Chapter Ninety-Three: I Was Actually the Creditor!

Time turned round again and again, and in the clash between Mephisto and the Ancient One, Kaecilius had died so many times he could no longer count them.

He had become Schrödinger’s Kaecilius, forever unable to reach the end called death.

After so many attempts, Mephisto understood one thing very clearly: the Ancient One was absolutely determined not to let this scene collapse.

So, amid their entanglement, Mephisto began to consider whether there might be another way.

Though he still had not fully deciphered the Ancient One’s script, he could basically guess one thing: she meant to pass the blame onto him in the most natural, seamless way possible.

That meant if he left nothing behind, the Ancient One would be in a difficult position, and her plan might well suffer all manner of flaws because of it.

Having realized this, Mephisto looked at Kaecilius. This man was the greatest trace he had left behind, but since the man himself could no longer be dealt with, the only option was to find a way to strip away the infernal power within Kaecilius’s body.

As a Lord of Hell, Mephisto possessed a formidable breadth of learning. He knew that before the Eye of Agamotto, there was only one way to do it: draw the Eye’s power into the process and use one force against another.

With that thought, the hellish power within Kaecilius’s body began to weave itself into an exceedingly crude hellish law, which then clashed with the temporal law of the Eye of Agamotto.

Rewind time!

The Ancient One immediately rewound time once more, but the power expended in the collision between hellish law and temporal law could no longer be recovered.

The matter of temporal law was easy enough to handle. All things existed in cycles, and the Eye of Agamotto could draw upon the power of time throughout the entire universe, replenishing itself at any moment in a sense that ignored space itself.

But hellish power was far more troublesome. At present, the law had manifested, yet the energy of hell was difficult to replenish. The special power of Hell remained in Hell itself, in Mephisto’s own domain; if the Ancient One went there, she might well never return.

That was precisely why Mephisto had suddenly changed tactics. If this were repeated a few more times, the hellish power would be exhausted completely, and the Ancient One’s intentions would come to nothing.

After this continued three or four times, the Ancient One finally turned around. Her expression was utterly calm as she stepped slowly toward the statue.

“What now? Planning to surrender? If you are willing to, I wouldn’t mind sending him a bit more energy.”

Mephisto’s tone was dripping with confidence.

The universe where Earth existed lacked the necessary conditions to synthesize hellish energy, which was also why the Ancient One could always pinpoint Mephisto so precisely. As soon as he appeared here, he was like a drop of ink in a pool of water—impossibly obvious.

The Ancient One looked at Mephisto and suddenly laughed. She lifted her right hand, swept it through the air, and with a grasp, a strand of pure hellfire ignited at her fingertips.

Mephisto’s entire avatar was stunned. The energy in that hellfire was brand-new, the kind that had just been “taken” from Hell itself. Not recycled from scattered energy in the surrounding area.

Which meant...

The Ancient One knew he understood. With her hands behind her back, she said, “That’s right. You’re one of my creditors too. Thank you for your support in my defense of Earth.”

“Damn you!” Mephisto exploded in a storm of censored curses, and this time he was truly infuriated.

He had no idea when he had ever lent the Ancient One any “power.” It was likely that many weaker masters of other dimensions had been taken advantage of by her in exactly this way.

“Actually, I’ve always found this rather vexing,” the Ancient One said, placing her hand on the statue. “How can a Lord of Hell, or an avatar of one, not possess some sort of hellish law?”

“Now there is one. Not much, perhaps, but enough. Thank you for your cooperation.”

As she spoke, the Ancient One stepped forward. Her hand on the statue passed straight through the material and landed on Mephisto’s avatar.

After weaving a little hellish law, Mephisto’s avatar was extremely weak. He had expended more than half of his strength in every respect, and in such a state he could not possibly resist the Ancient One’s power.

He was sent straight back to Hell.

After tossing both the blame and Mephisto’s avatar into the hell dimension, the Ancient One reached out before Kaecilius and seized the shattered, illusory force of law, placing it into the statue in Kaecilius’s chest.

This was no pointless gesture. Kaecilius’s body simply could not withstand the power of a law. If the law remained in his body after the Eye of Agamotto was released, then the Ancient One would be treated to a dazzling firework display of flesh and blood.

After that was done, the Ancient One stuffed all the fresh energy borrowed from Hell into Kaecilius’s body, then removed the Eye of Agamotto.

Once time returned to normal, Kaecilius collapsed with a thud onto the floor, his whole body twitching uncontrollably. The energy was too much; his body needed time to adapt.

The Ancient One took Kaecilius’s hand, and the long sword in his grasp blazed even more brilliantly. The stench of sulfur instantly filled the entire room.

Then the Ancient One aimed the tip of the sword at her own chest and, without the slightest hesitation, drove it in.

Blood surged forth, instantly staining the ground around her red. The Ancient One closed her eyes and fell backward, crashing onto the floor. Her breathing gradually ceased, and her body began to grow cold.

A few minutes later, Kaecilius recovered from the chaos. He looked at the Ancient One on the floor, then at the long sword in his hand.

I... killed the Ancient One...

I... killed the Ancient One?

I... killed the Ancient One!

From confusion to exhilaration, and then to an abyss of terror, Kaecilius was driven by these emotions to do the one sensible thing: he tore open a portal and fled.

Knock, knock, knock...

“Master Ancient One, are you there?” Morrey knocked on the door. Like Kaecilius, he had come seeking the Ancient One, but for an entirely different purpose.

Knock, knock, knock...

He knocked again. No response.

Morrey was about to turn and leave when a wrongness reached his nose.

This time the smell was much stronger, clear enough to identify: not gunpowder, but sulfur.

Knock, knock, knock!

“Master Ancient One!”

Still no reply.

Grinding his teeth, Morrey kicked the door open.

The Ancient One’s corpse met his eyes.

“Master Ancient One!” Morrey rushed to the body and, trembling, touched her pulse. It had stopped.

“Someone come quick! Something’s happened!”

Morrey’s voice rang throughout the entire monastery.