MTLNOVEL Chapter 295
Chapter 296. Failure is Treason, Success is Revolution (10)
Ivan, sensing the killing intent from Keter, immediately cast a spell.
“Reverse…”
A verbal spell that activates magic just by speaking the incantation. It’s the fastest method among all magic, but—
Thud.
A hole appeared in Ivan’s forehead.
A white afterimage trailed behind the hole, forming a tail, and was soon caught in Keter’s hand.
The Milky Way was a diversion; the real attack was Baeklin.
And just like that, Ivan, the Great Sorcerer, died without even casting a single spell.
But Keter didn’t let his guard down. He floated Baeklin into the sky and kept the Milky Way loaded, scanning his surroundings.
A moment of silence—
Soon, Keter fired the Milky Way into the empty space above him. The maximum output of the Milky Way alone was enough to shake the heavens and the earth.
At that moment, a young man suddenly appeared in the empty sky. He stretched both hands downward.
Whoosh!
Space distorted, and a small gate appeared, attempting to swallow the Milky Way.
Crack!
But the Milky Way wasn’t sucked into the gate. It exploded just before entering, swallowing both the gate and the young man.
Boom!
The night sky lit up as bright as day for a moment. And just like that, the middle-aged man vanished without a trace.
Then, a middle-aged woman’s voice was heard right in front of Keter.
“Ice Age.”
The 7th Circle Freezing Magic, Ice Age, spread from the body, freezing the world.
In response, Keter stomped the ground. The earth flipped over, swallowing the spreading Ice Age whole.
Using Toban’s power, Keter easily suppressed the 7th Circle Great Magic and spun around. Hundreds of arrows scattered in all directions.
Swish! Thud! Clang!
Various sounds echoed from the void—sounds of flesh being pierced and something being blocked.
Whoosh!
The air trembled. Keter muttered softly.
“Something big is coming.”
The Baeklin, moving like a drone, was killing Ivan’s “clones” in real-time.
But unlike before, the clones weren’t going down easily. They reacted to the high-speed Baeklin, dodging or deflecting it with curved shields.
Keter took a short breath to assess the situation.
‘Each clone has the abilities of a Great Sorcerer, but they’re all disposable. Once they cast a spell, their bodies can’t handle it.’
But he couldn’t let them cast spells freely. Each spell was at least a 6th or 7th Circle Magic.
Even for Keter, who had evolved through survival of the fittest, and even with Ain, it wasn’t something he could handle with his body alone.
‘It’s also because I haven’t properly fought a mage yet.’
His resistance to elemental magic wasn’t particularly high. At best, he could withstand up to 3rd Circle Magic with his body. Anything beyond that was difficult.
But.
‘Actually, this is good. If I can significantly boost my resistance here, it’d be perfect.’
A fleeting thought in the blink of an eye.
But in that short moment, all sorts of high-level spells came flying from all directions.
6th Circle Freezing Magic, Frost Giant’s Hammer.
6th Circle Fire Magic, Inferno Storm.
7th Circle Lightning Magic, Thunder Dragon’s Charge.
7th Circle Wind Magic, Cradle of Storms.
Ivan’s magic surpassed even the realm of a Great Sorcerer. He cast four high-level spells simultaneously, using only incantations.
There seemed to be no place to dodge, except for one spot—the empty sky. As if it was telling him to escape there.
An obvious trap, but one he had no choice but to fall into. Yet, Keter smirked and did something insane.
“What?!”
Ivan, who had been confronting Keter through his clones, was shocked. Keter suddenly spread his arms wide.
It wasn’t an attack or a defense. He didn’t even wrap himself in aura. To anyone watching, it looked like he was just giving up.
“Elixir-fueled bastard!”
Ivan panicked. A regressor returns to the past through death. If he let Keter die like this, it would be his defeat.
It’s said that canceling a spell once cast is impossible, but that’s not entirely true. If you’re willing to risk your life, it can be done.
“Ughhhh!”
Ivan, who had been precisely controlling hundreds of clones without breaking a sweat, let out a shout.
The clones surrounding Keter shouted almost simultaneously.
“Dispel.”
The spell-negation incantation, Dispel, cast by dozens of Great Sorcerers risking their lives.
As a result, Ivan lost 52 clones but successfully nullified four Great Magics.
“To think you’d spare me like this, I’m touched.”
Thud!
Keter’s arrows mercilessly killed Ivan’s clones. The backlash from the large-scale Dispel had destabilized Ivan’s connection.
In the blink of an eye, dozens of clones had their heads blown off by arrows. Among them were children and the elderly, but Keter didn’t bat an eye.
However, Ivan wasn’t just sitting back and watching.
“You’ve worked hard. Rest now.”
Keter didn’t just shoot arrows from a distance. He also shot them up close.
Just as he was about to shoot an arrow at a man his age.
“Your greed was too much, Keter!”
Ivan had already restored the connection but deliberately stayed still, waiting for Keter to let his guard down.
Snap!
A clone grabbed Keter’s wrist. The clones, acting like puppets with their strings cut, unleashed the magic they had prepared.
Final Magic, Three Thousand Worlds.
A colorless space, neither dark nor light, engulfed Keter in a dome shape.
Keter tried to defend by lifting the ground with Toban, but the Three Thousand Worlds swallowed both Toban and Keter whole.
“Gasp, pant…”
Ivan was breathing heavily. The outside scenery that had been visible on hundreds of screens was now barely visible.
The clones he had built up over decades, each capable of casting Great Magic, had been more than halved just to deal with Keter.
“Kilian is going to lose it…”
Ivan’s clones were spies and contacts in various countries, including the Lilian Kingdom. They were the eyes and ears of the Syndicate, and now most of them had been used to subdue Keter. There was no way he could avoid reprimand.
“But I captured Keter, the regressor. This wasn’t just for me, but for the Syndicate.”
Comforting himself, Ivan seemed completely unconcerned about Keter.
His Final Magic, Three Thousand Worlds, was exactly that kind of magic. It severed the target from the world, and within the Three Thousand Worlds, Ivan was the “god.”
Pulling someone into the Three Thousand Worlds was difficult, but once they were in, it was over. Even if the opponent was a Prime. Suicide wasn’t allowed. Destruction from within was also impossible.
Currently, Ivan had set it so that Keter, trapped in the Three Thousand Worlds, couldn’t even blink.
“It’s been a while since I could meet the Messiah.”
Messiah. The founder of the Syndicate. An omniscient but not omnipotent being.
Ivan had indeed captured Keter, but a sense of unease was growing in his chest.
“He said he’d heal me with human body modification techniques…”
Blinded by the certainty that Keter was a regressor, Ivan had been driven by anger at being deceived. Even Keter had responded with violence rather than explanation, so Ivan had fought in a fit of rage.
“Now that it’s come to this, there’s no turning back.”
Ivan opened a gate to the Syndicate’s headquarters. Then, he shrank the Three Thousand Worlds, where Keter was trapped, to the size of a bead and took it with him.
A colorless space with no end.
In this bizarre space where the ground and sky were indistinguishable, a sofa and desks were randomly placed.
Whoosh!
A gate opened, and Ivan entered. A man with a bucket on his head greeted him.
“You came faster than expected. How did it go with Toban’s owner?”
“Well, it got a bit complicated.”
Ivan showed the bead-sized Three Thousand Worlds.
“Don’t tell me you trapped Toban’s owner in the Three Thousand Worlds?”
“Toban’s owner… was Keter.”
“What?”
The bucket-headed man was shocked, and the Butterfly Maiden, who had been lying down as if dead, suddenly sat up.
“Keter? The guy you suspected was a regressor?”
“Yeah. Like you, I was convinced Keter was a regressor as soon as I saw him, so I subdued him.”
“Didn’t you say last time that Keter wasn’t a regressor?”
“…It didn’t make sense for Keter, the illegitimate child of a noble family, to know about Toban.”
“But you must have asked how he knew, right?”
“He didn’t seem willing to tell.”
Ivan emphasized with his tone and expression that he had no choice.
“Huh. Whatever. Ivan, let me in there. I want to play with Keter.”
The Butterfly Maiden adjusted her clothes as she spoke.
But Ivan pulled his hand back.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not your subordinate.”
“Huh? You’re being stingy?”
“Let’s not fight. We should discuss what to do with Keter first.”
The bucket-headed man tried to calm Ivan and the Butterfly Maiden when a door appeared in the air.
The door opened, revealing a young man holding a cup of coffee. With his long blond hair tied back, he yawned lazily.
“Yawn. You’ve worked hard, Ivan. What does Toban’s owner say?”
“Kilian.”
Kilian. The self-proclaimed administrator of the Syndicate.
At his appearance, Ivan silently held out the Three Thousand Worlds.
“Pfft!”
Kilian, who had been drinking coffee, spat it out and alternated his gaze between the bead and Ivan.
“What have you done now?”
“Toban’s owner was Keter. The guy I suspected was a regressor. I was sure this time, so I trapped him in the Three Thousand Worlds. I plan to take him to meet the Messiah and confirm if he’s a regressor.”
“What I mean is, if you were going to do it, you should have done it properly.”
“What do you mean…?”
Ivan, the bucket-headed man, and the Butterfly Maiden couldn’t understand Kilian’s words.
At that moment—
Crack, creak.
A sound of something breaking was heard. The three looked around.
Kilian took another sip of coffee and pointed at the Three Thousand Worlds with his finger.
“Where are you looking? The sound is coming from there.”
Ivan couldn’t believe Kilian’s words. His Three Thousand Worlds, breaking?
Even the bucket-headed man and the Butterfly Maiden couldn’t believe it. They knew the power of the Three Thousand Worlds well.
Once trapped inside, there was no way to escape or break free. They knew because they had been trapped themselves.
“Gasp?!”
“What?!”
“No way!”
Even they, as Transcendent Beings, couldn’t hide their shock.
As Kilian said, the Three Thousand Worlds had indeed cracked. The moment they realized it, it began to split rapidly…
Crash!!
The Three Thousand Worlds shattered, revealing Keter inside.
“Oh.”
Keter, appearing nonchalantly, looked around and spoke.
“You all are familiar faces. But this one’s new.”
“Kilian, at your service.”
“Nice to meet you, Kilian. I’m Keter.”
“Would you like some coffee?”
“Do you have cocoa?”
“We do. Please have a seat and wait. Tuska. Alisa. What about you?”
The bucket-headed man, Tuska, froze like a statue, while the Butterfly Maiden, Alisa, squinted her eyes and said.
“…Bring me the Tears of an Angel.”
“Of course.”
Just as he had appeared, Kilian created a door in the air and disappeared.
Left in the infinite space were Keter and the Syndicate Trio. Keter calmly found a sofa and sat down comfortably.
Ivan and Tuska glared at Keter, while Alisa boldly sat right next to him.
“My name is Alisa. You can call me by that name.”
Alisa pressed her entire body, especially her chest, against Keter’s arm.
Keter turned his head. Alisa’s face was close. Close enough that their lips would touch if he leaned in just a bit.
Swish.
Alisa’s body twitched. Boldly, Keter had stroked her thigh.
“Huh, I didn’t think anyone would dare touch my body. I like your boldness.”
As Alisa’s fingers trailed down Keter’s chin to his chest, her expression suddenly turned red, and her eyes sharpened.
“Real dragon scales.”
From Keter’s hand, which had been stroking Alisa’s thigh, a yellow scale glimmered.
It was a dragon scale that had been attached to the inside of her thigh. Keter had torn it off with his bare hands.