Level -99 Archmage - Chapter 91
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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 91. Beyond the Species Limit
Since the regression.
The God of Sacrifice had been asleep.
The system of offering sacrifices and gaining power remained intact, but direct conversation and consultation with the God of Sacrifice itself had become impossible.
He carried a weight of anxiety about it, if he was honest.
One of the messages floating before his eyes.
《More offerings are required to resurrect the ‘God of Sacrifice’.》
Every time he made an offering, this single line of ominous text appeared—and it clawed at Park Chan-woo’s heart.
To resurrect, one must offer sacrifices.
In other words, the God of Sacrifice was dead.
One cannot resurrect the living.
He had convinced himself it was merely sleeping, but perhaps that wasn’t true.
And if the God of Sacrifice truly had died, there could be only one cause.
The regression.
It was highly likely that the God of Sacrifice had vanished in the aftermath of rewinding time itself.
‘It’s just resting. That creature was always as temperamental as boiling rice porridge.’
Yet Park Chan-woo maintained a stern expression, denying the message.
There had been times like this before.
A few days, sometimes nearly a month.
The God of Sacrifice would vanish without a word—not quite disappearing, but close enough.
Yes. It was surely just caprice.
Or perhaps it was resting because it had exerted itself so much.
Was regression child’s play?
Returning to the past, rewinding time—such things were extraordinarily difficult.
No, beyond difficulty; it was a tale that seemed like pure fantasy.
But more than a month passed, and the God of Sacrifice gave no response whatsoever.
Park Chan-woo opened his mouth, his expression taut with tension.
“Have you… awakened?”
Did you wake up?
Have you finally risen?
The sudden bizarre phenomenon, the synchronization with Agzos, the Guardian Warrior’s rage, Yi Hyeok-soo’s astonishment—none of it entered Park Chan-woo’s field of awareness.
Right now, he was consumed entirely by a single fact: the God of Sacrifice had made an offering of its own accord.
His mind was filled with nothing but thoughts relating to the God of Sacrifice.
…Because.
The God of Sacrifice was his oldest friend.
A companion with whom he shared suffering, the one who knew him best.
Moreover, to Park Chan-woo, the God of Sacrifice was like a single ray of light amid despair.
It had let him dream.
It had shown him that hope existed.
It was the God of Sacrifice that had awakened his aptitude for magic, and it was likewise the God of Sacrifice that had provided the pathway to regression.
But there was more.
The reason he could endure the hellish Abyss at all was largely its influence.
‘Without the God of Sacrifice, my mind would have shattered countless times.’
In the Abyss, where countless devices designed to warp the psyche proliferated, no individual could maintain sanity alone.
However much he preferred acting by himself, without the God of Sacrifice, he would have long since descended into madness.
As the End of Era approached, the number of those driven mad multiplied.
Those called heroes who had become demons.
Priests revered as saints and sages who had abandoned the divine and become followers of darkness.
Cases of those consuming human flesh, desecrating corpses, carving strange marks upon their own bodies, and becoming heretical cultists were not uncommon.
Park Chan-woo understood them.
There was no hope.
The future remained invisible.
All that remained was despair that gnawed relentlessly.
The world of the End of Era belonged to the vile.
The demons of the Abyss and the monsters of the Twelve Races treated Earth like a playground.
Moreover, since humanity had never escaped last place even once in the Tribal Wars, the people of Earth were forced to live under countless penalties.
Without the God of Sacrifice, Park Chan-woo too would have gone mad.
To avoid madness, one needs someone—or something—to lean upon.
For Park Chan-woo, that something had been the God of Sacrifice.
And so, even after his return, Park Chan-woo had spoken to the God of Sacrifice from time to time.
While drinking water, while eating, just before falling asleep.
But no answer came.
He’d hoped the God of Sacrifice would shake off his capriciousness and awaken, yet reality proved otherwise.
Instead, as if to accept the truth, only messages kept flashing before his eyes: “To resurrect the God of Sacrifice, you must offer far greater tributes.”
“Finally awake?”
“……Am I losing my mind?”
The Guardian Warrior offered a single word toward Park Chan-woo, who muttered to himself.
Yet he was tenser than he had ever been.
Having crossed countless battlefields, faced innumerable monsters, and slaughtered demons from the Abyss itself, even he was experiencing a power of an entirely unfamiliar kind.
And one ominous beyond measure.
To forcibly send Agzos into a rampage and absorb all that power without restraint.
Yet Agzos, the Gatekeeper, was among the finest warriors of Valhalla.
That this man had absorbed such a formidable, mighty being and remained unscathed.
Which meant only one thing: this man was stronger than Agzos.
“You who wield ominous power. You shall never stand before the Great Khan.”
The Guardian Warrior gripped his greatsword and unfurled his mana.
A high-pitched whine cut through the air.
Azure energy swiftly enveloped his greatsword and entire body.
He knew it instinctively.
The danger this challenger posed.
This was Khan’s Palace.
A place where warriors revered the Great Khan and proved their superiority.
Only those warriors who shattered every trial head-on earned the chance to face the Great Khan.
But this man was no warrior.
He possessed no warrior’s heart.
He was a destroyer who scorned the Khan’s trials and smashed through the path itself.
Boom!
The Guardian Warrior stamped the ground.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
With each step he took, a violent roar shook the temple.
The tremor doubled with every stride.
The azure aura of his mana spread outward, doubling again and again.
Charge of Wrath.
A technique that trampled all existence standing before the Guardian Warrior.
An attack that amplified its power twofold with each step—ruin incarnate.
By the time the Guardian Warrior drew within striking distance of Park Chan-woo.
Bang! Bang! Crash-boom!
The Guardian Warrior’s footfalls shattered the eardrums and split the heavens.
Precisely eight steps.
Power amplified two hundred fifty-six times converged at a single point along the blade’s edge.
The moment his feet stopped, silence fell upon the world.
The Guardian Warrior brought his greatsword down from overhead, pouring all that amplified mana into a single stroke.
‘No one has ever survived taking this attack head-on.’
The Guardian Warrior was certain.
No matter what ominous power was wielded, none could withstand this convergence at a single point.
There existed no being who could receive his blow directly and live.
The same held for the other Guardian Warriors.
There was only one way to stop the Charge of Wrath.
Intercept it at its point of origin, the moment the charge began.
Blocking it before the power had amplified was the sole solution.
But this challenger did not know such things.
Having allowed eight full steps, now came the price for such arrogance.
A deep, rumbling roar.
Crash-boom!
A single extension of the blade unleashed a catastrophic explosion.
Like a volcano erupting, azure flames spiraled outward in all directions.
No living thing could survive such a blow.
It shouldn’t have.
And yet.
“……He blocked it?”
The Guardian Warrior’s expression hardened like stone.
There was no give to it.
It felt like striking solid iron.
The explosion too had erupted only in his direction.
Something like a shield had blocked it.
The Guardian Warrior retreated a step hastily.
He needed to understand what had just happened in that split second.
As the smoke cleared, he caught sight of whatever had stopped the Charge of Wrath, and his brow furrowed.
‘What is that?’
It was not a shield.
It resembled a shield, but one would never call it by that name.
The essence of Agzos that Park Chan-woo had absorbed had transformed into dust, and countless particles clung to Park Chan-woo’s skin, gathering to intercept the Guardian Warrior’s attack.
“…Seems he hasn’t awakened yet.”
One way or another.
Park Chan-woo shook his head in disappointment.
The God of Sacrifice still offered no response.
Yet there was hope.
He had offered Agzos as a sacrifice.
The God of Sacrifice had surely intervened.
Without him, such an impossibility could never occur.
Only.
Park Chan-woo thought he understood why such a phenomenon had become possible.
‘Because Agzos spoke the true name of the God of Sacrifice.’
The true name.
The real name of the being Park Chan-woo called the God of Sacrifice.
The moment Agzos spoke it aloud, he became an offering.
‘Did Agzos see the God of Sacrifice from beyond Zero’s Domain? That entity?’
…He couldn’t know.
Park Chan-woo had never laid eyes on the God of Sacrifice directly.
Whether this being was one whose name must never be spoken.
Yet it seemed far more than mere coincidence.
The God of Sacrifice had moved.
He had made Agzos an offering himself.
And in doing so, had strengthened Park Chan-woo.
Why?
So that Park Chan-woo might clear this trial on his own?
No.
He knew the deity’s nature.
He was not one to conjure such anomalies merely to have a single trial overcome.
The God of Sacrifice always painted in grand strokes.
He desired Park Chan-woo to move with vast purpose.
Always toward what lay beyond limits, beyond the wall.
Then perhaps.
‘He wanted me to experience the world beyond Level 99?’
An intention to make him gaze beyond Level 99.
Park Chan-woo did not know.
He did not know the world beyond Level 99.
He had slain such monsters with others’ aid, but never experienced it directly.
Never crossed that threshold.
For mankind, the Species Limit was ninety-nine.
Park Chan-woo was no exception.
So experiencing the world beyond Level 99 for thirty minutes held no meaning.
And yet.
…He who started at Level 99 in reverse might somehow transcend it.
Might glimpse what lay beyond.
Shatter the Species Limit, break through the wall, and achieve.
Was this not what the God of Sacrifice wished to tell Park Chan-woo?
That even the deepest despair—Level 99 reversed—could transform into hope.
A message to never surrender, to keep striving forward.
Though he spoke no words, though conversation was impossible.
‘Very well. Let me experience it once.’
It was enough.
Communication was complete.
Park Chan-woo understood the God of Sacrifice well.
The God of Sacrifice understood Park Chan-woo well too.
Words were never a requirement for true conversation.
They had reached a stage where they could grasp each other’s intent without speaking at all.
A faint smile crossed his lips.
Park Chan-woo smiled.
Then he began to wield the unleashed power of Agzos.
For the first time, he set foot in the world beyond Level 99.
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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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