EP.186 Omen (5)
The superhuman is a being beyond humanity, yet still human.
They were not blessed by the stars.
They were not chosen by the stars.
They were not loved by the stars.
Still, that’s alright.
Even without being blessed, chosen, or loved, it is okay. They will reach a state of enlightenment simply as humans, without the aid of any transcendent beings.
Naturally, the path is not easy.
They must give up something, cling to something, or rage against something to break their own limitations. Every superhuman reaches their domain in a broken state, as if it were the price to pay.
Here, there are three superhumans.
They each ascended to the rank of the superhuman in their own way.
The Sword Demon, Draka, is hatred and obsession.
He wanted revenge for his daughter.
The unkept vow, the fallen fief, and the horrific death of his daughter drove him to ruin. He became a ghost chasing only the heretic, wandering the battlefield.
The Sword Master, Kuntel, is obsession.
He sought to overcome Ganikalt, the Death’s Blade.
In the face of calamity, even lifting a sword was once impossible for him. Thus, he had to forsake his hometown. Kuntel dedicated his whole life to training with a single sword in his hand.
Lastly, there is the Braver.
The Braver, Kelharlem, is a mage who has lived in madness for a hundred years.
“Celestia von Arta, my disciple.”
“Artiya, my homeland.”
“All of you who have perished here today.”
“I swear before you.”
A human who became a superhuman, consumed by madness.
“I will live this long, never-ending life given to me by you, solely for your sake.”
He has endured the life of a madman for the sake of a single vow.
*
Apuria is shrouded in darkness.
Swallowed by a black barrier, Apuria is silent. Everyone sleeps within the barrier. They will wander through an unending nightmare, unable to wake. Thus, in this artificial silence, loud explosions echoed.
Kaboom!
Explosions repeat in the air.
A storm arises as mana clashes with mana, shaking Apuria repeatedly.
“How ludicrous.”
As the smoke of the explosions clears.
What is revealed in the dissipating smoke is the Ancient Lich.
“Do you believe there is enlightenment in a mere hundred years of life? I have lived for centuries.”
He raises his skeletal arm.
In response, dozens of circuits filled the air. That which shines in darkness resembles the moonlight.
“Look.”
The moons merge.
Four colossal moons rise.
“Are you still not human?”
The Ancient Lich twitches his wrist.
The shining moon in the dark falls underground. As it plummets, it is no longer a circuit. It is a house-sized flame, a storm-like wind, and a tearing bolt of lightning.
“Split.”
In response, the Braver waves his finger.
Dozens of preloaded circuits split uniformly. Tens of circuits become hundreds, and hundreds again become thousands.
The split circuits shine.
The thousands of spells chase after the four spells cast by the Ancient Lich. The core of the flame is pierced by a stream of water. A mound of stones obstructs bolt after bolt of lightning. If unable to unite, then let tens rush in, if tens aren’t enough, then let hundreds, and if hundreds aren’t enough, let thousands rush.
Kaboom!
Once again, a deafening roar echoes.
Once more, the Braver exhaled after nullifying a spell.
“How crude.”
At that sight, the Ancient Lich frowned.
To Skebal, Kelharlem’s spells were utterly crude. He splits one spell, keeps splitting, and presses with quantity.
“Is that really how you intend to face me, standing there?”
“Well.”
Kelharlem’s expression remains unchanged.
As one or two constraints are released, the flames within his eyes only grow larger.
“We’ll see about that.”
The Braver, Kelharlem.
A superhuman of the mage lineage.
Whoosh.
He wields his finger. A single swing, yet dozens of circuits are completed. The circuits make a clamor as they unfold in the air.
Swish!
Grasping a single sword, the sword masters across the narrow gap develop a precognitive sense akin to foresight. In that case, what would a mage-type superhuman possess?
‘Acceleration of thought, simultaneous computation.’
It’s the acceleration of computation.
He weaves circuits in his mind, linking the formulas of spells together. If the sword masters always possess a sense one step ahead of their opponents, then the speed of his computation enables him to respond to everything.
That sense is returning now.
In order to regain his sanity, as he awakens the senses he had bound, Kelharlem speaks.
“Centuries of life, a hundred years of life. A life close to eternity.”
Kelharlem waved his finger.
“What does that even matter?”
The unfolding circuits shine.
“In a hundred years of life, I have obtained nothing. You, who have lived for centuries, have also achieved nothing.”
Skebal’s inner light narrowed.
A sneer appeared at the corner of Kelharlem’s mouth. As the constraints loosened, he began to return to his true form.
Boom, Bang!
As spells collide with spells, a deafening noise resounds, and Kelharlem finishes his statement.
“Time is always relative.”
Because it is relative.
“The absolute quantity of time means nothing.”
The gap of time can always be outpaced.
The ancient lich’s centuries could be but a moment to someone. Kelharlem does not believe that person is him. He does not overestimate himself.
However, such a mage knows one thing.
‘A mage that transcends the centuries of the Ancient Lich.’
A mage who has become too famous.
“The Ashen Mage.”
Saying that name, Kelharlem scoffed.
“Centuries surpassed by that twenty-year-old brat. What a meaningful few centuries.”
Twitch.
Skebal’s inner light flickered.
“That remark.”
A bone-scraping voice.
“You will come to regret that.”
The black inner light flared.
Skebal’s hood swayed, and filth spilled forth. The pouring muck became Black Bone Soldiers, writhing on the ground.
“…Huff.”
Kelharlem exhaled sharply.
As madness enveloped him, his sanity faded. The time he could endure was fewer than he expected.
‘Before I completely lose my mind.’
Kelharlem raised his head.
‘I must deal with that.’
His gaze did not turn towards the ancient lich. Rather, it focused on the shadows and starlight that were clashing successively beyond.
2.
The Master of the Black Tower stared blankly out the window.
A massive distortion occurred at the location where Apuria would be. Though the distortion was soon swallowed by a black barrier, its appearance could not be seen…
‘What on earth is happening?’
For a moment, just a few seconds.
The distortion was confirmed in an instant, but its image would not leave his mind.
‘Collision of mana? Distortion? Shadows…?’
He could not tell.
Unintelligible.
An indescribable form of the unknown.
“One question, if I may.”
Just then, while Yeutual felt confusion over the phenomenon beyond his comprehension.
“Do you know anything about that situation?”
Kalt opened his mouth and posed the question.
He glanced at the unidentified elf standing beside him. Kalt, skilled at reading people’s expressions. In his eyes, the elf was making a face that seemed to say, “I’ve seen that somewhere before.”
“…”
Kardi turned his head to look at Kalt.
After a moment of silence, he slowly opened his mouth.
“I don’t know exactly. The scale is too small compared to what transpired in my era. But I think I can roughly guess.”
“Could you explain?”
“It’s impossible to explain the situation.”
But then, he continued.
“Yet, I think I can provide some form of countermeasures. However, keep one thing in mind.”
With an unknown statement, Kardi continued.
“This is a second-best choice to avoid the worst. I only know this method.”
The elf’s eyes narrowed.
In them lay a coolness. Additionally, it seemed like he was recalling something he had experienced in the past.
“Someone must be sacrificed.”
A sacrifice.
“It means someone must become a vessel.”
3.
The constraints loosen. Madness approaches.
Madness is like a flame. It burns away reason and spreads even more. Kelharlem feels his sanity gradually shutting down.
Chittering.
He is simply weaving spells.
Intuitive computations continue. The subconscious spells he weaves burst forth in light.
‘This won’t do.’
Spells that cannot be intercepted pour out.
Kelharlem instinctively judges. He steps back and changes all the spells he was trying to intercept into defensive spells.
A wave of spells wraps around him.
Just as he attempted to activate a spell to solidify it, an anomaly occurs in the circuits.
“How long do you think you can hold it off?”
The ancient lich intervenes into the circuits.
Until now, splitting spells into smaller ones meant it was not a problem if one or two were robbed. But this time is different.
Crackle.
The unfinished spells.
The wall of ice surrounding him begins to crack. The wall of flame starts to break apart.
“The speed at which you weave spells is commendable. However, it seems it stops here.”
Skebal twitches his fingers.
Black flames descend upon Kelharlem’s head. A house-sized flame can’t be blocked by incomplete spells. Kelharlem grits his teeth.
Whooom!
As the fireball hits the ground, the barrier Kelharlem set evaporates as if it vanished into thin air. The defensive spell that surrounded Kelharlem tears apart like paper.
Sizzle!
Drenched in water, Kelharlem escapes the fireball. His skin burns, and blood leaks from his body. As he jumps out of the fireball, Black Bone Soldiers, aiming at him, thrust their weapons. His body is pierced by the weapons.
Drip, drip.
Blood falls. He sees blurry.
Nonetheless, he endures.
Shockwave.
He pushes away the Black Bone Soldiers and stomps the ground. The completed spell flows across the ground. The number of completed spells rises to dozens, but half of them are robbed.
Crack!
His index finger, tracing the circuits, breaks from the backlash of the spell. Even in the pain, Kelharlem moves his body. Though half are robbed, half remain.
‘Let’s make use of what’s left.’
The ground trembles. It overturns.
The Black Bone Soldiers are buried underground as the ground rises to block orders shot by Skebal.
“How pathetic.”
He can’t block everything.
Wounds are increasing. His vision is hazy, and his mind is fading. Even so, Kelharlem glares defiantly and decides his next course of action.
Split.
He splits the spells. He keeps splitting and splitting again.
The power of each spell, the understanding of circuits, and everything else is entirely superior in comparison to his opponent. Thus, Kelharlem constantly craves the answer.
‘I knew it.’
The ancient lich, Skebal.
To mages, he is like a nightmare. It is nearly impossible to win against a scholar who has lived for centuries in a pure power duel.
‘However.’
Kelharlem knows of one even more formidable opponent.
He recalls the events from a hundred years ago.
“Isn’t this amusing?”
The woman who chuckled before him.
That detestable summoner was incomparably stronger than the lich before him. Compared to that, the Black Bone Soldiers before him seem trivial.
Ideally, it shouldn’t have been the ancient lich he faced here.
‘The heretic should be here.’
Keeping that heretic in mind, Kelharlem has imposed constraints on himself. Naturally, he had prepared a means to face that summoner.
And now.
Kelharlem reveals it before the ancient lich.
“Disassemble.”
A single word.
In response to that word, clang, the majority of the remaining chains fall off. Mana, bound with madness for a hundred years, begins to escape.
Hiss, crackle.
The air distorts around Kelharlem.
At that sight, Skebal’s eyes narrowed.
‘Five.’
The remaining constraints number five.
Those that gripped his heart in a claw-like shape. The one corresponding to the little finger crumbles.
‘Four.’
Constraints binding the heart filled with mana.
And the constraint shackling his soul that was destroyed by placing his lifespan on the balance a hundred years ago.
‘Three.’
Madness devours his sanity.
Reason crumbles. Madness replaces it.
‘Two.’
Only one constraint remains.
The chain pierced into his heart. He cannot break it. Even if he loses his sanity, he must not lose sight of his purpose.
Crackle, crackle.
The released mana writhes.
Kelharlem glares wide-eyed.
‘Ah.’
What he sees is not just disaster.
In the shadows behind disaster and starlight, that also enters Kelharlem’s view. He knows it better than anyone else.
In the past, in the scholarly city of Artiya.
There, too, Kelharlem saw it.
“Ah, ahhhh, ahhhhhhh!”
The beam of light pouring from Celestia’s body.
The shadow hanging beneath the beam of light flowed back along it. It swallowed the starlight and re-entered Celestia’s body.
And Celestia could no longer sing the beauty of the stars.
“Mas, Master.”
From her eyes, ears, mouth, and every hole, black fog streamed out. At that moment, she was nothing more than a vessel to contain something. The human spirit of Celestia was not needed for the vessel.
So perhaps that was why it collapsed.
“Ah, ah. A.”
Celestia crumbled.
Her soul shattered in the black fog. The hollow vessel thus created. The once bright vessel that held starlight was greedily consumed by darkness.
It could not last long.
The vessel could not contain the shadow.
Thus, Celestia’s flesh also shattered.
That was a hundred years ago. At that time, having lost Celestia, Kelharlem pondered continuously on what he should do, what he could do.
Faced with incomprehensible concepts.
There was no path to understanding.
But there was ample time.
Immortal life. A century’s worth of time. Kelharlem thought and thought again. He unveiled that the shadow he saw back then was what they call ‘the darkness.’ He learned many things besides that.
Knowing and gathering knowledge.
Thus, time flowed and flowed.
“Ah.”
He now stands here.
It is different from then.
The opponent is also different.
‘Thus.’
What he must do is also different from what he did back then.
“You.”
Skebal cracks his bones.
In an instant, hundreds of completed spells filled Kelharlem’s sight. Staring at them, Kelharlem came to a halt. He exhaled sharply.
Hiss, crackle.
The released mana writhes.
In order to take a step towards the answer, Kelharlem draws forth the weapon he has sharpened for a hundred years.
Whoosh.
Kelharlem swings his broken fingers. The trajectory followed by his finger paints a circle. Flames rose along the path. At that sight, Skebal frowned.
‘An unfamiliar spell.’
Since it’s the first time seeing it, he cannot understand it. Skebal cannot steal it. Instead, he chooses to crush it with his hundreds of spells. Skebal swings his hand.
Hundreds of spells are launched at Kelharlem.
In the sky, tidal waves of spells crash down. From the ground, Black Bone Soldiers thrust their weapons toward Kelharlem. Yet, Kelharlem does not cease to draw the circle.
Woosh.
A single point arises in the rotating flames.
Tick, tickity tick.
The flames are drawn into that single point.
The flames, the condensed mana amassed over a hundred years, all concentrate into one point. Thus, a single spell is completed. Kelharlem names it.
“One-Off.”
It is a spell containing a human’s life.
A spell developed to confront disaster.
Bam!
The point at the tip of Kelharlem’s fingers momentarily erupts in light. The radiance lashes out at the surroundings, and the immense heat engulfs everything approaching him.
The Black Bone Soldiers burn away and disappear.
The hundreds of spells launched by Skebal are all incinerated. The mana scattered nearby and all else is wiped out in an instant. The gale of heat swept away half of Skebal’s corporeal form, yet he still remains alive.
“How arrogant!”
However, to reassemble the bones, he momentarily enters a state of stagnation. Skebal remains vigilant against the ‘next’ spell Kelharlem is about to conjure, but it does not come.
Thump.
Kelharlem is running.
He strikes the ground, creating a stone pillar. Despite his battered body, he runs atop the tilted stone pillar.
His gaze is not directed at Skebal.
Since Keltarhem’s gaze had been staring at one location since the moment he began reciting the spell.
‘The stars and the shadows.’
Where light and shadow intertwine.
With that, Kelharlem runs towards that place.
Boom, bang!
Continuously vibrating, light and shadow collide. The outcome is yet to be determined, but predicting the result is not a challenging task.
‘The shadow shall swallow the light.’
As it did in the past.
‘Though the light can resist more, and push the shadow down, it will not.’
In the past, as the star did.
‘The star will give up once again. It will let itself be devoured by the shadow.’
Kelharlem sees that result.
In reality, the starlight shows signs of giving up resistance and of attempting to leave the chosen child. The three strands of starlight show no sign of where their ends connect.
However, amongst those starlight connected with the child, Kelharlem knows one.
‘The child resembling Celestia.’
So very alike.
With violet hair and violet eyes. That very voice reminded him of the girl who had shaken his constraints. That child, Kelharlem projects his disciple onto her.
‘What should I have done back then?’
Kelharlem sees the past from the present.
When Celestia was engulfed by darkness. Back then, what choice should he have made?
He did not know back then.
But now, he understands.
A hundred years of striving to keep a promise. At the end of it, a mere human arrived at an answer. Kelharlem recalls that response.
‘I shall swallow it.’
The inscription engraved on the last remaining constraint.
“Swallow the darkness.”
Kelharlem implements that inscription.
Thus, the moment Kelharlem reaches out his hand towards the darkness.
“You’re making a wrong choice.”
Skebal scoffed.
Kelharlem does not understand the meaning of the scoff. Without understanding, he comes into contact with the darkness.
Gulp.
The writhing darkness engulfs Kelharlem.
