Ch.183White Light

To destroy this enormous place all at once…

‘Do I really need to detonate the artificial Ten Commandments?’

My thoughts accelerated. In the vastly slowed time, I calculated future movements. Whether detonating the artificial Ten Commandments could bring down Baekgwang remained unverified.

Since Baek Myeongmyeong’s final magic in the prophecy called the “original work” ultimately detonated the Ten Commandments Baekgwang, I could only presume that the massive explosion of the artificial Ten Commandments—with power comparable to, or precisely, exceeding it—could bring down Baekgwang.

Let’s assume the Ten Commandments bomb defeats Baekgwang. Would the Ten Commandments front move according to our plans afterward?

‘…Impossible!’

Arguirion’s intrusion had scrambled all calculations.

The Ten Commandments, an inexhaustible source of magical power, was itself a powerful variable. In truth, it was a power that even groups with aligned interests like the Divine Order or Sir Hector’s knights would fear to relinquish. Entrusting the Ten Commandments to each of them was only possible because it presupposed mutual checks through separation of powers.

What if Arguirion possessed it?

Before facing the final battle with Baekgwang, I had heard everything Carisia knew about “Baekgwang.”

She said Baekgwang derived the motif for his spiritual immortality from the Magic King’s lingering thoughts engraved in the Ten Commandments. In other words, Arguirion, as the Magic King’s subordinate, could connect with part of the Magic King’s mental body by obtaining Nokmok.

That mental body would become a catalyst capable of summoning the Magic King from beyond dimensions.

It was the worst-case scenario. The artificial Ten Commandments was necessary even to prevent Arguirion’s succession of Nokmok—whether as a warhead against the incarnated Magic King or as a core component for spatial movement to launch a surprise attack on Arguirion.

Then I needed to defeat Baekgwang without using the Ten Commandments bomb.

‘How?’

A means to break Baekgwang’s integrity—

Time ran out before I found an answer. The light subsided, and Baekgwang rose.

Now Baekgwang seemed unwilling to fight quietly on the ground. An application of light body transformation?

Regardless of my questions, my response needed to be swift. As long as this entire space was Baekgwang, every spell the author used could create distortions by interfering with the formulas constituting the space. The fact that Baekgwang could readjust formulas immediately after they were overwritten proved their capability, but still.

I had Carisia. My employer projected merciless firepower.

Baekgwang countered by raising a torrent of starlight with even greater firepower to offset the attack. I wondered what confidence made them choose flight despite knowing I could interfere with their magic.

It seemed their magical power had increased by getting closer to the stars. It meant they were willing to risk danger to overwhelm us.

Damn, although the artificial Ten Commandments was steadily eroding the domain controlled by Baekgwang, this place was fundamentally close to Baekgwang. Calculating the maximum instantaneous magical power that could be drawn, Baekgwang’s would naturally be higher.

Erosion?

The domains of the two Ten Commandments competed to expand their influence. The more free magic not included in specific formulas they secured, the larger their domains grew. In eroded domains, the original formulas there disintegrated, and the captured magic converted to free magic.

Ultimately, the power struggle between the two domains was about usurping free magic. There was no exchange of the formulas themselves or the magic contained within them.

However, my formula overwriting could forcibly connect the two Ten Commandments. If “Baekgwang’s” existence was also engraved as a formula in the Ten Commandments Baekgwang, then formulas flowing from the artificial Ten Commandments would become a deadly poison diluting Baekgwang’s very existence.

I recalled the attack that had dealt the greatest blow to Baekgwang—when I forcibly connected the purification formulas of the artificial Ten Commandments and Baekgwang.

“Boss! Was the overwriting between the Ten Commandments effective?”

“Enough to blow off their head once! Since I’m not you, I couldn’t prevent regeneration!”

This was Baekgwang, who had been cold-blooded enough to target Carisia instead of me, exploiting the murderous intent filling my mind.

The fact that such a Baekgwang showed such a large opening to Carisia proves that the dissonance between the two Ten Commandments affected Baekgwang as something beyond simple pain.

Attack the formula constituting Baekgwang. With the option to ignore Baekgwang and connect directly to the Ten Commandments to seize authority now blocked, this was the final move I derived.

But the problem was that the only formula large enough to deal significant damage to Baekgwang, who was essentially unified with the Ten Commandments itself, was the artificial Ten Commandments.

If I attempted overwriting between the Ten Commandments again here, I didn’t know how Hydra Company’s battle would progress, regardless of the fight with Baekgwang individually. By now, Hydra Company’s priests would be fighting with support from the artificial Ten Commandments.

If the shock of overwriting brought both Baekgwang’s tower and Hydra Company’s magicians to a stalemate, that would be one thing, but if by any chance the Baekgwang side recovered first and cut off the connection to the artificial Ten Commandments, we would inevitably lose.

A formula that could match Baekgwang’s scale of existence without the artificial Ten Commandments. Something that could contend with Baekgwang’s soul—

Ah.

I let out a hollow laugh. Wasn’t the answer closest at hand?

“Boss. This space itself is the Ten Commandments. Seize the Ten Commandments the moment you bring down Baekgwang’s avatar.”

“Ortes? What are you trying to do right now?”

Baekgwang had engraved their soul as a formula into the Ten Commandments.

And I was a soul found beyond dimensions and engraved by the Divine Order.

The fundamental way Baekgwang and I existed was identical.

A formula to serve as a medium to graft the two souls together. I had been using the magic engraving drive as a medium for formula overwriting all along, but this time there was no need.

I recalled the principle of Carisia’s witness death magic. Sometimes, the act of “seeing” itself becomes a magical act.

Then my gaze could also become a formula.

Open your eyes, Ortes.

***

It was a mosaic-like scene. Someone’s life, extremely similar to Carisia but with a different atmosphere.

All the moments of a human life were split into countless pieces filling every direction. Since memories flowed without stopping, the space became a bizarre monitor with innumerable channels playing simultaneously.

I stood in the middle of it. A man in a black suit with narrowed eyes.

In one hand, I held a dark high-frequency blade.

This was my appearance. The appearance of the stranger who named himself Ortes.

The mosaics gathered to form a human shape. It was Baekgwang, who Carisia would be fighting outside. Unlike that one, this one’s left arm was intact.

“You…!”

Just as I perceived Baekgwang’s life, Baekgwang would be facing mine. My desperate bluff about being the Magic King was completely exposed.

“The Divine Order? The last desperate struggle of those outdated people?”

“Yes, that’s how it turned out.”

I pointed my sword.

“Though I prefer the title of Hydra Company’s Holy Inquisitor more.”

I swung. I was familiar with movement in mental space through dreams shown by the sacred artifact.

Let’s fight with our souls at stake, Baekgwang.

***

Ortes remained motionless with his eyes wide open.

Simultaneously, Baekgwang’s movements noticeably slowed. Her entire body creaked like a rusty tin doll.

Had he awakened an ability like the mythical Medusa, petrifying those who looked at him? Carisia looked at Ortes with hope that this fight could now end.

Blue light was spreading like cracks around his eyes.

Carisia’s magical wisdom intuitively understood the essence of the phenomenon. Ortes’s physical body itself was being reduced to insubstantial word fragments, as seen through his “eyes.”

Carisia didn’t freeze in shock or shout clichéd words like “No!”

She turned and rushed toward Baekgwang. Before Ortes disappeared, she would destroy Baekgwang.

Baekgwang, creaking her body grotesquely, was preparing an attack against Ortes. The disharmony in her physical body was because the speed at which her mind transmitted commands had become vastly slower. As long as her soul was held by Ortes, her movements couldn’t be complete.

However, Baekgwang was adapting to this two-front battle.

Carisia’s very birth was the result of research to control both spirit and flesh.

Baekgwang, who had observed magic for thousands of years, could project her will on both the material and mental planes.

***

Baekgwang optimized her movements efficiently. She directed identical movements on both sides, preventing double computation to secure resources for thought.

For the decisive secret technique to settle this fight at once. For the final move to erase both Ortes and Carisia.

In the current state, it was difficult to perform detailed movements or control magical power. Naturally, Baekgwang’s attacks became linear, simple, and wide-ranging.

The final move she prepared while maintaining a defensive stance became an attack using her left arm. The light arm created from fragments of true starlight was an incomparably powerful enchanted weapon.

She would condense Baekgwang’s magical power beyond its limit in the light arm and detonate it.

This idea originated from Ortes’s memory. The Ten Commandments bomb that Carisia had prepared. Since the infinite starlight was magic that approached divinity, this was a compressed version of the Ten Commandments bomb.

Baekgwang swung a blade of light.

Carisia broke through the oncoming torrent of light head-on.

Ortes pulled out a formula from his memory and attached it to his blade.

Slowly, bit by bit.

Baekgwang’s enemies across two worlds were advancing.

Carisia knew Baekgwang was preparing some kind of magic. Starlight gathering in the left arm. The radiance grew increasingly vivid. It was unmistakable.

Ortes read Baekgwang’s actions through his maximally released eyes. With identical thoughts across two worlds, deception using murderous intent was now impossible.

Eventually, the starlight accumulated in the light arm reached a critical point.

In the moment of witnessing the foretold destruction, Ortes and Carisia were thinking the same thing.

Baekgwang was easily holding her own against the two of them on the dual fronts of spirit and flesh. Even while stockpiling capacity to prepare a killing spell.

They couldn’t reverse the inevitable defeat with a one-dimensional structure where soul faced soul and body faced body.

***

I trusted Carisia. If only I could destroy Baekgwang’s physical body here.

I trusted Ortes. If only I could expel Baekgwang’s mind here.

We would win.

***

Ortes’s eyes were looking at both worlds simultaneously. Himself fighting Baekgwang in the mental realm. And Carisia fighting Baekgwang in the physical realm.

With his eyes open while connected to the mental realm, it was, in a sense, natural.

Ortes saw Baekgwang’s magic bomb, the formula of star destruction. He was, except for Carisia, the person most versed in magic bombs.

He had seen the structure of explosion formulas to the point of nausea.

Ortes’s silent gaze overwrote the star destruction formula. The magical power that had reached its critical point erupted without finding direction. White annihilation deleted the space.

Ortes in the mental realm twisted the course of the battle in the physical realm. Just as Baekgwang was about to suppress the torrent of starlight magic using the Ten Commandments’ magic.

Carisia implemented magical interference.

Two things were necessary for magical interference to work: matching the exact timing of the magic’s activation, and using magic of the same category as the activated magic.

Carisia instantly constructed magic with both qualities. One was the “explosion” she had been constantly dreaming of. Since the star destruction formula itself originated from her magic bomb, preparing a homogeneous formula was simple.

The other quality was “mind” directly experienced from Aigio’s sacred artifact. She reverse-engineered the formula from the moment she shared minds with Ortes. She interfered with the star destruction formula, drawing in its magic while simultaneously reconstructing it into magic that would shake the mind.

Thus, ultimately, the formula Carisia aimed to interfere with was Baekgwang’s soul.

From the mental realm to the physical realm, then back from the physical realm to the mental realm. An attack transcending the gap between worlds agitated Baekgwang’s existence.

Carisia finally clenched her fist. A plasma aggregate enveloped her gauntlet.

Ortes grasped Carisia’s magic resonating in the mental realm. The material for the final formula overwriting.

A descending blade and an ascending gauntlet. Attacks from two worlds flew toward Baekgwang’s heart. It was the moment when the two attacks from two worlds reached exactly the same point.

The boundary between worlds disappeared. Carisia could see Ortes, and Ortes could see Carisia. It was an intersection burning Baekgwang across all realms of mind and matter.

Baekgwang’s existence scattered like an explosion. Magical power accumulated over countless eons dyed the entire world. Even the celestial sphere full of starlight was bleached, and finally, all things dyed white ultimately shattered into pieces.

Ortes, dropping his high-frequency blade, looked up at the sky.

It was the azure heavens.