The Great Mage Returns after 4000 Years – Chapter 182 – Beniang Argento (1)
Translator: Seven
Editors: Ana_Banana, Yahiko
Norn grit her teeth.
Regret? Despair?
No, the emotion she felt most at that moment was humiliation.
‘Bastard!’
She tried to roar. But she couldn’t. Her tongue wouldn’t move.
No, it wasn’t just her tongue. Her entire body was motionless, trembling like a sparrow that had been soaked in the rain.
‘Paralysis…!’
Her entire body was paralysed.
This was unbelievable.
After she returned to her complete form of ‘Norn’, her resistances had increased by several times.
Even if Indra himself had attacked her with his lightning, it should have been impossible to paralyse her so perfectly.
Frey was no longer looking at her.
Instead, he had turned his eyes to Sunsir, who was watching this scene from a distance with wide eyes.
Sunsir stepped back.
He was well aware of his own weaknesses. Direct combat should be avoided at all costs.
His true strength could only be displayed when he hid in the shadows and launched surprise attacks.
The ability to hide the aura of his divine power was a skill no other Demigod had, but this also meant that the amount of divine power he had was much less in comparison so as to perfectly conceal it.
‘Something has changed.’
The power of the lightning that Frey had just displayed was strange.
Sunsir knew Indra. He had even seen him use his lightning power before as well.
That was why he could tell for certain. The lightning attack he’d just witnessed was much stronger than Indra’s.
‘This…’
How was something like this fair?
The lightning power that Frey stole from Indra was now stronger than Indra’s?
He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it for himself. In fact, he still couldn’t believe it.
Frey didn’t chase after Sunsir.
His body simply disappeared before reappearing beside Anastasia.
Sunsir almost died of shock at that moment. (TL: wanted to say ‘almost had a heart attack’ so bad)
He was several times more surprised than when he’d witnessed the lightning attack.
‘Sp-, space-time movement?!’
How did a human use an ability that only a select few Demigods had managed to master?
‘He’s too dangerous.’
He had to kill him. He had to kill him right on that spot no matter what. This was all Sunsir could think of at that moment.
“…”
Frey looked down at Anastasia. Anastasia looked up at him.
Suddenly, she grumbled.
“You sure took your time to wake up.”
“…was I late again?”
Frey looked down at his best friend and muttered bitterly.
She couldn’t even stand because she didn’t have limbs, but there was a bright smile on her face.
“It’s not irreversible.”
“Thank you. For protecting me.”
“You can chat with me after you’ve dealt with them.”
“I will.”
“As you can see, I can’t be of much help.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Frey lifted his gaze to look at the Demigods.
“Because they’re no longer a problem.”
The two Demigods grit their teeth with humiliated expressions, but they couldn’t refute his statement.
It was at that moment that Anastasia realised that there were many changes within Frey’s body.
“You progressed again. Did you awaken during the period before death? In such a short time…. You really are an amazing guy. You-”
“It wasn’t short.”
Frey shook his head.
Right. It wasn’t short at all.
“You look tired. Why don’t you get some rest for now? I’ll handle the rest.”
“…I should. My eyelids have been heavy for a while now.”
Anastasia’s eyes slowly closed as she mumbled those words.
Frey raised his head again.
Sunsir, who was slowly approaching him after concealing his aura, froze.
This was because Frey’s eyes had landed perfectly on his body. It was definitely not a coincidence.
The moment their eyes met, Sunsir got goosebumps.
“How…”
It was a question that didn’t need to be answered. In fact, he wouldn’t have been convinced even if he had heard the truth.
That Frey was using Milled’s clairvoyance.
“Uahhh!”
Norn suddenly roared.
She’d finally overcome the paralysis. However, she was well aware that the crisis had yet to end.
If Frey had wanted it, she would have already been dead.
“How dare you show mercy on me!”
It was completely unacceptable for her. To receive the mercy of a human was much worse than being annihilated.
She never expected that she would feel such a sense of humiliation after returning to her true form.
“Calm down, Norn.”
Sunsir hurriedly tried to get Norn under control.
She would definitely not be of much help if she were to get lost in her emotions.
It took some time, but he finally acknowledged Frey’s strength.
“From now on, don’t treat him like a human. Right, it would be better… if we treated him as something even stronger than the Dragons.”
He used the name of the only creatures who could be considered their opponents in the past.
Norn grit her teeth, but she had no choice but to accept his words.
This man might not be a Dragon; but he was far more threatening.
“Do you have a way?”
“You just have to actively use your power.”
There was one more poisoned dagger that he’d brought as insurance.
Of course, he knew that this man had driven out Ananta’s poison once. But it had taken a lot of time to do so.
If he could create this gap once again, he would no longer drag his feet, and he would immediately end his life this time.
“…understood.”
This was not an easy decision to make.
Because they were Demigods, no matter how powerful an enemy was, they never joined forces. But Norn looked down at her trembling hands and steadied her resolve.
As much as it would damage her pride, this man had to die.
Then she read the future.
“Huh?”
When Norn had three personalities, that is to say, when she was still the Nornir sisters, it was the youngest sister, Skuld, who had the power to see the future.
Throughout her long life, she’d seen many futures. That was why she knew.
The future was not set in stone. It was fluid. It constantly shifted and constantly changed.
Of course, the subject was always herself. Every time she made a judgement, the future changed.
That was why Norn had never seen such a future before.
It was completely dark.
Then she saw a pure white light, that contrasted with the future vision Norn had seen, swallow her.
It didn’t pierce her; it swallowed her.
It was different from the lightning spear from before.
The size, power. No, the light wasn’t even lightning.
“…”
When the light disappeared, Norn’s upper body was gone. The lower half that was left then fell to the ground with a thud.
Even up to the moment she died, Norn didn’t realise that the future she saw was an inevitable death.
“…”
Frey looked down at his fingertips.
There was no problem using his fingers like he had before. He liked the fact that there were no side effects.
He had simply expressed his will to the divine magic power he just released.
‘At a speed that no one can perceive, eliminate anything it touches. ‘
That’s what he thought, and it actually happened.
‘If it hits something with a stronger will than me, it won’t make it disappear.’
As he had this thought, Frey turned to look at the remaining Demigod, Sunsir.
He was staring at Frey in disbelief, his entire body trembling.
When his eyes met Frey’s, a thought seemed to suddenly pierce through his fear.
‘Lo-, Lord…?’
In that instant, Frey’s face overlapped with Lord’s.
It was ridiculous. It was utter nonsense.
How could he see Lord’s shadow in this mortal?
Sunsir was shaken by his own insolence.
“No!”
Sunsir buried his fear with anger.
Then he charged towards Frey.
Sunsir didn’t have the ability to see the future. But as the distance between him and Frey narrowed, he seemed to see his final moments.
* * *
He’d killed two Demigods in an instant.
Yet Frey didn’t feel proud of this in the slightest. He knew he would win even before the fight started.
At that moment, Frey realised he’d transcended the 9 star stage.
‘Is this 10 stars?’
He wasn’t sure.
However, the power he had now was no longer limited to the field of magic.
What was it truly like to reach 10 stars in the first place?
Frey knew that Cairo and Diablo held some clues regarding this matter. So he decided that he’d go find out some more details after dealing with this situation.
“…”
He could see the crystals left behind by Norn and Sunsir.
These were already things that he no longer needed. The thing that had the greatest influence on divine magic power was the will of its wielder.
No matter how powerful he was, even if he somehow gained infinite power, he would not be able to use it if his mind was broken.
It would be better for him to devise a way to strengthen his mental power than to increase his divine magic power.
However, it was too dangerous to leave the crystals lying in a place like this, so he’d collect them for now.
Then he looked down at Anastasia.
Seeing how thoroughly her body had been destroyed, Frey couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.
Eventually, he let out a heavy sigh.
“Because of your appearance, I really feel like it would be a crime to let you die.”
It wasn’t that he would have done so, but if Anastasia still had Schweiser’s appearance, Frey wouldn’t have felt so guilty.
He couldn’t help but hate Hector a little.
Fortunately, her core was still intact. This meant that as long as she had sufficient ME, she could heal herself.
Woowoong-
1 million ME.
It was an almost unbelievable amount. Even for Frey, it was quite a burden.
Anastasia didn’t regain consciousness immediately, but her wounds started to heal. At the rate she was healing, it seemed she’d be in perfect condition in only a few hours.
He got up from his seat.
It wasn’t over yet.
“Agni.”
Frey said the name of the most threatening being in the entire Amakan Desert.
Then he recalled Riki’s advice.
He’d told him to hurry.
At first, he thought he was talking about Anastasia, but now, it seemed that he wasn’t talking about just her.
“…”
Frey suddenly got an ominous feeling.
* * *
About an hour earlier.
‘It’s hard to breathe.’
Ivan thought, gasping.
One of the most basic of basics for the Warrior King’s Fist was breathing control. Also, it wasn’t easy for Ivan, who had almost reached the stage of Warrior King, to lose his breath.
But even if a Warrior King were to participate in the fight, they might not have been able to keep their breath under control. (TL: what about Nora?)
The soaring pillars of flames, melting sand, and rain of fire from the sky all contributed to create a truly hellish scene.
‘The others can’t even stand here.’
In fact, as soon as this happened, half of the warriors who survived the first attack collapsed, and their defenseless bodies were covered by the flames and turned to ashes.
“Incoming!”
Someone shouted.
Then he saw a giant fist of flames soaring towards him.
Booom!
He threw himself away to avoid it, rolling a few times because of the force of the impact.
His skin was burning. He was sure the attack didn’t touch him, but it didn’t feel like he’d avoided it.
‘We can’t endure this much longer.’
His thoughts felt drier than the desert. He had sweated too much.
As a creature who relied on the moisture in its body to live, he would not be able to survive more than half an hour in this hell.
Ivan grit his teeth.
Ever since he’d started being tortured by Nora—no, even before then, Ivan’s life had been a series of struggles.
Fighting, fighting, and more fighting.
There were times he won and times he lost. Few of those fights were easy. But even though they happened, they didn’t remain in his memory for very long. All Ivan could remember were the bloody, difficult battles.
In all of those fights, he never once swung his fist with the thought of losing.
But now, while facing Agni, Ivan couldn’t help but feel that way for the first time.
Maybe this day next year would be the day of his memorial service.
(TL: So about the Power/Authority decision. I was personally leaning towards authority, but like I’d said in my note, quite a few of you guys pointed out the fact that we’re already most of the way through with this first season of the novel. And while authority might sound better in my opinion, we’re already past chapter 180 so at this point, it would only confuse things to change something so fundamental. Thanks for the feedback though guys ^-^ love it.)