I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 153 - Assault (4)
Chapter 153 – Assault. (4)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Alon knew nothing about the Essence of the Golden Mane.
That was only natural.
In Psychedelia, the Essence of the Golden Mane was not an item used like this at all. It was merely an artifact that raised the player’s critical rate.
And yet he had still been able to advise Seol Lang.
Because he had seen it.
The mana arrangement inside the essence Seol Lang carried had begun to twist unnaturally, then climbed through her body in a nonlinear array.
Ordinarily it should have been impossible for Alon to see something like that.
The same would have been true for any other mage.
Even for an eighth-rank Tower Master.
Usually one could sense another person’s mana, but not observe the precise way it moved.
But now Alon could.
It must have started after his fight with Duke Komalon.
From then on, he had become able to faintly see the mana arrangements of others.
Even so, he had not truly recognized the significance of that fact until recently.
Or rather, he had not considered it especially important.
He could only see the arrangements dimly, and the level of detail had not been enough to greatly help his research or his combat.
But at this moment, Seol Lang’s mana arrangement was unbelievably clear.
He did not know why.
It was almost as if something had awakened.
That was why Alon had been able to give Seol Lang that advice.
And Seol Lang reached the sixth stage.
Crackle.
Alon stared at her blankly.
Seol Lang stood above the apostle of Pride, her whole body dyed gold.
Even Alon found himself letting out a low breath of admiration at how overwhelming she looked.
Then, just as she moved to bring her fist down once more.
“Ha.”
Seol Gak reacted.
Crackle.
Black lightning burst from him as he threw his body backward.
His expression twisted.
At the instant Seol Lang awakened, he had failed to respond in time and taken a hit.
His entire right arm had been blown away.
“Ghk.”
Blood poured endlessly from the stump, but instead of crying out in pain, Seol Gak’s face filled only with fury.
“…Fine, I’ll admit it. You got me once, little sister. But.”
He wrapped black lightning around himself like a cloak.
“Nothing changes.”
Then he rushed Seol Lang again.
And black thunder began falling.
####
The black thunderstorm tore across Colony’s sky.
Seol Gak came at Seol Lang beneath it and struck her body at a speed so fast even she failed to perceive it.
It was a speed so far beyond human limits that even Seol Lang, despite her awakening, could not fully react.
And yet, contrary to expectations, it was Seol Gak whose expression hardened.
In that instant, he realized that Seol Lang had still managed to raise a hand and disperse the impact.
Seol Gak ground his teeth and forced his panicked thoughts to move.
“My only chance is now.”
He knew what Lightning God Transformation meant to the Golden Mane clan.
He also knew that even after receiving power from that being, he himself had never reached that realm.
It twisted his insides.
What rose in him was inferiority.
And fear.
Because he, of all people, had longed for that realm more than anyone.
He had offered up even his own family as sacrifices without hesitation.
He had tried to offer even his younger sister as a body for descent.
Which meant he understood already.
Now that Seol Lang had reached that level, he could never win.
That was why.
“Before she adapts to Lightning God Transformation, I have to kill her.”
With bloodshot eyes, Seol Gak unleashed his mana.
The excessive power granted to him by that being devoured his body in an instant and gave him a strength he never should have reached.
But strength without cause always demanded a price.
Power beyond what his body could bear began to consume him in reverse, even starting to break him apart.
Even so, he used it without hesitation.
The force granted to him by the Sin of Pride could make him crush most of the strong on this continent.
But even that was not enough to reach the golden god before him.
It had only bought him a little more time.
“Somehow, before she adapts, I’ll kill her.”
Wrapped in the mana of Pride until he had become black mana itself, Seol Gak shot forward.
And from that point onward.
Black thunder and golden thunder began pouring down all across Colony.
Murky lightning struck and shook the world.
Golden lightning struck and engraved heaven and earth.
Amid that chaos.
“The preparations are finished.”
Alon quietly murmured as he looked up at the sky.
####
In truth, it was impossible for Alon to directly participate in this battle.
Seol Gak was driving up his output so violently in order to kill Seol Lang that his own body was falling apart, while Seol Lang was holding back those attacks.
There was no way Alon could ever keep pace with that speed.
That was right.
To him, this fight looked no different from a natural disaster, a heaven-splitting calamity of golden and black lightning falling again and again with world-shaking thunder.
In other words, he had no ability to step into the world the two of them were perceiving.
But Alon could still calmly observe the situation.
That was because of the traces of mana they were leaving behind as they fought.
Those remnants of mana gave a mage like Alon a surprising amount of information.
Lately he had been focusing heavily on magic research.
And among that research, his study of mana arrangements based on sigils had helped him the most.
Simply by looking at the residual mana, he could not completely understand everything happening in the battle.
But he could still draw several conclusions.
Of those, two were the clearest.
The apostle of Pride was overexerting himself to deal with Seol Lang.
And Seol Lang had not yet fully adapted to her awakening.
Alon stared into the empty air.
He still could not truly see them.
All he could perceive was mana appearing and scattering again and again.
After taking a breath.
“Hoo.”
Alon formed a seal.
As he had already said, Alon could not directly participate in this battle.
It was impossible.
At least, it would have been for the old Alon.
He looked up again.
Alongside the swirling remnants of the two Golden Mane clan members’ mana, Alon’s own mana had quietly spread through the sky as well.
Mana that had not yet even been manifested floated through the air unseen.
Normally mana had to pass through manifestation in order to take shape.
But Alon had broken that common sense.
The reason he could pull almost all of the mana from his mana hole and hold it outside his body with only the bare minimum left within was, once again, because of the recent research he had conducted with Penia.
The conversion of mana arrangements according to the structure of sigils.
And the byproduct he obtained while discovering new mana molecules through combinations of sigils.
That byproduct allowed him to maintain control over his mana in the form of mana molecules without manifesting any spell, fixing it in the air itself.
Because he had been given enough time, Alon had managed to scatter his mana all throughout the area where the battle was taking place.
Of course, because his total mana was not abundant, the density of that mana was inevitably very thin.
But now that was enough.
From the start, what Alon intended was not to kill Seol Gak.
“Expansion.”
All he wanted was to create a brief opening for Seol Lang.
Kkrrrrk.
At his murmur, the mana he had scattered in molecular form began expanding all at once.
At that instant.
Alon finally saw it.
Seol Lang being dragged out of the battle by the sudden swelling of the mana in the air.
And.
“What is this?”
Seol Gak driving in a strike against her at exactly that moment.
The instant he saw it, Alon spoke the next phrase without even a moment to spare.
“One Point.”
The swelling mana collapsed at once and clung to Seol Gak.
But.
Kwang.
The spell Alon had prepared in silence for several long minutes was blown away by a single irritated kick from Seol Gak.
One falling burst of black thunder erased all the mana Alon had expanded.
To Alon, it was a painfully empty outcome, and it had all happened in less than two seconds.
But behind his expressionless face, a crooked smile appeared.
Two seconds.
For Alon, two seconds was barely enough time to manifest a spell.
But for Seol Lang.
It was more than enough time even after killing Seol Gak.
Alon never took his eyes off the sky.
There he saw Seol Gak, looking upward in horror toward a height above him.
And then, descending.
“Wolf Spear Wolf Spear… Thunder Dragon Descent.”
A golden dragon.
Kwaaaaaaaaa.
####
The world turned white.
####
Right after that.
An absurdly vast and deep crater had been carved into the earth.
And Seol Lang was standing at the center of it.
Lightning God Transformation had already been undone.
At her feet, where she looked down in silence, lay the apostle of Pride.
Seol Gak.
With a huge hole torn through his heart.
“Idiot.”
Even though his heart had been pierced and he should no longer have been able to survive, Seol Gak still glared up at Seol Lang with both eyes wide.
“You will regret this, little sister. You will definitely regret this day, the day you cast away the powers prepared for you. You will regret it without fail.”
He flailed in futile desperation.
But Seol Lang merely lifted one leg without expression.
“I don’t need that kind of thing.”
Crack.
As if there were no reason left to listen, she crushed his head.
“Because I already got what I wanted.”
Seol Lang watched him turn to dust and vanish, as though he had never existed from the start.
Then she turned her head.
“Ah, Master.”
She tried to run toward Alon.
And immediately collapsed.
Alon rushed over and checked her condition.
“Huh? I have no strength in my body at all.”
Seol Lang sounded absurdly easygoing for someone who had just collapsed, and Alon let out a small breath of relief.
“You probably overexerted yourself a little.”
“Is that it, Master?”
“Yes.”
Seol Lang nodded shortly, then whispered.
“Thank you, Master.”
“…All of a sudden?”
“Yeah. You told me, didn’t you? How to use Lightning God Transformation. Because of that, I was able to kill him.”
Thank you.
Alon stayed silent for a moment, then opened his mouth.
“Seol Lang.”
“What is it, Master?”
“…Are you really all right?”
“Hm? In what sense?”
“…You treasure your family, don’t you?”
At that question, Seol Lang smiled.
It was a bitter smile Alon had never seen from her before.
But.
“…That’s right, Master. I treasure family.”
“…”
“But, you know?”
This time a bright smile returned to her face.
“I have absolutely no intention of losing something even more precious than that. I’m not an idiot.”
At Seol Lang’s steady words, Alon realized something without meaning to.
He had been judging her on his own terms no differently than Seol Gak had.
Just as Seol Gak had continued to see Seol Lang as the weak, childish girl from ten years ago.
Alon too had continued to think of Seol Lang as one of the Five Great Sins from Psychedelia.
Even after building memories with her and meeting her again and again, he had still looked at her through prejudice.
Not as Seol Lang, the first Baba Yaga of Colony, who now smiled brightly at him.
But as a being from a game who might one day become one of the Five Great Sins.
Only now did he understand.
Seol Lang was no longer a future Sin from the game, nor merely someone Alon needed to carefully manage at all costs.
She was someone who treasured family as much as life itself, but who could still choose something else without hesitation when necessary.
…Perhaps she had already grown into someone stronger and more decisive than Alon himself.
“Is that so.”
Feeling strangely lighter, Alon let out a small laugh without meaning to.
“Master… you could smile?”
“…”
Seol Lang looked up at him with the most astonished face she had ever shown.
It was only a faint smile.
But it reached the heart.
####
Some time later.
After hearing that Rine had dealt with Scorpirion, Seol Lang rested leaning against one side of the ruins while waiting for help to arrive.
Then she called to him.
“Master.”
“Hm?”
“Do that again.”
“That?”
“The ear press thing.”
“…Why?”
“It felt nice, somehow.”
Seol Lang laughed softly.
Alon obediently pressed both of her ears gently again.
Seol Lang closed her eyes and opened her mouth.
“Master.”
“What is it?”
“Thank you for worrying about me.”
“…Of course I would worry.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
At Alon’s answer.
“…I see.”
A small smile hung at the edge of Seol Lang’s lips.
It was afternoon, and beyond Colony’s broken wall, the sunset was sinking past the horizon.