Chapter 182: Beyond the Sixth Circle

The 58th Floor of the Abyss.

The Floor of Regret, as Kreutzvalt called it.

The moment he escaped that place using his magic, Hio felt a sensation of weightlessness, as if he were drifting through an empty void.

It felt like his soul had been plucked out and left to bob in the air.

Of course, at that moment, he could see nothing and feel nothing.

However, before he knew it, his feet were planted on solid ground, and the chill of the surrounding air began to prick at his skin.

Only then, looking back, did he realize what that floating sensation had been.

Lost in those idle thoughts, he slowly opened his eyes.

The first thing that caught his attention was a candlestick hanging on the wall, its candle burning with a faint, soft glow.

Following that light, he surveyed his surroundings to find a modest room.

There was a rough-textured carpet on the floor, a single small bed, a worn bookshelf, a desk, and one chair.

In short, it was a cramped, tiny, and old room.

Naturally, his first reaction was suspicion.

‘Was I tricked?’

They had talked about the “End of the World” and given him all sorts of warnings, saying he was the only one qualified to go.

Yet, this looked like nothing more than a humble cottage in the countryside.

Perhaps they had deceived him into thinking they were going somewhere far away, only to teleport him to some random house in the rural outskirts.

As that suspicion crossed his mind, a hearty laugh echoed from right beside him.

“You seem to be doubting me again. Child, this is indeed the End of the World I spoke of.”

“The end of the countryside, you mean?”

“Ho ho ho… to be precise, it would be more accurate to call it a world that has already perished.”

Kreutzvalt moved his body and began to exit the room.

With every step he took, the wooden floorboards creaked.

Though he wasn’t particularly tall, the doorway he passed through was so low that he had to bow his head slightly.

“The ‘End of the World’ is merely a fancy name we magicians gave to this place.”

Following him out of the room, Hio saw exactly what he expected of the house.

A worn living room, a worn sofa, a worn kitchen, and worn utensils.

There was another room across the way, but Kreutzvalt didn’t head toward it, moving straight for the front door instead.

“So, do not think too poorly of this place. This is also where people live… or rather, where they used to live.”

Hio followed closely behind him toward the entrance.

With a loud creak, the front door swung wide open.

A cool breeze blew in through the opening.

No, it wasn’t just cool.

[Mental attack detected]

[Characteristic — ‘Can’t Live Without Swag!’ has been activated]

It was Abyssal energy.

A dark energy that blew in refreshingly with the wind brushed against Hio’s face with a pattering sensation.

Far from being blue, the sky was so pitch black that it was hard to even see.

It was a sky where nothing hung—no sun, no stars, and no moon.

Aside from the old house where Hio and Kreutzvalt stood, every surrounding building had collapsed.

And yet.

“…Is it winter? It’s snowing.”

A snowflake fluttering down from the sky landed softly on his palm.

Looking at it closely, the color of the snowflake was strange.

It was a murky gray, as if heavily contaminated.

Furthermore, it didn’t melt even though it sat on his hand.

It wasn’t a snowflake to begin with.

It was ash.

Instead of snow, flakes of ash were fluttering down from the sky.

“…Crazy.”

A pitch-black sky where the stars, moon, and sun had vanished.

A “cool” Abyssal energy blowing instead of a breeze.

Ash-flakes falling instead of snowflakes.

“It really is the end of the world.”

It was the quintessential image of a perished world.

A place that showed exactly what the End of the World looked like.

As if finding Hio’s reaction amusing, Kreutzvalt let out another boisterous laugh.

“Ho ho ho.”

Hio had felt this since the first time he heard it, but he didn’t like that laugh.

***

After leaving Kreutzvalt’s old house and looking around the surroundings, Hio’s conclusion was simple.

‘This isn’t a place for humans to live.’

It was the same no matter where he looked.

The air was thick with Abyssal energy, and perhaps because of that, the ruins of the buildings were so corroded that they crumbled into ash and drifted away.

He was told that this ash fluttered about all year round.

Even if one lit a fire, it barely illuminated a few meters ahead, and since the sun didn’t rise, the temperature was extremely low.

Despite that, the reason an ice age hadn’t arrived was supposedly thanks to the Abyssal energy permeating everything.

“Let us head back inside.

It is time for those fellows to become active.”

“Those fellows?”

“Beings that live at the End of the World.”

“Are they like the Eye of the Abyss I saw in the Labyrinth?”

“Similar, but different.

The Watchers are literally just watchers.”

On the way back into the house, Hio received an explanation about them.

They were beings born and raised in the Abyssal Depths.

They weren’t even things that could be called living organisms.

“The Abyss mimics the light.”

It envies and is jealous of the light.

At the same time, it yearns for it, leading it to mimic it.

Those beings were the result of that yearning.

Monsters of the Abyss.

Things worthy of being called “Strange Entities.”

“Those fellows have become significantly stronger than they were a thousand years ago.

If their goal back then was to cover the world’s living creatures in their energy and dye them in their colors, they have now reached a stage where they can directly create their own life forms based on the information they gathered back then.”

The things created in that manner appeared and roamed the area at specific times.

Though there was no such thing as day or night at the End of the World, Kreutzvalt called that period “night.”

Even when night came, his house was safe because of the barriers he had painstakingly placed around it.

“Being things created directly by the Abyss itself, they are strong. Their numbers are even steadily increasing. It is as if they are waiting for the time of invasion to arrive. What do you think would happen if these things were released upon the world?”

‘What would happen?’

It was obvious.

Destruction.

Putting aside that obvious fact, Hio wanted to know when the time of invasion would be, how the other Abyss Gates—the Abyss Towers—were made, and how many floors they had.

When he asked these things, Kreutzvalt let out that unpleasant laugh again and opened the front door of the old house.

“Let us talk about that now.”

It was time to learn the truth the world had hidden.

The Abyss Tower.

The thing every Bingija called the Abyss.

“There are exactly 100 floors down to the bottom.”

It was the moment the end was officially announced.

And it came from the mouth of the Master Magician who had personally designed the Abyss Tower.

“To capture and imprison all the energy and twisted entities spread across the world. A thousand years ago, it was the only way to end the war in one fell swoop. From the 1st basement floor, which imprisoned the faint energy and weak beings, to the 100th basement floor, where beings that should never have been twisted ended up becoming the worst entities imaginable.”

It was the isolation of the Abyss.

It was a concept similar to a seal.

“The conditions for accomplishing such a feat were demanding. The completion of that magic alone took hundreds of years. Since we couldn’t just build the Abyss Tower on the continent, all of Tetradia had to prepare to migrate here. We barely managed to complete it by mobilizing all the magic power of Tetradia and the strength of every Magician in the Tower of Mages.”

Kreutzvalt was a figure from even further back than a millennium ago.

He was someone who had foreseen and predicted the emergence of the Abyss.

This fact was only shared secretly with those close to the successive Lords of the Magic Tower, who continued the research alongside Kreutzvalt.

The ultimate sealing magic.

Hundreds of years of research followed to complete the Abyss Tower.

“However, it was not enough. The magic was finished, but it was not perfect.”

Despite combining hundreds of years of effort from Kreutzvalt and the entire power of Tetradia, including the Tower of Mages, it wasn’t perfect.

In the end, Kreutzvalt had no choice but to use his last resort.

The magic he was best at: Black Magic.

“Do you know the most fundamental concept of Black Magic? To obtain what you want, you must lose something of equivalent value. It is a type of Theory of Sacrifice.”

What they chose as a sacrifice was magic itself.

The academic study and the very act of magic.

To them, it was everything.

It was a transaction that could only be established if they offered up what they held most precious and loved most.

Magic was lost in that way.

“But still, it was not enough. Even though we sacrificed magic, a perfect seal was impossible.”

The reason was quickly apparent.

If this world were to perish, magic would naturally disappear anyway, so its value wasn’t as high as expected.

On the other hand, if the ultimate sealing magic, the Abyss Tower, were completed, the world would be entirely saved, so the trade wasn’t balanced.

Instead, an incomplete Abyss Tower was completed.

“The Abyss Tower was sealed for a thousand years, but it was set so that after that, the power would run out and the seals would be released one by one. In exchange, the condition of ‘clearing’ it was attached. If successful, that floor can be sunk forever, but if you fail, the seal is broken, and the Great Catastrophe from a thousand years ago that was trapped on that floor is released into the world again.”

Back then, they thought it wasn’t a bad method.

It would inform future generations of the terror of the Abyss and allow them to experience even a little of it so they could prepare.

The problem was the loss of magic.

In a world that had lost magic, the miracles called “skills” descended, but the military might of the continent continued to decline day by day.

It was an era where the development and research of magic did not occur.

An era where everything was decided by randomly assigned skills.

Daily life magic.

Magic Artifacts.

Magic equipment.

Magic Circles.

Magic scrolls.

The era where everything had vanished was weaker than they had imagined.

“Why didn’t you foresee such a situation? Weren’t you able to see the future?”

“Ho ho… if I could see all of the future, would I have remained a mere magician all this time? There is not much I can look into, and it is not something I can do often.”

“So… to summarize, you’re saying the place Tetradia migrated to is here.”

“That is correct.”

“Then can I go to Tetradia, too?”

“Not a chance with your current skills.”

“My current skills?”

“That is right.”

Nodding his head, Kreutzvalt brought the candlestick and placed it between himself and Hio.

The soft candlelight dispelled the shadows cast over Hio’s face.

“Tetradia is located in the center of this ruined continent. In short, it is a place teeming with all sorts of Strange Entities. With your current strength, you would struggle against even a single one of the fellows outside this house.”

“That’s ridiculous…”

“I am speaking as a magician, without your skills.”

“…Che. Well, that’s true.”

As a magician, he was still only at the 5th Circle.

While his magic power capacity might be higher than other 5th Circle magicians thanks to the system’s power, he hadn’t yet grasped the clue to reach the 6th Circle.

“Therefore, child, you must grow here.”

In the midst of that, the proposal Kreutzvalt made was one that Hio couldn’t help but be tempted by—honestly, one that made him salivate.

“I shall teach you. Grow as quickly as possible and return to the world.”

The Great Magician, whom the entire continent had praised, was offering to be his master.

‘Who could easily remain calm at the words that he would not only be able to break through the wall of the 6th Circle that had been blocking him, but perhaps even go beyond that?’

Slurp.

Swallowing the saliva that was about to leak out, Hio pulled himself together and sent his thoughts inward.

‘Kreutzvalt says he’ll teach me magic.’

He sent the thought and waited for a response for a moment, but it was strangely quiet.

Normally, Furnel would have been making a huge fuss and ringing loudly in his head before Hio even finished the thought.

‘…Furnel?’

It was quiet.

No, beyond quiet, it felt empty.

‘Stop joking around.’

The feeling that something always by his side had suddenly been ripped away.

A hollow feeling, as if a hole had been punched through his chest.

‘How had he only noticed this now?’

‘Had he been so distracted by the scenery of the End of the World and the truth of the past that Kreutzvalt was sharing?’

‘…Answer me, Furnel.’

There was no answer.

The voice that had been so excited right before coming here could no longer be heard.

Lifting his slightly bowed head to look at Kreutzvalt, Hio saw that the man was smiling.

Looking at Hio from just above the candlelight.

He was smiling like that, with shadows cast thick over his face.

“Didn’t I tell you?”

Hio’s expression grew cold and sank.

“That you would be the only one coming here.”