D.I.O

Whoosh.

Merlin quickly found the source from where an enormous amount of mana was flowing. Furthermore, he also felt a weak sign of life. The mana was going into a familiar reservoir.

“Pathway to Hell.”

[Argh!]

The evil, other-dimensional spirit entrapped in Pathway to Hell screamed. This spirit had entered Earth from another dimension alongside the high schooler Kwan Youngmin. Eventually, the evil spirit was caught and imprisoned by Merlin after it tried to take over Eunhye’s body and exert its powers.

‘Now that I think of it, I still don’t know who this spirit is.’

To be frank, Merlin never bothered to learn the evil spirit’s identity. The only thing that mattered was the evil spirit’s unimaginably immense reservoir of bad karma.

Although he’d easily caught the spirit after it fell to the spiritual pathway-deprived Earth, the spirit could’ve possibly been a great being, perhaps even a Demon King, in its previous dimension. For it to have accumulated so much bad karma, the evil spirit must’ve abused, corrupted, and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent souls.

And from such an evil spirit with so much bad karma…

[Turn it off… ah… ah….]

The evil spirit was being completely reborn after having all of its karma burned away.

Woong!

Finally, the last drops of mana produced from burning the spirit’s karma gathered in the air. Then, the collection of mana soon burst into flames. And that was it. Merlin intuitively knew that the Editor Blade had [failed] to copy Muspelheim. Despite the evil spirit’s tremendous amount of evil karma, most of it had already been used to duplicate Muspelheim once already. Even if Merlin burned all of the remaining karma, it wasn’t enough to copy Muspelheim again.

“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 precise, even if he drained Earth of all its resources, it still wouldn’t be enough. If Earth had such a treasure trove, regardless of the Planet God’s existence, alien beings would have desperately broken through Earth’s defenses and dominated humankind to gain these resources.

Yet, two Transcendent Weapons and various core components to produce such a weapon stood before Merlin, formed from the mana previously created.

“This should have been impossible.”

Mana alone could not recreate a Transcendent Weapon. If he could do so with such little effort, how could a Transcendent Weapon be an invaluable treasure? After all, it was said that these weapons were difficult to produce even if one sold ten planets. Among high-ranking transcendents, many 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 would have already been made and released into the wider universe.

Although Pathway to Hell produced an enormous amount of mana, when it came to high-ranking transcendents, they normally used such a quantity 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 organized his thoughts for a moment. Then, he looked at the flaming embers in his palm and realized that their mana composition was very familiar.

“All forms are non-forms.”

The realization that all forms were non-forms…individuals became capable of creating non-existent forms by grasping the archetype within them, not the form itself, and by ‘knowing’ the principle that information equals 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?”

This phenomenon couldn’t be understood under the current framework of spiritual science, let alone the laws of physics. E = I - Cruze’s realization that energy equals information was a power she discovered 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, the 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 comprehend this nonsense, as it went against traditional knowledge and logic, but Merlin immediately [understood] what had occurred. He did not grasp the principle, but he understood that the phenomenon happening right before his eyes couldn’t be explained by the traditional conventions dictating the universe.

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

However, if this transcendent were going to move and correct this discrepancy, it would’ve already acted. This sort of discrepancy would have been sorted out as soon as it arose, regardless of the situation on Earth or with humankind.

Click!

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

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

A pure soul sat inside Pathway to Hell. The soul was transparent and didn’t contain an ounce of malice or evilness, as all of its bad karma had been incinerated. Merlin was unaware of this, but this soul was in the most basic form a soul could reach, 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 on leaving as well!]

At that moment, Merlin heard Youngmin’s whisper message. Merlin suddenly thought of something.

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

[Huh? I can have it?]

“An evil spirit without bad karma is useless to me. I’m not even a necromancer, so….”

[…]

Youngmin was silent for a moment. He had crossed dimensions with the evil spirit and likely had some history with it. Due to this, Youngmin was probably feeling a bit hesitant and unsettled.

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

“I just take care of a few more things, so hold down the fort a bit longer. If Tan starts acting strange in any way, just retreat. If he gets all hot and bothered, he might do something extreme, like using an Armageddon spell.”

[Okay, bro.]

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

Now the question was, how would he create another [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, but not just any soul could operate it properly.

What Merlin needed was a true villain, a being that possessed a large reservoir of bad karma. This large reservoir was required 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, after subjecting 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 monster heroes of DIO were beings who were contracted and worked within the service. From the staff who worked in the village to the monster heroes, like Sungmuk, they were all contracted employees.

However, among those who took on the role of monsters, some had signed unfavorable contracts. These NPCs, whose memories had been erased, were used at the Noblesse’s whims.

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

Since the sins they committed during their lifetime were so atrocious, the bad karma accumulated before their eventual death was so great that they would inevitably fall into hell. Thus, 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 accompanied Merlin now, but she had signed this slave contract.

‘Miho….’

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

Thud!

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

“I must hurry.”

He mumbled 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 sent to his outer planets. This internal energy passed through Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars and was amplified to 200, 400, 800, and 1,600 years, respectively.

[Crackle!]

[Crackle!]

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 extraordinary genius, but originally, the Golden Pill Immortal Technique’s No Living World was limited to creating only two planets. With Earth’s solar system as a template, Merlin created four planets by himself. However, Mars was the limit, even for Merlin.

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

Woong!

With these additional planets, Merlin could 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 heightened to 6,400 years or roughly 100 cycles of internal energy.

“Really… every time I witness this, I can’t figure out any other way to describe it other than completely absurd.”

“Ah, Sungmuk, you’re here?”

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

Merlin licked his lips at the sight of Sungmuk and Snowflake Flower approaching him. To be honest, these two were wasted as an auxiliary force. Sungmuk was an expert fighter and master of Plum Swordsmanship, while Snowflake Flower was a powerful Skill Master and a being who ranked amongst the top five users. Undoubtedly, they 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 had 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. Regardless, 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. Yet, regardless of whether Sungmuk felt confused, 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.”