Chapter 70 – Baldur’s Nightmare (4)

The sky was a dark, blood-red, as if rain made of blood would fall at any moment. In the darkness, Dominic was furiously digging into the ground.

He wasn’t afraid of being discovered by other demons; he only cared about staunching the blood flowing from his left arm as he frantically dug up the small hill.

This was the last place they had found any traces.

If his master was still alive, they would be here, moving within these grounds.

His mana was depleted, and the curse on his eyes was gradually worsening, making his vision grow dim. He had no time to wipe the blood and sweat covering his entire body; he continued digging, pushing aside stones and branches.

How much time had passed? Dominic realized he had dug a hole big enough for a person to comfortably fit inside.

“Haha…”

Laughter slipped out of him. He was supposed to be a direct disciple of the Illusion Duke, yet after just a few months of activity in the Demon Realm, his judgment had become this clouded.

He slumped down against a tree. The sounds of magical bombardments and the stench of blood filled his senses.

A bitter taste rose in his throat, and an overwhelming drowsiness washed over him.

His body had reached its limit. However, he knew that if he fell asleep now, he might never find his master.

“Huk, huk…”

Fighting off sleep, he struggled desperately, but eventually, he fell into a deep, dark abyss.

When he opened his eyes, his entire body was drenched as he lay on a sofa.

“Huff, huff…”

It had been a dream. One of his earliest memories, now so familiar.

A nap, huh? I must have been more exhausted than I thought. He sat up immediately.

Taking a cigarette from the desk, he placed it between his lips and lit it.

“Phew…”

The afternoon sky in Batudis was heavy with thick, dark clouds, threatening rain at any moment. The spire of the magic tower, rising high above, could not pierce through the dense fog that covered the sky.

Dominic opened the window.

He stood there, reaching out his hand toward the distant black dot beyond the Shrine of Storms. However, not even the fog creeping into the room could be touched by his severed hand.

Ten years ago, the Great War had claimed his arm above the elbow. But what he had truly lost in the war wasn’t something as trivial as a limb.

After the disappearance of the master of Phecda Tower, one of the five Grand Dukes of Pennheim, the study of Image Magic in Phecda had fallen into decline.

The uncontrollable phenomenon of Baldur’s Nightmare had once again begun to rage across the Batudis region, and without the tower master to guide them, the wizards were like a ship adrift without a compass.

Dominic, too, had been overwhelmed with grief at losing his gentle and kind-hearted master. Yet, the only thing keeping him going was the maxim left by Saya Rampling.

We must always be wary of illusions, Dominic. Because in illusions, you can have everything you desire.

Don’t be consumed by foolish dreams. While illusions may light your path, they will burn you if you get too close.

In the end, his master had vanished into the Demon Realm without leaving even a single hair behind. It was only after the deaths of the Frost Duke and the Illusion Duke that Pennheim and Monarch realized that no wizard could single-handedly stop the four worst of the Demon King’s army.

“Master…”

The sorrow weighed heavily on Dominic’s shoulders. But soon, a resolute look filled his eyes.

I’m not weak enough to be consumed by illusions.

If anything… it would be the opposite.

As he was adjusting his robes, there was a knock on the door.

“Second-year magic student, Liv Labre.”

Oh, right, he had a meeting scheduled. Straightening his glasses in front of the mirror, he spoke in a low voice.

“Come in.”

At the highest level of the tower, the floor where the tower master’s office was located, Liv Labre cautiously entered Dominic Artcenz’s private study.

The room had an eerie atmosphere, with purple carpets covering the floor. Blue flames crackled in the fireplace, and a quill pen danced alone on the desk.

The geometric golden lines etched into the round window depicted the celestial path of Prium Mobile, and on the western wall, the branches of the Sephiroth tree stretched out, connecting to the streams of Terrarius below.

A small space containing the profound wisdom of the Three Originals. Dominic, who had been sitting in a chair in the corner, stood and gestured to the sofa for Liv to sit.

“Welcome. It’s time for your meeting, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but why did you call me to the upper levels…?”

“I’ve been busy with the recent chaos, so I didn’t have time to come down to the lower floors. I apologize for making you come up here.”

“No! It’s perfectly fine, really.”

As the breeze rustled the loose fabric hanging from the end of his severed arm, the sound of tea being poured filled the air. Liv hesitated to touch the tea placed in front of her, and Dominic noticed.

“Are you not interested in the refreshments?”

“I’m not really hungry, but thank you.”

“Very well. I received your academic record from the academy. Your grades are excellent. Not only in White Magic, but you also have a strong understanding of Black Magic… I was particularly impressed by your evaluation in Professor Antonio’s substitute midterm lecture.”

The compliments poured out, but Liv couldn’t shake her discomfort.

The magic training period was a time when magic towers could scout promising students ahead of time. Some towers would even extend direct offers to students to join as apprentices after graduation or establish cooperative relationships with noble families.

“Have you considered becoming an apprentice at our tower after graduation?”

Liv had expected that they wouldn’t be able to make such an aggressive proposal, given that the tower master’s seat was vacant, but it seemed Phecda Tower was eager to recruit her, lacking talented individuals.

“I’m sorry, but I haven’t decided on anything regarding that yet.”

Of course, Liv politely declined.

There was a brief silence. The steam rising from the tea cups slowly dissipated.

“Have you considered another place, then?”

“I was thinking about the Twelve Alliances… but I want to think it over a bit more carefully.”

“I understand. Today’s the day you head to the Shrine of Storms, correct?”

“Yes.”

“I have urgent business to attend to, so my assistant, Peter, will be leading the group. Be careful.”

Urgent business? Now that Liv thought about it, the sirens from the tower had been sounding strange lately.

But before she could say anything, someone knocked on the door.

“Pardon me, Deputy Tower Master. The source of the disturbance has been identified at the observation post.”

“I’ll have to go. Liv, take care.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t get too lost in the illusions.”

Dominic escorted her to the stairs leading down to the lower floors, offering his usual parting advice.

“We’ve figured it out, Deputy Tower Master! Some lunatic is out there punching the ground…!!”

“They’re destroying the nightmares. How’s the Shrine of Storms?”

“The illusions that should have been released periodically are now gathering in one spot. It seems too dangerous for the tour to continue today…”

“No, it’s fine.”

Dominic draped his robe over his body, stopping the observatory assistant from canceling the plans. He couldn’t allow the current situation to be disrupted.

“Proceed as scheduled.”

“But—”

“It’s fine. There’s something more important at stake.”

There was a moment of surprise in the assistant’s eyes as they met his, but soon they nodded, reassured by Dominic’s calm smile.

“If anything happens, report it immediately through the communication crystal.”

“Yes, sir…”

Outside, a light rain was falling.

Using <Teleportation>, Dominic appeared at the most recent site where a nightmare had been destroyed, finding a man standing in the middle of a large crater, drenched in rain.

Was it Goliath, who had been stirring up the nightmares earlier? But the Iron Dog wasn’t with him.

Whichever the case, there was no more time left.

Crack!

Dominic kicked a demonic statue lying at his feet, shattering it, and turned his gaze.

“Oh, you’re here?”

The man’s voice was casual, as if he were meeting an old friend for dinner.

“You’re late. The sun’s already setting, and you’re just now showing up.”

But Dominic, feeling the suffocating killing intent radiating from the man, immediately extended his left arm into the air. A blue beast materialized in the space where his arm once was, formed from his Image Magic.

“This… did you spread these?”

“…”

Dominic didn’t answer. Instead, he looked toward the darkening sky and the hill where the clouds were beginning to gather.

“Baldur’s Nightmare is a magical phenomenon that encompasses the entire Batudis region.”

“…”

“Its overall structure is veiled, but the energy radiating outward is always constant.”

After the war, Dominic had forsaken everything else to focus solely on studying that mist in the tower. A mirror reflecting the past, an illusion showing what had disappeared.

His sole purpose was clear: to bring his master back to life.

If he could travel back in time, he could surely see the Illusion Duke again.

“The statues serve to stabilize the ever-changing nightmare in time and space. By breaking them into fragments and spreading them widely, the magical energy gathered at the Shrine of Storms thins out, and the balance at the center is maintained.”

“And in exchange, the nightmares spread further. The people living here will die because of it.”

“Die? Have you not seen how the villagers here live?”

The people had left the statues in place, extracting remnants of the past and bringing them into reality, making even this barren land flourish with food.

No one had suffered misfortune because the nightmares had become more active. Yet, it seemed he still didn’t understand Dominic’s greater purpose.

“You should have learned not to be consumed by illusions.”

“Exactly!”

Shwaaa!

Dominic spread his arms wide as the rain pelted his face.

Under the darkening sky, all the remaining demonic statues raised their heads toward the Shrine of Storms.

“I’m not being consumed by the illusion.”

Rumble!

“I’m making the illusion reality.”

Just a little more. Despite how much damage had been done, there were enough statues left.

The gate at the center of the Shrine of Storms had already stabilized. With Baldur’s Nightmare spread across the entire region, the boundary between this world and the one beyond the gate had blurred even more.

When reality and illusion coexist, surely he would be able to bring his master back—

“You idiot.”

There’s no magic that can bring back the dead.

Even the wisest of wizards can lose their rational judgment when it comes to such obvious truths.

What could you expect? They’re all victims who lost someone they loved to the war.

“Now I understand.”

“What?”

But the lunatic in front of me spouting nonsense had a completely different problem from the start.

“The Illusion Duke’s disciple… If you’ve got a Four Laurels Medal, you must’ve been to Heljeb too. At the time the tower was collapsing after the war, you must have been its only hope. Nobody would have dared to question it.”

“What are you talking about?”

I picked up the demonic statue’s head. The fool didn’t seem to notice anything out of place about it.

He thought the statue, or whatever he called it, was simply a catalyst stabilizing Baldur’s Nightmare.

“A mage who deals with Image Magic doesn’t even understand what might be dragged out from the past if you make an illusion real…”

It’s clear now.

“Tsk, this is why I don’t bother talking to demon-spawned idiots.”

“Demon? What did you just say?”

I threw the head of the demonic statue at Dominic’s feet. He probably wouldn’t realize what he had been doing until his heart was pierced through.

All he wanted was to bring his master back to life, but instead, he was about to summon a disaster that would threaten all of humanity.

“Hey.”

An object shaped in the image of a god is a marker.

Markers have a purpose.

Markers define time and space.

When the conditions are set, disaster follows.

All disasters have been vanquished by mortals.

But still, the fractures of the world remain.

The Grand Duke’s work.

The Grand Duke’s sin.

The Grand Duke’s regret.

I activated the Unique Magic residing within me and spoke to the wraith that had likely been buried in the Heljeb Mountains, yet still didn’t realize what it was.

“You’re a doppelgänger, you fool.”