NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 1048
<1048 – Extreme Weakness Mode (6)>
As we walked along the melted snowy path, Senior Instructor couldn’t stop wagging his tongue.
“That earlier thing was hellfire transformation magic, right?”
“Yep.”
“Impressive.”
“It’s not something you can easily pull off. Even for the demons of hell. You’d have to be a major demon who doesn’t have any grievances about living in hell to come to the Middle Realm.”
“Major demon?”
When Sadi blurted out something unnecessary, he closed his mouth with a smile that suggested he was a bit flustered.
“You can’t say that after spilling all this… Now I’m curious.”
“It’s frustrating to give information one-sidedly.”
“I’ll share something too. Like Professor Red Mountain’s secret.”
“You already know.”
“You know?”
“The wizard from the Eastern Region. Used to be a member of the Special Operations Unit, Jekmyomyoh. The local wizards were annoyingly gloomy and suspicious, so they migrated to the Cheonryeong Mountain Range with clearer spirits.”
“What? So you were even acquaintances with the professor? It took me two years to hear that as an instructor.”
Of course.
Whatever information Senior Instructor had, Sadi would know too.
This brought a newfound appreciation for the utility of my terminal.
“How about the professor’s item storage location?”
“I know.”
“Why do you know that?! Even so, isn’t that a bit boastful? It has to be, right?”
“The professor’s belt. The interdimensional belt called <Twilight>. On the night of the monthly sleeping day, he goes to sleep with the Twilight hanging in his room.”
“Good heavens. What is this… No, is this the exceedingly precise information that terrifies? Of the ‘Dark Princess’…!”
This wasn’t the kind of intel Oknodie or the Foundation could muster.
It was my terminal’s power.
Sadi was a bit miffed that the instructor didn’t recognize her skills.
“Annoying, but I have no information to trade.”
“Sharing an embarrassing story to entertain is okay too. Like how I wet the bed at thirteen.”
“That couldn’t possibly have happened.”
Jiang, who was quietly carrying Oknodie, looked suspiciously at Senior Instructor.
“Senior. Did you wet the bed at thirteen?”
“What are you talking about! That’s an insult!”
“Then just deny it. Why get so angry? Suspiciously so.”
Sadi, sticking her tongue out behind Senior Instructor, added to Jiang’s suspicion.
What a mean-spirited girl.
Jiang genuinely felt relieved that she wasn’t a student from Class 981.
If this is the level of her “little pouting”…
If she were truly trying to kill someone and resorted to leaking sensitive information, could anyone stand a chance?
Eavesdropping based on intimate knowledge could lead to suspicion among everyone, all relationships falling apart, and a fight possibly breaking out, mistaking Oknodie as the instigator.
Indeed, that was the tragedy that befell the seniors of Class 980.
Tightening.
The grip on Oknodie strengthened.
Imagining the struggles they must have endured makes the present feel even more precious.
“In any case, I don’t need to hear from Sadi. I already know. About the major demons.”
“You should be a second-year now, right?”
“Since it’s Professor Sadako, who likes previewing.”
“Liking to preview… Yeah, if she’s that kind of professor, I could see it…”
“?”
Sadi’s peculiarities aside, Senior Instructor was also acting strange.
Even as Jiang pondered this inwardly, he kindly explained.
“The Demon King is often referred to as the overlord of all demons, but in reality, it’s just the strongest demon in the Middle Realm. In dimensions categorized as hell, where the distribution ratio of dark mana is high, there are not just one but several such beings. The first Demon King was said to be a ‘weakling’ forced out to the Middle Realm after losing in a power struggle in hell.”
“Is that for real?”
“Totally real. Professor Sadako shared her experience fighting the Demon King in her younger days.”
It’s a miracle she ascended; just thinking about her still struggling sends chills down my spine.
“However, even if the Demon King Minshik isn’t an aggressive one, given his long years, he can’t be a careless demon to the point of being beaten by a major demon.”
In any case, there’s a reason Jiang learned about the demon realm from Professor Sadako.
“That professor. Don’t tell me she’s sent you to the demon realm before?”
“She just took us to her training ground, claiming to help with Oknodie’s ‘inner approval,’ but if you want to put it that way, I guess you could say I went.”
Jiang, a student of Professor Sadako.
A real hell visitor!
“Oknodie’s hellfire magic is strong for that reason.”
“You walked into a sea of fire?!”
“It was super hot. Even after drinking tons of resistance potions, I thought I was really going to die, and Oknodie came out after over an hour!”
When the instructor dragged Oknodie down to hell to demonstrate human frailty, it was quite a sight when he burst out on fire and became a fire skeleton.
“It was hard, but fun. Right, Oknodie?”
“…”
“So this is nothing. We’ve passed halfway through the mountain range. We can still endure, just like Oknodie did with the hellfire.”
Jiang is not Oknodie.
Even with resistance potions, he couldn’t withstand the same level of flame.
But that also meant he understood his limits pretty well.
A certain author named Leo Tolstoy once told this story.
How much land does a person need?
A person can have land equal to the distance they walk in a single day.
That man, unable to control his greed, tried to claim more land and ended up exhausted and lost his life.
The endless greed of humans ultimately leads to destruction.
The Skeleton Instructor wanted his students to face their doom.
Jiang knew his limits and stepped back.
Oknodie achieved supreme success with a strength unbounded by limits.
And the Skeleton Instructor fell to destruction, with the arrogance of believing he was superior to his students, becoming a Fire Skeleton… whatever that was.
‘So my calculations are sound. No mistakes. Safely crossing the Cheonryeong Mountain Range with Oknodie. This isn’t greed.’
Yet for some reason…
The very effort to persuade himself again and again is what he noticed.
Jiang tried to ignore the signals of <Crisis Detection>, but could no longer.
High columns of light erupted throughout the Cheonryeong Mountain Range.
This isn’t a pillar of light announcing the birth of new masters of the mountains.
‘A door is opening. The already high spirits of the Cheonryeong Mountain Range are merging with the Eastern Empire’s Spirit Veins, shortening the distance to higher dimensions, manifesting the world of the lower realms.’
Even though he hadn’t yet reached the fourth year, a knowledge of dimensional studies was sufficient for him to infer this.
What lay ahead was a serious crisis that could easily exceed the graduation project for the fourth year.
[Hahaha. Hahahahaha!]
[I’ve waited long! Middle Realm.]
[Now even the evil dragon of the Middle Realm, which couldn’t compare before due to the disparity in power levels, will be a worthy opponent!]
An upper boss monster, the Snow Woman, that was on a different level than existing boss monsters.
And entities that were on a whole other tier than her.
The masters of the lower realms.
Existences from beyond the heavens.
Strong individuals who could easily rival the Divine Class were racing toward a feast set up in the Middle Realm.
━━━
<Stealth Area>
<Expansion – Shadow of 3m>
━━━
Ziang’s partner stealth area eliminated all presence within the range of the shadows.
As soon as the sharp-eyed Sadi and Senior Instructor entered the zone, a deafening noise split the sky, and a giant with six arms appeared, clutching bolts of lightning.
The giant’s ominous eyes turned toward the screaming monsters overwhelmed by the powerful presence.
[Those things look tasty!]
[I didn’t eat many that I didn’t catch because it was bothersome to care for my lower realm’s ecosystem when it’s crumbling, but here I can eat without worry!]
[One hundred years of soul gut-wrenching goodness? Oh ho, what a windfall. They say eating a cow’s liver is good for polishing your spirit blade. Come here!]
With each hand of the upper realm masters extending their power, boss monsters arose into the air.
“I’ll offer up my nest. Oh elders, please spare my life!”
“There are parasites in the cow’s liver. Eating that will just ruin your taste. Please, don’t eat me, oh elders!”
“Oh mighty one! Please give me a chance to serve you! I don’t want to end my life as prey!”
Boss monsters were begging for their lives, pleading for mercy, and hurriedly searching for a way to survive.
To Jiang, the level of those dimension masters seemed more than capable of taking on the Heavenly Sovereign if two of them teamed up.
“Ugh. So noisy.”
-Oknodie. Be quiet now.
As Oknodie woke from his slumber, the giant leaned down to hear him.
Like Jiang, stunned by the monstrous display of the giant swirling lightning and obliterating dozens of mid-tier monsters hidden among the bushes, Oknodie also flinched in fright.
-Why is that hundred-dimensional boss monster out already?
-Drawn in by the disturbance of the Spirit Veins.
-Ugh. This is too burdensome right now.
Oknodie quickly reached a conclusion.
-I should dump it in the academy!
-…In the academy? That thing?
-Yeah!
Even while exchanging trans-dimensional magic, Jiang seriously wondered if he was hallucinating.
How could they manage such a challenge with their ailing bodies?
[Smells like prey. Let’s see what scrumptious creature it is!]
With a rumbling sound, a massive bolt of lightning came crashing down.
Oknodie lightly touched the curse-laden belly of the giant and quickly drew a spell.
The giant, confused by what the lightning had struck, tilted its head.
[What the heck did my lightning hit?]
Oknodie, who believed that if he suffered, others must too, split pain and sickness.
As the cursed runes finally covered the bolts of lightning and crawled up the giant’s arms, the terrified giant threw away the lightning flail, screeching.
[It’s contamination. It’s an infection! The Middle Realm has turned into a hell of mana disasters that can kill transcendent beings after a millennium!]
Even the strong were not afraid of illness; it was the transcendent beings’ dreadful fear of disease that blanketed the Cheonryeong Mountain Range.