Free Web NovelChapter 19: Chapter 19: Before the Grand Performance.
[You have awakened love within a Magnari.]
[Reward: 100 KP]
[You have awakened trust within the Magnari.]
[Reward: 100 KP]
[You have awakened loyalty within the Magnari.]
[Reward: 150 KP]
[You have caused a historic event in the world of Volcan.]
[Reward: 500 KP]
[Total Karma points: 1075 KP]
The notifications stacked one after another, causing a satisfied huff to escape Roman.
It had been a pure gamble.
A species that still operated mostly on instinct, even if they were already conscious and intelligent, should hardly have chosen a suicidal path over one that was certain, safe, and reassuring. By all logic, the darker road should have been the one they avoided the most.
But Roman had to do it.
He had done it in order to progress with his plan of farming at least one believer from this generational cycle.
If he had followed Volcano’s path, then the remaining Magnaris would have done the same. They would have all witnessed the divine miracle of the celestial beast, started revering it as their savior, and remembered this incident as a mythical event within the earliest history of their race.
Though they would still not worship The celestial Unicorn, atleast, not in this generation.After all, they had yet to awaken that conscious state of faith, that willingness to consciously submit themselves to the higher being who governed them.
But now they had learned language.
And that changed everything.
They would speak of this incident to their children... then to their grandchildren... then to their great-grandchildren. Generation after generation, the Magnaris would pass this event down, and by the time it became myth, a certain smudge of awareness would begin to form within them—an awareness that there existed an outer being, a being who governed them and desired worship for himself alone.
At that point, all it would take was an apostle carrying proof and guidance to the Magnari race.
Though some might reject such a stance, many would surely begin to view that being as an existence they could never reach, and so they would worship him.
In Roman’s eyes, it was a very clear path through which religion would spread.
And he wasn’t someone who would let that happen.
He finally turned around.
Standing before him was his little brother, Gree Ma Go, Gre Ka Chu, his parents, a few of his young admirers and peers, several siblings, and a couple of elders—twenty Magnaris in total.
The ones who had trusted him.
The ones who had believed in his capabilities.
And the ones who would most certainly become his followers.
His eyes finally drifted toward Volcano—or rather, toward the celestial Unicorn form the God had taken.
Volcano stood there dumbfounded, watching everything unfold without any means to stop it.
How was a creation overriding his authority?
He didn’t have the slightest inkling.
But he knew what he needed to do.
Gre Ka Go was arrogant. He would get himself killed, and now he was even dragging a few other exceptional Magnaris down with him as well.
Even though Volcano had already given up on Gre Ka Go, he wouldn’t allow the other exceptional Magnaris to wither away alongside him. Thus, Volcano intensified his soothing aura and redirected it toward the basalt rock.
But before it could reach them, an intense guttural roar tore through the air.
At the eastern ridge, the predator had finally revealed itself, sprinting toward the settlement in visible excitement, delighted by the sight of such a large feast waiting to be clawed apart and devoured.
’Fuck! Why now? At that speed, it’ll reach the settlement in no time!’
Volcano instantly withdrew his aura and focused instead on the Magnaris who had chosen his protection over the defiant ones. As a God, he had done and tried whatever he could, so if they wanted to die so badly and he had no way to force them into safety, then there was nothing more he could do. freewebnσvel.cøm
He activated his buffs again.
[Buff Granted: Sacred Haste]
[All affected lifeforms: Movement Speed +300% for the duration]
[Effect radius: Settlement and outlying territory]
Immediately after, he activated another buff.
[Buff Granted: Territorial Aerial Flight]
Bit by bit, Volcano began flapping his greater wings and took to the sky, while an invisible force lifted every Magnari that had sought refuge beneath his protection.
Together, they rose higher and higher until they pierced the sky itself and reached the clouds before slowly retreating toward safety.
The Magnaris stared at the back of the celestial Unicorn with awe-struck gazes.
They were flying behind him.
Some were frightened of falling to their deaths, some stared around in wonder and took in the sight below, and something inside their hearts fluttered at the beauty of it. A few of Roman’s generational brothers who had fled remained mostly nonchalant, as though nothing particularly wrong had happened.
Guilt was not yet a thing at this stage of their development.
To them, surviving the predator was already victory enough.
As they flew farther away, one Magnari kept staring back and forth between the Unicorn and the world stretching beneath them, taking the beauty of mother nature into his heart. Unbeknownst to everyone else, he whispered,
"Shotorakishu."
(Amazing)
A word they had learned from Gre Ka Go. He had sternly taught them that it was to be used whenever they felt something fuzzy stirring inside them.
The other Magnaris turned toward the one who had spoken, and something stirred within them as well.
Then they smiled lightly and began whispering one after another,
"Shotorakishu..."
"Shotorakishu..."
As if they were praising the being who had saved them from the clutches of the terrifying predator.
None of it reached Volcano.
His heart was gripped by sadness, and a profound disappointment in himself ran through his spine as he continued flying toward the eastern safe zone.
This disappointment was not because he had failed to charm Gre Ka Go or make him obey.
It was something else entirely.
A far uglier kind of disappointment.
A self-loathing one.
’Who was I to decide who to save and who to leave behind to die?’
Volcano had always labeled himself as an ordinary person.
And much like any other ordinary person, Volcano too had once carried a grand ambition in life—to become the greatest surgeon in the world.
But the sway and reality of life had denied him such a privilege. Volcano himself was at fault for not trying harder, while everyone around him had treated him like a loser, until an opportunity he had never even known existed suddenly fell into his life. He had participated in a ceremony without even knowing what it was for and had apparently been chosen just like that.
Logging into this world had brought a massive change to his life. He had met Nox, Tripido, Axidro, and most importantly, Void Null—his brother in arms.
And all of it had stirred the passion inside him that reality had nearly burned out, redirecting it toward a new goal: catching up to them, surpassing them altogether, and making a name for himself.
But looking back on it now, Volcano understood that his life itself had been built upon unprecedented luck, a thread woven entirely from mercy.
He wasn’t someone who could judge others.
He wasn’t someone who had the right to decide something this major.
And yet he had done it.
In the heat of the moment, he had somehow chosen to leave some behind to die.
Yes, Volcano had tried everything the moment allowed him to.
But couldn’t he have done more?
He could have remained in the void, stirred space itself, used his meteorite skill, and summoned a rain of destruction upon the predator before it could even reach the settlement.
Maybe that way no one would have died. freewebnσvel.cѳm
But no...
He hadn’t done that.
In the heat of the moment, he had played the divine hero and chosen to save only the Magnaris who came to him.
And this...
This pathetic outcome was the result.
He was a failure.
’I am sorry... a person like me, who doesn’t even know how to play this game strategically, doesn’t deserve to be your God.’
With a heavy heart, Volcano flapped his greater wings and flew onward, guilt gnawing at him all the while.
Meanwhile, back at the basalt rock, Roman watched the retreating figure of the celestial Unicorn and slowly narrowed his eyes.
Then a hand came to rest on his shoulder.
Roman turned his head and saw his Magnari father staring at him with a look of pure determination.
"Soboro! Wereta entoko berento yuno."
(Son! We are right beside you.)
The words hit Roman harder than he expected.
’So this... is what a father is?’
For a brief moment, something strange stirred inside his chest.
He had no proper word for it, yet the feeling alone was enough to make him think that fathers were, indeed, amazing beings.
A faint smile appeared on Roman’s face, and he was just about to say something reassuring in return when the guttural roar of the predator ripped through the air of Volcan.
In the next instant, the colossal beast lunged.
Its enormous jaws descended upon the two Magnaris standing atop the basalt rock, fangs wide open, hunger and bloodlust surging from every inch of its monstrous body as it sought to gobble them whole in a single bite.
And then it stopped.
Right there.
Right before Roman and his father.
The predator’s jaws remained parted, its massive body trembling under the force of its own momentum, yet it could not move even a single inch forward no matter how violently it struggled.
Roman had merely raised one hand.
That was all.
His small Magnari palm was stretched before the predator, and yet it was as if an invisible wall had descended between them, a force so absolute that the beast could do nothing but remain frozen before its prey, its claws tearing into the ground and its muscles bulging in desperate resistance.
A chuckle, stretched around his face as he whispered in pure English, a language no Magnari had ever heard.
"Shall we dance My beloved Predator?"
"After all..."
"The stage is set, the curtain is up... It’s high time we give a grand performance to our loyal audience."
