Chapter 296: Treason If We Fail, Revolution If We Succeed (10)

Ivan sensed murderous intent from Keter and immediately cast a spell.

“Reverse...”

It was the type of magic that activated simply by speaking the incantation, and was the fastest method among spells. However, a hole suddenly appeared on Ivan’s forehead. A moment later, a white afterimage trailed out from the hole, and Keter caught it.

Milky Way had been a distraction. The real attack was White Cloud. With that, Ivan, the Grand Mage, died without even managing to successfully use a single spell.

Yet, Keter didn’t lower his guard. He kept White Cloud floating in the air and Milky Way loaded, carefully watching his surroundings. A brief silence followed. Then, Keter fired Milky Way straight into the empty space above his head. At maximum output, Milky Way shook both the sky and earth simply by being fired.

At that moment, a young man suddenly appeared in the empty sky. He extended both hands downward. The air warped, and soon a small gate formed, attempting to swallow Milky Way. However, Milky Way wasn’t drawn into the gate. Just before entering, it exploded in a massive explosion, engulfing both the gate and the young man.

The night sky turned as bright as day for an instant, and the middle-aged man was annihilated without leaving behind even a speck of dust.

Just then, a middle-aged woman’s voice was heard right in front of Keter. “Ice Age.”

A seven-circle freezing spell, Ice Age, spread outward from the caster’s body, freezing the world itself.

In response, Keter slammed his foot into the ground. The ground flipped over, swallowing the spreading Ice Age. Keter, who had easily blocked a seven-circle grand spell with the Terra Ring, spun around. As he did, hundreds of bundles of arrows scattered in all directions. Various sounds rang out in midair. It was the impact of flesh and the sound of attacks being blocked. The air trembled.

Then, Keter quietly muttered, “Is something big coming?”

White Cloud, moving like a drone, was killing Ivan’s clones in real time. However, unlike at the beginning, the clones didn’t go down easily. They reacted to White Cloud, which came at ultra-high speed without any sound, either dodging it or deflecting it with curved shields.

Keter took a short breath and assessed the situation.

Each clone possesses the abilities of a Grand Mage, but they’re all disposable. Once they cast one spell, their bodies can’t endure it.

Even so, he couldn’t allow them to cast spells freely. Every single spell was either six-circle or seven-circle magic. No matter how much Keter had evolved through Survival of the Fittest, and even with Ein, they weren’t attacks he could simply take on with his body.

I also haven’t properly fought a mage yet.

His resistance to elemental attacks wasn’t particularly outstanding. At best, he could endure up to around three-circle magic with his body. Anything beyond that was difficult.

But this actually works out nicely. It’ll be perfect if I can significantly raise my resistance here.

It was a train of thought that lasted no longer than a blink. Yet in that brief instant, all kinds of large-scale magic flew in from every direction. A six-circle ice-element magic, Frost Giant’s Hammer. A six-circle fire magic, Inferno Storm. A seven-circle lightning magic, Lightning Dragon’s Rush. And a seven-circle wind magic, Cradle of the Storm.

Ivan’s magic had gone beyond even the realm of a Grand Mage. He cast four high-tier spells using only incantations at the same time.

There seemed to be nowhere to go, except for one place, the sky. It was completely empty, as if inviting Keter to run away there. It was obvious, yet unavoidable. However, Keter smirked and did something insane.

Ivan, who had been fighting Keter through his clones, was shocked. “What?!”

Keter had suddenly spread both his arms wide. It was neither an attack nor a defense. He didn’t even cover his body in aura. It looked like he was simply choosing to die.

“You cunning fool!”

Ivan grew urgent. A regressor returned to the past through death. If he let Keter die like this, it would be his own defeat. It was widely believed that canceling a spell once it had been cast was impossible, but in truth, it wasn’t entirely impossible as long as one was willing to risk their life.

Ivan, who had been precisely controlling hundreds of clones without breaking a sweat, roared. “

Arggghh!

”

The clones surrounding Keter shouted almost simultaneously. “Dispel.”

Dispel, a magic-neutralization spell used by dozens of Grand Mages while risking their lives. As a result, Ivan lost fifty-two clones, but he succeeded in nullifying the four grand spells.

“It’s touching how much you’re trying to protect me.”

Keter’s arrows recklessly cut down Ivan’s clones. It was thanks to the backlash from the large-scale Dispel, which had destabilized their connection to Ivan. In the blink of an eye, dozens of heads were blown off by arrows. Among them were children and the elderly, but Keter wasn’t fazed even a bit.

Even so, Ivan wasn’t simply standing by and watching. “Good work. Rest now.”

Keter didn’t limit himself to firing arrows from afar. He also closed in and fired arrows at close range. Just as he was about to fire another arrow at a man around his own age...

“You got greedy, Keter!” Ivan shouted.

Ivan had already restored the connection, but hadn’t done anything on purpose. He had been waiting for Keter to lower his guard. A clone grabbed Keter’s wrist. Then, the clones that had been acting like puppets with their strings cut now unleashed the magic they had been preparing. It was the ultimate spell: Three Thousand Worlds.

A colorless space, neither darkness nor light, surged in the shape of a dome and engulfed Keter. Keter tried to defend by pulling up the ground with the Terra Ring, but Three Thousand Worlds swallowed both the Terra Ring and Keter whole.

***

“

Huff... huff

...” Ivan panted for breath.

Of the hundreds of screens that showed the outside scenery, only a few remained visible now. The clones he had built up over decades, versatile clones each capable of casting grand magic, more than half of them were lost just to deal with Keter.

“Killian’s going to lose his mind...”

Ivan’s clones served as spies and bridges of contact in various nations, including the Lillian Kingdom. They were the eyes and ears of the Syndicate, but he had used most of them to subdue Keter, so there was no way he could avoid being reprimanded.

“But I captured Keter, the regressor. This wasn’t just for me, it was for the Syndicate.”

Having comforted himself that way, Ivan seemed to give no further thought to Keter at all. His ultimate spell, Three Thousand Worlds, was a kind of magic where it severed the target from the world entirely. And within Three Thousand Worlds, Ivan was a god.

Drawing someone into it was difficult. Yet, the moment they were pulled inside, it was over, even if the opponent was a Prime. It didn’t even allow suicide, and destruction from within was, of course, impossible. Ivan had set things so that Keter, currently trapped within Three Thousand Worlds, couldn’t move.

𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

“I’ll finally get to meet the Messiah again.”

The Messiah, the founder of the Syndicate, was an omniscient being, though not omnipotent.

Ivan had managed to capture Keter, but unease was beginning to take root in his heart.

“Keter said he would treat me with Human Modification Technique...”

Blinded by the certainty that Keter was a regressor, Ivan became agitated by the anger of having been deceived. Moreover, when Keter responded not with an explanation but with violence, Ivan lost his temper and ended up fighting back as well.

“Now that it’s come to this, there’s no turning back.”

Ivan opened a gate leading to the Syndicate’s headquarters. Then, he compressed Three Thousand Worlds, with Keter trapped inside, down to the size of a marble and took it with him.

***

In the odd colorless place with no end, where it was impossible to tell ground from sky, a sofa and desks were placed, seemingly out of place.

As a gate opened, Ivan entered. Then, a man wearing a bucket over his head greeted him.

“You came back sooner than I expected. What happened with the owner of the Terra Ring?”

Ivan held out the marble-sized Three Thousand Worlds. “Well, it turned out rather complicated.”

“Don’t tell me you trapped the owner of the Terra Ring inside Three Thousand Worlds?”

“The owner of the Terra Ring was Keter.”

“What?”

The bucket man was shocked, and the butterfly woman, who had been lying as if dead, sprang to her feet.

“Keter? That guy you suspected of being a regressor?”

“Yes. I became certain Keter was a regressor the moment I saw him, just like you had, and subdued him.”

“Didn’t you say last time that Keter wasn’t a regressor?”

“It seemed implausible that Keter, an illegitimate child of a master family, would know anything about the Terra Ring.”

“Still, you must have asked how he knew, right?”

Ivan emphasized through both tone and expression that he had had no other choice. “He didn’t seem willing to tell me.”

The butterfly woman adjusted her clothes as she said, “Well, it doesn’t really matter. Ivan, let me go in there. I want to play with Keter.”

However, Ivan pulled his hand back. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m not your subordinate.”

“

Hah,

someone’s being petty.”

“Stop with the fighting. We should first discuss what to do about Keter.”

As the bucket man tried to calm Ivan and the butterfly woman, a door suddenly formed in midair. When it opened, a young man holding a cup of coffee appeared.

With his long blond hair tied tightly back, he let out a lazy yawn as he said, “You’ve been through a lot, Ivan. So, what did the owner of the Terra Ring say?”

“Killian.”

It was Killian, the self-proclaimed administrator of the Syndicate.

At his appearance, Ivan silently held out Three Thousand Worlds.

Killian spat out the coffee he had been drinking and looked back and forth between the marble-sized Three Thousand Worlds and Ivan.

“What in the world did you do?”

“The owner of the Terra Ring was Keter, the one I suspected of being a regressor. This time, I became certain and trapped him in Three Thousand Worlds. I plan to go meet the Messiah and have it confirmed whether he’s truly a regressor.”

“What I meant was, if you were going to do it, you should have done it properly.”

“What do you mean by that...?”

Ivan, the bucket man, and the butterfly woman all failed to understand Killian. Just then, the sound of something cracking echoed from somewhere. The three of them looked around in confusion.

Killian took another sip of his coffee and pointed at Three Thousand Worlds with his finger.

“Where are you looking? The sound is coming from there.”

Ivan couldn’t believe what Killian just said. Three Thousand Worlds was cracking? The bucket man and the butterfly woman couldn’t believe it either. They were well aware of the power of Three Thousand Worlds. Anyone trapped inside could neither escape nor destroy it. They knew it because they themselves had been trapped within it before.

“

Huh?!

”

“Oh my.”

“Th-that’s impossible!”

They, who were Transcendentals themselves, couldn’t hide their shock. Just as Killian had said, cracks were forming on Three Thousand Worlds. The moment they noticed, it began to crack at an even faster pace.

As Three Thousand Worlds shattered, Keter, who had been inside, appeared.

“Oh.” Keter casually appeared, scanning his surroundings, and said, “I’ve seen you two before, but this one’s new.”

“I’m Killian.”

“Nice to meet you, Killian. I’m Keter.”

“Would you like some coffee?”

“Do you have cocoa?”

“I do. Please have a seat and wait for a moment. Tuska, Alisa, what about you two?”

Tuska, the bucket man, froze like a statue, while Alisa, the butterfly woman, squinted and replied, “Bring me angel’s tears.”

“Very well.”

Just as when he had appeared, Killian created a door in midair and disappeared through it.

Left behind in the endless space were Keter and the three members of the Syndicate. Keter calmly walked over to a sofa and sat down in a relaxed position.

Ivan and Tuska glared at him, while boldly enough, Alisa went and sat close right next to Keter.

“My name is Alisa. You can call me that way.”

Alisa pressed her entire body, especially her chest, against Keter’s arm. Keter turned his head in return. Alisa’s face was close, close enough that their lips would touch if he leaned in just a little. Then, Alisa suddenly flinched and shuddered, as Keter had boldly stroked her thigh.

“

Heh

, I never thought someone would dare touch my body. I like how bold you are.”

The moment Alisa’s fingers traced down Keter’s chin toward his chest, her face suddenly flushed red, and her gaze sharpened.

“So they really are dragon scales,” Keter said.

The hand Keter used to stroke Alisa’s thigh held gleaming yellow scales. They were the dragon scales attached to the inside of her thigh. Keter had torn off her dragon scales with his bare hand.