The Reverse Scale of Ouroboros (1)
BOOOOM—!!
The giant body, split cleanly in two, collapsed to the ground with a heavy crash.
For something that was little more than a shard of an Outer God, it was a rather pathetic end.
Damn... I thought I was dead for a second.
I stood still for a moment, panting as a wave of exhaustion rolled through my whole body.
That was because the enormous mental image that had been dwelling in my flesh just a moment ago had vanished all at once, as if it had evaporated.
While annihilating the shard of Ouroboros, I had forced a brief manifestation of a domain of my own, something that could almost be called a power beyond the human.
Of all times, I had to run into an Outer God here.
The beings collectively called Outer Gods were all different at their core.
They were also known as beings from beyond, or defined as the source of chaos, and could broadly be divided into two kinds: primordial existences that had resided on the outer shell of the world since the beginning, and secondary existences created by the rules of a particular domain.
What I had faced belonged to the latter.
A shard of Ouroboros, conceived beneath the deepest layer of the world, in the abyss of chaos.
One of the final bosses that symbolized endless recursion and self-devouring.
Its greatest trait was infinite multiplication.
It devoured itself, split without end, and multiplied endlessly... it was the sort of ability that might as well have been a cheat code.
By any measure, the match-up between Ouroboros and me was heavily in its favor.
Ouroboros’s division was a phenomenon that lay outside the world’s fundamental rules, which meant that once self-devouring began, the loop of recursion could no longer be stopped.
Absolute immunity to all damage.
A probability-based instant death that erased existence itself.
Infinite multiplication and spatial erosion.
It wore all sorts of absurd, broken patterns like badges, and the only reason such nonsense was even possible was simple: that thing had been born from the chaos of the abyss.
It was an utterly unreasonable existence, enough to make curses rise to my lips, but the rules of that domain called the abyss were what guaranteed its power.
So there was no way to deal with it through ordinary means.
Even if it was only a shard and not the true body of Ouroboros, with my level—having only just awakened the five stars of the rune—it was still hopeless.
But I couldn’t afford to give up here.
If I surrendered now, the only options left were for all of us to die together, and I had no intention of dying, not even a little.
More importantly, it wasn’t as though there was no way at all.
One Time Rune alone wouldn’t have been enough, but the ancient grimoire resting on that altar was a Space Rune.
That was why I hesitated.
To obtain a rune, a price had to be paid.
The greater the value of the sacrifice, the more formidable the power gained in return.
The risk rose with it, too, but there was no helping that.
That was the fate of those who bore karma.
Of course, the orthodox method was to choose safety and offer a fitting sacrifice for an appropriate price.
Rune exchanges followed the principle of equal trade through and through, so I couldn’t gain anything worth more than what I gave up.
That said, the calculation was peculiar.
The final value was decided by complicated factors tangled together—the future potential of the sacrifice, and how deeply it was tied to the fate of the one offering it.
But the situation now was different.
Against the shard of an Outer God before me, a conventional price simply wasn’t enough. I needed stronger power.
I didn’t have a choice.
Among the offerings I could provide right now, the one of highest rank was none other than the Ring of Ephrasia.
An ancient Elven relic possessed by only five people on the continent, one that absorbed Rudine’s Heavenly Slaughter Star and converted it into Mental Image.
A treasure from the dawn of time, crucial to the way I would use my abilities from here on out, and an artifact whose potential value I couldn’t even begin to gauge.
The power I demanded in exchange was the authority of a domain.
The prerequisites were ready: the Time Rune and the Space Rune. And although I was only at the beginning, I had also awakened my five stars.
Of course, there was a flaw in that I, the rune user, was human, but since the very essence of my soul had come from another world, the conditions were thankfully still met.
I’d wandered off-topic, but anyway.
I cut off my stray thoughts and walked toward Ouroboros’s corpse.
It’s definitely here somewhere...
With unsteady steps, I approached and searched the area around the body in painstaking detail.
Now that I had lost the Ring of Ephrasia, I desperately needed a new medium for recharging my Mental Image.
And just then, the perfect substitute was right here—the most essential part among all of Ouroboros’s scales.
Ouroboros’s Reverse Scale.
Self-devouring and infinite recursion—that was the symbol of Ouroboros.
Which meant the reverse scale of Ouroboros shared the same essential nature as the Ring of Ephrasia crafted by the High Elves, except that its rank was even higher.
That was why I’d offered up the ring without hesitation.
Even if it had been the only choice available, I had judged there was still a chance of success, since my opponent was Ouroboros.
And now—
...Found it.
Something glimmering faintly caught my eye.
Gold light filtered through the rubble, and among the corpse’s scales, one in particular radiated an unusual brilliance.
I reached out and carefully picked it up, feeling a dense, heavy weight settle in my palm.
Unlike the other scales, it pulsed ever so slightly, as though it were alive.
I quickly pocketed the reverse scale and turned around.
RUMBLE—!!!
The thick fog was lifting, revealing the three figures standing in a corner of the completely ruined domain.
Arkan, Adina, and Rudine.
They were staring at me as though I were some kind of monster.
“......”
I walked toward Arkan, whose mouth was opening and closing in dumbfounded silence.
The translucent barrier surrounding them shimmered faintly.
It was probably a shield Arkan had raised to protect Adina and Rudine from the aftereffects of the explosion.
“......Did you really kill it?”
Arkan’s gaze drifted that way.
Toward the motionless corpse of Ouroboros lying cold on the ground.
She certainly knew of beings from beyond the world.
So when she first met Ouroboros, she must have sensed the aura of the outer void immediately.
But it seemed she had never imagined I’d drive it to death.
The stunned look that flashed across her face made that abundantly clear.
...This is going to become even more annoying, isn’t it?
Even though I knew she’d probably spiral into all kinds of wild misconceptions, I had no choice.
Kill or be killed. That had been the only choice offered to me, and I had simply made the most rational decision.
In a voice that had dropped a little, I spoke to her.
“Great Lord.”
“...Huh?”
“Let’s head back.”
“O-Oh... right. Yes... we should head back.”
We retraced our steps exactly as we had come and left the abyss, then immediately exited Kalmash and headed for headquarters.
The return trip out of Kalmash went surprisingly smoothly.
So long as Adina had her Spirit Eye, there was no risk of getting lost even in Kalmash’s maze-like passages.
And since Arkan was with us, the aberrant beasts that occasionally sprang out of nowhere were nothing more than minor obstacles.
The only thing that bothered me was that the way Arkan looked at me had changed; her gaze had gone beyond mere curiosity and into something like reverence.
And she wasn’t the only one.
Adina and Rudine were staring at me like I was some kind of monster as well.
Once we crossed Kalmash’s boundary, the griffon waiting for us by the passage came into view.
We rode it through the sky and headed for headquarters.
After arriving safely without incident, Rudine and Adina went to their private rooms to wash off the fatigue of the journey and rest.
As for me, I was human too, so I wanted nothing more than to rest properly for a few days...
“......What is it now?”
I was immediately dragged to the meeting room by the Great Lord’s sudden summons.
“Sixth Lord, tell me the truth.”
“About what?”
“That thing we met in the abyss—it really was something from beyond the world, wasn’t it?”
“...Yes. More precisely, it was a shard of one.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Arkan rose from her seat with a bright smile and trotted over to me.
“I’ve really been thinking about it the whole way back, you know?”
“...?”
“Your soul’s essence is definitely human. But for a human, you’re bizarrely outside the bounds of common sense in every possible way. Your knowledge, for one thing, and your strength for another.”
“...What do you want?”
She curled her lips into a grin.
“Suspicious, that’s what. Your essence is human, but for a human, you know far too much. At first glance, your power looks like some kind of command of words, but command of words twists causality itself, so it’s not really an ability meant for humans.”
“......”
“So I did a little digging. And from what I heard, you killed a prime vampire the moment you arrived in the Demon Realm, then headed off to Westmarch?”
Arkan’s gaze fell to my right hand.
“A giant tree steeped in primordial mana, and a fallen world tree that hungers for blood and madness.”
“......”
“Mirrkdrasil. You also got some ring from the sacred tree of the elves, who are now extinct?”
“That was just an ordinary rite—”
“No, there’s no way.”
Arkan blushed with excitement as she stared at me.
“You answered me like that last time when I asked you about the forgotten era, remember? You said you’d seen it with your own eyes.”
Did I?
I think I did.
“Your soul’s essence is human, but your face is absurdly handsome for a human, you wield a power that looks like command of words, you even absorb the divinity contained in a scripture, and on top of that you create a domain inside the abyss?”
Our eyes met, and sparks seemed to crackle between them.
Arkan continued in a voice that sounded as if she were having the time of her life.
“Sixth Lord.”
“......”
“You’re an elf, aren’t you? A High Elf, to be exact.”
Damn.
First dragonkind, then Kahbila, and now elves?