D.I.O - CH 302

Whoosh.

Merlin quickly found the source from where an enormous amount of mana was flowing out; he also felt a very weak sign of life from that source. The mana was being sucked out from the source and flowing into a familiar reservoir.

“Pathway to Hell.”

[Argh!]

The evil spirit of another dimension, which was entrapped in Pathway to Hell, screamed aloud. It was the evil spirit that had crossed dimensions, along with Kwan Youngmin, a high school student from another dimension. Eventually, the evil spirit was caught and imprisoned by Merlin after it tried to take over Eunhye’s body and exert its powers.

‘Come to think of it, I still don’t know this spirit’s identity.’

To be frank, Merlin never bothered to find out the evil spirit’s identity. The only thing that mattered to him was that the evil spirit possessed an unimaginably large reservoir of bad karma.

Although the spirit was easily caught after falling into a planet that didn’t possess spiritual pathways… Perhaps the evil spirit was a great being, possibly even a Demon King, in its previous dimension. The evil spirit had to have abused, corrupted, and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent souls to have accumulated so much bad karma.

And from such an evil spirit, which possessed so much bad karma…

[Turn it off… ah… ah…]

The evil spirit was being completely reborn as a new being after having all of its karma burned off.

Woong!

Finally, the last drops of mana, which were produced from burning the spirit’s karma, poured out and gathered in the air. The collection of mana soon burst into flames. And that was it. Merlin intuitively knew that the Editor Blade had [failed] to copy Muspelheim. The evil spirit was a being with a tremendous reservoir of bad karma, but most of its bad karma had already been used to copy Muspelheim once already. Even if Merlin burned all of the spirit’s remaining bad karma, it wasn’t enough to copy Muspelheim once more.

“This… this really goes against every law, rule, and logical structure that exists in the universe.”

Merlin looked at the two Muspelheims. Under the traditional framework of power and creation, Merlin didn’t have the [resources] to create a Transcendent Weapon. No, to be more precise, even if he drained Earth of all its resources, he still wouldn’t have enough resources to create a Transcendent Weapon. If Earth had such a treasure trove of resources, even with the existence of a Planet God as a deterrent, alien beings would have desperately broken through Earth’s defenses and dominated humankind to take advantage of the planet’s resources.

Having said this, in front of Merlin were two Transcendent Weapons and various core components that made up the Transcendent Weapon. The mana created by burning the evil spirit’s bad karma was transformed into a Transcendent Weapon and some parts.

“This should have been impossible.”

It was possible to recreate a Transcendent Weapon through some mana. If he could make a Transcendent Weapon with such little effort, how could one state that a Transcendent Weapon was an invaluable treasure that was difficult to produce even if one sold off ten planets? Among high-ranking transcendents, there were many who used a planet’s mana as if it was a part of their bodies. If a Transcendent Weapon could be created just by gathering mana, tens of millions of Transcendent Weapons would have already been created and released into the wider universe.

Although the amount of mana produced by Pathway to Hell was enormous, for high-ranking transcendents, such an amount of mana was what they normally used on a daily basis.

“In other words, it’s not that mana itself has been consolidated and converted into a material. Rather, this… this…”

Merlin, who was organizing his thoughts for a moment, looked at the flaming embers in his palm and realized that the composition of mana that composed them was very familiar.

“All forms are non-forms.”

The realization that all forms were non-forms… a being became capable of creating non-existent forms by grasping the archetype within them, not the form itself, and by ‘knowing’ the principle that information = energy. This was Cruze’s unique power, something that the other Irregulars, Merlin and Arthur, couldn’t imitate.

However, this composition of mana was visible in Muspelheim, which had been successfully [copied].

“However, what’s absurd is that it isn’t disappearing after a certain amount of time passes… doesn’t this mean that matter was created? Is such a thing possible?”

It was a phenomenon that couldn’t be understood under the current framework of spiritual science, let alone the laws of physics. E = I; Cruze’s realization that energy = information was a kind of power realized in reality based entirely on her mental power and aura power data. In other words, if her concentration broke or her aura power ran out, her materialized item couldn’t be maintained.

However, there was no sign that this copy of Muspelheim would disappear anytime soon. Moreover, there wasn’t an existence maintaining it.

Through this, Merlin realized…

“It’s a bug.”

Anyone else would have been confused and struggled to somehow make sense of this nonsense, as it went against traditional knowledge and logic, but Merlin [understood] what had occurred in a flash. He did not understand the principle, but he understood the fact that the phenomenon that was happening right before his eyes couldn’t be explained by the traditional principles that dictated the universe.

“But then what? Is the developer and operator who created this universe going to fix this discrepancy?”

But if such a transcendent being was going to move and correct this discrepancy, it should have already acted. This sort of discrepancy would have been sorted out as soon as it came up, regardless of whatever situation was arising on Earth or to humankind.

Click!

Merlin approached Pathway to Hell, which occupied one side of the lab, and unlocked one of its sides. Once he did so, Merlin, using his Magic Eye, saw the soul residing inside. It shone brightly and scattered a soft light.

“Who would believe that this was once the soul of such a terrifying evil spirit?”

Inside Pathway to Hell was a pure soul. The soul was transparent and didn’t contain an ounce of malice or evilness, as all of its bad karma had been incinerated. Merlin didn’t know it, but the soul’s state was the most basic form of a soul, a form that couldn’t even be seen in the Nether world’s hell. If the king of the Nether world had seen this soul, he would have taken it to the Nether world at all costs, even if he had to break the laws of the world and his own rules.

[Bro! I’ve sent out all the users through DIO’s mission system! I’m planning to leave now as well!]

Right then, Merlin heard Youngmin’s whisper message. Merlin suddenly had a thought and spoke up.

“Youngmin, the purification process of the evil spirit is over. Do you want it?”

[Huh? I can have it?]

“An evil spirit absent of bad karma is useless to me. I’m not even a necromancer, so…”

[…]

Youngmin was silent for a moment after hearing Merlin’s words. He had crossed dimensions with the evil spirit. Since Youngmin probably had some history with this evil spirit, Youngmin was probably feeling a bit hesitant and unsettled.

[Thank you. Of course, if I don’t go back to my home planet and to my own dimension, that thing wouldn’t be very useful, but… anyway, bro, when are you coming?]

“I’ll just take care of a few more things, so hold down the fort a bit longer. If Tan does anything strange, just retreat. If he gets all hot and bothered, he might do something extreme, like using an Armageddon spell or something.”

[Okay, bro.]

The whisper message was cut off. Merlin placed the evil spirit’s soul in a container that he had prepared in advance.

A quick look at bit.ly/3iBfjkV will leave you more fulfilled.

Now the question was… how to create another new [copy] of Muspelheim.

“I need a new fuel source for Pathway to Hell.”

It wasn’t as simple as finding another evil spirit. Pathway to Hell was a miraculous invention that produced an enormous amount of mana, but not just any soul could be used to operate it properly.

What Merlin needed was a true villain, a being that possessed a large reservoir of bad karma. This large reservoir was needed just to start Pathway to Hell.

“If I scour the Earth, I may be able to find some… but I can’t afford to do that right now.”

Merlin hesitated because he didn’t know whether it was right to treat the souls of others as [fuel], but when it came to a new fuel source, Merlin already had some beings in mind. Besides, having subjugated the evil spirit to Pathway to Hell, didn’t Merlin already make his choice?

In addition, the fact that Pathway to Hell only operated on bad karma made his decision quite easy.

“I’ll use the slave contractors.”

The NPCs and hero monsters of DIO were beings who were contracted and worked within DIO. The staff who worked in the village to the hero monsters, like Sungmuk, were all contracted employees.

However, among those who took on the role of monsters, there were also those who entered into unfavorable contracts. These NPCs, whose memories had been erased, were used by the Noblesse at will.

As a member of the Noblesse, Quiet Heaven, who could be called a kind of full-time DIO employee, called these beings [slave contractors].

Because the sins they committed during their lifetime were so enormous and evil, the bad karma accumulated before their eventual death was so great that they would inevitably fall into hell; these beings had no other choice but to sign unfavorable contracts and essentially enslave themselves to the operators of DIO rather than face eternal purgatory. Miho, who was now with Merlin, was one of those who had signed such a slave contract.

‘Miho…’

Merlin gritted his teeth as he recalled Miho’s image.

Thud!

Suddenly, the entire Magic Tower vibrated and shook. Realizing that the battle outside the tower was getting fiercer, Merlin shook his head to clear his thoughts.

“I must hurry.”

He mumbled to himself quietly and raised his right hand.

Woong!

According to Merlin’s will, the inner core of his Golden Pill Immortal Technique awakened, and soon, 100 years of internal energy was being sent to his outer planets. The internal energy of 100 years passed through Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, and was amplified to 200 years, 400 years, 800 years, and 1,600 years respectively.

[Crackle!]

[Crackle!!]

And the two spirits dwelling in Merlin’s body, Younghwi and Shining, woke up.

Merlin created Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars through his concerted effort and amazing genius, but originally, the limit of the Golden Pill Immortal Techniques No Living World was limited to the creation of one to two planets. With Earth’s solar system as a template, Merlin had created 4 planets by himself. However, Mars was the limit, even for Merlin.

But, after defeating the Golden Dragon in the New Continent and acquiring the Chintamani Marble, he was able to open up a whole new set of planets, Jupiter and Saturn, by providing the newfound external energy source to his two spirits.

Woong!

And once he awakened Jupiter and Saturn, Merlin was able to further amplify his 1,600 years of internal energy to 3,200 and then to 6,400 years. In this manner, 100 years of internal energy was amplified to 6,400 years, or roughly 100 cycles of internal energy.

“Really… every time I see it, I can’t find another way to describe it other than to say that it’s so absurd.”

“Ah, Sungmuk, you’ve arrived?”

“I’m here, too. Anything I can help out with?”

Merlin licked his lips at the sight of Sungmuk and Snowflake Flower approaching him. To be honest, these two’s powers were wasted as an auxiliary force. Sungmuk, an extreme fighter and master of Plum Swordsmanship, and Snowflake Flower, who was a powerful Skill Master and a being who ranked in the top five amongst all users in DIO, were considerably powerful existences.

However, since they were NPCs that could only exist in DIO, they couldn’t participate in the current battle against Tan. If Tan entered the Magic Tower, it would have been a different story, but Igniz had already set a precedent of what not to do, so there was no way Tan would commit such a foolish act. Merlin shook his head as if to shake off any remaining regret.

“Oh, yes. You both, especially Sungmuk, may like this new role.”

“Something I would like?”

“Oh, it’s nothing special.”

Sungmuk made a puzzled expression after hearing Merlin’s incomprehensible words; however, whether Sungmuk felt confused or not, Merlin raised his right hand, which was loaded with 100 cycles of internal energy. Beneath his hand was Muspelheim, blazing with fire.

“I need to break this.”