The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 168

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 168

 

“Huff, huff. Huff…”

 

I survived because the Ascetic intervened.

 

Goosebumps prickled across my body as relief washed over me. The joy of being alive.

 

Theodor Headmaster, blood streaming from his eyes, gripped his staff with wrinkled hands and staggered to his feet. Blood was already dripping steadily from his eyes.

 

Even he, called the Empire’s greatest mage before Celestia, was nothing more than a moth before a flame in the face of God’s wrath.

 

“He’s trying to finish this no matter what…! We have to stop him!”

 

Theodor Headmaster’s scream came out scratched like metal.

 

The relief was only momentary.

 

“Ugh…”

 

I groaned and lifted my disobedient arm, grasping my staff again with trembling hands.

 

The skin on my palms had burst, making the staff’s handle slippery with blood. The mana stone the Ascetic had given me had long since turned gray and crumbled.

 

The defensive sorcery wrung from the very souls of all the Magic Tower mages and Central Church priests crumbled like thin ice at a single glance from Lumensia.

 

The difference in class.

 

The difference in class between humans and God…

 

Was stark.

 

The helplessness when light came rushing in.

 

That despair…

 

The primal fear that my existence would be erased like dust. That despair grabbed my ankles and dragged me down. I wanted to run away. As far as possible from here.

 

But.

 

‘If I give up here, what about the Ascetic?’

 

“Get it together! Get it together, Celestia. This isn’t the time for you to be like this!”

 

Thwack!

 

I struck my cheekbone hard with my fist. The stinging pain pushed away the fear for just a moment.

 

“Though hitting your own head is a bit…”

 

Cardil muttered.

 

I bit my lips. In my reddened vision, only a pure white sun floated in the sky.

 

‘I thought it wouldn’t be easy, but this…’

 

If that sun keeps floating there, everyone here will be massacred.

 

Lumensia wouldn’t care about the humans dying and collapsing. To him, we’re nothing more than a swarm of ants that burst when stepped on.

 

It’s not just people. If the Ascetic gets devoured by that Lumensia, it’s all over.

 

‘Think, think, think, think!’

 

My teeth ground together. I can’t just take a hit and stay still.

 

‘Remaining mana is barely one-tenth. With this, I can only cast a few low-grade spells.’

 

Just maintaining and deploying the barrier earlier consumed about 30 times more mana than other mages. Given the rapid mana consumption, it’s probably a miracle I’m even standing like this.

 

‘But that doesn’t become an excuse for doing nothing right now!’

 

Defense? It won’t work. I’m already at my limit.

 

Blocking that sun god’s firepower with human mana is like trying to bail out water with a gourd when a dam bursts.

 

‘If I can’t block it?’

 

Should I deflect it? No, there’s no space to deflect it to. This entire space is the target right now.

 

Then…

 

My gaze fixed on the transparent crystal orb at the end of my staff.

 

‘Reflection.’

 

It’s impossible to block that overwhelming solar heat head-on. But what about changing its direction? Twisting the incoming angle and sending it back to its owner?

 

‘It’s possible.’

 

No, it has to be possible. Of course, the cost of deflecting that tremendous energy would be more expensive than my life. But now wasn’t the time to weigh options.

 

I shouted with eyes flashing like a madman.

 

“Everyone! Cancel the defensive sorcery!”

 

“What?! Are you insane?! Then we’ll all burn to death!”

 

Cardil shouted in horror.

 

It was understandable. The tattered barrier was barely holding back this murderous heat. But I didn’t care and gripped my staff upside down, slamming it into the ground with a bang!

 

“If you don’t want to die, listen to me! We’re not blocking the light!”

 

Into the massive gem at the end of my staff, I poured all my remaining mana, no, even my life force, grinding it all in.

 

“We’re sending it back!”

 

[Insignificant.]

 

A majestic voice from the sky struck my brain. Simultaneously, the eye in the sky flashed once more.

 

Whooom-!

 

The staff screamed and resonated. I shouted at the surrounding mages with bulging veins.

 

“Focus all mana into this gem! We’ll create a high-density mana crystal to refract the light! Hurry!”

 

“…What? Are you insane?”

 

“Just do as Celestia says!”

 

The Dean’s sharp command fell. Cardil and the other mages hesitated momentarily, but at the Dean’s decision, they all began withdrawing their barriers.

 

“Damn… I really hate doing crazy stuff like this. But what choice do we have!”

 

They shot their mana toward the staff. Everyone instinctively knew there was no time to hesitate.

 

The mana poured out by dozens of mages condensed into my single gem. Blood vessels in my forearms burst one by one. The space seemed distorted by the high-density mana.

 

I wove the spell formula with the ‘cost’ of mana they had invested. Each time I constructed a transparent facet, black blood gushed from my mouth.

 

What I was manifesting wasn’t a simple mass of mana.

 

A delicate, utterly transparent polyhedral prism. A massive mirror solely for projecting, refracting, and shooting back ‘light’ itself.

 

[Struggling is―]

 

“Struggling my ass!”

 

I endured the brain-burning pain and spread the prism in the air. The angle calculations couldn’t be wrong. If I missed by even 0.1 degrees, we’d become ash.

 

“Now!”

 

I shouted as if coughing up blood.

 

Angle of incidence, angle of reflection, refractive index. Snell’s law, light wave functions…

 

Thousands of formulas poured like a waterfall in my head. My brain felt like it would cook white, but I couldn’t stop. This wasn’t mathematics. It was desperate calculation for survival.

 

A massive transparent polyhedron was completed in the air. It was both the final shield and spear made by grinding dozens of mages’ mana and my life force.

 

Kwaaaaah―!

 

The waterfall of light bursting from God’s eye collided with the prism we created.

 

The world went white. I couldn’t even hear sounds. Only vibrations that felt like they’d shatter my body struck my entire being.

 

Clang-!

 

A clear, pure sound rang across the battlefield. Like a massive crystal glass clinking, a clear and beautiful sound. No burning smell, no screams.

 

Success?

 

When I squinted, I saw an unbelievable sight. The straight beam of light hitting the prism was bending bizarrely.

 

90 degrees. 120 degrees. 150 degrees. The light’s trajectory was twisting.

 

‘I can do it. I can send it back…!’

 

I gritted my teeth and twisted the staff.

 

My mana circuits screamed. Blood vessels burst and red droplets formed on my forearms, scattering in the air. But it didn’t matter. If I could just bend it to 180 degrees and pierce that arrogant god’s eye.

 

“Aaaaaaaah!”

 

I screamed in fury.

 

Paaaang!

 

I did it. The destructive beam that should have engulfed us passed through the prism and shot back toward the sky. Like a laser reflected in a mirror, sharp and precise.

 

The light struck Lumensia’s eye directly, faster than anyone.

 

Kwaaaaaaaah!

 

A massive explosion occurred in the sky. God’s eye was engulfed in its own light.

 

“We, we did it…!”

 

Theodor Headmaster collapsed and cheered. It was the moment human wisdom pierced the arrogant god’s eye. Everyone trembled at that miraculous scene.

 

But.

 

My cheer didn’t last even a second.

 

[…Laughable.]

 

A snorting sound came from the sky. When the explosion’s smoke cleared, what was revealed was…

 

It was the intact eye of the sun. Not a single wound. Not even soot had touched it. It had definitely been a direct hit. I had reflected its own power right back at it.

 

Why?

 

[Did you think light could wound light?]

 

Lumensia’s mocking voice struck my ears.

 

Ah, of course.

 

He was the sun god. Attacking a being that was light itself by reflecting light… was no different from pouring a single cup of dyed water into the ocean.

 

We had merely made him squint slightly from the glare… creating just the tiniest gap.

 

“Ah…”

 

The staff slipped from my hand and fell. The gem had already burned black and crumbled to dust.

 

It had been a strike that poured everything I had, all the magical power of our Magic Tower.

 

“This can’t be…”

 

Despair.

 

There was no more perfect word than this. The staff’s gem had burned black, and the mana vessel within my body was shattered to pieces. I was barely alive.

 

[Persistent things.]

 

I looked up at the sky with a despairing heart.

 

Lumensia’s eye bore not a single wound.

 

The ‘miracle’ we had created by risking our lives and sacrificing everything I had… couldn’t even scratch the god.

 

It was merely the level of interest one might have in swatting away an annoying fly.

 

[Now return obediently to the god’s embrace.]

 

Lumensia seemed intent on exercising physical force instead of the sun’s authority.

 

A massive hand extended from the split sky. Physical mass descending through the clouds. The enormous palm of a god that could crush even mountain ranges pressed down toward us.

 

It intended to crush us completely with its palm.

 

“Haha…”

 

Theodor Headmaster laughed helplessly and collapsed to the ground. Cardil had already closed his eyes in exhaustion.

 

“Puhahahat…!”

 

It was so unlike the man who always valued cleanliness and never threw cigarette butts on the ground, keeping them in a case instead, that even in this situation I couldn’t help but laugh.

 

“When are they coming… Are they going to show up when we’re all dead and it’s time for the funeral?”

 

It was over. Really, there was nothing more we could do.

 

I closed my eyes. I could smell death approaching. A fishy, hot smell.

 

In that moment of despair.

 

Kwagagagang—!

 

From somewhere came the roar of a collapsing building, and thick dust clouds rose up. Through those dust clouds, footsteps with a very distinctive rhythm could be heard.

 

Thud, thud.

 

The sound of dress shoe heels, as if walking on the marble floor of an opera house. It was a man dressed formally in a tailcoat, his hair slicked back.

 

Kalebrin, her hair completely disheveled, belatedly smiled brightly and called out the name of the man who had appeared.

 

“Commander!”

 

He briefly glanced at Kalebrin. Her condition could hardly be called intact, and on the podium was the melting… ascetic.

 

It was complete chaos.

 

The Commander raised both hands to organize this mayhem.

 

“The lighting is too strong.”

 

He held a conductor’s baton in one hand and kept the other in the air as he chanted a spell.

 

“Diminuendo.”

 

Following the trajectory traced by the conductor’s baton, Lumensia’s blazing flames that had been pouring down fiercely enough to burn the world shrank as if by magic.

 

It was a miracle. Something unbelievable for a single mage to accomplish, a power closer to the authority to control phenomena themselves rather than magic.

 

“Waaaah!”

 

People cheered. They shouted that a savior had appeared. Erendor raised his greatsword and shouted hurray.

 

“Yes! That’s right! This is what I can call my boss!”

 

The Commander’s magic, which controlled phenomena by using them as instruments, was on a completely different level from the mages of our Magic Tower.

 

But. I couldn’t smile. Because I could see it.

 

The unstoppable trickle of blood flowing from the corner of the Commander’s mouth as he casually waved his conductor’s baton. And Tuba’s hands trembling behind him.

 

“Commander, aren’t you a bit too late? We almost all burned to death if you’d been just a little later.”

 

Yelena, who had suffered burns, spoke while shouldering her halberd next to Erendor.

 

“Anyway, you arrived safely, so isn’t that what matters?”

 

“If only you could keep quiet…”

 

Viola and Tuba appeared behind the Commander.

 

“There’s nothing for me to do here, so couldn’t you have just left me at headquarters like Violin?”

 

“Shut up…”

 

They too looked fine on the surface, but the magical power emanating from them was precarious. They were desperately ‘acting fine’ right now. To keep us from falling into despair.

 

As if there was a struggle for dominance in the sky, the black sky began to gradually expand. But Lumensia did not retreat.

 

[You lowly thing… dare to interfere with god’s judgment?]

 

Even though the absolute ruler of this world, who had reigned as the sole god until just moments ago, was enraged, they truly didn’t care.

 

“The Demon King can’t come, right?”

 

“He’d actually be at a disadvantage due to poor compatibility. He’s vulnerable to divine power, that guy.”

 

Yelena and Erendor chatted familiarly. Like people who had come out on a picnic. But I knew. That conversation might be their final words.

 

The massive hand that had been descending picked up speed.

 

The Commander was bleeding from his eyes, but he simply wiped the blood away with the back of his hand as if it were nothing.

 

When Viola chattered beside him saying ‘We should have brought Violin when she said she wanted to come!’, Tuba smacked her on the head.

 

Even though the sky was about to collapse and they were about to be killed by the god humans worshipped, Yelena let out a hollow laugh at their unchanged behavior.

 

The massive hand extended from the split sky.

 

Fingers that appeared pale white in the clouds stretched out like tentacles.

 

It intended to crush us completely with its palm.

 

“Hmm, it’s not retreating?”

 

The Commander looked up at the sky through his blood-red vision. Tuba stood beside him and asked.

 

“Isn’t this… quite a strain…?”

 

“Indeed. It must have judged that if not now, there would be no chance of victory.”

 

The Commander swung his conductor’s baton again.

 

“We must do our best to block it.”

 

“Yes…”

 

Tuba finished preparing to perform. The Commander spoke.

 

“Its solo part seems too long. Tuba.”

 

The pitch-black robe he always wore.

 

What he pulled out from within it was a small handle engraved with patterns. However, it wasn’t a simple handle. When he infused it with magical power, the handle instantly grew in size and created a large shield.

 

He planted the shield in the ground.

 

“Grave.”

 

A heavy bass note that shook the earth exploded. It wasn’t a sound heard with the ears. It was a physical wave that vibrated bone and flesh, imposing tremendous gravity on space itself.

 

The massive cloud fingers descending from the sky suddenly slowed dramatically, as if caught in an invisible swamp. A miracle of human strength receiving the physical force of a god.

 

“Kuk.”

 

But for the first time, the usually languid Commander frowned. Blood vessels bulged at his temples. Even this was burdensome for him.

 

“Crotal!”

 

Erendor leaped out as if he had been waiting.

 

Tuba angled the massive shield diagonally and lowered into a mounting position.

 

It was a familiar combination they had practiced countless times. Erendor, who had been running, stepped onto Tuba’s shield without hesitation and took a jumping stance.

 

“Launch me!”

 

Kwang—!

 

Erendor flew through the sky.

 

“Ifrit! Let’s go!”

 

Erendor, enhanced with all sorts of buffs, struck from the sky together with Ifrit.

 

The god’s hand seemed to suffer from the sword strike imbued with Ifrit’s power, curling its fingers in pain.

 

During the brief respite that Harmony had created, the people of the Magic Tower, the pro-Saint faction, and Kalebrin hadn’t been idle either.

 

“Now! Pour everything out!”

 

The mages of the Magic Tower who didn’t miss the opportunity squeezed out their remaining mana. Hundreds of magic arrows and fireballs rained down toward the cracked palm of God.

 

Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-gwang!

 

Most of them dissipated while flying due to the hand being too far away, but some magic spells were able to strike the palm.

 

It was like a spectacular fireworks display. Parts of God’s palm exploded, and the flowing blue blood poured down like rain.

 

[…Pathetic.]

 

A scoffing sound was heard from the sky.

 

[Kneel.]

 

Just one word. The weight contained in that incantation could make mortals bow their heads.

 

Crack!

 

“Kheuk!”

 

Erendor, who had been exerting his power at the front, fell rapidly. Both his knees crashed into the ground, and the sound of his thighbones crumbling could be heard.

 

“Ugh, uaaaak…”

 

“Kheuk…!”

 

Dark red blood burst from the Commander’s eyes, nose, and mouth. It was the price for presumptuously trying to control God’s power.

 

Death felt like it was right before his nose.

 

The wounded palm approached the ground, creating storm-like winds.

 

The Commander looked toward the guillotine where the Ascetic still stood upright with his blurring vision.

 

‘…I need to hold on a little longer.’

 

When everyone was crawling on the ground.

 

Kalebrin.

 

Not the Red Witch…

 

The Red Sorceress, Kalebrin was proudly raising her head and facing the sun directly.

 

Blood was flowing from both her eyes, yet she didn’t even wipe away the blood covering her face.

 

Kalebrin’s long, winding, jet-black hair was fluttering in the wind.

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