Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 247
Chapter 247
Originally, beings who had grown powerful beyond a certain level and thus separated themselves from their birthplace could observe closed worlds, but interfering was difficult.
To be precise, it was not impossible, but it required paying an enormous price.
However, such transcendents sometimes exerted influence on closed worlds simply by passing through without doing anything at all.
Just as the vibration from an elephant’s footsteps alone makes an ant colony tremble, those with a spiritual rank too vast had their shockwave spreading in all directions.
Such was the trace of the being now approaching the Cradle World — the Moon-Devouring Bird.
Having detected the omen, Turan’s first move was to reach into the afterlife.
Starting from souls who had committed the most minor of sins, he issued conditional release to those serving their sentence in hell.
Their spirit forms quickly converted into Essence and settled within Turan, adding to his power.
Up to the limit that the presence he currently held could control.
After that, the hell and paradise that still held some souls were moved to the far side of the world’s boundary — to the farthest point from the dimensional corridor the enemies would likely arrive through.
Because it would be truly terrible if paradise were shattered in the middle of a fierce battle.
Next, he severed all dimensional gates linking from Earth through the Cradle to other worlds.
Because the shockwaves generated by the Moon-Devouring Bird passing through could be transmitted to Earth, and though the possibility was small, it could dispatch low-ranked beasts like Urukas and have them transported through the dimensional gates to Earth.
Of course, the current Earth with its many ability-users wouldn’t be as powerless against attacks from transcendent creatures as before, but there was no need to cause needless casualties.
Since he had warned Earth’s people in advance that this would happen for anywhere from a few hours to a few days, they would be alarmed but could manage to accept it.
And if the Cradle World were to lose, what came after would not need to be worried about.
He planned to distribute the Essence obtained by dismantling the recovered dimensional gates among the other ascendants.
Because Turan himself had already reached the limit of his power from the Essence gathered from the souls of hell.
If the enemy brought subordinates, this could prevent attention from being divided while dealing with them; and if they came alone, they could coordinate an attack to assist even a little.
Meanwhile, Meisa went down to the surface and summoned all the Cradle’s ascendants.
Solif, Osel, Ruska, Haram……
Even in the hurried situation of ascending, while tense, they were not flustered.
Thanks to warnings given long ago.
That a powerful enemy would come from beyond this world that even they could not easily handle.
Turan distributed the Essence that exceeded his capacity to control among those gathered, and said quietly:
“If everyone moves according to the pre-discussed plan, we should be able to stop them. I trust no one has forgotten their role.”
“Of course. Ha — I should have practiced a little more.”
Solif muttered regretfully while looking out beyond the empty void.
A brilliance as if sharpened from starlight flickered from his hand.
Since training at the scale of Turan or Meisa at this point would leave no strength left to fight, he was cramming short-scale training.
Of course, Solif, even without dedicating himself to training as completely cut off from the world as Turan and Meisa, had trained enough to be able to handle his own power decently.
Not only him — Haram too, standing some distance apart displaying combat techniques learned from Earth; and Osel kissing a photo of Rida; and even Ruska, using the pretext of advising as a senior ascendant to make moves on the one he had a one-sided love for.
Every one of them had made their own efforts since being warned long ago of the invasion of a powerful enemy they would struggle to handle.
Whether that effort would be rewarded was not certain, but……
“Are you scared?”
A voice rising from behind without warning.
Meisa whispered close to his ear, and Turan hesitated briefly before asking back:
“Does it look that way?”
“A little. There have been times where you felt similar before, but this level is the first time I’ve seen.”
So it showed.
Turan couldn’t even recall the last time he had shown fear to someone.
He, who had been trying to hide his emotions as usual behind an expressionless face, let his honest feelings show.
“How could I not be scared. If we lose, everything ends.”
“You can do it. You’ve worked for it. Almost a hundred years.”
“Have I.”
At Meisa’s comfort, Turan felt the heart pounding with tension begin to settle.
Could such ordinary words differ this much depending on who says them?
-And I’m here too!
At that moment, Bije burst out of his neck and cried out facing Turan.
Befitting a divine beast that had lived over a hundred years, the spirit in its voice contrasted with eyes that were completely pure and innocent.
Stroking the creature’s head, Turan realized his tension had completely dissolved and burst out laughing.
Even now–
Several hours passed.
When the others were beginning to tire after a long period of growing tension, the far side of the dimensional corridor began to fill with pitch black.
“It’s coming……”
The Moon-Devouring Bird.
One of the four beasts born from the master of the Cycle World could be seen approaching from far away.
No — to be precise, it was not ‘seen.’
Because that apocalyptic beast was devouring all the light around itself simply by existing.
In the void that appeared dark with no light even present, the sight of a shape even blacker than that approaching was truly surreal.
The dizziness of all senses including vision seeming to warp made even nausea rise.
Behind it came the familiar Urukas numbering in the hundreds and tens, along with various beasts smaller and larger.
They had likely brought subordinates more powerful than Urukas along, similar to the lion-headed humans seen before.
A moment later, when the enemy that had crossed the dimensional corridor reached the world’s boundary, its size was beyond imagination.
The wingspan of the six sets of wings extending left and right alone was dozens of kilometers.
The body showing only in a grotesquely twisted form was much smaller than that, but still measured in kilometers.
‘At this scale it’s less a living creature than something closer to a celestial body……’
Turan himself could forcibly grow to that scale, but it wasn’t particularly efficient.
Because there was a size limit to what felt ‘appropriate’ depending on the control capacity of one’s own spirit form.
The Moon-Devouring Bird looked at Turan and the Cradle’s ascendants lined up behind him, and spoke.
[Were you… waiting for me.]
The sobbing voice felt androgynous, making gender difficult to determine.
Depending on how you heard it, it could sound like a man or a woman.
“Yes. Any thoughts of returning peacefully?”
[That I cannot……]
The expected answer.
Even if it didn’t make the journey, once a heavyweight of that caliber had started moving, they needed to take enough in proportion.
This was the reason that even if Turan and the other ascendants invested all their remaining power into the world barrier, leaving only the smallest amount for their own use, and built a stronger barrier than before, it would be meaningless.
Once a visit this far had been made, even if the result didn’t merit the effort, they would tear off the wrapping around the Cradle one way or another and claim their prey.
Fighting and driving them out was the only means of survival.
“Move out.”
At Turan’s word as the signal, the battle that would determine the fate of two worlds began.
* * *
The first to open combat was a nuclear fusion explosion handcrafted by Turan.
A new technique achieved over the past decades, studying physics and all manner of natural laws in the gaps between busyness.
Just as with magic, the more deeply the underlying principles are understood, the less power is required to produce the phenomenon and the greater the destructive output.
This attack, even without putting in his full power, was enough in shockwave alone to incinerate all life forms within thousands of kilometers in every direction.
Had there been air at this world’s boundary to conduct heat, even the allied ascendants far away including himself would have needed to expend power to defend themselves.
However, despite the enormous thermal energy contained within it, the moment it contacted the Moon-Devouring Bird it was annihilated as if plunged into black ink.
‘Is it resistant to light and heat? Or it might be absorbing them.’
Was it related to the name Moon-Devouring Bird?
Going by its appearance, she had expected it would be either weak or strong to light, and it seemed to be the strong side.
While Turan was examining the opponent’s weaknesses, Meisa and Solif and the other ascendants moved to find their own opponents to fight.
A long-legged elephant, a grotesquely twisted-form reindeer, a pitch-black scaled serpent……
While most ascendants faced one of them along with the Uruka detachments that followed, only Meisa and Solif took on two or three creatures each.
Watching this, the Moon-Devouring Bird murmured quietly.
[Impressive.]
“What do you mean?”
[I heard it was still a young world, but it’s raised many powerful individuals. If more time had passed, it might have made quite a name for itself.]
It was not difficult to sense that those words carried the confidence that she could overwhelm them right now.
To this, Turan clicked his tongue lightly and prepared a second attack.
Having confirmed first that light and heat were ineffective, the next things worth attempting were water, cold, and poison.
One flap of the Golden Eagle’s wings, and an amount of water enough to fill an ocean poured out in an instant, then froze solid and wound around the creature’s body in the form of ice serpents.
Within it was also a potent poison bearing the concept of inhibiting all life activity — even more powerful than the one used when killing the lion-headed human before.
However, the Moon-Devouring Bird stood still and allowed all the attacks even with its six wings of feathers unable to flap.
As if to say all this was nothing to it.
[Is that all? If the ruler of this world amounts to this, I’m somewhat disappointed……]
A voice that even conveyed a hint of letdown.
To this, Turan immediately followed with a third attack he had prepared through training with Meisa.
The ice that had wound around the Moon-Devouring Bird’s body changed from solid to liquid, then from liquid to gas, rapidly expanding.
Controlling it so the pressure could not escape outward, it erupted inward — which was the same as an explosion.
A steam explosion with only pure physical force at work, devoid of light and heat, blasted apart the Moon-Devouring Bird’s body.
The tremendous bang was enough that even others fighting at a distance briefly stopped fighting and looked back.
‘Did that work?’
As the aftermath of the explosion settled, Turan was for the first time able to see the enemy’s true form that had been wrapped in darkness.
The Moon-Devouring Bird’s true nature was a composite mass of countless bird species.
Sparrows, pigeons, magpies, crows, hawks……
All manner of birds were crammed together, composing a life form with a form too hideous to be called a bird.
Whether from the steam explosion just before, about ten percent of its body had collapsed and was pouring jet-black blood, but remarkably, these wounds reverted to normal after a short while as if time had been rewound.
Wrapping itself in pitch-black darkness once again, it clapped its great beak and laughed.
[This is somewhat amusing. Had I not received my elder brother’s help, you would have given me quite some difficulty for a while.]
A faint heat and interest now permeated what had been a languid voice throughout.
Along with it, Turan’s vision filled with pitch black.
‘This is……’
Had he lost his sight? Or was this some other trick?
At Turan standing blankly having lost his vision, the Moon-Devouring Bird launched its first attack.
Six wings flapping, it charged at near spatial movement speed and brought down its talons.
The attack combining size-appropriate force and speed, plus the authority inherent to a transcendent existence, was enough to shatter a star.
However, Turan detected it even without being able to see and quickly flapped his wings to escape the attack.
The Moon-Devouring Bird spoke for the first time in a flustered tone.
[How?]
Turan was able to evade the opponent’s attack thanks to a sense unique to those who handle Essence.
The ability to perceive things not only through five senses but as information.
It was wearying to take in too much information in ordinary circumstances, so normally only a few necessary parts were kept active, but if needed it could substitute entirely for sight.
Thanks to this ability, he was also able to understand what trick the Moon-Devouring Bird had used.
‘It devoured all light present in this space. Similar principle to that light-eating magic artifact used in the past.’
However, unlike that mere mid-grade magic artifact, this power was quite literally the exercise of a divine being’s capability.
Turan extended his senses to briefly confirm how the other ascendants besides himself were faring.
They too had been robbed of light in this space, but fortunately it seemed everyone was managing to fight somehow by similar means.
‘Good, I just need to win from here……’
The problem was it wasn’t as easy as he thought.
Confirming the opponent through information alone while robbed of sight, the overwhelmingly ability became more real.
Over the past hundred or so years, having revitalized an entire world and absorbed most of the power derived from it, the opponent’s sheer scale still overwhelmed him.
Well, thinking about it, it wasn’t that surprising.
The transcendents of open worlds boasting powerful strength, including the Cycle World, were ancient monsters that had existed for at least hundreds of thousands to millions of years and more.
Thinking of how they had accumulated power over an unimaginably long time, collecting souls through contracts across hundreds and thousands of worlds or through invasion, it was actually remarkable to have been able to match them in merely a hundred years.
[You have the ability to see without eyes? My wingbeats produce no sound.]
“At least this much.”
Brushing off the question meant to probe for information, Turan attempted the same attack as before once again.
Having confirmed that physical attacks devoid of light and heat were effective.
However, as if not intending to fall for the same move twice, the Moon-Devouring Bird moved elegantly and avoided the ice dragon Turan had created, attempting another attack.
Trying to evade quickly as before, anticipating this it struck one step ahead and a wing joint was ripped clean off.
“Ugh……”
It was barely a glancing pass, but with the size difference between the two being dozens of times, even that amounted to a critical wound.
As Turan expended Essence to fill the wound, he frowned realizing the injury wasn’t easily healing.
Not poison or anything similar — a power bearing the concept of ‘interfering with wound recovery’ was imbued in the creature’s talons.
This was clearly a divine authority on an entirely different plane from the Cradle World’s abilities.
‘Then there’s no choice.’
Turan’s response to this was simple.
Simply eliminate the part that wouldn’t heal easily and regenerate it anew.
It was a technique possible because the Golden Eagle’s form was not his actual body but a form shaped from Essence.
Seeing this, the Moon-Devouring Bird exclaimed again.
[Rather than dispelling the curse, you simply disassemble and reset it as if it never happened? Truly remarkable…… this world too, and the power of your kind, are rare things I have never even seen. I cannot even imagine how pleased Mother would be if I presented these to her.]
At the tone still viewing them as prey, Turan smiled crookedly and attempted another counterattack.
This time, thousands of railgun shots — the same type used when eliminating the Uruka horde in the past.
The difference was in the power contained within.
Unlike that time when it had been an attack intended to weed out a jumble of ordinary enemies, each projectile he created now was larger than a building.
With the sensation of a large amount of Essence deactivating, explosions and magnetic force erupted from all directions as thousands of iron cannonballs were fired.
[Ugh……]
The opponent’s first pained groan heard.
Reading only information, Turan sensed that the darkness covering the opponent’s body had cleared considerably, and that blood was pouring like a waterfall from the affected area.
And before long that all those wounds recovered as if time had been rewound as well.
‘This.’
Not his place to say so, but it was an unreasonably high level of regenerative ability.
If he pressed the same attack again with the power that remained now — might that recovery ability also eventually reach its limit?
That would be great if so, but if not it would be the worst case scenario where only his side would exhaust its power and be neutralized……
That concern was brief — sensing a massive force swirling around the opponent’s body, Turan quickly flapped his wings.
Fortunately the opponent’s attack barely passed him and disappeared into the void beyond.
And on its heels, talons diving in to strike from directly above.
In addition to the ranged attack ability not used until moments ago plus close combat, and overwhelming speed on top of that, there was not even time to contemplate whether to keep attacking or not.
Just blocking and evading alone was already taxing his strength.
After repeated evasions and defenses, and in the process of eliminating and regenerating parts of his body to recover from wounds inflicted — Turan’s Essence was being rapidly depleted.
By comparison, the opponent still looked quite at ease.
It was an attrition war proceeding in a direction not particularly favorable to Turan.
‘This is dangerous.’
How to overcome this situation.
That contemplation was also brief — Turan realized he had no choice but to use a method he had put off because it felt unappealing, and exhaled quietly.
The first action he took was relinquishing control of the majority of Essence he held.
The ones that had already been used once and needed time to reactivate.
Sensing this, the Moon-Devouring Bird, which had been attacking relentlessly, paused for a moment.
Probably because not knowing exactly how this side’s power worked, it was guarding against any unknown technique.
Thanks to this, Turan gained the breathing room to execute his second move.
Along with drawing a breath, an amount of Essence matching what he had just released from his hand — but unused and thus retaining its full power — came under his control.
As the power that had comprised the world barrier was completely absorbed into him, the deep blue sky darkened to black.
For the first time, the people of the Cradle World came face to face with the world’s boundary surrounding them, and the End Bird threatening it.