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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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Limon stared, dumbfounded. A strange sound had echoed through the air, followed by a bizarre sight.
Na-kyung, oblivious to his reaction, continued her peculiar activity.
She held a metal rod in her beak, pecking furiously at something on the floor.
Clang, clang, clang!
The rod struck a discarded throwing star, the metallic ringing echoing through the room. It wasn’t just the throwing star.
She pecked at daggers, vajras, meteor hammers—every metal object within reach.
“Is she crazy?”
Limon, having narrowly avoided a blow from Vellus’s hammer, caught the hammerhead with his sword, deftly twisting and pinning it to the ground.
He tried to ignore Na-kyung’s antics, focusing on Vellus.
But then he stared in disbelief.
Clang, thud, bang, clap!
The Silent Dragon Unit, scattered around the lobby, were engaged in equally bizarre activities.
They struck their swords, clashed chakrams, slammed greatswords, clapped their hands—a cacophony of random noises. Even Yo Ouin was stomping his foot rhythmically.
‘Are they all high on something?’
Had they all gone mad? Or were they under some kind of spell?
He watched them warily, his eyes narrowing as he sensed something familiar amidst the chaotic, arrhythmic sounds.
And as the discordant music filled the air, Vellus’s movements faltered. The melody of the Black Abyssal Violin, which had been playing flawlessly, wavered for the first time.
‘…Could it be?’
Limon’s eyes narrowed.
The discordant sounds produced by Na-kyung and the Silent Dragon Unit were disrupting the violin’s melody, shaking Vellus’s divinity. It was an ingenious tactic, something he hadn’t considered.
He had thought only of destroying the violin, not disrupting its music.
But as he severed Vellus’s head once more, a different kind of surprise filled him.
‘This isn’t just random noise.’
He was a Sword Master with superhuman senses, a connoisseur of music, who had once experimented with discordant melodies himself.
He could sense the intricate structure beneath the seemingly random sounds.
Sometimes, they resonated with the same rhythm. Sometimes, they harmonized subtly. Sometimes, they clashed, creating dissonance.
Like a master swordsman toying with a child wielding a chopstick as a sword, the cacophony of sounds countered the violin’s melody, dismantling it from within.
And what was even more surprising was that they weren’t destroying the music itself.
They were creating a new harmony, a symphony of dissonance, turning the violin’s curse against itself, its pursuit of perfect melody becoming its undoing.
‘Who? How?’
He couldn’t believe the Seven Dragons Association’s experts, skilled as they were, could pull off such a feat. But as he glanced towards Na-kyung, he saw the answer.
Eugene, her chest pierced, smiled faintly.
Li Chingwei stood beside her, watching him intently. He understood.
‘They’re…?’
Eugene, with her instinctive musical talent, was composing a counter-melody to the violin.
Li Chingwei, through telepathy, was conducting Na-kyung and the Silent Dragon Unit, their weapons now makeshift instruments.
A hastily assembled orchestra, with musicians and a conductor performing without rehearsal, yet creating a perfect, albeit chaotic, symphony, thanks to psionics and a single genius.
‘Well, I was hoping for a good fight…’
Limon chuckled, shifting his grip on his sword. He moved towards Vellus, his movements now lighter, faster.
Vellus, sensing the threat, swung his hammer, his movements hampered by the faltering violin music.
But it was too slow. Limon dodged with a slight dip of his head, slipping past Vellus’s defenses, his sword slicing into his side.
Clang!
The shallow cut barely scratched the armor. But Limon didn’t falter. He spun around Vellus, dodging the hammer, and thrust his sword between his ribs.
Clang!
The sword bounced off again, another scratch on the armor, the metallic ringing echoing through the air.
Limon smiled coldly, continuing his assault, each strike creating another imperfection on the armor, Vellus’s movements growing slower, more sluggish.
[■, insignificant ■■…!]
Limon smirked, hearing the garbled roar, a sound that could drive ordinary humans mad. He sensed a flicker of panic in the Avatar’s voice.
“How does it feel, to have your divinity chipped away by insignificant humans, you pathetic god?”
He wasn’t attacking Vellus’s body or his armor. He was attacking his divinity itself.
The violin’s melody was shaking Vellus’s divinity, creating cracks in its foundation.
Limon, exploiting these cracks, was severing the flow of the natural order that sustained Vellus’s divine power, like slowly sinking a ship by creating small holes in its hull.
The scratches on the previously impervious armor were proof that his divinity was crumbling.
Clang!
And there was another layer to his attack. The subtle metallic ringing with each strike was further disrupting the violin’s melody, accelerating its collapse.
Vellus was trapped in a vicious cycle. If he blocked, his divinity wavered, hindering his movements. If he didn’t, Limon’s sword chipped away at his divine power.
[Die…!]
Desperate, Vellus roared, swinging his hammer, invoking the causal distortion miracle, attempting to erase Limon’s attacks and rewrite reality, crushing his skull with his hammer.
But it was Vellus’s head that flew.
[?!?!?!]
He had erased the past, the moment his armor was cut. Yet, his head was severed, and there were more scratches on his armor. And his hammer, which should have crushed Limon’s skull, was embedded harmlessly in the ground.
Limon sneered at the bewildered Avatar.
“You fool. How many times do you think the same trick will work?”
[Damn you…!]
Enraged, or perhaps in disbelief, Vellus roared again, his voice echoing through the room, drowning out the music, and attempted to distort causality once more.
But nothing changed. No matter how he rewrote the past, how he tried to alter the present, he couldn’t touch Limon. And he couldn’t erase the past where he was struck by Limon’s sword.
“It’s useless.”
Limon continued his assault, his voice calm and steady.
“Whether you create or destroy causality, all I have to do is predict every possible cause and effect, past and present, and prepare accordingly.”
[…!]
Vellus’s face contorted.
His causal distortion was a miracle that allowed him to rewrite the past to achieve a desired outcome. It was a limited form of time manipulation, offering countless possibilities.
But to anticipate and counter ‘all’ of them, to preemptively eliminate every possible disadvantageous outcome, in real-time, adapting to his every move… it was a feat beyond even a god.
A mere human couldn’t possibly achieve such a thing.
Clinging to this belief, Vellus tried to attack again.
He hesitated.
He stumbled back, and his hesitation enraged him. His primal, fighting instinct was being hampered by the vessel’s fear. If he were in his original, meticulously prepared vessel, this wouldn’t have happened.
But this temporary vessel, forcibly infused with his power and madness, had reached its limit.
He crushed the vessel’s soul, forcing his body to move. He didn’t care if this borrowed vessel broke.
It wasn’t his anyway.
“What are you waiting for, you bastard?”
But it was too late. As he mustered his remaining strength for a final attack, Limon’s sword, like an arrow, pierced the gap in the center of his armor, the one weak point.
The final scratch appeared, spreading into a crack, shattering the armor.
[AAAAAAAAARGH!!!]
A horrific scream echoed through the room, not from Vellus, but from the Constellation within him, its connection to the natural order severed, its divinity shattered.
And as his divinity crumbled, the natural order, which had been supporting him under the Constellation’s authority, now turned against him, distorting his very being.
The Astral Engine, his last defense, his vessel, was broken. He was like a diver thrown into the abyss without a suit, crushed by unimaginable pressure.
Crack! Crunch!
His body, no longer protected, began to rupture, flesh and bone bursting outwards, reforming into monstrous shapes, only to collapse and mutate again.
His legs were covered in black tumors. Dozens of small arms sprouted from his shattered arm. Tentacles erupted from his ruptured eyes.
His body and mind twisted and contorted.
Yet, the Constellation, or what was left of it, desperately crawled towards something, something it needed.
A new vessel. A proper vessel. And fortunately, it still had one, a vessel it had been preparing for over a decade, a vessel molded by its power and madness.
[No!]
“Princess, look out!”
The monstrous, fleshy mass reached out towards its vessel, its fingers brushing against it…
“Just die already, you bastard.”
The Demon Falls Like Dew from the Sword’s Tip
The world split. The distorted, monstrous form collapsed.
The Constellation’s power, shattered into fragments of starlight, rained down, staining Limon’s cheek.
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Thanks Fusion!