Chapter 165 (1/2)
Mercadius
It was something of a mixture of blood, Mana, and divine power.
– I can’t… I can’t die this wa2y!
He tore the open wound on the forehead even wider and released a mental wave closer to a scream.
I was the one he was after.
Leaving behind the fallen host that turned into a cold corpse, the entity charged toward my face only a few dozen centimeters away.
‘It’s trying to take my body!’
It failed to assume control by planting the seed in my body.
It also failed to shake down my head by using the power borne as a fragment of a god.
The last option left was for it to dig into my body itself.
That was its only way to make me the new host.
Boosh!
Thousands of red threads touched my skin and seeped inside.
Driiip!
Immediately after, the blood from the back of my hand began to pour more violently.
The tensile was rejecting it.
Furthermore, fresh blood flowed from my eyes, nose, and mouth at the same time.
‘Damn it!’
My body trembled.
The divine power of a different god was causing chaos inside me.
‘However, by only this much-!’
Although it was a pain that I had never experienced before, my soul, described by the magic god Igras-Sho as “unprecedentedly hard and tough,” overcame it.
I didn’t give in.
I held out with [The Successor’s Eyes]
It struggled in an attempt to take control of the body, drive out the energy of other deities, and overtake my mind, but it was futile.
Whoooong!
Mercadius, who was crawling under my skin, soon delivered a baffling mental wave.
– W-what the hell is this?!
So far, by fighting with me, he witnessed divine power pour out as they were converted into four elements: magic, life, sword, and luck.
At that moment, however, in my body which Mercadius had penetrated, was a presence that it couldn’t even have imagined.
It was something that I had stored in advance before committing to the battle.
A deep sea-like non-elemental divine power.
When it encountered the power, the entity shouted as if it were in a fit.
– This… doesn’t make sense!
I moved the divine power and induced it to swarm the intruder.
I then drove Mercadius to the corner, denying its retreat.
Like crushing a bug with a rock, or as if to break a glass with water pressure, I gathered hefty sacred forces from all around and pressured it.
Mercadius’s intentions were broken and collapsed.
It had become busy being chased around in my body.
It couldn’t even attempt to brainwash me according to its primary objective.
– Something’s wrong with this! How can a human…!
Abandoning the host and infiltrating into my body would have been quite a superb move for it.
However, Mercadius didn’t expect that my body was a more dangerous prison and trap than the surrounding environment for its spirit.
The intellectual being composed of Mana and divine power screamed devastatingly.
It tried to run back out of my body, but I grabbed it and didn’t let it go.
The non-elemental divine power had gnawed and crushed the divine power of the mind.
As it struggled disgracefully, the feeling of something foreign having entered my body began to decrease gradually.
As a result-
A cry of a different level compared to the previous ones resonated.
– Screeeeech!
It was a horrific scream that was much larger and deeper than the scream of the seeds that I had heard countless times.
It belonged to the one who lost the glory of a god as it was divided into pieces and forced to wander the worlds for eons.
With the last scream of death ringing, all kinds of mental waves finally came to an end.
“…”
Quietly observing my inner being, I was certain.
‘It’s done!’
I couldn’t believe it.
After having reborn as Seo Jin-Wook and at the end of the year-long journey, finally…
‘I killed it!’
I didn’t know how to define the death of the mind, but that much was certain.
Mercadius had perished.
It only left behind a ragged mess.
‘It’s over.’
Even amid the thrill of joy, I slightly felt disappointed.
‘It was indeed too much to capture.’
In fact, the Union had come up with an obviously improbable plan.
However, it couldn’t be regarded as a complete failure.
The divine power that enabled it to exist as an incarnate had completely perished, but the red Mana that had been mixed with it still remained.
The frame that acted as the body of the intellectual being had been left behind like a corpse.
“!”
Ideas lit up with a strange sense of deja vu.
‘Is there a need to leave it as it is, allowing it to decompose and dissipate in the air??’
My determination solidified.
‘Yeah, just like what I did to Angelica back then…’
The red Mana was slowly fading.
Before that happened, I decided to make it completely mine.
[Mana Drain]!
The unique skill that had gone through the first evolution unfolded.
The attraction created at that time didn’t start from my fingers.
A powerful vortex revolved around my Mana Core.
And it swirled like a typhoon and absorbed the remaining red Mana of Mercadius all over my body.
Then, a similar phenomenon to when I ate up other seeds occurred.
I witnessed a memory string bound with malicious intentions.
*
You could call it ‘them’ or ‘him.’
The intellectual entity that shared memories with each other limitedly had a common goal.
They expressed their terrible hatred and evil that they bore toward the world in action.
All in order to bring their horrific imagination to life.
At some point, they started to be called Mercadius.
In the forgotten language, the name meant the following:
‘Remains of Apocalypse.’