Ch.182White Light

Baekgwang’s emotions sank heavily.

“If not the Demon King himself, it seems you’re at least his vanguard.”

His voice was low and grating. Ortes couldn’t understand Baekgwang’s sudden change in demeanor. True, he had intended to cause momentary confusion, but he’d only hoped to distract her for a second or two at most.

“So the expedition force’s departure was part of the plan.”

‘What on earth is he talking about? Is this a bluff to determine the truth of my words?’

“I understand why you sealed Baekgwang’s main tower. It wasn’t just to block the elders’ support. It was to delay communications from Nokmok as much as possible.”

A communication from Nokmok? Ortes’s intuition flared. Right now, one of the Ten Boundary battle lines had escaped his control.

Karisia, who had regained her composure, exchanged glances with Ortes. The two could read each other’s eyes.

‘Do you have any idea what’s happening?’

‘None. This is all news to me.’

From the circumstances, it seemed the Tower Master of Nokmok had sent a direct communication through the connection between the Ten Boundaries. The content must have been shocking enough to make Baekgwang believe Ortes’s bluff.

‘If it’s a force connected to the expedition’s departure…’

It could only be Arguirion. Despite feeling a sense of foreboding, Ortes spoke.

“Eidolon’s betrayal. The expedition’s drift. Everything went according to plan. By binding you, the Ten Towers’ strongest card, we can achieve victory across the entire theater.”

“Very well, lackey of the Demon King. I admit the Ten Towers’ vigilance was insufficient.”

Karisia waited with her magic loaded. They needed to temporarily postpone their attack until they could obtain more information about the rapidly changing situation outside.

“To think that your Hydra Saga was behind Arguirion all along.”

A softly delivered sentence. With just that, Ortes could grasp the entire situation.

‘Arguirion… abandoned the main force?’

It was an absurd gamble. A choice that could easily lead to a two-front war between the Ten Towers conducting the succession battle and the returned expedition force.

It was a mad plan that couldn’t be executed without confidence in a means to hold back the expedition force or a third party who could make them drift.

‘How on earth did Arguirion end up joining the Ten Boundaries Revolution?’

To calm his confused mind, Ortes habitually began his provocation.

“Hmm. I suppose it’s quite surprising that your creation has joined hands with the Demon King’s creation.”

“Considering how that thing hates me, it’s not incomprehensible.”

Her tone was definitive. But unlike her previous deliberate indifference, there was a glimpse of seething anger beneath the firmly set coldness.

“But how foolish. Is it because it’s merely discarded dummy data? You, more than anyone, should know how the Demon King and I ended up.”

Karisia recalled the data of Baekgwang that remained within her. The moment when Baekgwang realized the Demon King’s true nature. The cruel moment when she discerned that all ten of his disciples were merely means to devour this world.

“No matter how much trust you place in that thing, no matter how deep a bond you nurture. As long as it remains the Demon King’s loyal servant, the outcome is predetermined.”

Karisia smiled.

Ortes was not the Demon King’s loyal servant.

He was her loyal servant.

Seeing that smile, a subtle ripple stirred in Baekgwang’s heart. The stars in the celestial sphere trembled. Several pieces of the light wings floating behind Baekgwang flew toward her severed left arm.

The light wings and the arm melted together upon meeting. The mass of light, neither wing nor arm, eventually blended into one, transforming into an arm that shone with a whiteness that seemed capable of bleaching the world.

The arm, stained with light, settled onto the shoulder joint where it originally belonged. It was fundamentally identical to the plasma aggregate that Karisia formed, but with a more advanced power. A weapon created by controlling its destructive force without the aid of a gauntlet, binding it into the shape of an arm.

“If you had come alone to kill me with dignity, and if I had been defeated, I would have accepted my death with praise for your magic. But with the Demon King?”

The killing intent directed at the ‘Demon King’ glinted in her eyes, transforming into killing intent toward Ortes.

Ortes and Karisia exchanged glances again. That ‘arm’ was magic. Therefore, countering it was Ortes’s responsibility.

“How foolish, nameless remnant of my dream!”

Ortes braced himself for the attack coming his way. Baekgwang charged forward.

Toward Karisia. A sudden assault that exploited the enemy’s intentions even in a state of broken composure. Ortes was shocked to see that the clear killing intent directed at him in the ‘eyes’ remained until the very moment she attacked Karisia.

Acceleration using light body transformation. A technique they had already experienced once. Karisia responded with the same magic. Karisia’s gauntlet clashed with the light blade created by Baekgwang.

Every trajectory of Baekgwang’s movement left behind lines of light like afterimages. All of them were blades directed at Karisia.

A greatsword skimming the water’s surface, creating spray. Each strand of starlight reflecting in the spray transforms into an attack. As she stepped forward, the light contained in the bursting water droplets chaotically reflected destructive light waves, sweeping across the entire sea of stars.

Karisia responded steadfastly. Her clenched fist once again formed a plasma aggregate. Explosion, explosion, explosion.

Light scattered like a kaleidoscope. In the midst of this beautiful destruction, Ortes intervened.

Just as Baekgwang accelerated in an instant, about to target Karisia’s left eye with her light arm, the light arm began to scatter upon contact with the high-frequency blade.

However, the speed of recovery was even faster. Baekgwang gathered the scattering light particles back into wings, and regenerated the light arm by injecting intact wing fragments. Ortes’s attack could buy time but couldn’t achieve decisive dismantling.

In the brief moment Ortes bought, Karisia escaped from Baekgwang’s range. Ortes took over the dazzling sword dance.

While Karisia had faced Baekgwang with power against power, skill against skill, Ortes relied solely on technique. Rather than attempting to interfere with magic to prevent completion, he grafted two nearly complete spell formulas together, creating a deformity.

The light scattered, canceling each other out. Each time Ortes’s blade grazed Baekgwang’s domain, one star in the celestial sphere dimmed.

But such attacks couldn’t end the fight.

Each of Ortes’s attacks steadily chipped away at Baekgwang’s combat capacity. However, Baekgwang’s combat capacity was inexhaustible. It was like trying to move the sea by scooping water with hands.

‘I can’t settle this within an hour. No…’

Perhaps he would wither away before even reaching an hour.

He needed to create a variable.

Ortes activated his magic engraving drive. Flowing Water Bullet. A low-level magic that merely splashed a few drops of water. An attack not worth countering for Baekgwang.

But for Karisia, it was help that reduced one of her magical processes.

Just as Baekgwang had used water droplets to create diffuse reflection, Karisia also had her light beams absorbed by the water droplets created by Ortes’s Flowing Water Bullet. But she didn’t fire them.

Light gathering. Using water as a lens to concentrate light. This wasn’t a process aimed at enhancing physical power. It was a procedure to impart magical symbolism and meaning. With delicate telekinesis, she split the water droplets containing light.

The water droplets were positioned in a 360-degree circle surrounding Baekgwang.

Fire.

A bombardment of light that poured out all the accumulated light quantity. Both Baekgwang’s physical and magical vision were obscured.

In this brief moment when Baekgwang’s detection ability was extremely reduced, Ortes stopped fighting. He abandoned both attack and defense. The final puzzle piece for victory had been missing from this battle from the beginning.

He had to find the missing puzzle piece.

He opened his eyes wide.

***

Come to think of it, our prerequisite for successfully carrying out the Ten Boundaries Revolution was to ‘end the succession battle within an hour.’

Not to defeat Baekgwang.

And the victory condition for the succession battle was to usurp the access authority to the Ten Boundaries.

I was overwhelmed by the sight I saw as soon as I reached Baekgwang’s summit, but there was a fundamental question I should have had.

Where is the ‘Ten Boundaries Baekgwang’?

The inexhaustible magical power that Baekgwang wielded evidenced the existence of the Ten Boundaries. Even if Baekgwang’s soul resided within the Ten Boundaries, the moment we sealed off the soul’s ability to project influence outward, our victory would be determined.

I follow the line connected to Baekgwang with my eyes. I search for the true vital point that this ancient monster is hiding.

‘It’s not there?!’

Baekgwang’s magical power was clearly connected to the entire world. But this was because the place where we were fighting was inside the second dimension she had formed.

Following the flow of magical power controlling Baekgwang’s physical body should have revealed the location of the Ten Boundaries where her soul was engraved. But the flow of magical power connected to her body was just this vast sea of stars.

The connection point to the Ten Boundaries was nowhere to be seen.

I unconsciously turned my head toward Karisia. I observed the flow of magical power spreading like a heat haze around her body. It was a flow connected to the artificial Ten Boundaries buried beneath Mount Etna.

The connection to the Ten Boundaries was that clear. A connection couldn’t simply not exist.

…Not exist?

I reconfirm that a connection to a powerful magical source at the level of the Ten Boundaries is visible to my eyes. If this is an unchangeable fact, it means I was already seeing the connection between Baekgwang and the Ten Boundaries.

I look at Baekgwang again. Her magical power flow was connected to the entire endlessly spread second dimension.

Endless, infinite.

The Ten Boundaries with inexhaustible magical power.

We were fighting within Baekgwang’s heart.