The Mage Who Devours Disasters - Chapter 41

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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 41.
‘Impossible.’
I shook my head immediately.
The crystal orb in the Selection Chamber was absolute.
It was an instrument governed by the System.
If that were true, there could be only one answer.
He truly had not displayed any ‘aptitude.’
Or rather, he could not have displayed it.
‘Black.’
Cryos had completed his investigation of Rag.
When Rag raised his hand in the Selection Chamber, the orb had turned black, he said.
The Administrators had judged it as ‘void.’
Emptiness.
Bearing no color whatsoever.
But they were wrong.
It was not empty.
‘When you mix all colors together, you get black.’
The color of every calamity that existed in this world.
Chaos—all of it blended into one.
That was the true nature of that black.
‘Yet this too makes no sense.’
I wanted to deny it.
In the world of the Deities, a mixture was proof of weakness.
The more powerful a Deity, the more obsessed they became with a single domain.
The Fire Deity pursued ever-hotter flames; the Water Deity sought ever-deeper waters.
This was ‘purity’ and ‘rank.’
Even the Twelve Chief Deities were no exception.
They had ascended to their positions precisely because they stood at the pinnacle of a single lineage.
But him?
Cryos gazed upon the Battlefield before his eyes.
Roooaaarrr!
Hellfire melted ice.
Melted water drenched the Ground.
The sodden earth crumbled and collapsed.
Above it, a tempest raged, scattering debris in all directions.
There was no collision.
Despite the mana of different attributes tangling together, no repulsive force arose.
They meshed like gears, turning in perfect synchronization.
Control refined to an extreme degree.
The technique of wielding multiple calamities with a single hand bordered on artistry.
Can that truly be called a calamity?
A single disaster cannot explain it.
All attributes converge to form one colossal current.
A symphony of destruction.
An overture to the end of all things.
Cryos had to acknowledge it.
‘Yes, if I must be precise….’
My mouth had gone completely dry.
‘A great calamity.’
A convergence of disasters.
Catastrophe itself.
That creature was a vessel capable of wielding a great calamity.
“Heh.”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
I had mocked him for lacking talent.
I had scorned him as a fortunate nobody who had climbed through sheer luck.
Yet the truth was far more monstrous.
An existence beyond measure, defying all standards of evaluation.
But Cryos shook his head.
‘I must crush this bud now.’
My eyes widened.
Impressive, certainly.
Worthy of acknowledgment.
And yet.
‘He is but a fledgling.’
A novice who has only just begun ascending the Tower.
No matter how exceptional one’s talent, ‘time’ cannot be deceived.
The depth of accumulated divinity differs.
The total reserve of divine power differs.
How much divine power would it require to sustain such a grandiose calamity?
It cannot last.
He will surely reveal his limits.
‘I shall show him what a true war of gods truly is.’
Cryos raised his hand.
His shadow stretched long and deep.
From the darkness deeper than the abyss, four figures rose.
Kuguguguuu!
A torrent of frigid air swept forth.
A ferocity so savage that even Rag’s tempest faltered momentarily.
They were knights clad in black armor.
Mounted upon skeletal steeds—the Messengers of Death.
The Four Knights of Death.
Cryos’s personal guard and the chief architects who had transformed his Layer into an impregnable fortress.
They were not living beings.
They were instruments of slaughter, forged from the resentful spirits and frigid essence that Cryos had accumulated over millennia.
They never tire.
They know no pain.
Above all, their bodies were composed of the cold of ‘absolute zero’.
Any pathetic flame would freeze solid before it could even touch them.
“Go.”
Cryos commanded.
“Bring me the head of that arrogant upstart.”
Neigh! Neigh! Neigh!
The skeletal steed shrieked.
Four knights stamped the ground in unison.
Crash!
The earth froze solid.
Neither the Poison Mist nor the flames could impede their charge.
In the wake of the knights’ passage, only white frost remained.
They surged toward Rag in a straight line.
‘You’ll regret meeting me now.’
Cryos was certain of it.
Talent?
Such things were meaningless before overwhelming power.
* * *
Heavy.
Wielding two authorities simultaneously was like threading a needle while holding iron spheres in both hands.
The weight of authority transcended magic entirely.
If magic was the art of deceiving the world through calculation, authority was the violence of crushing it beneath one’s will.
The texture was different.
The scale was different.
An ordinary being would have shattered mentally and perished.
But.
‘I am a mage.’
A mad one, at that.
I had spent my entire life immersed in the currents of mana.
There may have been those who wielded more destructive magic, but none had ever manipulated mana with such precision as I.
‘Micro control.’
My specialty.
The Philosopher’s Stone.
How else could I have crafted that impossible object?
How else could I have inscribed a magical circle spanning the entire globe?
I connected individual points into lines, overlapped those lines into planes.
Hundreds of billions, trillions of mana circuits linked without a single error.
The process of fragmenting vast mana into dust-sized particles and reassembling them.
That hellish repetition and mastery—it perfected me.
And so it became possible.
Two entirely different authorities danced in my grasp.
No collision.
No friction.
The calamity flowed, mingled, and detonated wherever my will directed.
Roooaaaar!
Cryos’s legion was isolated.
Trapped within the Poison Mist, consumed by infernal flames, shredded by the tempest.
Perfect control.
Yet he refused to yield.
“Kill him!”
Darkness surged forward with Cryos’s roar.
The Four Knights of Death.
They pierced through the calamitous storm.
Hellfire licked at their armor, but the absolute-zero chill would not melt.
Formidable.
Raw firepower alone could not halt their charge.
Murderous intent closing in.
A spear tip aimed at my throat.
I had to choose.
Continue maintaining my authority and fight, or defend?
I did not hesitate.
‘Stop.’
I withdrew my left hand.
I lowered my staff.
The raging typhoon ceased, the surging pillar of flame collapsed.
Defenseless.
A glimmer crossed the knights’ eyes.
They must have thought I had surrendered.
They must have judged that my mana had exhausted itself, that I was self-destructing.
Their spears accelerated.
But I laughed.
‘Foolish bastards.’
I grasped the amulet at my neck.
I infused my magical power.
A deep hum resonated.
Transparent light burst forth.
An Ancient-grade item.
‘The Protective Barrier of the Primordial Deity.’
The domain unfolded.
It was not spacious.
Merely a narrow space wide enough for me to lie down in.
An absolute Sacred Realm that enveloped me like a coffin.
Yet its effect was undeniable.
Clang! Clang!
Dull, explosive sounds.
The Knights’ spears froze in mid-air.
They did not touch.
Merely one centimeter away.
Unable to pierce that gossamer barrier, they bounced back.
“…?!”
The Knights faltered.
They swung their spears again.
They channeled black magical power, striking downward, thrusting, slashing.
A defensive power that could withstand even the blows of a Superior Deity.
This was no wall that mere puppets of an Inferior Deity could breach.
I watched them with my arms crossed.
I could not move.
I could not attack.
Within this Protective Barrier, I was utterly isolated—a mere observer.
But that was enough.
My role ended here.
‘I had drawn his attention.’
Cryos.
His gaze was entirely fixed upon me.
He trembled with excitement, waiting for the moment his elite guard would strike me down.
That carelessness would be the noose around his neck.
I turned my gaze.
Behind the Knights.
Toward the distant place where Cryos stood.
A shadow flickered there.
A subtle, lethal intent that escaped all notice.
One who had inherited the power of the Bow Ghost—a force that even divine eyes could not perceive.
It was Seria.
She had drawn her bowstring taut.
Holding her breath, erasing her presence entirely.
For the sake of a single, fatal shot.
‘Shoot.’
Had she read my lips?
Whiiiing!
The air tore asunder.
The arrow flew.
A transparent death without sound or form hurtled toward Cryos’s heart.
Thud!
“Krraaaagh!”
A scream erupted.
The Frost Deity, Cryos, clutched his chest and staggered.
He couldn’t believe it.
He had summoned his own elite guard, the Four Knights of Death.
He had set them upon Rag and positioned himself safely in the rear to command the battle.
He had deemed it a flawless strategy.
Yet it had been a trap all along.
‘A decoy.’
Rag had made himself the bait.
He had confined himself within the Protective Barrier, that realm of absolute defense, binding the knights’ attention to him.
Seizing that opening, the hidden sniper—Seria—had drawn her bowstring.
“You wretched woman…!”
Cryos gnashed his teeth.
His heart had been pierced.
A mortal wound.
Any ordinary being would have perished instantly.
But he was a Deity.
It was not yet over.
Whooooom!
A torrent of blue frost exploded from Cryos’s body.
“…Impressive. You managed to strike my heart.”
He laughed bitterly, suppressing the pain.
“Fortune favors you. To pierce my sole weakness by chance.”
Cryos was a Deity born with the nature of ‘immunity.’
Physical attacks rendered null.
Magical resistance maximized.
Ordinary assaults could not even leave a scratch.
Save for one place—his heart.
But that was only the matter of ‘Phase One.’
“However, there will be no second chance.”
Roooaaaargh!
Cryos’s body began to transform.
His skin turned transparent, and his blood vessels froze solid.
Shedding his human form, he was reborn as a colossal mass of ice.
Phase Two.
The Frozen Colossus.
In this state, Cryos’s entire body was composed of sacred ice.
His heart was no longer a weakness.
The ‘core’ had retreated somewhere within his body, constantly shifting position.
It could not be found.
It could not be destroyed.
The weakness existed only in that singular moment when the core surfaced to release its mana.
Catching that timing was nearly impossible, even for a god’s eyes.
“Despair. This is the true power of a god——”
Screeeech!
The words never finished.
The air tore open once more.
A single arrow, arriving from nowhere.
It pierced directly through Cryos’s right shoulder, striking with perfect precision at the ice’s grain, which trembled ever so subtly.
Crack!
“——?!”
Cryos’s eyes bulged wide.
The pain arrived a moment too late.
“Gaaaaaahhhhh!”
The scream shook the Snowy Wilderness.
His frozen shoulder shattered.
The core hidden within took a direct hit.
‘This… this is impossible!’
I was stunned.
It could not be coincidence.
The core moves.
Its position changes by the second.
Yet that arrow flew without hesitation, as if it knew exactly where the core would be.
‘She knows?’
Chills ran down my spine.
The sharpshooter Seria.
Can she see it with her eyes?
Or did Rag tell her?
She was striking with perfect accuracy, targeting only the most lethal weak points.
Crunch!
The colossal body crumbled and collapsed.
Phase 2 had been forcibly terminated.
Cryos tumbled across the ground.
Fear.
An emotion he’d forgotten over millennia crawled up his spine like ice water.
‘I’m going to die.’
At this rate, I really will die.
Of course, Phase 3 still remained.
The final form.
The most powerful, the most devastating incarnation.
But what if even that last weakness had been exposed?
‘No, this won’t do.’
Cryos stumbled backward.
I couldn’t do this alone.
I needed a shield.
A meat shield to protect me.
“Four Knights of Death! Come to me at once!”
He shrieked the command, his voice tearing.
“Protect me!”
The order had been given.
The Four Knights of Death, who had been battering Rag’s Protective Barrier, froze.
Neigh!
The skeletal steeds turned their heads.
Their master was in danger.
A forced summons command.
They abandoned Rag and began charging toward Cryos like madness incarnate.
“Stop them! Kill the sniper!”
Cryos shrieked and curled into himself.
He drew the surrounding cold toward himself desperately.
Because he was transforming into Phase 3.
* * *
I smiled.
‘I’ve already cleared this once before.’
Before my regression, I’d ascended the Tower with the Fellowship and learned his weaknesses.
In other words, I knew exactly what Cryos’s weakness was.
No matter how hard he tried to hide it.
No matter how hard he tried to flee, once he entered my range.
“Welcome to a mage’s battlefield, Cryos.”
Cryos would die here today.

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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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