Greatest Legacy of the Magus Universe

Blood continued to drip from the frayed edges of Adam's tattered robes. He was severely bruised, battered, and broken. Perhaps there hadn't ever been a time when he had been so grievously injured.

Much of his skin had been eaten away by the gastric acid of the Transcendent spirit world entity. In some places, the corrosion was so deep that raw muscles could be seen through the ghastly wounds.

Considering all the battles he had been through, all the foes he had confronted, all within a single day, it was nothing short of a miracle he was still standing.

His strength and stamina had long since depleted. He only had a little amount of mana left within his energy reserves. And as for his will power… there was an abundance of that. That was the only reason why he remained standing tall and proud despite all the obstacles he had faced.

That being said, although his physical body still held together, the same couldn't be said of his mind…

He had drawn upon the powers of the white lotus more times today than all the years since he had first acquired the divine artifact. As a result, he had lost his eyesight. The eyes were the windows to the soul, after all.

Worse still, his mind was in shambles. It felt as though a spark had been lit in his spirit sea, swelling into a raging wildfire that devoured all order. He had never felt so much crushing mental fatigue before.

It hurt simply to form a thought. Yet, even that was not the worst… it was the flaw of the Faceless Mask.

The whispers of the Laughing God continued to get louder and louder. It became especially worse ever since he escaped from the stomach of the tentacled abomination.

That return trip to the material world consumed a lot of his energy. In the end, he was forced to rely on the white lotus to stabilize the collapsing portal. It was, by far, the longest journey back home. The divine artifact, bound by some mysterious connection to the spirit world, had offered him a measure of safety amidst the turbulence.

But it had come at a cost… a great cost.

With his mind becoming so chaotic, the white lotus had begun the process of repairing it. That meant its suppression over the flaw of the Faceless Mask had reduced drastically. And as a result… the Laughing God continued to whisper inside his mind.

Mocking him.

Laughing at him.

Taking pleasure in his misfortune.

"…Shut up," said the raven-haired youth in a daze.

The response he received was hysterical laughter, echoing endlessly in his mind.

Adam turned his head ever so slightly and spat through gritted teeth, his tone oozing with frustration and… madness.

"I said shut up!"

When he turned his head to speak to the… whoever it was that he was speaking to, he sensed the corpse lying motionlessly behind him.

Sphere of Resonance was an observational ability that Adam had come up with in his youth. It was a passive ability of the Eternal Soul Lotus that heightened his perception to extraordinary levels.

It allowed him to sense subtle vibrations, mana fluctuations, and hidden movements that would normally go unnoticed. However, this heightened awareness came at a cost... Adam's 'vision' lost all colors, rendering the world in stark shapes of black, white, and gray.

And through that colorless vision, he recognized who the body belonged to.

Bloody tears trickled down Adam's hollow, lightless eyes. His lips quivered, struggling to shift between a frown and a grin… caught between grief and madness… until at last, all that remained was a cold, indifferent face.

He knelt on one knee, then stretched out a trembling hand and gently closed Blackwood's eyes shut. Then, he gently murmured:

"May your mana flow eternally in the river of stars… Headmaster."

Adam rose to his feet, his bloodied face twisting into a dark scowl. He extended his Sphere of Resonance to the maximum output, instantly reducing his visibility in the colorless world. But at least, in the blurry void, he could still grasp the outlines of the chaos unfolding around him.

Finally, his gaze settled on the man responsible for it all… the Master… the Elder of the Inner Circle. For a moment, Adam couldn't identify him through his colorless sight, but when he did… his blood turned cold.

"Where is the Lord Marshall?" He asked in a low, hoarse voice.

If Marden Benton truly was a cultist all along, then the chaos he must have sown from within must have been truly unimaginable. Adam feared what horrors this vile traitor must have inflicted upon his own family.

In that moment, everything started to make sense.

The Cult's silent infiltration, their unnatural foresight, the way every strategy of the city's forces had been effortlessly seen through… it was all because the Cult already knew.

The leader of the Cult's forces, Marden Benton, had been sitting in the very seat of power, right beneath the nose of the woman entrusted with the city's defence and war councils!

Marden's lips curled into a faint smile. Instead of answering his question, he curiously gazed at Adam's figure and said:

"You look quite miserable."

"Shut up!" Adam growled.

It was unknown if he was talking to Marden or the voice in his head, but he kept repeating that phrase under his breath. A few moments later, he asked again:

"I said… where is Lady Benton?"

Marden couldn't help but frown at Adam's actions. He tilted his head, his eyes flickering with amusement. "Pray tell… have you turned into a lunatic as well?"

"Lunatic, you say?" Adam's lips curled up into a wide grin. "…I wonder."

Seeing that deranged look on his face, Marden suddenly turned silent. Something about the youth felt… wrong. His aura twisted, warped into something unhinged. Madness radiated from him like a living curse.

It was as if… another will had taken root inside his body!

Marden couldn't help but think to himself solemnly:

It is going to be problematic if the vessel has turned… insane.

However…

His brown eyes gleamed with a cunning light, and his lips curled into a smirk yet again.

This might just work in my favor…

No, this works perfectly in my favor!

Marden's machinations… remained a mystery.

He raised his hands and shrugged nonchalantly. "Lady Benton? Ah, yes, I already killed her. Killed my elder brother, too, you know? As well as every member of the Benton Family. Ah, it was such a delight."

"…I see," Adam muttered under his breath, his expression twisting repeatedly. One moment, tears welled up in his eyes, and the next, his lips curled into a wide, unsettling grin.

He muttered incoherent words, barely audible to Marden.

"You were a student of Saratoga… you knew more about the castle than anyone else in the Cult. Yeah, makes sense, makes sense. Ah, yes, it's funny really. No wonder Saratoga was infiltrated. Ah, yes, yes, so funny. No wonder Professor Whitaker was killed. Ah, yes, I should mourn her, but it just seems so… funny to me, you know?"

The Laughing God continued to whisper in his mind.

But the Eternal Soul Lotus continued to suppress the flaw to the best of its ability.

Yet, still… a wide grin found its way to Adam's lips as he swayed on his feet.

"Ha… haha… traitor, damed traitor… Haha… so stupid, I'm so stupid…"

And then… he vanished!

Marden's eyes widened, but before the shock could settle, Adam had already appeared in front of him with a wide, manic grin on his face as the black staff came crashing down.

"Fuckin' traitor, I'm going to kill you!!"