Failed Possession Chapter-88

### Ch-88.

—

“Hmm…”

The transmission had succeeded—but moving the body still felt awkward.

It was not a major problem. The soul follows the flesh. With Orca’s ability, the synchronization with the body would soon be complete.

Orca blinked several times and sifted through memory.

The spell was not yet perfected, so she could not fully share all memories and understanding. However, the most recent memories necessary to grasp the present situation surfaced.

“A connection, you say.”

At Orca’s will, Lacy’s lips parted.

A low chuckle escaped her as she slowly nodded.

“As you say, there is a connection between us.”

Within the seething lightning, Agwi ground his teeth and stamped his foot. Yet the Blade Storm, swollen even further, shook off the lightning.

“Orca Dercia?”

It was difficult to comprehend—but he had to force a judgment.

Whatever “magic” had caused this, the one standing before him was no longer Lacy Yuzuha, but Heavenly Thunder Orca inhabiting her body.

‘Possession…?’

Had she reproduced possession through magic?

As Agwi wrestled with that thought, Orca slipped off the white coat she had been wearing.

“It has been nearly twenty years, yet it remains a memory I cannot forget. Even in my long life, it was among the most unusual experiences.”

That day, Orca had nearly died in a trap.

Had the Faceless Killer not intervened, she certainly would have.

Thus, standing within this space stirred many emotions in her.

“The quality is inferior to the trap you prepared to kill me. I suppose you did not anticipate facing a Tower Master?”

It was true.

Among the mages at the exposition hall, there had been no Grand Mage worth guarding against.

To prepare a sanctuary capable of confronting a Tower Master would have made tuning the Rift—and resisting external interference—far more difficult.

So instead of answering, Agwi stepped back.

Under the current conditions, fighting Heavenly Thunder Orca required staking too much.

Especially since Heavenly Thunder ranked unquestionably among the top three Tower Masters in combat.

“Well…”

Orca twisted one corner of her lips upward.

Crackle—!

Lightning coiled around both her hands, forming black gloves.

“Even if it were the same trap as back then, you alone could never have killed me.”

Crack.

At those words, veins bulged along Agwi’s neck.

Wasn’t this merely the “real” Heavenly Thunder’s soul inhabiting another’s body?

If so—

Wasn’t this the perfect opportunity to kill her?

‘In a body that isn’t even her own, she can’t possibly exert full power.’

Even if he himself could not use divine power right now, there was no reason to fear this incomplete Orca.

No— even if she were at full strength, it would not matter.

More than fifteen years had passed.

In that time, the power Agwi had accumulated was not so trivial that he should hesitate simply because his opponent was a Tower Master.

‘I’ll make you regret coming here.’

If he killed Orca here, it would be an achievement even the other Saints would have to acknowledge.

Even if the Rift’s creation failed—

So long as Orca died.

The head of a Tower Master held that much value.

His decision was made.

Kill Orca.

Agwi’s massive body vanished from everyone’s sight.

It was a completely different movement from when he had faced Yuri.

No more toying with a bug to inflict suffering beyond death.

Now—

He moved to kill.

To win.

Without regard for pain.

Orca did not move from her spot.

She had no need to.

At the moment Agwi disappeared, her magic was already deployed.

Pajjijik!

Lightning erupted in empty space.

In that instant, Agwi’s form reappeared.

“Kraaagh!”

He shrieked, writhing within the lightning.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

With calm eyes, Orca watched him, tapping the air lightly with her black-gloved fingers.

Death Gate Sealing Thunder.

Senses sharpened by lightning produced intuition that surpassed prediction and reached precognition.

At the same time, the lightning flowing through space observed even the faintest movement of mana, responding to every incoming calamity by striking first.

It was magic beyond Yuri’s comprehension.

Though mana within the sanctuary was densely congealed, it posed no obstacle to Orca.

Lightning from Death Gate Sealing Thunder detonated repeatedly.

Agwi did not retreat.

Instead, he advanced.

In his beast-transformed state, Agwi possessed resistance to various elemental magics.

‘Shallow…!’

Lightning that would have reduced most foes to ash in a single strike—

Agwi could endure.

Proof that Orca’s firepower was weaker than her original body.

If so, he would endure the hits and close in.

Grinding his teeth, Agwi leapt.

With a single bound, he covered the distance in an instant.

Orca’s body shot backward.

The lightning she had been holding was drawn into the surrounding currents.

‘So she can’t use Thunder God Form?’

Orca possessed Thunder God Form, which rendered her immune to all physical attacks.

But that spell transformed both body and soul entirely into lightning.

In a borrowed body, she could not possibly use such an advanced signature spell.

Even if she could—

There were methods effective against such opponents.

‘Hmm.’

The output is indeed weaker.

Watching Agwi move, Orca assessed calmly.

‘He cannot use divine power either.’

Borrowing another’s body imposed constraints.

Her soul was here—not merely her consciousness.

If it were a martial artist in such a state, their dantian’s internal energy and physical capability would be restricted.

But soul-force resided in the soul itself.

The formulas lived in Orca’s memory.

Through them, she could cast signature spells—

But it was true she could not unleash her full power.

Push too far, and Lacy’s body would break.

The body was a vessel for the soul.

Lacy’s vessel was still too fragile to contain Orca’s soul.

“And yet… you are like a foolish beast.”

Orca chuckled.

If it were another Saint, she would need resolve.

But not now.

Agwi charging in as though this were an opportunity—

To Orca’s eyes, he was little different from a fattened pig.

His Divine Authority—

She did not know its name, but she knew it was a tree that rooted itself in humans and harvested souls.

Agwi devoured others’ souls to grow his own.

An artificially inflated soul-force.

Among the Tower Masters, none possessed soul-force equal to his.

But greater soul-force did not automatically mean stronger magic.

Just as abundant internal energy did not guarantee powerful martial arts—

Magic was the same.

Heavenly Thunder Orca.

A true Grand Mage who had reigned over the Dercia Magic Tower for decades.

She had never received miracles from a godlike being.

The magic she had built was the result of a lifetime’s achievement.

To her eyes—

Agwi’s magic was shallow and trivial.

That contempt became lightning.

Agwi advanced while enduring Death Gate Sealing Thunder.

That was enough.

Lightning Marks had already been engraved upon him.

Orca’s lightning would now *never* miss.

Kwarrrrr!

Agwi’s hand cleaved through empty air.

Through the precognition of Death Gate Sealing Thunder, Orca had already moved outside the attack’s radius.

At the same time, dozens of lightning bolts surged toward him.

They appeared to be nothing more than simple streaks of lightning—

But to Agwi, they were not.

He could not respond.

He did not even hear the familiar crackling.

The lightning arrived before he realized it—

And blasted away his consciousness.

To Yuri and Haryeong as well—

It looked that way.

Orca’s lightning was too fast.

All they saw was that at some unknowable moment, Agwi was suddenly wrapped in lightning, convulsing.

His thoughts snapped—cut—fragmented.

Yet Agwi forcibly connected them.

His Blade Storm held overwhelming superiority against physical attacks—

But against elemental magic like this—

Especially lightning—

It was poorly matched.

That was true of Blade Storm alone.

But now he was *transformed*.

The specs generated by this transformation magic were influenced by soul-force.

That was why he had chosen the Spirit-Devouring Tree—why he had grown his soul-force through Divine Authority.

He had even layered it with geas.

The problem was—

He could not use divine power now.

He had sworn to the God of Chaos for greater strength.

Yet the divine power gained through that oath was unusable due to tuning the Rift.

That—

Was the problem.

‘If I can just get close somehow…’

As if mocking that very thought, Orca raised her hand.

—Pajjijik!

A massive spear of lightning manifested.

With it grasped in her hand, she looked like a god of thunder.

The moment it appeared in sight, the lightning spear had already pierced through Agwi’s body.

“Keuuh—!”

The thoughts he had barely stitched together snapped apart again.

Too fast.

Fragments of sensation drifted beyond consciousness.

Agwi struggled to wrench the spear from his body, but the lightning drawn in by it stabbed into him repeatedly.

“Agwi.”

Orca smiled as she spoke.

Chizzz—

Her surroundings were already completely golden.

Though this was the center of a pseudo-sanctuary once filled with unsettling darkness, the lightning radiating from Orca’s soul-force was bright enough to sting the eyes.

“You played for far too long.”

That was the only possible evaluation of this situation.

Agwi should never have toyed with them.

The moment he first considered variables, he should have eradicated them all.

He should have killed Yuri in a single blow instead of playing with him.

He should have killed Haryeong and Lacy immediately.

Had he done so, Orca would never have come here.

“But I do not play for long.”

Orca did not have much time.

This transmission spell was incomplete.

And Lacy, as a vessel, was not prepared to contain Orca’s soul.

If she prolonged this too much, the vessel would shatter—

And if the vessel shattered, what it held would spill out.

The backlash would not only fall upon Lacy, but upon Orca herself.

She had no intention of paying that price.

Orca’s eyes lifted to the sky.

The thick darkness pooling there was heavy with ill omen.

An artificial Rift.

There was much she would have liked to interrogate Agwi about—but she did not have the time.

“No—!”

Agwi stretched out his hand to stop her—but it was too late.

Against Orca, whatever one thought, attempted, or did—

Was always too late.

—Kkwaaaang!

A colossal bolt of lightning tore across the blackened sky and burrowed into the Rift.

“Kaaaagh!”

The divine power pooled within the Rift was scattered by the lightning.

And the divine power thus scattered did not return to Agwi—

It burned within the lightning fire.

Orca was not careless.

She thoroughly incinerated the divine power, while simultaneously continuing to hammer lightning into Agwi’s body.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Each strike of lightning drove Agwi’s body downward.

Even the Blade Storm he had maintained began to fade.

—Kuuuuung…!

The tremors from outside grew *closer*.

As divine power scattered and grand spells continued to slam into Agwi, the core of the sanctuary shook.

The enemy outside did not miss that instability.

Through the flashing lightning, Agwi’s eyes glimpsed beyond the sanctuary.

First, he saw a woman backed by a crimson dragon.

Behind her, the Iron Fortress concentrating magic—and priests kneeling in prayer.

‘Catastrophic Tempest…!’

So it was that brainless muscle woman?

Their gazes met.

Outside the sanctuary, Eleia and Agwi locked eyes.

Her lips twisted into a smile.

Kkwaaaang!

Her greatsword crashed down, shaking the sanctuary violently.

The pseudo-sanctuary began to collapse.

That only heightened Agwi’s urgency.

The Rift.

He thought of it desperately.

The lightning that had burrowed into it had not vanished—it was spreading.

‘Extinction Thunderfire…!’

A signature spell that burned things without substance—mana, soul-force, divine power.

Once unleashed, Extinction Thunderfire continued detonating lightning until all was brought to annihilation.

‘She can use a signature spell of that level?’

Agwi could endure in his current state.

But endurance alone provided no solution.

If it were only Orca, he could hold out and search for an opening—

But if the sanctuary collapsed, he would be exposed to the enemies outside.

The Archbishop of the Earth Church might be absent—

But outside stood the Iron Fortress, Tower Master of Havert.

And Catastrophic Tempest as well.

If they intervened—

It would be over.

The sanctuary was already collapsing.

Agwi hurriedly began to withdraw the divine power from the Rift.

He could not allow it all to be consumed by Extinction Thunderfire.

“Planning to stop?”

Orca asked with a smile.

Chizzz—chizzzzik!

The mere act of beginning to withdraw divine power restored some of his resistance to lightning.

But not yet.

He had poured in too much divine power.

Retrieving it would take more time.

And the Spirit-Devouring Tree.

He had no intention of abandoning the hostages’ souls bound within dreams.

It did not matter if they had not yet reached peak happiness sufficient for harvest.

The Rift had failed.

Killing Heavenly Thunder had failed.

Then at least—

The hostages must die.

Only then could it be called terror.

Only then could chaos be sown.

If even the hostages survived, then everything he had attempted would be a failure—and punishment would be unavoidable.

Agwi’s thoughts were obvious.

They required no careful prediction.

In truth, Orca did not particularly care how many hostages died today—

But having come this far, if she did not at least make the gesture of saving them, the aftermath would be bothersome.

“I cannot allow that—”

Should she simply blast his head off with lightning?

That brute was so sturdy he might not die even if decapitated.

After all, his body was under transformation magic.

And high-ranking priests who wielded “miracles” often produced phenomena even a mage’s flexible mind struggled to comprehend.

Still—

Blasting off his head would be effective.

At the very least, it would halt his thoughts.

Just as she decided to strike—

Behind Agwi, crouched within lightning—

Yuri moved.

‘What is he trying to do?’

His body was drenched in blood.

Severe wounds, bone exposed—yet somehow he still moved.

Judging from his injuries, he must have hastily poured potions over himself to recover just enough—but he should not be moving at all in that condition.

In truth, he did not need to.

The situation was already over.

Unable to handle Orca, Agwi had chosen to collapse the sanctuary and abandon the Rift.

Reinforcements from outside would arrive soon.

And yet—

Yuri moved.

Why?

‘You bastard.’

Agwi.

That bastard had done too much filthy shit.

He had forced Yuri into vile, unpleasant dreams.

He had nearly killed him.

Trying to break through that damned Blade Storm had left his body shredded.

He had poured and drunk potions—but every movement still hurt like hell.

And worst of all—

‘I benefited you.’

He had no intention of claiming copyright over strategy guides.

But the fact that Agwi had risen to become a Saint and rampaged using a build Yuri himself had posted—

Filled him with complicated irritation and anger.

If that were all, perhaps he could let it go.

He knew full well—

He did not need to move.

With Orca here, the authority over this battle had passed to her.

Agwi was one of those responsible for the Laspion family massacre.

The enemy Bakered had searched for decades after becoming Fist Wolf.

Yuri had never heard Bakered speak directly of revenge.

But he knew of the Laspion tragedy.

He knew Bakered desired revenge.

He already knew—

And he did not want to pretend ignorance simply because it had never been spoken aloud.

It did not matter that Bakered had never asked.

He had done more than enough beyond his ability—

But he did not want to sit back clutching his wounds and watch.

He did not want to let Agwi go like this.

He had to drive one more punch into that bastard.

[What are you trying to do?]

Unable to decipher it, Orca asked plainly.

[Please help me land just one more hit.]

Yuri asked just as plainly.

At that reply, the corner of Orca’s mouth twitched.

[Very well.]

There was no reason to refuse.

The lightning around Orca intensified.

Lacy’s violet hair fluttered upward.

Orca’s outstretched hands crossed.

Pajjijijik!

Lightning surged to a level that pushed the vessel to its limit and crashed down upon Agwi.

The fading Blade Storm vanished completely.

Agwi’s limbs were pierced through by lightning.

“Kaaagh!”

He had just begun retrieving the souls bound by the Spirit-Devouring Tree.

Even as divine power surged violently into him, he tried to shake off the lightning—

But at that moment—

Yuri leapt in front of him.

‘You bastard…!’

Agwi’s face twisted.

The holy flame gathered in Yuri’s fist—

And slammed into Agwi’s chest.