The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 167

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

Chapter 167

 

Celestia Evergrace.

 

She possessed the qualifications of an Archmage but lived unaware of it due to her tragic fate. Then, when she was about to die, the Ascetic saved her and she gained a new life.

 

That was me.

 

I couldn’t understand the current situation. Well, Kalebrin and Erendor had roughly explained things to me. But this was truly beyond disaster.

 

It was a critical moment racing toward the world’s destruction.

 

“This is…”

 

I opened my mouth as if my jaw would drop and looked up at the sky.

 

In the sky where the sun had set, a sun suddenly began rising in reverse. The sky that had been darkening with night’s permission turned bright.

 

It was so bright that cracks appeared in the pure white sun, and from there, an eye suddenly opened wide.

 

The sky was enraged. The sun was furious.

 

The one God was wrathful at the birth of a new god.

 

A drop of sweat trickled down my forehead. The scorching heat was reaching even here. It was furious.

 

Lumensia was not permitting the newly born god. She judged that now, while the god was being born and vulnerable, was the time to make it fall to a demigod or kill it…!

 

My throat moved. Dry saliva went down on its own.

 

Kuguugugung—!

 

The sky cracked apart. Through the sky crumbling piece by piece, the vast universe was visible.

 

It wasn’t a proper natural phenomenon. Under the god’s wrath, humans here were nothing more than creatures lesser than ants.

 

[Disappear]

 

A majestic voice seemed to echo from the sky, and from the giant eye, a point of ominous light began to form.

 

She’s planning to shoot that!

 

‘Don’t just stand there dazed, Celestia…!’

 

I quickly rushed to the front line. My hair that had been tied and then loosened fluttered in the wind.

 

“Magic Tower mages, deploy defensive magic circles!”

 

I raised my staff-holding arm toward the sky. At the same time, a large, deep blue magic circle filled with magical patterns covered the sky above.

 

Kwaang—!!

 

“Uuuugh…!”

 

I gritted my teeth.

 

‘All the mana in my body… feels like it’s burning up…!’

 

Belatedly, the mages and priests following my command deployed magic circles one after another.

 

Paaaang!

 

“Kugh!”

 

As soon as the light touched it, the defensive magic circle was torn apart like paper.

 

I deployed another magic circle during the brief gap they had created. Since my magic circle was the largest and had higher completion than others, the burden on me was too great.

 

“Uaaaah…!”

 

I squeezed my eyes shut and struggled desperately.

 

Human magic couldn’t block divine authority. Red blood burst from the headmaster’s and my nose. Dizzying vertigo overwhelmed me.

 

“No… it’s breaking through!”

 

“Kuk…!”

 

The defensive barriers of the Magic Tower mages and Central Church priests gradually cracked and crumbled.

 

Despair cast over their strained expressions and red blood appeared at their mouths.

 

In that moment of trying to endure to the end. Within a few seconds, several mages collapsed to the ground with thuds.

 

My arms began trembling more and more, and my bare skin started burning as if struck by lightning. In the apocalyptic scene reminiscent of a battlefield with fluttering winds and scorching light.

 

‘Endure, endure, endure, endure!’

 

Physiological tears flowed down. Celestia screamed with a tearing voice.

 

“Endure! We must endure!”

 

“Uaaaak!”

 

“Ugh…”

 

Cardil’s eyes, who was maintaining a barrier in front of me, were bright red. The heat from the massive beam made my mouth dry and parched.

 

Headmaster Theodor, who had been diligently strengthening the barrier, fell to his knees.

 

I looked down in shock.

 

“Headmaster!”

 

I called out to him as if screaming, but the headmaster gripped his staff again with bloodshot eyes.

 

“Don’t panic…! We must buy time for the Ascetic’s resurrection…!”

 

His sharp words brought me back to my senses.

 

Right, this was a situation we had already anticipated.

 

The 20 days given until the execution ceremony. We had run countless simulations with Erendor, Kalebrin, and everyone putting our heads together.

 

‘Lumensia will try to crush the newly born god.’ ‘When she launches a full offensive, targeting the gap before resurrection is complete.’

 

Right now was that moment.

 

“Kugh…”

 

Was it because I had squeezed out too much mana?

 

Blood vessels in my eyes burst, staining one corner of my vision red. But there wasn’t even time to wipe it away. If the defense line breaks now, everything ends.

 

I shouted until my throat was torn.

 

“Yelena! Erendor! Now!”

 

I’ll leave the defense to the Magic Tower mages. What we need now is a ‘spear’ to counter the god’s strike.

 

“Move aside!!!”

 

Yelena and Erendor, who had been conserving their strength nearby, leaped toward the sky like arrows.

 

A strike filled with aura to the limit.

 

Though it was light that physical attacks couldn’t possibly affect, their aura-infused strike could scatter the light’s trajectory very slightly for an instant.

 

Kwaaaang!

 

The two knights were blown away by the shockwave, but it had some effect.

 

The beam of light that had been pouring down in one point scattered in various directions, destroying innocent buildings and forests and setting them ablaze.

 

Thanks to that, the pressure on the mages was reduced for a moment.

 

“Huff.”

 

The oppressive feeling of holding up a collapsing sky with both hands. The pressure of trying to block a pouring stream of water.

 

When that disappeared in an instant, my legs gave out and I staggered.

 

I wiped away the pouring sweat with trembling hands.

 

But that was only temporary.

 

Flash—

 

The beam pouring from the sun still poured down as if to devour the guillotine and the people below it.

 

“Ah…”

 

Is this the end?

 

I have no more strength to block it.

 

I knelt on the ground, despairing at my powerlessness and waiting for the death that would soon come.

 

‘I never thought I’d feel again the despair I never felt when I was called a mage.’

 

Was it futile for humans to try to stop a god?

 

Were our efforts just for dying such a meaningless death…?

 

*

 

Thud thud.

 

The cumbersome shell fell away. The sticky black liquid covering my body poured to the floor with splashing sounds.

 

I straightened my bent back and spread wide my four pairs of stiff wings.

 

The wind created by the massive wings spreading swept away the heat that was about to reach the humans below my feet.

 

Huuuung—

 

A halo sprouted and rotated behind my head. I raised my head.

 

The sun was captured in my sharpened vision.

 

{The sun shouldn’t be up at night…}

 

I slowly extended my arm.

 

The newly made arm was pure white and elongated, and as if to show it wasn’t a human arm, it was wrapped in a smoke-like veil. Only the pure white hand was clearly visible.

 

I clenched my hand toward the void.

 

Crack.

 

Like sugar craft, cracks appeared in the blue sky. I put a little more strength into my grip.

 

Then the sky that had been bathed in sunlight without a single cloud shattered, and the original pitch-black night sky began to reveal itself.

 

Lumensia’s Divine Power was being pushed back.

 

I began a full-scale struggle of strength with Lumensia.

 

My tightly clenched fist trembled violently. But there was a chance of victory.

 

Last time I let myself be defeated step by step, but now, now I have the soul from the other world and the purest soul. And the back side of the sun and the Serpent. I will not lose.

 

[A newly born God dares…!]

 

Lumensia’s furious voice shook the world as the sky shattered like glass.

 

I brushed it off casually, but it wasn’t the same for the mortals who were human. They were tasting for the first time in their lives the true face of the God they had worshipped, that destructive fragment.

 

“Aaaahhh! Aaahh!”

 

“Aaaahhh, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts…”

 

“Save me! Save me… save me, my, my Ascetic…!”

 

Blood flowed from the eyes and noses of those in the plaza.

 

The plaza instantly became a scene of chaos. Dark red blood burst from the facial features of those who couldn’t withstand the overwhelming divine authority.

 

The elderly and weak had already collapsed, foaming at the mouth from shock, but even those who should care for them were not in their right minds.

 

Whoosh!

 

Erendor’s Spirit, Ifrit, desperately kindled the flame of life. But it was insufficient. Like a candle placed before a typhoon, the opponent’s level was too high to block with just a Spirit’s power.

 

One hundred years. A monster that had reigned as the sole God for an entire century, monopolizing faith. The power of this traitor who devoured fellow Gods and joined hands with Demon was so mighty that it was overwhelming for me, who had just broken out of my shell.

 

At this rate, if Lumensia got angry just a few more times, the Human would collapse one by one…

 

In an instant, the execution ground would be filled not with my blood but with that of others, corpses would pile up, and they would die like that. Futilely.

 

‘Whether Human die or not doesn’t matter to me now.’

 

Stopping Lumensia is more important.

 

However.

 

‘…’

 

I turned my gaze to survey the suffering Human. Then wherever my gaze touched, fear lifted and People’s breathing began to calm.

 

‘This should be enough to preserve their immediate lives.’

 

But there was no time for relief.

 

Crackle, flash!

 

The crack in the night sky that I had forcibly torn open was being filled again with blinding light. The shattered sky was being restored. The sun was trying to rise again.

 

Lumensia is experienced. Not just a powerful madman. He is a plunderer who has killed the most Gods and usurped the most Divine Power.

 

He didn’t miss even this trivial gap when I looked away.

 

‘…’

 

Sizzle.

 

My fingertips crumbled like candle wax under the crushing heat of the sun. It wasn’t simply because of the heat that Lumensia was emitting.

 

‘…I can’t hold on.’

 

My body is collapsing.

 

The hastily constructed flesh was screaming, unable to contain the enormous Divine Power within it.

 

And rightly so, this body was a makeshift creation formed by sacrificing at most one sinner and a moment’s praise.

 

It was natural for problems to arise when I forcibly crammed the ‘Forgotten Gods’ Divine Power’, the ‘God of Darkness’s power’, and my newly acquired Divine Power into that shallow vessel.

 

It was no different from pouring lava into a paper cup.

 

‘I still need more time.’

 

The original plan was to gain the upper hand in the struggle with Lumensia, then use that opportunity to solidify my body and complete the Resurrection Ritual. But Lumensia didn’t allow that opportunity.

 

Thump. Thump. Thump.

 

The hastily formed heart pounded violently as if it would break my ribs.

 

Like an overloaded engine, it seemed ready to burst at any moment. My vision flickered red.

 

Drip drop.

 

My melted fingers lost their shape and fell away drop by drop.

 

The remaining wings that had tried to grow from my back stopped growing, leaving only bare bone frames, and my lower body that I hadn’t finished forming was scattering as black smoke.

 

‘This won’t do…’

 

An overwhelming gap.

 

And an absolute lack of time.

 

The God created for Human, by Human hands, intuited.

 

That at this rate, far from victory, I would be annihilated without even maintaining my form.

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