The Mage Who Devours Disasters - Chapter 8

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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 8.
“The final trial will take place in the Sacred Realm.”
GuGu’s voice grew heavy and grave.
All playfulness had vanished.
“The Sacred Realm was once a place of sanctity, but it is now severely corrupted by fallen spirits.”
Fallen spirits.
A corrupted Sacred Realm.
Words that reeked of decay merely hearing them.
“Your task is simple: purify the Sacred Realm. Whoever achieves the highest contribution will receive the highest score.”
GuGu added a warning.
“However, be cautious. That place is extremely dangerous. The fallen spirits are ferocious, and the Sacred Realm’s very air will corrode your mind and rot your flesh.”
There was no time limit.
But the longer one lingered, the closer one drew to death.
Most importantly.
“Until the Sacred Realm is completely purified, you cannot stop midway. There is no escape. If you wish to surrender, now is your only chance.”
A desperate gambit.
Succeed or perish.
The conditions were brutal, yet no Seeds withdrew.
Those who would retreat at this point would never have entered the Tower in the first place.
“Very well then. I wish you fortune.”
Clap!
With GuGu’s applause, the world inverted.
Whoooosh!
Before the vertigo of spatial transfer could fade.
A stench pierced my nostrils.
The reek of rotten eggs.
No—the stench of decomposing corpses.
“…Hmm.”
I furrowed my brow and surveyed my surroundings.
The sky hung sickly purple like a bruise, and the earth lay dead and black.
A forest where withered trees stood like phantoms.
An endless labyrinthine terrain.
And between the twisted paths.
Shrieeeek!
Grrrrr….
Monsters wreathed in crimson-dark mist writhed and undulated.
Fallen spirits.
Their numbers were staggering at a glance.
Thousands? No, easily tens of thousands.
‘I’m supposed to purify all of this?’
This is madness.
By conventional means, it would be impossible even if it took years.
That was when it happened.
“…Of all the timing.”
A sigh escaped from beside me.
I turned my head.
There was a person.
Just one.
‘Random teleportation, then.’
Over five thousand Seeds had scattered in all directions.
The one who landed beside me was an Elf Woman.
She looked at me and openly wrinkled her nose in disdain.
A gaze dripping with contempt.
Likely because I had scored zero on the disaster aptitude evaluation.
She probably thought she had been saddled with dead weight.
Rather than respond, I studied the woman’s face intently.
A cold impression.
Skin pale as porcelain.
Her eyes were an icy, crystalline blue, and her eyebrows were as white as snow.
Across her back was slung an enormous bow as tall as she was.
Strange markings carved into the bow’s limbs.
‘This face is familiar.’
I had seen her somewhere before.
Not simply because she was an elf.
That distinctive aura.
Cold yet razor-sharp killing intent.
I searched my memories.
Humanity’s Last Coalition.
When I had climbed the Tower with everything on the line.
In that hellscape where I had cut down, pierced, and burned countless enemies to death.
‘Ah.’
It came to me.
If that face had just a few more scars.
If her eyes held a bit more venom.
It was her.
“Frost Tribe?”
The Elf Woman flinched and glared at me.
“…How do you know of our tribe?”
A sharp reaction.
As expected.
Most elves cherish forests and prefer warm places.
But the Frost Tribe is different.
They are born and raised in the harsh, frozen lands where eternal snow rages relentlessly.
Because of this, they are far more resilient, brutal, and exclusionary than other elves.
Above all else.
‘She was a mid-boss on Tower Floor 50.’
I’m certain of it.
In the past, on Tower Floor 50.
A sniper who drove us to the brink of annihilation across a snow-covered wasteland swept by blizzards.
An elusive concealment ability that appeared and vanished without warning.
A nightmare—arrows that never missed, bursting our comrades’ heads like watermelons.
This woman had been far more troublesome and vicious than the Floor Master of Tower Floor 50 itself.
‘Seria.’
I remembered her name too.
The memory had been that horrifying.
“Whoa, whoa. Don’t be on guard. I’ve only heard about it because it’s such a rare race.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
The elf didn’t lower her suspicious gaze, but soon seemed to lose interest and turned her head away.
“…Just don’t get in my way.”
She drew her bow.
Without even drawing the bowstring, the air around her froze with a chill.
She had apparently decided to ignore me completely, walking forward ahead of me.
The fallen spirits sensed her presence and began to swarm toward her.
Kieeeek!
Masses of black mist bared their fangs and charged.
Seria’s eyes gleamed with cold intensity.
Pying! Piping!
Her hands were invisible.
It seemed as though even the motion of drawing the bowstring had been omitted.
Three arrows flew simultaneously, embedding themselves between the spirits’ brows.
Boom!
The frigid energy imbued in the arrows detonated.
The fallen spirits froze solid and shattered without even a scream.
Impeccable technique.
She certainly showed the makings of becoming Tower Floor 50’s nightmare.
But I couldn’t simply idle away either.
My promise with Heimdall.
Overwhelming first place.
Merely passing through wouldn’t suffice.
I couldn’t satisfy him by trailing behind that elf and scrounging for scraps.
I stopped in my tracks and surveyed my surroundings.
‘Purify the Sacred Realm.’
The instruction sounded reasonable enough.
But was I really supposed to hunt down tens of thousands of spirits one by one?
That would be a foolish approach.
A waste of time and stamina.
I needed to discern the true intent of the test’s designer.
The real purpose of this trial wasn’t ‘hunting’—it was ‘resolution.’
In other words, I was meant to head toward the heart of the Sacred Realm and eliminate the source.
Moreover.
‘Are those spirits truly corrupted?’
I narrowed my eyes.
My knowledge as a mage detected something amiss.
Spirits are pure manifestations of nature.
Unlike humans, their sense of self is faint.
It is exceedingly rare for them to fall into corruption or harbor malice of their own accord.
In most cases, a spirit’s state follows the ‘condition’ or ‘intention’ of its contractor.
‘Then the answer is obvious.’
These tens of thousands of spirits.
Their magical auras were connected as a single gossamer thread.
There was only one contractor.
A massive entity dwelling deep within the Sacred Realm.
Either its mind had fractured, or it had deliberately willed this state.
That was why its subordinate spirits appeared to have lost their senses.
‘Furthermore.’
I observed their movements with careful attention.
Until Seria fired her arrows, they merely circled about.
They were not aggressive.
Rather, they were defensive.
As if attempting to frighten us away.
-Do not come closer.
-This place is dangerous.
That was what they seemed to be saying.
Only when Seria launched her preemptive strike did they bare their fangs and counterattack.
‘What if I refrained from attacking?’
Once a hypothesis was formed, it demanded verification.
I acted immediately.
Whoosh.
I withdrew the magical power I had been channeling through my body.
I suppressed my killing intent.
I stripped away all hostility, emptied myself of any will to fight.
A perfect disarmament.
In that state, I stepped forward toward the mass of spirits.
“Are you insane?!”
Seria cried out in shock.
To her eyes, I must have appeared utterly mad.
Walking willingly into that savage crimson mist.
But then.
Shhhhh.
The moment my body touched the blood-red haze.
The spirits parted before me.
They did not attack.
They did not bite, did not curse.
They simply drifted past my sides.
As if I were invisible to them.
The reason was simple.
‘I posed no threat.’
They were guardians of the Sacred Realm.
If an intruder showed no intent to attack, there was no reason to expend energy driving them away.
I glanced back and waved my hand.
“Good luck.”
“…!!”
She could not follow me.
She had already fired her arrows.
She had drawn blood.
To the spirits, she was unmistakably marked as an ‘enemy’.
Kieeeek!
“Damn it!”
The spirits surged toward Seria once more.
She cursed and was forced to loose her arrows again.
I left that chaos behind and walked forward at a leisurely pace.
The mist was clearing.
* * *
I walked for a long time.
The Sacred Realm appeared to be an endless labyrinth.
Yet the method to find the way was surprisingly simple.
‘Their gaze.’
If the spirits were bound to a single master.
They could not help but turn their consciousness instinctively toward where their master dwelled.
Like sunflowers following the sun, their awareness was eternally fixed in that direction.
Had I been hostile from the start, I would never have seen it.
Blinded by killing intent, I would have missed their subtle movements.
But I treated them like air.
Because of that, I could perceive it.
The direction those spirits in the mist were furtively gazing toward.
‘This way, then.’
I advanced without hesitation.
The mist dissipated, and the rotting trees vanished.
And finally.
Thud.
The sensation beneath my feet changed.
No longer the squelching Swampland.
Pristine marble flooring.
I had arrived.
As expected—I’m in first place.
I lifted my head and surveyed my surroundings.
My brow furrowed.
‘It’s immaculate?’
GuGu had certainly said the Sacred Realm was corrupted.
But the landscape before me told the opposite story.
A white Divine Temple without a speck of dust.
Brimming with sacred energy.
Corruption? Defilement?
Not a single ant was visible in this pristine zone.
I ventured deeper into the Divine Temple.
Before long, I encountered a presence.
“….”
Massive wings.
Feathers so brilliantly white they stung the eyes.
Suspended in the air—an Angel straight from mythology.
She floated with her eyes closed.
As I approached, she slowly opened them.
Golden irises pierced through me.
[What an unusual visitor.]
The Angel’s voice resonated within my mind.
[You have not harmed a single one of my children.]
Children.
She must be referring to those spirits in the mist outside.
I felt relief wash over me internally.
What if I had killed even one spirit on my way here?
Combat would have erupted the moment I set foot in this place.
The problem was.
‘It’s strong.’
Even at a glance, it appeared monstrously powerful.
Angargon on my shoulder had his fur standing on end.
Fighting this creature alone would be certain defeat.
I asked without relaxing my guard.
“Why were you blocking the path?”
The reason she’d commanded the spirits to seal off access.
The Angel’s expression darkened.
She turned to look behind her.
[This is a place you should not have come to.]
Behind her.
In the Temple’s Deepest Chamber, a jet-black sphere roughly three meters in diameter hung suspended.
A mass that radiated a horrific aura, the complete antithesis of the sacred energy surrounding it.
[This is a prison.]
The Angel gazed upon the sphere with sorrowful eyes.
[Long ago, we sealed away a Deity who lost reason and descended into madness.]
The Mad Deity.
Then the puzzle fell into place.
The Seeds push through the spirits.
Having slain the spirits, the Angel grows enraged and attacks the Seeds.
After a fierce battle, if the Angel falls?
The guardian protecting the seal vanishes.
‘The examiner’s intention was to eliminate the Angel.’
Otherwise, they would have instructed me from the start to aid the Angel and slay the Mad Deity.
But instead, they frightened her into attacking the spirits.
Making the Angel hostile to the Seeds.
But why?
‘Because I can only consume that sealed Mad Deity if the Angel is dead.’
GuGu’s objective is the sealed Mad Deity itself.
Perhaps she wishes to recover it.
However.
‘There’s no need to follow that path.’
Following the intended design would not yield a high score.
Besides, I had no intention of killing the Angel.
Why eliminate such a formidable asset?
Then the answer was simple.
I took a step toward the Angel.
“Then I’ll simply eliminate what’s inside instead.”
[…What is that?]
I lowered my voice and spoke with grave sincerity.
“Noble one.”
I met the Angel’s gaze directly.
“Let us slay the Mad Deity sealed within together.”
[…!]
The Angel’s eyes widened.
Not to guard the seal, but to kill the sealed entity itself.
A proposal that defied all convention.
“Alone, it would have been impossible, but with both of us, it’s achievable.”
I gestured toward the black sphere with a smile.
“Leaving something like that behind only becomes a burden. Let’s dispose of it cleanly.”
I was curious what lay within it.
But the true reason ran deeper still.
‘My right hand is tingling.’
The golden rune embedded in my right palm.
Though invisible to others’ eyes, it blazed with crystalline clarity in mine.
Golden threads erupting from the rune were thrashing wildly toward that black sphere.
Within it dwelt a calamity.
A calamity of considerable magnitude.
The Angel’s pupils trembled.
Yet soon, a faint smile bloomed across her lips.
[…How audacious.]
She spread her wings wide.
Holy radiance flooded the Divine Temple.
It was not a refusal.
[Very well. I shall honor your will, you who have shown respect to my children.]
A Party was formed.

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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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