CHAPTER 43: | THE ONE WHO CREATED HIM
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"Hehehehehahahahaha!"
A cacophony of delirious laughter, as if in celebration, echoed throughout the room.
His eyes blazed with insanity.
In his gloved hands, a syringe was dripping with venom.
His hands moved with practiced precision as he injected the tip of the syringe into what seemed like an elf.
Mmmgh! Aghh! Hhhnnn…!
Her cries twisted into a strangled moan as the syringe pierced her veins, its contents seeping like fire through her body.
But she couldn't scream for help, she could only wait for her doom.
Tears of blood gushed from her eyes, her irises, once as verdant as the grassy plains, now tainted by darkness.
Her veins, shifting from purple, slowly darkened further and further, as if rot had invaded her nervous system.
Mmmgh! Nngh!
Her cries of pain turned into moans of pleasure as something unknown gave her strength.
KRRAK! KLANG!
A violent jolt surged through her arms.
Her hands burst into monstrous new shapes as the iron chains exploded apart, the links scattering across the stone floor.
But the man only stood, watching the process with an awe born of intensive research, as he began to record today's success in a manual.
His lips, as red as a tomato, curved into a crescent smile as he cackled.
"Puhahahahah!"
His smile widened as he shouted with delight.
"Finally, after a decade of experimentation! Finally! You are complete!"
His voice was bone-chilling as the elf before him gazed at him with killing intent.
The elf clenched her fist as she struck towards the man who brought her pain.
But something blocked her fist.
She continued, unleashing a barrage.
Thud! Thud! Crack!
Cracks formed in the hexagonal mana shield, and hope flickered on her face as her punches intensified.
Irritated, the man's abyssal eyes narrowed into slits.
Whum-whum-whum!
Runes burst from his fingertips, pulsing through the air.
Vzzzt! CLANK!
The glyphs fused, hardening into spectral chains that coiled violently around the elf's limbs, locking her in place.
Her shouts echoed, desperate and half-insane.
"YOU DAMNED BASTARD! LET GO! LET GO! LET GO! LET GO! LET GO OF ME!"
But he only chuckled as he moved forward.
With a wave of his hand, runes burst from his fingertips as he chanted.
"Lord of the Magus, the one who achieved the pinnacle of truth! Oh, Disaster Incarnate, the nightmare of all! Please grant this fellow scholar of yours, Lionel, the chance to have your audience upon my research!"
The weave of reality convulsed.
Trrrrnnk! RRRIP!
Reality tore like parchment as those eyes, twin galaxies of judgment, bled through the wound, flooding the world with silence and terror.
A mind-numbing voice echoed as the very research facility of Lionel shook violently, the walls cracking from the sheer intensity of their voice.
"Mortal-mortal-mortal, what-what-what could-could-could you-you-you offer-offer-offer to-to-to these-these-these venerable-venerable-venerable?"
Three voices echoed as Lionel bled from his seven orifices, yet he smiled and cackled.
"HEHEHEHEHAHAHAHA!"
His smile widened as the eyes watching him gleamed with interest.
"Worry not, Your Excellency. I, Lionel, a lowly magus, shall offer you this woman…"
His voice was weak, conversing with such powerful beings was mentally taxing.
But he grinned, for he had piqued the interest of these entities.
"Your Excellency… this girl is quite special… she… has awakened her true bloodline…"
Lionel's breath grew ragged as the room, no, his research facility, painstakingly built for decades, was about to collapse.
But he continued.
"This girl… has awakened her true bloodline… a venerable bloodline… the infamous… Yggdrasil Incarnates…"
The eyes narrowed to slits as they retracted their pressure, and the elf vanished in that instant as they spoke.
"Tell-tell-tell, me-me-me what-what-what you-you-you wish-wish-wish for-for-for?"
Cough! Cough!
Lionel violently coughed as blood gushed from his mouth, yet he smiled with pride.
"Your Excellency, if I may… I, Lionel, would like to receive… your Mark… in exchange…"
They seemed pleased, retracting their presence as the fissure of reality began to repair, and then disappeared.
SHHRRM! Zip! Tsss!
Light flared, collapsed inward, and engraved itself onto Lionel's skin like divine calligraphy, etched in pain.
"HEHEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Lionel clutched his face, his hair, as black as the abyss itself, cascading from his head and swaying with his movements.
His lips, as red as blood, gleamed with a lustrous light as he smiled with insanity.
His eyes, black as the void itself, showed no emotion as he flicked his hand, and a mirror appeared, reflecting his handsome face.
As one could see, that an artist carved his face to perfection, like a statue of ancient Greece.
An intricate and beautiful symbol was visible on his forehead, enhancing his beauty as he smiled.
"Finally! After being reborn from Earth... I've become the apostle! The apostle of the Truthseeker!"
His smile widened as he remembered something from the book he read when he was an earthling living his life in Europe.
"That guy… Alister von Fai… should ascend to stage 1 in a year's time… and then ascend to stage 4 when the war ends…"
His smile widened as memories of his creation vividly flashed through his mind.
"I see… so you've encountered my creations… oh devourer…"
Lionel couldn't help but recall the past.
France... the word tasted foreign now.
Faint echoes of soft bread, steel towers, and lonely pages.
A world left behind the moment the final chapter ended.
It's the last book I've read.
'The Ascendance of All' a book completed by an unknown author.
I admired his character once...
But admiration died with me.
The moment my lungs failed... the moment I awoke beneath this sunless sky...
I knew.
The story, my story wasn't over.
Lionel had awakened in the Matrion World, the first world Alister von Fai would one day destroy.
So he did his best to gain power, shedding his morality for the sake of research so that he could become a disciple of a disaster incarnate.
The Truthseeker whom even Alister von Fai couldn't defeat at the end of the story because he failed to become an Ascendant.
"If I gained his devouring power... I... I would become an Ascendant, for I know where his authorities are sealed!"
Lionel's voice echoed with delight as he was now a step closer to his goal.
To ascend not as a character in another's tale, but as the author of his own fate.