Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 138

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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138
When Salamander—a fireball hotter than lava itself—fell into water, it should have produced a deafening roar. But.
“No one… heard the sound of it hitting the water, right?”
At Parchem’s words, the three people who had been crouching stood up and thrust their heads through the opening to look down below.
Just before touching the water, Salamander had clung to the cliff face and was now climbing back up rapidly along the wall.
“Damn it!”
Parchem struck the ground near the opening, sending rocks tumbling down, while Bae Na-young unleashed mana needles without pause.
However, once Salamander emerged into the open air beyond the oxygen-depleted mine tunnel, their attacks inflicted little damage.
Watching the two desperately trying to stop Salamander, Jae-in steeled her resolve.
“Bae Na-young, my research data is stored on the main computer at the World Tree Research Institute. The password is the day the president hired me.”
“What? What are you saying?!”
Jae-in ran and hurled herself through the opening, leaping out into the void.
Had Jae-in been alone, she would have fought until Salamander burned her to death. She would have kept running.
But she couldn’t let Bae Na-young and Parchem die because of her.
“Ah… I still had so much research left to do…”
The sky visible as she fell was impossibly blue. It was too beautiful a day to die.
Salamander watched Jae-in fall with its eyes, then kicked off the cliff and plummeted after her.
* * *
I used a teleportation spell to move to the southern reaches of Malbokia to meet Eres.
“Carlton, is it alright if I accompany you? Do you have time?”
“Of course. You are an important guest, so it is only natural that I escort you. However, from here on, we must travel by carriage.”
At first, I had wanted to run. But Carlton pointed out that if a Master of this world sprinted across another nation’s territory, it could be seen as an act of aggression. So I restrained myself.
“Yes, let’s take it slowly.”
Besides, Jae-in would need time to process the Blue Dragon Heart. Even if we traveled slowly and returned, there would be ample time.
As I boarded the carriage Carlton had prepared, memories of riding in a carriage with Eres across the Eastern Continent came back to me.
Of course, Carlton didn’t throw gold coins around or hurl insults at the coachman like Eres did.
“Judging by how remote this temple is, it seems not many people believe in the Spirit of Darkness?”
“The people of the Western Continent have a long history of persecution by the dominant races, so they tend to fear darkness and yearn for light.”
“If Eres heard that, she’d be quite offended, wouldn’t she?”
“Historical records show that revelations from Aither, the Spirit of Light, are extremely rare, but there are almost no accounts of the Spirit of Darkness, Eres. Now that her existence has been revealed, surely the number of believers will increase, will it not?”
“That may well be true.”
It made sense—the people of Tellus believed in what they could see.
We traveled by carriage to the southernmost reaches of Olnuesia, a neighboring nation to Malbokia. Crossing the border was effortless with Carlton, who held a high position in Malbokia’s government.
After traveling along rural roads for quite some time, we finally arrived at the Dark Temple.
“… It’s smaller than I expected?”
The temple was not particularly large. There were hundreds of churches in Seoul bigger than this.
The Spirit of Light temple I’d seen in Malbokia’s capital had been enormous.
“Hmm… I hope Eres isn’t too offended.”
“I doubt she’ll mind much.”
“Oh!! Lee Ji-seok!”
A gaunt priest rushed out and prostrated himself flat on the ground.
“Pardon? You know me?”
“Of course I do! You’re the disciple who met Eres directly and received her teachings!”
“A disciple… yes, I suppose that’s accurate. Please, stand up.”
I helped him to his feet.
“Thank you so much. Thanks to you, Lee Ji-seok, the Dark Temple has been reformed for the first time in decades.”
I wasn’t sure if having my name recorded in the temple was a good thing, but this man’s goodwill would likely prove useful going forward.
“I am Rondi, a priest of the Dark Temple. How may I be of service to you?”
Rondi performed an unusual greeting, shielding both his eyes with his right hand.
“Priest Rondi, I’d like to offer a prayer to Eres. I was hoping that if I pray here, she might hear me.”
“I’m ashamed to admit it, but we ourselves have never heard Eres’s voice, so I cannot give you a certain answer.”
“That’s alright. Could I use the place where you normally offer prayers?”
“Of course. This way, please.”
Following Rondi’s guidance, I entered the temple interior. Inside was just as austere as the exterior. Beyond the entrance, a statue of Eres came into view.
“What do you think? Does it resemble her?”
Not at all. Statues of mythological figures are usually idealized, but this one was the opposite. The sculpture was beautiful, yet its atmosphere differed from Eres, and it failed to capture the full depth of her beauty.
“It seems quite similar to me.”
Still, there was no need to point out the differences, so I told a white lie. The height and long black hair were similar enough, I suppose.
Rondi was deeply moved by my kind falsehood.
We continued deeper, arriving at a staircase descending underground.
“Is the prayer chamber below?”
“For offering prayers to Eres, the Spirit of Darkness, there is no better place than within darkness itself.”
“I’ll wait out here.”
Carlton turned away, frightened by the pitch-black staircase where nothing could be seen.
Meanwhile, despite relying on only a single candle in the stairwell as dark as pitch, Rondi descended swiftly as if he could see everything clearly.
“As expected, you’re quite accustomed to darkness as well, Lee Ji-seok.”
His pleased remark wasn’t entirely wrong, but in my case, my senses were so developed that I could perceive my surroundings even with my eyes closed and ears covered.
“Here we are.”
The underground prayer chamber was simply a natural cave, nothing more.
At the far end of the cave sat a smaller statue of the goddess on a rock, identical in form to the one I’d seen above.
“Would it be alright if I offered a prayer as well?”
“Of course.”
Rondi extinguished the candle.
The cave became pitch-black without a trace of light. Though the humidity was high, proper ventilation and maintenance meant there was no unpleasant odor.
‘Eres. Eres. Are you there?’
Not knowing how to pray properly, I closed my eyes and searched for Eres in my heart.
Naturally, there was no answer, but I continued searching.
‘Eres, please respond.’
‘I need your help.’
‘Should I bring some sweets?’
‘Or maybe alcohol?’
‘Hello?’
‘Eres?’
Since I had nothing else to do while waiting for Jae-in anyway, I continued praying for hours.
“Ahem… Indeed… Your faith runs quite deep. I shall take my leave now.”
Rondi, who had been kneeling beside me in prayer, struggled to his feet, limping as his legs ached. I had inadvertently wounded the priest’s pride.
“I’ll continue a bit longer, so please go ahead. You can take the candles with you.”
Rondi bowed his head and turned to leave.
I continued praying alone.
‘Eres. Eres.’
I called out faster and faster, surpassing thousands of times, then tens of thousands.
‘Shut your mouth already!’
Along with Eres’s angry voice, I felt my body being pulled inward.
“Huh? Eres?”
I opened my closed eyes and looked around. Though darkness still surrounded me without a trace of light, this was no longer the Underground Prayer Chamber I’d been in moments before.
This was a vast space where I couldn’t feel walls even in the distance.
Before me stood Eres—no longer in the form of a child, but as a tall woman with black hair.
She looked irritated, her arms crossed and her expression deeply furrowed.
“I’m dying from the noise! How many times are you going to call me?!”
“Well, I would’ve preferred if you’d answered right away.”
“Do I owe you an answer? You shameless wretch!”
“But where is this place?”
“Inside my barrier.”
“A barrier?”
“That Spirit of Light has been scheming behind my back, keeping me confined so I cannot move.”
“What kind of scheming?”
“When I asked about the Manager, it turned out they already knew. They even made a deal with those wretches—a cowardly bargain where even if Telus and this world are destroyed, they only ask that their source incarnation be spared.”
Eres bit her lip hard.
“Are they saying those beings are strong enough to make even an incarnation like you submit?”
This was troubling if I had to fight them in the future.
“They need not fight a being like me directly—there are many methods. If a Destruction God that devours dimensions were to consume this world, we too would cease to exist.”
“We have too little information about them. Is there any way?”
“That’s precisely why I’m currently holding the Spirit of Light captive and interrogating it. The creature is tight-lipped, but with a bit more pressure, I should be able to extract answers.”
“You’re strong enough to capture the Spirit of Light?”
“Foolish creature. What meaning does a handful of light have before true darkness? Light itself was born from darkness, after all. Among the incarnations of this world, none dare stand against me. You should feel it now that your own tier has risen, shouldn’t you?”
Indeed, Eres’s power, which I couldn’t even gauge before, was now somewhat measurable. I thought we’d grown closer, but she remained overwhelmingly stronger than me.
“Can you see that my tier has risen?”
“Hmph, it’s still nothing but a pittance. You’re truly slow.”
“That’s why I came. How do I increase this power?”
“Your problem isn’t increasing power—you need to learn how to use it.”
“…”
“Blockhead. When your existence rises in grade, it means you’ve become a higher-dimensional being. It means you’re no longer bound by the laws of the dimension you’ve inhabited until now.”
Eres spoke and slowly levitated into the air. When using flight magic, acceleration and deceleration appear subtly visible. But what she employed was nothing of the sort. She moved with perfect disregard for the laws of physics, gliding effortlessly through space.
“That’s easy to say… but how exactly do I do that?”
“Your spouse is so clever, yet you’re in this state.”
“Stop criticizing and teach me something. After all, you decided to confront the Destruction God and the Manager, didn’t you?”
“That’s not such a simple matter. However, training you does align with my purposes. Very well.”
Eres swept her hand downward, and a massive chasm opened beneath me. I couldn’t resist and plummeted through it.
“If you fall, it won’t end with just a little pain, so figure it out on your own.”
As I fell, Eres descended alongside me, speaking those words. But unlike me, flailing and plummeting, she descended by her own will—stable and composed.
“Wait! How am I supposed to do that?!”
“If you don’t know, then fall.”
I tried to slow my descent by expelling aura and life force downward, but the falling speed didn’t decrease—it accelerated.
This space itself was under Eres’s dominion.
Crash!
“Cough…”
Every bone in my body shattered, my organs crushed. My head split open, and my senses were in complete disarray.
“Again.”
Before my bones could fully mend, another chasm opened below. I fell to the ground, only for another to open.
I recovered while falling and struggled again before hitting the ground.
“Again.”
“You’re taking revenge for all that praying earlier, aren’t you?!”
“Indeed. But it will be helpful, so hold your tongue and concentrate. Abandon common sense. Abandon your senses.”
It wasn’t easy to suddenly cut off the acute sensory perception I’d always maintained.
Rise… Rise… Rise!!
Crash!
“Abandon three-dimensional thinking. In this world, there exist spirits unbound by the laws of physics, and souls exist as well. Since you can now touch those beings, it means you too have transcended the laws of physics.”
Indeed, I can now touch the World Tree Spirit and even destroyed the second-rank Angel Cherub.
“We have time, so let’s take it slowly.”
I’d intended to speak briefly and leave, but it seemed this would take considerably longer.

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