WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 286 - Disaster (12)

Where the tidal wave passed, every patch of ground that could once be walked upon had been reduced to mud.

The shattered remains of the statues lay buried within it, no longer functioning. I might have been impressed if they could still move with nothing but a few fingers intact.

'It’s almost over.'

I continued crushing the surviving statues beneath the waves, steadily tightening the encirclement.

The statues were being swept away dozens of times faster than they could multiply and resist. At this rate, if nothing changed, the battle would inevitably end in my victory.

—In other words, that guy was going to play another card.

'Unless he’s seriously underestimated me, he must have something else.'

Statues that could multiply and cast magic?

They certainly were ridiculously powerful minions, but not something an Outer God would bring out as their trump card against another Outer God.

Those statues had to be hiding something more. That was why Great Void had sent them after me in the first place.

What that something was revealed itself sooner than expected.

The moment the number of destroyed statues exceeded the number of still remaining ones, they suddenly began gathering together.

I immediately drew up seawater. If they tried anything remotely threatening, I intended to obliterate them instantly, so I completely focused my Tide Sense on that location.

[S-stop…]

"...?"

Then I titled my head.

The statues were beating each other to death.

More specifically, groups of statues surrounded a single statue and relentlessly hammered it with their tools. The targeted statue eventually broke apart under the assault. Then the attackers moved on to another nearby statue and repeated the merciless process.

'Why are they doing this?'

I had no idea what their goal was, but I certainly wasn’t going to sit back and watch.

I concentrated the currents around the region where the group beatings were taking place and erased the entire area in one strike.

However, the statues didn’t stop.

As though they had gone mad, they began smashing apart the statues nearest to them. The speed was honestly quite astonishing. They were destroying each other far faster than my tidal waves could destroy them.

They were quite literally annihilating themselves.

"...What is this?”

"What’s happening? Did they get stronger?”

Unable to see what I was seeing through Tide Sense, Nightchaser looked at me questioningly, so I explained it to her.

"The statues are killing each other.”

"They’re killing each other…?”

"Yeah. Just beating each other to death with hammers."

"...Why?"

"How would I know?”

Was death itself the goal?

Then maybe I shouldn’t be killing them faster. I slightly slowed the advance of the tidal waves and continued watching the statues' strange mass beatings.

Across dozens of locations, statues gradually crumbled and disappeared.

And in the midst of all that—

"..."

"...Damn it!"

Nightchaser and I spun around almost simultaneously.

Of course, there was nothing behind us.

And yet, we felt it.

Someone had entered this world.

"You felt it too?”

"Yeah. Check."

My Tide Sense instantly stretched across tens of thousands of kilometers, reaching a distant wasteland.

There, only one statue remained. Around it lay countless shattered statue corpses, evidence that another mass beating had already taken place there—

[The world…has changed…so…much……]

A cracked, broken statue stared blankly at the sky.

It no longer spoke with its mouth.

It was creating meaning through its sheer will.

[...Then you…must be the Abyssal Sea.]

It looked directly at me from that distant place.

In the end, only a few handfuls of drifting sand remained. Yet compared to before, it had become incomparably stronger.

Because it had become an Outer God.

"...So that was it.”

-Crunch

Grinding my teeth, I immediately opened a puddle and traveled to the newborn Outer God’s location.

[I bear no grudge. Abyssal—]

"Skip the introductions and get out of my world."

[?!]

Before it could do anything, I bound it with the strongest pressure I could muster.

But it didn't quietly accept being drowned. Its body twisted and writhed as it resisted my pressure.

[Do you intend to claim all this vast expanse for yourself?]

It forced a hand, or something that could be called a hand, forward, overcoming the pressure.

Where it touched, the surrounding space began changing. The Abyssal Sea was becoming something else.

[Greed has consumed you.]

"It’s not like I wanted this. Once I kill that bastard, I’ll spit it all back out."

[If you truly believe that…]

"I said get out."

[...!]

I was lucky.

Thanks to all my previous battles against Outer Gods within the Abyssal Sea, I knew when they were at their weakest. The moment they first descended. Before they had fully claimed and stabilized their domain.

And on top of that, I’d already flooded the entire world with the Abyssal Sea, allowing me to locate them instantly through Tide Sense.

Because of that, I could suppress it.

Its body slowly warped beneath the pressure. One grain of sand at a time was pulled away, sucked into a different layer of the Abyssal Sea.

[Heh, hehe…]

Even while being banished into the bottomless abyss, a place from which it could never escape, the creature laughed mockingly.

[You struggle against the impossible—]

"That’s not for you to decide."

[Then the Sky will decide.]

The newborn Outer God continued speaking its ominous words until the very end and was cast into the Abyssal Sea.

[Until we meet again.]

"...Damn it."

I gritted my teeth as I returned to the imperial palace.

I’d managed to deal with it through a perfect initial response, but its confidence had been well-founded.

'So those things were all seeds of Outer Gods?'

I stared at the statues scattered throughout the world and clenched my teeth as my thoughts spiraled.

I should have realized the moment I saw they were wizards.

Great Void had been using the wizard-statues as mediums to summon Outer Gods.

'And they even knew who I was.'

The unknown Outer God had looked at me and immediately recognized me as the Abyssal Sea.

Using some method or another, Great Void had contacted the Outer Gods and persuaded them.

To kill the Abyssal Sea the moment they emerged.

I didn’t know how he’d convinced them. What mattered right now wasn't those trivial details but a solution to this situation.

"These statues are being used as sacrifices to bring Outer Gods down here. We have to destroy them all. Immediately!”

"...How?”

"..."

That was the problem.

Even though I was diligently destroying those things with tidal waves, it would still take days to wipe out every last multiplying statue even though I covered this whole world.

How many Outer Gods would descend during that time?

Could I fight all of them?

And what if Great Void managed to recover in the meantime? Enough to descend personally?

"Tsk..."

A vicious headache began pounding at my temples. Of course, it wasn’t as though I had no answer at all.

'What if I just turned everything into the true Abyssal Sea?'

If I raised the world’s pressure until it perfectly matched that of the real Abyssal Sea…

The statues would no longer be able to survive. No matter how resistant they had been designed to be, movement itself was a luxury in the true Abyssal Sea.

But doing that would mean pouring every ounce of my authority into maintaining it. And if I did that, I’d have nothing left when the time came to actually confront Great Void.

'Think.'

I gripped the railing hard enough to crack it, my mind racing.

Even now, the statues continued performing their ritual to summon Outer Gods. There had to be some way to stop them…

"Hey."

That was when Nightchaser spoke up.

"If it isn't important, tell me later. I’m busy.”

"It is important. At least to you and me.”

"...What?"

At that strange remark, I shot her an annoyed glance. She was staring back at me with an expression that looked strangely resolved.

"If what we saw is correct, those statues are probably Great Void’s last desperate gamble.”

"For a last desperate gamble, it’s one hell of a move though.”

"Anyway, can you even imagine how much authority it would take to create a summoning ritual on this scale? If we stop it—then Great Void’s going to end up a lot weaker than we've been assuming. Wouldn’t you agree?”

"I…suppose that’s true?”

It was a reasonable argument. Even for Great Void, creating creatures capable of summoning Outer Gods into reality one after another couldn’t have been easy.

Especially while he was still wounded.

But why was that really the important part now? I tilted my head in confusion. Nightchaser hesitated, then stared down at the ground as she spoke.

"Erm, don't get mad when you hear this, okay?”

"I won’t. I told you, I’m busy.”

"I’m actually not a complete human yet."

"?"

"More accurately, I never fully gave up my divinity. So I still have some of my authority left.”

For a moment, I simply stared at her with my mouth hanging open. Then I grabbed her by the head and lifted her into the air.

"Have you lost your mind? You say something like that now, trying to pull a fast one or something?!”

"I didn't betray you. I really am human. It’s just that I can return to being a god whenever I want.”

"That is betrayal! Well, I should’ve known the moment you started hiding in my pocket like that…”

Did that mean I’d actually brought an Outer God into the real world?

No, that couldn’t be right. If she were truly an active Outer God, I would've noticed. Which meant that while she was currently human, she’d left herself a way to return to being an Outer God whenever she chose.

"Did you really think I was going to tell you the complete truth? You’ve got issues too. You should’ve been more suspicious.”

Seeing her cross her arms and act completely unapologetic made me briefly consider crushing her skull, but curiosity won out.

"Then why tell me now?”

"Because I think you’re going to win."

"?"

Nightchaser continued in a serious tone, not containing even the slightest hint of a joke.

"My original plan was to simply beg Great Void for mercy after you died to him. I genuinely thought you were an idiot for challenging Great Void."

"Should I just kill you?”

"But—I've seen what you’ve done. You keep making impossible things possible, hmm…”

Dangling from my grip, she trailed off for a moment.

"...I think…you might actually do it. Maybe. I started to think that you might actually pull it off.”

"..."

"I think that if you survive this crisis, you might really be able to defeat Great Void.”

"Am I supposed to thank you?”

"You should. You don’t know Great Void, but I do. Do you have any idea how absurd it is that ‘you might be able to defeat Great Void’ has become more likely than ‘You definitely won’t?’”

After snapping irritably for a moment, she finally let out a sigh. Then she looked me directly in the eye.

"I’ll help you. With my authority, I can banish those statues to another world. It won’t matter if they create Outer Gods over there. As long as you kill Great Void before they come back.”

"...And you expect me to believe that?”

"Believe me or don’t. I'm offering you a chance. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve kept my mouth shut and waited for you to lose.”

I watched her for a long moment as she shrugged, gathering my thoughts.

Should I trust this audacious Outer God, who had already deceived me once, again?

After thinking it over, I asked a different question instead.

"Why me?”

"What?"

"If what you’re saying is true, then you could’ve just waited for Great Void to win, couldn’t you? All you had to do was sit back and wait for me to fail here, right?”

"..."

"So why take the risk and help me now? If you help me and I still lose, you’re finished as well.”

Nightchaser thought about it for longer than I expected.

Well, it was just 40 seconds, but anyway—she eventually answered.

"... Between the world that remains if Great Void wins and the world that remains if he loses, the one left behind after you win looks a little better.”

"That’s all?”

"...What more do you want?”

I stared at the grim-faced Nightchaser for a moment. Then I finally set her back down on the ground.

"I’ll give you a lake.”

"...?"

"If I win, I’ll make you a lake to live in. I’ll even give it a proper name like ‘The Lake Where Humans Go to Die.’ So, come on, help me out a little.”

"Hah..."

At that, Nightchaser twisted her face into a grimace and raised a hand.

"You’re the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea, so if you’re going to pay me, then you should at least offer an ocean.”

With that, the negotiations were concluded.

_______________________________________________________________________

Join our Discord for updates on releases! https://dsc.gg/wetried