Book Eater

Chapter 351: Overload (1)

If a human’s vitality came from the heart, then a magician’s strength came from their Circles. The Circle was the first discovery that elevated humanity from an inferior species during the Age of Mythology. It was their ancestor’s heritage, the attempt to mimic the powers of gods and demons. That experiment had resulted in the ability to interfere directly with the laws of matter by constructing the cogs of the world in the body.

The power to make fire in an empty space, and the power to create wind to disturb the sky! The value of the Circles was infinite and eternal.

No, that’s wrong.

However, Theo realized something after reaching his limit.

Eight circles are all that the human body can afford. From there, I have to give up my existing Circles system and step into an unknown territory.

The 8th Circle was the end of mortality, the limit that humans could reach. No matter how much more knowledge and power one crammed into themselves, it was impossible to exert more power in the soul and body of a mortal. This was why so many magicians had stopped at this level.

The path filled with the wisdom and experience of ancestors changed into the abyss of the unknown. If one made one misstep, it would be a waste of decades, maybe even a hundred years, worth of effort. Giving up the Circles engraved on their true heart was a scary threat for a magician.

Wuuong…

And yet, Theo broke his eight Circles without hesitation.

Wuuuong...!

As the eight Circles overloaded, collapsed, and released their magic power, his body was enveloped in weightlessness and began to float. The amount of magic power was dozens of times more powerful than that of other magicians.

An old memory flashed through Theo’s mind, of the day he had tearfully read books in the academy’s library, desperately looking at the difference between his practical and written grades. The difference between his old self and his current self was like the difference between the sky and the earth.

Ahh…

Those days had created the Theo of today. Vince Haidel, who had cared for the class dance, Sylvia, who had changed their relationship after the challenge, Veronica, who had helped him out at their first meeting, and Ellenoa, whose love still warmed his heart. There were so many experiences that had formed the young Theo that he couldn’t count them all.

He smiled, as his magic power scattered, and the effort of years flowed away like grains of sand.

The East understood the phenomenon as shedding. Theo’s body and soul were now empty after losing his eight Circles, and his five senses that saw through the material world sublimated to a higher level. For magicians, transcendence meant nine Circles.

“Unifying the body and soul itself is like a circle. No, it is more than that.” Theo laughed as he reached enlightenment.

Simon Magus had been entirely correct. He, who had reached a higher level of transcendence, could only describe Theo’s situation as a chicken and an egg. From his point of view, Theo was openly ignoring the shortcut in front of him and uselessly floundering. But Theo had realized his mistake and was now reborn as a transcendent.

I feel like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, or a snake having shed its skin. All the theories that were hard to understand are so easy now.

The small world that had existed only in his body until now had expanded outside his body. This feeling was difficult to express in words. It felt like his head had poked out of his skin, and he could feel the spiritual world. He could cast magic without chanting or calculating formulas. Mana moved according to his will and manipulated phenomena in the most efficient manner possible.

It took him less than a second to construct and deconstruct a few spells.

“□□□□□···!”

The transcendent instinctively sensed his change.

Not a big deal... It is a bit hard to say, but the words certainly aren’t wrong.

Simon Magus had been correct once again. Interfering with time and space was fatal for a mortal, but it was different for transcendents. The Cage of Chronos that trapped Sloth was an unknown, but transcendents had access to time magic that couldn’t escape the frame of the material world.

Furthermore, Theo’s perception had only grown more penetrating after being born again as a transcendent. He could now completely see through the enemy. The transcendent facing him was inferior, even if his soul wasn’t gone. All the qualities that could interfere with the material world were far below Theo’s levels.

The transcendent noticed the gap and suddenly moved.

“□□□□! □□□!”

The transcendent shouted like he was having a seizure, and time stopped again.

Kiiiiing!?

Theo heard a ringing in his ear and he confirmed that his surroundings had turned black and white. He cracked his neck and laughed.

「 Get lost. 」

The sharp words forcibly canceled Time Stop!

Kaaang!

Color returned to the black and white world as the backlash of canceling the spell hit the transcendent. The shadow figure who felt pain from the aftermath of Time Stop rolled on the ground. The expression on the transcendent’s face was one of misery.

“... I will end your pain.”

Theo raised his left hand and took aim at the transcendent. He might be an enemy, but the transcendent was just one of Sloth’s victims. A green ray shot out of Theo’s left hand.

Wiiing!

It was Soul Caliber, a soul sword that could even kill high ranking demons. However, this wasn’t Reynolds Spencer’s sword. It was Theodore Miller’s sword that pierced the unnamed transcendent and severed the grimoire’s binding spell. Once the nucleus was broken, even stopping time couldn’t save the transcendent. Sure enough, the transcendent’s body stiffened.

- ... I was wrong. I thought the soul was gone, and he was already dead. Was the flesh frozen to the time when it was still alive? Keeping the ego was in bad taste.

Gluttony had miscalculated. The body of the transcendent quickly turned grey and started to crumble, falling down like pieces of limestone. In a sense, it was like a marble statue being dissolved by acid. The scattered figure looked unrealistic.

“Hmm?”

The mysterious transcendent spoke in an ancient language that Theo only knew from Vince’s book.

“Tha-nk… you.”

Theo didn’t get a chance to reply as the figure completely crumbled to ash.

Pusususu…

Theo looked at the pile of ashes and muttered, “A person from Balcia? I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t heard the language. What a coincidence.”

It was the only ancient language he knew. Vince could speak a few more words, but Theo had lost interest in ancient magic once he obtained Dragon Words. However, he hadn’t expected to hear the Balcard language here. It felt like meeting a neighbor in a faraway country.

“Theo!”

“Boy!”

“Theo!”

At that time, his colleagues hurriedly rushed over.

“You won? How? No, is your body okay?”

“I knew you would somehow do it! I’m just sorry that my turn was too short this time.”

Unlike the clamoring Titania and Randolph, Aquilo looked at him closely before opening her mouth with a surprised expression.

“... You crossed the border, Boy.”

The dragon noticed the change in him before anyone else.

“Did you see it? Yes, you are correct.”

“How did…? All the magicians and swordsmen in the continent might froth at the mouth.”

“If you say so... I can’t believe it yet.”

Theo laughed lightly as he looked down at his hands. He was still the same as he had been a few minutes ago, despite now having a power that separated him from humans. Well, he couldn’t feel it, but he felt it.

Transcendents were outside the framework of fate. They lived without getting older or sick, almost like eternal youth. Theo’s heart might stop one day, but he didn’t need to worry about it now. Right now, there was another problem to worry about.

I will be the last transcendent of the material world.

Sloth, who had sucked in an incredible amount of mana, was going to be expelled from the material world. The average mana concentration in the world would fall, and it would be hard to build up magic and aura. Transcendents like Theo would be the only ones who could easily utilize atmospheric mana or exert the same brute force as before.

Of course, there were still a few hundred years before the situation would degrade to that extent.

“... Myrdal Herseim—no, Prometheus,” Theo muttered the name of the god, and his expression hardened.

The god, who had provided strength to humanity, would kill the dragons and remove aura and magic in a few hundred years. Theo didn’t think it was malicious, but it was natural to feel displeased at the person who treated the world like it was at his own disposal.

“Hey,” A voice that seemed utterly disinterested rang out. “It’s done. Shall I activate it?”

Simon Magus started adding magic power to the circle without waiting for a reply. He had no intention of listening to the answer from the beginning. Rather than feeling discomforted, Theo was struck in awe by the magic circle that had expanded to several meters.

A-Amazing!

He was at a level where he could see through Paragranum’s wards. He could also release a few overlapping 8th Circle magic circles in a few seconds. Yet he couldn’t grasp the magic circle that was currently floating in front of Simon. It required a high level of knowledge and technique that magicians of the present age didn’t have.

Indeed, this was the person who stayed in Gluttony’s memory and challenged the 10th Circle.

“――――――.”

Simon Magus pointed a finger at the horizon.

The dark sphere that was Sloth seemed to have reached its limit by releasing four transcendents and didn’t resist anymore. Simon deftly targeted the grimoire and the magic circle started to shine.

Kuoong―

Dimensional Banish, like its name, was a spell that blew the target across a distance in space that would take thousands of years to travel. Everyone paid close attention to the magic circle.

Jijijik!?

A ten meter circle around Sloth was sliced away like the world was a thin piece of paper. As Simon Magus’s Dimensional Banish activated, the world twisted and the dimension trembled.

“Shut up.”

However, the dimensional trembling stilled with a single curt phrase from Simon Magus, who held up a single hand.

Ttaak!?

A cheerful snap echoed across the swamp.

Syuok!?

The severed space with Sloth in it was sucked into the void. Even Theo, with all his power, couldn’t see the boundary between dimensions. The abyss engulfed the space in an instant, sounding like a drain on a rainy day. But it only took a few moments for the hole to quickly fill up.

As everyone stared blankly, Simon Magus dusted his hands off impatiently.

“Hrmm, that’s it then.”

It was a futile end to one of the Seven Sins.