The Mage Who Devours Disasters - Chapter 63

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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 63.
The void sealed shut.
Adun’s phantom manifestation vanished from sight.
The colossal aura that had pressed down upon the Demon Realm, the crimson sandstorm—all of it dissipated completely.
Yet Park Ha-yan and Park Ji-hoon could not move.
They could not even draw breath.
Their gaze was fixed upon a single point.
Kim Jung-seok.
The resplendent golden armor that had adorned him moments before, the divine majesty with which he had torn through the Demon Realm—all of it had long since faded.
Yet in the eyes of both, that radiant and ferocious divine presence still shimmered like an afterimage.
‘…Who exactly is this person?’
Park Ha-yan swallowed hard.
She had known he was a great benefactor.
A savior who had mended her legs, opened the path of the Spirit Lord, and revealed the true name of her nightmare.
But she had never imagined it would be to this extent.
It transcended imagination by an immeasurable distance.
He had transformed into a Deity and unleashed catastrophic devastation.
He had obliterated the Abyss monster, the Incomprehensible, in a single strike.
He had even subdued the Void Watcher, which governed the very laws of the universe.
Against that absolute existence, he had wagered, found a name tag in the Treasure Vault, and ultimately broke its will.
She had witnessed every moment of it with her own eyes.
It felt unreal.
As though she had been cast into the heart of mythology itself.
Park Ji-hoon felt the same.
He nearly dropped the longsword he was gripping to the ground.
His grip had lost all strength.
He had prided himself on becoming stronger than anyone, having embraced the soul of the Sword Saint, yet in this moment he felt infinitely small.
‘He’s insane.’
Truly insane.
His father, Chairman Park, had said it. That older brother would become a dragon.
He was wrong.
Father had been deeply mistaken.
Not a dragon.
This man was a predator that devoured dragons.
A Deity.
Perhaps something even beyond that.
Park Ji-hoon stared blankly, recalling his status window.
Episode 4, Hall of Fame.
His name was firmly planted in fourth place.
Third place belonged to Park Ha-yan.
My score had climbed to nearly 900 points.
To be honest, I hadn’t done much.
All I’d done was cut down a handful of Incomprehensible-tier trash mobs.
Yet I’d still ranked among the very elite.
I’d crushed every awakened being from across the globe beneath my feet.
The rewards I’d obtained defied imagination.
Ancient-grade equipment.
With just this, unifying the Underworld was merely a matter of time.
It was as though I’d been given wings.
Yet I couldn’t simply rejoice.
Because all of this was entirely thanks to Kim Jung-seok.
I had merely picked up the scraps—no, the ruins of Hell that he alone had shattered—from the path he’d carved.
‘I should express my gratitude.’
Yet even words of thanks wouldn’t leave my lips.
Opening my mouth felt almost sacrilegious.
His overwhelming presence had completely silenced both our voices.
The silence stretched on.
Kim Jung-seok slowly turned his body.
His expression was indifferent.
Tap. Tap.
Kim Jung-seok approached us.
He lightly tapped the frozen shoulders of Park Ji-hoon and Park Ha-yan.
“Why are you two standing there like statues?”
His voice was dry.
“…Ah.”
“Y-yes, hyung….”
Only then did oxygen rush back into both their lungs.
Park Ha-yan flinched and quickly bowed her head.
Park Ji-hoon straightened his spine like a fresh recruit snapping to attention.
Kim Jung-seok clicked his tongue briefly at their rigid expressions.
Then he lowered his gaze.
To Park Ha-yan’s feet.
There, pressed flat against the ground, was a shadow no larger than a palm.
It was Mayon, the ancient demon and strange entity.
The moment Kim Jung-seok’s gaze fell upon him, Mayon’s body trembled violently like an aspen leaf.
“Mayon.”
-Eek! Y-yes! Just give your command!
Mayon answered with a sound like tearing metal.
He was the one who had been scorched by Archangel Abriel’s holy power and witnessed with his own eyes Kim Jung-seok’s true form erasing the Incomprehensible.
Not even a speck of defiance remained in him.
“Treat her with proper respect.”
Kim Jung-seok gestured toward Park Ha-yan with a subtle tilt of his chin.
“Should you harbor any treacherous thoughts or attempt to betray me,”
his eyes grew cold and piercing.
“I will annihilate your soul without leaving a single trace behind.”
-I will remember! I swear I will never, ever betray you! Great one! I will dedicate my very life to serving this girl—no, my master!
Mayon convulsed violently, nodding his head like a madman.
He even made a gesture of striking his shadowy head against the ground, desperately swearing his oath.
Park Ha-yan felt a complex tangle of emotions watching this scene unfold.
The terrifying entity that had sought to trap her in eternal nightmares.
That dreadful demon was now trembling like a pitiful beast.
All of this was thanks to the man before her eyes.
“It’s finished.”
Kim Jung-seok manipulated the System window floating in the air.
The Incomprehensible difficulty cleared.
As his hand moved, the Abyss of the Demon Realm crumbled and the Dimensional Gate sealed shut.
The mission was complete.
“Let’s return.”
Park Ha-yan and Park Ji-hoon nodded simultaneously.
There was no room for objection.
Even if he commanded them to walk into the depths of Hell itself, they would follow without hesitation.
Whoooosh!
A distortion rippled through the void.
The light of return to Earth began to envelop them.
Kim Jung-seok stepped into the luminescence without so much as a backward glance.
And then.
Chasing after the towering silhouette of the man who had utterly transformed their lives, Park Ha-yan and Park Ji-hoon quietly surrendered themselves to the swirling vortex of light.
* * *
Episode 4 had come to a complete end.
The System Message vanished, and several days passed.
Fortunately, the worst had been averted.
The horrifying scenario of Demon Creatures appearing in the real world and turning cities into seas of fire never came to pass.
It was thanks to the world’s elite Awakeners who had entered the Hell difficulty managing to clear the Demon Realm and fulfill their roles.
The Hall of Fame rankings remained largely unchanged.
I maintained my overwhelming first-place position, with Yamamoto holding steady at second.
But.
Earth was thrown into chaos.
It was absolute pandemonium.
News broadcasts aired emergency bulletins day after day.
-An anomalous dimension called the Demon Realm has been confirmed to exist!
-We have no way of knowing when they will invade again. The Government must immediately adopt a defensive posture!
The people, gripped by terror, heightened their vigilance.
The earthquakes, tsunamis, and monster appearances that had occurred thus far.
They firmly believed that all these calamities stemmed from the Demon Realm and its creatures.
“Tsk.”
I turned off the news and clicked my tongue softly.
A distorted truth.
The Demon Creatures were merely pitiful pawns placed upon the Deities’ chessboard.
The true puppet master orchestrating and savoring this hellscape was none other than the Deities themselves, seated upon invisible thrones beyond the sky.
Yet I could not step forward to set things right.
No one would believe me if I proclaimed that all of this was the Deities’ machination.
Instead, I would be cast out as a madman stoking fear, branded a heretic.
‘Time will reveal the truth.’
There would inevitably come a moment when people’s understanding would shift.
The day when the Tower of Gods fully revealed its colossal form to the material world.
Ten months from now.
That is when the true upheaval begins.
As if to prove that all the calamities thus far were merely a prelude, unstoppable and ferocious disasters would pour forth.
I clenched my fists tightly.
The plan was already in place.
The moment the Tower’s gates open, I will launch an unstoppable conquest.
From within the Tower, I will thoroughly deceive the Deities using Rag’s body in Asgard.
From without the Tower, I will sever the Deities’ necks and exact punishment as Kim Jung-seok.
To accomplish this, I needed to grow stronger at an accelerated pace.
Three days passed.
Knock, knock.
Someone had come to my residence.
“It’s me, hyung.”
It was Park Ji-hoon.
As I opened the door, he entered the room with a rigid expression.
In his hand was a small, bead-shaped artifact.
“Satoshi sent this.”
Satoshi.
A spy the Black Tiger Guild had planted within Japan’s Warrior Guild.
The one I had instructed to monitor Yamamoto’s every move, having paid him handsomely for the task.
“Well done.”
I received the storage artifact from Park Ji-hoon.
I infused a minute amount of mana through my fingertips.
A low hum resonated.
The bead vibrated, and a semi-transparent holographic image materialized in the air.
It was a first-person video recorded from Satoshi’s perspective.
The background on the screen was a horrifying battlefield drenched in blood.
Episode 4, the Demon Realm at Perfect Hell difficulty.
-Krraaaaaaagh!
A harrowing scream echoed through the footage.
Elite members of the Warrior Guild were being torn apart helplessly by high-ranking Demon Creatures.
It was hell incarnate.
But my gaze remained fixed on a single point.
A lone man cutting through the chaos of that pandemonium.
Toje Yamamoto.
Whoosh! Clang!
Each time his katana flashed, the heads of Demon Creatures tumbled away.
His swordsmanship was truly worthy of a comrade from my past life.
Clean and devastating trajectories without a hint of waste.
But what astonished me was not his swordsmanship.
“…Brother, do you see that?”
Park Ji-hoon swallowed hard and pointed at the screen.
The aura enveloping Yamamoto’s body.
It was not mana.
A dense fighting spirit burning as crimson as blood.
‘Divine blessing.’
There was no doubt.
It was evidence of drawing upon the original body’s divinity.
A fragment of transcendent power that a human body could never emit.
The footage that followed drove the final nail into my certainty.
As the battle intensified and Yamamoto breathed heavily, he withdrew a small glass vial from his bosom.
A golden liquid shimmering within.
He drank it without hesitation.
‘Nectar.’
The drink of the Deities.
A miraculous elixir that forcibly breaks through the limitations of an avatar.
And he was consuming it like water.
Crackle.
The holographic footage ended with a burst of static.
“Brother, this bastard… is truly a monster. Not human.”
Park Ji-hoon clicked his tongue in disbelief.
I did not respond.
I tossed the storage device onto the table.
There was no denying it any longer.
Even the faintest glimmer of hope had shattered into pieces.
Toje Yamamoto.
That bastard.
‘An avatar of The Deity.’
…Damn it.
Judging by that crimson blessing and the purity of the Nectar, he was on an entirely different level from some mediocre lower-tier deity.
At minimum, he was a supreme-tier deity like Heimdall.
“….”
My mouth tasted bitter.
Even swallowing couldn’t wash away the acrid flavor.
A comrade whose back I had trusted in my past life.
A brother-in-arms who had shed blood alongside me until the very end, speaking of saving humanity.
And he had been nothing but a shell—a deity who mocked us like insects and reveled in amusement.
It felt like I’d been struck hard from behind.
Kim In-soo, Choi Tae-min, and now Yamamoto.
Where did the deception begin and end? Who was ever real?
“Hyung-nim? Are you alright? Your complexion….”
When Park Ji-hoon asked carefully, I closed my eyes.
I cooled the seething betrayal and murderous intent that threatened to consume me.
“I’m fine.”
In fact, this was good.
Now I could sift out the fakes.
The Final Five from the past.
I had confirmed that Spirit Lord Park Ha-yan and Grand Sage Plutonium were not deities themselves.
Yamamoto’s status as an avatar was now certain.
Only one remained.
‘Sword Emperor Aritolte.’
Please, let it not be you.
I pray and pray.
My only….
-I trust you, Kim Jung-seok.
…friend.

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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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