Book Eater

Chapter 424 - Era of Peace (24)

[Hoi?]

Mitra, who became a giant, tilted her head for a moment. She looked down curiously at her palm.

The trees, which rose well above her head, were now beneath her knees. If she spread out her hands, she could cover an entire hill. It was proof that the magic power Theodore instilled in her was enormous.

He looked up at the large Mitra with a subtle expression.

‘A real mountain spirit wouldn’t be so big...’

Still, there was no difference in strength and ability.

No, rather, Mitra was superior.

They might be worshiped as indigenous gods, but mountain spirits were a type of spirit. If they were compared to the true Earth Mother Goddess, they were no different from a torch in front of the sun.

Furthermore. magic power was used instead of divine power, so it was a bit less efficient. However, it would be easier to restore the spirit vein.

Mitra understood Theodore’s intentions and started to move. She turned the ground upside down with her short fingers, plowing the ground where not a single weed grew.

She looked like a child playing in the dirt.

Still, the effect was certain.

This was a plowing of the land under the direct control of the goddess of the earth. The earth, heavily contaminated by poison and death energy, instantly regained its strength. Earthworms, ants, and other insects, which had been turned into monsters, were also caught up in the transformation.

Some dying trees were pulled out and the color of the ground changed as the broken bedrock layer rose above the ground.

If the laws of nature were followed, this wouldn’t happen even in a thousand years.

Reconnecting the dried veins and restoring them took more than an hour or two. It was a bit smaller, but it was still a major project that fell under the scope of terraforming.

“Huu...”

Theodore sweated for the first time in a long time and leaned against a tree.

How long had it been since he tried his best as a magician?

He personally relayed Dmitra’s divine power across the sea and poured all his power into this mountain-scale revival work. Before he knew it, the landscape in front of him had changed to the point where he had to redraw a map of this area.

Mitra played around as much as she wanted and seemed to have a lot of fun.

[Hihihihi! It is fun to knead new dough.]

Mitra compacted a few mountains and pounded the peaks into the shapes of triangles, rhombuses, and stars.

The landslides that ensued in the aftermath swept away the ground, but there were no animals or plants to be harmed anyway.

Mitra played with her hands and soon finished her work.

[Theo, it’s over! Now all you have to do is plant it!]

“Well done, Mitra.”

Theodore pulled away from the tree and looked around.

The shape of the mountains, made with crude dexterity, was a bit subtle, but this type of disadvantage was fine. It was something that would become natural after being eroded for decades by wind and rain.

‘It worked out better than I thought.’

Theodore took one tour of the mountain range and briefly admired it.

There was still no grass, but the condition of the soil had improved tremendously.

It still wasn’t enough to allow spirits to live, but it could support the ecology of plants and animals. Now that the spirit veins, water veins, and earth power had been restored, the plants and flowers would be in full bloom in the next ten years or so, just like in the past.

Theodore entered the center of the mountain range and planted the core.

“...This is the last time.”

He deployed a magic stone that could maintain Mitra’s clone and protected it with a magic circle he created himself.

It would last for exactly 10 years, just until the spirit vein could grow on its own without Mitra helping it.

“Um.”

Theodore floated into the sky once he was done.

He looked down at the ground from several kilometers in the air and could see the Baekun Mountains he had been traversing for two days.

At this point, he had kept his promise to Lee Seol.

‘From now on, I have to do my job.’

He had come all the way to the East Continent because of Lee Seol’s invitation, but he had a lot more things to do.

For example...

“Let’s stop by Geongun Castle.”

Theodore muttered to himself and took a step.

He moved thousands of miles away.

His spatial magic far exceeded Orta in his prime and encompassed the entire world. Moving hundreds of kilometers in a single step, he finally arrived at the old capital of the middle kingdom.

This place was once famous as one of the best views of the East Continent with the beautiful and majestic Hwang Mountains surrounding it.

The Geongun Castle contained within had been more majestic than Belfort, the capital of Andras.

That’s right.

This was in the past.

“It is still the same.”

The cold-faced Theodore looked at the hellish landscape below his feet.

There wasn’t even a trace of the majestic Geongun Castle left.

The fire of Muspelheim, summoned within a mythical scale barrier, thoroughly incinerated the interior. It was a heat wave that surpassed even nuclear fission. It was used as a weapon of destruction by high-level scientific civilizations!

These were the ruins of the ultra-hot hell that killed the Eight Feudal Princes, who each awakened the blood of phantom races, and burned even the ozone layer in the sky.

That wasn’t all.

There was still a possibility of restoration if only the castle was burned, but the subsequent confrontation between Theodore and the heavenly demon destroyed the spirit vein and dimension of the land to a level that couldn’t be restored.

The Dao Yuan Nine Palace Troops and the Star Absorption Method.

Each time the taboo-violating monsters hit each other, mountains collapsed and the sky was torn apart.

A mountain, which was over 3,000 meters above sea level, became flat.

On the once flat ground, canyons several kilometers deep were created.

Magma, which never burst out before, exploded above the ground. From then on, natural weather phenomena ceased.

It was a hell where not a single cloud was allowed.

That was the current state of Geongun Castle.

‘In terms of trouble, it is 20 times worse than the Baekun Mountains.’

17 years ago, Theodore ordered that all kingdoms of the East Continent were forbidden to approach the area.

An ordinary person would die as soon as they entered due to not poison or death energy, but the demonic energy remaining in this land.

It was engraved into this era by the last words left behind by the heavenly demon as he died. As expected, it lived up to being the monster that could be called Lust’s final weapon. The malice to exterminate life even after death was truly horrible.

‘A thousand years... I think it will take longer.’

Even Theodore had no way of knowing the end. The abyss created by the heavenly demon was difficult to unravel even with his wisdom.

That said, he still did the best that he could.

He had used some of the guardian’s power to set up a grand barrier spanning a radius of 20 kilometers around Geongun Castle.

Thanks to it, the collapse of the area finally stopped.

It was an incident that almost caused a national tragedy.

‘I’m going to have to reinforce the barrier.’

Unable to find the security point, Theodore descended.

Suddenly, his magic activated before his instinct or reason could register anything.

Great magic Abraxas (ΑΒΡΑΞΑΣ).

Final Chapter.

Elemental Burster.

It was instantaneous.

A five-colored magic sphere rose and the moment the colors united, it turned into a beam of destruction.

That beam left Theodore’s fingertips and blew away a mountain.

――――――――――!!!

All sound was even erased. Even the destruction was silent.

Without ending the attacks, several shots of ultimate magic continued to explode on the mountainside making it look like it had been rubbed with an eraser.

Keraunos.

Cocytus.

Hellfire.

Theodore performed the magic for an unknown reason.

Continuing to unleash the magic bombardment at a phenomenal speed, he only stopped his hand after pain developed in his circles.

It took around 10 seconds for the pain to stop.

The Hwang Mountains, which was now a pile of rubble, had been swept away.

In the aftermath, some of the rubble collapsed, causing the ground to rumble. The unstable sky twisted and released lightning.

Before anything else, Theodore was puzzled by the hell that he himself had created.

“Why?”

He didn’t know why he had attacked. On top of that, he had used the Abraxas ultimate magic which was the greatest attack he could currently use.

If he wanted to show more power than this, he had to spend time and effort to borrow power. Yet, with this much power, he had shot it into the air for no purpose?

Suddenly, Theodore felt a throbbing sensation on one side of his head.

‘This pain...’

It was a headache he only felt when he reached the limits of his foresight.

So these attacks were the result of his foresight?

Could it be that his foresight sensed a crisis he didn’t know about and launched the attacks a beat later?

“...I don’t know.”

It was a question he didn’t have the answer to.

Theodore stayed in the air for a moment, gathered his thoughts, and then reinforced the barrier before leaving the castle.

There was no longer a sense of foreboding after all.

“…….”

A few hours later.

“…….”

The area of Geongun Castle, surrounded by the barrier, was still hell.

Black lightning struck from a dry sky and magic flowed through it, turning the demonic energy in the soil into flames.

In this environment where normal life forms could never survive—

[...Hmm, so scary. Can he notice my presence across another dimension? Has he really reached Akashic?]

There was a ‘thing’ that appeared without any foreshadowing.

The translucent figure wasn’t clear.

It was impossible to tell if it was a man or woman, if it was tall or short, or even if it had two pairs of limbs or not.

It was also questionable whether it existed.

The mysterious existence kept muttering in this deserted landscape.

[No, if he reached, then he wouldn’t have missed me. If so, it means there is still a terminal left from when he contracted with Gluttony. Either way, it is hard for me to enjoy myself in this world.]

That was when it knew.

It was too late for it to appear.

What type of acrobatics could a clown do on a stage where the curtain had already fallen?

It could only say a few short words to announce the closing.

[It looks like all my siblings have been left behind or kicked out... How long has it been since they’ve been so completely beaten? The more I think about it, the more regretful I feel.]

This monster was genuinely regretful.

How long had it been since it had met such a playmate?

However, the playmate had already grown up. If it tried to go play with him now, it would be defeated like a worm and finished.

In a world where possibilities were closed because the sibling called ‘Sloth’ had been used as a stepping stone, there was no chance of catching up. The material world that Theodore protected was now inviolable.

[—No.]

It denied it.

[In 2,500... or even 3,000 years, there will be a gap. If that is the case, I will have plenty of time to prepare. It is good.]

The monster, Greed, who had been talking to itself, smiled.

In front of the translucent figure, the dimensional boundary was torn.

It had opened a portal that even a 9th-circle magician would have a hard time opening without any signs of disturbance.

It was natural.

This was the only power given to Greed.

[See you in 3,000 years, Theodore Miller.]

It promised a long separation and disappeared to the other side of the dimension.

Thus, the last of the Seven Sins disappeared.

* * *

The history of the New Central Kingdom, a kingdom that emerged from the ruin of the middle kingdom contained records.

Among them, the records of the Fairy Dance Lee Family were as follows:

In the 18th year of the New Dynasty, Lee Seol of the Fairy Dance Lee Family resigned from her official post.

In the 20th year of the New Dynasty, the Fairy Dance Lee Family returned to their hometown from the capital Geumneung.

In the 23rd year of the New Dynasty, Lee Seol of the Fairy Dance Lee Family gave birth to a daughter.

In the 27th year of the New Dynasty, the Baekun Mountains, the territory of the Fairy Dance Lee Family, regained its spiritual power. Beautiful flowers and plants were in full bloom.

In the 18th year of the New Dynasty, Lee Geonyeong, the young master of the Fairy Dance Lee Family, passed the martial arts examination.

…

…

In the 18th year of the New Dynasty, young master Lee Geonyeong succeeded to the position of head of the family.

…

…

In the 92nd year of the New Dynasty, the former head of the Fairy Dance Lee Family, Lee Seol, passed away peacefully.