Chapter 247

“Phew...”

Do-Jin stumbled out of the final stage field and flicked the blinking key back into his inventory. The spell Sion had placed on him had burned out while he was getting tossed around inside the fields, and the timer immediately started ticking down again.

The limit had been frozen somewhere in the late twenty-three-hour range, but thanks to Sion, he still had twelve hours left by the time he cleared all four fields.

Every indicator screamed that things were completely screwed. Yet Do-Jin didn’t even flinch.

Honestly, with a bullshit difficulty curve like this, making it here with this much time left is already a fucking win.

Considering everything he had crawled through to get here, just reaching this point felt like a miracle. Not some lucky break either, but a miracle he had clawed together with his own hands.

There better be something waiting for me up there.

He exhaled sharply, shaking off the fatigue that clung to him like wet clothes, and pushed forward.

Countless spells slammed into countless fragments, and explosions rippled through the Void like a storm that refused to die. Even at a glance it looked unreal, but the world reflected in his Magic Eye, the layer of truth beneath everything, felt even more overwhelming. Shards torn from dying worlds screamed their last as they burst apart. The mana swirling around them was savage, intoxicating, and terrifyingly beautiful all at once.

The distance closed at a frightening pace. Now that he had visual markers to measure against, Do-Jin finally felt how insanely fast he was moving. Even with the quest’s movement boost cranked to absurd levels, it still took more than two hours to bridge the gap between him and the battlefield. That alone told him just how far away he had started.

When Do-Jin spotted her, he called out, “Sion Grace!”

As magic sharpened his vision, her figure finally came into focus. She looked like absolute hell. Her Magic Circuits, expanded across several hundred meters, hung in the air like torn wires. They churned out spells nonstop, only to crack and collapse under the strain. Pieces shattered, reformed, and shattered again in a vicious loop.

They were regenerating in real time, but even from this distance Do-Jin could tell that the recovery was losing ground. More sections were breaking than healing.

It’s not just her that’s falling apart. That thing’s barely holding together too.

Anyone could tell at a glance that the World Devourer was wrecked. The fragments that had once clung together had blown apart from the inside like chunks of meat ripped off a beast by an internal blast. And whatever had been sealed inside those shards spilled out into the Void, turning the battlefield into pure chaos.

“Just a little more. One more push and it will break.”

Sion’s voice rang out through the expanded Magic Circuits, resonating like a bell struck at full force. Having already pinpointed Anne’s location, she gathered everything she had left into a single decisive strike.

She had already carved out the groundwork to slice away everything except that one piece. But the moment her spell began to form, hundreds of jet-black tendrils burst from the World Devourer’s core, darker than the Void itself. They pierced straight through Sion’s expanded Magic Circuits and skewered the countless Magic Circles floating around her like paper targets.

Shit. That thing was hiding in there? she thought.

At the center of the celestial mass, where the first fragments had gathered and started growing into this monstrosity, something ancient finally stirred. The creature lurking at the core had sensed real danger and made its move. It was strong enough to extend beyond the fragments and reach into the open Void itself.

Just a little more... Sion knew she had to restore her circuits and stop that thing first.

However, the monster that had revealed itself didn’t give her that chance. It had thrown its life on the line too, and it came at her like it had nothing left to lose. The creature lashed the tendrils it had driven in, tearing through the Magic Circuits like they were nothing. At the same time, one spear of darkness punched straight through Sion’s chest.

“Master!”

Do-Jin’s voice barely reached her as her body stiffened and went cold.

So... I told him to leave, and he still came. How stubborn of him.

As her awareness faded, worry crept in before anything else. It didn’t matter if she shattered here and became another scrap of that monstrosity. That outcome felt better than leaving Anne alone inside it. Yet her stubborn disciple gnawed at her thoughts. Regnian or not, he could come back from death, but would that even work here in the Void?

Now that I think about it... he reminds me of Anne.

Ah, was that why she felt strangely drawn to him? Why forming a bond with him hadn’t felt unpleasant?

At least he won’t suddenly vanish when I look away for a moment—

Her consciousness went dark. Like a flower blooming in an explosion, magic burst outward from her. The very concept of magic that formed her existence scattered outward as runes, circuits, Magic Circles, and deeper, more primal fragments. They drifted through the Void like shattered constellations.

“Cut the bullshit,” Do-Jin snapped, flicking away the system message that tried to overlay the scene.

He had already seen it all. Sion collapsing, that cursed pale mass opening its eyes from within, and the fact that he didn’t need the system to spell it out like some tutorial.

I know. This is it. This is the moment I am supposed to act.

He had closed the distance. The scene unfolding before him looked staged, like the world itself had waited for him to arrive. Sion hung there with a hole punched through her chest. The unknown horror that had done it swung its black tendrils around, trying to drag scattered fragments back together and rebuild its body.

There was no doubt that this was the most critical moment. The climax of the quest lay right here. Do-Jin forced himself to stay rational and think straight as he read the battlefield.

There’s no damn way my magic can handle that thing. If I want to make any real difference...

He had nothing he could throw at the enemy, not a single spell that would matter. And that left only one option, which was to support Sion.

She hung there in silence, a hole punched through her chest, magic spilling out instead of blood. What was he supposed to do, shove a potion down her throat? Yeah, right. No potion in the world was fixing a wound like that.

If this is a quest, then there’s a method. There has to be.

He refused to even entertain the idea that it was already over. Thinking that way meant giving up before the finish line, and he would rather die than fold like that. As his mind burned itself raw searching for an answer, his eyes caught the countless fragments of magic drifting around Sion.

Hold on...

The shock of seeing her chest pierced had thrown him off for a second. But was physical damage really the problem for someone like her? If her head had been blown clean off, that was one thing. But a heart wound? The layers of magic she constantly wore should have been repairing that on their own.

Yes. She just needs to be able to cast magic.

The answer slammed into place. Without slowing down, Do-Jin lunged forward and grabbed her. With a thud, her body collided hard against his chest.

This was it. This was the only card he had, the only variable he possessed that could shake this situation, something only he held and something tied directly to magic itself. Do-Jin poured every last drop of strength into opening the Grimoire of Truth. The moment it activated, golden mana burst from him in blinding waves, radiant and fierce.

I need to fix the broken circuits!

His will drove the Grimoire of Truth just like it always had. Sion’s Magic Circuits, her runes, shattered Magic Circles, and the golden light pouring from the Grimoire tangled together, merging into one blazing current.

[The current volume of information far exceeds processing capacity.]

[Calculation failure! Calculation failure! Calculation failure! Calculation failure! Calculation failure!]

Red warnings flashed across his vision. The system, or rather, the Grimoire of Truth, broadcasted a loud danger signal straight into his skull.

[If forced calculations continue, Grimoire of Truth may become temporarily paralyzed.]

So what? He wasn’t even doing anything that impressive right now. He had barely contributed to tearing apart that monstrous catastrophe. In a disaster this massive, his role had amounted to a single screw at best. If someone felt generous, they might call him one tiny gear in a machine far bigger than himself.

This world had handed him a quest for this exact moment, and once this moment passed, his usefulness would probably vanish with it.

If I can’t even prove I’m worth one damn gear... then I’ll break trying.

Do-Jin tightened his grip on his will. “Fix it!”

Pressure crushed down on him like he might explode any second. Blood vessels burst across his eyes, turning the whites a dark, ugly red. Warning notifications hammered his ears nonstop, shrill and relentless. As loud as they were, even those sounds began to fade as his consciousness slipped, dimming at the edges.

Even if it ends in a game over... I’m finishing this all the way. All the fucking way.

And then, all of a sudden, clarity snapped back into place.

“You truly are a stubborn disciple.”

Sion’s voice echoed through him at the exact same moment. Do-Jin looked down at the woman in his arms. Her body still didn’t move. Sion Grace lay stiff like a wax doll, so still that she barely felt alive.

“That is not where you should be looking.”

Only when the voice spoke again did Do-Jin realize it didn’t come from a single direction. The pale blue forms of magic floating around them all spoke at once, glowing softly as they hovered in different shapes.

“Don’t let that thing recover! We have to stop it right here!” Do-Jin shouted in a rush. If Sion’s consciousness had woken up in any form at all, then stopping the enemy came first. That was the only thing on his mind.

“That may be difficult. I still can’t cast magic on my own. I don’t even understand why my consciousness has awakened like this.”

Sion assessed her current state, then suddenly stopped speaking. She felt that something connected her circuits to what Do-Jin carried. That something steadily rebuilt the shattered Magic Circuits, no, the very components that formed magic itself.

The problem lay elsewhere. A defensive barrier she had unconsciously set up slowed everything to a crawl.

“You carry something quite interesting. You truly are... impossible to predict.”

Sion consciously withdrew every defensive barrier she had placed around herself. She even rearranged her internal code to increase synchronization with Do-Jin’s Grimoire of Truth.

“Hmm... Even with this, it looks like recovering in time will still be difficult.”

The most critical part of her Magic Circuits, the section that triggered spell activation, had suffered catastrophic damage.

“Is there really no other way?” Do-Jin asked.

“Of course there is a way. You can simply cast the magic in my stead.”

“What?” For a second, Do-Jin thought he had misheard her, but he hadn’t. “My magic won’t do shit to that thing!”

“Then use magic that will do something to it.” She spoke as if it were obvious.

Without hesitation, Sion began transferring control of her Magic Circuits to him. It should have felt impossible, yet it came surprisingly easily. The connection already existed, and she had removed every magical and mental barrier. And Do-Jin felt it happen too.

“Master? Damn it! What the hell is this?!”

The massive Magic Circuits that once filled the Void around Sion Grace slowly changed color. One by one, they shifted into Do-Jin’s hue of a radiant, blazing gold.