Chapter 441: Master of Death (1)
It is said that although they are extinct now, monsters known as sirens once existed in the past.
Creatures that bewitched people with their beautiful voices, ultimately driving them to their deaths.
They say that as long as you cover your ears, dealing with them is easy, but if you hear their voice even once, it shakes your very soul.
However, Silgrim Fonerth’s voice was far from beautiful or sweet.
Yet, the name that spilled from his mouth was more than enough to shake his mind and body.
‘What?’
A fleeting gap of less than 0.4 seconds.
His mind raced faster than ever before.
‘How did he know?’
He hadn't cast any magic he frequently used in his past life, nor had he employed the mana code of that era.
Far from sharing the same face, his physical body itself was entirely different from his past life.
In other words, no evidence existed that could substantiate his identity as Oscar Sage.
Which meant.......
‘He’s probing me.’
Coming all the way to the Red Mountain Range to retrieve the records of the White Tower.
Using the Wind Archive, restoring the Ouroboros, and so forth.
He was undoubtedly casting a lure based on a few suspicious circumstances.
‘There’s no need to react.’
The moment he reacted to that name, it would turn suspicion into certainty.
It was just as Oscar tried to ignore it, stepping one foot into the portal.
—Puh, khahahahaha!
It felt as though his soul was being shaken to its very roots by the demonic laughter laced with dense, concentrated demonic qi.
Just as he barely calmed his churned-up insides, Silgrim Fonerth opened his mouth.
—Fascinating indeed, truly fascinating. Watching you play tricks in an attempt to deceive me is delightful, yet.......
—Pathetic.
Trickle.
A trail of blood flowed from the corner of his lips.
At his current level, he could not endure an acoustic attack from this proximity.
—You think I am probing you.
He did not answer.
—Yes, you were always like that in the past.
Tap, skrrrt.
The bone staff Silgrim gripped scraped against the plains.
—You never quite liked exchanging words with me. And that fact.......
He is coming.
Thud!
The staff struck the ground.
—Displeased me immensely.
Crunch!
Dozens of massive, pitch-black hands surged from the ground, hurtling toward him.
The instant he saw them, Oscar threw himself into the portal without looking back.
‘Phew, made it.’
Because he knew what those hands were, his relief was all the greater.
Silgrim's signature magic that inevitably dragged in whatever it caught: 『Grip of the Dead』.
Thud!
As his body rolled across the floor of the sub-space, he pulled the spatial thread to close it.
Krrr-crack!
Yet it did not close.
Dozens of hands were forcefully gripping the narrowing gap of the sub-space, holding it open to prevent it from closing.
‘It's enduring the pressure of space?’
This wasn’t the first time his spatial abilities had been neutralized.
The corrupted Ado Vale in the unidentified zone had demonstrated it before.
‘Still, I thought that was only possible because we were both spatial mages.’
Grit! Gritting his teeth, Oscar hurriedly opened a portal on the opposite side and broke into a run.
It didn't seem as though Silgrim was doing this just to chat a little longer.
Kwaaaaa!
Meanwhile, the hands poured through the pried-open rift of the sub-space, pursuing him from behind.
“Kugh!”
Oscar glanced back and scattered his mana.
『Spatial Slash』
Slash!
The fingers of several lunging hands were cleanly severed, writhing on the ground.
However, new hands sprouted directly from the severed cross-sections, doubling their numbers.
『Blink』
Oscar utilized Blink to shake off the hands and flung his body toward the portal.
Thump! Along with a slight throb of pain, the rough texture of castle stone pressed against his cheek.
“Hup!”
Oscar swiftly whipped his head around and snapped the portal shut.
Crunch!
As space snapped closed, the hands hot on his heels were severed clean, tumbling across the top of the ramparts.
“......Whew.”
He caught his breath in relief for a brief moment.
“Oscar!”
Beaming with joy, Maxim rushed over and thrust out his thick hand.
“Your return was delayed, so I worried something might have happened.”
Standing beside him, Mad Demon gazed down at him quietly and subtly offered a hand as well.
The moment Oscar formed a faint smile at the sight of the two and reached out both hands—
Squeeze!
Suddenly, he felt something clamp onto his ankle.
‘What?’
He was certain he had watched the portal door close.
Instinctively looking down at his ankle, Oscar's face froze stiff.
One of the severed hands cut off by the closing portal was gripping his ankle.
‘If this happens.......’
The signature magic, 『Grip of the Dead』, possessed the trait of inevitably dragging whatever target it grasped.
The word "inevitably" here was no exaggeration.
The moment it seized a target, the outcome of dragging it was itself a rule and a fundamental law engraved into this world.
His thoughts reaching that point, Oscar hurriedly parted his lips toward Maxim and Mad Demon.
“Under no circumstances—do not come af—......”
Kwwaaarrgh!
With the sensation of an unprecedented force pulling him, his body shot into the air.
“Oscar!”
A startled Maxim screamed, clutching the railing of the ramparts as he shouted.
“......Good grief.”
Watching the entire scene unfold, Gerud swallowed a groan and looked toward a single spot.
At the far end of the corpse army blanketing the plains.
At Silgrim Fonerth’s feet, Oscar was hurled down unceremoniously.
A brisk, pleasantly refreshing wind blew.
The sky was so clear blue it bordered on transparent.
Beneath it, across the vast plains, an army of corpses was collapsing miserably.
The battlefield, already tangled with thousands of the dead, could hardly be described as anything less than a living hell.
The word "defeat," an outcome unconsidered until merely a few hours ago, had arrived as reality.
Yet Silgrim Fonerth did not spare them even a single glance.
—Pant, gasp.......
Resting on one knee, he panted raggedly.
His severed left arm; his flank gouged out so deeply that his ribs were laid bare.
And just moments ago, his heart had been pierced through as well.
Wounds that would have killed a normal human dozens of times over.
Yet it did not matter.
For he was a mage who ruled over death.
When Silgrim raised his head, his two pairs of eyes slowly tilted upward.
The bright sun rising into the transparent sky.
With his back to it, a man stood in the middle of the battlefield.
On a battlefield no different from a depiction of hell, a pure-white robe without a single drop of blood.
Long white hair fluttering in the cool breeze.
And finally, standing relaxed without a shred of disarray, his hands folded behind his back as though he had simply come out for a stroll.
—Oscar...... Sage.
His face was obscured by the backlighting and could not be clearly seen.
Even so, Silgrim could tell.
That man had not even tapped into his true strength yet.
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
‘Why?’
The question would not leave his mind.
Like a plague gnawing away at his brain, the question tormented him.
‘Just why is this man so overwhelmingly strong?’
A difference in physical bodies?
No.
While a resilient body could offer some measure of assistance, it could never be the core essence.
A vessel capable of safely accommodating mana circuits.
For a mage, that alone was sufficient.
‘Then is it a difference in intellect?’
No, impossible.
He had never once considered himself duller than others.
He had improved hundreds of kinds of necromancy, deciphered rituals deemed taboo, and in the end, subjugated death itself, binding it to his realm.
‘Then experience?’
That, too, was a laughable thought.
When he was awarded the title of Master, that man had not even been born into this world.
Combat.
Research.
Slaughter.
Time.
He was the one who had accumulated an overwhelmingly greater amount of data.
If that was the case.......
‘Talent?’
Grit.
Silgrim's teeth ground together with force enough to shatter.
That alone he could not concede.
For he, too, was a genius.
And not merely an ordinary genius, but one hailed throughout his entire life as the greatest genius in the history of the Black Tower.
‘Yet why can I not defeat this young brat?’
Why was his magic formula unraveled first every single time?
Why were his intentions anticipated in advance?
Why was he always one step ahead?
—Why, why, why, whyyyyy!
Resentment congealed thick in Silgrim’s uniquely raspy voice.
Oscar looked down at him and tilted his head.
“What is it all of a sudden?”
—Why.......
He paused for a moment.
Come to think of it, it was a ridiculous question.
Even knowing that, he let it past his lips.
—Why are you always ahead of me?
A brief silence hung in the air.
Hm.
With a short murmur, Oscar muttered.
“I don't think I hit your head that hard.”
—Answer me seriously!
Demonic energy laced his voice, disintegrating even the wild grass on the surrounding plains into scattering dust.
However, the man before his eyes merely retorted as though it were nothing.
“I don't know either.”
—......What?
“When we clashed, it just turned out that I was stronger than you. As for the reason, you'll have to figure that out yourself.”
Slash!
Silgrim’s head was lopped off.
“Lie down.”
Amidst the tilting world, he saw the man’s back walking away.
Silgrim stared at him in silence.
‘It is neither the body, nor intellect, nor a gap in talent and experience.’
If so, what was it that divided him and that man?
What decided the gulf between one human being and another?
Before that profound dilemma, a single corpse vanished, its power returning to him.
Silgrim picked up his severed head from the ground and placed it back atop his neck.
Crack, crunch.
Torn flesh and bone interlocked, and severed nerves and blood vessels reconnected once more.
Though his neck had clearly just been cleaved off, he was still alive.
And he remained himself.
That process, which Silgrim normally would not have paid the slightest attention to, caught his eye in a peculiar way today.
Even if his head was lopped off, his arm eradicated, or his heart burst.
Each time, the physical body was ruined, only to repeatedly restore itself.
Yet throughout that entire process, the existence known as 'Silgrim Fonerth' had never once been compromised.
If so, what was a physical body?
In the end, was it nothing more than a vessel to contain the existence known as 'oneself'?
‘If so.......’
Then what, truly, was oneself?
The factor determining the gulf between humans might very well lie there.
Memories?
The ego?
No.
Those things, too, change, fade, and are forgotten as time passes.
Yet what remains until the very end to make that person who they are.
That which is formed in the deepest depths of an existence, even if the flesh is broken and erased, even if memories are worn away and blotted out.
Silgrim’s four eyes narrowed into long slits.
‘The soul.’
It was the moment that word took deep root within his mind.
—It is a pity the sun has not risen yet.
“......Kugh.”
Oscar slowly propped his upper body up.
With every slight movement, broken bones and torn muscles screamed in agony.
‘To think it's this bad, even after hastily reinforcing my body with mana.’
Then again, it was only natural, having been dragged like a beam of light across a distance of three kilometers and slammed into the earth.
Covered in dirt and dust, he looked up at Silgrim.
Come to think of it, what had he said just a moment ago?
That it was a pity the sun hadn’t risen yet?
“For a necromancer, why are you looking for the sun?”
—......Heh, I see. To you, it was a scene not even worth remembering.
Silgrim chuckled faintly and continued.
—That day, after falling to my knees in defeat before you, I pondered for a long time.
“.......”
So that was the reason behind his out-of-the-blue mention of the sun.
—Pondered how I might seize absolute victory over you.
“.......”
—Even if I were to sever your neck, burst your heart, and tear your body to shreds...... it felt as though my burning thirst would never be quenched. A cheap and cliché death like that could never wash away the humiliation of that day.
“.......”
—For as long as the soul remains even after the body dies, Oscar Sage continues to exist.
Silgrim’s four eyes curved in an unsettling manner.
—The answer was simple.
The tip of his bone staff pointed toward Oscar's chest.
—All I must do is annihilate your soul, itself.
“.......”
Oscar slowly pulled himself upright.
His face involuntarily contorted at the sheer, dizzying pain, yet he stubbornly forced his body upright and glared at his opponent.
“I have no idea what you've been babbling about this entire time. My name is Oscar Crucian.”
—Heh, kh-heh-heh.
Silgrim’s shoulders heaved as if finding something immensely amusing.
—Fascinating. So utterly fascinating.
After laughing for quite a while, he asked.
—Oscar Sage. Are you not curious as to how I can identify your identity so precisely?
“It’s probably just nonsense not even worth listening to.”
—Heh, heheh. Hee-hee.
Chuckling unpleasantly, far beneath his age, Silgrim acted as though he had waited exclusively for this moment.
In a voice enraptured by ecstasy, he whispered softly.
—When the one who shoved your soul into that flesh in the first place was none other than me, how could I not know?
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]

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