Published at 26th of June 2021 3:45 pm

Chapter 146: The Power of Immortality (2)

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“The power of immortality can be divided mainly into two categories. One that has egos such as me and my artisans, and those who move by commands with no sense of self like them.”

“……”

“Of course, I don’t want to make you like them since the method for immortality is entirely different. It would not be feasible anyway since it would not work when one has acquired the power of language.”

The numbers were massive, and the troops were immortal. Ian was very impressed but also felt something deep in his bones at the same time.

‘He is definitely crazy.’

Fran Page was crazy enough to exterminate all living organisms in the prairie for his goals. While he had tried to protect the entirety of humankind in the past, now he had made a part of them, the natives, into his servants.

“Didn’t you swear to be a protector of mankind?”

“Of course, my ideals have not changed yet.”

“They are part of mankind, aren’t they?”

Ian pointed to the natives that have been incorporated into the immortal troops apart from the monsters. Fran’s logic was full of contradictions. If they were not humankind, what were they?

“Just because they are categorized as humankind, it does not make them the same human beings. Don’t you know?”

The perspective observed by the dragons and that of Fran Page was the difference that started all feuds. Fran continued with his explanation.

“While the lizards do not recognize it, the importance of human beings can be categorized. I just sacrificed the minority to protect the more valuable people and their descendants for a long time. It’s not really a sacrifice, they would have become extinct by the monsters of the prairie. I basically offered them salvation by giving them immortality.”

That was utter sophistry. Of course, one could decide which human beings were important, and Ian sympathized with that notion. The category did exist, but it was much more difficult to divide than what Fran was saying.

‘However, to call it salvation instead of sacrifice.’

Ian could come to only a single conclusion. Fran Page was definitely crazy. He had gone down the wrong path from head to toe with only a ‘fanatic shell’ of being a protector for humankind left behind.

“So, If I betrayed you, you’ll march those troops to the city?”

“It’s already planned. I’m not going to command them to march, but they will sense and move by themselves.”

Ian looked again at the immortal troops, thinking it would be a difficult problem if they truly did not die. The city would not be able to defend itself against them. Ian heard Fran’s voice when his thoughts were about there.

“Do you need confirmation?”

Ian sensed a large mana wave that stretched directly to a part of the immortal troops in a straight line. The mana wave swallowed them up.

With a rumbling noise, dust spread everywhere. The monsters and natives who met the wave headfirst became meat. It was a horrendous scene but did not last long.

There were sounds of disintegration, and Ian saw the exact same scene he had when the bug was given the power of immortality in the library. All bodies became powder and melded together to a dot. That dot formed shapes, and the bodies resumed their original forms again. They were literary ‘immortal troops.’

“Was Oliver the plan the city had? The knights, the army of the empire, and the magicians of the Ivory Tower will not be able to stop them. They will be instantly overwhelmed since the troops cannot be killed. It will not matter if you join them a bit later.”

Fran’s words were not wrong. Even if the army of the empire, the knights, the magician of the Ivory Tower along with all the troops across the land united, they will only be able to delay the inevitable outcome.

‘Artisans and kin cannot be trusted.’

They were each Fran Page’s and the dragons’ trusted subordinates and had to be considered as exemptions.

“Therefore, Ian, please don’t do anything foolish. You should stop whatever you have planned. I’m repeating myself, but I do want my wife to leave as long as that’s possible.

Fran finished up everything he needed to say and made a slight gesture with his hand. The immortal troops crumbled into powder, which was the same one used when the power of immortality was activated. The entire immortal troops that filled the Eastern prairie had disappeared in a second.

“……”

A heavy silence fell over the two. Fran had a confident expression, but Ian’s dilemma became deeper. He needed a counterattack for that one move Fran Page had prepared.

‘I have no other choice but to find the weakness of that power.’

Ian needed to annul the power of immortality by finding a weakness that even Fran had not covered. It was the only course of action left to him.

“I think you had enough time to think things over.”

Fran was the first to break the silence, and he seemed to be rushing things.

“Let’s get down to business.”

Fran pulled a potion bottle from nowhere, which Ian thought novel even though he was the strongest magician of all humankind.

“Drink this.”

“Are you asking me to go back to the past again to learn?”

“This time, it is different and more complicated.”

Fran opened the cap of the bottle and handed it to Ian.

“If you did anything to the potion…”

“I had so many chances. You know that.”

Fran was right. If he wanted to do something to Ian, he would have done so and probably succeeded.

“If you don’t want this, you can give up this chance. However, if you want the power of immortality, you have no other choice but to drink it. Only then we can proceed.”

Ian stared at the potion and wondered what truth lay beyond there. Ian did not think for long and gulped it down.

“……”

It felt the same when Ian had gone back to the past to learn the power of language. Ian began to see a different scene, but there were notable differences. At that time, it was only a world set in the past, so it looked familiar with differences only in time. The plains, sky, and living people proved that it was the same world. However, this place was completely different.

“Where is…?”

Ian’s view was filled with a wet and soft world or cave that was pink like the inside of an open throat. Not only that, but the pink material wheezed as if it was breathing in and out. Ian was disgusted only by standing there.

[You do not have to furrow your brow as you are now inside yourself. Your own flesh should not disgust you.]

Ian could hear Fran Page’s voice directly in his head.

“Inside…?”

[You can say that you are now in the deep abyss in your soul. It is the end of the imaginary world where only those who can wield the power of language can reside. If someone else drank what you just swallowed, he or she would have gone crazy on the spot. You would have suffered the same fate had you not gained the power of language.]

This unpleasant space was the end of the imaginary world? Ian could not understand what Fran was saying. The term is a familiar one to magicians. The ultimate goal of mana breathing was to ‘enter’ the imaginary world.

[If you become used to the imaginary world, you can enter it without the potion. But since we do not have time now, we need to borrow the power of alchemy.]

“What connection does the imaginary world have to the power of immortality?”

[I might use this time to ask a question…]

“I want you to tell me directly what you need to tell me.”

[Then there’s no fun. No fun at all.]

Fran teasingly repeated his words and asked his question.

[You turned back thirty years. By returning to your younger self, you enjoyed everything you could in your second life. Then, here’s the question. What happened to the twelve-year-old Ian Page, the boy who should have existed?]

What happened to the Ian Page that had been a ‘twelve-year-old’ and his ‘past self’ that had been waiting for the mana response test holding his mother’s hands when Ian Page had turned back thirty years? Fran’s question was asking the answer to this.

“……”

Ian could not answer easily since he had not wondered even once about this issue. He thought he had just come back in time, but it seemed there were complications that Reseesee Radenju had also implied. Didn’t Reseesee say that a new dimension opened every time the time was turned back? Reseesee had said that the war between them and Fran was because they wanted to prevent the reckless divisions. If there were different dimensions, there had to be more than one Ian Page.

“What’s the answer?”

[He’s sleeping.]

The pink floor bluntly soared up as Fran replied.

[In your mind, at the end of the imaginary world.]

The top of the pink pillar that had risen split in two to show what was placed inside.

[In there.]

Ian saw someone’s head at the top of the pillar. He could not hide his surprise when he saw that it was a boy with light brown hair.

“…Me?”

The boy trapped in the pillar was the twelve-year-old Ian Page. The boy right before receiving the mana response test was sleeping contently.

[Two souls cannot stay in one body, so the soul that was not chosen has to step back and fall into an eternal sleep.]

The twelve-year-old Ian was sleeping soundly, and Ian stared at the young boy in confusion.

[You do not have to take this seriously. The major links of the mainstream are decided by your actions only. The other dimensions are only imitations derived from your powers.]

However, it was not enough to erase the confusion away.

“Wait, then shouldn’t there be one more?”

Ian spoke after a while because a suspicion arose in his mind.

“When I did away with Prince Ragnar, I turned the time back for a bit.”

Ian had turned back time for a few seconds when he had ended Prince Ragnar.

[That was perceptive of you.]

Another pink pillar rose with Fran’s words, and it was thicker and longer than the pillar that rose beforehand.

[This is you a few years back. You might feel strange since I felt the same because I did not know which was the right one. Well, I concluded that it mattered little.]

Fran’s words were accurate because it was different from the twelve-year-old kid’s face. Since it was when Ian was cornering Prince Ragnar, that meant little time had passed.

[All right. Chatting time is over.]

Fran changed the subject to the original one.

[I will speak from the conclusion. The ‘power of immortality’ you desire, and the lizards spoke about does not exist. I just used the ‘excess of souls’ stocked in the imaginary world.]

Ian could not understand at first what Fran was saying, but he soon knew what Fran was implying.

[In your position, those two sleeping now are tools that will revive you twice, or ‘tools that will die in your place.’]

Ian’s alter souls will keep him alive by dying in his place.

[You probably heard from the lizards that I had divided countless dimensions once. I concur that this happened because I did not know the power of time had those repercussions. However, I do not regret it because everything I did was for mankind. Only for this world…!]

Fran’s voice became unstable.

[More souls than I had expected fell into my imaginary world in that process, so I freed them as the ‘extra lives’ that will disintegrate in my place.]

Fran had been teasing and talkative but, at the core, he had always been this sort of person.

[It would be better for them to be sacrificed as foundations for a greater good. They probably wanted this too, since they are me. If I, at a higher plane, sacrificed the current me, I would gladly accept it.]

Endless madness and stubbornness that became an obsession. This was the real side of the ‘monster’ Fran Page.

[Ian, if you want the power of immortality, first bask in the power of time. If you have past mistakes you want to fix, do so to your heart’s content. Since you are now an expert on the power of language, you can do so now. You also have the right to it.]

The fractured dimensions that the dragons worried so much about did not faze Fran Page, who was the cause of the divide. He was only chasing the tail of the value he could see; his ideals had degenerated with only their shell left over.

“Extra souls derived from the power of time.”

However, Ian did not feel worried or suffocated as he heard Fran’s words.

“That is the core of the power of immortality.”

Ian felt lighter since he now felt that he had found the road ahead.

‘Then they are not immortal.’

Countless souls that have been derived from countless returns to the past. What would the power of immortality using these souls be called?

‘If they die ceaselessly.’

If they die tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousand times, or even more.

‘Then, they die.’

Ian’s conclusion was simple, in that the power of immortality did not grant actual immortality. Fran Page, the immortal troops, and the artisans that are staying in Ian’s villa had not escaped death, but only fooled others and themselves into thinking that they had.

‘It might be doable.’

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