Level -99 Archmage - Chapter 102

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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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Episode 102. The Supreme Treasure
Boom-!—
It was as if a bomb of light had detonated.
Every participant turned toward the source of the thunderous sound at once.
“What is that?”
“The Goddess of Light?”
“It’s the Goddess!”
The crimson sky.
There, where no darkness dwelt, stood a sacred Goddess.
Such radiant beauty that reverence arose unbidden.
Everyone stood transfixed.
Those who came to their senses found themselves drawn forward as if enchanted, toward where the Goddess stood.
And then they saw it.
“Yi Hyeok-soo, isn’t it?”
“You mean that dragon hunter?”
“That’s right. It really is Yi Hyeok-soo!”
A man standing with noble bearing, as though cradled in the Goddess’s embrace.
It was Yi Hyeok-soo.
And Yi Hyeok-soo was already a figure renowned across the world.
“The one who hunted the Dragon God General during the First Night?”
“When everyone else had given up, he was the one who stepped forward and hunted it alone.”
“While hundreds of thousands watched, no less?”
“And when the Dungeon Abyss appeared, he cleared more dungeons than anyone else, they say…”
The First Night.
A trial to slay the Twelve Divine Generals that had appeared across the world.
It was Yi Hyeok-soo who hunted alone the Dragon God General—the final, mightiest, and most dreadful of those Divine Generals.
Those who witnessed that moment spoke with one voice.
Yi Hyeok-soo was the strongest.
Truly the hero of this turbulent age!
People exalted Yi Hyeok-soo as the “dragon hunter.”
From that point on, the number of those who watched his deeds with keen interest grew.
But now.
He stood alone at the epicenter of the place where light had erupted and sound had thundered.
All those in the domain of the Second Night heard that roar.
They saw the Goddess and witnessed the message of a Unique Achievement accomplished.
None of this could have been coincidence.
The man at the center of all this tumult.
Surely it was he—the dragon hunter Yi Hyeok-soo—who had accomplished all of this alone.
“Could it be that the one who achieved the Unique Achievement this time was…!”
“Yi Hyeok-soo cleared the Legendary Quest too, didn’t he?”
“Yes. The dragon hunter Yi Hyeok-soo would be capable of it.”
“He’s the one who saved us all!”
“A savior! A messiah!”
People pressed their palms together.
They bowed again and again, expressing their gratitude with genuine hearts.
They believed with absolute certainty that Yi Hyeok-soo had accomplished both the Legendary Quest and the Unique Achievement.
The Goddess standing beside Yi Hyeok-soo was the proof of it.
If it had been anyone else, countless people would have died from insufficient Contribution Points.
But 1,000 Contribution Points was not only enough for everyone to survive—it was far more than enough.
The rule was that anyone who had not gathered 100 Contribution Points by the end of the Second Night would die.
The vast majority had failed to gather even that much.
In fact, more than half of all participants had fallen short.
The wealth gap had been far too severe.
Fugitive Hunting was the exclusive domain of the strong.
Yet with merely a single bow of the head, he had saved everyone who lacked the Contribution Points.
So he was a savior.
Not merely a dragon hunter, but a messiah to save the world.
Of course, Yi Hyeok-soo, hearing the people’s words, shook his head.
It was not he who had accomplished all of this—it was the Prophets.
If they wished to express gratitude, they should do so not to him, but to the Prophets.
“……It wasn’t me.”
“And so humble, besides!”
“Thank you, thank you!”
But those already starry-eyed refused to believe Yi Hyeok-soo’s words.
They wouldn’t hear them.
Yi Hyeok-soo wrestled with doubt.
Should he let this misunderstanding stand?
‘The Prophets avoid the light.’
He considered their nature.
They wished not for themselves to be recognized, but for Yi Hyeok-soo to become the savior.
Never stepping forward, never exposed, moving quietly through the shadows.
A profound aversion to attention.
Yi Hyeok-soo wanted to help them.
He wanted to repay, however slightly, the debt he owed.
‘……A savior.’
Just as the Prophets had said—just as they wished—should he become that savior?
Should his role be to claim credit for deeds he never performed, to draw the people’s gaze away from the Prophets and onto himself?
If he refused to play that part, suspicion would naturally follow.
People would search endlessly for who had truly wrought these miracles.
Countless charlatans might seize the moment, false saviors might arise and plunge the world into chaos.
In the end, someone had to be the anchor.
‘I don’t yet possess the strength a true savior would need.’
Yet Yi Hyeok-soo was a fragile creature.
His flaws were many, and he lacked the capacity to guide others.
He—who cherished solitude and chewed on loneliness—to lead the masses?
To stand as a hero, a savior, bathed in the world’s regard?
Absurd.
It was impossible.
Such a thing had no place in his understanding, no place in the future he had imagined for himself.
In ordinary life, it was something he could never do.
And yet.
‘……A maker of paths.’
Was it truly the right answer to refrain, to say he had never tried and therefore could not?
There are no absolutes in this world.
The Prophets had taught him that. Shown him that.
Which meant.
He could first become a savior, then forge the path to grow into that role.
It was entirely possible, if Yi Hyeok-soo so chose.
‘I want to carve a path.’
A new path.
My own path.
Even if it begins as a lie.
Even if it starts as something false.
Circumstances shape the person, and deeds grant the credentials.
It was enough to strive to become such a person.
Faster.
Higher.
Further!
To press onward without surrender.
“Yi Hyeok-soo!”
“We live because of you!”
“You are our hero!”
“We will never forget this debt!”
The cries of the crowd echoed across the Second Night.
As if the Prophets had foreseen this very scene, they had slipped away without a backward glance.
It was almost like a celebration.
“…….”
Yi Hyeok-soo lifted his gaze to the heavens.
The Goddess of Battlefields.
As though she had perceived the resolve kindling in his heart, she seemed to smile.
……And then.
The being gazing upon where Khan’s Palace had stood was not only the participants.
* * *
Aheta, the Lord of the Moon.
His eyes brimmed with confusion.
Not a single thing had unfolded according to his design from beginning to end.
A Legendary Quest had erupted without warning, and an intruder had appeared.
He had believed the Mage who cornered Han Shin was the same Mage who had continuously thwarted him, but as time passed, he grew convinced this assumption was wrong.
And that was not all.
The attempt to duplicate Han Shin had failed, and the revived Han Shin had only grown hostile toward him.
The Legendary Quest he had deemed impossible to clear was cleared.
―How?
The question gnawed at him.
The intruder could not progress through a Legendary Quest.
Only humans advancing through the Second Night in this place—only participants—could accomplish such a thing.
Even if it had progressed, clearing it was next to impossible.
At humanity’s current level, awakening that creature—Khan—was impossible.
Yet they had managed it.
And they had not stopped there, but taken one step further.
―They killed Khan…….
The Conqueror Khan, even Aheta could not kill.
He had slain him, killed him again and again, yet Khan would not die.
An undying body.
A power akin to infinite regeneration.
That was why he had no choice but to seal him away.
And yet Khan had died.
Killed by the human progressing through the Legendary Quest.
―Was the palace the weakness.
The palace itself had been Khan’s Life Vessel.
Who could have guessed that the so-called Conqueror Khan would resort to methods that only Liches employed.
He had merely feigned confidence, pretended to fear nothing in death.
Khan was nothing but a coward who feared death above all else in this world.
That was why he had not thought of it.
He could not have assumed Khan would set up a separate Life Vessel.
It was far removed from a warrior’s ability, after all.
But……if a human had discovered a weakness even Aheta had not conceived of, what did that mean.
His mind was filled with nothing but the question—how.
―…And they broke a Unique Achievement on top of that.
It was unprecedented.
When he had become the Lord of the Moon in the distant past, the Unique Achievement he had first set up upon taking charge of the progression of Night had just been broken.
Countless races, even the Twelve Races themselves had never reached it.
Yet humans had broken it.
Much like the Tower of Arrogance.
They had achieved an impossible goal.
They had surpassed one billion points.
Even finding all Hidden Pieces and completing every quest fell short of that.
The threshold had been set so high that the quests Aheta alone had arranged could never breach it.
The thought that a sealed Legendary Quest would be the means to break through had never crossed his mind.
He could not have imagined it.
Who could possibly imagine that a mere human could kill Khan, whom even the Lord of the Moon could not slay.
Yet……if they were truly human, this made no sense whatsoever.
―A world that the Abyss had only recently touched. Humanity’s Awakening itself was a recent occurrence.
Humans were fragile.
No matter how powerful an individual, they could not compare to even the lowest-ranking demon.
Without the Abyss spreading, the world expanding, and life forms awakening, humans could never transcend their limitations.
Even with genius-level talent, growth required time.
These were humans merely encountering the Second Night.
Yet they had killed Khan.
That fact left him deeply unsettled.
Above all else.
—Someone I cannot find. It seems this human is receiving aid from another.
I cannot locate them.
They remain invisible.
Which means.
This person is shielded by something akin to Absolute Magic—or perhaps something greater still.
They move beneath the protection of an absolute being.
But who?
What entity dares to obstruct me?
It is not the Mage who reduced Han Shin to pulp.
Remarkable as that one is, they lack the strength to kill Khan.
Nor do they approach the caliber of one worthy of absolute protection.
This level of discretion and meticulous orchestration suggests that an entity superior to Aheta herself is at work.
—Is it the Demon King? The Demon God? Or one of the Great Nine Lords?
Perhaps even the masters of the Twelve Lords themselves.
Only that caliber could explain all of this.
The suspects have narrowed.
One of them is intervening on this Earth.
Not as Aheta commands Han Shin as an Avatar, but on an entirely different plane—cultivating a single human as though they were a Transmigration Body.
—Much as I myself once recognized human potential beforehand.
Yet Aheta’s thoughts could not linger.
Because.
—…Two billion, five hundred million points?
The final tally of Contribution Points made no sense.
By the laws of the Abyss, the Hidden Treasure Vault had been forcibly opened.
No greater humiliation could exist.
Yet above even that searing shame, another emotion began to engulf Aheta.
—How dare anyone touch my Supreme Treasure!!
The Hidden Treasure Vault.
Among all that Aheta had gathered through countless Nights and wars with countless races,
only the three greatest and most sublime treasures had been secretly hidden away, known to no one—and that vault was precisely where they lay!
—…They will never find them regardless.
Aheta forced themselves to composure.
An opened vault did not mean the treasures within had been looted.
Especially those three treasures—they would defy discovery under any circumstance.
Countless mechanisms had been prepared to conceal them.
Even if that human received aid from an absolute being, even if such absolute entities descended themselves, it would make no difference.
They would never find them.
If they could, then that one would be a god, not a human.

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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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