The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 323

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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 323. The Spirit Summoner of the Heavens (1)
Flickering light and darkness.
At first, it was merely an irregular flow.
Its form was unclear.
But soon enough.
It began to take shape.
As the contours gradually revealed themselves, what emerged was a ‘cocoon’.
…What did I just hear?
‘Lucius Aquilinus?’
Who?
The one inside that cocoon?
Not Adrian?
‘Did I misunderstand…?’
Rielin narrowed her eyes.
She examined the cocoon intently.
The interior of the cocoon was invisible.
Semi-translucent mucus and membranes formed layers, obscuring the view.
The pulse of life emanating from within was faint.
Yet Rielin could discern it.
It was Adrian.
The faint but unmistakable aura of life within—it was undoubtedly Adrian.
But then.
“The Forest Keeper, you say?”
The Man tilted his head in confusion.
His violet eyes.
They were filled with bewilderment.
I’m not sure what’s happening—
“The one inside is Lucius Aquilinus.”
This man seemed to be calling Adrian by the name Lucius Aquilinus.
“Though it matters little what you call him.”
….
“He will die soon anyway.”
Rielin’s elegant brows furrowed.
“You intend to kill the Forest Keeper?”
“To transform death into an ending, I have no choice but to eliminate him.”
The Man gazed upon the cocoon.
“As long as he exists, death will remain fixed in its cycle.”
“…So.”
Rielin’s breathing grew ragged.
“You’ll kill the Forest Keeper and extinguish all life?”
“It is not destruction.”
“…?”
“It is closure.”
The Man lifted his gaze.
“Closing the will that repeats infinitely, sealing away the meaningless beginnings and endings.”
“What does that even—”
“You need not understand. I do not expect it of you.”
The Man cut off Rielin’s words.
Then, fixing his gaze upon the cocoon, he continued.
“Soon, Lucius Aquilinus will cease to exist. And the interpretation will be complete.”
From that moment onward.
Death would walk only the path of finality.
And thus all life would dissolve and vanish.
“Do you understand now? What manner of place you have entered?”
“….”
“So I ask again.”
The Man’s eyes grew dim.
“How did you enter here?”
Rielin did not answer.
Instead, she tightened her grip upon the dagger in her hand.
The Man observed her reaction calmly and spoke.
“Will you stand against me?”
“No.”
Rielin shook her head with resolve.
“I will save the Forest Keeper.”
The Man did not answer.
Instead, a faint smile graced his lips.
“It matters not either way.”
At that same instant, a piercing shriek tore through the air!
Space itself trembled.
Violet mana erupted from The Man’s body.
Mana…?
Could it truly be called mana?
That which held emptiness within could not be named mana.
Nor was it energy.
A formless something.
A power from beyond the world, its nature incomprehensible.
“Just as all life in this world deserves death, so too shall you inevitably perish.”
The space tore asunder with a deafening roar!
Space fractured.
Violet radiance flooded the space.
Purple light erupted in all directions, unfurling a void world without seams or gaps.
Rielin froze in place.
She could not move.
…No, she could not resist.
Though she tensed every muscle, sensation eluded her.
As if captured by something, her very existence was constrained.
In that instant.
Krrrrrrk!
Space folded.
The flooding violet radiance vanished.
Simultaneously, the void world shattered into fragments.
“…Ah…!”
A suppressed cry burst from Rielin’s lips.
The crushing pressure disappeared.
Her legs buckled.
Rielin barely managed to support her wavering body.
Yet her trembling lips and quivering eyes remained beyond her control.
The Man gazed silently at his own hand.
There was nothing at its fingertips.
The violet radiance that had devoured everything moments before was nowhere to be seen.
Literally, a Void.
That alone occupied the space.
“…Unfortunately, it has not yet been permitted.”
The Man gestured quietly.
Then something.
An invisible, colossal thing collapsed.
“Indeed, it is not yet time.”
The Man murmured with regret.
After surveying the surroundings briefly, he spoke again.
“This place is surprisingly fragile—it cannot withstand even the slightest touch.”
The Man’s words.
Rielin sensed an inexplicable discord.
How to describe it.
The Valley of Kardun itself could not bear this man.
No, the more precise expression was.
His power was so immense that the Valley of Kardun dared not contain it…that was accurate.
Thus his power could not manifest.
Thus it could not reach Rielin.
In other words, within this place, the Man had become ‘a being unable to use his power’.
“There’s no helping it.”
The Man shook his head lightly.
And once more, those bizarre patterns materialized in the void.
The Man’s eyes darted rapidly across them.
With each movement, Adrian’s life within the cocoon weakened.
“…This is the final adjustment.”
As The Man raised his hand, the patterns vibrated.
Space itself warped.
I didn’t know what it was, but once it finished, Adrian would die.
…I had to stop it.
Rielin lunged forward.
At that very moment.
Kiiiieeeeek—!!
A horrific shriek erupted from behind Rielin.
Contorted faces of Adrian.
Contorted limbs of Adrian.
Literally twisted Adrian formed a grotesque mass with pieces jutting out in every direction—
“It’s what we call a death lump.”
With those words, The Man turned his attention away from Rielin.
* * *
Craaaaaaash—!!
A tremendous gale swept over Rielin.
Her vision shook.
In the midst of an impact that threatened to burst her eardrums, Rielin immediately backflipped through the air.
As she pivoted on her hands, tentacles from the death lump lashed toward her.
Crackle crackle crackle!
Pus and blood.
Tentacles composed of grotesquely quivering flesh poured forth from all directions.
There was nowhere to escape.
The moment her feet touched ground, Rielin adjusted her grip on her dagger.
Not a single mistake could be afforded.
A mistake meant death.
Rielin swallowed her breath and charged forward.
She severed the tentacle before her with her dagger.
The tentacle coiling around her back, she evaded by instinct.
Rielin’s movements left afterimages in their wake.
Boom boom boom boom—!!
Overlapping afterimages materialized in an instant.
A single tentacle coiled around Rielin’s waist.
“…!”
My waist constricted until I could barely breathe.
Sticky, viscous slime seeped between my clothes and skin.
“Ugh… haah…!”
A moan escaped me—nearly a death rattle.
The tentacle moved as if taking my pulse.
It crawled slowly along my body.
I clenched my teeth and forced my vision to focus.
The intricate patterns floating in the air meshed and rotated with perfect precision.
…There was no time.
I swung the dagger in my grip and severed the tentacle.
Squelch!
The tentacle tore apart.
Slime and flesh sprayed outward.
My body dropped with a thud to the ground.
Below my ribs, a terrible pain erupted.
Had it squeezed even slightly deeper, my organs would have been crushed.
I forced myself back to my feet.
My body barely obeyed my will.
It felt as though death itself had been injected into me.
I concentrated my mind.
Through the death infused into my body, I sensed the presence of the spirits.
Whoosh!
A faint emerald current of energy.
It drove back the injected death, if only for a moment.
I barely managed to rise on trembling legs.
Roooaaaaaaaaah─!!
Adrian’s twisted faces shrieked in unison.
…It was grotesque.
Overwhelmingly so.
I bit my lip and fixed my gaze.
A mass of death cannot be killed.
Death that cannot die.
Literally, an entity formed from concentrated death itself.
I tightened my grip on the dagger.
‘I have to break through.’
I forgot to breathe and charged forward.
The mass of death reacted.
The twisted faces wrenched their heads.
Each gaze they cast carried death within it.
Screeeeeech─!!
Hundreds of tentacles crashed down upon me.
I could not retreat.
I reaffirmed my purpose once more.
Rielin slashed through the descending tentacles with her twin daggers.
Crack! Screech!
The tentacles shredded apart.
Yet they regenerated continuously, surging forward again.
Each time, Rielin crossed her daggers and swung them in a flurry.
Slash! Thud! Riiiiip!
The palms gripping Rielin’s daggers split open.
Black blood poured from between her tightly clenched lips.
The Man spoke.
“How pitiful—the meaningless death throes of a fleeting life. Quite pathetic to witness, wouldn’t you say?”
Rielin pressed forward regardless.
I knew.
That this struggle was meaningless.
Death incarnate does not die.
The Man cannot be stopped.
The spirits did not answer properly.
I knew that this body alone could accomplish nothing.
And yet.
Rielin advanced, bearing that weight upon her shoulders.
“To move forward despite knowing its futility.”
Pain bloomed beneath my heaving ribs.
Even breathing became agony.
“A life that crushes itself beneath the burden of duty to protect—how utterly tragic, is it not?”
Forest Keeper, Rielin.
I had always carried the immense responsibility of protecting the Elves upon my shoulders.
That is why I lived with such relentless determination.
My actions were always righteous.
My spirit was tempered to never falter.
My life was always disciplined and ordered.
When dawn broke, I rose before the sun to observe the forest’s movements.
When dusk fell, I stirred before the moon to sense the forest’s currents.
I could not collapse.
I could not rest.
I was forbidden to collapse or rest.
Such was the sacred duty of the Forest Keeper who guarded the forest.
As Forest Keeper, I had protected Sylvandir Forest throughout my entire existence.
“I do not admire it in the slightest, not for a single moment. Rather, I can only feel pity for it.”
And it vanished.
The forest I had watched over and cherished every single day.
Gone in an instant.
Crash!
My body tumbled across the ground.
I gasped for breath and pushed myself upright.
The encroaching mass of death.
The pattern completing itself.
Adrian, dying.
And.
My right arm, vanished.
Empty below the elbow.
Yet it was strange.
Now that I had actually lost it.
‘It’s nothing.’
The sense of loss was not as overwhelming as I had imagined.
I could still move.
Without an arm, without the forest, life did not end.
I had thought that losing those things would mean my end, but it was not so at all.
‘It’s just… a little hollow, that’s all.’
Nothing more than that.
Crash! Crash!
With a deafening roar, tentacles erupted from the earth.
I read the trajectory of the incoming tentacles and threw myself clear.
And so.
I made my way to Whitewolf Territory.
There were many things that happened there.
I fought Broombar the moment I arrived.
I clashed with soldiers who could not understand simple commands.
Children who kept trying to touch my ears.
Truly, an endless stream of incidents both great and small.
Yet it was strange.
My only concern in the world was an empty cup.
For the first time, I tasted intoxication.
I stumbled about.
I sat in a daze, watching time pass.
I forgot all my duties as Forest Keeper and lived like a wreck.
‘But do you know what?’
Every single day I spent there, in that territory.
Each moment in that strange land.
‘These were the finest moments of my entire life, Forest Keeper.’
They were the hours in which I felt Rielin truly alive.
Crack!
The impact of the tentacle sent Rielin’s body hurtling through the air.
Boom!
Her body convulsed as it crashed into the ground.
Consciousness nearly shattered, but she held on by sheer will.
My body was impossibly heavy.
My vision blurred into a haze.
And yet I remained alive.
Faint though it was, my heart still beat.
My battered lips still remembered how to smile.
My severed hand still felt warmth.
All of this was Adrian.
These were the things he had taught me.
“What are you trying to do—?”
Because Adrian had brought Rielin to Whitewolf Territory, she had finally understood what it meant to be alive.
So this time.
‘I will bring you to this place.’
Rielin plunged into death without hesitation.
She did not waver.
She did not falter.
With her one remaining hand, Rielin reached out and grasped Adrian’s collapsing consciousness.
“You wouldn’t dare—!!”
The Man cried out in desperation.
Violet mana engulfed everything.
The encroaching death demanded the annihilation of all existence.
And so, within that silent world of death,
“Exclusive Sorcery: Activation.”
Rielin unfurled her own unique color of life.

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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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