By Zephyria 
The Ninth God’s form turned into black sand and scattered in the wind.
I naturally assumed the lotus position.
I carefully controlled and soothed the divine energy that filled my Middle Dantian, guiding it down the right path. The newly acquired power was ferocious and malevolent. The energy of the Azure Sky that had long resided in my body and the newly arrived energy could not mix properly, fighting and rampaging within my body as if it were a martial arts training ground.
Yin and yang clashed, black and blue tangled.
Black mana and blue internal energy collided, pushed, and struck each other. A coppery taste of blood surged up my throat. I didn’t bother swallowing the stale blood, letting it flow out instead. My vision turned red once more. I had no idea what kind of excellent eye technique this bloody tear-shedding was meant to grant me.
I didn’t wipe away the blood flowing down my cheeks. No, I couldn’t. I gritted my teeth, blocking the energy that threatened to burst from my mouth time and again. I crushed the resisting mana into fine pieces and swallowed it again.
Inside my body, there were repeated sounds of kwang, kwang.
It’s fine. The pain was bearable. It even felt refreshing. I remembered feeling this ticklish and joyful when I first opened my Ren and Du Meridians after arriving on this land.
I took a deep breath and didn’t exhale a single particle. Soon, all the mana that had been circling my body gathered to me as if it were its home.
I felt like I had become a giant mana pouch.
I swallowed, and swallowed again.
I was simply amazed that my body could hold so much mana. The energy wrapped around my body changed from black to white, and then gradually to blue. The flow of mana, starting from my Lower Dantian, roamed through my Middle and Upper Dantians without discrimination, constantly filling my mind with new knowledge.
It was around that time that the gaze watching me from above suddenly vanished.
Had the First Goddess descended to the ground now? It was time for me to return as well.
I got up. My limbs moved with ease. I turned my body once, laughed heartily, and brushed myself off. The skin that had been pierced and the legs that had disappeared were now perfectly smooth and restored.
I had finally achieved the transformation of body and mind that I had only heard of in legends.
However, I am still human.
I am a god who dies and is reborn. I decided so. I resolved to live a happy life with my kin, my friends, and Ruben on this continent.
The energy that moved according to my will shaped me. Therefore, my appearance remained that of Michael Ernhardt. The calluses on my hands and feet were gone, but my eye level and build seemed unchanged. The fit of my limbs was precise, and there was no extra space in the belt cinching my waist.
I grabbed my worn and tattered clothes and stood up. Dead hair fell in clumps.
…Hair? Startled, I ran my fingers through my hair a few times, just in case. I was relieved that new hair had fully grown. What if my hair had already fallen out and Ruben no longer found me endearing…
…Ruben.
What is today’s…
Month and day?
This is a disaster.
I walked and walked, only to return to the same spot for a long time. Hoping something would appear, I pulled out the emergency flare artifact, but the half-broken artifact only shot up about 2 meters before sputtering out. No one came looking for me, drawn by the flame. Not even a single monster approached.
I retrieved memories that were not my own from my mind and quickly examined them. Thanks to swallowing the origin of the Ninth God, his memories were stacked in my mind like books in a library.
And I learned several things.
The magic circle of the Ninth God, where I had been trapped for so long, was his lingering regret, having failed to contribute to the creation of the world. It was a space filled with jealousy and envy, capable only of copying and reflecting what others had made; it was his very origin.
Furthermore, Floyd’s reservoir was a trap designed to prevent the overflowing water of the Oasis from flowing away. He was always a surging spring. The connection between the Saras River and the bottom of the reservoir was also an arrangement so that if the water overflowed, it would flow into the nearest river instead of Floyd’s capital.
I now understood why Soho Cheon-nyeo and Thousand-Faced Devil had lingered nearby until all the magic circles were released. They were waiting to throw themselves into the tear that would form when the sky and earth met. They were preoccupied with maintaining their bodies until they could cross worlds, only jumping into battle after everything had gone completely awry.
Yes, unlike me, Soho Cheon-nyeo and Thousand-Faced Devil did not adapt to the new world.
Soho Cheon-nyeo, who awoke in the womb of a person from a decent family, had no qualms about killing humans she disliked.
Starting with blinding a maidservant she disliked at the age of three, she drew the ire of people. After a childhood where her cruelty was smoothed over with money, she found pleasure in making suitors fight each other and watch them kill one another.
Thousand-Faced Devil lived similarly to Soho Cheon-nyeo. His situation was slightly worse, as he was born a bastard in a noble family in Floyd.
He killed his mother and half-siblings who disliked him, seized his father, and claimed the title. In the basement of his mansion, he intended to continue his past karma by creating zombies from the corpses of his murdered family.
And, naturally, he was punished by Floyd’s law.
He fled to Owen after being attacked by the army. Then, he went to watch the bloody duel of suitors held by the Diamant family, met Soho Cheon-nyeo, recognized each other, and seemed to have decided to return to the land of the Central Plains.
This world was too lenient for them. Therefore, they could not form any close relationships with anyone in this land and wished to return to their original world. The Ninth God approached them and devised a plan to gather mana by having humans kill humans conveniently and easily.
The nonsensical ramblings that Soho Cheon-nyeo and Thousand-Faced Devil constantly repeated were their unfulfilled dreams.
The hope that the Heavenly Demon, whom they revered like the sky, would come and save them, and take them back to where they lived, was impossible from the start. Their wicked deeds deserved punishment, so I felt no pity for them.
In any case, it seemed this place where I stood was not part of the human realm.
This was the gap between worlds, the backside of this continent. It was the Ninth God’s hideout, created to arbitrarily pull his vassals and spew them out into the world. That must be why I hadn’t detected any other presence during the battle.
And the way to escape this place lay in magic.
Fortunately, portals seemed to be difficult magic even for the Ninth God. In this space, there was only one door that opened without needing to calculate a fixed formula. This was fortunate for me.
I wanted to tidy myself up a bit before leaving, so I called for Undine, but I couldn’t hear the voices of the spirits. It seemed they couldn’t reach this far. I was disappointed.
For now… I’ll think about it after I leave.
By the way, I have no idea where the First Prince Richard was hidden. The Ninth God didn’t pay much attention to him, so I couldn’t learn much about him either. Ruben must have handled that well.
I missed Ruben. I missed my family. My friends, and…
❖ ❖ ❖
Crackle.
I gazed down at the black soil crumbling beneath my feet.
The contaminated mana, no, the primordial mana that filled the surroundings seemed happy to have met its master, giggling and clinging to me. I didn’t dislike the sensation of my mana increasing just by breathing, but I couldn’t believe the sight before my eyes.
I raised my head and looked at the sky. The sky, a deeper and darker color than when I left, was filled with swirling black clouds. Amidst the whistling wind, the distant sound of an Owlbear’s mournful cry could be heard.
I looked forward again. A ruined building of a very familiar shape was the first thing that caught my eye.
Vertigo washed over me, and I touched my forehead. My goodness.
I hadn’t considered which building the Ninth God had designated as a destination for travel. I had been so happy just to be able to go to the continent that I rushed out, and now I regretted it. I should have checked if there was another way.
I saw a goblin hesitantly approaching me from ahead.
It walked towards me with wide, terrified eyes, gulping repeatedly. I let out a deep sigh, and it flinched and froze.
Behind it, a swarm of small goblins with faces just like its own huddled together.
When the tiger leaves its den, the fox becomes king. The scent of goblins was thick throughout the half-ruined building. They had spread mud on the walls and piled stones at the large entrance, allowing only small monsters to pass.
And I…
I know its name.
“…Kkokko?”
“Huk. That’s right, human! Big human!”
This is the Training Grounds.
It was the enemy’s stronghold within the Magic Territory.
The goblin didn’t know how much time had passed since it parted ways with me. It just repeatedly pointed at itself, saying “Kkokko,” and pointed at me, saying “Human.”
Should I walk back over the Yuil Mountains? But I didn’t know the way. The last time I escaped the Magic Territory, I had just followed Gano Paquin.
Should I ask the goblin for directions and have it lead the way? But that was also problematic. They were too slow with their short legs.
Then, should I escape using magic? Even with the Ninth God’s memories, if I could cast magic just by reading spellbooks, the Magic Towers of this land would be playgrounds for the elderly. The only magic I could still use was ice magic.
I felt an overwhelming sense of urgency.
As I spun in place, Kkokko, with an anxious look, also spun around beside me. Looking down at its foolish behavior, I suddenly asked,
“Why are you doing that?”
“Why? Why am I doing this?”
“…”
I stopped and let out a deep sigh. Then, it spat on the ground.
I rubbed my face with both hands again. The skin peeling off after my transformation came off on my hands. I need to wash up a bit…
Ah.
“Undine! Sylph!”
I shouted loudly, forgetting to call them in my mind. In less than a moment, the spirits parted the air and poked their heads out. They looked at me curiously, not recognizing me at first, like sprouts emerging from seeds.
[Pretty groom?]
[Pinky?]
“Yes… it’s me.”
[Pinky!]
Looking at the finger-sized birds… no, spirits, clinging to my shoulders and cheeks and acting spoiled, I felt that I had indeed returned alive.
Undine covered me from head to toe with cold water, giving me a quick wash. The Sylphs pulled at my wet hair, whining. Not a single tear fell, but they distorted their faces and whimpered, looking pitiful and cute like children crying without reason.
Listening to what the spirits were saying, they thought I had surely died. I wondered if it was because I had gotten lost in the gap between worlds, but then, thinking of the Sun God who couldn’t sense my energy, I figured I was simply invisible to the gods.
“How long… was I gone?”
[Five! Five times five, five times!]
Even if I screamed, it wasn’t a number I could count.
At least fifteen days… At most…
I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I grabbed a Sylph and asked,
“Where is the nearest Wyvern’s nest?”
Yes, I need to show off my strength against a Wyvern.