— — — — — —
Tom raised a massive hammer formed entirely from condensed magic and swung it wildly at the eleventh palace. Terrifying shockwaves rippled outward with every blow, yet beneath the endless canopy of stars, they seemed almost insignificant.
"Hyah!"
Putting everything else aside, at least this felt good. He relished the sensation of magic pouring out of him in a reckless torrent.
Sometimes being too strong wasn't a good thing. Outside of the study space, it had been a long time since he'd experienced this kind of heavy magic consumption. Casting spells lately felt almost… hollow.
And his magic kept growing along with his knowledge. Lately, under the influence of the Witch's Heart talent, he'd been studying dark magic every day. At the same time, new ideas for light magic kept coming to him, and he'd even awakened quite a bit of dormant bloodline power. His magic reserves were in a phase of explosive growth.
Even Morgan had called him a monster. She didn't bother hiding the jealousy in her eyes, and said he couldn't be judged by the standards anymore.
But still... the eleventh palace was hard to open with his current magic. Its doors required not only quantity, but quality. Tom strongly suspected this palace had originally been meant for after he broke into the Legendary tier.
The trial probably never expected him to reach the eleventh stage while still at the "Century King" level.
Still, this worked out nicely. Tom circulated his vast magic through arithmancy circuits, compressing it to the extreme before releasing it.
Every swing consumed a staggering amount.
...
..
After two hours—
The palace doors had already opened to forty degrees. Based on the previous palace, once it reached forty-five degrees, it would count as success and the rest would open on its own.
Each hammer strike made the doors tremble and shift slightly wider. The angle increased bit by bit, and Tom grew more excited with every hit.
BOOM!
At last, when the opening reached forty-five degrees, the light curtain blocking entry vanished. Tom couldn't stop in time and flung himself in along with the hammer.
He had entered the previously completed palaces before. Their layouts were identical; only the carved patterns differed, each corresponding to a different great feat.
The first palace had a fire dragon. The second had a unicorn. The third had Cerberus.
But this was his first time entering an unfinished palace.
Inside, everything was chaos. It felt like another world. No up or down. No left or right. Even the concept of time disappeared.
Existence itself felt uncertain.
As soon as the trial information arrived, Tom's consciousness was ejected. When he looked back, the light wall had reappeared.
He shook his head and checked the mission details.
[Eleventh Trial · God]
[Description: Having completed ten great feats, you have already secured a bold page in history. The next trial will be even more difficult, and the rewards even richer.]
[Task Requirements: This trial is divided into two stages.]
[Requirement 1: The host must locate divine aura and integrate it into oneself (Completed).]
[Requirement 2: The host must slay an enemy possessing divine aura. Race unrestricted (Incomplete).]
[Note: To assist the host in hunting targets, the talent "Divinity Perception" is granted, allowing detection of beings or units possessing divine power within a certain range.]
Tom blinked blankly.
What the hell? The jump was this huge? They wanted an underage kid to go… kill a divinity?
The first half of the task was basically a joke too. Had this dumb trial forgotten the Golden Apple? That was literally a reward it had given him.
Then Tom suddenly realized. At its core, this was Heracles' 12 Labors. Heracles himself was a demigod and had slaughtered quite a few demigods. So the eleventh trial was asking him to do the same.
So what was the reward?
Tom looked down at the final line.
[Task Reward: Shooting the Hundred Heads.]
[Shooting the Hundred Heads: The shooting technique used by Heracles to eliminate the Hydra. It can be infused into different weapons, displaying power capable of shattering mountains and evaporating seas.]
Good stuff.
The boy's eyes lit up. He liked this reward a lot. If it were just archery skill, he wouldn't be interested. But "Shooting the Hundred Heads" could be integrated into spells without changing his combat style.
The task requirements, though, were troublesome. Creatures with divinity… besides himself and Rayquaza, the only one he'd seen was Quetzalcoatl.
But he didn't even know whether Quetzalcoatl was still in this world or era. Where was he supposed to find one?
For a moment, Tom fell into troubled thought.
He wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep.
Inside the headmaster's office, Dumbledore sat alone in his chair, sighing again and again.
He felt miserable...
A long time ago, Dumbledore developed a fondness for sweets. He kept that habit until Ariana was resurrected.
Perhaps thinking too much sugar wasn't healthy, he later switched to tea, and occasionally refreshing fruit juice. To his surprise, those tasted quite good too.
But tonight, sitting in front of him were two bottles of thirty-year dry red wine. One and a half of them were already empty.
The old man's face was flushed.
He had actually known for a long time about the strange connection between Harry and Voldemort. Whether it was the prophecy, or Tom's "Harry-control technique" demonstrated in first year, he had always been aware. At the time, though, his thoughts stayed focused on the protective magic Lily left behind at the moment of her death.
It wasn't until the diary appeared that he realized Voldemort's method of resisting death was Horcruxes.
Not one. Not two. Not three.
Even now, he still didn't know how many Horcruxes Voldemort had made. But today, Grindelwald had effectively confirmed one thing for him: Harry himself was a half-finished Horcrux.
Both of them were gifted in dark magic, but Grindelwald had clearly studied it more deeply. Some of the theories he brought up made everything suddenly click.
And with that clarity came endless trouble.
Dumbledore had always carried a sense of guilt toward Harry. He rarely met the boy's eyes. Like Snape, he feared seeing Lily's eyes again, set in James's face.
During Voldemort's reign of terror, the Potters became famous for escaping his pursuit three times. Few people knew that in those three escapes, the Invisibility Cloak had played a crucial role.
So when Voldemort finally came to their door…
Why didn't they escape using the cloak?
Because Dumbledore had borrowed it. Even knowing about the prophecy, he had still borrowed the Invisibility Cloak.
And now Grindelwald had told him that sacrificing Harry would destroy one of Voldemort's most hidden Horcruxes.
Dumbledore admitted that, in the instant he heard it, he was tempted.
But the moment passed, replaced by firm refusal.
He could sacrifice many people. He could send Pierce to his death without changing expression.
But Harry… no.
Harry was the child of prophecy. Or rather… the child he himself had forcibly shaped, guiding everything to follow the prophecy's path.
If not for Tom, that anomaly, he might already be training Harry to stand against Voldemort.
"Damn you, Gellert…"
The usually gentle Dumbledore rarely cursed. He muttered under his breath, "You did this on purpose."
He realized it too. Grindelwald had deliberately chosen this joyful occasion to stir up trouble for him.
What he couldn't possibly know was that this was actually Tom getting revenge behind the scenes.
---
Ten minutes later, the door to Grindelwald's bedroom was violently blasted open.
"Gellert, are you asleep?!"
"Albus, you bastard! Asking after blasting my door? What the hell is wrong with you?"
.
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