Conquering the Labyrinth with a Trash-Tier Trait - Chapter 43

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 43
The ritual Silvania taught me was meant to spread Spirit Power throughout the entire corrupted World Tree.
-Once that happens, my preparatory work will be completed all at once with Illumina’s power lending strength.
It was a way to accelerate the work she’d been conducting in secret to purify the corrupted World Tree.
Though she had warned me of the dangers beforehand.
-Once Spirit Power spreads throughout the entire World Tree like that, Arcturus will notice before Illumina does.
-The watcher of this corrupted World Tree.
If we survived the worst-case scenario of dying to Illumina, the next hurdle was surviving a battle against Arcturus, the orc of the 7th Class like Illumina herself.
The problem was.
“Arcturus! You’re not the warrior you once were!”
“I am not the one I was then!”
Crack-boom!!
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom.
‘What!?’
Their collision was completely beyond my ability to perceive.
The only consolation was that I could feel Illumina’s power shielding us through it all.
‘……Has it not taken hold yet?’
The masterpiece of the trap Silvania had prepared for us lay ahead.
Which meant.
“Young master!”
I grabbed the dazed Bartus and dragged him toward the corridor.
Crash-boom-boom-boom-boom!
Kaboom!
Crackle-crackle-crackle.
“We need to move!”
Something was rupturing, exploding, deafening everything around us.
“Come to your senses!”
The moment even a fragment of it grazed us, I had the instinct we’d be killed instantly.
‘Damn it.’
The gap was far greater than I’d anticipated.
Almost like the difference between a giant and an ant.
-You’re in the way! Get out of here, now!
Fortunately, Illumina seemed to be actively helping us escape through the entrance.
‘I haven’t been discovered. Not yet. But…….’
Seeing the Spirit Wedge flickering at the spot where Illumina was embedded made my heart race with urgency.
“Run!”
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom.
But just as we were about to escape the entrance.
“A human!?”
“A prisoner?”
We ran directly into the Green Skin forces descending from above.
The guards like Krang were nowhere to be seen, but ogres, orcs, trolls and other soldiers packed the upper levels solid.
‘Those guard bastards. Did they only deploy Incense Poison?’
The moment I gritted my teeth.
“Get out of here!!”
Boom-crash!
“Guh!?”
An ogre at the front swung a massive hammer down at us.
Thud.
Crash-bang.
Perhaps it was fortunate.
At that same moment, no one among the Green Skin forces paid us any attention as we were sent flying.
Because they rushed headlong into the hellish battlefield blazing with blinding white light.
‘Shit, shit—’
Even as Bartus and my spirits formed a defensive barrier in that instant, my arm bone seemed to have dislocated from the reflexive motion of raising my arms.
“Char!?”
“Ugh!”
Crack.
Sharp pain shot through my arm as I forced the bone back into place, but that was the least of my concerns right now.
Blinding flash.
Perfect timing. Inside, I could see countless beams of light erupting from the Spirit Wedge.
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s go up!”
Those lights scattered chaotically through the underground chamber, and I watched them partially restrain Illumina’s body as she battled Arcturus and the Green Skin forces.
In that instant, Illumina’s snow-white eyes turned toward us.
-You wretches!?
“Char!”
Crack!
Flash!
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
The moment Bartus swept me up and shot skyward, a brilliant yellow lightning bolt incinerated the space where we’d been standing.
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
Boom-boom-boom!
Watching a section of the World Tree—so impossibly solid—get crushed entirely by a single bolt sent chills racing across my skin.
“L-let’s go!”
“Yes!”
Fortunately, it seemed Arcturus’s reinforcements had been all of them.
“It worked. At this rate, even a tenth of—”
“Right, no time to talk about it! Run!”
As we climbed to Underground Level 5, we encountered no further obstruction.
But there was no guarantee we’d make it the rest of the way—all the way to the surface—without trouble.
No one knew how far the Incense Poison had spread.
But our plan had never been to go upward anyway.
“Silvania!”
A High Elf, bound in chains from every direction, scattered brilliant white light in all directions throughout Underground Level 5.
She responded to our call.
-Come.
Clang!
The moment the iron door of Level 5 tore free, we raced toward her light, and
her will—unmoved, still deep in meditation with eyes closed—slammed directly into our minds.
-Char. Bartus. You have honored your promise well.
-I, too, shall keep mine.
Crack-crack-crack!
Where her light touched the wall ahead, the World Tree’s surface split open, and a passage appeared.
A passage, slanted upward, wide enough for one or two people to slip through.
And before my eyes, I could see a Portal forming in front of it.
Hum.
[Labyrinth Floor 10 Quest]
[Escape from the Underground Prison of the Corrupted World Tree together with Bartus. (Complete)]
“Char! Let’s go!”
“…You go first.”
“What!?”
“Go on ahead! I need to stay and see how things unfold here!”
“What are you talking about all of a sudden!?”
This was an ordinary quest completion—if I left now, I couldn’t afford to fail.
I couldn’t say that out loud.
“If something goes wrong here, we’ll be crushed before we even fully escape! Go on! I’ll check on things and follow!”
“Then I should stay and watch too! I’m not going!”
Huh?
‘I can’t just punch him in the gut over this.’
But because of his kindness, I found myself smiling without meaning to.
And then.
Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble!
[Silvania!]
With a chilling wave of force, the entire World Tree convulsed, and a grotesque wooden face erupted from the wall behind us.
[You were here all along!? When did you even—!?]
Illumina’s twisted face shrieked in fury, and
then I remembered what Silvania had said.
-The Illumina who corrupted the World Tree was on the verge of being devoured by the World Tree’s own rage.
-If left unchecked, the World Tree would eventually purify itself anew, consuming the original sin of Corruption.
-To prevent that, the Green Skin forces have been endlessly poisoning the World Tree to keep it addicted.
-If the work progresses properly, and if Arcturus holds her back even slightly, the Spirit Wedge will become a catalyst to awaken the World Tree’s wrath, binding her all the more tightly.
-That is all you need to do.
Watching Illumina’s face twisted in agony, it seemed our role had truly come to an end.
But.
[How dare you do this to me! How could you do this to me!? How could you!!]
Illumina’s wailing was one thing, but Silvania’s unresponsive state looked far from good either.
Crunch-crack.
Her body, still in meditation, sank slightly into the floor.
Sweat tinged with crimson poured from her entire frame in torrents.
Watching her flesh waste away in real time, I too felt a rising sense of urgency.
“Silvania!”
Not daring to touch her directly, I instead manipulated the spirits to stimulate her, pouring my mana into the effort.
Bartus did the same.
And only then did the contorted face of Illumina in the wall seem to notice us.
[You, you traitors, how dare you! Fine! Let us all die together!]
A shrieking face. From beneath her eyes flowed sap from the wood itself.
The murky fluid, dimly visible in Silvania’s light, looked like tears of blood, and I felt my skin crawl.
-Illumina has abandoned her thrashing to die alongside me.
-My own life is not precious, but at this rate, I cannot purify the World Tree.
-If we fail like this, Green Skin will find some way to corrupt the World Tree once more.
-Hold Illumina back, even for a moment. Until I completely purify the World Tree.
At Silvania’s voice transmitted directly into our minds through the spirits, my eyes and Bartus’s met.
‘Let’s do this.’
‘Let’s do it.’
Hummmmm.
As the spirit seeped through Silvania into the World Tree, the situation became clear to us both.
This enormous sacred tree was trying to swallow Illumina with fierce vengeance.
‘She’s being attacked too?’
Swallowed within the World Tree, Arcturus and the rest of Green Skin were pouring tremendous firepower on that spot.
Even in that state, Illumina abandoned any attempt to maintain her existence, instead pursuing and disrupting Silvania’s power that had seeped into the World Tree.
[How could you! How could you! To me!?]
That was why Illumina, half-merged with the World Tree, could form the shape of a face here.
Though her reason seemed half gone.
Yet from Illumina’s wave of consciousness, one thing came through with terrible clarity: a sense of betrayal.
‘So the traitor of the elven race calls me a traitor.’
It was absurd, but I had no interest in the backstory.
Our task was crystal clear.
‘Push Illumina away as she disrupts Silvania’s power.’
Fortunately, pressed by the World Tree’s grip and forcibly clinging to Silvania’s power, separating Illumina from it.
Though Illumina’s power was greatly constrained for several reasons, even what remained seemed overwhelming for us.
And yet.
‘Separating her shouldn’t be that difficult, should it?’
After nearly a month of driving the Spirit Wedge into her, I had become keenly aware of the difference in power between Illumina and the World Tree.
Now, with her energy distinctly woven into Silvania’s current, I could clearly tell it apart.
‘Let’s try.’
With the aid of Bartus’s Spirit Power, I concentrated my strength and drove a Spirit Wedge into the connection point where Illumina clung to Silvania’s power.
-Focus!
-Focus!
-Focus!
-Focus!
In this moment, all my fragments circulated their mana with one unified will.
Far more efficient and powerful than when I showed the spirits to Illumina one at a time.
Crack!
The first wedge of flame.
-I’ll burn it clean through!!!
[Aaaaah! How dare you! How dare mere humans!]
Yet still Illumina did not break free.
[It is a technique I taught you. You wretch!!]
And yet.
Craaack!
Second. The Water Wedge.
—A witch who defies the natural order. Unforgivable.
[Urgh!?]
A sharp crack echoed.
Third. The Wind Wedge.
—Please, just back away!
As the Spirit Wedges drove in one after another, separating the two of them, Illumina began to scream.
[How is this possible? Even with perfect concentration, two should be my limit?]
—I’m sorry, but I can manage five.
Another sickening crunch.
—With an absolute firmness from which there is no escape.
The moment the fourth Spirit Wedge of earth drove in, Illumina’s power was nearly torn away, yet it remained incomplete.
[Don’t interfere! Don’t interfere! Please!]
The final one.
One more terrible crack.
—Don’t you dare interfere!
The instant my fifth Spirit Wedge, synthesizing all attributes, drove home, Illumina’s power was completely stripped away.
‘Done!’
In the moment I exulted inwardly, two opposing wills—Illumina’s and Silvania’s—rang out in unison.
[No!]
[It is finished. Release all attachment and rest now……. Mother.]
‘What!?’
Struck dumb by Silvania’s words—words I’d never anticipated.
Illumina’s power scattered and was absorbed into the World Tree.
At the same moment.
“Not a prisoner at all—just a rodent!”
A deafening roar shook Underground Level 4, and a green wind came rushing in.
An orc over two meters tall, with a brutish face.
‘Arcturus?’
The moment I registered his appearance, my eyes flew wide.
A flash.
A blue light erupted before him, became a Portal, and swallowed the charging Arcturus whole.
—This can’t—!?
I heard the surprise in his voice.
—Return to the place where you belong. Pursuer of the Deep.
With Silvania’s Spirit Power, the Portal snapped shut in an instant.
“Cough. Gasp…….”
Silvania, a brilliant sphere of light floating above her head, coughed up a fist-sized clot of blood.
And right before my eyes, her body was wasting away even further.
A flash.
The sphere above her head burned even brighter.
The sight of it—everything that was Silvania, crystallized and contained within that radiance—was unmistakable.
—You have done well. Depart now, humans. I am grateful that you have allowed me to fulfill my purpose.
The intuition came to me that all that could be done in this place was finished.
“Let’s go. Char!”
Bartus immediately turned and moved, and another Portal opened in succession.
[Labyrinth Floor 10 Quest]
[Perfect Clear!]
[Purify the Corrupted World Tree. (Complete)]
The Perfect Clear Portal opened.
There were no more variables. It meant we could leave.
Ordinarily I should have exited without hesitation.
But in that moment, something caught my eye—something that wouldn’t let go of my heart.
Silvania, still sitting with her eyes closed, emaciated beyond recognition, had tears flowing down her cheeks.
“Mother. Truly, I am so very sorry.”
The meaning in her voice—her voice, heard for the very first time.
It held my feet in place.
‘It’s none of my concern. I just need to leave.’
I tried to convince myself of that.
But this damned body had already turned around and reached out to grasp the sphere of light shining above Silvania’s head.
‘X damn it all!’
I cursed under my breath at my own actions, but I already knew there was no helping it.
Illumina and Silvania’s final words had touched my Inverse Scale.
Because I too was a parricide who had killed my own parents.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————