The Mage Who Devours Disasters - Chapter 73

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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 73.
“….”
The scene unfolding through the crack in the door was dizzying beyond measure.
A display of naked flesh.
Yet it was far removed from any obscene atmosphere.
Rather.
‘How heavy.’
It was eerily solemn.
Unbearably heavy.
Their faces bore silent resolve.
Like martyrs standing before the Altar itself.
The Priestess kneeling foremost among them slowly parted her lips.
“Great Victorious One.”
She was a girl with transparent silver hair, still bearing the softness of youth.
Her eyes were hollow, yet her voice carried no tremor.
“Burn us with the flames of purification, I beseech you.”
“…?”
“We are already prepared.”
The girl clasped her hands to her chest and bowed her head deeply.
“If it is your desire, Master, I shall ignite myself. I shall become the purest and sweetest Nectar to aid your divine power.”
She was inviting her own death.
By their own words, if I burned these pure souls with purifying flames, I would obtain an unimaginable quantity of high-purity Nectar.
A supreme feast that even the Supreme Tier Deities had coveted.
If I monopolized it, my divine essence would explode in growth.
But.
‘That’s insane.’
I clicked my tongue inwardly.
I already had more than enough Nectar.
‘Shards of the broken Golden Law.’
I could exchange them at any exchange house and withdraw millions of Nectar in liquid form whenever I wished.
There was not a single reason to burn living, breathing souls and drink Nectar reeking of blood.
As I fell silent with a furrowed brow, Seria, standing behind me, sighed softly and whispered near my ear.
“Master.”
Her voice was thick with compassion.
“These children were likely offered up as collateral for the survival of their respective hometowns and tribes.”
The puzzle began to fit together with Seria’s words.
Asgard, where the whims of the Deities boiled like broth, and the countless worlds beneath it.
The only way for weak mortals to survive was to offer sacrifices that pleased the Deities.
“Just as my Frost Tribe was deceived by Cryos and climbed the Altar of our own accord.”
Seria clenched her fists tightly.
“Those children too must have believed that their deaths would save their people, raised like hothouse flowers their entire lives.”
A cruel fate.
But Seria’s next words were far more horrifying.
“And, Master.”
Seria added with a darkened expression.
“Even if you were to spare them, Master… those children would not survive long.”
“Why is that?”
“Because of the World Tree.”
Seria gazed at the assembled Priestesses with pity as she spoke.
“Those children were born and raised near the World Tree solely to become the finest offering, consuming nothing but its leaves and dew their entire lives.”
Thus their bodies and souls remained untainted by worldly corruption—impossibly transparent and pure.
“But as a consequence, the moment the World Tree’s essence is severed, their bodies cannot endure. They cannot digest ordinary food or mana.”
A death sentence with a countdown.
“Here on the 55th Floor, without the World Tree… at most half a year. Within that time, they will all languish and wither away.”
I dragged my hand across my jaw.
Half a year.
Death without the World Tree’s leaves.
Then conversely, the territories of the Supreme Tier Deities who raised these children must all possess the World Tree, or at least fragments of it.
If death was inevitable anyway.
To burn in that most noble moment, clinging to the hollow belief that their deaths could save their tribe—
They believed this was salvation.
“….”
I met the eyes gazing up at me in a daze.
Those terrible eyes begging me to burn them now.
I slowly opened my mouth.
“Your wish.”
The Priestesses’ shoulders trembled.
Regardless.
After finishing my thoughts, I spoke heavily.
“I grant it.”
That death—I would permit it.
* * *
The Priestesses had already steeled themselves.
Before Rag even opened the door, they had grasped each other’s hands and reaffirmed their final resolve.
“Let us die as cleanly and nobly as possible.”
They had known since birth that their end was death—bone-deep certainty.
So many nights spent chewing World Tree leaves in prayer.
The belief that when they ascended the Altar of the Divine Banquet, their tribe’s hunger would end and peace would come.
But.
What terrified them more than death was the ‘process’ itself.
Most Deities did not burn the Priestesses they acquired at the Divine Banquet immediately.
Playthings.
They confined them to chambers like toys, trampling and defiling their chaste bodies and souls as instruments of pleasure.
Only when they were completely ruined and corrupted, utterly worthless, did they cast them into the flames.
For the Priestesses, it was a hell worse than death itself.
That is why they knelt naked, not a single thread upon their skin.
‘Better to burn cleanly in this pristine state than to be defiled.’
It was the most glorious and merciful end permitted to them.
And yet.
Their new master, Rag, was merely a lower-tier Deity, or so they had heard.
A fledgling who had only recently gained independence from the Supreme Tier Deities—a resident of the 55th Floor.
Surely such a novice would desperately crave high-purity Nectar to elevate his divine essence.
There was hope.
If he were a Deity whose lust for power exceeded his carnal desires, he might readily place these fresh sacrifices upon the Altar without hesitation.
And then.
-I shall grant your wishes.
Rag’s resolute voice echoed through the Palace.
Ah.
Hot tears welled in the eyes of the Priestesses.
Gratitude.
They would burn majestically for their Tribe in this pure state, spared from humiliation.
Merciful Deity.
They pressed their foreheads to the ground in unison, awaiting the purifying flames to consume them.
But.
“Of course.”
Rag’s dry voice fell upon their crowns.
“That is not what I meant by granting your wishes.”
“…Pardon?”
The Elf Priestess at the front lifted her head in confusion.
Rag brushed his chin and added flatly.
“As sacrifices, you are dead as of today.”
His eyes held not even a flicker of flame.
Only weariness, as though burdened by a troublesome pile of luggage.
“Your lives as Priestesses are over. I have no need for sacrifices in my Territory.”
A thunderbolt from a clear sky.
“However.”
Rag gestured to the vast interior of the Golden Palace.
“You will establish new lives here, standing upon the earth with your own feet. As subjects of my 55th Floor Territory.”
Silence.
It was suffocating.
The Priestesses were engulfed in a shock as if the very sky were collapsing.
‘Live on?’
Not as a sacrifice, but to live on?
Their pupils trembled uncontrollably.
That declaration, which had seemed the most merciful in the world.
…was approaching them as terror and despair far worse than death.
The Elf Priestess prostrate at the front cried out with a quavering voice.
“We will die anyway!”
Despair erupted from the girl’s voice.
“Great Apostle Rag, I beseech you, please take us. To live in this place without the World Tree’s essence is nothing but excruciating torture. Rather than languish and wither away….”
She pleaded, striking her forehead against the floor.
“Burning us now, in our purest state, is the greatest mercy you could bestow upon us!”
The other Priestesses wept in agreement with the girl’s words.
But.
Apostle Rag’s expression did not waver.
There was not the slightest tremor in his gaze.
He merely looked down upon them with a cold, impassive stare as they wailed.
“I did not say I would grant your wish by taking your lives.”
Apostle Rag turned away.
As if further conversation were meaningless, he showed his cold back and departed through the palace doors.
* * *
Leaving behind the Priestesses’ deep despair and weeping.
I returned to the center of Floor 55, near the massive crystal.
Seria’s footsteps, which had followed me the entire time, were heavy.
She hesitated before carefully opening her mouth.
“Master.”
“What is it.”
“…What do you intend to do?”
Seria’s voice was tangled with countless emotions.
I tapped the crystal lightly and shrugged.
“Isn’t it a problem that can be solved if we just have the World Tree?”
“But….”
She clenched her lips tightly.
“Those children are right. Surviving without the World Tree is a living hell. Perhaps it would be kinder to let them go peacefully now.”
I understood.
Seria was also a native born and raised in Asgard.
In this mad world of the Deities, she had lived believing that a Priestess dying on the Altar was as natural as breathing.
She could only think that forcing them to live was the crueler torture.
But.
“I don’t feel like it.”
I drew the line firmly.
“That’s not my way.”
And I turned my head toward Seria.
“Don’t you remember? The promise I made when I saved your Frost Tribe.”
Seria’s eyes wavered.
“I swore that I would never commit such a vile act—burning mortals with purifying flames to extract Nectar—not within my territory.”
I glanced toward the Palace.
Those children.
Barely adults, or not even that—mere infants.
Lives that had spent their entire existence chewing on World Tree leaves alone, bred solely to burn to death.
Their blind resignation, viewing their own death as so natural and glorious, ignited my fury.
‘What in damnation do these Deities think life is?’
Rage surged within me.
Not from mere morality or a sense of justice.
It touched upon the very reason I sought to devour and dominate this Tower.
If I repeated their actions, I would become nothing more than a predator indistinguishable from the refuse of this Tower.
“I’ll save them.”
I opened the shop tab on my Crystal as I spoke.
But.
‘…It’s not there.’
I furrowed my brow.
The shop inventory, elevated beyond Grade A to Grade S.
Countless rare resources and magical beasts were listed, yet no matter how hard I searched, there was no sign of a ‘World Tree Seed.’
No matter how much Nectar overflowed, I couldn’t buy what wasn’t in the shop.
‘How do I obtain the World Tree?’
I looked at Seria, but she shook her head as well.
It wasn’t information that lower-tier Deities or mortals below them could know.
No one knew the way.
But there was one.
I knew of a Deity who did.
‘Heimdall.’
A Supreme Tier Deity and the apex of the Natural Faction.
He surely possessed the World Tree, or something equivalent to it.
I didn’t hesitate.
“I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going, sir?”
I pointed upward with my finger.
For the first time, I myself.
I had resolved to visit his Layer, where the sovereign of all things dwells.
* * *
Layer 387.
Heimdall’s Territory.
It was a realm incomparable to the 55th Floor Golden Temple—a dimension unto itself.
Colossal mountain ranges pierced through the clouds, and between their peaks, endless tempests raged—a fortress of primordial nature.
Heimdall reclined upon a jade throne perched atop the mountain’s summit.
Whoooosh!
A dimensional rift tore open, and Rag stepped through.
Heimdall paused mid-sip from his goblet of Nectar, tilting his head in curiosity.
“…?”
This was the first time Rag had sought him out directly.
Always, he descended to the 55th Floor himself or dispatched messengers—never had that creature ascended through the storms of Layer 387 of his own accord.
And without warning, no less.
An intriguing smile played across Heimdall’s lips.
‘What scheme brings him crawling up here?’
This was the one who had slaughtered countless Apostle Deities at the Divine Banquet and trampled Skadi’s pride beneath his heel.
He was not one to seek aid for trivial matters.
Which made this all the more fascinating.
Did he require my omnipotent power?
For anything less than extraordinary, I would be willing to assist.
Apostle Rag.
He had become my most precious treasure—one I would not part with even if it meant gouging out my own eyes.
“What brings you here, Rag?”
Heimdall asked, his voice deliberately solemn.
Rag approached the jade throne and bowed his head.
His demeanor was quite serious.
“I have come to humbly request something of you.”
A request.
At that word, a smile curved Heimdall’s lips.
“Speak.”
“Please tell me how to obtain the World Tree.”
“….”
He set down the goblet he held.
“The World Tree, you say?”
“Yes.”
“It is not permitted to lesser deities.”
Heimdall shook his head.
“It is the very foundation of Asgard—something even superior deities dare not covet lightly.”
But.
The one before him was Rag.
A creature who could not be confined within the mere category of ‘lesser deity.’
If there is a valid reason, I cannot refuse to listen.
“What exactly do you intend to do with the World Tree?”
Heimdall asked.
Rag lifted his head.
“The Priestesses….”
He continued his answer calmly.
“To save those children we obtained from the Divine Banquet.”
“…What?”
The smile vanished from Heimdall’s face.
He thought he had misheard.
“You came all this way to obtain the World Tree for those mere sacrifices? For nothing but kindling?”
Rag nodded.
“Yes.”
“….”
Heimdall’s face twisted in anguish.
The eyes that had gleamed with anticipation now filled with profound disappointment.
It was absurd.
The Apostle Deity he had chosen.
A monster possessed of overwhelming power and arrogance, one he had believed without doubt would become the eye of the storm to shake this Tower.
Yet here it was, attempting to defy the will of the Deities, swayed by such trivial compassion, all to save the lives of mere Priestesses.
And the first request it came to make was….
What? The World Tree is needed to save the Priestesses?
When it would be insufficient even to burn them all with purifying flames?
Has it become a satisfied pig after winning only a few times?
‘Sigh.’
Heimdall’s expression hardened.
As if drained of strength, he sank deep into his throne.
Then, with an air of irritation, he waved his hand dismissively.
“…Get out.”

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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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