The Mage Who Devours Disasters - Chapter 92
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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 92.
“Jung-seok, stop now.”
Words I’d heard hundreds of times before.
Upon the cracked and withered earth, bloodless lips poured forth their resignation toward me.
“We’ve lost. We must accept it. Humanity could never triumph against the Deities.”
The world had already become ash.
The Sky remained shrouded in pitch-black clouds every single day of the year, and the Sea had long since transformed into an acidic swamp teeming with demonic energy.
Ninety-nine percent of humanity had been torn to shreds or perished from disease.
Those who survived bore eyes devoid of focus.
Walking corpses desperately awaiting only death—a painless end to their suffering.
“Why do you struggle so? It’s meaningless.”
True.
To some eyes, my efforts would have appeared as nothing but futile thrashing.
I traversed the entire globe, grinding blood and bone into the earth to inscribe magical formations.
I gathered the shattered remains of fallen comrades, burned them to ash, and condensed their lingering resentment to forge the Sage’s Stone.
I sent that stone into runaway overload, transforming the planet Earth itself into a colossal bomb to hurl at the Tower of the Deities.
Did it make sense?
This was no plan for victory.
Mutual destruction. Self-annihilation.
If annihilation was inevitable, then at least we would splatter filth across those bastards’ sanctuary before dying together—a thoroughly insane notion.
“Kim Jung-seok, please surrender.”
“We have no choice but to accept death.”
“I’m exhausted. Stop tormenting us.”
Surrender.
The sweetest and easiest choice.
If I simply closed my eyes and lay prostrate, the calamities the Deities sent would crush me comfortably, and it would all end.
But.
“….”
I did not answer.
I did not break.
With my fingernails torn away and blood streaming from my eyes, I crawled silently across the ground, drawing the lines.
I completed the trajectory of the magical formation.
It might have been meaningless.
Perhaps it was wasted effort.
I might fail to even scratch the Deities before being stopped in vain.
Yet I did not surrender.
And finally.
Bearing the fruit forged from all that despair and blood.
When I stood atop the Tower alongside Humanity’s Last Coalition.
Before the Absolute Deity Irresistible Force itself, I finally sent the Sage’s Stone into runaway overload.
CRAAAAAAAAASH!
I remember.
The agony of my heart bursting from my chest.
The terrible liberation of flesh tearing asunder, my soul scattering into dust.
Everything flashed white.
Earth collapsed, the Tower crumbled, and the deafening roar adorned the final moments of my consciousness.
I died.
Certainly, I was obliterated in the explosion.
And yet.
‘…Whose memory is this, exactly?’
What is this strange, unfamiliar scene flickering across my mind?
The frayed edge of a memory that should have been erased.
Beyond it, a landscape was becoming visible.
The moment immediately after my death.
It wasn’t only my body that was being scattered into fragments across the empty space.
The absolute destructive force unleashed by the Sage’s Stone was tearing apart even the shell of Irresistible Force seated upon the throne.
The Absolute Deity’s body crumbles.
Darkness shatters, the Abyss collapses.
But.
【….】
Irresistible Force didn’t even scream.
He showed no rage, no panic.
He simply gazed down at his own disintegrating form.
And his gaze turned toward my remains, scattering like dust.
He was smiling.
In that moment of annihilation, the Absolute Deity wore an unmistakably blissful smile.
【You have passed.】
Irresistible Force’s voice resonated across the cosmos.
‘…Passed what?’
I questioned within my consciousness.
The Tower was collapsing.
Yet he gazed upon me and smiled.
As though all this devastation were the very outcome he had been awaiting.
【If it is you.】
Irresistible Force opened his mouth.
Just before his form scattered into one final handful of light.
【You will be able to reach me once more.】
He called out to me.
【Kim Jung-seok.】
My name.
The Absolute Deity pronounced my name—a trivial shell of a mortal—with crystalline clarity.
【Across all worlds, you are truly The Incomprehensible.】
A deep, resonant rumble echoed through the void.
With those words, everything vanished.
The Irresistible Force, the Tower of Gods, Earth itself.
* * *
“Gasp—!”
I drew a sharp breath and pushed my upper body upright.
Immediately, I surveyed my surroundings.
A familiar ceiling.
Moldy wallpaper.
My studio apartment.
Morning sunlight filtered through the window cracks.
Dawn had broken.
‘…Why am I here?’
My memory was fragmented.
It seemed I’d lost consciousness immediately after glimpsing the Irresistible Force’s past.
But who could have brought me to this place?
There was no sign of anyone.
Besides, I was wearing Thanatos’s vessel.
Death’s veil blocked all detection.
There was no way Park Ha-yan or Park Ji-hoon could have found and moved me.
‘Did I walk here unconsciously?’
That made no sense.
I tilted my head in confusion.
Then.
A sharp chime rang out.
A System Message materialized in empty space.
[You have completed the Class Advancement Quest.]
[The Class ‘Calamity Devourer’ has awakened.]
[New Authority has been unlocked.]
‘New Authority?’
I narrowed my brow.
If a new authority had been granted, shouldn’t it at least tell me its name?
The message simply ends with ‘unlocked.’
Every time I experience this.
‘This System is hardly user-friendly.’
It’s frustratingly unhelpful.
If the Deities had created it for entertainment, it couldn’t possibly be this inconsiderate.
In other words.
The Tower itself, or perhaps this universe itself, might be part of the System.
I exhaled slowly and opened my status window.
I needed to verify what had changed.
[Stats]
Level: 10
Strength: 1,000+300(-800) Stamina: 1,000+300(-800)
Agility: 1,000+300(-800) Intelligence: 1,000+600(-800)
Mana: 1,000+700(-800)
[Equipped Items]
Celestial Demon Armor, Celestial Demon Boots, Staff of the Grand Sage Carved from Divine Wood, Heart of Bitter Cold
[Runes Possessed]
Ber Rune(1)
[Privileges Acquired]
Experience Acquisition Rate Increased by 350%
[Honor]
2,757,900
“….”
I doubted my own eyes.
All pure stats were a staggering 1,000.
…My stats had doubled.
Of course, Kim Jung-seok’s body came with a –800 penalty.
In practical terms, that was merely 200.
Only by using the ‘Fragment of the Broken Golden Ratio’ to descend as Rag could I fully harness those stats.
Nevertheless.
‘…Insane.’
The numbers were truly insane.
Normally, a class advancement granted roughly a 10% increase.
But doubling?
‘Rag’s pure stats used to increase by 50 per level, but now they’ll increase by 100.’
Most class advancement quests typically occurred around level 50.
I had completed my advancement at merely level 10.
Leveling had been grueling, certainly.
‘Once I descend as Rag, I could easily overwhelm even a fully-geared powerhouse above level 80.’
The numbers were truly beyond reason.
I steadied my racing heart.
Then I opened my inventory.
The spoils I had won from gambling with the Deity of Fortune.
‘The Dice of Reversal.’
I retrieved it.
A transparent die with a peculiarly warped form, resting in the palm of my hand.
[Dice of Reversal]
-You can reduce an opponent’s dice result by the number shown on this dice when thrown. (Minimum fixed at 1)
“….”
I tilted my head in momentary confusion.
Reduce an opponent’s dice result?
The dice was the absolute measure that determined the scale and quality of rewards.
So this meant I could directly interfere with an opponent’s compensation?
‘The dice’s purpose extends far beyond that.’
Moreover, the dice wasn’t used solely for rewards—it appeared in countless other contexts.
For instance, even when I received authority from Heimdall, the dice was cast.
In every other application of the dice, this ability to diminish an opponent’s result would apply as well.
‘Is this even possible?’
To be able to throw and reduce the dice number that someone else had labored to roll.
Nothing like this had existed before.
An entirely new dice had been born into existence.
Truly a catastrophic terror item.
It bore the mark of a legacy left behind by the Deity of Fortune in bankruptcy.
That was when it happened.
“W-we greet your magnificence!”
“…?”
I started in alarm and surveyed my surroundings.
There was no sign of anyone.
Nothing registered on my defensive mechanisms or insight skills.
I looked down toward the source of the voice.
Under the Bed.
A boy lay prostrate on the floor, performing a deep bow.
His head struck the floorboards with sharp thuds as he trembled violently.
“Who are you?”
My voice came out cold, and the boy lifted his head slightly.
A youthful face.
Yet his eyes held profound depth.
This was no ordinary child.
“I-I am your humble servant, Almighty Master. This one is the Deity of Fortune.”
“…What?”
I was utterly dumbfounded.
This was absurd.
I had definitely consumed this being.
The golden rune on my right hand had ground down its divine essence—that arrogant foreign deity’s very core—without leaving a trace.
Yet it was alive?
And in the form of this small child, no less?
“I could have sworn I devoured it completely.”
I lifted my right hand, bewildered.
The boy frantically waved his hands as he spoke.
“N-No, that’s correct! All of my divinity and soul were swallowed into the great one’s mouth!”
“Then why are you prostrate in the corner of my room?”
“Th-That is… thanks to the great one’s power!”
The boy cried out in a voice trembling with fear and emotion.
“Through the great one’s new power, I have been granted rebirth!”
“Rebirth?”
“Yes! Great one, I shall follow you eternally until my last breath!”
The boy pressed his forehead to the ground once more.
I stared blankly down at the boy—or rather, what had once been the Deity of Fortune.
And I recalled the message I had confirmed moments before.
-A new power has been unlocked.
An unknown ability whose name had not been revealed.
Only then did I understand.
If my right hand was ‘Consumption’—devouring calamities and stealing their power—then
this new power awakened through my class advancement was
‘…the ability to reshape what I have devoured into extensions of myself.’
In other words,
this new power of the one who devours calamities must be this.
…the power to swallow divinity itself and recreate it as a faithful servant.
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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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