Wayne curled his fingers into an empty grip, moving to draw his blade.
A dense aura of death unfurled. Gray mist swept away the surging tide of white froth encroaching from all sides. With elemental counter-affinity on its side, erasing the froth forged by life magic took half the effort.
Wayne: (一`一)
What is going on? I haven't even drawn my sword yet!
Has my swordsmanship gotten this sharp?
Clad in a greasy white lab coat, a figure stepped out from the void. Planck held the Death Pendant in his hand, gray mist swirling around his body before congealing into a ghastly white skull above his head.
Deities were not tools, and chaotic worship came at a price. The hand clutching the pendant had turned to bare bone, and his face was veiled in a heavy pall of deathly pallor.
Wayne was going numb from frustration. Having his disguise switch interrupted twice in a row, he couldn't help wondering whether Planck was doing it on purpose.
Still, it was fortunate Planck had been a step faster. Had the old man appeared just a second later, Wayne would have drawn Shadow Nightmare, blowing the Death Knight persona—and that would have been a real headache.
"I said it before: with me here today, no one will lay a finger on you."
Planck grinned at Wayne, refusing to pass up any opportunity to rack up favor. Then his expression chilled as he turned toward Sidney, who was parasitized by the Lord of the Void, shaking his head in self-reproach. "Sidney, I came too late. But rest assured, your life is still long. No matter what, I will cure you."
"You goddamned bastard!!"
The Lord of the Void cursed furiously, damning Sidney for his incompetence and Planck for meddling. He had been so close—just one second shy of taking Wayne.
"Marshall, leave. Most of your consciousness has already been destroyed by me; you are no match for me now. Return to the Void. That is where your grave belongs."
Magic trinkets hovered in a ring around Planck. Bone in one hand, holy light in the other, he wielded two vastly conflicting faiths with practiced ease, suppressing the humanoid tentacle monster until it collapsed into a puddle of mush.
"I will not leave! No matter what, I'm not leaving today!"
The Lord of the Void shrieked in rage. White froth rolled out like a cascading waterfall, the swelling deluge slamming into the gray mist of death and swamping it in a suicidal surge.
Planck was taken aback. He flared his life force field in defense, stepping in front of Wayne just in time.
"The madman... he actually brought his entire consciousness over to the God-favored Continent..."
Planck muttered under his breath, staring in shock at Wayne's innocent face. He had tried his hardest to fathom the young man's worth, yet he had still underestimated it.
"Why does the Lord of the Void keep hunting you down, sparing no expense?"
"Uh..."
Wayne scratched his head. "Maybe because I helped wipe out the Church of the Earth's Core? Bearing a grudge, he won't rest until I'm dead. Or if not that..."
"...then maybe his sunk costs are just too high. To keep his initial investment from going down the drain, he's betting all his chips on a single turnaround."
Wayne rattled off all sorts of possibilities. The subtext: Planck was asking the wrong guy. How was a mere mage apprentice supposed to know what an evil god was thinking?
Fair enough.
Planck suppressed his doubts. Now was not the time to ponder such things. The Lord of the Void had descended in full. Though far less rational and wise than in his prime, countless years of delving into the Void left his deranged consciousness staggeringly powerful.
Planck weighed his options. Today, either the Lord of the Void died, or the Lord of the Void perished.
To protect the city of Londan above, Planck spread his life force field to its fullest, dragging the Lord of the Void into endless darkness. To guard against any remaining tricks from his foe, he left behind a Black Light Ring to protect Wayne.
The ring hovered midair, casting down a curtain of darkness that severed Wayne's connection to his surroundings.
The Black Light Ring represented faith in the Goddess of Darkness. When used for defense, it could silence and nullify most magic. It had versatile uses, depending on the master's thoughts.
Like Shadow Nightmare, it was a rare and precious magical artifact. Given Planck's status as a legendary mage, calling it a legendary artifact was by no means an exaggeration.
Yet the Black Light Ring's upper limit was legendary tier; Shadow Nightmare was another story altogether.
Sheltered under the ring's protection, Wayne was still brooding over his failed transformation. An alternate identity was an alternate identity after all—so inconvenient when you actually needed it in a pinch.
Wayne was curious. How on earth did Planck come to possess so many faith artifacts, every single one of them ridiculously powerful?
"Did he get a cheat too?"
He muttered under his breath, looking at the ring hovering above him, itching to slip it onto his finger.
Just like when he had coveted the four elements, the thought crossed his mind, but he didn't act on it.
Moreover, rather than the Black Light Ring, what he envied even more was Planck's ability to hop back and forth among tangled faiths. Planck's success was like the first rays of dawn piercing the dark, opening wide a brand-new door before him.
To be blunt, Wayne wanted to take this path too. He wanted to cling to the long, slender legs of every goddess out there.
About half an hour later, two figures reappeared in the sewer. Planck sat cross-legged on the ground, his beard stained with blood, panting like a dog.
Opposite him lay the tentacled monstrosity, reduced to a puddle of sludge. The Lord of the Void attempted to reshape his body, but because his consciousness had taken devastating blows, every attempt ended in failure.
Wayne grasped the situation at once: mutually assured destruction, but the Lord of the Void was clinging on by a single sliver of health. Rounding up, Planck had won.
Clatter!
A clutter of plain-looking trinkets spilled onto the ground. Sitting cross-legged, Planck looked just like a street vendor, surrounded by a disorganized spread of items.
The Black Light Ring above Wayne's head fell down as well.
Panting heavily, Planck grabbed Wayne's trouser leg. "Quick... tell me quick! Which deity do you believe in? I'll give you their casting tool, and you finish off the Lord of the Void!"
With that, he gave a bitter smile. He hadn't expected the Lord of the Void to be so utterly deranged, resolved to drag him down together even at the cost of mutual destruction.
Fortunately, he had plenty of gods backing him. Otherwise, he would have been framed in a memorial portrait right then and there.
What the hell? Didn't you just say you were going to protect me?
Wayne stared, wide-eyed. Seeing that the Lord of the Void across from them showed faint signs of reconstituting, he answered without hesitation, "The Goddess of Nature. My teacher is a disciple of the Goddess of Nature, and barring any surprises, so am I."
"The Goddess of Nature, the Goddess of Nature..."
Planck rummaged through the pile on the ground and laid out three trinkets. Beside a bracelet of nature, there were a medallion of the sun and an idol of moonlight.
The three goddesses formed the Life Alliance, allowing disciples to learn the other two faith magics within the coalition. Simply put, a disciple of the Goddess of Nature could practice both solar and lunar magic.
In Planck's eyes, this was a classic case of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too. Faith was by no means exclusive; the so-called Life Alliance was essentially no different from the Free Mages Alliance—they had merely narrowed the circle to three faiths.
In other words, since Wayne claimed to revere the Goddess of Nature, he could wield not only the Nature Bracelet, but also the Sun Medallion and the Moonlight Idol.
Out of caution, since Wayne was merely a mage apprentice whose mind and mana were limited, unable to unleash the Nature Bracelet's full power, Planck had him take all three.
Planck's reasoning: If one doesn't cut it, bring a few more. When it comes to gods, believing in a few extra can't hurt.
Wayne had no inkling of Planck's absurd logic. A legendary mage was well-traveled and knowledgeable; surely he had his reasons. Tucking the three trinkets into his robes, Wayne engaged his consciousness and unleashed his mana in full, triggering all three faith magics at once.
Boom!!
A mana vortex erupted from the ground, expanding into a howling gale-force wall like a tornado. Before Planck could react, a blast of fierce wind shoved straight down his throat, sending him howling into the air and tumbling violently away.
He landed forehead-first, cracking a slab of concrete.
Ignoring the scattered trinkets on the ground, he stared wide-eyed at Wayne, his stunned face full of disbelief.
A mind of this caliber, mana of this magnitude... it surpasses the vast majority of Silver mages...
This is a fucking mage apprentice?!
What astonished Planck was not just Wayne's consciousness and mana, but his flawless mastery over three distinct divine powers: nature's vitality, the sun's brilliance, and moonlight's serenity. His physical body suffered no divine backlash whatsoever, completely preserving his sense of self.
"Is it because the three faiths reached an equilibrium within his body?"
"No, even I can't achieve that, so it's even less possible for him..."
"Even a God-favored wouldn't..."
"I see... it's his constitution, or perhaps his bloodline..."
Planck murmured to himself, his eyes lighting up without him realizing it. Wayne might be an anomaly—one of an extreme few, or even one of a kind—but he proved that the Free Mages Alliance hadn't chosen the wrong path. Their theory was right!
Boom!
Adorned with the three magical artifacts, Wayne felt hot and cold flashes coursing through him. Fortunately, it wasn't a problem; the bizarre energies flooding into his body were swallowed whole by the Book of Greed, immediately leaving him feeling light and unburdened.
The Book of Greed screened out the adverse effects of divine power, allowing him to cast the three distinct types of magic as he pleased. However, he couldn't wield different magical affinities simultaneously the way Planck did; he had to let the Book of Greed switch between them.
That was more than enough!
Wayne clenched his fist, waving his hand to draw out a golden sword condensed from light. On second thought, hacking and slashing wouldn't do much damage against a tentacle monster. So he simply swept his arm forward, a surge of mana leveraging reality to rain down a dense canopy of golden swords.
Sunlight pelted down upon the Lord of the Void like raindrops. Each sword was a highly concentrated burst of searing fire, blasting the Lord of the Void into shrill shrieks. What little consciousness he had left evaporated in large swathes beneath the scorching heat.
Bullying noobs feels amazing!
The sorrows and joys of men are not shared; the Lord of the Void's agony only egged Wayne on. Switching to nature's divine power, he cast out a dense shower of spores. Parasitizing the Lord of the Void, they sprouted into a coat of red little umbrellas, sapping his vitality before multiplying in a second and third bloom.
His mana receded like an ebb tide. Wayne felt a touch of exhaustion and decided to test out moonlight magic. The moment he switched, his weary spirit sank into a soothing embrace. In an instant, his vitality was restored, and even most of his mana surged back.
When poor, use tactical flanking; when rich, blow them all to hell.
Freed of worries, Wayne bombarded the target with endless variety, growing more energized the more he blew things up. Planck watched with an increasingly bewildered gaze and quickly called out, "Take it easy! Don't bring the sewers down! Magic comes in all shapes and forms—stop trying to brute-force everything!"
Makes sense, but if brute force works this well, why bother using my brain?
Wayne had discovered his own path of magic: no matter what, just blow it to pieces. Still, he conceded that Planck was right. He couldn't just indulge himself without any regard for the sewers' structural integrity.
Wayne halted his saturation bombardment and switched back to parasitic spores to grind down the Lord of the Void's mind. In terms of efficiency, though, it was nowhere near as fast as wholesaling sun swords.
He glanced over at Planck, eager to hear what guidance the legendary mage had to offer.
As if possessed by a sudden impulse, Planck tossed the Death Pendant to Wayne. "Marshall learned life magic. His mind and life force are unusually stubborn. You can try the power of death."
Wayne nodded. Before Planck could add another word, he snatched the Death Pendant out of the air, toggled his mode, and began wholesaling holy swords of death on a massive scale.
The effect was outstanding; the Lord of the Void screamed in even greater agony than before.
Planck: (灬)
So you literally only know this one trick?!
Planck had no desire to critique Wayne's lack of imagination. Results were king; everything else was fluff.
What he had actually meant to say was: never use the Death Pendant alongside the items of the three goddesses. The enmity among goddesses was common knowledge; as a legendary mage, he could barely suppress the backlash, and Wayne using them together would surely—
Oh. Because it's you, the goddesses stopped quarreling.
Wayne once again proved his extraordinary nature to Planck. Channeling the two conflicting faith magics of death and the sun at the same time without suffering the slightest ill effect went far beyond mere genius—it was outright freakish.
To Planck, Wayne looked tailor-made by the gods to be his apprentice, destined to carry the banner of the Free Mages Alliance.
"He said his teacher is a disciple of the Church of Nature. That's a bit tricky—poaching someone else's student hurts one's reputation..."
"My reputation is already in the gutter anyway. Who cares?"
Ten minutes later.
Having regained some stamina, Planck walked over to Wayne with an armful of trinkets, swapping them out every now and then to torment the Lord of the Void with fresh tricks.
Wayne took whatever came. Finishing off the Lord of the Void was no longer the main objective—the Book of Greed had feasted to its heart's content tonight.
Though each dish was a dainty side plate smaller than a saucer—at best a dipping sauce—there was a dizzying variety spanning every flavor imaginable.
The Book of Greed rejoiced. Tonight's banquet was even more satisfying than entering the Gate of Truth. When it felt good, Wayne felt good too.
Twenty minutes later.
The Lord of the Void's consciousness was scorched to nothingness by the sun, his white froth corroded away by death. In his dying gasps, he roared at Wayne, spitting out over a dozen vicious curses in succession.
Wayne replied with his middle finger, then turned to Planck to lay out the plain facts: the trinkets belonged to Planck, so the old man should shoulder at least ninety-nine point nine percent of the evil god's curses.
Planck didn't care in the slightest. While checking whether Sidney could still be saved, he offered consolation: "Every year, I get cursed thousands of times by my patients, yet I'm still living just fine. If curses actually worked, never mind me—the gods themselves would have perished."
Wayne: The logic holds, but is it really okay for you to show zero reverence toward the gods?
Planck: The Lord of the Void is already dead. Why are you still holding onto my treasures? Young man, is it really okay for you to play dumb like this?
Five minutes later, Planck grumbled as he fished the very last trinket out of Wayne's sock.
"Utterly shameless! And you call yourself a believer of the Goddess of Nature—stashing the bracelet in your sock! Where is your pious faith? Where is your unyielding reverence?!"
Planck reprimanded him harshly, putting on the dignified air of a white-bearded master mage and roaring like a bellows for quite a while before pivoting: "Give it up. You are not a qualified believer—not now, and certainly not in the future. Join us. The Free Mages Alliance needs talent like you."
So you're from the Free Mages Alliance. No wonder you believe in a bit of everything.
Wayne froze, recalling the Nelson family manuscript, and blurted out instinctively, "Other people's wives are always better?"
"Huh? You actually know the secret passphrase?!"
Chapter 80