Chapter Fifty-Four: Please! Let Me Die!

Senri Vis roared incessantly, as if determined to vent all the resentment and fury pent up within him. Only after a long while did his mood gradually settle, and the surroundings returned once more to that uncanny, eerie silence.

The white mist still obstructed Viel’s view; apart from those two bizarre violet-red points of light, nothing else could be seen. Viel cautiously shuffled two steps backward, trying to draw nearer to the mechanical suit behind him. Just then, the two violet-red lights ahead suddenly flickered twice, and Senri Vis’s harsh, metallic rasp echoed once more.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t get any closer to that mechanical armor in this situation…”

“What do you mean?!” Viel’s brows shot up, instinctively glancing at the suit behind him. In that instant, the previously inert mechanical armor abruptly resumed its movements. The runes etched upon its plating pulsed with faint magical glows, and atop the runes, the mana crystal gleamed with an unnaturally deep crimson.

“How is this possible?! How can it still move?! It should be completely drained of magic!” Viel’s eyes widened as he watched the nearly two-meter-tall mechanical suit stride steadily toward him. It halted only when the distance between them shrank to two meters.

One of the armor’s arms was nearly one meter seventy-eight in length; coupled with its inherent speed, to attack and strike Viel from two meters away would take but the blink of an eye.

“No magic? Tsk, tsk… Kid, it seems you still haven’t grasped something. I am Senri Vis, the Father of Alchemy! To fill a mechanical suit with magic without anyone noticing… heh, that’s child’s play for me…”

Senri Vis’s laughter was peculiar, broken and intermittent, as if he might expire at any moment. The mechanical suit behind Viel was now brimming with mana; Viel knew that at Senri Vis's whim, it could be ordered to kill him instantly. At this proximity, dodging an attack from such a suit was nearly impossible.

Resigned, Viel returned his magic staff, and his tightly knit brow gradually relaxed, though inwardly he cursed, “Old bastard! Damn you! %#a#￥%!”

“Not planning to resist anymore?”

Even through the haze, Senri Vis could perceive Viel’s every move, and with another strange chuckle, he continued, “I wager you’re cursing me in your heart right now—viciously, too… Fortunately, I don’t care. If a man has lived over a thousand years—like me, for one thousand three hundred fifty years—his state of mind is bound to reach a tranquility you can scarcely imagine.”

Senri Vis spoke at an exasperatingly slow pace, yet Viel did not interrupt him, choosing instead to stand quietly in place. Whether he was listening or not, only Viel himself knew.

“Well, kid, I bet you’re wondering what I look like, aren’t you? Heh… An old immortal, over a thousand years old—am I still as youthful as a man of twenty-five or twenty-six? Or am I a gaunt old man of seventy or eighty? Or perhaps I resemble a half-grown child?… Hey! Kid, are you listening?”

“Of course.” Viel nodded, calling out to the front, “Guessing like this is pointless, but I suspect you’ll show me, won’t you?”

“Yes! You’ll never guess, heh heh…”

Senri Vis’s laughter was shrill and grating, but Viel’s attention had already shifted elsewhere, for at that moment, the heavy mist around them began to dissipate, and the surroundings grew clearer bit by bit. Before Viel’s eyes, a towering, four-meter-tall jet-black mechanical suit emerged, its grotesque visage so menacing that even Viel could not help but feel a chill.

“Kid, do you know what my proudest achievement in life is?” From the armor, Viel sensed an unprecedented pressure; two strange violet-red beams shot from the suit’s eyes, seeming as though they might pierce right through him.

“I do. Senri Vis, the Father of Alchemy—his greatest accomplishment is Life Alchemy!” Viel replied to the looming black suit. Yet, despite his words, a sense of unease gnawed at him, for he could detect no sign of life from the mechanical suit before him. If Senri Vis’s crowning achievement was Life Alchemy, why was there not the faintest trace of life here?

“Correct, it is life… At twenty, I proposed the theory of Life Alchemy: that alchemy could merge with life itself. Many opposed the idea, but ultimately, I succeeded. I could seamlessly fuse alchemy with life; I could transform frail human bodies into mechanical limbs, implant alchemy within their flesh, grant survival to those without hearts—I could accomplish much more… But in the end, a greater problem confronted me, one I was powerless to overcome. Do you know what it was? Yes—it was life. With my alchemy, I could achieve feats unimaginable to ordinary men, but all depended on the subject still being alive! For those already dead, I had no solution… No one escapes death.”

“I proposed the theory of Life Alchemy, but after all my efforts, it was still the matter of life—of birth and death—that hindered me. My alchemy could solve life, but not death… Death is simple, but to turn death back into life is exceedingly difficult. So I thought, if that’s the case, why not just solve immortality?”

Hearing Senri Vis’s words, Viel’s heart suddenly skipped a beat. Solve immortality—that was the legendary quest for eternal life! Judging by the outcome, Senri Vis had indeed succeeded. Viel could not say for certain if it was true immortality, but he was sure: Senri Vis had mastered deathlessness.

“To achieve this goal, I conducted countless experiments—first on magical beasts, then on humans. Oh, yes, for this purpose I specially constructed this underground fortress… I thought I could quietly pursue my research here, but to my surprise, my students and assistants began to suspect me! They believed experimenting on humans was… well… highly unethical…”

Senri Vis spoke as slowly as ever, and his indifferent tone made it seem as though the protagonist of his tale was not himself.

“And then you killed them?!” Viel sneered, interrupting Senri Vis for the first time.

“Kid, let me correct you—I did not kill them, I simply used them for experiments! That’s entirely different from killing.”

“A different concept? Hmph, how ridiculous…” Viel snorted, his distaste for Senri Vis now palpable. With a mocking tone, he asked, “So, great Senri Vis, Father of Alchemy! Are you now planning to add me to those placed in crystal tubes… your assistants, your students—to use me for your immortality research?”

“Oh! No! Certainly not! I’ve already achieved immortality in life—I need nothing more!”

Senri Vis abruptly cut Viel off in a shrill tone, then his voice softened, almost pleading. Yes, pleading—though Viel felt that such a description ought never apply to Senri Vis. When the ancient alchemist uttered his next words, Viel was stunned.

Senri Vis, the old immortal who had lived for one thousand three hundred fifty years, six months, and seven days, the man hailed as the Father of Alchemy, now made a request to Viel.

“Please, let me die.”