The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 184

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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 184

Yelena shouted so loudly that the water droplets hanging in the cavern trembled. Celestia dropped her dagger and embraced the lying Gretchin.

“Gretchin and the Savior!”

She gripped her staff so tightly that her knuckles turned white. She could feel the rough texture of the new staff. Protective magic deployed instantly, and flames poured down where Gretchin had been.

Just as Yelena lowered her stance to sweep away this entire area with an unknown attack, Professor Ellara stopped her.

“You can’t destroy the cavern!”

“Ugh, how annoying! Then what am I supposed to do!”

An unknown liquid struck directly against the transparent protective magic that Cardil had instantly cast on Yelena. The liquid that flowed down the protective magic and touched the ground melted the earth with a strange sound and generated toxic fumes.

Celestia chose to protect Gretchin and the Savior rather than annihilate the enemy with ‘attacks.’ There were plenty of others to fight in her place.

She pushed Gretchin to the Savior’s feet and began weaving dense defensive spells.

It would probably block one or two attacks at the level of what Yelena or Erendor might unleash to stop Lumensia’s assault.

A bead of cold sweat trickled down Celestia’s forehead as she cast the high-difficulty magic in an instant.

However, by the time she finished weaving the defensive spells and assessed the situation, the assault that had seemed ready to kill the party was nowhere to be found, and it was as quiet as when they first entered.

“What?”

“If it was an assault, it was clumsy, and if it was a declaration of war, no one appeared… It might be a trap.”

“When I investigated earlier, it didn’t feel like a trap. If it had been a trap from the beginning, there are several people who would have noticed…”

“When the Archmage analyzed the barrier earlier, she said it was done by quite a skilled person. If they used every trick to hide something, we might not know.”

Professor Ellara shouted from a corner.

“It’s a trap! It seems like it was meant to kill whoever entered after us. Student Erendor got the right answer.”

“Then there really was someone other than us who did something here?”

“There’s also the method of listening to the residents’ testimonies.”

Cardil suggested a method. Celestia shook her head.

“Someone who deployed such a perfect concealment barrier wouldn’t move without overlooking that either.”

Professor Ellara clapped her hands like a habit to focus attention.

“So, the question here is: who, why, and for what reason did they try to kill like this?”

“Analyzing the trap, it first tried to kill whoever was lying on the altar, and second, fire magic struck the altar in case the first attack failed. It scattered poison to prevent those trying to escape.”

“But that’s insufficient to really stop skilled people. Someone capable of installing a concealment barrier of this level would have thought of that…”

“Right. Then that trap from earlier might have actually been an alarm!”

As soon as Professor Ellara finished speaking, the cavern began to tremble violently. Cardil, thinking of past events (nearly being crushed to death by falling rocks at Alderion’s mansion), spoke with subtle anxiety.

“Don’t tell me this is about to collapse-“

Rumble!

The cavern shook violently and then completely collapsed.

“Cough, cough, cough. Ah, the dust.”

The situation was different from Alderion’s mansion. Celestia was someone who could deploy magic to support the cavern even with half her magical power.

Nevertheless, Cardil floated several orbs of light to reduce Celestia’s burden. There was already a gentle light hovering near the Savior anyway, so it wasn’t particularly dark…

“Everyone please come closer to the Savior. I’m going to reduce the support ratio.”

“The cavern has been destroyed! At this rate, the sacrifice ritual… This is troublesome. Things are getting complicated…”

“I managed to protect just the altar. Well… it’s more accurate to say I could protect it because the Savior was standing there.”

Professor Ellara caught her breath. The professor seemed more worried about not being able to perform this sacrifice ritual than about nearly being crushed to death by the pile of rocks.

“But everything except the altar collapsed, will that be okay?”

“Put differently, the trap might have thought it needed to kill the sacrifice on the altar first. The other places just blocked the entrance. Doesn’t that show how important it is?”

Professor Ellara’s deduction was almost like animal-level instinct. Those who were convinced by her reasoning nodded their heads.

“It’s fortunate that we saved just that altar. Celestia, can you blow away these piles of rocks here?”

“What I’m supporting might collapse, and doing that would make my magical power a bit unstable.”

Cardil, reminiscing about past events, spoke to Yelena.

“Yelena the Inquisitor, don’t you have that technique you used to blow away the rock piles last time?”

“You keep calling me so formally. Just call me Ms. Yelena. My inquisitor position is on the verge of dismissal anyway.”

Yelena gripped her halberd firmly.

“I’ll give it a try.”

Power entered her lowered stance. Just applying force made the air vibrate. The ground caved in and her jaw clenched tight.

As her eyes widened, Celestia could see how someone who had reached the pinnacle of martial arts unleashed superhuman power.

With a single swing, the pile of rocks turned to powder. Cardil, who witnessed a level above what he’d seen before, blinked at the scene without even having time to adjust his crooked glasses.

Yelena showed signs of slight fatigue but wasn’t to the point of collapsing and gasping for breath.

She spun the halberd in her hand with a flourish. Then she grinned broadly, showing her teeth, and casually rested the halberd on her shoulder.

“Ah~ refreshing!”

Yelena laughed heartily as she casually slung the halberd over her shoulder. Erendor looked at her with slightly sparkling eyes.

“The lady’s got skills!”

“I don’t see any intruders. Fortunately…”

However, that relief didn’t last long.

Whooooom-

The air filling the cavern began to vibrate strangely. It was closer to tinnitus that directly scraped the eardrums rather than sound. The floating dust stopped in unison, and their stomachs churned as if gravity had been twisted.

“…Huh?”

The first to feel the strangeness was Erendor, who had good eyesight.

Above the vast grassland, in the bluish void. That space split open white like torn paper. What flowed out from that gap was white light so eerie it could blind the eyes.

The light gathered, twisted, and formed a single shape.

“…Am I the only one seeing that?”

It had human form but was not human.

A face like an egg ghost with features erased like a smooth porcelain doll. A smooth, pure white naked body where even muscle definition couldn’t be seen.

Behind its back, a geometrically twisted golden halo rotated like a gear, and six wings made of sharp fragments of light instead of feathers undulated ominously.

The creature held a trident that seemed to have cut through space itself in its strange hand with only four fingers.

It wasn’t simply floating. It had an arrogance as if the laws of the world couldn’t reject it and were forced to support it.

‘Angel.’

The overwhelming pressure emanating from that being cracked Cardil’s glasses. A heavy silence descended as if even breathing required permission.

Erendor, the first to regain his senses, drew his greatsword and readied his Ifrit. Cardil, with trembling lips, kept his gaze fixed on the unidentified creature and spoke.

“I’ve heard of this. From the Demon King…”

Celestia instinctively stood in front of Gretchin and the Savior, taking an attack stance. Even though they had recognized each other, the angel didn’t attack. It was simply ‘observing’ them with its faceless visage, looking down like viewing insects.

“They attacked the Demon Realm and the Demon King was helpless… That’s what they called an ‘Angel.’ Technically, it would be Lumensia’s minion.”

“So since she can’t come herself, she sent a lackey.”

“The trap from earlier seems to have been a signal flare to summon that ‘Angel.'”

“What do you think its purpose is?”

“I don’t know. However, the angels that attack the Demon Realm are said to act to conquer the Demon Realm.”

Professor Ellara suppressed her fear and poured out words like a machine gun.

“The Demon Realm is unconquered land, so that’s why! Then this angel’s purpose is… to interfere with us. What Lumensia needs to prevent is the Savior’s complete resurrection. The sacrifice ritual itself was meant to be performed here! Rather, it’s telling us we chose the right answer.”

The professor pushed up her trembling glasses.

“Now, then we need to quickly perform the sacrifice ritual and catch the route this information leaked through to catch the spy.”

“Anyway, that angel, we just need to catch it, right?”

Erendor absolutely hated complicated things. There were four people behind him to do the thinking. He just needed to turn that annoyingly white-looking bastard into mincemeat.

“Of course.”

As soon as he got approval, Erendor kicked off the ground and shot forward.

Crash!

The ground caved in from just a simple leap. Erendor, who instantly closed in right before the angel’s face, swung his greatsword. With a roar that tore through the atmosphere, a red trajectory aimed for the angel’s neck.

However.

Ting-

It was a light sound, far too light.

Without even giving it a glance, the angel blocked Erendor’s full-power attack with just the shaft of its trident. Not even a shockwave occurred. It was as if Erendor’s power had been completely absorbed and extinguished.

“What?”

Erendor’s eyes widened. Celestia wasn’t idle either. As soon as the Savior and Gretchin’s safety was secured, dozens of steel chains erupted from the ground and bound the angel’s limbs.

Clang clang clang!

The chains that touched the angel’s surface tightened while sparking. Erendor didn’t miss that opportunity and immediately upon landing, swung his greatsword like a storm again.

A triple strike that could turn even rocks to powder.

But even while bound, the Angel gracefully wielded its trident to deflect every attack. Like an adult indulging a child’s tantrum, its movements were without waste.

At that moment, Yelena burst from the shadows and brought her halberd down, aiming for the Angel’s blind spot at the back of its head. Simultaneously, Cardil’s non-attribute magic orbs poured down like a meteor shower in the night sky.

Just as the halberd’s blade was about to reach the Angel’s nape.

The Angel straightened its waist and suddenly spread its six folded wings wide open.

Kwaaaaaaah—!!!

It wasn’t mere wind. The compressed divine power exploded outward.

“Kugh?!”

“Kyaak!”

Erendor and Yelena were helplessly flung away like pebbles swept up by a massive tsunami. The steel chains snapped like taffy and shattered into pieces.

Cardil’s magic orbs rained down, striking the Angel’s milk-white body, but with thudding sounds, the flesh seemed to cave in only to instantly fill back up.

The smooth body without a single scar remaining was despairingly perfect.

Celestia broke out in cold sweat as she assessed the battle situation.

‘Strong. This is… on a different level.’

Not as much as when fighting Lumensia, but… this isn’t an opponent to underestimate either.

She immediately made her decision.

“Professor Ellara, while we buy time, go to the altar and complete the ritual! This isn’t an opponent to take lightly!”

Kwaang—!

At that moment, with a thunderous roar, something crashed like a cannonball into Professor Ellara’s side.

What emerged through the dust cloud was Erendor. As he was being pushed back, grinding against the ground, he drove his massive great sword deep into the earth and barely managed to brake.

Blood vessels bulged like earthworms over his forearms, which were taut as if his muscles might burst. But instead of pain, Erendor showed an expression filled with ecstasy as he bared his fangs and cackled.

His eyes were already half-mad.

“Hahaha! Yes! Finally, I’ve got something worth sinking my teeth into! Let’s play like madmen! Ifrit! Let’s go!”

With his frenzied cry, the fire spirit Ifrit that had been clinging to his back scattered like a mirage and seeped into Erendor along his spine.

Paaaaat—!

Intense heat that could burn even the air itself exploded.

Erendor’s yellow hair instantly turned blood-red, then became blazing flames from the tips, clawing at the air. His gem-like eyes now only emitted boiling red light like lava.

Chiiik.

Searing armor of fire was donned over his skin. Solid like plate armor yet made of insubstantial blazing flames, and as the flame helmet closed.

“Turn to ash.”

As Erendor kicked off the ground, the earth exploded and he became a red meteor charging toward the Angel.

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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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