The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - LLD Chapter 63: The Forger of Greed (Part 2)

With the readiness of someone waiting for the cue, Kai kicked off the ground and leapt forward.
As [Infinite Silence] was lifted, the power of Aura returned to him.

But the same was true for Avarus’s mana as well.

Fwoosh—!

This time, flames ignited at Avarus’s fingertips.

With a single sweeping gesture of his hand—
Flames engulfed the room… but only for a moment.
Suddenly, the fire fizzled out, and instead, radiant light flashed from all directions.

‘A fake, huh.’

Fake Magic.

The kind of feint that knights often spoke of—false strikes.
This was a magical technique built on the same concept.

To distinguish it from the physical fakes used by martial artists, it was labeled Fake.

The hero of the Allied Forces, the Archmage, was a master of such Fake Magic.

He would manipulate the amount of mana required for spells, sometimes retracting it at the last second, dissipating the magic just before casting, and triggering an entirely different spell instead.

With the spells changing unpredictably, the enemy would fall into confusion—
Unable to tell which spell would truly threaten their life.

Of course, it was not easy to pull off.
It demanded delicate control over mana.

But Avarus wielded Fake Magic with practiced ease.

Compared to the hero Archmage of the Allied Forces, it was nothing. But that was only because the Archmage was on a different plane of existence altogether.

Avarus’s Fake Magic was not something to be underestimated.
And yet, Kai reacted to every single one of them.

“What the hell are you!?”

Boom! Crack—!

Not once had Kai fallen for Avarus’s deception.
He discerned the true spell each time, and countered it perfectly.

In truth, there was a simple yet difficult way to counter Fake Magic:

You just had to read the mana.

By doing so, mages could distinguish each other’s Fake Magic with precision.

But Kai was a knight who wielded Aura.
He couldn’t read mana—so how…?

‘Is he reading the flow of Mana itself?’

It certainly looked that way.

Mana is the foundational energy beneath magic.
Magical power is just usable energy derived from mana.

No matter how finely one controls the magical output, if the mana itself can be read, the truth behind the spell can be revealed instantly.

And the reason this was possible… was because the Aura Kai used was also a derivative of mana.
Magical power and Aura were both branches from the same root: mana.

In short, Kai had grasped the essence of Aura, and was reading not the magical energy—but Mana itself—with nothing but pure instinct.

Easier said than done.

‘Is that even possible?’

Granted, I had nearly zero mana sensitivity, so I didn’t fully understand it.
That’s why Avarus’s magic was always tricky for me to deal with.

Anyway, from what I remembered, there were only two knights who could counter magic like that:

The Commander of the Frost Legion, Kai.
And the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, the Hero Ian.

‘As expected.’

Kai wasn’t a mere hunting hound.
He was a warhound.

Slice—!

The fireball, Fireball, was cut down effortlessly.
Split by Aura, the fiery orb scattered into nothing in midair.

“Impossible…!!”

Avarus’s already pale face drained of all remaining color.

What kind of knight was that supposed to be?
A knight discerning Fake Magic was already absurd.

Just as Aura was exclusive to knights, magic was exclusive to mages.
There was no way a knight could read the flow of magical power.

In that moment—

A sword crashed into his vision.
Beyond his widened eyes, a swirl of blue Aura rotated fiercely.

KRRRRRAAAASH—!

Avarus’s flesh was torn apart by the rotating Aura.

Yet the knight still charged, eyes gleaming with killing intent, his hatred burning like that of a man who’d encountered a lifelong enemy.

…He was a mad dog in every sense of the word.

The only difference was that he didn’t bark.
Basically, by pressuring Adrian with magic, Avarus had unleashed a rabid beast.

Perhaps it would’ve been better to leave [Infinite Silence] in place.
That would’ve at least kept that mad dog leashed.

But [Infinite Silence] had already been used once.
To cast it again would require at least six months of preparation.

It wasn’t something he could do right now.

And with that—any escape route had vanished.

His biological abilities were completely countered by Adrian, the Predator.
And his mana-based powers were thoroughly countered by that mad dog knight.

Checkmate.

In other words, only one option remained.

“GRUUUAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

Avarus unleashed all of his mana.

BOOOOOM—!!

It was like the entire space exploded—a massive whirlwind erupted.

Kai was blasted far back by the shockwave.
He barely managed to anchor himself by stabbing his sword into the ground.
I too had to jam down my Dragon’s Claw just to avoid being blown away.

The storm swept up everything nearby, and at its center stood Avarus.

“Bear witness!! To the power of the Great One!!!”

Veins bulged across Avarus’s twisted eyes.

Crunch!—bones shattered.
Rip!—muscles tore apart.

His grotesquely swollen body reached its limit.
Blood poured from every hole on his face—eyes, nose, mouth, ears.

“Keuhahahahahahaha!!”

And yet, Avarus burst into maniacal laughter, as if truly overjoyed.

‘What the hell…?’

Seriously, what was wrong with him?
Though one could never hope to understand a madman consumed by greed, this still differed from the Avarus I knew in my previous life.

For one, he hadn’t released [Infinite Silence] back then.
And in my past life, Avarus hadn’t died this way. I had calmly ripped out his heart.

In that sense, whatever he was now holding—

‘That…’

It was something I had never seen before.
Not even in my past life.

It looked like a fairly large glass vial, almost like an elixir.

Probably—

‘That’s the elixir said to be able to heal Serapia.’

In my past life, Avarus had already given it to Serapia, which is why he no longer had it on him.

In other words, this was likely the elixir that had awakened Serapia into the Monarch of Frost.

As I activated [Predatory Instincts S], the information about the elixir floated into my vision.

◆?? of ?※ric?[?]

: When this ※ric? is ★sed, HP☽ and Mana [??] will rec∇ver. Through this, the us∎r will be completely fre※d from all dis∎ase, poiso◈, and cur✪es.
At the same time, dormant abilities will be ★wakened, and all capabil♢ties will sur∎∎ss their natur?l lim∇※s.
However, the us☽r will become unmo☽ed from the flow of ti※e, trapped in the ag∇ny of immortality, bound by [※※※ ※※].

But the text was scrambled and corrupted before my eyes.

That could only mean one thing—
[Predatory Instincts S] couldn’t identify the item.

‘How is that even possible?’

It made no sense.

[Predatory Instincts S] was the accumulated survival instinct of countless living beings who had struggled and evolved in equally countless environments.

It granted innate and a priori knowledge of all lifeforms, environments, and substances.

For it to fail in reading the information…
It had to be something no living creature on this continent had ever encountered.

In other words—
It wasn’t of this world.

“I offer my soul to the Great One!!”

Avarus shouted with fanatical devotion.

At the same time, the elixir shattered like an exploding bomb—

KRRRRRRRRAAAAHHHH—!!

And from within, pitch-black darkness burst out—devouring the entire space.

Translatin_Otaku

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