeokjin’s death was not an assassination or an accident.

From the beginning, he intended to use his forge as the foundation to reopen the Ascension Gate.

For the failure of the Ascension Gate, to leave that failure as a meaning, Hwadeokjin offered himself beyond the gate.

Lenok pressed the revolver hard against Hermes’s forehead and muttered.

“Three answers to one failure… It’s ironic, but that’s why I can understand it.”

The Ascension Gate reached the second world that was destroyed without becoming an answer to the next, and the answers left behind were different.

Artermeyer, who didn’t give any meaning to the failure, Maiya, who tried to accept and fix it. Hwadeokjin, who couldn’t accept it and offered himself to find meaning.

Even after not finding an answer, someone’s lingering attachment extends in different directions.

Even the stubbornness that echoes without finding meaning eventually becomes another answer.

“I thought you would understand, Lyman.”

Hermes nodded.

“If you maintained your sanity even after seeing that memory beyond the gate, it must be because you came to the same conclusion as me.”

“……”

I remember what the leader said at the end of the labyrinth.

That question and answer about finding a new answer before it’s too late, even if it’s not the direction you want.

At that time, I didn’t understand what that meant, but now…

“If someone has to accept an impossible wish, then I will become someone’s necessity.”

Hermes’s clear eyes flashed as he slowly spread his arms.

“If that is the answer that surpasses salvation, then with me…!!”

Bang!!

At that moment, the revolver in Lenok’s hand fired, and the bullet lodged in Hermes’s heart.

The bullet, shot like an arrow, pulsed slowly like a heart, piercing his chest precisely.

Immediately after, it pierced Hermes’s heart and disappeared as if sucked into the gate behind the throne.

“…Ah?”

“No, this is the end.”

Lenok said to Hermes, who was blankly looking down at his chest.

“The doctor is right. The idea of taking meaning from beyond the gate was wrong from the start. Even if there’s something great left inside…”

The legacy, information, and memories of the old world are ultimately just a means.

The values and answers that failed to ascend cannot become new answers in this world.

Hermes summoning the spirit of the Ascended is just a stubborn attempt to repeat a failed answer in this world once again.

“……”

Thud!!

Blood poured from the hole that pierced Hermes’s chest.

The form of the gate, recognizing the concept of the Thousand Eyes, twisted greatly at that moment, like a crack in a glass window.

Crack!!

A huge ring of light that had appeared on the wall of the forge seemed to break for a moment.

It shook as it lost its balance, and it looked like small pieces were falling off.

The ripples that had been gently undulating behind Hermes’s back vibrated irregularly and convulsed.

Flicker, flicker.

Even the form of light became faint, and even the radiance that had brightly illuminated the entire forge faded.

The remains of the Ascension Gate that existed in Hwadeokjin’s forge.

Hermes’s gate, forcibly completed using the Machine City’s district transfer, was collapsing as it went out of control at the same time as its completion.

“Cough…! I see…”

Blood seeped from the hole in his chest.

The blood dripping from his lips trickled down his neck and soaked his collar.

But Hermes was more interested in the identity of the bullet that Lenok had just fired than in his own dying body.

“The concept of the Thousand Eyes… I thought it had all been used up as a milestone, but I didn’t know such a rare thing was still left…”

What Lenok had shot as a bullet from his revolver was a catalyst made by directly materializing the concept left by the Thousand Eyes.

It was one of the only two solutions that Maiya had obtained from the statue and then split between the two of them.

The powerful concept of the Ascended fills the void of the old world connected beyond the gate and completely breaks the system.

The iron rule that you must always receive back more than you give.

The moment the concept of the Ascended, which could not be established within that law, was offered as a price, the exchange ratio broke down and the function of the gate collapsed.

Cough.

Even covered in blood, Hermes couldn’t help but laugh.

He coughed incessantly, but at the same time, he let out a chuckle.

“The concept of the Ascended, who saw the furthest in this world… If that instead of guiding the gate, it disrupts it, it’s only natural that the system itself would break down…”

“You are not an Ascended. You are just an incarnation that has been consumed by his memories.”

Lenok said, rubbing his stiff hand.

“……”

“If the spirit of the Ascended doesn’t respond from beyond the gate, wouldn’t your existence, which existed without being bound by the flesh, also disappear?”

The reason Hermes had been able to exist by switching bodies until now was because he was a being deeply consumed by the memories of the Ascended from beyond the gate.

But if the system of the Ascension Gate breaks down, Hermes will not be able to exist in the same way as now.

That is no different from true death for Hermes himself.

Lenok was asking if Hermes himself fully accepted that fact.

But Hermes laughed as if Lenok’s words were absurd.

“Lyman, what does that matter… In this world, we are dying every moment without even obtaining the proper qualifications.”

“……”

“As a seeker of answers, even after confirming the memories of the gate… are you not stopping your contemplation on death?”

Hermes chuckled and laughed.

“That’s not the salvation I’m thinking of… If the plan had succeeded, everything would have been swallowed and disappeared… It’s a meaningless question and answer.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

Lenok answered and slowly placed his hand on Hermes’s shoulder.

Hermes looked as if he would slip off the throne at any moment, leaning weakly.

“But I believe that even that question and answer is a process to obtain qualifications.”

The fear of death. The desire for life.

If he hadn’t fully recognized and accepted that fear and desire, Lenok wouldn’t have survived until now.

The same goes for the end that comes at the end of a conclusion and causality where the answer is not predetermined.

The despair that there is no next is always directly related to the obsession with life.

At the point of denying that fact or thinking it’s meaningless, Lenok would be different from when he first fell into this world.

Not different. Not changing.

Even as everything around him changed, Lenok was trying to remember the desire of that first moment.

“A process… Hah, hoo…”

Hermes’s eyelids trembled, then slowly began to lose strength and fall.

The breaths he exhaled began to slow down rapidly, and even his heartbeat quickly stopped functioning.

Unlike when he survived for a long time even after his neck was cut off in the Mind Chamber, this was a normal cessation of life signs.

As the gate’s system broke down, Hermes’s ego was also rapidly losing its ability to maintain itself and disappearing.

Hermes whispered weakly, as if gasping for breath that wouldn’t come easily.

“Still, I…”

Before he could finish his sentence, Hermes’s breath stopped.

At the same time, the flow of the gate that had been sucking in everything around it completely stopped, and the ring of light that had risen above the throne collapsed.

Kuuuuung!!

A roar that shook the entire forge of Hwadeokjin. The shock also caused Hermes’s lifeless body to heave greatly.

The storm subsided, and a silence fell as if it were a lie.

Lenok, who had been watching Hermes’s corpse slumped in the chair, stepped back.

Thud!!

The armored wings that had been inserted between the throne fell out, supporting Lenok’s body instead.

[Ascension Gate function completely stopped. Copying of program code matching rate is complete.]

“…Okay.”

Lenok, listening to Davi’s report, slowly caught his breath and turned around.

The members of the Cy Squad were staring at Lenok with an expression of disbelief.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to intervene in this situation that had just unfolded.

However, they hesitated, unable to approach rashly, considering Lenok’s divine power and Hermes’s safety.

Lenok had accurately captured that moment and destroyed Hermes and the Ascension Gate itself with a single bullet.

The operation agreed upon with Maiya beforehand was up to this point. From now on, it was an area to navigate by his own judgment.

“Escape the forge tower and immediately break off pursuit. Considering the remaining magic power, I can do it about twice—”

Just as he made a quick decision and spread his armored wings wide, about to leave the top of the forge tower, a voice echoed from behind Lenok.

“Still, I believe I was not wrong.”

A calm and clear tone, completely different from the weak voice he had just had.

The size of the concept carried in that tone was so powerful and intense that even Lenok found it difficult to judge.

“…!!!”

The moment Lenok turned his gaze, pulling up his magic power,

A pure white wave erupted from behind Hermes’s slumped back, turning the world pure white.

Paahhh!!!

The manifestation of magic power, the expansion of concept, the twisting of laws.

There was no sign of any kind in achieving a series of miracles.

At the same time as the deployment, it invaded reality, reversed the laws, and transformed all existing matter into its own.

Kiiiing!!!

All the inanimate objects in Hwadeokjin’s forge were transformed into a pure white platinum form and glittered,

And the agents who were shouting and screaming with urgent expressions froze as if time had stopped.

At the end of the empty timeline, only Lenok and Hermes’s corpse maintained their color.

No, can the existence that is speaking to Lenok now be called Hermes?

Whoosh!!

From behind the pure white throne, someone slowly walked out, holding the shoulder of the lifeless Hermes.

As if creating his own body on the spot, a platinum substance swirled and rose, transforming into a human form.

It transformed into a form that was perfectly identical to that of the lifeless Hermes.

A human body that was so strangely devoid of any sign of life.

Transparent, almost pure white pupils. He, who faced Lenok with pure white eyes that had no focus, said.

“When looking into someone’s memories, you must be wary of having your own inner self exposed in return.”

“……”

Every time Lenok retreated slowly, unable to hide his agitation,

He also naturally took a step forward and opened his mouth.

“Sharing precious memories is not a pleasant thing, but that’s why there are things you can learn.”

“You are…”

“You, more than anyone I’ve seen, your inner image was not reflected.”

He smiled.

“So, I wanted to meet and talk to you, even in this way.”

A subtle smile that seemed to lift only the corners of his mouth with a blank face.

An awkwardness as if a being who had lost all humanity was forcibly imitating a human smile.

But Lenok couldn’t answer his smile.

Because he intuitively knew that this platinum space-time that was unfolding, the words he was speaking, and the attitude with which he was asking for a conversation were pointing to one possibility.

The being standing in front of him was not a member of Ex Machina that Lenok had faced in Machina until now.

“Since when?”

Lenok asked quietly.

“To bring something from beyond the gate, you have to pay a price. But you completed the Ascension Gate and didn’t pay a price. You didn’t even have time for that. Rather…”

“A price is something you have to pay to take something from others.”

He answered quietly.

“That’s why I don’t pay a price. There’s no reason to.”

“What does that…”

“Above all…”

He slightly turned his gaze and looked at his own corpse lying on the throne.

The smile on his lips seemed to regain its vitality for a moment.

“[I] don’t speak so lightly, Lyman.”

Lenok, realizing the meaning of those words, closed his mouth.

It was certain.

What was standing in front of Lenok was not a member of Ex Machina who was consumed by the memories of the Ascended and mistook himself for a transcendent.

The prime minister of the fallen nation, the ghost of steel, the commander of platinum. A war proxy who destroyed several civilizations.

The great spirituality he had tried to summon from beyond the gate at the cost of his life.

The true transcendent who had obtained qualifications in the old world.

The Ascended, Hermes Oroknier, had descended into the third world.