I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 58 - King of Hungry Ghosts (3)

Chapter 58 – King of Hungry Ghosts (3)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The instant the eyes and ears of everyone here were robbed by white light.

When their stolen sight returned, what the mercenaries and Alon saw before them was.

“……!”

A gigantic crater.

Nothing remained there.

Not the grass that had been growing there.

Not the ruins that had stood on top of it, ruins so old no one could even guess at their history.

Even Argonia and Maverick, who had been closest to him, had vanished without leaving even a trace.

And standing in the middle of that pit was.

“……”

The Outer God, twisting up his lips in a dark smile.

“”……””

The mercenaries’ faces began to fill with despair.

Myaon, still holding her bow, and Hyman, who had been unfolding magic only moments ago, also stood there with their mouths open in disbelief.

And then.

The smiling Outer God moved.

“!”

The Outer God appeared before Hyman, who until just a moment ago had been staring blankly, and without hesitation swept his hand from left to right as if pronouncing death.

Of course, Hyman knew what result that gesture would produce, so he instinctively dropped his body backward and dodged the invisible slash.

Immediately afterward he tried to use Blink.

But.

“How will you dodge from top to bottom?”

At the mocking words and the shape of the hand being drawn from top to bottom.

Hyman’s body split to either side and collapsed to the ground.

By the time that happened.

The Outer God was already standing before Myaon.

“Hup.”

Having witnessed Hyman’s fate and already finished nocking her bowstring, Myaon tried to release the string the moment he appeared.

But.

The kick the Outer God launched before she could loose the arrow instantly sent her flying into the ruins on the opposite side.

“Now only you are left.”

Kailas said it with a dark smile.

* * *

With the four guild masters all being defeated without even properly laying a hand on him, the battle could effectively be said to have tipped beyond recovery.

For Alon as well, the situation was the worst possible.

His plan had failed before it could even be properly executed.

Frost Crystal Painted Halberd, which had consumed nearly all of his mana, had dealt no damage to the opponent.

And the guild masters who were supposed to buy him time while he prepared magic had all gone down.

“……”

Alon lowered his eyes slightly.

Already, two empty potion bottles were rolling around on the ground by his feet.

He had swallowed two mana potions while accepting the risk that mana intoxication might tear him apart, and his tiny mana hall was filling at a considerable speed.

But even as his mana refilled, his mind could no longer pull out another plan.

The Outer God he had to face after every plan had been shattered was simply too overwhelming.

And the even greater problem was the magic itself.

I’ve never even seen that magic before.

Alon had fought Kailas many times in Psychedelia, so he knew his stats and spells well.

The reason the guild masters had endured as much as they had against the Outer God was precisely because that information had provided an absolute advantage in knowledge.

But the magic Kailas had just used, magic that used phrases and sentences just like Alon’s own, was something even he was seeing for the first time.

That meant the informational advantage Alon possessed had already disappeared.

And that was not all.

That is magic…?

Alon looked at the utterly empty crater behind Kailas and felt hollow.

It was surely still magic that used phrases and sentences of the same family, even if the texture differed, but the Outer God’s magic was on a completely different level from the magic Alon used.

In other words, everything from skill to information to planning was overwhelmingly against him, and even the mercenaries had already lost the will to fight and could only stare up at the Outer God.

In a desperate situation that led only to death, Alon looked at the Outer God, who seemed to be mocking him.

“……”

He fell silent for a moment.

Then.

“Renown of the Snowy Mountain.”

He began to unfold magic.

“Decision.”

At Alon’s words, the air gathered together at once and formed dozens of tiny particles.

“Rotation.”

As those particles spun on their own clockwise in response to the next phrase.

Kailas, still wearing that dark smile, moved his finger immediately.

A simple motion from left to right.

However.

There is still hope.

Starting from the moment the invisible slash flying toward Alon touched one of the particles floating in the air and froze.

“Rine, help me.”

The battle began again.

* * *

There were many elements in a battle between mages, but in the end two things truly mattered.

The first was the speed of implementation.

The second was the battle of calculation.

To defeat a mage, you had to predict what kind of magic the other side would deploy and how, then act one step faster.

And to do that, you needed a speed of implementation close enough to the opponent’s.

No matter how much of an advantage you held in calculation, if your implementation speed could not keep up, you could not respond.

Viewed from that standpoint, the fight between Alon and the Outer God had no choice but to be unfavorable.

But.

Rine stood beside him.

She would meet the Outer God’s attacks for him.

Even after already unfolding them more than three times, the invisible slashes still slipped through the tiny remaining gaps in his magic, and each time Rine cut them away.

Watching that, Alon felt his own hands trembling.

The number of mana potion bottles dropped on the ground had already risen past five, and his skin was turning blue.

Symptoms of mana intoxication.

His pounding heart and the mana hall recovering at a speed incomparable to normal allowed Alon one more spell.

The slash was blocked the moment he implemented the magic.

As if he had been waiting for that instant, Kailas moved in a flash and appeared in front of Alon.

But.

With a sharp breath.

Fierce chains shot forward.

The Outer God widened the distance again and cast once more.

As if a cat were playing with a mouse.

As if he were an absolute being watching a final struggle.

Even though he could end it whenever he wanted, he was merely playing with Alon.

But in that humiliating situation, what filled Alon’s head was not anger, but cold reason.

In that state.

“Crystal.”

Alon defended once more.

He defended,

and defended,

and defended,

and defended.

As if he no longer had the room to attack.

With the blue discoloration of mana intoxication now climbing from his fingertips to his shoulder, he continued to hold the line.

People watched that wretched sight.

Some with despair in their eyes.

Some with disappointment.

Some with emptiness and resignation.

But even in that situation, Alon steadily kept blocking the slashes.

As if it were a final struggle.

With eyes gone bloodshot blue from mana intoxication.

He just continued to unfold whatever magic he was still allowed.

And then.

At last the chains Rine was using to block the Outer God’s attacks snapped apart.

At the very moment Kailas smiled as if what was meant to come had finally arrived.

Now.

Together with that brief thought.

“Crystal.”

Once more Alon raised the particles and blocked Kailas’s sight.

Then.

“Ice and snow.”

He led with a different phrase than before.

The mana gathering before the seal in his hands began to collect white frost.

“Form.”

That frost soon spread outward until it expanded around Alon himself.

“Renown of the Snowy Mountain.”

The sentence he barely forced out while swallowing blood created a giant hexagonal crystal before him.

“Blind… necessity.”

The crystal instantly expanded as it devoured the surrounding air and, just as before, formed a spear.

No, it was too beautiful to simply be called a spear.

But Alon, who had forced it into being while swallowing the blood boiling up in his mouth, did not speak the final phrase.

This is not enough.

At this moment, this was the line of play with the highest chance of defeating the Outer God.

He had drunk all the mana potions he had prepared for this instant.

He had kept up a war of attrition that was fatal for someone with a mana hall as small as his.

By doing so, he had succeeded in drawing out Kailas’s carelessness.

And his body, which had effectively reached a state close to death, had released another restriction he had prepared in advance.

A restriction that allowed him, when using magic in a near-death state, to twist the laws of the world.

All that remained was to prepare the final blow that would kill Kailas from within the line of sight concealed by the ice that had blocked the slashes.

But he knew it.

This alone would not be enough.

The reason Alon had implemented this magic anyway was because of what that thing had said before.

The next stage after natural order.

Self-nature manifestation.

But even now, I still understand nothing.

Alon recalled the Outer God’s words.

They must have been talking about that.

So he had to do it.

He had to implement here and now the final move that he could fire while the Outer God was off guard, the move he could not stop.

Think.

His thoughts accelerated.

His head, which felt as though it would burst from mana intoxication, madly summoned and erased countless thoughts over and over.

The pounding in his chest struck without pause.

Pain like his brain was melting.

But he did not stop.

With every part of himself still capable of thought, he searched for a hint that would let him move to the next stage after natural order.

And at that moment.

A seal.

A voice rang in Alon’s head.

Delusion and enlightenment are originally one and the same.

If you reach it, you shall obtain the key.

Together with a black ripple, something spoke those words, then as if it had finished all it had to say, the ripple vanished at once.

Before he could even identify what it was, Alon found the final piece that led to the next stage after natural order and, without hesitation, released the seal he had been holding and formed a new one.

He wrapped his right hand around his left, leaving only the index finger of the left hand straight and touching the other hand.

The completed wisdom-fist seal.

And then.

Alon saw it.

What had been a spear with a beautiful pattern just moments ago twisted strangely and took on the shape of a key.

At the same time.

“!”

As the ice subsided, the Outer God who had been relaxed until now came into view.

His leisurely expression hardened, and as though everything until now had been nothing more than play, he appeared in front of Alon before one could even blink and immediately reached out.

But.

Rattle.

Rine’s chains blocked the space in front of Alon as if they had been waiting for that from the beginning.

And then a variable appeared.

The Outer God twisted his body at once and, seeing Rine defenseless while protecting Alon, flicked his fingers toward her.

“Ah.”

A low exclamation escaped Rine as she foresaw death.

But.

Alon had already predicted that situation.

His hand was already gripping her clothes and pulling her in.

The slash barely grazed past.

In exchange, blood burst from the hand Alon had used to pull her.

But without hesitation, he formed the wisdom-fist seal again.

“Frost Crystal Painted Halberd.”

He spoke the final phrase.

And at the same time the key that had formed drove into the giant crystal and turned.

A glacier descended upon the meadow.