#92 Variable (2)
Goooo—!
In the hideout of the Heaven-Defying Oath hidden in the southern wasteland, a ritual was just reaching its final stage.
“—, ———!”
At the center of that ritual stood an old man, chanting spells over and over before a magic circle.
Unbothered by the deafening noise that shook every direction, his eyes were filled with madness as he focused solely on completing the great ritual.
The bizarre patterns drawn everywhere, from the walls to the ceiling, continuously gave off black light, slowly dyeing the surroundings in darkness. ‘It’s proceeding smoothly. It seems there are no problems elsewhere either.’ A large man watching the situation from afar nodded in satisfaction.
The preparation period led by the old man conducting the ritual had taken thirty years.
Though preparations in the southern region where the large man was stationed had only begun about ten years ago, the groundwork itself was part of a grand plan that had taken a full thirty years. ‘No, I did hear that the plan had been drawn up even before that.’ It had been before he joined the Heaven-Defying Oath, so he did not know the exact time, but it was a plan into which that much effort had been poured.
By now, the techniques arranged across the continent through all those long years and the organization’s full capabilities should have activated simultaneously.
That would provide no small assistance to the ritual being carried out here, the center of the great spell. ‘This is the moment all our hardships are rewarded.’ They had proceeded as covertly as possible, but preparing multiple sacrificial rituals on the scale of villages could never have been easy.
There were countless cases in which the plan went awry, whether because they were discovered by passing experts or the Church, or because residents who sensed something suspicious reported them.
Each time, the organization cut off its tail and reduced the incident to the work of a single dark mage.
Even amid countless failures, they had somehow managed to conceal their true purpose. ‘It would have been ideal if we could have held the ritual in the center of the continent, but the Church’s influence is too strong there, so it couldn’t be helped.’ Thus, this wasteland between the central and southern regions had been chosen.
This land, abandoned because it had no special resources, was the most optimal place to carry out such work.
Goooo
—How long had it been since the ritual began?
From the darkness writhing on the floor of the magic circle, black light surged into the sky.
A black pillar that ignored the ceiling and stretched high into the heavens.
Visible even from far away, it felt as though it had split the sky in two with a black line.
“Kugh, cough—!”
The old man presiding over the ritual vomited black blood.
Dead blood continued to flow from the seven orifices of his face, and his limbs trembled violently.
He paid no mind to his dying body and squeezed out even the last of his life force in an effort to complete the ritual.
It still had not reached the target he desired. ‘Even after going this far, I still cannot fully complete the great ritual…!’ Throughout his entire life, he had never seen anyone with greater magical talent than himself.
From childhood, he had been praised as a genius of the century, and once grown, there had even been talk of him becoming the Alliance Leader at a young age…
Yet even he, after clinging to this desperately for thirty years, could not complete it perfectly.
The gate of the “Abyss,” connected to the bottom of dimensions. ‘The one from a thousand years ago feels all the more incredible now…’ He had searched the entire continent for places where the boundary with the Abyss had weakened, and supplied energy by sacrificing nearby villages whole.
On top of that, he himself, who prided himself on being the greatest archmage on the continent, had personally presided over the ritual, and yet this was the result. ‘It’s fine… I expected this from the start. Everything is according to calculation.’ His goal had never been to draw “that” out of the Abyss in its entirety and become a second Immortal King.
If it was lacking, then he would make do with what was lacking.
The old man tightly grasped the locket necklace hanging around his neck.
Then, without hesitation, he offered his very soul and existence as a sacrifice.
“Kuhuk—!”
The “karma” and “status” of an archmage who had surpassed the pinnacle and neared transcendence became nourishment for the ritual and faded away.
Even then, the gate did not fully open, and all he could do was forcibly twist it and create a hole.
But he was able to achieve his original objective.
“Kik… kihihahyat—!”
Even as he felt his soul scattering, he burst into laughter without care.
Only anger and madness ruled his heart.
His thoughts grew hazy, and even the precious things that had sustained him vanished one by one.
At last, “it,” which had been embedded deep within the Abyss, began to rise along the pillar.
Fssssss
—As something emerging from the Abyss through the incomplete entrance was mostly ground away, only a single fragment fully revealed itself.
And that fragment shot out from the black pillar…
Thuk—!
And immediately burrowed into the old man’s heart.
Clang!
From the impact, the chain of the locket necklace around his neck snapped and rolled across the floor, but he showed no reaction.
For now, he was… nothing more than an empty shell.
That thing parasitizing the old man’s heart, the “Seed of Madness,” immediately fell into hibernation due to the aftereffects of the incomplete summoning.
It could not be helped, since it had lost more than ninety percent of itself the moment it escaped the Abyss.
Most of the madness that crumbled away in that process rode up the black pillar that seemed to pierce the sky and spread across the entire continent.
Thus, the second Abyss opened.
And “madness” sprouted upon the continent.
***
‘The bastards of the Heaven-Defying Oath opened the Abyss. To think they were insane enough to go this far.’
He had known they were a force operating in the shadows, but he had never imagined they would be capable of opening the Abyss.
It seemed he would have to raise his evaluation of them a little higher.
To pull off something like this, a mere criminal organization would never be enough; they had to have some kind of connection to high-ranking authorities. ‘That aside.’ Something had come up that he absolutely had to do.
Now that they had caused things to escalate this far, he could not simply stand by and watch.
[For a ritual of this scale… the continent’s energy is roiling. …I’ll have to go there personally.]
He had been about to begin the full-fledged “home theater” operation, but this was a variable that far exceeded the situation he had envisioned.
He needed to settle things with them somehow.
Just as Hans quietly focused and was about to trace the center of the energy and move—
Wriggle
—Something inside him reacted.
—I won’t let them be! I will never let anyone on this continent be!
‘Hm? What is this?’
—Death to the world! Revenge! Stain this continent with death!
An abrupt will exploded from within Hans.
A rampage of thoughts transmitted from the “Immortal King’s Heart,” which had now become his heart.
It swelled in size in an instant and tried to invade Hans’s mind.
—What are you doing! Hurry and become one with me so we can cover the world in death…
Hans narrowed his blazing eyes at the thoughts suddenly pouring in.
He could grasp the situation immediately, but it was not exactly one he had hoped for. ‘The thoughts of the previous Immortal King. Did they resurface because of the Abyss opening?’ It was not the will of the “Immortal King’s Heart” itself that he had been dealing with all this time, but the thoughts of the previous Immortal King buried within it.
For some reason, while the Abyss had been closed, they had slept quietly, only to awaken because of this incident. ‘The second Immortal King? Surely not the first? …No, perhaps it’s both.’ Seeing how it was shouting about becoming one with him, that seemed the most plausible. ‘Since the Immortal King’s Heart also originated from the Abyss, it seems this situation affected it and overactivated it a bit.’ Irritation welled up at the sudden turn of events.
Because of those thoughts, the amount of information in “Mind Hub” had surged, leaving him no room to spare for anything else.
He was already always short on spare capacity because of the Immortal King’s Heart, and the thoughts of a predecessor were by no means something he could take lightly.
[Hoo— How dare a mere ghost of the past presume to order this body around.]
—Right now, with me… what?
[You talk a lot for a loser. I’ll handle matters on this side, so shut up and disappear. You bark so much that it’s too noisy to endure.]
—…Ha…
At Hans’s shout, the thoughts that had been continuously transmitted from the heart faltered for a moment.
But only for a moment.
—…Ha, hahahahaha—! You! You’ve broken free from the will of “death”! You’re maintaining your self-awareness completely! Well, of course, that must be why you still haven’t become one with us! Hahahaha!
The thoughts burst into insane laughter and rang through his head again.
—I… we! We are still caught by “death” like this! Ah—! Death, O death! Please grant us true death! O death—! ……Ah, stain the continent with death! Ahahaha!
‘It seems thoroughly mad.’
Well, if his mind had been intact, he would not have accepted the Immortal King’s Heart in the first place.
After that, he must have spent hundreds of years stained by the death of the Abyss, so it was only natural he had turned out like that. ‘I don’t know whether an actual soul has been trapped, or whether it’s simply lingering thoughts.’ But that was probably not an especially important issue.
What mattered now was that, in an already busy situation, he could not do anything because of that thing. ‘It’ll fall asleep again once the Abyss closes anyway, but it doesn’t feel right to just leave it be like this.’ The “Immortal King’s Heart” was already his.
Until now, even if it was secondhand, it had not really shown, so he had not cared. But now that he had discovered the former owner’s name engraved on it, shouldn’t he scrape it off and erase it?
Thus, Hans contemplated his heart through the skillized “Immortal Heart,” and soon discovered the foreign substance. ‘Found it.’ Thoughts like some concept without physical form were tangled around the heart.
But though he had found them, the problem was how to remove them. ‘They don’t have substance, nor do they exist as an energy body. Just like the countless negative emotions contained in the heart, those thoughts are also part of those emotions… Hm? Emotions?’ In that instant, an idea flashed through his mind.
“Mind Hub,” which he had used regularly until now, was not appropriate in this situation.
What he needed now was a method to touch emotions more directly… and he had a skill suited for that. ‘Persona.’ A skill once used to place the main body’s emotions into an avatar, and which, as time passed, had come to amplify and control specific emotions.
That was the answer he had been looking for. ‘The Immortal King’s Heart has already completely become one with Hans. The skillized “Immortal Heart” proves that.’ Then could it not be said that the emotions contained within it also belonged to Hans?
If so, he should at least be able to scrape away the thoughts that had not been one with it from the beginning.
Gaining confidence, Hans spoke boldly to the thoughts.
[Stop chattering and wait quietly. I’ll extinguish you forever.]
—Extinguish…? Extinguish! Eternal death! Disappearing from this world! Death!!
The thoughts, which had been making a commotion alone, reacted to Hans’s words once more.
The response was far more intense than expected.
—Ahahaha—! If you truly give me eternal death, I’ll give you a gift! Something you should have possessed, but did not!
For a moment, curiosity stirred in him, but what would be the point of talking any further with a lunatic?
Hans immediately focused on the inside of his heart through “Immortal Heart.”
The first things he saw were… death and all sorts of negative emotions.
They were the emotions concentrated in the original “Immortal King’s Heart,” and they clung so heavily and stickily that he could not even dare touch them. ‘That wasn’t my target in the first place.’ What he was aiming for were the thoughts mixed within them like impurities.
Because the time they had been mixed in was short, and because they were inherently alien in nature, separating them was not particularly difficult.
And just as Hans began to break those thoughts down little by little using “Persona”—
—Ah… I’m scattering. I’m being extinguished! Eternal death is drawing near!
The thoughts that had been crying out about death began to rave in a voice filled with ecstasy.
—A gift! I’ll give you a gift! It will help you stain this continent with death!
He could soon tell what the gift it spoke of was.
A portion of the thoughts separated, dividing into a part that merely contained information and a part that possessed an ego.
It seemed the information contained within the thoughts was the gift. ‘I don’t know how useful that will be, but it’s better than nothing.’ And Hans unhesitatingly separated the thoughts possessing an ego and scattered them as they were.
—Ah… death… that radiant…
The thoughts of the previous Immortal King vanished without being able to finish their words.
And Hans was finally able to have a moment of peace. ‘Whew, now I feel refreshed. More importantly, I’ve delayed too long.’ Far more time than expected had passed while dealing with the thoughts. ‘What’s this gift he said he’d give me? If it’s information from three hundred years ago at the earliest, I doubt it’ll be much help.’ The most likely possibility was knowledge or experience related to magic…
But in that regard, he already had “Wicked Wisdom” and “Forbidden Knowledge” provided by the Immortal King’s Heart, and with “Path of Magic” that even encompassed the principles of other worlds added on top, he was not particularly lacking.
Then, the moment he checked the gift with a light heart, the unexpected information contained within made him quite surprised. ‘Oh…? This certainly is worthy of being called a gift.’ Naturally, because it matched exactly what the thoughts had called “something you should have possessed, but did not.” ‘This is quite a decent variable.’
It was information concerning the “Immortal King’s Legacy.”