Diary of a Dead Wizard

At the moment when Saul was caught in a dilemma…

“Monica!” Gorsa, who had been curled up on the ground, surprisingly still had the energy to relay a message under Anze’s intense attack. “Protect Saul.”

For a moment, everyone froze.

The first to act was Monica.

With a flick of her hands, two whips crackling with golden arcs of electricity lashed out, creating two black holes in the ground.

Then, her second strike landed right in front of Rum.

“Get any closer, and I’ll strike.”

From a distance, Anze kept an eye on Gorsa’s movements and loudly called out to Monica, “Monica, don’t forget who caused you to end up in your current state!”

“Heh…” Gorsa chuckled darkly, looking down at Yura’s form on his chest. Yura, though brutalized, showed a hint of confusion. “But I can also solve Monica’s physical issues. Cough, cough…”

At the same time, Anze launched another attack on Gorsa, knocking him down.

Seeing Gorsa easily taken down, Anze let out a slight sigh of relief.

Maybe Gorsa was just forcing himself?

“You see? He can’t save you,” Rum quickly said to Monica. “He won’t survive today!”

But even though Gorsa was on the ground, he was still speaking, and his voice was growing clearer.

“I’m the only one here who can cure Monica. This is… the power of knowledge. You… don’t have enough strength, yet you blame me for delaying your lives?”

Gorsa shook his head.

Anze was furious. Despite the exhaustion of his spiritual body, he decided to cast a 3rd-rank spell at Gorsa again!

“Saul!” Suddenly, another voice rang out behind Saul.

It was Keli!

Saul immediately turned around, but in doing so, his neck muscles melted, and his head twisted into a strange angle.

However, Keli, who was running towards him, was not in a normal state either.

Her entire body was covered in a layer of metallic armor, just like the full-body suit she wore when she first researched radiation toxins.

But this time, Keli was more tightly wrapped, with only her eyes exposed.

Her running posture was strange, and there was a “clattering” sound coming from within her body.

It was as if, instead of a human body, the metallic armor contained broken glass fragments.

Saul immediately realized something was wrong with Keli. He couldn’t care about his own condition, so he forced his body to stay upright and had Little Algae pull Keli to his side.

Meanwhile, Monica was already fighting Rum, but it seemed that she was no match for him.

Saul quickly embraced Keli, and the two of them tumbled to the ground.

“Here!” Keli stretched out her hand and pressed a vial of reagent against Saul’s chest. “Drink this quickly.”

Saul didn’t hesitate for a second. He bent down, pulled out the bottle stopper with his mouth, spat it aside, and tilted his head to drink the entire potion.

The liquid was very light, and once it entered his stomach, it vanished, as if he had inhaled a gas instead of drinking a solution.

At the same time, the toxins on Saul’s body quickly began to break down. Some black-gray substances gathered on his skin and, with the wind, dispersed and floated away.

His once loose, aged skin tightened again, and even the color of his skin changed from pale gray to pale white.

The poisoning and detoxifying seemed to have caused a change in Saul’s Soul Resin as well.

“Are you okay?” Keli asked, tugging at Saul’s collar.

“I’m fine. Thanks to you… Keli, what’s happened to you?”

“I think you’re really courting death!” Gudo had finally arrived, his bulbous head now oozing blood.

“Since you’re willing to die to save him, you both can die together!” Gudo said as he threw the recently unsealed poison vial toward the two.

But this time, Saul immediately hugged Keli and jumped away.

However, when he landed, he suddenly heard another cracking sound coming from inside Keli’s metallic armor.

And then, Keli let out a painful cry.

“Keli!” Saul immediately froze in place.

He had a bad feeling that the sound had come from Keli’s bones breaking.

Gudo raised his arms slightly, and the mist from the poison vial began to rush toward Saul like a living thing.

He sneered, “She’s been infected with radiation toxins. If you think she’s dying too slowly, then keep moving her!”

Gudo threatened Saul, but the mist he controlled didn’t stop at all. It completely disregarded Keli’s life and death, continuing to envelop them.

Saul quickly activated his Soul Armor technique, enveloping both himself and Keli within it.

But the Soul Armor clearly wouldn’t hold for long, crackling and sizzling as it was corroded by the mist.

The situation was dire, but Saul didn’t focus on the external danger.

After the quick movement just now, Keli’s breath had suddenly become faint to the extreme, as though she would die the next second.

Saul hurriedly pulled out a Heart Guardian potion, but he couldn’t find where to administer it.

He then cast a 2nd-rank spell, False Life, on Keli, but she didn’t seem to improve.

“Radiation toxin? Alpha?” Saul’s voice trembled.

If he remembered correctly, Alpha hadn’t developed an antidote yet.

After handing over the antidote, it was as if Keli’s final breath had been exhaled—her entire condition rapidly deteriorated.

Dodge? He couldn’t!

Saul wasn’t mistaken—Keli’s body was truly shattered.

Don’t dodge? That wouldn’t work either!

Facing his dying student, Gudo showed no intention of holding back.

Each one of his attacks was just another step in killing Keli.

Saul could dodge them.

Keli couldn’t!

Saul’s hands trembled slightly as he loosely held Keli in his arms, then suddenly raised his head and glared at Gudo, his eyes bloodshot.

With only a thin layer of his Soul Armor left, on the verge of dissolving, Saul made the worst-case plan.

He lowered his head and gently whispered to Keli, “Don’t be afraid.”

Keli endured the pain and replied, “I’m not afraid.”

Holding Keli with one arm, Saul freed up his right hand and began to reshape it.

His pale right arm, responding to his will, transformed into a giant net.

At each intersection of the net was a razor-sharp protrusion like a blade.

Just as Saul was about to launch his attack the instant the Soul Armor broke, his vision suddenly blurred—Gudo had vanished!

But on closer inspection—Gudo hadn’t disappeared!

It was Saul who had been instantly transported from the garden directly into... the circular laboratory on the 20th floor of the Wizard Tower!

Looking down, Keli was still lying steadily in his arms.

“Was that teleportation?” Saul guessed with surprise. “Gorsa has recovered?”

No sooner had he thought that than a voice whispered in his ear.

“Saul, save Keli first.”

It was Gorsa’s voice—he seemed to be back in control.

“You can use anything in the lab.”

“Master, are you alright?” Saul didn’t know if Gorsa could hear him, but he asked anyway.

“Thanks to you, I’m fine now. But... there’s no time left. Sigh…” Gorsa responded with a sigh. “This experiment failed again… But everything else, you don't need to worry about.”

After that, Gorsa’s voice went silent.

The death warning in the diary had also closed not long ago.

The crisis… seemed to be over?

Although Saul didn’t know how Gorsa resolved the contamination from Yura, the diary made it clear that this major crisis had finally been averted!

But Saul wasn’t feeling much relief.

He carefully laid Keli on the nearest stone sarcophagus.

Even then, Keli’s body emitted a few more cracking sounds.

“Saul,” Keli’s breath was so faint he had to lean in to hear her, “I don’t have much time.”

“No, I’m going to start detoxifying you right now. I’ve studied Alpha too—worst case, I can at least preserve your soul—”

“Shut up!” Keli’s voice was weak, but her tone was as forceful as ever.

Saul shut up immediately, but his mind was racing through every bit of information he had on Alpha radiation poison.

To his surprise, the next thing he heard was Keli rattling off a string of formulas.

Saul was nearly too distracted to catch it—fortunately, Penny repeated it right after.

“What’s this?” Saul had a faint idea.

“It’s the framework I used before in my radiation antidote research,” Keli tried to make her voice clearer. “On the way here, I came up with a new approach.”

She glared at Saul and recited another formula. This time, Saul listened with full attention.

“My head’s about to explode…” Keli’s voice grew faint and hazy again. Using her last bit of strength, she said, “The rest is up to you. You’re such a genius—you’ll definitely find the antidote! Don’t let me die! I’ll haunt you even if I’m a ghost!”

With that, Keli’s eyes rolled back, and she completely passed out.

And yet, Saul was still mulling over the formulas Keli had just given him.

It was a dozen seconds before he finally let out a long sigh.

“Keli... you were the real genius all along.”

While Saul was working on formulating the antidote for Keli, Gorsa was once again attacked by Anze.

But this time, he didn’t fall.

From the crack in his chest, Yura’s entire form had almost fully merged into his body.

Yet the contamination on Gorsa’s body showed no further signs of worsening.

His back hunched slightly, arms shifting in front of him, head slowly rising.

“The resurrection experiment... it seems I’ll have to call it off.”

His words made the other mentors—still intent on killing him—freeze with dread.

“What does he mean, the resurrection experiment is off?”

“Wasn’t this whole thing already a counterattack using the contamination?”

Anze’s expression twisted violently, a strong urge to flee rising in his chest.

The moment Saul suddenly disappeared, he’d sensed something was wrong. He immediately grabbed Rum, trying everything he could to kill Gorsa before he finished mutating.

But the heavily injured Gorsa’s mental state was only improving.

This didn’t make sense!

“We really almost lost it just now,” Gorsa said, and suddenly seized the back of Yura’s spectral head embedded in his chest. “To kill me, you were willing to plant so much evil thoughts inside yourself.”

He yanked hard—tearing—and forcibly pulled Yura’s soul body straight out of his wound.

Along with it came the blackened flesh that had contaminated within his body.

But once that flesh hit the floor, it began to squirm, merging with the pool of black blood already soaking the ground.

Immediately after, a vast and explosive surge of terrifying magic power erupted from Gorsa.

Anze froze. A second later, he turned sharply to flee.

But before he could even pivot, an immense force came crashing down from above, pinning both him and Rum flat to the ground.

Only their eyes could move—bulging wide as they stared upward, utterly stunned as they looked at Gorsa.

“You...” This time it was Anze’s voice that turned hoarse. “You tricked us!”

The black bandages around Gorsa’s body began to peel away, one by one. But this time, what lay beneath was skin untouched by sunlight—fair and luminous.

That skin even shimmered with a pearlescent glow.

As the bandages unraveled bit by bit, a completely new Gorsa—one who could only be described as handsome—stood revealed before them all.

His silver eyes opened once more, now burning with a radiant platinum hue like the midday sun.

Monica, the only First-Rank wizard still standing, trembled as her lips parted.

“Could this... be the true appearance of Gorsa from the Glare Family?”

Gorsa waved a hand, and a nearby cloak flew over to him. He wrapped it around his shoulders, covering both himself and the soul form of Yura still dangling from his left hand.

“You’ve done well enough,” his voice grew gentle once more, as if he hadn’t just been on the brink of death.

“Looks like I pushed things too far and nearly let you succeed,” he sighed as he spoke, “But you ruined my resurrection experiment, and I’m truly very angry about that.”

He slowly walked over to Anze, looking down at the man who had plotted so meticulously against him.

“I knew you’d meddle with more than just the Blue Water Soul. What I didn’t expect was that Yura would go so far as to try and take me down with her, just to help you. And with that trap in the Wizard Tower’s interlayer... for a moment, I genuinely thought I was going to mutate.”

Gorsa tilted his head slightly. “If my hands weren’t full right now, I’d really want to give you a round of applause.”

Anze’s eyes were nearly bulging from their sockets, bloodshot and furious.

“You were never on the verge of mutation at all! You were faking it the whole time!”

“I never said I was mutating. I merely said I didn’t have much time left. But yes, I did let you misunderstand me on purpose.”

“Otherwise, how else would you have been so desperate to exploit my ‘weakness’ and put so much effort into sabotaging the resurrection experiment?”

“You all knew I would be able to determine the experiment’s viability—so in order to kill me, you had no choice but to try creating a truly feasible experiment yourselves.”

Anze let out a bitter, mocking laugh. “Hah. So that illusion of the future inside the interlayer wasn’t a prophecy at all—it was just a fabrication to mislead me.”

Gorsa gave a slight smile in return. “Just a little trick of mine.”

Then, as if recalling something, Gorsa’s expression dimmed.

“There was one thing you succeeded in. The little time I had left… is now completely gone.”

Beside Anze, Rum—still straining with every ounce of strength he had left to lift himself—suddenly looked up in shock and hope after hearing those words.

But before he could speak, Gorsa continued, “I’ve been suppressing myself for a long time. So long that I really started to think I might mutate. It’s a pity. I didn’t manage to complete the resurrection experiment before advancing. I’ll have to return to my family’s old path now.”

The moment the words left his mouth, the black blood beneath Gorsa’s feet began to move on its own, as if an invisible quill had dipped into ink and started drawing across the floor.

In just a few heartbeats, the resurrection experiment’s magic formation beneath their feet had transformed into a different one entirely!

Magic began to surge along the arcane symbols, resonating with the powerful waves of magic radiating from Gorsa himself.

“Since you’ve taken from me another path to advancement—then become the magic power that fuels my ascension.”

From the pitch-black blood-ink formation, a blinding white light suddenly burst forth.

And beneath that light, Anze and Rum—still pinned to the ground—both let out inhuman, bloodcurdling screams!

(End of Chapter)