Chapter 248

Do-Jin had thought of himself as nothing more than a pathetic screw, a useless gear in a much bigger machine. Once his role ended, the great Archmage Sion Grace was supposed to step in and solve everything. That was the outcome he had expected, and honestly the only course that made any sense to him.

Yet things didn’t play out that way. He managed to awaken Sion’s consciousness, but she couldn’t recover fast enough to cast magic herself. Instead of waiting to regain control, she made a different choice and handed over authority of her Magic Circuits to her disciple.

[Owner of connected Magic Circuits, Sion Grace, temporarily relinquishes control.]

[Processing capacity exceeded! Processing capacity exceeded! Processing capacity exceeded! Processing capacity exceeded!]

[Using computational power from connected external Magic Circuits to process backlog.]

[Stabilization complete.]

The Grimoire of Truth, the magical world’s supercomputer, locked together with Archmage Sion Grace, a being born from magic itself. The two forces meshed like perfectly aligned gears, solving one crisis after another in real time.

Before he even had time to process it, Do-Jin found himself holding authority over everything that defined Sion. The situation felt absurd, like a lone infantryman with a rifle suddenly gaining control of a massive aircraft carrier. Even with that level of authority in his hands, he still couldn’t become Sion Grace overnight.

“Just because this suddenly happened doesn’t mean new magic shows up out of nowhere. A huge damn fireball isn’t gonna do shit to that thing—”

Sion Grace chose that moment to give her disciple his first true lesson. “Magic is imagination.”

Mana throughout the Void rearranged itself as if the world had been quietly rewritten.

“A mage’s ability lies in how faithfully one can turn imagination into reality.” Her voice drifted close to his ear, calm and unwavering. “Picture the scene you want to see unfold, and I will handle the support.”

Right. I gotta trust her.

Do-Jin closed his eyes for a brief moment and opened them again as he pictured the scene he wanted to see unfold. As soon as that image settled in his mind, countless Magic Circles flared into existence around him, blooming one after another like a storm of light.

“Yes. That is magic.”

The Archmage’s Magic Circuits, her precise support, and the Grimoire of Truth fused together, creating a synergy that pushed Do-Jin onto the level of an Archmage, even if only for a fleeting moment.

So in the end, I’m the one who has to change fate’s outcome on my own.

The whole thing felt like a perfectly rigged stage, like someone had shoved him into the spotlight whether he liked it or not. He had shown up expecting to play a background extra, yet somehow the role of protagonist had landed squarely on his shoulders. At this point, resistance felt pointless, so all that remained was to play along and dance the way the world demanded.

Do-Jin fixed his gaze on the target. The monster, its dark tentacles stretching outward, focused only on dragging scattered fragments back toward its original form. It paid no attention to his approach or to the chaos unfolding around it. And considering its massive scale, that made sense. If he had ever been a threat, it must have noticed earlier, but right now he probably looked like nothing more than a speck of dust drifting too close.

“That’s about to change.” With that muttered line, Do-Jin triggered the magic shaped by his imagination, Sion’s support, and the Grimoire’s overwhelming power.

Hundreds of beams trapped within the Magic Circles fired at once, flooding the Void with blinding streaks of light. The outer shell of fragments that the creature had barely managed to piece together shattered again under the barrage, exploding outward in a storm of debris.

A low, creeping sound followed as something deep inside the monster stirred. Thick black mist began leaking out from within, coiling slowly through the shattered layers. The haze carried a suffocating malice, dense and rotten, like hatred given physical shape.

“Avoid the core. You may destroy everything else as you wish. Run wild.”

He planned to do exactly that. After the hell he’d crawled through just to grab this cheat-code moment, not squeezing every last drop of it would’ve felt like getting robbed.

Simple was best. He didn’t need complicated imagination. What he needed right now was raw power, and a lot of it. With that mindset, Do-Jin unleashed magic without restraint.

The World Devourer’s collective survival instinct reacted instantly, and the owner of the dark tentacles lurking inside moved with it. Glass-whips made from shattered fragments surged upward all at once, bending midair and snapping toward Do-Jin. There were too many to count with the naked eye.

Sion tracked every single trajectory, calculated their paths, and intercepted them with precise spells. The enemy attacked from dozens of angles, so she responded by weaving dozens of spells in return. It was the kind of extravagant magical warfare only an Archmage could pull off.

Do-Jin didn’t have the imagination for that kind of luxury. He demanded a spell that would cut straight through space itself. With a single gesture, the midpoint of hundreds of incoming attacks split apart as if the world itself had been sliced open by Spatial Severance.

“Hmm...” Sion murmured to herself.

Back in his previous life, every spell had been precious, so Do-Jin had learned to squeeze the maximum efficiency out of every move. To Sion, his combat style felt like stepping into a completely different world. He baited simple attacks into tangling together, then carved through them all in one brutal sweep.

“W-what are you doing...?!”

That was the biggest difference between them. Sion stood her ground and traded blows like an immovable fortress, but Do-Jin fought like a man who refused to stay still.

He dove straight into the middle of the oncoming storm of attacks, and Sion nearly panicked when she saw it, yet every movement he made was calculated down to the last step.

There’s only one of me. So what if they spit out hundreds of tentacles or whips? I only need to deal with whatever gets close.

He even shrank the massive Magic Circuits Sion had expanded across the battlefield. With something that big, all it did was paint a giant target on his back.

Then Celestial Wings unfolded behind him. Being able to spam high-tier spells like this felt unreal, like some kind of fever dream. If the situation weren’t so completely screwed, it would’ve been straight-up fun.

The wings ignored inertia and bent the rules of motion themselves. Do-Jin twisted through the Void in sharp aerial maneuvers, flying like a lunatic as the glass-whips shooting from the World Devourer tangled together while chasing him.

If they really want to catch me, they should start thinking instead of just chasing my ass.

As long as they kept tailing him head-on like idiots, he wasn’t losing this game of tag. Points of light poured from his path like flares fired from a fighter jet. Each one slammed into the World Devourer’s surface and erupted into violent explosions.

“Shit.”

A surge of black mist suddenly lunged at him when he closed the distance to attack. It moved like something that had finally decided to use its brain. Do-Jin answered with consecutive spatial jumps. The distance snapped open and closed in an instant, and a sharp thrill ran down his spine.

I can’t even use Flash this freely.

Normally, a mage needed to reach at least Tier 8 just to handle space magic, and even then, spamming it like this would’ve fried their Magic Circuits on the spot.

“For someone using high-tier spells for the first time, you’re absurdly proficient.”

“I’ve done plenty of imagining, just like you said, Master.”

Years of pathetic shut-in daydreaming as a loser mage in his previous life weren’t useless after all.

Still, something felt off. No matter how I look at it... I’m not doing any real damage.

Throwing high-tier spells nonstop pumped adrenaline through his veins like a drug, but the enemy wasn’t actually collapsing.

The rate I’m breaking it is almost the same as the rate it’s fixing itself.

Even with battle experience, there was no way he could outperform Sion Grace at full power. If this dragged on, the ending was obvious. Just like Sion’s original fate, he would burn through the borrowed power and dry up where he stood.

So Do-Jin stopped stacking tiny bits of damage. Instead, he shifted gears and prepared to drive the blade straight into the enemy’s throat.

“Hmm...? How do you even know this spell?” Sion read the image forming in Do-Jin’s mind, and confusion slipped into her voice. That confusion quickly shifted into concern. “This is not on the same level as the simple spells you have been throwing around. In your current state, where only indirect support is possible, completing something like this should be impossible.”

The magic Do-Jin wanted to use carried real danger.

“You are the one pulling the trigger. You need to understand at least the structure and the foundation of the spell. No, you need to have seen it with your own eyes and be able to picture it clearly before you can even attempt it,” she warned him.

“If this turns into a war of attrition, the ending stays the same anyway. That means it is worth trying while there is still a chance.”

Do-Jin had seen this before. The scene had been burned into his memory so deeply that forgetting it was impossible. This spell was the last magic she had used before she vanished from the world without a trace.

As Do-Jin charged forward, Sion immediately moved to support him. She arranged mana through the circuits she had lent him and adjusted each magical component with meticulous precision.

More than ever, Sion moved carefully. Casting a grand spell through Do-Jin rather than herself felt reckless even to her.

“Why are you always this reckless?!” Sion shouted when she saw Do-Jin already rushing straight toward the World Devourer.

She didn’t even bother keeping her usual composure. That alone didn’t slow him down. Even while flying forward, Do-Jin kept demanding more spells. He attacked without pause, pushing both Sion and the Grimoire of Truth to their limits. The endless storm of spells burned through him, using him as the trigger that held everything together.

Cracks began spreading from the Magic Circuits in his right arm and crawled across his entire body. His circuits screamed that one more push would make everything explode. Still, Do-Jin refused to slow down. He didn’t stop advancing, and he didn’t stop attacking.

Come at me!

The moment Do-Jin closed the distance, the black thing finally reacted. The instant it decided he had stepped into its range, dark mist surged upward and lunged straight for him. Do-Jin spun at high speed and slipped past the first strike from the black tentacle.

Right then, the Tier 12 Transcendent Spell Aurora had finished forming.

“It is ready! The trigger is yours to pull!”

Do-Jin recited the incantation engraved into his memory.

“Born from eternity, become the light that burns away a fleeting instant.”

A hole had opened where the black creature inside was venting its mist outward. Do-Jin’s fingertip pointed straight at it. A blinding white flame surged forward. The light vaporized everything it touched, burning away darkness, fragments, and even the gravitational pull binding the shattered worlds together.

I got you...!

Do-Jin was cut off mid-thought as the consequence came immediately. His arm melted away, erased by the backlash of pulling the trigger on magic far beyond his limits. Even then, it had been worth it.

The beam forced its way through the gap and incinerated the interior from within. The links holding the World Devourer together shattered, and collapse began spreading outward from the point of impact.

That creepy bastard went quiet. It looks like it took a hell of a hit.

He barely finished thinking that it must have taken serious damage when black mist exploded outward with a violent hiss.

“I didn’t even say that out loud...”

He kept the thought to himself, worried it would turn into that classic line people always regretted thinking too soon: Did it finally go down?

The arrogant black tentacle forced a reckless self-revival and charged straight at Do-Jin. Right then, Spatial Severance split it cleanly in half.

“I came back too, you bastard,” Do-Jin muttered.

He had restored every injury through Limited Reversion. Blocking the rushing attack and plunging deeper along the black tendril, Do-Jin forced his way toward the core. Black mist spread around him like it was gasping for air.

This was the opening. He scattered countless bursts of light that fired out and detonated one after another, accelerating the collapse as he pushed forward without slowing down. At the very end of that charge, he discovered the pitch-black fragment venting dark mist to the outside.

“Found you.”

Inside it, a hateful eye rolled wildly and locked onto him.

“Staring me down after burning through all your strength is not going to change a damn thing.”

Stop clinging to life like a pathetic piece of trash. The fight’s already decided.

Ignoring his own safety again, Do-Jin demanded another spell activation. Countless Magic Circles flared into existence all at once.