Chapter 71: The Price of Immortality

Lia’s consciousness returned to her own body.

The sunlight was warm and gentle, and the sounds of children’s laughter drifted in from outside the window, imbuing everything with a vibrant sense of life.

Yet, the phantom sensation of life energy, tainted with decay and defilement, clung stubbornly to her perceptions.

Especially the old monster’s face, contorted by his madness.

Immortality.

An immortality bought at the price of devouring others.

Her stomach churned violently, and a powerful wave of physical nausea rose in her throat.

This was not a theoretical advancement; it was the most blatant desecration of life, a stain upon civilization itself.

Her gaze involuntarily drifted towards the window, settling upon a little girl chasing a ball, the townspeople haggling in the street, even the innkeeper’s shrewd smile.

This ordinary world, built by such vibrant lives, was, in the old monster’s eyes, nothing more than raw material to be exploited.

A chilling cold crept up Lia’s spine, a sensation far more unsettling than mere revulsion.

Lia walked to the table, unfurled a blank sheet of paper, and picked up the quill lying there, yet she hesitated to put pen to paper.

‘How was she to describe all this to Klein?’

‘Should she simply say she had discovered a madman who fed on life force?’

Ultimately, her pen touched the paper, and words rapidly materialized under the guidance of magic.

“I have met the person hidden behind the scenes.

The madman I encountered is not creating; he is stealing.

He forcibly injects fragmented life force into himself, attempting to deceive the natural laws of decay and death.”

“This method is utterly foolish.

The very foundation of his theories is rotten; no matter how he adorns the exterior, the outcome is destined to be failure.”

Lia’s pen paused here.

Her gaze lifted to the window, where a little girl with pigtails was chasing a rolling ball in the street, her smile utterly pure, devoid of any trace of impurity.

She continued to write:

“I will continue to observe.

Under the premise of absolute safety.”

The letter transformed into motes of light, silently dissipating.

The profound sense of security offered by Junjun was the very courage that allowed her to confront the abyss.

***

In the days that followed, the old monster’s experiments, just as Lia had anticipated, became utterly ensnared in a bottleneck.

Each time, he mechanically repeated the identical steps.

He would extract the vital essence from livestock, meld it with the increasingly faint life force from young mages’ corpses, and then drip it into his own single drop of murky, gray “blood.”

Each time, the verdant green orb of light would pulse violently, radiating vigorous vitality.

Yet, each time, at the very last moment before completion, it would violently collapse like a ruptured pustule, dissolving into a wisp of foul-smelling gray smoke.

“Why! Why! What else is missing!”

Within the stone house, the old monster’s exasperated roars echoed.

He violently hurled an expensive alchemical vessel against the wall, sending glass shards and viscous green liquid splattering everywhere.

In the corner, the three-ring corpse remained motionless, its ashen eyes lifelessly reflecting its master’s madness.

Lia, observing through her surveillance spell, watched it all with detached indifference.

Failure was inevitable.

The life force of different individuals inherently carried unique spiritual imprints.

Forcing their fusion would only provoke violent rejection, causing the entire system to collapse from its very foundation.

‘To transform countless mixed dyes back into pure white?’

‘Such an act defied the most fundamental laws of the world.’

The old monster’s escalating madness was directly reflected in his procurement habits.

The three-ring corpse’s trips to Maplefall Town increased in frequency, shortening from once every three days to every two, and eventually becoming a daily occurrence.

“You again? You’ve bought every fat chicken in town! Is there a dragon living in your valley?”

The livestock vendor stared at the strange figure before him, his face a mixture of confusion and unease.

The three-ring mage offered no reply, merely tossing a heavy sack of gold coins onto the table before expressionlessly stuffing the clucking live poultry into a massive burlap sack.

Rumors in the town began to proliferate.

“Have you heard? That strange fellow who comes to town every day, he lives in the Silent Valley.”

“What does he do with so many live animals? Can he even eat them all?”

“Last time I saw him, I was close enough to smell it… like rotten meat that had been left out too long.”

“And the way he walks is so odd, stiff and straight, like a puppet.”

Whenever Lia descended for a meal, she invariably overheard the hushed whispers of the tavern patrons.

That day, she heard the father of the little girl who kicked the ball complaining: “That strange man came again, bought the last few laying hens we had, and paid an outrageous price.

He’s a true madman.”

Lia glanced towards the distant street corner, where the little girl sat on a doorstep, idly tossing stones.

The residents’ vigilance proved fragile against the allure of money; they merely regarded it as a peculiar topic of conversation.

On this particular day, in Lia’s surveillance feed, the old monster, having once again failed in his experiment, did not succumb to his usual rage.

He stared fixedly at the pool of foul liquid on the ground, and in his clouded eyes, a complete madness slowly surfaced.

He smiled.

His laughter was hoarse, like two rough stones grating against each other, and the sound, carried through the magical link, sent a shiver through Lia’s very consciousness.

“Not enough… still not enough…”

“The purity is insufficient, and the quantity is lacking…”

“If precise purification proves impossible, then I shall drown these impurities with the most colossal quantity! I shall crush all obstacles with absolute power!”

He stumbled deeper into the stone house, halting before a massive, heavily locked iron chest.

With trembling hands, he opened the chest, from which tumbled a large scroll crafted from some sort of black leather.

As the scroll unfurled, it revealed an extraordinarily intricate magic array, drawn in vivid red pigment.

Lia’s mental energy sharpened, instantly beginning to decipher the distorted runes.

‘Resonance Amplification… Wide-Area Siphon Energy Furnace… Spiritual Severance…’

Each rune’s function was rapidly decoded and connected within her mind.

A chill permeated her.

Combining the functions of these runes, the array’s purpose became terrifyingly clear: it had only one objective.

Mass-scale, indiscriminate life force extraction.

Its range… Lia swiftly calculated the array’s energy nodes and amplification structure, and a number materialized in her mind.

A radius of five kilometers.

Maplefall Town would be entirely encompassed within it!

The old monster caressed the patterns on the scroll, his face rapturous, as he murmured to himself, his voice soft as a dream, yet heavy as a curse:

“Centuries of accumulation are finally to be put to use… This magic array, it is my ultimate feast, offered to myself…”

“The life force of an entire town, the souls of thousands… all melted into a single crucible, to become the cornerstone of my path to immortality!”

“Once the ritual is complete, I shall be reborn! I will journey to a new place, assuming a fresh identity, to revel in eternal life and explore boundless magic!”

He abruptly lifted his head, his gaze piercing through the thick stone walls, greedily fixed upon Maplefall Town.

He moved to a table where a map of Maplefall Town lay spread out.

His finger traced across the map’s central plaza, then over the street where the inn stood, finally coming to rest upon the lumber mill at the town’s edge, a maniacal smile spreading across his face.

“Let all of this begin here, and end here.”