Level -99 Archmage - Chapter 89

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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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Chapter 89. The Cheat Key
The black dragon Ataraxia.
He stood at the exact center of the Path of Light, blocking it entirely.
‘No one shall hinder the Divine Dragon Sepirot.’
The Divine Dragon Sepirot!
Foremost among the Twelve Lords, and the sole being to have transcended even the Absolute Boundary itself and reached the ultimate pinnacle.
All dragonkind existed beneath Sepirot’s feet.
Ataraxia was no exception.
A divine mandate handed down from Sepirot himself: guard the Path of Light.
It was a command worth dying for.
Following that order, Ataraxia threw himself into repelling Aheta’s every scheme with absolute dedication.
Countless Doppelgängers, and even Han Shin himself—none could breach his defense.
And yet.
Ataraxia lowered his gaze to examine his own lower abdomen.
“……Remarkable.”
A gaping wound stretched diagonally across his flank, the edges ragged and torn.
The gouged flesh and laceration refused to regenerate, stubbornly holding their shape.
He had attempted to staunch the bleeding by weaving mana like thread, but the wound kept bleeding mana in a relentless tide.
As a result, the threads themselves kept unraveling.
‘Mana Disruption.’
Some force was scattering the mana itself.
Mana begins as a point.
Thread those points into a line, reshape that line into a plane, then structure it into a desired form—that becomes magic.
But assembling that form requires a considerable level of mana.
Chanting magic aloud exists precisely because one cannot accomplish such shaping alone.
The true nature of Chant Magic is drawing the thread of mana from one’s mind, expelling it through one’s mouth, and sculpting it with exacting precision.
But now, from the very moment of forming ‘a thread of mana,’ he was being continuously disrupted.
Han Shin.
The wound that man had carved into his lower abdomen.
He had left some kind of force embedded there.
Most likely…… Han Shin’s Innate Mana.
‘Once I could no longer counter his magic, he switched to direct assault.’
Ataraxia replayed the battle against Han Shin in his mind.
High-level magic fusing every attribute simultaneously.
When Han Shin realized he could not possibly neutralize such magic, he abandoned defense altogether.
Instead, committing himself fully to offense, he launched a final, desperate strike at Ataraxia with the fury of a man betting everything.
‘A blow crafted solely to kill me, infused with every scrap of his Innate Mana.’
The problem was that its power was anything but ordinary.
It was not merely a matter of channeling his remaining mana into an attack.
Han Shin had surrendered every last thread of mana that composed his being.
Even his inborn, primordial mana—his very essence.
Innate Mana.
What men called the ‘Innate Mana’ was the force present within a living being at the moment of birth.
It is like air—necessary even to draw breath and let it out.
When a heart beats and muscles move, so too does one’s Innate Mana activate in harmony.
Han Shin had poured out every last fragment of his Innate Mana.
If the blow could not be stopped anyway, then he would make absolutely certain his opponent perished alongside him.
‘A vicious creature.’
It had been a long time since Ataraxia had encountered a being this ruthless.
In the end, Ataraxia had been forced to cancel his magic himself.
Otherwise, he would have died.
To fall to a human here—what unspeakable shame that would be.
His true nature would be exposed, and worse still, Sepirot’s honor would be tarnished.
Such a thing could never be allowed to happen.
Afterward, he had barely evaded Han Shin’s blow, but suffered a deep wound in the process.
Han Shin’s Innate Mana remained embedded in the gash, preventing the skin from regenerating.
As a result, his mana continued to hemorrhage.
Even reconnecting his mana threads was proving difficult.
It was, quite simply, the worst possible state.
And yet.
If he’s in this state, what about that human bastard… Han Shin?
‘Still, he cannot live.’
A living being who has exhausted all their Innate Mana can never survive.
The source of life itself—he’s thrown away even the bare minimum apparatus needed to maintain existence.
Though I let him slip for a moment, it won’t be long before he perishes.
Ataraxia, who had been staring at the blood trickling down, raised her gaze toward the sky.
At the same time.
……Above, her eyes met with the gaze of Aheta’s eye.
‘Your Avatar is dying soon now. Aheta.’
Han Shin is the Avatar contracted by the Moon Lord Aheta.
Judging by his Specialized Equipment and talent, Aheta had reason to covet him.
How could Aheta possibly save a human who has squandered all their Innate Mana?
Yet if Aheta lets him die as things stand, the loss would be immense.
It was deeply fascinating what choice Aheta would make.
Beyond that, Aheta’s choices weren’t limited to whether Han Shin lived or died.
He had to find the intruder, and also uncover whoever opened the Legendary Quest.
Simply managing the Second Night would already be overwhelming.
He cannot achieve all of it.
Either lose everything, or take something.
But.
‘This game is your defeat. Aheta.’
There was no possibility of Aheta obtaining all.
As long as Park Chan-woo remained here, this was as certain as fate itself.
* * *
The sky of the Second Night.
Aheta’s crimson eyes swept across the entire ground.
This place, the ‘Second Night,’ is his domain.
There is no existence that can escape Aheta’s gaze here—not a single one.
Though it may take time, Aheta never lets go of prey once he has marked it.
And so, at last.
―Found him.
Located him.
The first objective—the ‘intruder.’
The one wielding powerful magic, sweeping through Doppelgängers.
Aheta reviewed the participant roster and immediately recognized that this challenger had not participated in the ‘Second Night.’
Yet…….
―How strange.
It was peculiar.
Too weak to be called an intruder, yet too strong to be called a challenger.
He wielded magic efficiently, staying well within the bounds of human capability.
Yet his mastery of magic far exceeded what a human should possess.
That’s why.
A human not on the roster.
At first he thought this might be one of the other Twelve Races, but this man is human.
Then was the roster incomplete?
It’s not an impossible scenario.
Occasionally, when individuals enter the Creative Abyss under special conditions, it was not uncommon for them to be omitted from the roster.
Even as the master of the Creative Abyss, one cannot know everything.
……Yet, this is perplexing.
If this man is not the intruder, how did he triumph over Han Shin?
Currently, there is no human on Earth who could stand against Han Shin.
An exceptional prospect personally marked by the Moon Lord Aheta himself.
To surpass that through magic?
A human with no talent whatsoever for magic?
―If he is not the intruder…….
If such a thing were possible.
There is exactly one figure it points to.
Someone who keeps obstructing him at every turn.
The Mage who led the First Night to humanity’s victory, who stole away the arrangement of Han Shin that the Moon Lord Aheta himself prepared, who conquered the Tower of Arrogance.
The Moon Lord Aheta was certain that these three were all the same person.
But he found nothing.
The Mage was simply obstructing him in silence, like an invisible phantom.
This time was no different.
“So it’s you, the Mage.”
Aheta turned the thought over in his mind.
Perhaps this one was the Mage after all.
Finding the intruder was urgent, yes, but identifying and eliminating the Mage was equally vital.
Yet ordinary Doppelgängers could not capture this one.
Han Shin, too, was in no condition to continue fighting.
In fact, if left alone, he would surely die.
Aheta found himself caught in deliberation.
Before him lay mountains of tasks awaiting resolution.
He had to maintain the Second Night, preserve the balance between fugitive and pursuer, and continuously layer work onto quests requiring inspection and maintenance.
This was the moment when true focus and prioritization became essential.
Of course, one thing stood above all others.
“The Legendary Quest cannot be cleared anyway.”
The Legendary Quest!
Both supremely important and utterly irrelevant.
After all, it had only gained an extra twenty-four hours.
More than twelve hours had already elapsed.
Less than half a day remained.
Was it even remotely possible to unseal Khan completely within that span?
More than that.
Destroying all the shelters to break Khan’s first seal was impressive enough, but to lift the second seal would require at minimum power equal to the Ten Realms…… Level 91 or higher.
No matter how exceptional a human might be, possessing Level 91 or higher combat power at this point was pure fantasy.
It was the sort of impossible dream one could not even dare to dream.
Moreover, Level 91 itself was merely the minimum threshold.
Even if one possessed it, breaking through in half a day would be impossible.
Therefore, the Legendary Quest would not be cleared.
He had interfered several times, but now that Han Shin had fallen, there was no point in further attrition.
Having set the Legendary Quest aside.
Aheta swept his gaze across the Second Night once more.
“Then first…… I must deal with that.”
* * *
《You have resolved the Fifth Trial within Khan’s Palace!》
《This resolution method did not exist previously.》
《Additional Contribution Points are awarded.》
《You gain 20,000,000 Contribution Points.》
Ding!
《You have resolved the Sixth Trial within Khan’s Palace!》
《This resolution method did not exist previously.》
《Additional Contribution Points are awarded.》
《You gain 20,000,000 Contribution Points.》
Agzos the Gatekeeper.
With a Level 99 warrior of exceptional caliber at his side, solving a single trial took less than an hour.
‘Not even thirty minutes, let alone a full hour.’
In just three hours from the moment of entry, they had already surpassed the sixth trial and reached the seventh.
To be honest, he had expected resolving Khan’s Palace trials would not be easy.
Everything had to be finished before the Second Night ended, and Legendary Quests by their very nature all possessed difficulty that defied imagination.
Agzos was like a bug, a cheat code in a game.
“Gatekeeper! What on earth are you doing here?”
The warriors responsible for the next trial all reacted in unison.
At the sight of Agzos the Gatekeeper, they shrieked and gasped in succession.
“Surely that challenger…… you don’t actually follow this feeble human?”
“…….”
“You are a disgrace to warriors! I’ll correct that rotten spirit of yours right… Gack!”
The seventh trial ended in one minute.
Agzos, who had felled his opponent, clicked his tongue in disapproval.
“You still talk too much, Suera. Yet how many times must I tell you that your enemies will not wait for you to finish speaking?”
Agzos knew every characteristic and weakness of these warriors.
He was the sole gatekeeper guarding the palace.
One of the most formidable warriors among them all.
“……Let us proceed.”
Agzos stepped forward with a heavy voice, leading the way out.
Crossing slowly through the gate that led to the next trial.
《You have resolved the ‘Seventh Trial’ within Khan’s Palace!》
《This is a solution method that did not previously exist.》
《Additional Contribution Points are being awarded.》
《You have obtained 20,000,000 Contribution Points.》
Ten trials exist within Khan’s Palace.
Already having surpassed seven of them and passed, he’d made remarkable progress.
‘Smooth sailing.’
Things could not have gone better.
Like traveling on a jet instead of a bus.
Yet despite the speed, there was no turbulence—only comfort.
As if reclining on the finest of sofas, drifting across the sky.
Agzos knew the content of every trial beforehand.
Even the warriors assigned to him had their faces memorized already.
Resolving each test as naturally as water flowing downstream was merely how things were done.
“Hm?”
That was when it happened.
The instant he crossed through the gate.
“Y-you are……!”
Agzos’s face drained of all color.

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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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