The Mage Who Devours Disasters - Chapter 85

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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 85.
At the same moment.
Awakener Management Bureau Situation Room.
“…What in the world is this?”
Kim Jun-tae pressed his finger against the monitor, biting his lip.
Blood seeped from the wound.
The numbers displayed before him were far too surreal to comprehend.
Level 100.
And Annihilation-rank.
An unknown realm never once observed until now.
The problem was that the yokai’s strength exceeded expectations.
They were believed to average around level 60.
But level 100?
And what of the rank itself?
The monster ranks identified so far fell into three broad categories.
Common, Named, and Calamity.
Common monsters could be handled by a single Awakener of equivalent level.
Named monsters required at least three Awakeners of the same rank to engage.
Calamity-rank was an entirely different dimension.
That horrific rank that first appeared in Episode 3.
By simple calculation, thirty Awakeners of equivalent level were necessary.
If a Named monster could erase a village, a Calamity-rank possessed the firepower to obliterate an entire city.
And yet.
‘Annihilation-rank…?’
The very word carried an ominous weight.
It defied all estimation.
The survival of the nation itself.
No—if mishandled, the entire Korean Peninsula could be erased from the map.
And the level was 100.
Not a single Awakener had come close to such a level, let alone matched it.
South Korea’s greatest forces currently hovered around level 50 at best.
“Director! All communications nationwide are down!”
An operator cried out urgently.
“Every electronic device within Dusksini’s effective range has been disabled! All signals mediated by light have been severed!”
A being that fed on darkness and fear.
True to its name, the moment it appeared, Seoul was plunged into absolute darkness.
Everyone froze.
The Awakeners visible beyond the monitors, the soldiers, the citizens in the shelters—all of them.
They could not move.
It was something felt instinctively.
There was no way to win.
No way to escape.
“Everyone, snap out of it!”
Kim Jun-tae slammed his fist against the desk, his voice cutting through the chaos.
Yet even his voice trembled ever so slightly.
Could they win if everyone gave their absolute all?
No.
The moment I saw the creature’s form captured on the screen, even that threadbare hope shattered.
‘It’ was a colossal black figure of a man.
A true giant stretching to the heavens themselves, piercing through the clouds as if they were nothing.
Its form was indistinct, yet that massive silhouette alone was more than sufficient to earn the title of King of Hundred Ghosts.
With each step it took, the very bedrock beneath Seoul sank.
“Sir… Director. We have an anomaly.”
It was then.
The Researcher monitoring the situation displays reported in a trembling voice.
“The Pillars of Light…”
Kim Jun-tae turned his head.
The eighty-odd Pillars of Light that had been embedded throughout Seoul.
Those pillars that were both the source of the calamity and the gateway for the yokai.
One by one, they began to fade.
Like candles being snuffed out.
The tremendous magical power the pillars had been radiating was being sucked toward the colossal Dusksini standing in the sky like a black hole.
“No more yokai are appearing!”
The operator’s cry.
With the pillars gone, no new yokai would spawn.
It should have been good news.
Yet no one cheered.
Instead, a deeper despair settled over the Situation Room.
The magical power that should have been distributed across eighty pillars was now concentrating entirely into that single level-100 apocalypse-class monster.
Facing one of them was hundreds of times more terrifying than facing the legions of yokai pouring from eighty pillars.
“Are all the pillars gone?”
Kim Jun-tae asked, wetting his parched lips.
The Researcher shook his head.
“No, sir.”
His finger pointed to one corner of the monitor.
“One… one remains.”
What?
Kim Jun-tae’s brow furrowed.
Why was that one still standing?
While all the other pillars had been absorbed by Dusksini, a single Pillar of Light embedded in the heart of Gangnam continued to shine defiantly.
Above all else.
It emanated a light far more intense and far more ominous—a radiance that even Dusksini’s darkness could not penetrate.
As if the entity within that pillar was refusing to be absorbed by Dusksini.
“That pillar—confirm its coordinates!”
“Gangnam Zone 7, sir! It’s the location the Light Guild was defending!”
That was the moment.
Screeeech.
From the last remaining pillar, the blinding light receded, and a sickly black miasma of death erupted forth.
The Pillar of Light was instantly shrouded in a veil of death.
And then.
Ding!
[An entity that is death itself descends.]
[The King of Hundred Ghosts, ‘Thanatos, the Reaper’ has appeared.]
[Level: ???]
[Rank: ???]
“….”
A deathly silence fell over the Situation Room.
Kim Jun-tae stared blankly up at the message hanging in the air.
Question marks.
Unmeasurable.
An absolute death that even the System itself could not quantify.
Dusksini alone, at Level 100 and classified as Calamity-grade, was already enough to shake the very foundations of the nation.
But now.
Another unmeasurable monster had appeared—one that even Dusksini could not absorb.
“It’s over….”
Someone muttered in resignation.
A single phrase that spoke for everyone in the Situation Room.
* * *
The Dark Deity Hod narrowed his brow.
“…What is this.”
His low murmur shook the space with a heavy weight.
His expression darkened.
An entirely unforeseen situation—no, one he could not comprehend—had unfolded.
“Why has Thanatos appeared already?”
He was not supposed to manifest now.
Thanatos was still an incomplete vessel, not yet ready to enter the world.
He had to wait until dawn broke.
Only by nourishing himself on the screams and despair of humans, on the cascading tide of death, could he be molded into a perfect ‘human form’.
Only then could he deceive the System’s gaze completely, allowing Hod himself to descend fully into that flesh and be perfected as an avatar.
That was his plan.
The most perfectly sculpted demigod body.
With that overwhelming power, I had planned to tear apart Dusksini, that calamity-class yokai, in a single breath and reign as the true sovereign of Episode 5—a flawless scheme, or so I thought.
“It’s already broken free from its shell?”
And not even in human form, but in that grotesque skeletal visage as is.
But that wasn’t the only strange thing.
Snap.
“…?”
The connection severed.
Thanatos’s existence.
The control thread binding that death spirit to me simply snapped.
His soul had completely slipped from my grasp.
What in the world had happened?
Hod’s crimson eyes blazed with ominous fury.
“Impossible.”
Had it been stolen?
It wasn’t a System malfunction.
Someone had deliberately destroyed the core and devoured Thanatos’s shell entirely.
‘Is such a thing even possible?’
I couldn’t believe it.
No matter how abundant Nectar flowed in this playground, this was a calamity painstakingly crafted by the Twelve Sovereigns themselves.
To steal that?
Even if such madness were possible.
“…Do you intend to make me your enemy?”
To dare lay hands against Hod, the dark god who commands the Abyss and death itself.
Grind.
Hod gnashed his teeth.
Killing intent surged beyond the throne, crushing down upon Asgard’s earth.
“Who are you?”
Which wretch dared touch my prey?
Or is this the scheming of another Sovereign targeting my back?
Hod’s gaze grew infinitely darker.
Such fury had not stirred within me for ages.
‘If someone truly stole my avatar…’
It matters not who.
I will find them, and they shall pay dearly for this insult.
I will tear their soul apart, strand by strand.
Hod’s eyes turned toward Seoul.
* * *
‘I’m finally getting used to this.’
My vision had changed.
The world appeared in the bluish light of death.
I had completed my transformation into Thanatos.
At first, the skeletal form devoid of visible flesh felt unfamiliar.
Yet it was strangely comfortable.
I quickly grew accustomed to wielding this body.
Instead of warm blood coursing through my veins, I felt the cool essence of death flowing through them.
A shell bearing the name of death itself.
The passive ability ‘Veil of Death’ enveloped me like thick fog, perfectly blocking all life detection and divine tracking.
“Not bad at all.”
Clack.
My jawbone clicked, and a low, dry metallic sound escaped from my lips.
Even my voice had transformed into that of Thanatos.
After completing my adaptation, I moved forward slowly.
I stepped out from beyond the Pillar of Light that had bound me.
“H-hiii…!”
“S-save us…!”
The awakeners of the Light Guild stood frozen before the Pillar of Light.
Guild Master Heo Young-ho had already lost the strength in his legs and crouched down, on the verge of foaming at the mouth.
To their eyes, I must have appeared as overwhelming despair itself—death incarnate.
But my attention was not on them.
It was on the countless yokai surrounding me.
Red and blue Goblins towering over three meters tall.
And behind them, the five-meter-tall named creature, Dueokshini, standing firm.
But then.
Whoosh. Thud. Clang.
The yokai dropped their spiked clubs and swords to the ground in unison.
“…?”
Heo Young-ho stared blankly at the sight.
Thump.
Dueokshini, the mightiest named creature, knelt first.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Dozens of Goblins prostrated themselves simultaneously, their heads striking the Asphalt Street.
Far in the distance.
The level 75 named Imoogi coiled around a high-rise building in Jongno.
Even that massive serpent yokai withdrew the venom it had been hissing.
It slithered down below the building and lowered its head to the ground.
【We pay homage to the King of Mystery.】
They bowed before me.
True to the name, I was the King of Hundred Ghosts.
The moment I donned the shell of Thanatos, the yokai recognized me as the apex of all their kind.
‘So this is what it means for all yokai to revere a single being.’
I ran my fingers across the jawbone.
The transformation was far more convenient and overpowered than I’d anticipated.
With a single gesture of my hand, this vast legion of yokai moved like mere extensions of myself, existing solely for my will.
I lifted my gaze.
Countless yokai knelt beneath my feet.
But.
There was one.
In the heart of Seoul, there existed a being that refused to kneel before me.
A colossal darkness that blotted out the sky.
Level 100.
Dusksini, a calamity-class yokai!
It was a lord of darkness that fed upon human terror and grew stronger.
But the aura of ‘death’ that emanated from my body operated on an entirely different principle than the darkness it commanded.
It regarded me with instinctive wariness.
Two crimson eyes glared at me from the void.
Bundled together in unmistakable hostility.
Perhaps it was the instinct of one refusing to submit meekly to the King of Hundred Ghosts.
But it mattered not.
“How presumptuous.”
I raised my right hand.
With a single finger, I pointed at the colossal Dusksini suspended in the air.
And.
I issued a command to the countless yokai bowing their heads toward me.
“Dusksini.”
The command was elegantly simple.
“Annihilate it.”
Kieeeeeek!
Kuoooooooo!
The moment my words left my lips.
Dueokshini, who had been kneeling, rose with a roar that sprayed blood like a geyser.
The goblins’ eyes blazed crimson as they seized the clubs they’d cast to the ground once more.
The Imoogi of Jongno shattered the ruins of buildings and surged ferociously skyward.
The Hundred Ghosts Night Parade.
Its destination had changed.
The savage killing intent that had been directed at slaughtering humans pivoted completely.
Their fury and aggression converged upon a single target.
They began their assault to tear apart the greatest darkness—Dusksini, the calamity-class yokai of level 100.
The goblins seized the shadow-edges of Dusksini and bludgeoned it relentlessly.
The Imoogi spewed virulent poison and drove its fangs into Dusksini’s massive shadowed throat.
Kiiiiiiaaaaaaah!
Dusksini refused to be merely on the receiving end of this assault.
Tentacles of coalesced darkness lashed out, sweeping the Goblins against the building walls with brutal force.
Yet the yokai showed no fear.
-The King has commanded it!
-Annihilate.
-The darkness.
-Dusksini!
For the King of Hundred Ghosts, Thanatos, had issued his decree!

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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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