Chapter 780

The world was full of events and the possibilities that followed them.

The problem was that none of those possibilities was certain.

No matter how far civilization advanced, no matter how deeply cutting-edge science reached into realms once beyond its grasp, there was no such thing as absolute, one-hundred-percent certainty.

Especially where people, rather than machines, were concerned.

But at this moment—

“Has the wound on your neck healed, Michael?”

Looking at his trembling gray eyes, I was certain.

The unbelievable question that had begun with the tiniest clue had finally revealed its dark shape.

At last, I’d driven Michael Silbert to the edge of a cliff.

But I wiped the smile from my lips. My disgust for the man before me outweighed any pleasure I took in turning the tables.

I despised everything about that man steeped in gray.

“You filthy piece of shit.”

My voice broke the silence.

Unlike when I’d revealed the Skeleton King’s identity, not one person in the room laughed at me this time.

No. They hadn’t fully understood what they’d just heard.

Or perhaps they couldn’t bring themselves to accept a truth so far beyond anything they’d imagined.

“What… what the hell does that mean?”

The Guild Master of Kronos. I kept my eyes on Michael Silbert as I answered.

“Ask him yourself.”

In the suffocating silence, hundreds of pairs of eyes turned toward Michael Silbert. Among those watching were his supporters—some I’d identified through my investigation, and some I hadn’t.

“You were all kissing his ass from every angle earlier. Guess nobody bothered telling you what was really going on. Well, I can see why. Can’t you?”

Michael Silbert didn’t answer. He simply stared at me.

His gray eyes were still unsettled, and I could almost read the thoughts racing through his head.

But—

“Don’t strain yourself trying to figure it out. You already know, don’t you?”

Once all the equations lined up, the answer was clear.

“Michael Silbert.”

I felt as if I’d finally found my way out of a maze I’d wandered for ages.

Beyond the walls that had hemmed me in on every side, someone waited at the exit.

A gray monster who’d lingered somewhere between light and darkness, then crossed a river from which there was no return.

The last edge of the veil hiding what he really was.

“You…”

I let out the breath I’d been holding.

“You’re fucked now.”

Michael Silbert found himself wondering when things had started going wrong. How? Where?

But no matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t find an answer.

Everything that had led to this moment came down to one person. Even if Michael found an answer, the man before him would surely create another variable.

Jin Taekyung.

Another name for endless variables.

An Eastern young man far too young, reckless, and frivolous to stand in his way.

Yet Michael Silbert could no longer deny it.

That young man wasn’t merely an obstacle to be removed. He was another wall Michael should have broken down at all costs.

Such heat.

The heat in those black eyes.

At the same time, the wound on the back of Michael’s neck—still there like a brand—burned with pain.

Tap.

Without realizing it, Michael Silbert reached for his neck.

But when his fingertips met the cold armor that covered it all the way up to his throat, hiding the wound, a dry laugh escaped him.

Excuses? Damage control?

Meaningless now. They would only make him look pathetic.

As a single drop of water could split a rock, one palm-sized bottle of potion was enough to bring down the mountain that was Michael Silbert.

Now that my body can no longer accept the mana in a potion, no excuse will do me any good.

But one question remained.

How had Jin Taekyung learned the secret? And what had made him willing to use a double-edged sword fraught with danger and uncertainty against Michael?

So instead of making excuses, Michael Silbert asked.

“I’ll ask you one thing. How did you find out?”

“……!”

The question was brief, but the shock it sent through the room was immense.

“What… what did you just say?”

“G-Guild Master…”

His words were as good as an admission. The people most shaken were those who had supported Michael Silbert most fervently.

He didn’t so much as glance at his allies, frozen like statues. Just as Jin Taekyung had revealed the truth amid their accusations, Michael repeated himself.

“I asked how you found out.”

The answer was shorter than the question.

“Siegfried Bassmann.”

“Siegfried?”

“Yeah. Turns out the man investigated all sorts of things before he died.”

Whoosh!

A sheet of paper shot through the air like an arrow. Michael Silbert caught it between two fingers and murmured the title written at the top.

“…The Compatibility of Mana and Magical Power.”

“They say he was the greatest monster scholar of his age, even before you count his being a Grand Mage. Looks like he researched just about everything.”

“There shouldn’t have been any research material left.”

“Sure. That’s what people knew.”

Michael Silbert looked down at the paper in his hand. His gray eyes darted across it; he read and understood the entire page in an instant.

“Studying whether a human body could take in a monster’s magical power and coexist with it. Sounds like the sort of insane idea only an eccentric like Siegfried Bassmann would pursue. Of course…”

Jin Taekyung’s low voice reached his ears.

“That wouldn’t have been true for you.”

Michael Silbert raised his head. The paper, now badly crumpled in his grip, caught fire.

Fwoosh. Crumble.

Ash drifted through the air. Beyond it, the eyes that had gone cold now held a reddish glow.

“Looks like Siegfried Bassmann wondered about it too. But even he never managed to prove it. Or maybe he stopped because he thought he’d crossed a taboo.”

Jin Taekyung watched the ash drift toward him and continued.

“Maybe he decided material like this shouldn’t be left behind. Or maybe whoever killed him wanted it gone. Either way, almost nothing remained of that research. It took me a while to find this.”

“You think that’s why I killed him?”

“At first.”

“At first?”

“Yeah. But you killed Siegfried Bassmann for another reason.”

“I won’t deny it. But I’d like to know why you think so.”

“Simple. You’re not careless enough to leave research material like this behind.”

Michael Silbert stared at Jin Taekyung for a moment, then laughed aloud.

“I appreciate that. I’d have been disappointed if even you took me for an idiot.”

“Don’t thank me. I took you for a fucking bastard instead.”

“But you still haven’t given me a clear answer. This material alone couldn’t have been enough to make you suspect me.”

“No, it was enough.”

“Why?”

“When a crime happens, it’s only natural to suspect the ex-convict who lives nearby first.”

“……!”

“I was looking over what little research remained when the thought struck me.”

Jin Taekyung turned his head with a contemptuous sneer.

Now that the truth behind the Grand Mage’s death—long a mystery—had come to light, the stunned crowd stood frozen, watching the two men.

“What if Michael Silbert, that fucking bastard, was already as good as half human and half demon? What if he’d made that absurd research a reality?”

In the utter silence, Jin Taekyung recalled the moment the thought had first come to him.

Before hundreds of watching eyes and listening ears, on a stage someone else had planned meticulously from beginning to end, he spoke as though he stood alone in the spotlight.

“And then… every piece finally fell into place.”

That possibility, one no one else had considered, was the last piece of the complicated puzzle.

It explained how Michael Silbert had recognized the Skeleton King for what he was.

How a man who’d been just one hero among hundreds during the Great Cataclysm had risen from the dragon’s tail to its head.

Why the Odin Guild’s growth had begun when Cheon Taemin disappeared, and why Michael hadn’t shown his face even at Lee Jungryong’s funeral, where prominent figures from around the world had gathered.

All of it came down to one thing.

“Magical power.”

Jin Taekyung slowly turned around. Looking into the gray eyes that no longer wavered, he continued.

“I don’t know how it happened or what gave you the chance, but… you were able to grow stronger by absorbing magical power. Just like a monster.”

Yet Michael also held mana within himself. He had perfectly controlled and concealed the balance between the two energies, so no one had discovered what he was.

Not even the Skeleton King.

Whenever they spoke of Michael Silbert, the Skeleton King habitually called him an “unpleasant human.” Even he, a monster, couldn’t quite say what he meant by it.

If there was one person in the world Michael Silbert feared above all others, one person from whom he had to hide his true nature, it was—

“Cheon Taemin. He would’ve seen right through you.”

As Jin Taekyung’s low voice reached everyone in the room, a pair of dry lips parted, breaking the long silence.

“Yes. Because of him, I had to keep my head down for many years. Almost as many as you’ve been alive.”

More than thirty years had passed, but Michael Silbert still remembered it vividly.

He had only recently gained his new power. Amid a great gathering of people, that supreme being’s gaze had fixed precisely on him. Fear had gripped his entire body.

Back then, he’d possessed such a tiny amount of magical power that the man hadn’t looked his way again. But the fear of that day had never truly faded.

Even after time had passed and Cheon Taemin had vanished. Even after Michael had learned the secrets of Zone A from Siegfried Bassmann.

He hadn’t even attended Lee Jungryong’s funeral.

The information he had might have been wrong. Cheon Taemin—the only person who could see through him—might have been there.

But…

“There’s one thing you’ve got wrong.”

Speaking quietly, Michael Silbert awakened the enormous energy dormant deep within him.

That unprecedented, turbulent power in which light and darkness had mingled for years—but which, from a certain day onward, had been stained a deeper and deeper shade by the swelling darkness.

“The only person in this world I fear isn’t here right now.”

Rumble, rumble, rumble.

A vast wave of force rose and pressed down on everything around them.