The Dreadful Talent (3)
The Dreadful Talent (3)
[The kingdom has fallen.]
[It was a kingdom that had stubbornly endured even the worst of times—crumbling public order, the endless onslaught of anomalies. But that was only possible because of its capable ministers and loyal citizens.]
[The moment those true pillars of the nation disappeared, the kingdom collapsed in vain.]
[The incident began with the king's madness. On the day he mercilessly slaughtered his own people gathered in the capital square to gaze upon his royal countenance, the king descended into uncontrollable insanity.]
[The monarch, having lost all reason, stained his kingdom with blood, slaughtering hundreds of thousands with his own hands.]
[Ironically, the medium of this tragedy was the countless statues of the king erected throughout the kingdom.]
[In a single day, the king turned his empire into a massive slaughterhouse before sealing himself deep within the palace, in the darkness of the throne room. But even then, hope for reconstruction hadn't completely vanished. Those who had not faced the king directly before his madness were spared death—the bureaucrats buried under mountains of paperwork, the knights who believed looking upon the king's face was an act of disloyalty, and the mages too arrogant to care for anything beyond their own research.]
[The survivors believed. If only the madness would subside, they could restore their former glory.]
[......That was, until a terrible curse engulfed the castle.]
[The knights turned into armored monsters, and the mages became hollow specters of their spellbooks, stripped of their egos. Watching them transform into alien beings that now saw humanity as their enemy, I let go of the last shred of hope.]
[A nation cannot exist without its people. Yet, unable to leave the castle, I remained alone, watching the world outside the fallen kingdom.]
[The kingdom's downfall sent shockwaves across the world. From the abyss of despair it had become, anomalies poured forth endlessly, ravaging neighboring lands like starving beasts. The anomalies that devoured humans grew grotesquely larger, and the despair they spread became the spark of a vicious cycle, birthing new horrors.]
[Thus, the Age of Great Chaos had arrived.]
[Yet, humanity grew stronger in the face of despair. Setting aside their petty wars, people united solely for survival. The chaos gave rise to countless heroes, who not only repelled the swarming anomalies but began reclaiming lost territories.]
[Decades passed, and at last, the united forces of humanity stood at the gates of the fallen kingdom. To an army of hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers, thousands of knights, and hundreds of grand mages, mere anomalies were no longer a threat. Tempered by years of war, they pressed forward unhindered, advancing straight into the heart of the royal castle.]
[But their despair began the moment they opened the throne room's doors.]
[An army that had never known defeat was annihilated in an instant.]
[The spells chanted desperately by mages shattered before even touching the king's body. The knights raised their shields in vain—his razor-sharp fingers tore through steel armor like paper.]
[The army, which had believed itself invincible, tasted bitter defeat for the first time and was forced to retreat.]
[The being seated upon the throne was no mere anomaly. It was a calamity itself, more powerful and mysterious than anything they had ever faced.]
[In the end, unable to find a way to kill the king, humanity made the desperate choice to seal away the entire castle.]
[Watching the sight of hundreds of mages enveloping the castle walls with a massive barrier from beyond, I let out a deep sigh.]
[If even the pinnacle of magical prowess in this era could not stand against that king, then in what age, and by whose hand, could such a tragic monarch ever be stopped?]
KWAHHHH—!!
The space, once filled with darkness, was now engulfed by a massive pillar of light. The radiant wave surged unchecked to the edges of the domain, colliding with the shadowy boundaries of the world and unleashing a deafening roar.
Sssssssss—
Before the absolute radiance, the shadows that had filled the surroundings dissipated without even a scream. The once-sturdy foundation of the domain trembled, heralding its collapse.
The shadows could no longer restrain the anomaly's movements.
Yet, despite that, the anomaly's cries had ceased.
'Did I finish it?'
Si-woo thought so.
SHOOOOOM—
The colossal pillar of light that had swallowed the world began receding like the tide.
Beyond the lingering smoke, the anomaly's silhouette slowly emerged—but its form mocked Si-woo's expectations, taking on a bizarre shape.
"!"
The anomaly was crouched on the ground, hands neatly folded as if in prayer, eyes serenely closed—like a devout monk in meditation.
Si-woo's pupils trembled in shock.
Not a single wound marked its body. Despite his certainty that the attack had landed, the pillar of light had failed to harm it. If there was no flaw in his strike, then the anomaly must have done something.
Just as Si-woo tightened his grip on the forbidden book, preparing another method in extreme tension—
From behind the anomaly, still in its praying posture, a sinister presence began to rise, splitting the air itself.
It was an eye.
Wrapped in slimy membranes, an indescribably grotesque and monstrous pupil floated in midair, its unfocused gaze sweeping over the crumbling battlefield.
Merely looking at it made one's soul feel tainted, as if facing mental corruption.
But there was no time to freeze in fear.
To counter it, he had to understand what it was.
Just as Si-woo's question was about to leave his lips—
"Erosion! KHAHAHAHAH!"
The necromancer's booming laughter echoed.
If he was laughing, it wasn't a good sign.
Si-woo frowned, glancing at Ha-rin. If anyone could explain, it would be her.
"The Erosion Phenomenon...?"
But even she was staring at the eye behind the anomaly with trembling pupils.
What was that thing, to provoke such a reaction?
Unfortunately, there was no more time to ask.
"Reload."
Pushing the staggering Lantern aside—still reeling from the domain's collapse—Si-woo thrust the barrel of the forbidden book forward once more.
Oooooom—
A dense surge of energy gathered, the book vibrating faintly. Si-woo aimed the now fully golden book at the crouching anomaly and whispered:
"Fire."
KWAHHHHHH—!!
Once more, a deafening roar split the air as another massive pillar of light surged toward the anomaly.
SHWARARARAK—!
But that wasn't the end. The other forbidden books, waiting their turn behind Si-woo, flipped open their pages and unleashed a storm of spells—multicolored beams of light merging into a tsunami of destruction.
KWAAANG—!
Just before the attacks could erase the anomaly's body—
In that fleeting moment—
[ ! ! ! ! ! ]
The massive, flickering eye behind the anomaly flared.
Oooooom—
As the grotesque pupil scanned the battlefield, a bizarre wave swept through.
The straight-line trajectories of the light beams warped, as though pulled by invisible strings. Their target was no longer the crouching anomaly. Like water spiraling into a black hole, the storm of magic reversed course—flooding toward the floating eye.
SHWOOOOSH—
No explosion. No sound of impact.
The light beams, capable of carving through mountains, vanished the moment they touched the eye's surface—sucked into its abyss-like pupil as though they had never existed.
Had it absorbed them?
With no way to know for sure, Si-woo gritted his teeth.
"...What should I do?"
Si-woo instinctively realized that repeating the same tactic wouldn't work anymore.
Weeeeee—
As long as that eyeball floating behind the anomaly remained, any attack would be meaningless. The only saving grace was that the creature still showed no intention of attacking.
After briefly observing the anomaly crouched on the floor, Si-woo turned his head to look at Ha-rin.
Shiver, shiver, shiver.
She had fallen into panic again, her body trembling uncontrollably.
"Ha-rin! Can you hear me?!"
Shake, shake.
Even when he placed a hand on her shoulder and called her name, she remained silent, unresponsive.
Slap! Slap!
"Gah! Wh-what was that?!"
Only after forcefully striking her cheeks with both hands did she finally snap out of it.
"Tell me what we need to do right now!"
"Huh? Wh-what's happening?"
Was she in denial? Her face was blank, as if she had erased the surreal terror she had just experienced from her mind. But there was no merciful time to carefully explain or console her. Si-woo pressed down harder on her shoulders and demanded sharply.
"Erosion! Explain what that is first!"
Overwhelmed by Si-woo's cold gaze, Ha-rin stammered as she began to spill what she knew.
According to Ha-rin, just as mages possessed a trump card called a Domain, anomalies had their own secret technique—Erosion, which corrupted the world itself.
"Alright, then how do we counter it?"
Ha-rin's answer was long-winded.
"...First, I need to explain about Domains. If a Domain temporarily splits space to summon one's own world, Erosion doesn't divide space. Instead, it contaminates and dyes the world itself with its own laws."
Si-woo furrowed his brow deeply and cut her off.
"Just the key points. How do we fight it?"
"...Only a Domain can oppose Erosion."
"Then we just need to deploy another—!"
"But even an 8th Class Mage can't deploy a Domain consecutively..."
Ha-rin, as if having abandoned all hope, stared blankly at the floating eyeball in the air. Si-woo left her be and picked up the pitifully discarded lantern on the floor.
Tap, tap.
The lantern was still struggling, unable to recover from the backlash of its shattered Domain.
He tried to channel energy into it to restore it, but it wasn't enough. Instead, the forced stimulation made the lantern emit a pained, scream-like vibration. Deploying another Domain seemed impossible.
As he agonized over another solution, Ha-rin muttered softly.
"The Erosion isn't complete yet... If we get on a broom now, maybe we can escape...?"
"Not complete? That eyeball is already staring right at us!"
"Because we're still alive. If the Erosion had finished, we'd already be dead..."
Then there was still a chance to escape. But why was she hesitating? Just as Si-woo was about to tell her to fly away immediately, he froze mid-thought.
"Kehahaha! The castle has already been eroded! You won't be able to escape!!"
The sturdy marble corridor and lavish decorations twisted grotesquely with an eerie noise.
As if the colors of reality had been forcibly drained, the world lost its saturation, dyed in bizarre shades.
Only in this surreal, monochromatic world did the massive eyeball floating in the air radiate a vivid, blasphemous glow, asserting its presence.
Ziiiiing—
With a tinnitus-like screech scraping through space, the enormous pupil slowly rotated to gaze at Si-woo.
Whoooooosh—
At the moment of life and death, the forbidden book in Si-woo's hand screamed as it erupted in a golden radiance. The mana that burst forth instantly formed a massive spherical barrier around him.
A brilliant golden sanctuary that enveloped both Ha-rin and the cackling necromancer in one sweep.
Thanks to it, they were spared from the eyeball's grasp.
But outside the sanctuary was hell.
Sssssss—
Dozens of forbidden books exposed to the giant eyeball's gaze lost their color and crumbled away. Watching them turn to ash and scatter into the void, Si-woo realized:
If that gaze reached him, he too would vanish just like that.
Whoooooosh—
The barrier trembled violently. The eyeball's gaze, filling the outside, clawed at the shield like a relentless predator, trying to force its way in. Black stains of Erosion began spreading across the golden surface.
"...The barrier's thinning. Si-woo, what do we—?!"
"Kehaha! What do we do?! You should just stay here and die with me! That's only fair!"
Bzzzzzt—
The ominous premonition became reality without a single error.
The cover of the forbidden book, which had been shining brilliantly in Si-woo's right hand, tore apart with a scream-like screech. The moment the source of mana reached its limit.
CRASH—!
The protective barrier shattered like glass, scattering into the air.
Now defenseless, Si-woo was drenched in the sadistic gaze of the giant eyeball, pouring down like a waterfall.
Dooooong—
The moment he felt that gaze, Si-woo experienced an intense sensation of falling, as if the world beneath his feet had been snuffed out entirely. His body remained anchored to reality, but his consciousness plummeted into an unfathomable abyss, pulled as if by gravity.
It might have been an eternity, or merely the spark of an instant.
In that void where the markers of time had been erased, Si-woo slowly opened his eyes.
And he knew immediately.
A place filled with oppressive silence and thick darkness.
This was Si-woo's Mental Landscape.
"......"
Instinctively sensing pressure, he raised his head to look at the sky.
A grotesque, indescribable monstrosity loomed above, its hideous maw gaping wide as if to swallow entire galaxies, descending upon him.
[.........!!]
At the center of that colossal predator was an eye—the same giant eyeball that had appeared behind the anomaly when the Erosion began. It was staring straight at Si-woo.
'That eye... it belongs to that monster.'
The creature approached, its massive jaws widening to devour him.
Si-woo tried to move, but his limbs wouldn't budge, as if bound by invisible chains.
Just as death loomed before him—
Si-woo and the monster's eyes met.
In that instant, Si-woo realized the creature was peering into his very essence. Its gaze, which had been searching restlessly, finally settled on his heart—the place where his soul resided.
A surge of disgust rose within him. He didn't know why, but for the briefest moment, that monster felt like nothing more than a bug.
Then, abruptly, the monster's enormous pupil convulsed and contracted.
[.........!!]
A scream that tore through space echoed through the Mental Landscape.
Not the roar of a predator, but the shriek of a creature that had glimpsed something it should never have seen.
The monster, which had sought to consume Si-woo's soul, recoiled in terror the moment it touched his true nature, shoving him away violently.
The sensation of being flung back to the bright, shallow surface of consciousness washed over him like a tidal wave.
Flash. When he opened his eyes again, he was met with the familiar, monochrome corridor.
And the chilling presence of the anomaly, now right in front of him.
The grotesque eyeball that had been floating in the air earlier was gone. But there was no time to rejoice over the halted Erosion—the anomaly stood within arm's reach.
'I'll lose an arm...!'
At this distance, dodging its attack was impossible. Bracing for the pain, Si-woo tensed—but the anomaly didn't reach for him.
"What the...?"
Instead, it did something incomprehensible, leaving Si-woo stunned.
Thud.
It knelt at his feet.
[I... shall... return... this... to... you...]
With both hands respectfully cupped together, it offered a glowing golden crown.