The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 203

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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 203

Only the sound of my heartbeat pulsed in my ears. It didn’t seem like time had stopped completely.

‘…Could it be that she’s manipulating causality?’

Teacher was now controlling our causality with threads.

But even that had its limits.

Since she couldn’t delicately manipulate or control so many people, she simply forced causality by placing a single absolute constraint: ‘cannot move.’

Because of that one thing, everyone here had their movements frozen. Celestia and the Commander, who had been trying to break the barrier, were also frozen with their hands stretched toward the void.

In this preserved landscape, only the thin crack that had just begun spreading over the barrier slowly glowed as if defying causality.

‘I can’t move….’

And for me, that was a more powerful constraint than anything else.

God cannot go against the laws of the world.

It was a terrible paradox.

Because I was a God who protected the laws of the world, I was ironically the first to be constrained by those very laws.

‘If it were just simple threads fixing movement, that would be one thing, but this….’

The power to manipulate causality. That was surely a power received from a demon, not of this world.

The Widow, Teacher, was no longer human. Looking at that form, she probably never was from the beginning.

The weary-looking Teacher calmly walked out from the stopped flames. Then she transformed her nails into long claws and swung them at Yelena’s neck.

‘So helplessly…. Really unable to do anything and lose? In such a way? Meeting such an ending?’

In reality where there’s no such thing as retry….

At that moment.

Crash—!

A thunderous sound like glass shattering shook the Demon Realm.

In the stopped time, the Demon King moved.

Pitch-black mana and fighting spirit erupting from his entire body flashed as they clawed in all directions.

Defying Heaven. A dagger to stab God. The remnant of the previous world magnificently shattered causality and collided head-on.

As the Demon King’s foot kicked off the ground, the stopped air exploded and created waves. His greatsword drew a pitch-black trajectory as it rushed toward the Widow’s jaw.

“If things continue like this, both will die and only be used by the demon. What exactly do you want to do!”

The overwhelming intimidating presence of one who had torn free from restraints enveloped the battlefield.

“Everyone dying. Would you understand if I put it that way?”

“That doesn’t seem like something to seek understanding for.”

“Right, you wouldn’t understand anyway, so I don’t know why you keep prying.”

Instead of turning into smoke to escape, the Widow struggled to receive those attacks.

As the Demon King’s sword drew a diagonal line, one of the Widow’s wrists was severed, scattering blood in the air as it rolled on the dirt floor.

The severed wrist scattered into smoke like before. Instead of regenerating her wrist, she only showed a mad smile. She had no intention of releasing the threads that bound us from the start.

“Break your contract with the demon.”

“I cannot do that.”

“I don’t think your reason for following the demon is something like wanting everyone living in the world to die, hoping for destruction. That’s an inefficient and stupid reason.”

“People have always lived inefficiently and killed others for stupid reasons. Can’t I be the same? I’ve lived quite miserably too. Isn’t that enough reason to harbor revenge against the world….”

“If you were that type of person, you wouldn’t be alive until this moment. Aren’t you a clever person?”

“How honored to receive praise from an enemy.”

“If you’re clever, why don’t you know that you must kill the demon right now!”

“Don’t you realize that I’m doing this precisely because I know everything?”

“You must know that fighting me will ultimately lead to both our deaths!”

“How can a sparrow understand a phoenix’s intentions.”

In the thick dust, only the sparks of clashing blades and the Demon King’s low growling could be heard.

Then, I felt a terrifying pressure from behind.

I couldn’t turn my head to confirm what it was.

‘Did the Demon King use black flames?’

No… that doesn’t seem right.

The dust floating in the air began to crackle and burn.

It wasn’t simple heat. Heat that seemed capable of melting even stopped time pulsed like a heartbeat.

Kwaaaaang—!

Explosive light flashed my vision white.

Even with my divine body, I felt a burning pain sharp enough to sting.

Momentarily, light exploded from behind and burst forth.

Step, step.

Along with the sound of the ground surface boiling, a man walked out to the side of my vision, wrapped in white flames.

It was Erendor.

The armor of fire enveloping his entire body blazed with white flames. The Widow broke out in cold sweat as one corner of her mouth twitched.

“This is why I wanted to kill you first.”

As the flame armor’s eyes flashed yellow, the Widow’s body caught fire. She frowned briefly as if in pain, then casually pressed down the flames with her hand to extinguish them.

Unlike before when the fire wouldn’t go out and she had to tear off her skin, this was different.

She hadn’t become stronger.

Rather, she had become weaker.

“The stronger the light, the deeper the shadow cast. The world is fair. Strong to the strong, weak to the weak…”

The Widow deflected the successive flames. The thread at the tip of one of her hands heated up from scarlet to red.

“Strength being weakness itself, what an ironic tragedy, isn’t it?”

Because she had become weaker, she could act like that.

She swung the thread containing that flame at the Demon King. He avoided several threads that came like whips, but couldn’t dodge all five threads that writhed in all directions.

“Kuk…”

The Demon King’s shoulder was severed. Without caring about his own wound, he attacked the Widow again. Erendor also rushed in for a coordinated attack, but the Widow evaded both their attacks by disappearing into shadows.

“Love doesn’t protect life either. That trivial love, isn’t it over when you die?”

Erendor nearly had his throat cut by a thread.

The Demon King was managing somehow, but it was visible that he was struggling. His trembling arms and loosened grip, his sword slipping several times in the blood as he had to regain his hold.

I tried my best to twist my entire body to escape from this situation. But I couldn’t move a single finger or blink once.

‘Both their stamina is limited… The damage from fighting Lumensia earlier hasn’t recovered either.’

The Widow also seemed to be struggling, clearly having a harder time than before. If we could break free from time and coordinate our attacks, we could defeat her quickly.

‘Move… please move! After becoming a God, I can’t even cut through something like this?’

I cursed my body that had turned to stone and struggled desperately. But the more I resisted, the tighter the bonds of causality constricted.

Like being trapped in a swamp, my great power itself became poison that strangled me.

It was just as the Widow had said to Erendor earlier.

The stronger you are, the more it becomes a weakness.

‘…Wait.’

Suddenly I had a question.

What was holding me now?

Arms and legs, heart and lungs. And the ‘avatar’ created in the image of the original Sernuan Lumiere.

What causality was holding was ultimately just the ‘shell’ I had created myself to set foot in the laws of this world.

‘Does this body have meaning to me now?’

The essence is not dwelling in the flesh.

My existence is not a prisoner trapped in this crude flesh, but a vast will that surveys the world itself.

God’s ‘thoughts’ and ‘soul’ had never even stepped onto the thin line called time in the first place.

War would exist from past to present to future, and the same was true for fairness. In encompassing the world, fairness was above that.

‘Rather, because I lived as a human, I didn’t know this simple thing…’

Another God would have been frustrated enough to beat their chest. But the only God I had seen was Lumensia, and Lumensia was one who had poured out all her power to create a body in order to interfere with causality.

Because the God I met was Lumensia, I had been thinking that I naturally needed a body too.

‘To stop the Widow, to stop the demon, I’ll inevitably need a body but…’

Not now.

The moment that thought reached me, the weight of the world that had been pressing down on me became light as a lie.

The real ‘me’ that had been sleeping within the preserved body opened its eyes.

Causality hadn’t bound me.

I had been trapped in human vision, cramming myself into the narrow confines of this flesh.

I easily approached the Widow as a mental entity and reached out my hand toward her head.

Originally, she was a ‘person’ who couldn’t be seen through with Insight.

Since she was a human who had made a contract with a demon, the demon would have protected her.

However, Erendor’s flames had diminished her status.

Into the Widow’s mind.

Finally.

I can peer inside.

I used Insight in a different way.

As my hand touched her head, the Widow flinched and trembled as if struck by electric shock.

“Kuhek…!”

[Experience the fair providence where the malice you cast into the world returns to you.]

And the Widow’s life…

The nightmare of her most terrible times.

I made it repeat endlessly.

For as long as she had stopped time.

*

A luxurious mansion.

“Hueok.”

She opened her eyes.

In the body of an ordinary young lady.

No no no no no!

I frantically dug through the blanket.

A voluminous pink skirt.

Short-cut nails.

I fumbled around my face, but there was no veil, only long hair reaching down to my waist.

“This can’t be.”

I got down from the bed, stumbled once, and ran to the mirror.

Hair of a brighter red color than now.

Green eyes.

A face not just young, but childish.

An engagement ring on my ring finger.

A robed man behind the mirror grabbed my shoulders and whispered.

[Why do you think this can’t be?]

I was startled and turned around, but the man was only visible in the mirror, not behind me.

The Robed Man looked around indifferently.

[A daughter of a noble house. Why would a woman who lived well change like this?]

I kicked open the door and ran out. I ran through the mansion’s corridor, but the corridor had no end. My shoes were uncomfortable so I threw them off and ran barefoot, but I couldn’t get outside.

“I’m the Widow.”

“This is a nightmare.”

“The Savior must just be playing tricks…”

At the far end of the corridor, I saw another hooded man.

[Do you really think so?]

I tumbled and fell. The pain of impact spread throughout my body. Fear surged up to the tips of my hair.

I sat collapsed on the floor, catching my breath.

Pain. I thought it was a dream or illusion or mental attack, but I felt pain.

‘Is this really reality? What about Eris? The God of Night? The Banquet Hall? Where did I, the Widow, go?’

“Hueok, hueok, hueok…”

[Don’t you think… all of that was a dream?]

“That can’t be… that can’t be…”

When I got up, I found myself heading from the manor corridor to the lawn.

My hands were small, and even the clothes I wore were bright and incredibly small. The large tree planted behind the mansion looked even more enormous.

“Th-this can’t be.”

When I went to the manor’s lake and looked at my reflection, I saw myself appearing to be 9 years old.

This time, surely not.

This can’t happen.

I screamed.

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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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