The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 175

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 175. Antinomy (2)
Marzen gritted his teeth audibly.
Scanning the surroundings, not a single member of his organization remained standing.
…A mistake.
I’d been swayed by my opponent and squandered the opportunity. But in moments like these, I had to remain composed. Marzen swept his hand through the air, drawing forth mana.
I cooled my mind with crystalline clarity, calibrating the mana with surgical precision.
Whoooosh!!
A blazing sphere infused with searing heat scorched the very air around it.
I wouldn’t stop here.
Using transformation magic, I elongated the spherical flame into a spear-like form.
Craaaaaash—!
Flame Spear.
A spell that transformed a fireball into a lance, maximizing both destructive force and piercing power.
Kim Fujiwara’s gaze shifted toward me.
But it was too late. The Flame Spear had already been unleashed.
And it detonated.
Kabooooom!!
Flames erupted and spread outward.
Engulfing Kim Fujiwara and the entire surrounding area.
Was it finished?
…No. No, it wasn’t.
I cast aside such naive assumptions.
Marzen gathered mana once more.
I warped the density of the atmosphere, transforming it into blades of compressed air.
Air Slash.
Invisible blades of wind materialized in all directions.
Kim Fujiwara burst through the flames.
As expected.
Marzen discarded his complacency and swept his hands. With the gesture, dozens of Air Slashes were unleashed.
Kim Fujiwara didn’t evade.
Instead, he charged directly forward. And as he extended his hand—
Crackle—!
A burst of sparks erupted in an instant.
The Air Slashes scattered and vanished…?
‘Dispel…?’
Dispel.
An extraordinarily difficult spell that reverse-calculates incantations to nullify magic.
I knew it well—it was my signature technique.
But.
Crackle! Crackle-crackle—!
I can’t do it that way.
I cannot cast Dispel with such speed and perfection.
Dispel requires analyzing the structure of a single spell and reverse-calculating it, which demands at least several seconds of analysis and precise mana calibration.
It means I cannot neutralize dozens of Air Slashes simultaneously and all at once.
This is not a level that can be resolved even through intuition.
Above all, Dispel cannot cancel a spell that has already been completed.
Because a completed spell solidifies into a ‘phenomenon’.
Therefore, Dispel works by identifying the spell’s formula before completion and severing the flow of mana.
‘But how…?’
…This is Dispel beyond imagination.
The level of Dispel far surpasses Marzen.
The fortunate thing is that not all Air Slashes were neutralized.
There is a limit.
And with this, it became certain.
Kim Fujiwara Bloodhound, who uses Dispel, is a mage.
The absurd power and movements displayed before, and still visible now, clearly involve magic.
Yet to leave no trace whatsoever.
To remain undetectable to my Mage’s Eye.
Kim Fujiwara Bloodhound.
He is a mage of an absurd caliber, standing several tiers above me.
But.
Crack, crackle—!
Where did such a monstrous mage emerge from?
…None of this is any match for me.
Should I retreat here?
No, even that is not easy.
The thought that I could escape from a mage of such monstrous caliber is not merely naive—it is foolish.
Above all, the Rune Iron binds me.
The moment I withdraw, my position becomes greatly shaken.
And ‘the useless’ are never tolerated.
The fate of the useless Marzen is only death.
If I retreat here… I lose everything.
So there is no choice.
I must bear the losses.
My eyes blazed with resolve.
* * *
Blades of air filling all directions.
Slash, slash, slash!
The blades formed by deforming and compressing atmospheric density could not be completely blocked even by Hardened Body.
Since I could not recklessly use Regeneration or Dragon’s Claw, I had no adequate response.
Moreover, being unable to use Dragon’s Claw [A] meant I couldn’t use Monomolecular Blade [S] either.
After all, Monomolecular Blade [S] was a skill that converged the contact surface area where Dragon’s Claw [A] touched to zero.
Therefore, the only method was to neutralize it through Mana Consumption.
And through Mana Consumption, I could dismantle magic.
But my proficiency in it wasn’t high enough yet.
Moreover, since I couldn’t recklessly use Regeneration [B+] and Dragon’s Claw [A], my combat patterns were severely limited.
‘As expected.’
Mages are troublesome.
There were limits to brute-forcing my way through with raw power alone.
But should I resort to Berserk [?]?
My Sanity points would be wasted.
My current accumulated Sanity was 712.
Even after hunting Camirus and Bacterion in the Desert for several days, I was still far from the 3,200 needed to craft a Super Regeneration [A] potion.
Marzen was certainly a formidable opponent—as troublesome as the karmic debts from my past life.
Then Marzen’s eyes suddenly changed.
He roughly shattered the pendant he’d been holding.
Crack!
With that sound, the space around the pendant tore open, and violet light flooded forth.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!!
The surging light spread in all directions, consuming the space itself. The space swallowed by the light warped, creating another world isolated from reality.
Thus, the first iron rule one must observe when facing a mage.
The second one.
Never enter a mage’s domain.
Whoooosh!!
This place was originally where Marzen had invited me. The conditions for activating the barrier were not merely sufficient—they were overflowing.
And Marzen is a Transmutation mage.
Therefore, the barrier now unfolding is a Transmutation barrier.
…Or so, one might think.
The first iron rule one must observe when facing a mage.
The third one.
Never assume a mage’s specialization.
Ziiing—!
The air trembled, and my vision twisted.
The landscape before me warped like liquid, while sound grew distant, then near, then distant again.
All Transmutation mages are mages.
They’re simply more specialized in Transmutation magic.
In other words, they’re not limited to using only Transmutation magic.
Avarus himself was a mad alchemist, yet didn’t he wield various forms of magic?
Iliana was a [Sage of Truth] who mastered all magic, including alchemy and transmutation.
In other words, Marzen could also use other magic at a high level. And the magic Marzen wielded as skillfully as Transmutation magic was—.
Illusion Magic.
Whoooosh—!
Spacetime fractured, and the landscape transformed entirely.
The moment I activated Predator’s Instinct [S], information about the barrier materialized before my eyes.
◆Penta-Phantom Field
: This barrier is an [illusion field] that simultaneously distorts all five senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Within it, the user can control the target’s [perceptual system], effectively producing results identical to altering reality itself.
Thus everything lay tangled and chaotic.
Front and back appeared as one, while inside and outside blurred into indistinction.
Looking upward revealed the depths below, and left and right directions intermingled.
Reality itself had twisted and warped.
And when reality distorts in such a manner?
Magic becomes difficult to cast.
The flow of mana itself becomes distorted and unstable.
Even Iliana would find casting magic nearly impossible within a reality so thoroughly warped.
But fortunately (?).
I am no mage.
My physical attributes remain entirely unaffected by the distorted mana flow within the Penta-Phantom Field.
Had it been a transformation barrier instead, it would have proven far more troublesome.
Then my physical attributes themselves would have been warped, twisting my strength and reflexes alike.
But the Penta-Phantom Field merely deceives the ‘senses’.
It cannot touch the body’s physical responses themselves.
And yet—
The fact that Marzen deployed an illusion barrier nonetheless.
It meant Marzen had been playing both sides of the drum alone—
“Your magic ends here!!”
The result of him definitively categorizing me as a ‘mage’.
* * *
Marzen had never intended to deploy a barrier.
The resource expenditure required to activate one was far from negligible.
For Marzen too, it represented a painful loss.
But he had no choice.
Against a high-ranking mage like Kim Fujiwara, an investment of this magnitude was not an option—it was essential.
Whoooooosh—!
The illusion barrier unfurled completely.
Kim Fujiwara did not move.
He could not move.
This was because illusion barriers differ from transformation barriers.
Transformation and illusion.
Transformation possesses substance.
It ‘transforms’ what is substantive, after all.
But illusions were not the same.
An illusion was merely a deception that ensnared the senses.
Yet one must never dismiss such deceptions lightly.
The moment reality’s framework is twisted, it ceases to be mere deception—it becomes warped reality, tangible and absolute.
Thus, Kim Fujiwara found himself utterly immobilized within this distorted realm.
But Marzen was different.
This domain belonged to Marzen.
It was a ‘hunting ground’ meticulously designed to ensnare mages.
No mage who entered this hunting ground could escape alive.
Whoosh!
He conjured a fireball from thin air and hurled it forward.
Kim Fujiwara evaded the fireball with nimble footwork.
Even in a place where the five senses tangled together, he maintained enhancement magic.
Truly, a mage of monstrous caliber.
But it mattered little.
Marzen extended both hands, grasping at space itself, then wrenched his clenched fists downward with tremendous force, twisting the trajectory of the fireball.
Boom!
The redirected fireball crashed violently into the ground.
And Kim Fujiwara?
He had already abandoned his position.
I must match that speed. Fire magic possesses tremendous power, but it is slow.
Crackle!
A single bolt of lightning materialized. It was insufficient. Marzen spread both hands wide to either side.
Rip!
Spacetime tore asunder, and the lightning split into two.
Marzen thrashed his hands about wildly.
The bifurcated lightning became four.
Eight, sixteen, thirty-two….
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
The lightning fractured endlessly, proliferating into thousands.
Yet not all were genuine.
They were merely ‘illusions’—appearing as thousands of lightning bolts.
But here, things were different.
The moment reality’s framework is twisted, they cease to be mere illusions—they become warped reality, tangible and absolute.
The illusory thousands of lightning bolts became, in truth, thousands of lightning bolts that rained down.
Boom, boom-boom!!
Thousands of lightning bolts descended.
Kim Fujiwara responded.
As if perceiving each of the thousands of descending bolts individually, he evaded them with movements swift as lightning itself.
…Remarkable reflexes indeed.
His reflexes were extraordinary, yet the physical prowess executing them defied all reason.
But I remain unshaken.
Marzen controlled every bolt of lightning. He seized them with his mana, then exploited the fractional gap to target Kim Fujiwara’s blind spot.
Boom!
The unleashed thunderbolt engulfed the entire area.
Yet it swiftly lost its power.
It took a moment to comprehend what had transpired.
“Dispel…?”
How was that possible in this domain!
There was no time to voice his shock.
Kim Fujiwara moved. Even within this warped reality, he pinpointed Marzen’s location with precision.
And.
What entered his vision was unmistakably one figure.
Yet the movements… numbered three?
Kim Fujiwara descended upon him simultaneously from three directions.
“…!!!”
Undisguised horror flooded across Marzen’s face.
Had his senses been warped?
That couldn’t be.
This realm was Marzen’s domain.
The barrier’s distortion could not affect him.
Which meant….
‘An illusion spell?’
Arriving at this conclusion—
‘He can freely cast magic here too?’
It made no sense. No sense at all.
The Dispel just now, and now freely deploying magic through the warped mana currents?
Of course, it wasn’t impossible.
But it bordered on the impossible.
Only one mage in existence could accomplish such a feat.
Arcanis Rilsein, the First Mage.
Only the primordial mage who established the very concept of magic on this Continent and opened the horizons of arcane knowledge could achieve it.
Could it be that Kim Fujiwara was Arcanis Rilsein?
…That was impossible, of course.
Fists filled his entire vision, descending upon him.
I couldn’t respond.
I couldn’t comprehend it.
How he moved freely even within this warped reality.
How he wielded magic without restraint.
And why.
Whoosh!
I’d halted my fist mere inches from his face.
…Marzen couldn’t comprehend a single thing about what was happening.
* * *
My fist, suspended just before Marzen’s face.
His bewildered expression warped and distorted by the Five-Sense Phantom Array as it drew closer.
Even without being a mage, the reality of this place reached me in distorted form.
But.
◆The Successor’s Will [EX] resists the distorted reality!
The Successor’s Will [EX] remained immune even to distorted reality.
◆3 Sanity points have accumulated.
◆4 Sanity points have accumulated.
◆1 Sanity points have accumulated.
◆2 Sanity points have accumulated.
.
.
.
Sanity points were being supplied ceaselessly.
As Marzen’s level was exceptional, Sanity points were accumulating at a rapid pace.
At this rate, it rivaled The Vanished Social Club itself.
There was no need for the tedious process of resetting.
Because of this, it was accumulating not just faster than The Vanished Social Club, but maddeningly so.
[Sanity] = 1,292/ℵ0
…I’d already surpassed 1,000.
Even now, the Five-Sense Phantom Array remained active, continuing to tangle my senses and distort my perception.
In other words.
‘I can duplicate it just by standing still.’
In this place, I could duplicate Sanity points.

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