The Mage Who Devours Disasters - Chapter 26

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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 26.
Seria trembled violently.
Her eyes flushed crimson.
She looked ready to draw her bow at any moment.
I gripped Seria’s shoulder.
“Hold back.”
I growled low.
“If you act now, we’ll die like dogs.”
It was a cold calculation.
Soldiers packed the Plaza.
At a glance, there were easily over a thousand.
Their armor was incomparably more formidable than the crude leather garments of the Frost Tribe.
Armor and spears forged from glacial crystal.
Moreover, archers were positioned along the City Walls.
This was enemy territory.
If chaos erupted, we would become pincushions.
Seria bit her lip.
Blood seeped through.
But she bowed her head.
Without my grip, she would have bolted.
That was when it happened.
Thud. Thud.
The ranks of soldiers parted.
A single knight in silver armor approached.
He appeared to be a commander.
He blocked our path.
His gaze was thick with suspicion.
“Halt.”
The knight lowered his spear.
Yet his vigilance remained undiminished.
“This is the Northern Front. The Frost Deity Cryos strictly regulates entry to outsiders.”
He glanced at the staff in my hand.
“You claim to be an emissary of Heimdall?”
“I do.”
I lifted my chin.
As arrogantly as possible.
“Yet I find it curious. Why would the great Deity of Tempests send an emissary to such a remote outpost?”
The knight’s eyes narrowed.
“And without any prior notification, at that.”
A reasonable suspicion.
But if I back down now, it’s over.
I furrowed my brow.
“How insolent.”
I infused my voice with mana.
“Does a mere mortal dare question the intentions of one such as I?”
“That is not my intention, Your Majesty….”
I struck my staff against the ground with a sharp crack.
Whoooosh!
The gem at the staff’s tip blazed with brilliant blue light.
Wind erupted around us.
A razor-sharp gust of pressure carved through space, grazing past the Knight Commander’s helmet.
Clang!
The helmet’s crest was severed clean away.
The Knight Commander’s face drained of all color.
He stumbled backward.
It was real.
That power—divine authority that could never be counterfeited.
Just as the Knight Commander was about to bow his head, cold sweat streaming down his face——
“I-I apologize….”
Splurt!
A dull, wet explosion.
His words never finished.
The Knight Commander’s head vanished.
Rather, it burst apart.
Blood and brain matter sprayed in all directions.
Splatter.
Warm droplets of blood spattered across my cheek.
“…!”
Seria gasped and stumbled backward in shock.
The surrounding soldiers screamed and scattered in panic.
The headless body of the Knight Commander collapsed limply to the ground.
Thud.
A dark spear was embedded in that very spot.
A javelin.
A spear that had come from somewhere had shattered the Knight Commander’s skull.
I turned my gaze.
Toward the direction the spear had come from.
Atop the City Walls.
A colossal silhouette stood there.
A form rendered pitch-black against the backlighting.
He leaped down from the City Walls.
Boom!
The earth trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
A figure emerged from the cloud of dust.
A massive frame, easily three meters tall.
A beast-man with a human body and the head of a lion.
Golden mane rippled in the wind.
Veins writhed like earthworms across muscles swollen to the point of bursting.
“…Pathetic wretches.”
The lion beast-man growled.
His voice was rough, like scraping stone.
He walked toward the corpse.
He wrenched the embedded spear free with a single hand.
Squelch.
He shook the blood-stained spear as he spoke.
“Cryos commanded it. Not a single ant is to enter.”
His yellow eyes gleamed.
“Yet in the blink of an eye, you’ve let in a peddler.”
His gaze fixed upon us.
More precisely, upon Seria.
“And one of them is an elf.”
He sniffed the air.
“A revolting stench. A runaway rat?”
Seria’s face drained of color.
Killing intent.
An overwhelming killing intent bore down upon her.
I swallowed hard.
‘Why is he here?’
An unforeseen variable.
I knew this creature.
The gatekeeper who guarded the entrance to Tower Floor 50.
If Seria was a mid-tier boss, then he was the one who guarded the floor’s entrance.
‘The Lion King, Kusan.’
So why was he here?
Why had Kusan, who should be in the Tower, appeared on the Asgard Mainland?
Kusan leveled his spear at us.
“I am the gatekeeper who serves Cryos, Kusan.”
He bared his teeth in a savage grin.
…I’d been found out.
Though he appeared brutish and simple, his senses were razor-sharp.
Most importantly.
“You wretches reek. The stench of liars clings to you.”
Kusan is a fanatic devoted to the Mad Deity.
He obeys only Cryos’s commands.
Even if the real Heimdall had come, he would have hurled his spear at a single word from his master.
There was no reasoning with such a creature.
Kusan’s thigh muscles swelled with power.
“Seria!”
At my cry, Seria snapped to attention.
She drew her bowstring instinctively.
Twang!
The arrow tore through the air in a blur.
A precise strike aimed directly at Kusan’s brow.
But.
Kusan did not dodge.
The arrow bounced harmlessly off his rigid mane and clattered to the ground.
“A mere tickle.”
Kusan sneered.
Seria was still growing into her strength.
She fell far short of the formidable power she would wield in those days when she was called the nightmare of Tower Floor 50.
“Seize them!”
“Intruders!”
Soldiers poured in like ants at Kusan’s signal.
Enemies surrounded us on all sides.
At this rate, we would be encircled and left to perish.
I gritted my teeth and drove my left hand into the ground.
Whoooosh!
Authority: ‘Land Where Hellfire Churns’.
Boom!
Crimson flames erupted from beneath my feet.
The ice shattered and melted; the earth itself boiled.
“Aaaahhh!”
“It burns!”
The charging soldiers were engulfed in the inferno and tumbled backward.
A wall of flame had formed.
I had succeeded in blocking their approach.
But Kusan was different.
“Ho, quite the scorching sensation.”
He navigated the molten terrain with ease.
His formidable body withstood even the searing heat that radiated from the inferno.
I am outmatched.
I swung my staff.
‘A tempest that tears all asunder.’
Whiiiing!
A blade of wind that carved through space descended upon Kusan.
Crunch!
Gashes tore across his body.
Blood sprayed.
But that was all.
“Mere wind?”
Kusan roared and swung his spear.
Crash!
The wind shattered.
‘A madman.’
He was undoubtedly different.
Qualitatively distinct from the avatars I had faced on Earth.
If they were players protected by the System, this one was raw savagery incarnate.
Overwhelming physicality.
Combat instincts honed across centuries of warfare.
A true master of strength.
Clang! Clang!
Abriel darted about in the form of a holy blade, shielding Seria.
But.
“Ugh!”
Seria’s cry erupted.
Kusan’s fist grazed her ribs.
She flew like a fallen leaf and crashed into the wall.
“Seria!”
“Now you’re distracted!”
Kusan charged straight at me.
The spearpoint drove toward my throat.
I desperately blocked with my staff.
Clang!
My wrist felt like it would shatter.
I was being pushed back.
Maintaining hellfire with my left hand while controlling the tempest with my right was already straining my limits.
‘Is there no way?’
I racked my mind.
One power remained.
The ‘Blizzard of Extremity’ I had gained from consuming Caligo.
But it’s useless.
This is the Northern Territory.
The domain of Cryos, the Frost Deity.
Using ice magic here is like spraying water on a fish.
I’d only be buffing them instead.
Should I retreat?
‘Impossible.’
Kusan is faster than me.
The moment I turn my back, his spear will pierce through.
I should have prepared better before coming.
Regret flooded in, but it was already spilled milk.
The monsters I bought from the First Floor Shop cannot be brought outside the Tower.
My current full strength is the best I can muster.
“Is this all you’ve got, charlatan!”
Kusan pressed his assault.
Spears rained down like a downpour.
All I could do was defend.
I’ve reached my limit.
I gasped for breath, staring down at my right hand.
The golden rune inscribed on my palm.
The power that devours authority.
‘Perhaps….’
I gazed at the staff.
Recognizing it, I grasped it in my right hand.
A deep hum resonated.
‘…!’
The golden rune responded.
Golden threads burst forth from my palm.
Precisely targeting the divine artifact Heimdall had given me.
‘…Could it be?’
Can I consume it?
Even the authority embedded within a divine artifact?
But even if I did, it would just be the ‘Tempest that Tears All Asunder.’
No different from using it as a staff now.
I’d only lose the amplification effect of the staff itself.
At the same time.
A thought flickered through my mind.
Using the staff is ‘item usage.’
But if I consume it, it becomes ‘my authority.’
If it becomes my authority?
‘I can combine them.’
A hidden reward lodged in my inventory.
The Authority Combiner!
There was no time to hesitate.
Kusan’s spear was flying toward me again.
I tightened my grip on the staff.
‘Consume it.’
A deep, resonant hum filled the air.
The golden runes spun in a frenzy.
The azure gem’s radiance at the staff’s tip was drawn into my palm.
A piercing whistle erupted.
The tempestuous aura enveloping the staff dissipated entirely.
The divine artifact lost its luster in an instant, becoming nothing more than an ordinary wooden rod.
Simultaneously.
A chime rang out.
[The divine artifact has consumed the power of the ‘Typhoon Staff’.]
[You have acquired the Authority: ‘Typhoon That Tears Asunder’.]
Perfect.
I immediately opened the System window.
Activating the Authority Combiner.
A list appeared.
[Confirming combinable Authorities.]
[1. Typhoon That Tears Asunder (Mythic)]
[2. Blizzard of Extremes (Legendary)]
Two Authorities resonated with each other.
Wind and frost.
The most perfect synergy.
Without hesitation, I pressed the button.
[Decomposing the Authority ‘Typhoon That Tears Asunder’.]
[Fusing the Authority ‘Blizzard of Extremes’.]
[Analyzing the synergy between the two calamities.]
[Synergy erupts!]
[Progress: 15%]
A cauldron began to boil violently.
But time was what I needed.
The gauge was filling slowly.
Kusan burst through the inferno.
Even hellfire could not completely incinerate his thick hide and magical barrier.
“Seria!”
I cried out.
“Buy me time!”
“…!”
Seria bit down on her lip.
Eyes wide with terror.
But she did not retreat.
She drew her bowstring taut.
Ping, ping, ping!
Arrows flew in rapid succession.
“Irritating little pest!”
Kusan swung his spear.
The arrows shattered in mid-air.
An overwhelming disparity in power.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
The shaft of the spear slammed into Seria’s abdomen.
She tumbled across the ground.
Even as blood spilled from her lips, she pushed herself upright again.
A will to endure, even if it meant clinging to my ankles.
[Progress: 85%]
Just a little longer.
Kusan seized Seria by the throat and lifted her.
“Pathetic creatures. I grow weary of this.”
The moment he began to tighten his grip.
Ding!
[Synthesis complete!]
[A new Authority has been born!]
[The Authority’s rank is being recalibrated.]
[It reaches the ‘Primordial’ grade.]
A tier that transcends mythology itself.
A deep resonance echoed forth.
The raging hellfire extinguished in an instant.
As the crimson veil lifted, Kusan gazed at me with a bloodstained grin.
“Have you surrendered? Is your little fire show over?”
He hurled Seria aside like discarded cargo.
Then he walked toward me slowly.
The leisure of a victor.
I reached out my hand toward him once more.
Kusan was careless.
This was the perfect moment to end him.
I spoke the completed Authority into existence.
“Annihilation’s Gale.”
Whoooooooosh!

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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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