The Great Mage Returns After 4000 Years (Web Novel KR)
chapter-425

Boom!

A fork of lightning carved through the sky. The falling raindrops dripped down his jawline.

The reason the Lightning God was offended wasn’t because of the other person’s rude swearing. In the first place, such insulting behaviour was only valid when both parties were on the same level.

The eye level of a Ruler was at the highest height. For him to respond to such a thing would be similar to a human suddenly laughing after hearing the swearing of an ant. (TL: …I wouldn’t laugh if I heard an ant swear at me…)

Nevertheless, there was a reason why the Lightning God’s expression hardened at that moment. This was because he was inwardly wondering about something that he could not easily let go of.

Why had Lukas Trowman changed so much?

He knew how strong the mind of an Absolute was. It was in their nature to not bend even to the point of breaking, but Lukas… had changed so much.

As if he’d become a completely different being.

Pik-

The Lightning God suddenly laughed.

Right. If he had changed, then the reason was obvious.

“Why didn’t you just come under me, Lukas…?”

As he said that, he turned around.

In the end, you still lost.

Despite his insulting remark, Lukas didn’t swear at him anymore. Because it was pointless. The emotions swirling within him calmed. The voices that drove him mad still rang in his head, but he couldn’t afford to pay attention to them right now.

From head to toe, all of Lukas’ attention was locked onto the Lightning God.

“You asked about my goal, right? That’s simple. It is to rule, as always.”

Before Lukas could even understand the meaning behind those words, a huge beam of lightning exploded from the Lightning God. The lightning was so intense that it was impossible to look at.

As he faced this beam of lightning, Lukas began to shudder. This was because he felt a sense of crisis within his very being.

“You’ve become really interesting.”

His mind was in tatters. Like a pile of blood, flesh, and residue glued together. It was on the verge of breaking, but it was also, ironically, solid. Perhaps no one, not even the Lightning God, could completely break that fragile mind.

“Kukuku…”

That was interesting. A desire for a challenge was a very important factor. To live in such a crazily boring life.

The Lightning God smiled once more, and that signalled the start of the battle.

“Show me what you got.”

Shwaa…

The sound of the rain increased.

Before he knew it, the falling rain became a downpour. It was to the point where it was impossible to even see an inch in front of your face.

Nevertheless, the two beings stared at each other without blinking.

Flash-

There was no sound.

A white lightning bolt filled Lukas’ vision, seemingly covering the heaven and the earth.

It was only then that Lukas realised that the bolt of lightning extended from behind the Lightning God. The bolt of lightning split and spread apart like a spider web, or like wings.

He didn’t have the time to observe it for long.

Lukas was now in a state of hyper focus. By infinitely dividing the seconds into numbers with numerous commas, it felt like each moment lasted a very long time.

Thanks to that, the Lightning God’s movements seemed to slow-

He disappeared.

“…!”

The sound had disappeared. And the Lightning God had also disappeared.

There was no trace. The world was still infinitely slow. In it, the figure of the Lightning God was the only thing that disappeared as if he had evaporated. The rainwater that seemed frozen in the air was an indicator for Lukas.

It had nothing to do with speed. If something physical moved in the rain, it would inevitably destroy the droplets of water. And the trail that would be left would be an intuitive means of tracing it.

‘Is he underground…?’

No. It wouldn’t be such a simple tactic. In the first place, if he had done that, he would still be able to feel his presence.

…Lukas was forced to admit it. He had missed the Lightning God’s movement. In that case, he had no choice but to focus on defence for now.

He covered his entire body with the power of void. A material that had the best resistance to electricity…

Boom boom boom!

That momentary choice probably saved his life.

A moment later, he heard the sounds of hundreds of lightning bolts striking at the same time. It wasn’t just the ground, it felt like the entire world was shaking.

And Lukas’ body.

‘Ah?’

Was sent flying away.

Boom!

He was embedded into the cliff wall. Krrr, unable to withstand the force, fragments of rock fell from the cliff. As he bled, Lukas thought.

What was that?

He hadn’t responded. He hadn’t reacted. He hadn’t even realised…

No. This wasn’t a matter of level.

It felt like he’d experienced some kind of ridiculous phenomenon.

“I have no intention of killing you.”

Even in the downpour, his voice was clear.

Crackle. As the Lightning God walked, electric currents danced all over his body. This phenomenon seemed to carry a destructive force that he didn’t seem to dare contain in his body.

“Cough.”

Lukas coughed up a mouthful of blood.

This wasn’t good.

Although he’d expected it, he still noted that his speed of healing was greatly slowed when he was attacked by the Lightning God.

‘…’

Fear.

There was no trembling, panic, or anything of the sort, but for the first time since he left the dump site, he felt a sense of crisis.

If he made a mistake here, he might really die.

“Right about now.”

He raised his head.

It seemed that there was a strong wind, as grey sand flowed in from the outside.

‘Was the space destroyed?’

Part of the boundary that separated the ‘territory’ and the ‘outside’ seemed to have disappeared. This was also the work of the Lightning God.

…Incompatibility. All of the power the Lightning God was using seemed to destroy the very foundation of the world itself, it negated the very existence of void, which could be called the very core of the world.

He couldn’t understand.

A Ruler.

Why was the Seven Fanged Dragon God defeated if it was able to use tyrannical power?

—What I can feel, is that the beings living here can’t mix with us. Kuku. No matter how I look at it, [The Dragon] made the wrong choice.

Those were the Lightning God’s words.

The wrong choice… What was the wrong choice?

He didn’t have the time to think about it. The stone fragments around Lukas began to float.

The Lightning God smiled brightly as he watched on.

“That’s not magic. Is that your new weapon?”

He didn’t answer. As mentioned before, he didn’t have much time for that.

The stone fragments shot towards the Lightning God.

Hundreds of stone fragments shot forward at different speeds and with different powers. While it might look simple at first glance, the power of void was condensed into each stone fragment. To put it into perspective, each of the hundreds of stone fragments would be able to drill through a mountain without suffering a single scratch.

Crackle!

But the fragments of stone were destroyed before they could even pierce through the electric currents covering the Lightning God. Lukas’ attack was easily thwarted. Or at least that was how it looked at first. Paak! The ground beneath the Lightning God split open and vines shot out from it.

Surprisingly, the vines weren’t annihilated by the electric current.

For a moment, the Lightning God was restrained. But he simply chuckled as his entire body was wrapped in vines.

“It seems your calculative ability is still there. Did you use the stone fragments to analyse my power, then create a material with strong resistance to it? No. It’s not creation, you simply applied the property to an existing material.”

Most of Lukas’ intentions had been seen through, but he stretched out his hand regardless. The weeds that had been bowing under the heavy rain were pulled out and mixed together until they formed a certain shape.

“Such tricks…”

Swoosh.

A spear woven from blades of grass shot towards the Lightning God, splitting apart the heavy rains and the air itself. Crunch, but just before it reached him, the Lightning God, broke free from the vine entrapment with nothing but pure muscle strength. At the same time, a lightning bolt formed on top of his head.

Boom!

A spear of lightning and a spear of grass flew by each other in the air. The Lightning God had intentionally not fired at an angle where the two attacks could collide.

Crash-

This was because the spear of grass could not do anything to him. It managed to pierce through the electric current surrounding his body, but it was then blocked by the Lightning God’s body directly.

On the other hand, the Lightning God’s spear of lightning easily pierced through Lukas’ body.

“___”

He couldn’t even scream.

Lukas’ eyes went wide. The splattered blood around him formed a pool. The spear of lightning hadn’t just made one hole in his body. Instead, it had created holes all over his body. It was hard for him to move.

The paralysis symptom was the most difficult. It was the same before. The signals from his brain couldn’t be transmitted accurately, and above all, his muscles themselves refused to move. As if his entire body was frightened.

“…”

Lukas let out a black breath and collapsed. Beyond his vision, which had turned white, he saw the completely unharmed Lightning God.

“How come you’re not hurt?”

“…”

“-is what you want to ask, but you don’t seem to be able to move your tongue. The reason for that is simple. This is the level difference between you and me.”

The Lightning God smiled as if he was satisfied with his solo conversation, and continued.

“It’s just like mortals could never hurt an Absolute with external force. You can call it the next level of external force… I call it ‘Thunder’, but the others say it’s tacky. What do you think?”

Boom, the clap of thunder was heard once again.

Consciousness fading, Lukas was finally able to guess how he’d disappeared in his first attack. He wasn’t certain, but it probably had something to do with the power he called ‘thunder’.

‘…Yang In-hyun.’

Had he fought this being and brought him to the brink of death on his own?

If that was the case then it was very impressive. It was an achievement that was worthy of admiration and praise. For the first time, Lukas felt like he understood the power of the beings called the Twelve Void Lords.

Then there was the Lightning God.

The power this being currently displayed was not everything. As he said, he was in a situation where he was possessing a body. There was no way he could use his full power in such a state.

He once again realised the dignity of the Rulers.

…He’d misjudged.

If it was asked what he’d misjudged, the answer would be everything.

He shouldn’t have recklessly come to Flower Mountain. Even without the Lightning God, he would have been hard pressed to defeat Yang In-hyun. Of course, he wouldn’t have been defeated as overwhelmingly as he was now. As he said, the reason for this situation was because the Lightning God’s power was a higher level than Lukas’.

Nevertheless, that alone wasn’t enough to guarantee victory. Lukas felt that he should have melted more of the power in his body. He should have analysed the power of Void more deeply and accumulated as much experience as possible.

He would have probably met a similar result if he fought against the Corpse Ghost. (TL: He should’ve realised this when he got creamed by Lucid.)

“Why didn’t you use magic?”

The Lightning God asked as if he was genuinely confused.

“Wasn’t that your greatest weapon?”

“…I’m sorry to say, this is my greatest weapon.”

“Hoh.”

The Lightning God let out a sigh.

He looked at Lukas with a complicated gaze for a moment before slowly shaking his head.

“You’re badly injured. It was a bit interesting, but that was all.”

“…you said you wanted to rule. Does that mean you want to be a Ruler in the World of Void?”

“It’s very different from that. I said it before, this world isn’t worth it.”

The Lightning God smirked.

“…”

“Anyways, let’s end this boring fight. Lukas Trowman, looking at you now, I don’t think it’s possible to make you a Ruler, but you still have some value.”

“…what are you planning?”

“I’m going to take you away. I’ll take you to the Planet of Thunder. I’m sure you’ll realise my greatness after about 100 million years of isolation.”

Although he said it lightly, the meaning behind his words was by no means light.

The Lightning God was now openly declaring that he was going to brainwash Lukas.

‘No.’

He couldn’t speak for Absolute Lukas, but it was a situation that the current Lukas shouldn’t encounter. If it was the current Lukas, there was a chance that he would give in to the Thunder God. He might go under his arms and become his most faithful servant. In fact, one part of his mind was even confidently declaring that it might not be that bad.

But he’d rather die than do that.

“That was a boring fight. The fight with the Swordsman Yang In-hyun… that made me excited after a long time.”

The Lightning God chuckled.

“Perhaps I was just too hungry for this fight.”

Suddenly, a voice was heard.

“-hungry?”

The Lightning God’s outstretched hand stopped.

He turned his head.

Within the heavy rain, a figure stood with their head lowered.

Their posture was strange, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“Bullshit.”

A corner of the figure’s mouth, which was pulled into a smile, was the only part of their face that could be seen beneath their messy hair.

Nevertheless, their blue hair was still exceptionally bright even in the dark surroundings.

“What do you know about hunger?”

Lukas knew that voice.

And yet, it had taken him a while to realise. This was because the tone of the voice was different from what he’d heard before, and the emotions contained within it were the same.

“The product of a miracle, a natural born predator, an absolute being who was blessed from birth.”

“Who are you?”

“Don’t you dare talk about hunger in front of me. It’s disgusting.”

“…”

The Lightning God’s figure disappeared.

Lukas felt that he was using the mysterious movement method that he’d used in the first encounter. But he still couldn’t trace it or identify it.

Then the being, Pale.

Raised her arm.

Crumble, a sword rose up from the ground. It was a sword with a pale blue colour.

She grabbed it and swung it.

Whoosh!

The ground was overturned.

The strong impact managed to catch the Lightning God. He, who had disappeared before, suddenly appeared in the scattered clumps of dirt. Lukas saw that his body had become half thunder and lightning, and half sparks.

“This power…”

Pale didn’t capitalise on the opening.

Instead, she flipped her sword to reverse grip and stabbed it into the ground.

Boom!

Blue chains shot out of the sword.

The chains wrapped tightly around Pale’s body. They literally wrapped so tightly that it seemed impossible for her to move. Then, a strong light was emitted from the chains.

Clink, clink. There was the sound of something interlocking, but even the Lightning God wasn’t able to see this scene.

Soon enough, the light faded.

And the being standing there could no longer be judged as Pale.

“…”

The Lightning God’s eyes widened.

This was the first time Lukas saw a Ruler panifc.

[Trespasser, Thunderous Lightning God.]

“…no way, you…”

[As the Guardian of the West, the Servant of the King.]

It was a being whose entire body was covered in blue armour.

[And as the Blue Knight of Famine, I hereby sentence you.]

The Blue Knight spoke in an emotionless voice.

[To the Death Penalty.]

(TL: Are Rulers actually closer to the Knights in power and the SFDG simply chose the wrong method of entry into the World of Void? Or is Pale going to crush the Lightning God and show him that he is also an ant compared to her? Find out next time on GM4k ball-z!)