No Way That's the End
A meteor came down, and an ice age followed—a cold so fierce it had changed the very master of the planet. Deaths that had frozen no fewer than hundreds of millions of lives poured out upon a single man.
"……"
Death One stroked the page of extinction. Echoes of death rose from beneath his fingertips, familiar, and yet the wailing of spirit and flesh lifted the hair along his neck. Flesh returned to soil, souls sank into the wheel of reincarnation, and these were the only traces life left behind. The Book remembered their ends.
Those memories he drew out and made into weapons. Deaths from millions of years ago through to the present moment—an act of swinging death however he pleased, in defiance of the Book's own will. One might fairly have called it a desecration of the dead. Even a being born of death, even one who trod the border between life and death, even the owner of the Book of Death, could not be permitted such karma.
Death One knew by instinct that the death woven through his own flesh was trembling. This was the Book's rebellion, and the penalty visited upon one who defied the natural order. One misstep, and the Book of Death would devour him. No—he might not even be granted a death, left instead to wander the underworld as a ghost.
He did not care. Born extraordinary, he had never been meant for a comfortable life. What mattered now was how to kill the unreasonable thing before him.
His opponent was a monster who had taken a meteor to the body, met a death that froze him solid in an ice age, and still refused to die—a being with the leisure to stretch both legs and rest beneath a block of ice. The sight dragged a hollow laugh out of Death One. Even a god standing clear of that attack could not have sworn he would survive it. And yet, what was that?
A god among gods? A heaven beyond heaven? Some transcendent life from beyond the world? Or a bastard of death, the same as himself?
Wrong.
The deaths of humankind remembered by the Book cried out.
That is a pure human being. Playful, unserious, a brat who never grew up. Warm and cold at once, carrying worries of his own. He hates to fight. He has no dream; he wants to play, to eat, to live. One resident among seven billion.
"Nonsense."
Death One gripped the Book hard. He understood well enough what it meant to claim. But even looking straight at the scene before him, he could not bring himself to call that a human. What human swims through death? What human stays unmoved while his heart is crushed and his bones ground to powder? If that were the nature of humanity, then humans would already have ruled the universe, and even the gods would have lived as their slaves. The cosmos would have drowned in confusion and chaos, in selfishness and sentiment, and waged a war without end.
So that was no human. It was the shell of something that merely resembled one.
"O foolish death. Upon that proud skin you boast of, you could not even set down how he severed the tree's very breath, could you? A page that obstructs perception and recognition is written in you. Proxy who plays at being death—venture no opinion. You are a tool, and so you were fixed from the beginning. Do you dare attempt to wield me?"
The Book shuddered. Death One forced its rebellion down once more.
"Hup. An ice treatment isn't bad, I'll grant you, but I really do prefer a sauna."
The Phantom Thief rose from the snowdrift, bright-eyed and smiling, tall and clean-lined. Skin of that soft East Asian gold, and black hair, stirred faintly on the air. In a world painted over with death, he alone did not lose his color. From his breath to his voice, he announced that he was brimming with life. Pitch-black pupils turned this way, the will in them clear and the confidence full—and in the same instant their eyes met, a full moon rose at his back.
A full moon, shining a brilliant gray. Gloomy death was driven helplessly back by the reflected light.
"So that's the end of the meteor and the ice age? Surely the deaths of the Earth don't stop there."
The lift at the corner of his mouth was irritating for no good reason. A deliberate provocation, or simply the way he was made?
"That was a taste. Wouldn't it be a shame if so little were enough to kill you?"
"Then be quick about it, if you're going to. I nearly froze to death waiting under the ice."
"It would have been easier on us both if you had simply died."
Assuming all the leisure he could, Death One turned his analysis on the moon behind the man. A moon risen like a blaze of light. Death, spread thin as fog, could not even draw near it. It merely was, faint and certain, and cold sweat ran at the arrogance and the grandeur of it.
Incomprehensible.
Not one part of it, from the first to the last, could be analyzed. Vision that reached the depths of matter and the layers of dimension was useless. This was no moon hung in the sky. It was something that had taken a moon's shape, just as his nemesis had. He prayed that whatever lay behind the shell would not be pure despair.
"So. Another thing I must kill."
He turned the page. Tens of millions of deaths brushed past, distant and thin. An ordinary death could not kill that. He needed a death larger, and stronger. And there, as if waiting, was a fitting chapter—the Chapter of Myth. Deaths that had run rampant in the age when the gods ran wild were brought forth again.
The death of the god of light, most radiant and noble of them all. That was the starting point. Mistletoe drove through his enemy's chest. An inescapable fate of death had fallen, and still the man drew the spear out with practiced ease. Not even blood clung to it. It hurt only enough to crease his brow.
"That's it?"
The collapse of the True Dharma, wrought by the ruler of the desire realm. Countless ascetics who had pursued the righteous path fell to the demon king's temptation. The landscape of death, until now merely unpleasant, was dyed through with delight, anger, sorrow, joy, love, hatred, and desire.
Women stripped bare, women naked as they were born, flooded in like a rising tide. Females beyond counting clung to the Phantom Thief and whispered that he ought to desire them. At their breasts they bore peerless jewels that intoxicated by scent alone, and sweet grapes swelled between their fingers. Gold poured from the sky, and the praise of human voices lined his ears without end. We will give you whatever you want. What do you wish to eat? Whom do you wish to take revenge upon? Temptation, offered without cease. Shut the five senses, and still it welled up from the heart and shook the mind.
"This one's a bit intense, isn't it?"
The Phantom Thief laughed, awkward and cornered. Beauties who could topple nations were pressing every secret stretch of skin into his face; he had nowhere to put his eyes. Worse, lovely hands were tugging at his clothes. He defended his trousers with everything he had.
"This won't do. I'd better get out before I'm ruined completely. I am a phantom thief who knows how to keep his virtue."
"Just stay still. I'll guide you somewhere nice."
The wolf that had devoured heaven and earth, and at the very end devoured even the one-eyed high god. The wolf of the apocalypse lifted its jaws.
"Oh."
The Phantom Thief let out a sound of admiration and was swallowed along with Mara's temptations. The wolf of the end looked up at the moon in the sky and roared.
The magic sword of the fire giant ran the wolf through from the crown of its head. It had eaten the world, and so even the scraps left uneaten were burned—a great destruction. A flash like dozens of nuclear detonations going off at once filled his sight. Death One's head reeled under the sheer intensity of the feast of death.
"Hm."
But among the names renewing themselves one after another, the name he wanted was nowhere to be found.
"Not enough."
The end of myth could not kill him. Death One watched, wordless, as the magic sword's flames slowly died.
"Thank you, Death One. That was getting difficult to handle, and the right support walked in at just the right moment. If I'd slipped, it would have been a disaster."
The Phantom Thief emerged scratching his head, slick as anything. Not a wound on him, of course. Only more dust. The full moon burned with a still more brilliant light.
Death One turned the page of myth.
"……"
"Think you can handle it?"
The Phantom Thief was grinning.
"These are the deaths that truly ended the age of the gods. At your level, controlling them ought to be impossible."
"At my level, certainly, it would be difficult. And do you suppose the attacks of gods actually work on you?"
Death One shook his head.
"I have never heard a question so foolish. Do you know how many deaths I have hurled onto you? You took every one of them square on, and still you brim with life."
"I do not brim with life. Look here. See the arm shaking? I'm terrified I might die."
"Ridiculous."
"Even so, why not try a little further? There must be one or two more deaths of Creator God-class beings lying around."
"Hah……"
Death One sighed.
"Enough. Taking the long way around doesn't suit my taste."
"A pity. It was a rather decent stretch of time."
The Phantom Thief rolled his neck. The eyes that had curved upward in a smile sank, level and low.
"Once that one comes out, it won't be easy for me either."
"If you can handle it, go ahead and let it loose."
Death One looked down upon the end of myth. A countless slaughter carried out by a single being. Deaths packed with despair and pleading, in which neither mercy nor hope could be found. Deaths that even death itself feared were written here.
Death One finished steeling himself. His hand tore the page. Torn pages fluttered through the empty air, stacking and stacking until they sketched a single figure.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The Book of Death cried out in agony. Death One had no choice but to release the book as it thrashed in a frenzy, and of its own accord the Book was taken up by the figure made of paper.
Crash.
Glass shattered, and the figure took on form. The Phantom Thief glared at it. The figure glared back.