The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 322

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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 322. Life and Death (2)
Valley of Kardun.
Rielin had never heard this place’s name from anyone, nor had she ever learned it.
Yet Rielin knew.
She even knew what kind of place it was.
This was a space where death itself ‘existed’.
Rielin looked around her surroundings.
No sound reached her ears.
There was not a whisper of wind.
No scent lingered.
Even the tactile sensation against her skin had vanished.
The only sense that remained was sight.
Yet even that was uncertain.
A colossal cliff stood before my eyes.
But.
The moment I turned my gaze away.
…the cliff disappeared.
That towering cliff simply ceased to exist in an instant.
And.
The moment I blinked again.
The vanished cliff was there once more.
A realm of death where even sight itself had perished.
It was at that very moment.
…Thud, …thud.
Thud.
Footsteps echoed from somewhere.
Yet Rielin had not moved a single step.
In other words, they were not her footsteps.
The footsteps neither drew closer nor receded.
Always the same distance. Always the same rhythm.
They circled endlessly around me.
I turned my head.
“…Adrian?”
The face standing before me was unmistakably Adrian’s.
Yet simultaneously, it was not.
The eyes were hollow and vacant.
The mouth hung open in silence.
The skin was twisted, transformed into something else entirely.
Kyaaaaaaaaaagh!!
Adrian let out a piercing scream.
At that shriek, dozens of shadows writhed and rose to their feet.
…They were all Adrian.
Yet none of them were Adrian.
Kyaaaaaaagh!
Kiyaagh! Kieek!!
What erupted from those gaping maws was not sound, but pure hatred.
The twisted Adrians lunged in unison.
With black claws bared, they rushed toward Rielin.
Rielin swiftly extended her hand.
She gathered her sorcerous power and summoned a spirit.
“A spirit…?”
But there was no response.
Of course there wasn’t.
This was the Valley of Kardun.
A place where death itself existed.
In this realm where life had been severed, a living spirit could not manifest.
In other words, I could not borrow the spirit’s power.
Rielin gritted her teeth.
She swiftly withdrew her hand and swept across her waist.
Her fingertips brushed against something short and solid.
A dagger.
Broombar had mocked her as a mere spell-slinger, but Elven combat did not rely solely on spirits.
Exquisite and swift agility.
Various Elven martial arts refined through superior senses.
These had been perfected over thousands of years, and Rielin stood at the pinnacle among all Elves.
Rielin gripped the dagger and lowered her stance.
Whoosh!
The twisted Adrian’s claws raked through empty air.
Rielin wielded her dagger with the speed of lightning.
With her other hand, she grasped a second dagger in reverse grip.
Crack!
One of the twisted Adrians was torn apart like paper.
These were no ordinary daggers.
Dragon fangs.
Daggers forged from them exhibited the performance of an aura blade in their own right.
Shhaaaack!
The reverse-gripped dagger sliced through the air.
And just as she was about to tear through another twisted Adrian, in that instant—
Clang—!
…the dagger was knocked away.
Upon Adrian’s twisted fingernails.
Yet they deflected the dagger forged from Dragon’s teeth?
‘These creatures….’
They possessed the very abilities Adrian held.
As expected.
Adrian, torn to shreds like paper just moments before, rose to his feet.
Every lacerated fragment of flesh had regenerated completely.
Each of these beings was nothing less than a fragment of Adrian himself.
Rielin twisted her body without hesitation.
She rolled across the ground, creating distance.
Then she drew in a deep breath.
She couldn’t even be certain she had truly breathed.
Nothing in this place held any certainty.
So she could trust nothing.
Yet there was one thing.
Kyaaah, kyaaaaaaagh!
Kiyaaaaaaaaagh!!
Adrian existed somewhere in this place.
Of that much, I could be certain.
‘I must find the Forest Elder.’
Rielin adjusted her grip on the dagger and retreated backward.
* * *
Rielin searched the Valley of Kardun far and wide, hunting for Adrian.
The twisted Adrian obstructed her at every turn.
Leaping from cliffs.
Crawling forth from mist.
Sometimes materializing abruptly from empty air with a sharp crack.
…Truly, there was no end to it.
And they were far from weak.
Strength, speed, reflexes—
They replicated Adrian’s abilities perfectly.
Yet it remained merely ‘replication.’
In other words, mere imitation.
They were not entirely identical to Adrian.
…That was genuinely fortunate.
Had it been otherwise, who knows.
I would have become twisted long ago.
One Adrian alone is beyond my capacity.
Yet dozens? Hundreds?
There was no conceivable way to overcome such odds.
Rielin exhaled in relief, her shoulders dropping.
And just as she resumed her steps—
Abruptly.
Utterly without warning.
A structure materialized before her eyes.
‘A Shrine?’
That’s what it appeared to be.
Yet I couldn’t be certain if ‘Shrine’ was truly the right word.
But.
‘…The Forest Elder is in there.’
I simply knew it.
Rielin immediately made her way toward the Shrine.
Upon arrival at the Shrine’s entrance.
The Shrine’s doors were sealed shut.
Rielin extended her hand and carefully pushed the door open.
Creeeeak.
Surprisingly, it yielded without resistance.
Short blade gripped firmly, Rielin stepped across the threshold into the Shrine’s interior.
The moment I entered the Shrine.
Space that hadn’t existed materialized.
And when my gaze shifted away, it vanished.
It was less a space than a phantom conjured temporarily into being.
Rielin moved with utmost caution.
Thud.
…It felt as though I were treading upon empty air.
One step. Another step.
I pressed forward, fighting to maintain my balance.
Then bizarre architecture? Phenomena?
Things I couldn’t even define unfolded before me.
The ceiling inverted itself.
Walls flowed sideways.
Corridors shifted at their own whim.
Dead ends became open passages the moment I looked away.
“….”
I couldn’t fathom what this place was.
Rielin drew a deep breath.
I gripped the short blade tightly in both hands.
And I pushed my body through the relentless cascade of impossible phenomena.
Fortunately, as I ventured deeper, the frequency of these strange occurrences diminished.
And so I arrived at a place.
This was not a space.
There was no ceiling, no ground, no walls.
Yet my feet stood upon solid earth.
There was light.
But there were no shadows.
There was color.
Yet I could not discern what color it was.
I wondered what manner of place this could be, when—
A sharp intake of breath.
Something caught my senses.
Rielin drew her dagger.
As I surveyed the surroundings, something was there.
Strange patterns suspended in the void.
Before them stood ‘someone’, eyes darting rapidly across the symbols.
‘A person?’
It was not Adrian.
Nor was it a twisted version of Adrian.
In that moment.
The figure became aware of Rielin as well.
“This is… an unforeseen variable in my calculations.”
The being slowly turned its body toward Rielin.
Each movement was fluid and graceful.
‘Male?’
The voice that reached me was masculine.
The build and skeletal structure were also male.
Yet the overall appearance and aura possessed a beauty difficult to express in words.
Golden hair that fell straight to the waist.
Violet eyes that seemed to hold the void itself.
Features as perfect as a sculpture.
Extraordinarily beautiful.
So much so that it resembled an Elf—
‘…No.’
It was not an Elf.
There were no Elven characteristics visible whatsoever.
Had it been an Elf, I could not have failed to recognize it.
Yet it was also alien to be called an Elvish being—
“How did you enter this place?”
The man asked.
Rielin gripped the dagger in her hand more firmly.
The man showed no particular hostility.
His tone, his accent, his demeanor.
All of it was perfectly courteous.
Yet something felt deeply wrong.
“Shouldn’t you be asking who I am first?”
That would be the normal approach.
At that, The Man shrugged his shoulders and replied.
“Your identity is irrelevant. The only problem is that you are here.”
“…Problem?”
“Do you know where this place is?”
The Man gazed intently at Rielin.
He seemed determined not to speak until he heard her answer.
Rielin pondered for a moment, then slowly opened her mouth.
“Valley of Kardun.”
“Do you know what kind of place the Valley of Kardun is?”
Rielin deliberated once more before speaking slowly.
“A place where death exists.”
“Only half correct.”
The Man shook his head and continued.
“The Valley of Kardun is a place where death is ‘interpreted.'”
Rielin fell silent.
She could not comprehend what he was saying.
The Man gazed at Rielin quietly before continuing.
“Death possesses two possibilities simultaneously.”
Cycle and finality.
Contradictory, yet existing at once.
“And the observation of a conscious being can fix death into one singular possibility.”
Cycle and finality.
It is possible to determine death to bear only one of these natures.
“If someone with malicious intent were to arbitrarily interpret death in this place and then force that interpretation upon nature, what would happen?”
Death would walk only the path of finality.
Thus all life would lose its end.
“Nature’s cycle should have ended, and all life should have converged toward irreversible extinction—but.”
The Man slowly shook his head.
“Unfortunately, death once interpreted as a cycle cannot be reversed.”
Someone had already interpreted death as a cycle.
The result of that interpretation could not be undone.
“There is but one way.”
The Man’s lips twisted for a moment.
“Unless the one who interpreted death changes its meaning.”
The Man smiled.
In that instant.
Space trembled with subtle discord.
“To interpret death is not merely to understand it.”
“….”
“It is to redefine death itself.”
The Man’s violet eyes deepened.
“If I call it a cycle, it becomes a cycle. If I call it an ending, it becomes an ending. If I call it nothing, the very concept of death vanishes from the world.”
“….”
“Therefore, death is the subject of interpretation.”
In other words.
“Its essence is determined by me.”
The Man’s violet eyes held a profound emptiness.
“And so I sought to end the cycle.”
“…Why?”
Rielin asked reflexively.
As The Spirit Summoner who communed with nature, I could not accept what had just been said.
“Because the cycle of life is suffering.”
The Man continued calmly.
“Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, and death is suffering.”
“….”
“Once the reckless foolishness of youth passes, who can escape from worry? Who dares to set down the heavy burden of existence?”
“….”
“In the end, we find ourselves asking the same question.”
The Man gazed into the void as he spoke.
“For what did I begin, and for what do I continue to live?”
For what do we fall ill.
Our spirits worn thin.
Growing old, collapsing.
Until at last we die.
“Yet life has never given us an answer.”
Why we must suffer.
Why we must fear.
Why we must bear responsibility.
“Life answers not, even to the end.”
It merely repeats the same question endlessly.
The question of suffering alone.
“Looking upon those who dwell beneath this sky, I found that the dead are more blessed than those who yet live.”
The dead suffer no disease.
The dead know no loss.
The dead bear no weight of responsibility.
Thus, the dead bear no obligation imposed by life.
“I was able to understand it.”
The Man’s voice was calm.
Yet the emotion dwelling within it had grown bitterly cold.
“That to be alive is merely to exist in a state of recognizing suffering.”
Therefore, if this cycle merely repeated suffering infinitely—
“Such a cycle must be severed.”
The Man continued.
“So I sought to transform death into an ending. To break the curse-like cycle imposed upon all living things.”
But.
“I failed.”
“…?”
“An overwhelmingly vast life had been conceived.”
Life and death.
These two cannot be distinguished.
Therefore, the overwhelming power of life fixed death within the cycle, and even the Man, the subject of interpretation, could no longer interpret death as an ending.
And that overwhelmingly vast life was—
“Surely not….”
“It seems you already know.”
The Man drew his hand through empty space.
In that instant.
Something stirred from beyond the veil of space.
Light and darkness undulating like waves.
Though its form could not be discerned, Rielin understood.
“The Forest Elder!”
“…?”
Then the Man tilted his head in confusion.
“Are you referring to Lucius Aquilinus?”
“…?”
This time, Rielin tilted her head in confusion.

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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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