Eleanor, who had manifested by borrowing Rihan’s body, slowly raised her head.
The fear of death that had ruled Rihan until a moment ago evaporated without leaving so much as a trace.
What filled that empty space was something no human sense could ever measure.
Something alien and overwhelming.
Cassian realized it instinctively.
The one standing before him was not the man from a moment ago.
“……Who the hell are you?”
Just as Cassian, flustered, was about to draw up his mana—
“Kneel.”
A low command fell from between Rihan’s lips.
Kuuuuung—!
Cassian could not even scream before his face was driven into the floor.
It felt as though a colossal mountain range had descended upon the crown of his head.
There was no time to resist, no leeway to weave a formula.
The shoulders bearing the pride of a 6th-tier mage were bent helplessly.
Unable to withstand the pressure, the solid basement floor was crushed, and spiderweb-like cracks spread vividly in every direction.
Ten years ago.
The sensation that had left him with a lifelong nightmare was now flowing from the young man before his eyes.
‘Impossible. There cannot be another being like that in this world.’
Even amid a fear that paralyzed reason, Cassian gritted his teeth.
He knew.
If he collapsed here, the Estal family would vanish into history.
Not only the honor of House Estal, but even the safety of the family behind him could no longer be guaranteed.
As a 6th-tier mage, as the Duke of Estal.
He resolved to pour in everything he had.
“No matter how much your presence has changed, that body should be no more than 1st tier……!”
Dense mana burst out around Cassian.
Magic unfolded in an instant.
Cold blue flames whirled around him.
Flickering white-blue fire.
Cassian’s original magic.
Ice Phosphor Karmic Flame.
The cold flame that froze everything it touched twisted like a serpent, freezing the ground white as it surged toward Rihan.
But Eleanor, as if she had not the slightest intention of dodging, swung her left hand indifferently.
Craaaaack—!
Along the trajectory drawn by Rihan’s fingertips, the space in front of him shattered like a mirror.
The cold flames Cassian had created were sucked beyond the rift in that twisted space and vanished into nothing.
“……Huh?”
Despair settled in Cassian’s eyes.
His unique magic, perfected over an entire lifetime, had disappeared with nothing more than a single wave of an arm.
Beyond the shards of broken space, Eleanor looked down at him dryly.
“You dare speak of mana before Us? How pitiful, descendant.”
She took a light step forward.
“I never taught Selene von Estal in such a manner. How has the one who calls himself her descendant fallen into such a miserable state?”
“That name…… How do you know it? The name of our progenitor!”
A thin sneer settled on the lips of Eleanor, who had borrowed Rihan’s body.
“We are the very teacher of Selene von Estal.”
*****
Cassian’s face twisted.
“Blasphemy……! Such a being from myth cannot exist! What sorcery did you use to learn the secrets of our house?”
Kwaaaaaang—!
Mana erupted from Cassian’s entire body as though exploding.
The terror of his house’s annihilation and the premonition of death pulled his reason taut.
Tens of thousands of questions surfaced in Cassian’s mind.
‘……What went wrong?’
He had lived his life proud to be one of the finest mages in the empire.
He had devoted his entire life to his family, and to those he had to protect.
Then why?
Why was he being trampled so helplessly by a young man he had thought to be merely 1st tier?
‘Are we nothing more than pieces following a predetermined prophecy?’
The world was absurd.
Effort was betrayed, and justice knelt before power.
‘If the laws set by the world are this unfair.’
Evelyn’s laughter flashed through Cassian’s mind.
It was as though the breathing of his wife, sleeping peacefully in trust of him, lingered by his ear.
The pride of Estal, passed down for hundreds of years, and the precious paths of life they had protected.
If all of it was nothing more than stage dressing for someone’s amusement—
‘……I cannot accept such laws.’
He could not end here.
No, he must not end here.
He had not been born to become a sacrifice to prophecy.
He had not the slightest intention of remaining a supporting actor meant to complete someone else’s script.
A desperate obsession burned in his heart.
If an absurd world sought to crush him—
Then he need only twist the very laws of that world.
Crack, crunch—!
A bizarre tearing sound rang through the basement corridor.
“……….”
The iron fortress of a wall that had blocked him from the 7th tier for ten years.
That wall began to shatter pitifully under external pressure and internal realization.
“Ah…… Aaaah!”
Cassian’s eyes rolled back, and the veins across his body bulged.
The rise of a tier was like a drug.
Every single brain cell was forced to accept the principles of a new world, and the burning sense of omnipotence drove him into madness.
The 7th tier.
The pinnacle of the mortal realm that a finite being could reach.
A tactical-level realm capable of single-handedly determining the fate of a nation.
A bloody smile hung on Cassian’s lips.
“I’ve reached it. At last…… I’ve reached it! Hahaha!”
He burst into laughter as though he had gone insane.
Violet mana raged around Cassian like a storm.
“Thank you! Thanks to you, I have finally broken through the stagnation of ten years and surpassed my limits!”
The terrain itself began to change from the mana pouring out of him alone.
The ancient alloys of the treasury twisted like taffy, and black flames flickered in midair.
Yet even amid that devastating sense of crisis—
“……You broke through the wall of your tier in the face of fear?”
Eleanor, borrowing Rihan’s body, did not so much as stir.
She calmly endured the pressure of the 7th tier that Cassian emitted, as if it were nothing more than entertainment.
Cassian chanted in a low voice.
“……All light shall fade, and only the abyss shall remain.”
7th-tier magic, Eternal Black Night.
Not wide-area destruction, but the ultimate anti-personnel sniping spell meant solely to annihilate its target.
Every glimmer in the treasury was swallowed in an instant.
Absolute darkness shot like an awl toward Rihan’s heart.
“What a truly nostalgic spell.”
Eleanor’s leisurely laughter rang out from within the darkness.
At the instant that mana of despairing density, capable of disassembling even the soul upon touching its target, arrived right before Rihan’s nose—
Eleanor whispered toward Rihan’s consciousness floating in the air.
“Watch closely and learn, Rihan. This is the destination you must one day reach.”
It was not simply a matter of pouring out mana.
The enormous cogwheels that constituted the world.
An ancient teaching commanding him to see through that very concept.
“Mediocrities pour mana into creating phenomena, but a true mage twists the very principles by which all things flow. The realm of the 10th tier is to reach toward the Root of the world and weave anew, by one’s own will, the laws that have already been set.”
Eleanor slowly stretched out her hand.
“Causal Reversal.”
There was no explosion, no impact.
The moment the Eternal Black Night that Cassian had fired with everything he had dedicated his life to touched Rihan’s palm—
That overwhelming destructive energy became a wisp of haze and scattered emptily.
The cause that the attack had struck was replaced with the result that the attack had never existed.
“Impossible…….”
Cassian’s complexion turned pale.
He had broken through the wall of the 7th tier.
He had joined the ranks of transcendents, of whom there were only two in the entire empire.
Then how could something like this be possible?
‘Then does that mean the man before me…… is stronger than Elysia, the Great Sage, the greatest mage of the present age?’
Cassian realized.
That sensation from ten years ago, when he had faced the monster who prophesied the annihilation of his house.
Even after breaking through the wall of the 7th tier, the being before him still stood in a place unimaginably far away.
Having lost his reason, Cassian ultimately decided to cross a line that must never be crossed.
Crunch!
Cassian savagely bit into the back of his own hand.
Flesh was torn away, and dark red blood gushed out.
With a trembling hand.
Using that blood as a medium, he began drawing a grotesque and ominous pattern on the basement floor.
He thought it was the last choice he could make as the head of the family, and as the father of a household.
“How pathetic. Even with your own ancestor before your eyes, you intend to debase yourself to the very end?”
Eleanor murmured coldly and spoke the second true word.
“Manifest.”
Kugugugugu—!
A noble and sharp storm of mana swept through, purifying the murky air of the basement in a single breath.
Behind Rihan’s back, dazzling particles of light swirled.
And from that radiant center, a woman who had crossed a thousand years appeared.
Pink hair and jewel-like blue eyes.
The progenitor, Selene von Estal.
Cassian’s hand, which had been bleeding as he chanted black magic, froze in place.
The living myth he had only ever seen in portraits was now looking down coldly at him before his very eyes.
“……P-Progenitor?”
Cassian’s voice trembled pitifully.