Mutual Annihilation, Resurrection Included
The Great Sinner of Sloth.
Cosmic Jack.
The man with a giant red flower where his head should be sat alone in the fairy forest.
There was only one reason he had come here.
To kill Ririran, the woman bound to him by a bitter grudge.
Ririran, the supreme master of space magic.
Their entanglement stretched back many years.
Cosmic Jack hummed a tune as he recalled the distant past.
In the heart of war.
The day he made human heads bloom like flowers remained vivid in his mind.
Right after the Red Blood Day, when the No-Named had massacred countless natives of this world.
Enraged natives had hunted the first-generation No-Named in droves.
A great war had erupted between the transmigrators and the natives.
So many had died.
Hatred had nearly destroyed the world.
Only when transmigrators and natives formed an uneasy alliance did the war finally end.
Cosmic Jack had fought in that war.
He had even belonged to the alliance that once cried out for peace.
But that was the past.
The man who once served the alliance had become a war criminal, a Great Sinner who slaughtered countless people.
He had first met Ririran within the alliance.
She, too, had fought as one of its members.
“Hmm-hmm, hmm.”
Cosmic Jack abruptly stopped his humming.
“So you came.”
He tilted his head and gazed toward the shadows.
Dawn had not yet broken.
Moonlight filtered through the tangled branches.
A small fairy appeared in that light.
Her pale fingertips peeked from the long sleeves of her robe.
“Cosmic.”
When she spoke his name, Cosmic Jack let out a slow, delighted laugh.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Ririran, the one who blew my head off.”
He sounded genuinely pleased.
Ririran, however, showed only disgust.
“If your head was gone, you should have stayed dead. Why come all the way here to cause trouble?”
“Once I tasted the bottom of hell, dying just didn’t feel right anymore.”
Cosmic Jack remained cheerful.
“That head of yours—is it Pride’s handiwork?”
“Doesn’t it suit me? I chose a red flower to match my personality.”
The man who made heads bloom into flowers and detonate on contact.
His twisted hobby made Ririran’s eyes narrow.
The Great Sinner of Pride.
The one who had revived Cosmic Jack after Ririran destroyed his head.
She should have obliterated his entire body back then.
Pride must have taken measures to ensure Cosmic Jack could not truly die.
“You never change, no matter how much time passes.”
“Sixty years is hardly worth bringing up like some old man.”
“For a transmigrator, sixty years is more than enough time to die and be forgotten.”
“Isn’t it ridiculous that creatures like us are bound by lifespan? You and I both.”
“Disgusting. Clinging to life by borrowing it from Pride—does that truly please you?”
“It does. Especially compared to our former alliance leader, who’s long overdue for death.”
Ririran’s eyebrows twitched.
Cosmic Jack’s flower trembled as he laughed brightly.
“Ririran, you haven’t changed either. Still carrying that old man in your heart after all this time.”
“Shut your mouth.”
The forest trembled with her fury.
Yet Cosmic Jack looked only delighted, as if provoking her was the greatest joy in the world.
“Is it really wise to get so angry?”
He opened his coat.
Near his heart, a white orb wrapped in tree roots was embedded in his chest.
Ririran’s expression grew even more murderous.
The essence of Breathwood.
A vital nutrient required for the next generation of fairies to be born.
Fairies reproduced once every three hundred years.
Every three centuries, mated pairs gathered to breathe life into the essence, using it as nourishment for their children.
It was an ancient secret of their race, yet Cosmic Jack knew it well.
That was why he had kidnapped a fairy and forced its parents and future spouse to bring him the essence under threat.
“Don’t worry. I already took care of that disgusting traitor.”
Cosmic Jack waved his hand cheerfully.
The fairy who had delivered the essence had wept bitter tears, begging for his wife and parents to be spared.
Cosmic Jack had sighed at the pathetic display.
How could one value a single life over the entire fairy race?
Unable to stomach the sight, he had detonated the fairy’s head as well.
Its lover and parents had already been killed, so at least they would be reunited in death.
“……Were you born from pure evil?”
Ririran could no longer hide her revulsion.
She could hardly believe she had once considered him an ally.
Cosmic Jack fell silent for a moment.
Then he flicked the essence of Breathwood with his finger.
Ririran’s body flinched violently.
“You and I both know that in war, justice and evil are nothing more than whatever people decide to call them.”
“Where in your actions is there even a shred of justice?”
“Inside my head.”
His head was nothing but a flower.
“Ririran, I only want to save this world. I’m simply tearing down a flawed wall so we can build it again from the ground up.”
Cosmic Jack kept tapping the essence, deliberately provoking her.
One wrong move and he would detonate it instantly.
“Enough talk. You want something from me, and I want something from you.”
Even the indolent Cosmic Jack had grown tired of stalling.
“Let’s both get what we came for.”
“Remove that vile orb from your body at once.”
Cosmic Jack obediently extracted the fairy essence.
He then extended his arm to the side, offering it freely.
“Your turn.”
Ririran drew a deep breath and slowly beat her wings.
The distance between them began to shrink.
If she came within one meter of Cosmic Jack, escape would become impossible.
He knew this as well.
The forest grew silent.
Ririran continued to close the gap.
Her shadow, cast by the moonlight, gradually overlapped with his.
Just before the shadows touched—
Ririran stopped.
Her eyes met Cosmic Jack’s.
He understood her intent.
He tossed the essence of Breathwood high into the air.
The moment it flew more than a meter away from him—
Ririran stepped forward.
Thud!
It happened in an instant.
Cosmic Jack detonated the ground beneath him and launched himself at Ririran with tremendous force.
She was caught effortlessly in his grasp.
Yet the essence had already vanished.
Ririran’s space magic.
She had abandoned her own escape and teleported the essence away instead.
“Hahaha! So you really did give up, Ririran.”
Cosmic Jack laughed brightly.
His lifelong nemesis was finally in his hands.
Nothing could have made him happier.
Ririran remained silent and still.
The moment she fell into his grip, her life was over.
She knew this.
Therefore—
“Cosmic.”
Ririran slowly raised her head.
The moment Cosmic Jack saw her eyes, his flower began to tremble.
Crack!
A shattering sound echoed from deep within the forest.
The sealing stones Cosmic Jack had placed.
They were breaking.
Blood streamed from Ririran’s nose and eyes.
She had poured space magic far beyond the stones’ suppression limit.
It was madness that could burn her brain to ash.
Indeed, cracks were already forming in her brain and the magic seed she had nurtured.
A chill ran down Cosmic Jack’s spine.
He tightened his grip on Ririran.
Her frail arms and body crumpled under the pressure, bones snapping audibly.
“You really thought you could escape after falling into my hands?”
Such a notion would be far too foolish.
“No.”
Yet Ririran had never intended to flee.
“You’re coming with me.”
Space itself began to move.
On an unprecedented scale.
Cosmic Jack realized what she was attempting.
She intended to drag him along with her through space.
He immediately activated his ability.
Ririran’s entire body swelled as flowers of heat bloomed across her skin.
Even so, she smiled radiantly.
“How dare you try to survive alone, you coward.”
Cosmic Jack’s ability was “Calculated Detonation”—the power to explode anything he touched.
He usually detonated mana circuits.
Mana circuits ran throughout the entire body.
Thus, any circuit he touched would instantly transmit the explosion to the brain.
But Ririran’s mana circuits, strained by excessive magic consumption, had expanded far beyond normal.
The bloated circuits created a fatal delay in the transmission of his power.
And that brief delay was enough.
Flash—
A blinding light swallowed the surroundings.
At the same time, the distorted space hurled them both away.
It happened in an instant.
Even Cosmic Jack was swept along helplessly by the violent spatial transfer.
Kugugugugung!
At the same moment, Cosmic Jack felt his body twist and compress.
An overwhelming pressure crushed him from every direction.
Through the flower that served as his head, he finally understood where they were.
The deep sea.
Thousands of meters beneath the ocean’s surface.
His breath caught in his throat.
Pain lanced through his lungs like nails being driven in.
The water pressure was crushing his body.
In his hand—
Ririran hung limp, already at her limit.
A faint, pale smile lingered on her lips.
“Let’s die together, Cosmic.”
Rage boiled within Cosmic Jack.
He could not contain his fury toward the woman who had chosen mutual destruction.
“Ririran!”
With a roar, he detonated her.
Her body burst apart, torn to shreds that scattered into the abyss.
Cosmic Jack fell endlessly into the depths alongside her remains.
At least he would not die alone.
.
.
.
At the same moment—
“Time to get to work.”
In the fairy village of Aeryeld, I rolled up my sleeves.
It was time to turn two corpses into one.