"Mutated believers?"

Muen thought of the heretical cultists he’d run into before, and then thought of that demonic-race grand duchess who had secretly infiltrated the empire not long ago and colluded with the Inner Council—the Ghostblood Grand Duchess.

Heretical cultists still looked human on the outside, but that Ghostblood Grand Duchess...

You couldn’t say she looked exactly like a person. You could only say it had absolutely nothing to do with that. She was even farther from the kind of succubus in the legends—big chest, long legs, scanty clothes, a little tail swishing back and forth.

"Because of the mutations, the demonic race’s appearances are almost all different. Internally, they’re split into several major clans that fight each other. But there are also some that look similar to humans."

As she spoke, Mera glanced at Muen with a half-smile that wasn’t quite a smile. "They’ve got the kind you want, too."

"That really is... no, wait. The demonic race is the empire’s mortal enemy. How could I possibly have improper thoughts?"

Muen put on a straight face and righteously condemned that improper line of thinking.

"Really none?"

"None."

"Sure?"

"Sure!"

"Stare..."

"Ahem. Do they have the kind that... has a heart on the lower belly?" Muen lowered his voice.

"Who knows? Go catch one?"

"Too much trouble."

"Then how about you come here. A heart carved on your lower belly or something—I can help you right now..."

"That old gag is something you were telling a hundred thousand years ago already!"

...

...

Once the idle talk was over, Muen’s attention returned to the Abyss before them.

"By the way, let me ask—this Demon God who single-handedly stirred up the chaos that swept the continent a thousand years ago, and, by what you’re saying, beat an entire era into total decline... is he really dead?"

This was what Muen actually cared about.

He vaguely remembered that in the original book, Ariel—where the plot only reached mid-to-late stages—faced a final boss called the Demon King.

But the so-called king of the demonic race, in a place where Evil Gods caused trouble everywhere and kept casually throwing out world-ending crises... no matter how you thought about it, he didn’t have the aura to be the true final boss.

So, by that logic...

"Dead. Of course he’s dead."

Mera answered, "I personally took part in that battle. I can guarantee you the Demon God is dead beyond dead. But..."

"But?"

"That doesn’t mean he can’t revive again," Mera said, completely casual.

"..."

Muen went silent for a moment, then couldn’t help complaining. "A final villain who can revive at any time—what a tacky trope."

"What do you want me to do? Only gods can kill gods, so no matter how we ground-crawling ants struggle, fight, and sacrifice..."

A dim flow of light leaked from Mera’s eyes, faintly outlining desperate pictures of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, as she sighed.

"We can only dismember him, cut him to pieces, and suppress those remains separately."

"What about the other gods? A disaster that threatens the world like this—don’t they do anything?"

"Heh. If the other gods got involved..."

For some reason, Mera gave a mocking laugh. "That would be complete, irreversible despair."

"Is that so... wait. Suppress separately?"

Muen’s face stiffened right as he was about to sigh along with her. He stared at Mera with widened eyes.

"Don’t tell me the thing suppressed under the academy’s Sea of Mercury is—"

"Mhm. That’s right. One of the Demon God’s remnants."

Mera nodded. "Back then, the Love God and the Silent Moon both went crazy trying to break into the academy for that thing."

"...So when I soak in the Sea of Mercury, it’s basically like—"

Muen’s face turned even paler.

"Well, kind of like bathing in formalin that’s used to soak corpses."

"..."

In Muen’s head, the thousand-and-first impulse to strangle this pitfall-setting old loli rose up at once.

"Pfft... alright, alright. It’s just a joke."

Mera patted Muen’s shoulder and comforted him with a smile. "The Sea of Mercury is, of course, isolated from the Demon God’s remnant. Otherwise the Demon God’s leftover Pollution would’ve leaked out long ago. Besides, it’s not like you’ve never been up close to an Evil God. What are you scared of?"

"Anyone who finds out there’s something like that under their ass is going to shiver."

"Then what if I tell you that one of the Demon God’s remnants—the piece the Church of Life was suppressing—has already been stolen by the Love God? Would you shiver even harder?" Mera said with a half-smile.

"Oh."

Muen only responded casually, "Got it."

"Hm?"

Mera blinked in surprise. "Brat, that reaction isn’t right."

"How am I supposed to react?"

"Aren’t you supposed to be crying your eyes out right now, hugging your teacher’s leg, crying and screaming that you’re scared?"

"Where are you even finding a coward like that?"

Muen rolled his eyes. "If we already have the tacky plot of the final boss being sealed, then it’s normal for it to get tackier and have the seal slowly undone, isn’t it?"

"...That’s fair. I actually can’t refute it."

Mera crossed her arms, tilted her head, and muttered, then added, "But you don’t need to worry. Even if the Love God stole one piece, it won’t do much. Right now the other pieces are in very safe condition."

"Oh, that’s great."

Muen’s tone was completely flat.

Of course I’m not worried. The protagonist is still just a fourth-rank small fry. Even if the Demon God really is the final boss, there’s no way he’d show up this early.

The mobs haven’t even all come out to feed the protagonist experience yet.

Muen grumbled inwardly.

"Alright, idle talk’s over. Next, let’s get to the real business."

Mera suddenly clapped her hands.

"Huh? Weren’t we just talking about real business?"

"That counts as real business? Did you forget why I called you here?"

"Why?"

Muen thought for a moment, and remembered the reason Teacher Mera had forcibly pinned him down on the bed...

"To restore my mental power?"

"Right. But actually, you’ve already slept for three days. After my special method of conditioning, you’ve basically recovered completely."

Mera flexed and curled her fingers rapidly, wearing an evil grin like a big bad wolf about to eat a little white rabbit clean to the bone.

"But in my opinion, mere recovery is far from enough."

"So what do you want?"

A chill ran down Muen’s back, and he backed away several steps warily.

"So... I think your mental power should also be tempered. Even though your mental power already far exceeds ordinary people, you’ve still got that thing inside you. No amount of mental power is ever enough."

"H-How... how do we temper it?"

Muen’s sense of foreboding grew stronger. That feeling—like he was about to be screwed over—that he’d just experienced not long ago, rose rapidly in his chest again.

"Relax. I’m just going to let you look at something a little not suitable for children. Something more stimulating."

Mera put on a pair of sunglasses and casually pointed upward.

"And I said it already. The discomfort will only be a tiny bit. Mm. A tiny bit."

"..."

Like hell it’s only a tiny bit. You think the same bullshit is going to fool someone a second time?!

The moment Mera pointed upward, Muen—deeply sensing something was wrong—had already reacted, doing his best to control himself, not wanting to be toyed with by this pitfall-setting old loli.

But obviously, he still didn’t have the capital to resist the oppression of an evil old loli, and the old loli wasn’t going to give him a chance to resist at all.

So, accompanied by the sound of joints grinding, his head began to lift—slowly, uncontrollably—and then he saw...

At some unknown time, the smoke and dust shrouding this barren land had already scattered with the wind.

Even the sound of the wind disappeared. The world was quiet, as if asleep.

But in that clarity, Muen didn’t see the familiar blue sky.

Instead, there was a gigantic scar, splitting the two ends of the heavens, as if echoing the Abyss on the ground below from afar.

A scar upon the world!

Its black edges were spreading spatial rifts. Along its deep outline clung earthfire, gale-force winds, heavenly lightning, and huge mountain peaks freed from gravity’s constraints—hanging upside down and shattered.

Endless hollows expanded in layers, like a ferocious eye with sharply separated colors, or else a terrifying maw that would swallow everything whole.

The entire world twisted here. Every established rule stopped applying. It was a realm completely beyond human understanding. Just looking at it, Muen felt a horrifying tearing inside his mind.

And in the very center of that giant wound, a pale, drifting shadow floated.

That shadow was so unreal that even its shape couldn’t be made out. Muen’s gaze could even pass straight through It, seeing lightning and rocks streaking past behind It. Yet the instant Muen saw that shadow, a terrifying chill crawled up his spine, all the way to the top of his head, tearing at his scalp, roaring at him like a mad thing:

Run! Run! Run!

This was something even more terrifying than anything you’d ever seen—any existence, any Evil God projection, any unseeable thing.

Run!

...Of course Muen wanted to run, but his body was pinned in place, unable to move even a fraction.

That shadow was like a black hole, constantly tugging at his flesh, his consciousness, even his soul.

So he could only, in the agony of having his mind torn apart inch by inch, be forced to stare at the existence he should never have stared at—

The Demon God.

...

...

"Relax, kid. This thing doesn’t even count as a leftover shadow."

Mera was still wearing her sunglasses. She had no idea where she’d pulled out a lounge chair and some juice from. She lay back with her legs crossed, comfortably sipping.

"But something fished out of a phantom of the past like this is still very useful for tempering your mind."

After all, gods cannot be looked at directly.

An ordinary person could go insane just from a single glance at an Evil God’s projection, let alone the First Evil God.

So Muen forcing himself to look was like training your face by deliberately letting people slap you. There was a tiny, tiny bit of pain, but it was absolutely effective. Guaranteed—three days and you’d get skin thicker than a city wall, unbreakable.

And since this was an illusion built by her through the Authority of the Eternal Bell, everything was under her control. It also wouldn’t carry the true danger of directly looking at an Evil God.

"Ugh. With a teacher as good as me, you brat should just be secretly happy. Who else has the ability to find you such a good training scene? And you’re always thinking about disrespecting your teacher. Hmph. Traitorous disciple. A little lesson for you is good."

Mera shook her head, changed into a more comfortable position, and looked ready to enjoy her disciple’s miserable state even more clearly.

However...

Crack.

The instant she moved, the sound of something shattering suddenly rang out—so clear in the silence.

"What kind of joke is this?"

Mera froze for a moment, then lowered her head, looking at the shattered juice bottle in her hand. Her expression turned grim in an instant.

"It’s clearly just a phantom, and separated by a full thousand years of time, and yet..."

...

...

Muen was still staring at that empty shadow.

The tearing in his mind continued. Twisted hallucinations and noisy whispers kept hammering his senses. That horrifying pressure felt like it was going to bore into his soul and shred him completely.

But...

As his mind grew stronger through repeated tearing and healing, Muen gradually adapted to the pressure and started to barely be able to breathe.

And it was precisely that lingering aftertaste that returned a little bit of his ability to think. His gaze tightened, and he subconsciously wanted to go a step further... to see that shadow more clearly.

...

Muen didn’t know why he was having such a ridiculous thought.

Like knowing you can’t touch a tiger’s butt, and still wanting to die by flippantly patting it once.

Or else, some influence made his mind instinctively generate that thought.

Buzz!

The moment that thought formed in Muen’s head, it was as if heaven and earth trembled. A ripple, centered on that shadow, spread outward in an ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) instant.

Muen discovered in horror...

It was clearly just a phantom that didn’t even qualify as a leftover image.

It was clearly separated from this time and space by a full thousand years.

It was clearly... already dead, with its remnants sealed away.

And yet at this moment, as if noticing Muen’s gaze, that shadow shifted its unreal body, and then... slowly turned.

The shadow was still unreal, with no discernible outline, yet Muen understood the meaning of that movement with absolute clarity.

It was turning around, casting its gaze... across endless time and distance, onto this place!

Muen’s whole body went icy cold. Fear and trembling countless times worse than before drilled in through his pores, all the way into the depths of his soul...

"Damn it!"

The terrifying death crisis stabbed his nerves. Muen’s expression turned vicious as the instinct to survive made him frantically drive every last ounce of power in his body.

But...

His consciousness swept through—and found only emptiness.

Battle aura, magic power, the alchemy core, even the pitch-black sun... it was as if every power he had was effortlessly stripped away, leaving only the purest consciousness and soul, like a lone boat before a tsunami, facing destruction alone.

No way out.

Only despair.

So I’m going to... die? 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"Don’t look!"

At the critical last instant, that familiar childish-yet-old voice rang by Muen’s ear, washing away the whispers gnawing at his soul. At the same time, a warm little hand quickly covered his face, blocking his eyes.

"Hold your breath! Focus your mind! Cut off your senses!"

Mera grabbed Muen, and then barked an urgent shout. Her pale hair whipped in a violent wind, and a terrifying aura erupted from that tiny body without any restraint.

Her crimson pupils lit faintly. Ancient, profound runes floated up around her like wedges drilled into boulders, smashing hard into the blurring boundary between past and present, splitting them apart again.

Muen finally recovered the feeling of reality. Feeling the small body holding him, the taut string in his mind snapped, and he passed out on the spot.

Mera flicked a quick glance, shoved Muen behind her, and then fully stood in front of him.

"Come!"

She stomped down hard. With a vast chime of bells, a solemn clock phantom appeared behind her.

The river of time roared and shook. Endless dazzling radiance fell out of the void, instantly drowning heaven and earth.

Mera drove the Authority of the Eternal Bell. She spread her five fingers, aimed her palm at the shadow that seemed to have grown a bit more solid, and spat out solemn syllables.

"Get back in there. This isn’t a place you get to touch!"

"..."

The shadow finally turned fully around. Its gaze fell on Mera. It swayed slightly, as if saying something, but those syllables beyond human understanding ultimately couldn’t pierce time, sealed away a thousand years in the past.

Heaven and earth shook again.

Under the Eternal Bell’s isolation, the terrifying phenomena that almost tore this place apart gradually faded. This already-fragile phantom began turning into a lingering light in the real world.

It no longer tried to break through this shore of time, only gazed calmly into the distance.

"Go back."

Mera said again.

That shadow writhed once.

Finally, under Mera’s guard, It suddenly looked once more toward Muen behind her—then, together with this phantom of the past, It dispersed.