The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 195

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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 195

Stumble.

I lost my balance and was about to fall. As the left side of my body collapsed, the world’s horizon twisted grotesquely.

Wheeek—!

Then, a sharp, high-pitched whistle that cut through the air reached my ears. It was a clear sound like salvation heard from the threshold of death.

“He’s here.”

Celestia spoke briefly and looked back.

Thud.

A familiar arm firmly supported my waist.

‘The Commander… is it.’

He supported my body that was about three-quarters intact. The Commander clicked his tongue low as he surveyed my miserable state.

“What a sorry sight. They say you became a god, but you break just like any human, don’t you?”

If I had some energy to spare, I would have laughed at that sarcasm, but right now I didn’t even have the strength for that. Divine power leaking through the gaping wound in my cheek was settling on the ground like white dust.

“Please save the Ascetic! I’ll handle that old geezer somehow!”

Celestia shouted that and disappeared to beat up the demon. Rather than her being a mage, the Commander who wasn’t bound by the shackles of magic was a bit more helpful to me right now.

When the Commander placed his hand on me, the cracks of annihilation that had spread to my pupils were forcibly stopped.

Meanwhile, Yelena burst out from the torn void in my blurry vision and landed safely.

“Yelena and five others have just arrived!”

Anyway, while facing demons, knowing it’s a trap, I have no intention of fighting with a small force.

There’s no fair play! We must crush them with overwhelming force and numbers – that’s human nature!

Gang beating, or to put it more politely, human wave tactics, has worked well from ancient times to the present for good reason.

With a mind ringing like clanging bells, I quickly surveyed our allies.

‘Are the Commander and Celestia still the only ones who’ve become Transcendents?’

Still, let’s be satisfied that we have two Transcendents.

“Violin. Support.”

The Commander clung to me, struggling to restore my precarious divine status.

“How did it come to this? This kind of vicious… energy is the first I’ve seen.”

I moved my lips slightly.

“The Widow.”

“The Widow. I see. I understand. If that woman intervened, these wounds are fortunate, I suppose.”

“Ugh, it stinks. Is it okay for a god to smell this fishy?”

Violin helped the Commander while covering her nose. The distinctive dusty smell emanating from the weathering divine status seemed quite an ordeal for her.

“The divine status is… damaged. At this rate, even your ego will crumble.”

“Confirmed. I’ll use what we prepared.”

Still, it was fortunate that my heart didn’t burst. If it had reached near the heart, the difficulty of restoration would have doubled. He took out from his chest what I had given him for ’emergencies.’

In his hand was a very small glass bottle. Like the Milky Way of the night sky trapped inside, a brilliant yet cool blue-white liquid swirled endlessly.

The energy lost when I removed my heart, Gretchin’s tears, Luan’s blood, and the earnest wishes sent by countless people on earth. On top of that, it was the pure essence of causality blessed by the God of Darkness.

Originally, it was a kind of drug booster made in preparation for a one-on-one with Lumensia, but now it was the only means to replace my half-lost divine status.

When the Commander uncorked the glass bottle, the unpleasant and damp demonic energy that had spread throughout Endeb disappeared for an instant.

Violin was working hard to prevent my body from deteriorating further. Cold sweat poured profusely from her forehead.

The Commander laid me down and placed my upper body on his legs.

“Open your mouth. You’ll have to swallow it even by force to live.”

The Commander unhesitatingly poured that cold liquid into my mouth.

Chiiiiik—!

“Kuk…!”

The moment the liquid went down my throat, intense pain swept through my entire body as if I had drunk boiling oil. But after the pain came relief like drinking cool water in a dry drought.

Intense vitality and full satisfaction rose between the hideous cracks that had spread to my pupils.

The broken nerves screamed as they reconnected, and divine power began to condense again at the cross-section of my left arm that had been scattering like dust.

“Heu.”

As I groaned, the Commander and Violin helped with the restoration.

The abnormally erratic control of my authority returned to my grasp.

I slowly stood up, pressing against the Commander’s knee. The reed that had fallen on the ground flew to my restored left hand as if drawn by a magnet and embedded itself.

The Commander asked quietly.

“Your condition.”

“I’m fine. Sorry for causing you worry.”

It’s not perfect restoration, but much better than before. My divine status has been somewhat repaired too.

When I nodded, the Commander muttered low.

“Resume the performance.”

With his words, the tempo of the battlefield rapidly accelerated.

Clang-!

Erendor, who had embodied a fire spirit and was ablaze upon arrival, swung his burning greatsword once in a circle.

The ferociously boiling spirit flames tore through the mist and struck the Old Gentleman. The ground showed clear marks where the greatsword had scraped, geothermal energy exploded, and those overwhelming flames instantly engulfed the demon.

Taking advantage of that gap, Celestia twisted space to safely evacuate Alderion.

Only then realizing that reinforcements had arrived, Alderion took rough breaths mixed with the smell of blood, confirmed the support troops, and gripped his sword anew. His sword ‘Pieta,’ imbued with the War God’s energy, emitted red light again and renewed its fighting spirit.

The flames that struck the demon took longer to extinguish than ordinary ones, but eventually died down like Celestia’s magic. The Old Gentleman walking out of the flames was still fiddling with his monocle without a single piece of clothing burned.

Despite the Widow’s attack disappearing, ether manipulation wasn’t smooth. My vision was still blurry too.

That demon’s power is aging. It shouldn’t have the ability to spread this smoke or interfere with my senses.

“There’s another demon interfering with my power. Be careful of other demons and prioritize dealing with the demon in front—”

Thud.

Suddenly the ground flashed. Before the visual light, an ominous vibration that felt like the bottom of existence was collapsing swept through all my nerves.

There was no time to react.

The Commander only lowered his eyes downward. In that instant, a gigantic ‘door’ intricately carved with horns and ivory was drawn across the entire land of Endeb where we stood.

A bizarrely huge ‘door’ carved with horns and ivory was drawn across the entire land where we stood.

An area attack?

I tried to draw up ether to escape and get away from the door that appeared on the ground, but it was already too late.

‘Damn, was this why they blocked my senses?’

The door on the ground opened wide like hell’s maw, and we all fell together into an endless abyss.

*

And what we fell into was… neither hell nor anything else.

“The Divine Realm.”

I had never been here, but it was the Divine Realm from the gods’ memories.

It was completely white everywhere.

However, there were undried blood and flesh fragments scattered about. Remnants of unknown creatures. Broken marble pillars lay everywhere.

It was identical to what I had seen in the gods’ final memories.

When Lumensia massacred the gods, stole their power, and made contracts with demons.

As if ‘time’ hadn’t passed since then, it was frozen in this moment without a speck of dust accumulated.

“Kheuk…”

Those who weren’t Transcendents were already kneeling and coughing up blood. The burden of coming to the Divine Realm in human bodies.

“Urgh… Cough, kek, uh, hah.”

“It hurts…”

“Kek, cough, cough…”

Erendor, who had embodied a spirit, and Alderion, who received the War God’s power, were relatively fine, but they weren’t in great condition either.

My ether control was still erratic.

Celestia used magic as a temporary measure, but if we stay in the Divine Realm any longer, everyone except the two Transcendents will die.

Like fish dying when they come to dry land. Even dropping water with a dropper would only extend their lives desperately.

Since it’s not a fundamental solution, they’d need to be put back in water to survive…

That door from before is closed. There’s no passage between the Divine Realm and the human world.

‘There is a way to send them down to the human world.’

Even if the two Transcendents combined their power, this wouldn’t work. Only I, who possesses divine status, could forcibly open a door…

However, this is a problem equivalent to dimensional travel. If I open the door, my power will be restricted for a while.

But that’s no reason to let everyone die…

As if sensing my resolve, Celestia grabbed me tightly. Her blue eyes glared at me menacingly.

“No. Rather than saving everyone, just kill them all. If the Ascetic gets captured or faces death, everyone who’s already here will die too.”

“…What are you saying, wait. Don’t tell me.”

The Commander, who hadn’t understood, belatedly realized and looked at me.

“Ascetic.”

To the Commander, Harmony is family. Just as much as I cherish my family…

“There must be another way. I’ll cooperate. What should I do?”

She wouldn’t want to give up.

“There’s no such optimistic method. If the Ascetic creates and opens the door to the Human Realm, you’ll be extremely exhausted. And then the Ascetic will be killed by Lumensia stationed in the Divine Realm.”

I felt something strange approaching.

“Right now, Lumensia simply can’t come to kill the Ascetic immediately because of the wounds received from the last attack, and is just waiting for a chance when you’re weakened.”

Celestia and the Commander seemed to be having an argument.

The humans crawling on the ground were already half out of their minds.

“So the sacrifice of the few for the many…”

Celestia must have left something behind when she became a Transcendent.

Her appearance of making decisions without a moment’s hesitation at the crossroads seemed to be proof of that.

Multiple thoughts swirled within me and the Sage’s divine power shone.

I drew out the measuring reed.

“Ascetic.”

Celestia seemed to sense it intuitively.

“I won’t take opinions.”

Her pupils trembled, but I had already finished deciding.

From afar came the sound of thousands of wingbeats.

It was the military forces of angels rushing to slaughter the intruders of the Divine Realm. If those who had fought covered in blood and dust against even a single feather of theirs before becoming Transcendents faced them in this state, the result was obvious.

Complete annihilation.

“I’ll open the door.”

As I swung the measuring reed, the white void screamed and was torn apart.

As I forcibly tried to widen the dimensional rift, the causality of the universe constricted my entire body like massive iron chains and crushed my divinity.

“I’ll stay and help.”

The Commander spoke with a resolute expression, trying to form hand seals, and Celestia also stopped trying to persuade me and drew up her mana.

“If that is the Ascetic’s will, I’ll also stay and help.”

There wasn’t enough time to explain the strategy, and I lacked the strength to shoot the plan directly into their heads. Just opening the passage was melting away most of my power like a sandcastle before waves.

I didn’t bother trying to maintain my flesh that was melting like wax, and gazed into Celestia’s eyes from within my robe’s hood.

“No, you should all go to the Human Realm together.”

If it was Celestia who inherited the Sage’s lineage, she would understand the plan contained in my brief declaration.

“I will fall together with Lumensia.”

“Don’t tell me!”

As expected. Celestia immediately understood my thoughts.

Through the torn space, the blue sky of the Human Realm was faintly visible. I roughly pushed Harmony and my comrades, who still hadn’t regained their senses, into the opened dimensional rift.

“What are you…!”

Toward Celestia and the Commander who reached out their hands in panic, I began closing the dimensional door by squeezing out my last divine power.

“No. The risk is too high. Execute a different plan! Ascetic, Ascetic!”

The preparations were already complete.

It was just moved up a bit. The plan would be ruined by my absence as the greatest fighting force, but had my life ever flowed according to plan anyway?

“So, see you in the Demon Realm.”

“Ascetic!”

I felt even the system being mobilized and disappearing. I smiled unfiltered from within my robe’s hood.

“With this, I’ll see the ending of this game.”

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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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