Chapter 582: There Was Only One Reason You Didn't Enchant Yourself Onto Erza
Irene's voice dripped with bitter, venomous mockery as she recounted her tragic history.
Despite everything she had sacrificed, her husband, the General, refused to believe she was still human. He ordered her execution. When she pleaded with him to at least spare their unborn child, he sneered, claiming a three-year pregnancy was biologically impossible. He drew a dagger and slashed her stomach, intending to cut the child out of her to prove his point.
The physical pain, combined with the sheer betrayal and the primal terror of losing her baby, triggered a complete psychological snap.
The trauma violently accelerated her dragonification. In an instant, she completely mutated into a massive, terrifying Dragon. Her new form perfectly mirrored her fallen comrade, the Sage Dragon Belserion, whose power she had inherited.
The General instantly reaped what he had sown. Irene crushed him with a single swipe of her claws, obliterated the dungeon with a draconic roar, and fled into the mountains in a blind, terrified panic.
For the next four hundred years, she lived alone in the wilderness. She hated her dragon body. She stubbornly insisted she was still human, desperately searching for a way to reverse the mutation. Meanwhile, she used her magic to keep Erza safely suspended in her womb, refusing to let her child be born to a monster.
Then, she met Zeref.
The Black Wizard, an unparalleled magical genius, effortlessly achieved what she had failed to do for centuries. With a single spell, he restored her human appearance.
Irene was ecstatic. The sheer, overwhelming joy of having her human face and body back made her weep.
But the euphoria was brutally short-lived.
She quickly realized she couldn't taste human food. She couldn't sleep. Her physical sensations of touch, temperature, and pain were completely distorted. She realized the horrific truth: Zeref's spell was a cosmetic illusion. Her outer shell was human, but biologically, fundamentally, she was still a Dragon.
The psychological whiplash from absolute joy to absolute despair completely broke her mind.
Driven insane by the realization that she would never truly be human again, a dark, twisted thought took root in her shattered psyche.
She was carrying a perfectly healthy, biologically pure human child.
If she used her supreme mastery of High Enchantment to overwrite her newborn daughter's soul with her own, she could steal the child's body. She would be reborn. She would finally have a true human body, a new life, and a clean slate.
"But unfortunately, the enchantment failed," Irene sneered, staring at Noah with a twisted, malicious grin. "Because we were biologically related, I was completely incompatible with her. I couldn't enchant my personality onto her soul.
"Since the brat was completely useless to me, I lost all interest. I tossed her aside like a piece of trash, dumping her in some pathetic little village and walking away.
"So? How does that make you feel?" Irene tilted her head, her eyes burning with sadistic anticipation. "Were you hoping for a heartwarming tale of a tragic mother desperately longing to reunite with her lost daughter? Did you think you could bring us together for a tearful family reunion?
"You're a naive fool. She was nothing more than garbage I threw away because she was defective."
Irene stared intently at Noah's face, desperate to see his expression shatter into horror, disgust, or despair.
But Noah's expression didn't change. He simply looked at her with calm, analytical eyes.
"After hearing your story, I am actually more confident than ever that my initial assessment was correct," Noah stated smoothly. "You did abandon Erza for a specific reason, but it wasn't the reason you just gave me."
"Hah?! What kind of delusional nonsense are you spouting?!" Irene roared, her sadistic grin vanishing, instantly replaced by furious indignation.
She had weaponized her darkest, most horrific trauma specifically to hurt him, and he had completely ignored it, casually telling her she was lying.
Her grip tightened on her staff, and the crimson Ethernano pooling around her violently spiked. She prepared to unleash a devastating barrage.
"If you launch a spell right now, I'm going to run away," Noah warned, taking another step back. "Besides, don't you want to hear exactly why I know you're lying?"
"Fine. Speak," Irene lowered her staff slightly, her eyes practically glowing with murderous intent. "Let me hear what kind of idiotic delusion you've convinced yourself of."
"As I mentioned earlier, I am also a High Enchanter," Noah began, crossing his arms. "While I freely admit my overall mastery of the discipline is inferior to yours, I have still conducted extensive, highly advanced research into its foundational mechanics.
"The theoretical framework for a Personality Enchantment—transferring one's existence into another vessel—is a concept I am quite familiar with.
"You claimed that you couldn't enchant yourself onto Erza because you two were biologically related. You claimed the bloodline connection made you incompatible.
"That is a fundamental, absolute lie.
"Setting aside the horrific ethical implications, and the very real biological risk that a newborn infant's soul and body would instantly detonate under the sheer, crushing density of a four-hundred-year-old Dragon Queen's magical signature... the underlying theory is completely backward.
"In Enchantment Magic, biological relation does not generate resistance; it generates resonance. A direct bloodline connection makes a host vessel exponentially more compatible with the caster's soul, acting as a flawless biological conduit.
"Therefore, it is an absolute, undeniable fact that you could have enchanted yourself onto Erza. The magical theory proves it is possible.
"There is only one logical conclusion," Noah declared, his voice ringing with absolute certainty. "You didn't fail to enchant yourself onto Erza. You chose not to.
"At the very last second, when you looked down at your daughter, you realized you couldn't bring yourself to murder her! You abandoned her because you loved her, and you were terrified that your madness would eventually overpower your maternal instincts and force you to kill her!"
Hearing Noah definitively dismantle her lie using flawless magical theory, Irene's face instantly drained of color.
A split second later, a suffocating, apocalyptic storm of crimson Ethernano violently erupted from her body.
The earth beneath her boots completely disintegrated. The sheer, terrifying pressure of her magic generated a violent localized hurricane that ripped through the valley. The glowing red runes materialized on her face, and her eyes burned with pure, unadulterated draconic fury.
Noah completely ignored her apocalyptic aura, standing his ground as the wind whipped past him.
"You just told me that four hundred years ago, you endured three years of agonizing torture and humiliation in a dungeon just to protect your unborn child," Noah continued, his voice cutting clearly through the howling wind. "After you transformed, you kept her safely suspended in your womb for four centuries, desperate to ensure she was born as a human.
"No mother endures four hundred years of agony for a child she doesn't love.
"When Zeref restored your human appearance, the psychological whiplash of realizing you were still a dragon broke your mind. In your darkest, most insane moment, you tried to steal your baby's body.
"But you couldn't do it. You stopped yourself. You dropped her off at a church in Rosemary Village.
"I spoke to the village elders. They told me how they found her. She wasn't 'thrown away like trash.' She was carefully placed in a woven basket, gently wrapped in a warm blanket, and left safely on the steps of the church where she would be immediately found.
"You didn't abandon her because you hated her. You abandoned her to protect her from yourself."
Noah held his tongue on his final, most crucial observation.
If Irene truly didn't care about her child, she wouldn't have wasted a massive portion of her magical reserves actively suppressing her dragonification while trapped in that dungeon. If she had just let herself transform immediately, she could have effortlessly slaughtered her captors and escaped on day one. She endured three years of torture purely for Erza's sake.
But Noah knew he had pushed her far enough. The truth was already burning her alive.
The crimson Ethernano erupting from Irene condensed into a towering, terrifying pillar of light that pierced the sky, violently scattering the clouds for miles. The earth beneath her caved in entirely, creating a massive crater as she floated upward, suspended in the center of her apocalyptic storm.
"YOU ARE COURTING DEATH!" Irene roared.
Her voice wasn't human. It was a terrifying, guttural draconic roar that shook the very foundations of the earth. Her face was twisted into a mask of pure, humiliated rage. Having her darkest, most vulnerable secret brutally dissected and exposed by a complete stranger had utterly shattered her pride.
"I'm just presenting a logical conclusion based on your own testimony, the physical evidence, and fundamental magical theory," Noah nodded calmly. "I don't see any flaws in my assessment."
"DIE!" Irene shrieked.
She didn't bother using a spell name. She simply swung her staff downward.
A colossal, hundred-meter-wide sphere of hyper-condensed fire materialized instantly above Noah's head and plummeted toward him with the force of a meteor.
KABOOOOOOOM!
The fireball slammed into the earth, triggering a catastrophic detonation that carved a kilometer-wide crater into the mountain range. The shockwave violently stripped the surrounding mountains to the bedrock.
Irene floated high above the devastation, not even bothering to check the crater. Her draconic senses immediately snapped toward a specific coordinate in the sky a few miles away.
Noah was hovering there, completely unharmed.
"Spatial Magic," Irene noted, her tone frigid but analytical.
She knew it wasn't speed magic; her kinetic tracking would have easily caught the movement. It wasn't time magic; her raw draconic magic resistance would have disrupted the chronological flow. The only magic capable of achieving instantaneous, traceless relocation was high-tier Spatial Magic.
Because of the psychological humiliation he had inflicted upon her, Irene fully intended to slaughter him here, even if it cost her a significant amount of stamina. But knowing he possessed advanced Spatial Magic meant securing the kill would be incredibly difficult.
"Listen, I didn't come here to fight you," Noah said, raising his hands peacefully, completely unfazed by her murderous glare.
"My primary goal was to see if a reunion between Erza and her mother was possible. As for her father, we can forget about him. He was a coward, and he's been dead for centuries anyway.
"But beyond discussing Erza, I realized there is a massive, highly mutually beneficial arrangement we can discuss."
"There is nothing left to discuss. Your death is the only benefit I desire!" Irene spat.
A second, even larger fireball—easily three hundred meters in diameter—materialized directly above Noah and plummeted downward.
Noah intended to instantly teleport away again, but as he activated his spatial coordinates, he felt a terrifying, sluggish resistance. The dimensional fabric around him had been violently hardened, making movement nearly impossible.
He realized Irene had instantly enchanted the surrounding space, locking the dimensional coordinates.
Moving with blinding speed, Noah cast Deus Zero to aggressively purge the spatial lock while simultaneously casting it on himself to negate Irene's attempt to enchant him directly. With a fraction of a second to spare, he shattered the lock and teleported away.
KABOOOOOM!
The colossal fireball slammed into the mountains, generating a second, even more catastrophic kilometer-wide crater.
"Will you just listen for a second?!" Noah yelled, reappearing a few miles away. "I have something that you desperately want!
"You want to become human again, don't you?! I can help you achieve that!"
"Hah! Is this a joke?!" Irene barked a harsh, bitter laugh, instantly preparing a third, apocalyptic fireball. "Are you truly that arrogant?! A magical genius like His Majesty couldn't reverse the dragonification! What makes an ignorant child like you think you can succeed where the Black Wizard failed?!"
It was the ultimate insult. Zeref, a man who had spent four hundred years mastering the darkest, most profound secrets of life and death, could only manage a cosmetic illusion. The idea that this twenty-something brat could achieve true biological reversion was insulting to her intelligence.
KABOOOOOM!
Noah anticipated the spatial lock this time. He smoothly shattered the dimensional hardened space and teleported away before the third fireball could even reach him.
The mountains below were completely unrecognizable, reduced to a series of overlapping, apocalyptic craters. The distant peaks were visibly crumbling from the relentless seismic tremors.
"I'm fully aware that Zeref is an unparalleled genius. But I'm quite confident in my own abilities," Noah stated, materializing in the sky. He didn't run this time. He held his ground.
"Furthermore, I'm not working alone. I have access to an entire guild of brilliant, specialized mages whose combined research capabilities rival, if not exceed, Zeref's isolated efforts.
"But most importantly... I possess a critical, foundational biological component that Zeref absolutely did not have. That is why I am absolutely certain I can cure you."
As Irene unleashed a fourth, kilometer-wide apocalyptic fireball toward him, Noah didn't teleport away.
A blinding, overwhelming aura of golden Ethernano violently erupted from his core.
He swung his right arm. A terrifying, catastrophic wave of golden magic violently crashed into the descending fireball, instantly dispersing the colossal sphere into harmless sparks.
Having effortlessly erased her ultimate attack, Noah continued to ramp up his magical output. A suffocating, god-like pressure radiated from him, slamming directly into Irene, forcing her to realize exactly who she was dealing with.
~~~
Get early access to 50+ advanced chapters on Patreon!
https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn