Chapter 524 – Dahit Wethroel
Verden's superlative magic───Destruction Star, Endveil.
The ultimate of Mado, centered on Mado
A phenomenon akin to the very end of the world, it boasted such absolute firepower that one could even claim victory against Dahit's superlative magic.
But the price was fatal.
Above all, the immense burden inflicted on the heart. Having cast
Kwaooom!
Verden dropped as though plummeting, landing hard upon the ground. Even the slightest shock caused blood to gush out from his wounds.
The pain was no problem.
But his mind was hazy.
Already gravely injured, now with the recoil of Destruction Star, the indescribable loss of strength was unbearable.
In the end, he let go of [Interis], slumping down against a small rock behind him.
'In the past... I would have already been dead.'
The battle against Gluttony's Fifth Fang and the Administrator, the clone of the Demon King, not to mention when he faced the Bone-Relic Dragon resurrected by the Glory of the Dead—the wounds then were nothing compared to now.
Even so, the only reason he was still alive was because he was a Transcendent.
Verden, his face steeped in exhaustion, lifted his head.
The sky was in disarray.
Snow fell again from the turbulent clouds, while the sinking sunset shone through the gaps. Upon the devastated ground, snow began to gather little by little.
At its center stood Dahit.
"Impressive, enemy."
His first words were praise.
Standing on the edge of the colossal cliff wrought by Destruction Star, Dahit's figure was far more tragic than Verden's.
By sacrificing his entire left side to reduce the shock, he had avoided instant death, but the physical loss was devastating.
Who had won?
So self-evident was the answer that there was no need to speak it aloud.
Even so, Dahit Wethroel's will did not wane. Instead, his gaze shone fiercer than ever before.
"What are you doing, Verden."
A magic battle between Transcendents, where only death decides defeat.
"I am still, alive."
"...Right."
Verden nodded, barely managing to grasp [Interis] with trembling hands, and forcing his body upright with all his remaining strength.
His heart's magic sealed by the superlative spell, he gathered every last scrap of magic power remaining in his mana circuits.
From the staff's orb, the sharp edge of a destructive spear formed.
Verden took off, flying low and fast, straight ahead.
Kwa-gwa-gwang! Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!
Several black-flame arrows rained down, striking the earth and exploding. They were indiscriminate, their aim almost nonexistent.
With only the barest movements, Verden evaded and deflected Dahit's resistance, even cleaving vertically through the wall of Deathflame that blocked his way.
Not much remained.
But then, his strength failed and Verden could no longer maintain
Immediately, he carried his momentum forward, sliding as he advanced.
At that moment.
Dahit drew back his right arm, eyes burning with the will to kill, yet... strangely, he never thrust it forward.
His gaze remained locked solely on Verden.
Why he stopped, Verden did not know, but instinct took precedence over doubt.
───!
[Interis] traced a fierce arc through his hand and shoulder. Verden braked hard with his legs, spinning half a circle.
Both arms thrust forward.
Kwa-jijijik!
The final destruction pierced straight through Dahit Wethroel's heart.
***
The dark crimson spear of Mado completely impaled the chest of a Transcendent... even with Verden's dulled senses, he could feel it clearly.
It had not missed.
It was precise.
'It's over.'
Verden was certain.
Whatever variables might exist, Dahit's death was now a matter of seconds, an unavoidable result.
Then,
"I bore no ill will in killing my teachers and seizing Black Hour."
"...What?"
"Jeremiah Gawin, Harkan Dazest, Linder, Rutmer, Maybel Risonia Siller, Carindin Lerhar, Cayman Vermont, Melard Tastienne—all of them... believed I would be a good leader. That is how they remembered me."
A faint laugh slipped out.
"Not a bad thing."
Ignoring what had happened to his heart, Dahit stared straight at Verden, speaking calmly.
Something was wrong.
He should already be dead, and yet... his voice grew clearer, stronger, as though pulling Verden's consciousness in against his will.
His monologue continued.
"But to me, it was a completely mistaken future. That path, was utterly different from the realization I had reached. One I must never walk."
Mado, in essence, is the mental realm a Magus reaches upon transcending the Fifth Tier, once physically prepared and having realized his path.
But people change.
Through experiences so overwhelming they override inborn nature, one can become a wholly different being from before.
Then, what if one were to betray oneself by walking a path other than the Mado one had pioneered?
A Magus loses his Mado.
Verden had never heard of such a thing.
"...To my knowledge, no such case has ever been reported in the magic world."
"Of course. Throughout history, few would be so foolish as to truly betray themselves. But at that time... I felt as though I stood at that unfamiliar crossroads."
The memory remained vivid.
"Thus, I had to decide. Whether to be defined by my teachers' memories and forsake my Mado, or to show the world my true self and have others redefine me."
In the end, Dahit chose to walk the Mado of Deathflame. For he could not abandon his Mado, nor the possibility of transcendence.
The weak are soon forgotten.
Decades later, chosen at last, he became a Transcendent.
And with his conviction firmed,
Rejecting, deep within, the wishes of his masters, Dahit discarded all feelings toward them in secret.
They were unnecessary.
If he ever revealed his true heart, they would have become adversaries. Perhaps that backlash was why his pursuit of efficiency grew into obsession.
After adapting for seven years to being a Transcendent, Dahit prepared in earnest his plan to seize Black Hour.
Not merely a research group of high-level Mages, but a force built solely for Dahit himself.
A foundation for his ideals.
In that process, Carindin, Maybel, and other traitors joined him. Though grouped together under the name Black Hour, each pursued utterly different goals.
And thus, Dahit Wethroel became the usurper of Black Hour.
"To reach this point, I had to cast away my masters. To truly gain what one desires, a price must be paid. That is the way of the world."
The whisper reverberated through Verden's mind.
"And so it is even now."
Kwak.
Suddenly Dahit seized Verden's forehead with his right hand.
Instinctively Verden twisted [Interis]. His heart should have been torn with agony, yet Dahit gave only a faint groan and did not budge.
Had this been before, Verden could have easily shaken him off... but unlike Dahit, for whom not dying was enough, Verden was barely managing to stand.
'Still, I can endure.'
With his heart destroyed, Dahit should have been unable to properly open his Mado or manifest powerful magic.
Yet... what radiated from him was not the annihilation of Deathflame.
A flash burst through Verden's mind as an immense flood of memories surged in.
It was like
With his resistance weakened to the utmost, he could not oppose it.
Even Verden's computation power could not process the tide of information pouring in like a deluge.
"...!!!!!!"
For one of the rare times in his life, Verden screamed, clutching his head with both hands, staggering backward.
It felt like his brain was burning.
He forced his heavy eyelids open, cold sweat pouring down like rain.
Ujijik.
With all his remaining strength, Dahit pulled [Interis] from his chest. The destructive manifestation lost power and vanished.
He tossed the staff forward, and it rolled to a stop at Verden's feet.
Coughing blood, Dahit wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"In that state, I judged you would lose consciousness, unable to endure my memories. Remarkable willpower. But even so, you cannot compute a simple spell, nor even move properly."
And it was true.
Inside Verden's head, Dahit Wethroel's entire life replayed in chaos. Not fragments, but truly everything.
Only by sheer force of will could he slow the influx, minimizing the torrent of information and avoiding immediate collapse... but he lacked even the strength to remotely retrieve [Interis].
Verden forced his weary gaze upward.
"Quite the noisy last words... For you as well... there's nothing left you can do...!"
Dahit's magical foundation had been gravely damaged by Destruction. Before long, when his magic was depleted, death would surely claim him.
"Indeed. With what little remains of my dwindling magic, all I could manage is a meager annihilation."
But.
"In this world, it is different."
Suddenly, among the memories being forced into Verden's mind, one scene flashed through.
The Magus within the ice.
The ancients manifested magic by accepting the world's mana without the use of circuits.
Verden's pupils dilated.
"...No way."
"The removal of the only line suppressing mana circuits and the hierarchy of Mages. All past experiments failed, but none had ever been performed on the body of a Transcendent. Yet that is no obstacle. When there are beings who bear infinite mana as their power source, what can truly be impossible?"
Dahit placed his hand upon his blood-slick chest, over his heart.
"I am Dahit Wethroel."
With the certainty that failure could not exist.
He transformed the mana within his body into flames of annihilation, erasing physically half of his mana circuits and conceptually the 'sole line' of hierarchical suppression.
***
A vast current surged toward Dahit.
"Kraaaaaaah...!!!!"
Even as he screamed, he did not stop.
Using the remaining half of his mana as primer, he drew in pure natural mana from the world itself.
Kwa-du-du-du-duh.
From his ruined left side, glowing blue veins began to swell, flaring violently, as though about to burst at any moment.
But he controlled it.
Fwaaaah.
A sense of omnipotence greater even than at his awakening.
Freed from the limits of the Seventh Tier, Dahit embraced vast mana. Of course, it did not mean his life was extended.
It was only for a fleeting moment.
Yet Verden's focus was not on Dahit's newfound height, but on something else.
'His eyes... changed.'
Where once they had been a deep gray, Dahit's eyes had now turned azure. The change struck Verden with déjà vu.
Dahit, now calm again, spoke softly.
Tuduk.
From his left side, where the mana circuits had been annihilated and replaced with natural mana, pieces of skin began to flake away.
"I have long wrestled with this question."
How not to be forgotten, like the Wethroel family.
How to exist beyond the life given.
No clear answer.
Even for a Transcendent, eternal life was not granted.
Even if possible, what meaning would it hold? To be immortal, yet unremembered by others, is no different from death.
"To me, the closest answer was to leave behind a name."
He thought of beings who, even after endless ages, still undeniably proved their existence in this world.
Foremost among them, the first Demon King, Oldarc Ruin Arkenad.
And the few Mages who had belonged to the very first magic tower, founded over a thousand years ago.
The way to become a great figure of history was, in truth, simple.
They all had a commonality.
They changed the magic world, the era.
At such a time, Dahit obtained the corpse of the ancient Magus in the ice. After relentless study, he discovered within the modern Mage's circuits the 'concept' that suppressed hierarchy.
And─── recently, he succeeded in creating his third superlative spell, capable of erasing that very concept itself.
"...!"
Only then did Verden grasp what Dahit intended, forcing aside the intrusive tide of his memories to speak.
"So that's it. Your goal was to cast your superlative spell in this world, to erase that concept, to change the magic world, to become a great figure remembered forever?"
"The fate of the magic world is irrelevant. All I wish is to engrave my existence into this world. So none can forget me. Yet, being remembered as a great man was not enough."
Hoooh.
Dahit dispelled the annihilation that had lingered in Verden's wounds.
"To realize my ideal, besides a great feat to shake the magic world, two other conditions were needed. One I found in the great city, Gargant."
From his breast, Dahit drew forth a ring and slid it onto his black-gloved hand.
A violet gleam flickered.
As the ring activated, faint illusions rippled throughout the surroundings.
This presence, this mana.
"Ignacia?"
The sensation was identical to what Verden had felt at her auction.
"As you know, the concept borne by the Outrealm is the manifestation of illusion into reality. When I told her of my ideal, she gladly lent me her superlative magic. Through it, I will spread fragments of my memories across the continent. To shatter the very concept of hierarchy in circuits, and to let it be known that it was I who accomplished it."
"...Why didn't you use it sooner? With that───"
"Then the victor would have been me. And Ignacia would never lend me her superlative magic again. What does this brief life matter, when I can fulfill my ideal? And more importantly."
Dahit gave a cold laugh.
"To borrow another Transcendent's power to seize victory in a one-on-one duel? Pathetic. That is a matter of pride, beyond efficiency."
It was pride.
"And the final condition was to surpass the very figures of history. To break free of distortion and oblivion within the records themselves."
Dahit tapped his temple with his finger.
"With the memories I gave you."
By entrusting his life's memories to another, he could continue his existence perfectly.
But not just any vessel.
An ordinary man's head would explode, and even if successful, if they died meaninglessly later it would all be for naught.
Thus, the right successor was required.
Until now, he had never found one. But no longer.
Verden.
Bearing a mad ideal, infinite potential for the future, and destined to surpass even Dahit as a Transcendent—he was more than enough.
Fwaaaaaah!
Just as Verden tried to speak, Dahit moved his mana.
"Be silent and watch. The moment when one Transcendent realizes his ideal."
He chanted his spell.
As the ancient Magus in ice might once have done.
"Diffusing annihilation. Abandonment of hierarchy. Deathflame's transcendence...."
Each word bore intent.
Responding to Dahit's plea to the world, the spell began to manifest. As all his will was delivered, its development accelerated.
Superlative magic.
The final annihilation.
For an instant it blazed, erasing the concept dwelling within the only line connecting Mage and circuit.
Concepts exist everywhere.
Thus, if one is erased, all are erased.
Then Dahit raised the ring high.
Ignacia's superlative magic.
The illusion Dahit sought to manifest into reality was 'dream'. The memories prepared for this moment rode upon intangible mana, spreading far across the land.
"..."
Verden witnessed it all. Perhaps because of the memories Dahit had given him.
A thrill coursed through his entire body.
"If I cannot become the world, then I shall become its foundation."
Dahit gazed at the sky, then slowly began to walk.
"From today, the magic world, this very world, shall be transformed. Upon it, strive once more to realize your ideals. In the world that stems from me."
"I will see to your funeral."
"I shall not die. As long as you exist, I am immortal."
Dahit placed a hand once upon Verden's shoulder, then walked past him.
"You have won, Verden."
The natural mana dispersed.
Unable to delay death any longer, Dahit collapsed forward.
The sky darkened, and the light faded from his azure eyes.
Dark Moon, Dahit Wethroel.
The full moon shone upon his corpse.
***
Great city, Gargant.
"Farewell, Dahit."
Sensing that her superlative magic had been activated, Ignacia raised her cup to the moon with a smile.
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