Chapter 36

The grimoire, The Book of Massacre.

The place where Dale now stood was the world within the book. A mental world projecting the impure thoughts and malice of the book’s author, the Blood Mage Dushang.

─ Will you reject my contract and become mere meat here?

The avatar of the grimoire, the Executioner, spoke again. Behind them stretched mountains of corpses and seas of blood, endlessly unfolding beyond the horizon.

Dale paid no heed. The world within the book. In other words, this was not the real world. Therefore, neither brute force nor offensive magic could subdue the executioner before him—that is, the 『Book of Massacre』.

Thus, he simply let the biting cold and refined dark magic begin to swirl beneath his feet. As the cold and dark magic swirled and churned like a whirlpool, the landscape around him twisted once more.

What the 『Book of Massacre』 revealed was the mental world of the Blood Mage, Du-Sang. In response, Dale too drew forth his own world.

A light, grayish sleet flutters down. Beneath my feet, a blank horizon stretches out into nothingness.

“Your world cannot invade mine.”

A mental barrier to protect himself from 『The Book of Massacre』, yet also an abyss of thought from which even Dale himself could not escape.

The collision of thought against thought, world against world. It was unquestionably the clash of high-ranking magicians themselves.

And the void world, composed of cold and darkness, began to swallow the entire area. The world of the Massacre, made of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

“But my world is not like that.”

The world is devouring the world.

─ How…!

A grimoire is the culmination of a magician’s lifelong philosophy, achieved by one who has reached the pinnacle of their art. Thus, the Book of Massacre was, in a sense, the very embodiment of ‘Blood Mage Duchamp’.

A 6th Circle Dark Mage, a heinous war criminal who caused countless casualties with forbidden mass destruction magic. The world of such a high-ranking mage is being devoured by the world of a mere eleven-year-old child.

─ Do you think I’ll just let myself be devoured like this?!

The executioner, the very embodiment of the Blood Mage Dushang, the Avatar of the Grimoire, stamped the ground. Toward the void world where Dale stood with both feet planted.

A sea of blood surged forth in a great wave, engulfing the area.

A crimson tsunami.

Against it, the ‘Shadow Cloak’ draped over Dale began to flutter.

A shadow tidal wave.

A power only possible within the confines of a ‘world within a book’.

This was not the real world; the only measure of power here was the strength of thought, the depth of the abyss contained within the mind’s eye.

Dale, commanding an army of shadows, stepped forward through endless void and emptiness. Turning his back on the landscape his future self would impose upon the nation known as the Empire.

It was not a realm a mere sixth-circle psychopathic mage could trespass.

The world was engulfed in darkness.

Clang!

With a sound like shattering glass, the surrounding landscape crumbled.

‘Back already?’

Finally free from the world within the book, Dale looked around. In that place, where darkness enveloped everything.

“──Brother.”

Just then, a voice sounded. Without so much as a whisper from behind him.

It was the voice of a pure young girl, untouched by a speck of dust. He turned his head. There stood a young girl wrapped in a jet-black dress.

“Did you call me, brother?”

Her eyes brimmed with innocent curiosity, unaware of the world. Between her hair, two black goat horns… two sharp horns stood tall on the girl.

At that moment, in a chamber of the Apostolic Palace.

Cardinal Nikolai bit his lip in burning impatience.

Even if the eldest son of the Saxon family is a genius possessing the greatest talent in the empire, he is still merely an 11-year-old child. A young mage who is only at the level of a 3rd Circle Expert. No matter how much he is called the ‘Black Prince’, the probability of him returning alive from the Library of Hell is close to zero.

──The Church bears no responsibility whatsoever for events occurring in Hell.

That was the bargain sealed through the Geas (the Oath’s Bond), and Nikolai never expected Dale to return alive in the first place. Furthermore, as long as the evidence of the contract remains, the Saxon family cannot act recklessly either.

Even so, would the world-renowned ‘Black Prince’ have entered the Library of Hell without any plan whatsoever?

The son of the Black Tower Lord, the Black Prince, hailed as the continent’s foremost dark mage?

If, by any chance, the eldest son of the Saxon family were to obtain the Book of the Black Goat as he claimed… The backlash that act would bring was something Nikolai dared not even imagine.

It was at that very moment. Something flashed through Nikolai’s mind.

“The Church bears no responsibility whatsoever for events occurring in Hell…”

The terms of the contract bound by the oath. In other words, it means that ‘whatever happens’ there, it is not Nikolai’s responsibility.

“…It would be wise to drive the point home firmly.”

By the hand of the White Mage of the 6th Circle, the Elder of the White Tower who pursued the Light of Wisdom. Cardinal Nikolai, having made his decision, rose from his seat without hesitation.

“Hey, big bro. It’s too boring here.”

The girl with horns like a black mountain goat said.

“And it’s so lonely.”

In the form of a frail little girl, she clung to Dale.

“This place is so lonely, cold, and desolate.”

“……”

But Dale was not swayed by the innocent facade she presented. For he understood the weight of the being before him more clearly than anything else.

The Book of the Black Goat.

The grimoire written by the immortal Frederick, who sacrificed his young daughter as an offering in his quest to reach the truth beyond death. That’s likely why the grimoire’s avatar takes the form of a young girl.

But that girl is not the Immortal Master’s young daughter.

“Let us make a contract.”

Dale said.

“O Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young.”

To the girl with the horns of a black goat.

“You want to play with me too, big brother?”

The girl smiled innocently. Dale nodded silently.

“Then show me your world.”

Simultaneously, the landscape beneath their feet rapidly warped. A blank horizon filled with ash-gray sleet unfolded. The abyss of thought, filled with cold and darkness.

The girl skipped lightly across the frozen ground as if on a spring outing. Sleet swirling from all directions settled on her shoulders.

“So this is your world, brother.”

After running around for a while, the girl finally turned her back. Dale nodded silently.

“It’s a very beautiful world.”

The girl with goat horns smiled contentedly. Beneath her skirt, countless ‘tentacle bundles’ writhed.

“I really like you, big brother.”

It was a twisted smile, dark and cold.

“Ah, aaaah.”

When Nikolai, the white mage of the sixth circle and elder of the White Magic Tower, entered hell to silence her.

In that hell twisted by impure thoughts and wicked ideas, Cardinal Nikolai and the Church Knights under his command were left speechless.

The eldest son of the House of Saxony, the Black Prince, was there.

He kept ‘the most dreadful being in the world’ by his side.

How could one describe that being?

A mass of writhing tentacles, teeth horribly sprouting along the tentacles, proliferating flesh. An abomination from another realm.

The Abomination was there.

An indescribably horrific being that drove one mad merely by looking at it.

“Hey, big brother.”

A girl with goat horns stood beside Dale.

She wore a jet-black dress, a flawlessly pure and pristine ‘girl’ raised like a precious jewel in a noble household.

“What are those things?”

Countless bundles of tentacles writhed beneath the hem of her skirt.

“Wait.”

Dale quietly reached out his hand to restrain the girl.

“Your Eminence, Cardinal Nikolai.”

After stopping her, Dale spoke. To the terrified cardinal and his entourage, who looked as if they were seeing the most repulsive thing in the world.

“Why have you come all the way here?”

“I, I just…”

Dale spoke to Nikolai, who was stumbling over his words.

“The parties to the contract bear no responsibility whatsoever for what transpires in Hell.”

As if he had understood Nikolai’s true intentions from the very beginning.

The terms of the deal sealed between them through the Geas (the bond of the oath). What Nikolai had targeted was precisely that flaw in the Geas. Even someone like Dale couldn’t possibly defeat the White Mage Tower’s elder and the knights under his command at his current level.

“There’s a saying about the darkest spot being under the lamp, isn’t there?”

Just as the side occupying high ground holds the advantage in infantry combat, the benefits afforded by terrain were no exception in the world of magic.

And this place was a hell where all manner of impure thoughts and wicked intentions had pooled to the brim, encroaching upon reality itself. A world without light. For Dale, who wielded the power of darkness as his trade, it was the ultimate stage to unleash his full might; for those who used the power of light, it was nothing short of a death trap.

“You chose the wrong place.”

And what they had to face wasn’t even Dale.

The most dreadful grimoire ever created in the world forged by the progenitor of the House of Saxony.

How an eleven-year-old child could possibly control the Book of the Black Goat—such a matter was hardly of immediate concern to them, at least for now.

“Oh, it’s a misunderstanding! I was only… concerned for you, after all…”

Cardinal Nikolai was about to continue his flustered explanation when—

“Right, big brother.”

The girl spoke. Countless tentacle bundles writhed beneath her black skirt.

“──Can I eat it?”

“I can’t be held responsible if you get an upset stomach.”

Dale nodded as well, as if Cardinal Nikolai’s will didn’t matter at all.

“Yeah, okay.”

The girl smiled, and the ground beneath her feet turned black. Magic is the power to transform thought into reality, and a grimoire is a book imbued with such ‘magician’s thoughts’.

The forbidden grimoire containing the world of Frederick the Immortal, progenitor of House Saxon.

“…Have mercy (Eleison).”

At that very moment, Cardinal Nikolai, the elder of the White Mage Tower, traced the sign of the cross.

It was by no means an act of resignation.

The title of Sixth Circle White Mage is no mere empty name. Moreover, in this world, Dale was not the only mage who possessed a grimoire.

The Gospel Book.

Light radiated outward, centered on Cardinal Nikolai and the church knights under his command.

“Have mercy upon us (Miserere nobis).”

In response to Nikolai’s resonance, the consciousness of the church knights guarding him began to stir.

“God wills it…”

“May the mercy and kindness of the Sister Goddess be with us.”

It is not merely an elevation of the spirit. The body, the sword, the armor—all begin to be reborn as separate entities, bathed in brilliant light. Before long, what stood there were no longer mere church knights. They were ‘Angels of the Battlefield,’ bearing six wings and flaming swords.

The magic of the hymn boasted by the White Mage Tower. An aria filled with light and sacred resonance, confronting the darkness of Dale.

Nikolai, too, is one who hones the path of magic before being a cleric. The ‘Hymn of Heaven’ sung by Nikolai, the Cardinal, a 6th-Circle White Mage, continues to resound.

The full power unleashed by the Elder of the White Magic Tower, who pursues light (wisdom).

‘He’s not going down without a fight.’

Dale thought upon seeing that sight.

Light and darkness. Ideology clashing with ideology, world colliding with world.

What was unfolding here was, without a doubt, the battle of high-ranking mages itself.