"The Book of Law, Chapter Three, Section 72: I am the 'Master of the Powerful Twin Staves.' This staff is the power of COPH.NIA, but my left hand is empty, for my right hand has shattered the universe, leaving nothing behind!"
"..."
"The Book of Law, Chapter Three, Section 74: My hidden and honored name contains radiance, just as the sun at midnight is forever the Son!"
"The Book of Law, Chapter Three, Section 75: The word that ends everything is: ABRAHADABRA!"
"The Book of Law was written, then hidden. AUM.HA, AUM.HA!"
As Roy's right hand finished writing the final letter of The Book of Law with a quill, the book suddenly began to turn its pages without any wind. The rustling echoed through the bedroom. Roy's eyes remained vacant, his heartbeat strong and his breathing steady, but his brain had ceased to function, as if his spirit had left his body, crossed the Material World, and traveled to another unknown "phase."
This was a phase where only spirits existed. It lacked every known material thing. Neither physical laws nor the familiar rules of mankind applied here. It had its own set of laws.
This was Roy's first time in this wondrous phase. Because he was unfamiliar with it, his body could not move for the moment. In fact, even something like a "body" did not exist here. All he had left was thought.
And just as Roy carried out the only thing he could do—think—a voice suddenly rang out in this phase, which should have contained only Roy and no other existence.
The voice sounded both male and female, as if it contained infinite possibilities. Its owner exclaimed in wonder, as if it had discovered some novel animal. "...Interesting, interesting. How did you come to this phase?"
"...Oh? Let me think. It should have been through The Book of Law. If I remember correctly, that book should have fallen into the hands of the Roman Orthodox Church by now. Were you one of the people the Roman Orthodox Church sent to decipher The Book of Law?"
"It seems I underestimated the Roman Orthodox Church. Someone truly managed to find the correct path of interpretation amid endless errors."
The voice continued speaking to itself, its tone somewhat flippant. Then Roy "saw" a humanoid figure appear in this empty phase. He had long silver hair reaching his back and wore a magnificent black coat resembling a military uniform. A long military cloak hung from his shoulders, giving the man a hint of solemnity amid his elegance.
This was a man whose face and bearing alone were enough to make countless women fall for him.
Aleister Crowley. The moment Roy "saw" the man, he recognized him.
The father of this body—the father he had never met. "Beast of Revelation," "King of Beasts," "The Most Evil Man in the World," and countless other titles belonged to him.
After seeing Aleister Crowley, Roy's astonishment suddenly turned into wild joy. He had been wondering how to find this man, yet after completing The Book of Law, he had encountered him in this wondrous phase.
Roy wanted to speak, but he could not utter a single word. The laws of this phase were entirely different from those of the Material World. Until he adapted to and understood them, he could not perform even the simple act of "speaking."
Roy did not even have a body now. He was merely a spirit—a thinking spirit.
Aleister, however, was different. He clearly understood this phase and had studied it deeply. Not only could he speak with ease here, he could even manifest his own form.
"This is an Imaginary Phase. It is unfortunate for you to meet me here, unknown one... 'Imagine Breaker' was broken during the battle with Mathers. For the sake of my grand plan, it is not yet time for you to transmit my location to the magicians."
Aleister Crowley spoke these words. Then, under Roy's astonished gaze, the greatest magician of the twentieth century slowly raised his right hand. He clenched it into a fist, extended his thumb and index finger, and made a gunshot gesture known to everyone.
The muzzle pointed directly at Roy!
Chapter Six: BEAST666 and BEAST777
This was Aleister's unique Sorcery Equipment—Spirit Binding, a magic that forcibly implanted the caster's imagined image into the observer's mind.
Simply put, the caster made a gesture to guide the target. Under instinctive influence, the target would imagine the weapon, power, and might represented by that gesture. The magic then turned that imagination into reality and inflicted it upon the target.
It was a magic that caused victims to be killed by their own imaginations.
Aleister pointed his finger-gun at Roy, first making Roy think of a handgun, the weapon he knew best. But then, sparks flew from the hand making the gesture, and three numbers appeared: "50, 21, 35."
These mysterious numbers connected to Roy's brain, guiding his thoughts and imagination. The tiny handgun in his mind had already transformed into an anti-materiel rifle.
For Roy in his current state, an anti-materiel rifle was enough to cut him in half and kill him outright.
As if that were still insufficient, Aleister beckoned with his empty left hand. A silver-white staff resembling a spiral tower appeared in his palm.
The Staff of Impact. This Sorcery Equipment had originally belonged to Aleister's teacher, Alan Bennett. After a certain incident, the dying Alan Bennett passed it on to Aleister.
Neither the Staff of Impact nor Spirit Binding displayed anything exaggerated in isolation. But when the two Sorceries were combined, they produced unimaginable power.
As an auxiliary Sorcery, the Staff of Impact increased the imagined might of Spirit Binding tenfold. This was one of Aleister's trump cards for confronting Demon Gods in a mortal body.
Demon Gods could twist all rules and possessed an unimaginable amount of knowledge. Thus, they also possessed immeasurable imagination. Under Spirit Binding's guidance and the Staff of Impact's tenfold amplification, even a Demon God would struggle to endure it.
Roy never expected Aleister to take him so seriously. Perhaps astonished that Roy had "deciphered" the secret of The Book of Law, he had used almost his ultimate move from the beginning, determined to eliminate him with one strike.
But Roy felt no honor or pride whatsoever. In his perception, the anti-materiel rifle's power had been amplified by the Staff of Impact until it was nearly an intercontinental missile.
An anti-materiel rifle was already enough to kill Roy. Using an intercontinental missile to kill an ordinary person was even more absurd.
The fear of death surged from the depths of Roy's Sea of Consciousness like a volcanic eruption, filling his every thought. Endless despair nearly drove him mad, while the evil from Avici Hell dragged him toward a void from which he could never escape.
He would die. He would certainly die. Even a powerful person with the Mind's Eye could not find the slightest chance of survival in this Desperate Situation.
Roy was merely an ordinary fifteen-year-old boy. He knew only a few basic suggestive spells and understood nothing of any stronger, systematic magic.
Yet his enemy was the greatest magician of the twentieth century, the founder of modern occultism, a mythic existence who sought to destroy magic alone and dared to oppose the entire world—Aleister Crowley!
Aleister's opposition to the entire world was no exaggeration but a genuine fact. Every magician in the world was his enemy. Even the Demon Gods who could reverse life and death, rewrite rules, and distort the world had long since been placed on Aleister's list of enemies.
The disparity was already despairing. Yet to ensure absolute certainty, Aleister had immediately used one of his strongest methods for opposing Demon Gods.
"BEAST 666!!"
Only then did Aleister reveal his Magic Name. In the modern magical world, this represented a situation in which neither side would stop until the other was dead.
"BOOM—"
Roy's thoughts exploded in an instant. All his consciousness completely scattered, as if an entire ocean had been evaporated.
It was like an ordinary human being struck directly by an intercontinental missile. Beneath the raging flames and shock wave, only tiny fragments of a corpse could remain—perhaps not even those.
Countless bizarre scenes flashed through Roy's mind. There were scenes from the ordinary twenty-plus years of his life before transmigration, as well as fragments of the warm yet difficult life he had led with Laura in London after transmigrating.
Every scene was unbelievably clear, as if Roy had lived his entire life again in an instant.
He knew this was the flash of lucidity said to appear before death.
At the very end, Roy's consciousness arrived at a book—The Book of 777, the culmination of Aleister Crowley's thought.
The ideas in this book were still filled with Aleister Crowley's imagination. It was like a martial-arts master creating an ultimate manual, while even the creator himself had not reached its deepest level.
Aleister was the same. The Book of 777 recorded more of his future vision for his path, a realm he himself had yet to attain.
But at the moment before Roy's death, his thoughts seemed to undergo infinite sublimation. He comprehended the contents of The Book of 777, turning them completely into knowledge that belonged to him.
"BEAST 777. I Shall Transcend Human Evil!!"
A Magic Name was the reason a magician used magic. It was engraved in the magician's heart, a thought that guided them forward like a beacon, and the foundation they could never forget.
At this moment of certain death, Roy finally understood the path he had to follow through the knowledge recorded in The Book of 777. In the name of "God," he would bear "Human Evil," become the beginning of Genesis, and become the end of Revelation!
As Roy recited his Magic Name in this Imaginary Phase, his form finally manifested within it.
When Aleister saw Roy's true appearance, the expression on his face became extraordinarily vivid.
Astonishment, shock, disbelief, realization, calm, bitterness, and finally, miserable despair.
"Clang—"
The Staff of Impact slipped from Aleister's palm and fell onto the empty ground. He himself fell to his knees.
"No----------"
Hearing Aleister's heart-rending, mournful scream, Roy did not know why, but all he wanted to do now was laugh.
He had never expected his life to end so inexplicably.
To hear the Way in the morning and die in the evening—those words from the Analects perfectly described Roy now.
At that moment, Roy seemed to hear a sigh, followed by a faint whisper:
"What thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
Roy's consciousness sank completely.
Chapter Seven: The Supreme Pontiff
Aleister Crowley had countless flaws and shortcomings, making him worlds apart from the description of a "perfect man."
Yet no matter how many faults Aleister had, there was one thing so noble that everyone respected him for it: his love for his family.
The man appeared cold, almost devoid of human emotion, but that was merely a disguise for the profound love in the depths of his heart. Aleister was a man willing to give everything for his family, even to oppose the world.
He sought to destroy magic and bring down the Demon Gods not because of some lofty ambition or ideal, but simply because magic's existence had caused his eldest daughter to die before she was born.
Aleister was a man of simple, pure conviction. For a child who had died before she was even born, he would stand against the entire world. He wanted only to take revenge on the magical world that had prevented his daughter from living and break the fate he could never accept.
At the instant Roy disappeared, he saw Aleister's true nature.
He was a man who lived forever amid failure and setbacks. No matter what Aleister wanted to do, no matter how meticulous the plan he had spent decades preparing was, he would encounter setbacks along the way. In the end, he would always fail. Then he would rise again from failure and continue his life—a life destined never to succeed.
He was a pitiful, laughable, and tragic man. Only after seeing his father's true nature did Roy laugh.
For a man who loved his family so deeply, personally killing his own son—even by accident—would surely become a nightmare Aleister could never forget.
This irresponsible father—this was Roy's greatest revenge against him!
"Brother... Brother? Roy?"
Laura Stuart walked out of the storeroom, wiping her delicate hands with a faded but clean towel. She called out to her brother in confusion. Normally, whenever she called him, he would respond immediately. But today, Roy strangely made no sound.
When she reached the living room and looked at the chair where her brother usually sat, it was already empty.
The confusion slowly vanished from Laura's face. She silently walked to the table.
The Book of 777 on the table was burning without flame, gradually turning to ash.
Laura knew that for a Demonic Path Canon, this meant that someone had completely obtained all the knowledge within it. The Demonic Path Canon had lost its purpose.
The Book of 777 completely turned to dust. The final part to disappear was the author's name—Aleister Crowley.
Laura gently touched the chair that still held Roy's warmth, then left the room without looking back.
St. George's Cathedral in London was the headquarters of the English Anglican Church. The Anglican Church, or Protestant Church, was one of Christianity's three major branches, with nine hundred million believers worldwide.
At some point, Laura had changed out of her plain dress and put on a beige clerical robe.
The robe seemed somewhat bulky for a fifteen-year-old girl, as though it had not been made for her figure. As Laura climbed the steps of St. George's Cathedral, her body underwent a tremendous change.
Her magnificent pale-golden hair had originally reached her ankles. In an instant, it grew rapidly, becoming almost two and a half times her height. Her thin, slightly malnourished body also changed, becoming fuller and healthier. The fifteen-year-old girl seemed to cross time itself, growing directly into an eighteen-year-old with a mature and breathtakingly beautiful figure.
Laura folded her unnaturally long hair back from her ankles, then folded it back again from behind her head. Even after folding it twice, her beautiful hair still reached her waist.
She somehow produced a silver hair clip and fastened her hair. At the same time, the folded hair perfectly concealed the demonic face within it.
St. George's Cathedral was pitch-black, so quiet that it felt eerie.
Laura walked slowly down the aisle and stopped beneath the cathedral's cross. She lowered her head as if praying to God. After a long while, she suddenly raised her left hand and snapped her fingers.
"Snap!"
The candles in St. George's Cathedral lit one after another, their glow driving away the darkness. Several men and women in clerical robes were kneeling behind Laura, as if making a pilgrimage.
"...Supreme Pontiff, what are your orders?"
"Deliver my command. Find that evil, despicable magician and kill him!"
Laura's voice remained sweet and innocent, like that of an ignorant little girl. It possessed such warmth that people could easily forget the gulf between her status and theirs.
She was the Supreme Pontiff of the English Anglican Church, its actual ruler, and the spiritual leader of nine hundred million people around the world!
Yet contrary to her sweet voice, her words carried icy killing intent.
"...Kill him. Kill him at any cost!"
The Anglican magicians kneeling to receive the order hesitated. One of them scratched his head and said, "...Supreme Pontiff, your order seems to exceed our abilities. Magicians all over the world are looking for that man. If his whereabouts could be discovered so easily, he would have died long ago."
"...Our Anglican Church alone cannot determine his whereabouts. We may need to join forces with the Roman Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church."
Facing the Anglican Church's Supreme Pontiff, these subordinate magicians showed no fear. Instead, they spoke to her like friends. This was precisely the atmosphere Laura wanted—the persona she had created for herself.
"Aleister Crowley will come to England. He definitely will, because he has a reason he cannot avoid coming here. Mobilize all the Anglican Church's forces. The moment he sets foot on this land, discover him, find him, and destroy him!"
Laura spoke with confidence, as if everything was under her control.
"Yes, Supreme Pontiff!"
The magicians did not ask why Laura was so certain. Though these subordinates did not show much respect toward their Supreme Pontiff, they trusted her deeply.
The Anglican magicians withdrew. The candles of St. George's Cathedral went out once more. Standing in the darkness, Laura raised her head toward the cross, her expression complicated.
"This was planned long ago. Everything is proceeding according to my plan. I used... to draw out Aleister Crowley and complete that contract. But why do I feel so empty inside?"
"...Roy, my brother... My brother..."
The Supreme Pontiff of the Anglican Church covered her chest with one hand and murmured softly.
Chapter Eight: The Founding of Academy City
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