Magician in Type-Moon

Page 547

"They've arrived." Furu smiled slightly.

Chapter 595 The Other End (4k)

"What?"

Yvette blurted out, her tone revealing an obvious bewilderment.

The thing that emerged from the darkness wasn't a roaring monster charging towards them, but rather some... all too familiar, strange presence. That's precisely why the scene felt so eerie and unsettling.

They were neither snakes nor birds or beasts, but a group of reptiles—a swarm of giant beetles.

The beetles' carapaces were like cast metal, broad and hard, covered with luminous veins. Each one was as large as an adult curled up, appearing from some unknown riverbank, crawling neatly on the acid, none of them sinking.

As they moved, they moved so close to each other that they almost seamlessly connected, like a temporary floating bridge that stretched across the acidic river.

“…Here you are.” Furu looked up, a satisfied smile on his face.

Then he pressed hard on his thigh, grinned, and showed a mouthful of teeth.

"Hey, hey, hey—Mr. Furu…!" Yvette had already sensed something and raised her voice.

"Yes, just as you guessed."

Furu replied casually, as if he were talking about what to have for dinner that night.

"We must cross the river by stepping on the backs of those beetles!"

"What a joke!"

Yvette screamed, her voice filled with barely concealed fear and disgust.

But before her protest could even land, Furu suddenly stomped on the ground, using the leg muscles that had been enhanced to propel her into the air.

His body traced a short arc, landing precisely on the back of one of the beetles in mid-air.

The metallic carapace made a dull thud as it was stepped on. The beetle barely reacted, but Furu himself staggered slightly, almost losing his balance. However, this was clearly not his first time doing something like this. He leaned slightly to the side, then, like a dancer, steadily regained his footing. He then quickly moved forward, stepping on the beetle's carapace.

The scene was chilling: he felt as if he were running on a moving, writhing bridge filled with arthropod structures.

“…Haa.” Matou Ike sighed softly, then leaped lightly.

His movements were completely different from Furu's. There were no thumping jumps or awkward weight shifts; instead, he moved as naturally as if stepping on transparent steps, each step precisely landing on the segment of the beetle's carapace, like a dancer descending a fairytale tower on glass stairs.

“Huh—” Yvette paused for a moment, then frowned.

"This is a complete mess... I've ended up having to follow these lunatics."

She took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and jumped up with an almost desperate, reckless momentum.

The texture and appearance of the beetles' backs were completely different. They weren't hard and cold, but rather slightly elastic, and you could even feel the subtle vibrations as the body fluid flowed beneath their shells. Worse still, the beetles, though silent, were clearly aware of their presence and were subtly adjusting their formation to "pave the way" for them.

It felt like walking on the backs of a group of creatures that might bare their fangs at any moment, as if stepping into some kind of... terrible fairy tale—except that fairy tales don't have such a strong fishy and insect stench.

“…I initially thought this place was absurd because of Hartles,” Yvette murmured. “Now I suspect these people are actually helping to make it worse.”

Matouike smiled slightly upon hearing this, her gaze still fixed on the river ahead, and offered no response.

In the middle of the acidic river, they were carried by a swarm of giant beetles through a dreamlike yet repulsive dead land.

Beneath their feet lay the backs of insects, beside them bubbling corrosive solutions, while above them echoed the low hum of insect wings and the flowing bands of light.

It is indeed a "shortcut".

It's nothing more than a chilling shortcut. Just like the "end of magic" they're looking for, it's twisted, dangerous, yet irresistibly alluring.

.........

The moment he passed through the Portal rift, El-Melloi II's vision blurred.

It is said that this is due to the impact of phase shift on the mind; others believe that it is just a visual afterimage caused by the soul not yet catching up with the body and the temporary imbalance.

Regardless of the cause, he did indeed feel a certain "delay" at that moment.

Just as human consciousness, after being forcibly stripped of its original place in the world, finally settles down again at the next benchmark of "possibilities".

He had only been away from the clock tower for a few hours, but when he opened his eyes again in this space, it was as if he had crossed the line of common sense.

After crossing the rift, everyone was scheduled to undergo a routine check by the Bureau of Unseen Corpses. Afterwards, they stood together on the high ground directly connected to the rift.

If a name had to be chosen, perhaps "Ceremony Tower" would be a more fitting description.

This place is high in altitude and receives no sunlight, but a cool and tranquil azure glow seeps out from the cracks in the surrounding rocks, floating in mid-air like the aurora borealis.

A kind of indefinable mystery seeped into my very bones from all directions.

El-Melloi II knew that in the vocabulary of magic, "highlands" was not merely a description of terrain, but rather the ideal location for a spell catalyst.

Above the horizon, far from the mundane world, and close to the zenith—this kind of "positioning" itself provides magic with a purer quadrant coordinate system.

Located here, mystery itself seems to be more easily gathered, stimulated, and even ignited.

The fact that the crack led them to this position was both inevitable and almost a cruel coincidence.

But just as he was turning his attention away from the ground and trying to assess the terrain, his consciousness was seized by a deep rumble emanating from the depths of the earth.

It was neither an auditory hallucination nor a mechanical vibration.

Instead, it was like the murmur of a slumbering beast turning over in the darkness—a roar emanating from the skeleton of the world, with a chilling resonance, gradually filling his senses.

He suddenly looked down.

What we see now is a "city" unlike anything we've ever seen before.

It is not a city in the conventional sense, but rather a kind of architectural ecosystem. From a distance, it looks both like a product of human civilization and a honeycomb structure that has grown naturally from between rock strata.

Countless buildings are like organs that parasitize and support each other, spreading and intertwining with extremely high density and overlapping layers, their complexity far exceeding his understanding of London's landform.

Those buildings are not static.

He clearly sensed that each building seemed to have its own "heartbeat".

That was not a metaphor.

Under the magician's perception, each building emanated active magical energy fluctuations, and these energy originated from the same source as the "educational magic formula" used in the Clock Tower teaching building.

The city itself, like the clock tower, is a massive “structural formula”—only larger, denser, and far more complex than any magic workshop.

“…I see.” he murmured.

If the clock tower is a "city of mechanisms" built from knowledge, then this place is a "technical entity" constructed from mining and the abyss.

This is not an ordinary city, but a living, magical structure.

In a sense, this place was not "built," but rather "summoned."

A vast alien colony established based on the lower strata of the entire magical society.

This city was not built for people. Or rather, humans are merely a parasitic link in this structure. The logic that operates and the laws that it follows have transcended the realm of "life".

El-Melloi II felt a chill run down his spine.

The very existence of this city is itself a kind of mystery under construction.

It has no name, or rather, its "true name" is still growing and being constructed. And he is merely an "observer" who has stumbled into it.

—Or perhaps, the one awaiting sacrifice?

He didn't say anything more, but just squinted and looked down at the underground city where magic pulsed like the tide.

The roar in my ears had not stopped, and the tower beneath my feet trembled slightly.

"By the way... this is your first time visiting the mining city, right..."

The cane tapped dully on the stone floor. The old man turned around, his sharp gaze locking onto Weber Velvet like an eagle surveying a valley.

At that moment, El-Melloi II felt as if his three layers of skin and seven layers of heart had been seen through, leaving only a wisp of his still-thinking soul exposed to the pale, cold light.

The old man wore three silver necklaces hanging from his chest, adorned with dark mineral and cold jade carvings, layered on top of his robe.

On each of her ten fingers, which resembled withered branches, adorned two gemstone rings, rich in color and exquisitely cut, yet devoid of any decorative beauty.

They are like...

Ornaments used to decorate a corpse.

If it weren't for the faint yet persistent magic still flowing within him, one might mistake him for a pharaoh's mummy who had escaped from the British Museum and was now dressed in a noble's robe.

But the oppressive feeling emanating from the depths of one's bones—the silent will and the obsession with asceticism—cannot be ignored.

This is:

Lord Euryphus—

Rufreus Nazele Euryphus.

The ruler of the Clock Tower's "Spirit Conjuring Department," the guardian of classical magic, and also an entity completely opposed to El-Melloi II:

The most orthodox of all, the most noble of all.

“Yes.” Weber nodded slightly. “This is my first time. After all, there has never been a mission or research in the past that required me to visit ‘Albion, the Tomb of the Spirits’ in person.”

He paused, then added:

"...However, I do not deny that some people's opinions are reasonable—that this is the 'original form' of the clock tower."

"In a sense... time stands still here..."

The old man's voice was deep and slow, as if resonating with the surrounding underground structure, "If we understand magicians as vectors pointing towards the 'past'... then it's not surprising that they believe this underground is the true path..."

As he spoke, he suddenly took a step forward.

Despite using a cane, he moved with astonishing speed. His pace was neither hurried nor anxious, but rather a confident urgency that demanded no delay, as if the flow of time itself should give way to him.

A spiral staircase led to the lower level, where a large bronze door stood open. As they stepped inside, they were greeted by a vast interior space, resembling a stadium.

Hundreds of magical lamps hung high above, their cold white light resembling a blade slicing through rock.

On the ground—is the core of a massive, operating magical apparatus.

The people here are not "ordinary people".

They are magicians, scholars, spell engineers... and an astonishing number of puppets.

Those puppets were not rudimentary bionics, but high-level tactical creations with independent judgment and magical control circuits.

Its technological complexity and execution efficiency even surpassed those of the conventional tactical units of the First Division.