The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 347

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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 347. Return
Iliana appeared suddenly.
Gwendolyn’s eyes widened involuntarily.
As Iliana drew near, Gwendolyn asked her with a trembling voice.
“Iliana! Where on earth have you been?!”
Iliana lowered her head.
After a moment, she spoke quietly.
“To put it simply… I was hiding.”
“Hiding? Here in the Archive of Truth?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Well…”
Iliana hesitated.
Her lips moved, but no words came forth.
Yet it was not as though she were concealing something.
Rather, it seemed as if…
She feared that speaking might place Gwendolyn in danger.
“…I’ll tell you later. I promise.”
In the end, Iliana held her tongue.
Gwendolyn did not press the matter further.
So long as Iliana was safe, that was enough.
A brief silence fell between them.
Iliana avoided Gwendolyn’s gaze, fidgeting with her fingertips.
Gwendolyn, seeking to ease the tension, spoke first.
“Are you hurt?”
“…No, I’m fine.”
Iliana answered awkwardly.
Gwendolyn examined Iliana’s condition carefully.
Matted hair. A disheveled appearance.
The dirt smudged across her cheeks was utterly pitiful.
It seemed she had done more than merely hide away.
Her skirt hem, thoroughly soiled, had ridden up past her knees.
Her stockings were torn to shreds, leaving her bare legs exposed.
When Gwendolyn’s gaze inadvertently drifted to the inner thigh, Iliana suddenly clamped her legs together.
“Except for not bathing in several days…”
Iliana’s face flushed crimson to the tips of her ears.
It was pitiful to see.
Yet there was something endearing about it as well.
When Gwendolyn smiled knowingly, Iliana pressed her lips shut and lowered her head.
But she soon lifted it again.
“More importantly… who is that person?”
Iliana pointed in a certain direction with her finger.
Gwendolyn turned her head.
In the direction Iliana indicated, the raging magical power of blood tore through the ground.
Crackle!
With the explosion, space shattered into fragments.
Crimson flames surged through the fractured space.
The red flames were rushing toward a man.
Iliana’s finger was pointing directly at that man.
“Who is he? Why is he fighting the Immortal Queen?”
Iliana asked, tilting her head in confusion.
Gwendolyn also tilted her head and asked.
“You don’t know who he is?”
“Um…”
Iliana trailed off.
Gwendolyn studied Iliana’s expression carefully.
“I have no idea.”
She truly seemed to have no clue.
But wait, did that even make sense?
Not knowing her own patron?
And not recognizing such a handsome man at that?
“Is he someone I should know?”
“Of course he is—!”
…Ah.
Gwendolyn closed her mouth.
Then she turned her head again to gaze upon the battlefield.
The man fighting the Immortal Queen.
…It was not Adrian.
Rather, it was not Adrian’s appearance.
Gwendolyn turned her head once more and spoke.
“It’s Adrian.”
“…What??”
Iliana’s expression filled with bewilderment.
Her lips parted as if to protest the absurdity.
Her wide eyes trembled left and right in disbelief.
“But he doesn’t look anything like him?!?!”
It seemed Iliana had no idea that Kim Fujiwara was Adrian.
* * *
Six Beings Serving the Emperor.
The Immortal Lord.
Regardless of her identity as Arcanis Rilsein, the first Magician, the fact that she was a being from the Other Dimension remained unchanged.
To be precise, she was an entity banished to the Other Dimension long ago.
Transcending death as she did, she was fundamentally at odds with this world.
Therefore, the world rejected the Immortal Lord.
As a result.
The Immortal Lord could only be crushed beneath the world’s oppression.
But here in the Archive of Truth, things were different.
The Archive of Truth was a Barrier Space, and the Barrier Space was a separate realm isolated from reality.
In other words, within this domain alone, she was not crushed by the world’s oppression.
And beyond that.
She had territorialized the Archive of Truth.
Now it was far more than merely escaping suppression.
Complete liberation.
The Immortal Lord was now revealing her full power.
Crack!
The warped space shattered.
My entire vision trembled in an instant.
Rumble!
Crimson light engulfed my field of vision entirely.
As if burning through spacetime itself.
The landscape began to ignite in scarlet flames.
‘Mana negation alone won’t work.’
It was pure instinct.
This was magic, yet simultaneously a phenomenon transcending the category of magic.
Simply negating, reversing, or denying mana could not counter it.
I activated Complete Organism [UL].
I combined the various genetic abilities that unfolded like puzzle pieces in countless configurations.
Abilities I lacked, I created through Mutation [S+].
The created abilities, I optimized through Natural Selection [S+].
And it was right as I was about to apply them immediately through Predation [S+].
“Is… is that Adrian?!?!!”
A voice suddenly rang out.
My thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
Arcanis was no different from me.
The magical power burning the landscape paused momentarily, and her crimson eyes flashed as they snapped toward the source of the voice.
And Arcanis’s expression froze in an instant.
I also turned my head toward the source of the voice.
‘…Iliana?’
There stood the missing Iliana.
Along with Gwendolyn.
Her sparkling eyes fixed on me, her mouth falling open in disbelief.
“Wait, you’re really truly Adrian?!?!”
She had no idea who I actually was.
‘Ah.’
Now that I thought about it, I was currently Kim Fujiwara.
And Iliana had no knowledge that I was Kim Fujiwara.
Very few people knew this secret.
Adlern and Kai.
And Gwendolyn.
For now, only these three were aware.
Which meant Arcanis Rilsein had no idea about my true identity in this form.
“Adrian…?”
Arcanis Rilsein tilted his head in confusion.
He clearly hadn’t expected to hear that name here.
“Could it be Adrian Whitewolf?”
His narrowed crimson eyes turned toward me.
“You’re Adrian?”
It seemed he recognized me.
Which made sense, in a way.
Arcanis Rilsein was the Immortal Lord.
Given that he had attacked the Whitewolf Territory before, it would have been stranger if he didn’t know me.
“…That can’t be right.”
“Not at all, not even a little bit—you don’t look like him at all!?!”
Both Arcanis Rilsein and Iliana spoke almost simultaneously.
“You look nothing like the form I know.”
“Adrian isn’t supposed to look like… like… well, not like that!!”
True to form for fellow mages.
True to form for those called the Mages of Truth.
They both trusted the information in their minds more than reality itself.
But there was no phenomenon without a cause.
When a phenomenon contradicted existing theory, it didn’t mean the phenomenon was wrong—it suggested the existing theory was flawed. Or so the logic went.
“You wretch!!”
Arcanis Rilsein paid me no mind.
His sharp fury erupted toward Iliana.
Whatever my true identity was.
Arcanis Rilsein didn’t care.
The magical power that had paused momentarily surged forth again, incinerating the landscape as it rushed toward Iliana.
There was definitely something between them.
So I didn’t concern myself with it either.
Whether Arcanis Rilsein knew my true identity or not.
I threw myself into the torrent of mana that incinerated the very landscape.
* * *
Crimson Flame—a technique that consumed entire spaces in fire.
It descended directly toward Iliana, the blue-haired girl.
A distance and velocity that no one could evade.
Rather, Crimson Flame could not be countered in the first place.
Crimson Flame was ultra-high-temperature plasma created by combusting blood cores.
The extreme heat rising to one hundred million degrees Celsius rendered all states of matter meaningless.
Counter-mana was useless.
The counter-mana itself would evaporate before it could even nullify the mana.
Therefore, the fact that Crimson Flame scattered entirely now was not the work of counter-mana.
“What…?”
Arcanis could not comprehend it.
Rather, it made no sense.
All her eyes had captured was a brief discharge of electricity.
Yet the Crimson Flame had scattered…?
In that instant.
Whoosh!
Something grazed past her back.
There was no time to confirm what it was.
Arcanis ignited Crimson Flame once more.
But then—crack!
Electricity discharged again, and the Crimson Flame scattered once more.
‘That just now…’
There was no time to continue her thoughts.
Crash!!
Something struck hard directly into her abdomen.
Her waist bent like a bow.
The impact that burrowed deep into her organs turned her vision white in an instant.
Blood sprayed from her gaping mouth as Arcanis’s body flew backward.
And pursuing that trajectory came a single man.
Adrian.
Only then could Arcanis understand.
‘Counter-mana was not everything…?’
Adrian had neutralized the plasma state of Crimson Flame, but not through counter-mana.
He had exploited the principles of plasma itself.
Plasma was a state of matter divided into ion particles by a powerful electric field.
In this state, the total number of positive and negative charges remained equal, resulting in electrical neutrality.
Therefore, if one applied an ionic shock…?
Plasma would collapse instantly.
Adrian utilized that principle precisely.
But what he employed was not half-mana.
A biological high-voltage organ.
‘…An electric eel?’
It was undoubtedly so.
Adrian mimicked the physiological structure of an electric eel and applied ionic shock.
‘That’s absolutely impossible!!’
…I couldn’t believe it.
Yet I had clearly witnessed it with my own eyes.
And there is no phenomenon without law.
If a phenomenon contradicts existing theory, it suggests not that the phenomenon is wrong, but that the existing theory is flawed.
That made it all the more impossible to accept.
Understanding the high-voltage principle of an electric eel is not difficult.
But mimicking that physiological structure and applying it to one’s body is… impossible.
The species itself is fundamentally different.
Neural transmission methods.
Muscle contraction responses.
Even cellular membrane reactivity.
Everything is inherently misaligned.
By Arcanis’s knowledge, it is impossible for a human to use an electric eel’s ionic shock.
Yet here, within the Akashic Records, Arcanis possesses infinite knowledge.
And still, Adrian surpassed the electric eel.
Far more powerful.
In other words, it is not mere imitation.
Intelligent design evolution.
…I could not comprehend it.
Arcanis could not understand Adrian’s evolution.
In other words, Adrian exists beyond Arcanis’s comprehension.
Boom!!
Space shattered.
Arcanis gritted his teeth and spread his wings.
He flapped them with tremendous force.
He righted his body as it flew backward.
But Adrian had already reached him.
Arcanis folded his left wing.
Twisting his trajectory, he immediately attempted a counterattack.
“Neril Kraha─!”
In that instant.
Adrian’s fist grazed his jaw.
The impact resonated through his skull.
Crash!!
My thoughts shattered.
A moment of unconsciousness.
When I regained my senses, blood and flesh rained down from the air like a downpour.
Arcanis clenched his lower lip between his teeth.
‘I need to create distance.’
Now was the time to retreat.
Arcanis flapped his unfurled wings with tremendous force.
He shot upward into the air and soared high into the sky.
Fortunately, Adrian did not pursue.
* * *
Arcanis climbed higher into the heavens.
I did not follow.
Instead, I turned toward Iliana.
Iliana stared at me with wide eyes.
And her condition was far from good.
Her appearance was disheveled and worn.
Iliana, who already resembled a small puppy, looked even smaller and more pitiful now.
As I drew near, Iliana flinched and trembled.
“Is… are you really Adrian…?”
She clearly did not trust me.
I considered dropping my disguise.
But now was not the right moment to do so.
After a brief moment of deliberation, I recalled something.
An incident that only Iliana and I knew about.
“When I was poisoned by Calcatus toxin—”
“Eek!”
Iliana covered her mouth.
Her eyes widened to the size of saucers.
Her pupils trembled violently.
“At that time, you—”
“Ahhhhh! P-please stop!!”
Her face flushed crimson to the tips of her ears.
“…I-I really do believe you’re Adrian! Please, just… don’t say any more!!”
Now Iliana finally believed that I was truly myself.
Only then did I ask her about the situation.
“What happened?”
“W-well, you see…”
Iliana steadied her breathing.
A long story seemed about to unfold.
I lifted my gaze upward for a moment.
Arcanis Rilsein floated suspended in the air.
His body had completely regenerated.
Yet the psychological shock appeared considerable, as he remained motionless.
Time was something I possessed, albeit in limited measure.
But not an abundance of it.
I decided to address the situation first.
“I’m aware that the being hovering above us is Arcanis Rilsein.”
“Huh?!”
“Huh?!”
Iliana and Gwendolyn gasped in unison.
Both pairs of eyes widened identically.
Their expressions were nearly mirror images of one another.
Yet the emotions beneath differed entirely.
Iliana’s was a shock of ‘How could you possibly know that…?’
Gwendolyn’s was bewilderment of ‘What in the world are you talking about…?’
But regardless of whose confusion it was.
It hardly mattered.
I glanced between them both before continuing.
“Why was Arcanis Rilsein searching for you?”
“That is… well…”
Iliana hesitated briefly before answering.
“I discovered it… myself.”
“Discovered what, exactly?”
My follow-up question.
Iliana answered in a quiet yet clear voice.
“Arcanis Rilsein. In other words, the method to drag the Immortal Queen into complete death.”

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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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