Conjoining Sorcerer (11)
A sphere of flesh wrapped around the Conjoining Sorcerer and swelled explosively.
Flames surged between the tattered walls and ceiling of the Life Territory.
The corpses of chimeras lay everywhere, burned, melted, and lifeless.
At the center of the chaos, where everything was collapsing and breaking apart, the swollen sphere of flesh rotated slowly.
Kiiiiiirik...!!
...!!
As though wrapping itself around itself and tightening.
As though belatedly trying to restrain a power that had exploded beyond control.
In an instant, it compressed its form, reshaped itself anew, and stepped down barefoot.
Squelch!!
“Ho...”
With a low sigh, the Conjoining Sorcerer emerged from the sphere of flesh and raised his gaze.
A head drenched in blood.
Half of his face burned and grotesquely distorted.
But what felt most bizarre was something else entirely.
The gray-white brain itself was fully exposed without even a scalp covering it.
The gray brain trembled and convulsed inside the Sorcerer’s head.
Violent rejection spread through his body along the central nervous system connected to the brain.
Even visible to the naked eye, his entire body twisted uncontrollably.
Tremble...
Snap!
At that moment, the convulsions spreading throughout his body stopped as if they had never existed.
A skull and scalp regenerated over the exposed brain.
The Sorcerer raised one hand.
The moment he slowly clenched his fist and met Lennok’s eyes—
KWAAAAANG!!!
His fist slammed into Lennok’s solar plexus at tremendous speed.
Lennok was blasted dozens of meters away.
“...!!!”
Tututututung!!!
The flesh walls and membranes of the Life Territory tore apart like paper.
Lennok’s body rebounded off walls and ceilings dozens of times.
He tumbled through chambers filled with intertwined blood vessels.
“...!!”
“Cough...!!”
The Expulsion Barrier that repelled external impacts shattered in a single blow.
Bones and organs were crushed.
Even wrapped in the Red Star Domain, the force pierced directly through the flames and struck his body.
The Sorcerer’s arm burned away.
His upper body disintegrated.
Yet he did not stop.
[PWOOOOOOO!!!]
Dozens of colossal elephant-like chimeras manifested throughout the Territory.
They crushed Lennok and exploded.
Absorbing the exploding flesh and blood, the Sorcerer regenerated his body and descended above the tumbling Lennok.
Crack crack crack!!!
The casting speed and output of his Conjoining Sorcery had nearly doubled compared to before.
Before Lennok could alter the barrier conditions and react, the remaining Divine Barrier was shredded apart.
A bombardment that left him completely overwhelmed.
The Sorcerer spread his hand before Lennok and raised black twisted mana.
Conjoining Sorcery Activation
[Void Conjunction]
JEEEEONG!!!!
Lennok’s body was hurled backward at terrifying speed.
He smashed through the organ storage room.
Shattered the freezer chambers.
Passed through the pharmaceutical storage room.
Pierced five corridors before finally stopping.
Barely coming to a halt before another storage chamber, Lennok coughed up blood and raised his mana.
‘This isn't simple spatial conjunction. Don't tell me...!?’
He ignited healing flames and slowly rubbed the area between his shattered ribs.
Without the painkillers he had administered beforehand, he would not even have been able to move.
After coughing up blood several more times, Lennok finally spoke.
“...You're insane.”
When had Lennok ever said such words to another sorcerer?
Yet the moment he understood what the Conjoining Sorcerer had done, there was nothing else he could say.
A procedure that Lennok had never dared attempt despite living as a mage in this world.
Even someone who had witnessed countless mysteries and miracles found it difficult to believe.
“You fused... your own left brain... with Zellich’s right brain.”
“That's right.”
The Sorcerer walked toward him and jabbed a finger into his temple.
“I expected the rejection to be severe, but this is worse than I imagined. My head keeps... twisting. The strongest effect is emotional reflux. Memory comes next. The memories are full of impurities, though. Difficult to filter out.”
His eyes spun wildly like those of a madman.
“I'll reject incoming information for now and sort it out after the battle. If I had cognitive stabilizers, things would have been easier.”
The central nervous system created by joining the brains could not properly accept the existence of the new right hemisphere.
It was running rampant.
But Lennok knew that was not the only insane thing the Sorcerer had done.
The final trump card used at the end of their battle.
The Conjoining Sorcerer had not simply prepared a spare brain.
He had been fighting while having already removed half of his own brain from the very beginning.
“So that's why you never deployed a Self-Domain.”
Lennok slowly spoke after catching his breath.
“You had already extracted your right brain before we even met. How...How could you think and move normally with a body like that?”
The Life Territory was not an ability directly suited for combat.
As the Sorcerer himself had explained, it functioned as a factory.
Producing chimeras.
Assisting surgeries.
Storing organs and test subjects.
Its entire purpose had been to revive the Long-Lived that served as the Gate.
That was why Lennok had already been impressed by the Sorcerer’s combat abilities despite not relying on his Territory.
But even that had been accomplished while missing half his brain.
“No matter how powerful a sorcerer is, losing half their brain should make movement impossible.”
Turning toward the Sorcerer, Lennok asked:
“Your physical functions, cognition, reaction speed... all of them should deteriorate. Even the efficiency of engraving your Origin Mental Image should drop dramatically. The body of one who transcends rank is closely synchronized with mind and mental image.”
The Sorcerer reached through his temple and touched his own brain.
“Losing a single component is not enough to stop its function. The removal of my right brain was entirely my own will. I judged it. I chose it. Therefore my mental image and soul recognize the loss and maintain balance. Of course, that's only because my body and soul remain above the minimum threshold necessary to preserve my identity. I've dissected myself several times already. I conducted experiments to determine how much damage my soul could withstand.”
The declaration he had made earlier.
That even he himself could not be exempt from the rules of research.
True to those words, he had dissected his own body and soul to test their limits.
Lennok had repeatedly experimented on his own body as well.
But the Sorcerer’s research involved destruction on an entirely different level.
“The results showed that once bodily integrity falls below forty-nine percent, balance can no longer be maintained. If I miscalculate that ratio, then I cease being Avesta Chapman.”
Crack!!
Twisting Zellich’s rejecting right brain by force and attaching it to the brainstem, the Sorcerer continued.
“What is the human self? Where does free will originate? Do we truly choose what we desire?”
Craaaack...!!
Even while speaking, parts of his body swelled like balloons and exploded.
Blood and bodily fluids poured out.
Yet he regenerated instantly.
A figure simultaneously dying from the side effects of grafting another brain and regenerating because of its benefits.
Jeeeeong!!
The moment he raised his hand, space distorted before Lennok’s eyes.
Lennok avoided the exploding conjunction of space and retreated.
But by then, the Sorcerer was already standing behind him.
Before Lennok could even meet the indifferent gaze behind his back—
The Wheel-Still Barriers compressed and concentrated all at once.
KWAAAAANG!!
This time Lennok crashed all the way through the lower floors of the Life Territory and slammed into the surface.
“...!!!”
“...!!!”
“Perhaps all those questions are meaningless.”
The Sorcerer looked down at Lennok kneeling within the impact crater.
“But I need to know. If understanding and dismantling everything in this world, then reconnecting it through my sorcery, is what it takes… I will do it.”
“So obtaining Mikal Zellich’s innate ability was preparation for that all along...”
Conjoining Sorcery was the power to fuse and control things he had understood and analyzed.
That was why the Sorcerer sought to understand and dismantle everything in existence.
To make all of it subjects of his sorcery.
One answer offered by Avesta Chapman as a pillar of the Great Connection envisioned by the Spell Federation.
To achieve that goal, he was willing to cut apart even his own brain and replace it.
He was proving that fact before Lennok now.
“Evan Martinez. Sorcerers like us are never moved by a single reason alone.”
The Conjoining Sorcerer stretched out his palm toward Lennok.
The gesture resembled someone pulling on something invisible.
“Even this moment, where you stand before me, is woven together by threads that cannot be explained through a single chain of causality.”
Kiiiiing...!!
A strange resonance echoed beside Lennok’s ear.
The Sorcerer whispered.
“That is exactly why an extraordinary aptitude like yours is necessary.”
“......!!”
Whoosh!!
There was no time to react.
As though the scenery itself had been cut away.
In the next instant, the Sorcerer’s hand was already wrapped around Lennok’s throat.
“...!!”
“You're an Apostle Slayer. You should already know.”
The Sorcerer locked eyes with him.
“To kill an Avatar of the Apocalypse requires a special power. A miracle capable of crushing the blessings of the Outer Gods and bringing death to an avatar. Show me, Evan Martinez.”
...!!
Craaaack...!!
He shattered the barriers around Lennok’s neck and tightened his fingers.
Dark twisted mana gathered around his hand as if ready to cast a spell at any moment.
The Sorcerer whispered:
“You still have something you haven't shown me, don't you?”
Conjoining Sorcery Activation
[Extraction]
BOOOOOOM!!!
Sticky mana exploded from his hand.
The neck held in his grasp was torn away.
A killing technique that extracted every body part except the head by forcibly conjoining a living organism.
But the severed neck belonged not to Lennok.
It belonged to a dead chimera.
Having used Blink to escape behind him, Lennok breathed heavily.
“Cough...!! I can't believe it.”
Bang!!
The Sorcerer’s right arm exploded.
Yet his expression contained not pain, but astonishment.
Because Lennok had literally perceived and reacted to the attack.
“You predicted Spatial Conjunction? So there was never any speed at all. From the beginning, it was...”
Panting heavily, Lennok answered.
“...A divine art that conjoins space itself without physical contact.”
The speed the Sorcerer displayed was not true speed.
He forcibly conjoined the space around himself and Lennok.
The distance vanished.
A fatal strike landed before reaction was possible.
A divine art that forcibly applied the concept of spatial compression once achievable only through Apostolic authority.
Looking at the exploded hand, Lennok said:
“You expanded the range of a spell that originally required direct contact.”
“......”
Conjoining Sorcery could only affect things the Sorcerer had directly touched and understood.
Yet he had forcibly conjoined space itself.
An impossible expansion of a Trait-type spell.
Even so, a price remained.
The moment he compressed and conjoined space, his hand should have been destroyed beyond recovery.
The reason he could endure that penalty—
Was Mikal Zellich’s immortality.
“You forcibly conjoined something beyond the limits of your spell. And healed the penalty through immortality.”
“Restoring my body through chimeras is still part of Conjoining Sorcery.”
The Sorcerer nodded.
“It cannot negate penalties generated by the spell itself. To surpass the spell’s limits, I required an ability that existed outside the spell’s category.”
Forcibly conjoining things he neither understood nor touched.
Offsetting the price through immortality.
A runaway evolution of Conjoining Sorcery.
A power that manipulated even the concept of the spell itself.
Because it was a Trait-type sorcery, its limitations and penalties were harsher than any other.
Yet he had transcended them through a gamble with his own life.
Once he fully adapted to Zellich’s brain, even Lennok could not imagine how powerful he would become.
A new horizon beyond even himself.
Once the left and right brains achieved complete synchronization—
The new origin and mental image the Conjoining Sorcerer would obtain—
KWAAAAAA...!!!
The gigantic body of the Long-Lived twisted violently within the barrier of Heavenly Flowers Fragrance Across Ten Thousand Miles.
The Life Territory shook endlessly.
Gigantic masses of flesh burned and warped everywhere.
“This is the end, Evan Martinez.”
Whoosh!!
The Conjoining Sorcerer landed before Lennok.
The uncontrollable regeneration caused by Zellich’s brain was already gone.
His original form had been perfectly restored.
Wearing his surgical gown, he stood before Lennok.
“After this battle, I will make the First Gate part of my Territory and move the Central Front itself.”
“......”
“The Great Connection of the Federation will extend beyond the Central Front and spread across the entire continent. Even Vulcan will not escape its influence.”
Looking down at Lennok with indifferent eyes, he spoke quietly.
“Before becoming part of the Great Connection and witnessing all of those achievements... Do you have any final words?”
The Great Sorcerer of the Spell Federation.
Avesta Chapman, the Conjoining Sorcerer.
But what made him great was not merely talent.
Curiosity so extreme that he abandoned human morality to understand his sorcery.
The ruthless determination to sweep across an entire continent for the sake of the Great Connection.
The coldness to apply that principle even to himself.
The madness to replace his own brain in the middle of a life-and-death battle.
All of those impulses, desires, convictions, and obsessions formed who he was.
That was why, even after replacing half his brain, the Conjoining Sorcerer remained himself.
But—
“Trait-type sorcery is truly difficult.”
“...What?”
“Perhaps because the spell itself is tied so closely to the caster’s origin. I've grasped the sensation, but I still can't balance it.”
Lennok rose to his feet as he spoke.
Looking at the blood running down his wrist, he clenched it in one hand.
“After taking this much punishment and still only understanding this much...In the end, I'll have to forcibly dismantle and analyze it.”
Buuuuuuung!!!!
Golden radiance mixed into the blood flowing down his arm.
Gold and blood intertwined.
A spiraling helix wrapped around Lennok’s wrist and shone brilliantly.
“That...!!!”
The light seemed as though it might vanish at any moment.
Yet the Sorcerer knew instinctively.
‘That's it.’
The secret this mage had hidden from him until now.
Perhaps even the Sorcerer’s clone had failed to glimpse its origin.
A miracle whose source even the Sorcerer himself could not decipher.
The gold flowing through blood filled his thoughts and crushed every stray notion.
[Magic System Ouroboros Activated]
[Trait-Type Conjoining Sorcery Dismantling Calculation]
[Incomplete Mana Conversion Power Transition Ready]
[Perpetual Engine Deployment: Power Flow Link Conjunction]
Kiiiiiik!!!
The sound of gears twisting unpleasantly echoed.
The Perpetual Engine forcibly aligned the imbalance between mind and soul.
Will and mental image.
Then dismantled and absorbed the spell.
“I'll admit it, Conjoining Sorcerer.”
Lennok weakly extended one hand and raised the Ouroboros magic circle spinning around his wrist.
“It’s been a very long time since I used this against another sorcerer.”
Craaaack!!!
His vision turned red.
It felt as though more than half his remaining strength vanished instantly.
Mana continued burning away at a tremendous rate from maintaining his Self-Domain.
The activation of Ouroboros.
The support of the Red Star Domain.
Even with all of it, he could barely maintain balance.
His body had been reduced to tatters from the battle.
His will was wearing away from repeated spellcasting.
Yet despite all that—
Lennok finally understood how he needed to defeat the Conjoining Sorcerer.
Fwoosh!!
Behind him, the six stars lit one by one.
Drawing brilliant trails as they revolved.
The amplification art that had blown away half of the Sorcerer’s head.
The Red Star Domain restarted.
Once again igniting the secret art that had reached Solar Apex.
The flames surged higher.
Kugugugugugu!!!!
Even the now-immortal Sorcerer frowned slightly beneath the overwhelming heat.
“A monster that generates limitless output by conjoining Conjoining Sorcery and immortality.”
But Lennok paid him no attention.
With the six stars floating like a halo behind him, he raised one finger.
“But after being beaten around this much, grasping the sensation isn't difficult.”
“What?”
“Magic System activation.”
Kiiiiing...!!!
Above the golden magic circle rotated black twisted Trait-type mana.
“Hellfire Phantasmal Palace. Stellarization deployment.”
A black-green flame appeared upon the finger pointing at the Sorcerer.
A flame from a negative dimension.
Hellfire.
The moment Lennok ignited it and brought it beneath the orbit of the Red Star Domain—
“Conjoining Sorcery activation. Stellar Orbit Conjunction.”
“.....!!!!!”
Kiiiiiirik...!!!
The stellar orbit formed by the six stars twisted.
And a seventh star of Hellfire began to be born.