The Finale Should End on a Fun Note
"And the finale should end on a fun note, of course."
"......"
"...Huh?"
"...Excuse me?"
A beat of dead silence fell over the broadcast.
Even the veteran casters, men and women who had built entire careers on never running out of words, found themselves struck dumb by what they were witnessing. The match had, without question, been hurtling toward its conclusion. Lily was strong, but she was still someone who could die — and through the pros' relentless, grinding effort, they had finally managed to drive her to the edge of the cliff.
There had been complaints, plenty of unanswered questions, but it was a goal that could be reached if you kept knocking on the door with a heart that refused to break.
And then, the moment Baekseol finally knocked on that door—
Everyone died.
As if that hope had never existed in the first place.
"...Miss Lily?"
"It's a race against time now."
On the screen, Lily blazed brilliantly.
She had invoked the Sacred Fire — the searing white flame. Her blue eyes flickered, and the ground beneath her feet cracked and crumbled under a power that felt impossibly distant. Strength came pouring out of her, and at the same instant, the body imitating Lily was tearing itself apart.
She was pushing herself far past the limit.
If this went on, the Copycat would die without fail. And the Sacred Fire was not something she could simply snuff out at will — it was never a flame that answered to a careless hand.
"She'll be dead soon, in that state."
"...You're serious? She does look pretty rough, but..."
"I am."
Why was it called the Sacred Fire in the first place?
Because even the celestial host used it only when they had been driven to the very brink of their souls' annihilation. It was a technique reserved for the moment you judged, beyond all doubt, that you could not survive the situation without it.
Fewer than three percent of the celestials who invoked it ever lived through what came after.
The moment Lily's condition became visible on screen, the casters finally began, one by one, to find their voices again. With practiced smoothness, they carried on as though the wreck of a grand final were, in fact, all part of the script.
I offered a silent prayer of gratitude to the poor commentators.
So they're going to wrap this dumpster fire in a nice bow for us, huh.
It stopped being a 'DCK' final a long time ago.
At this point it's closer to a slapstick massacre starring one Copycat chasing after Lily.
"This is in no way Miss Lily's fault, by the way. It's not like she threatened them into summoning her."
They're the ones who summoned her and dragged her out here on their own.
Yena said it bluntly, a flicker of displeasure in her voice. She had a point — blaming me for this felt a bit rich. I'd just come to watch, and Deo En was the one resurrecting bosses I'd already killed and recycling them for content.
From my standpoint, it was an unfair accusation. But the world was crawling with people who lived to nitpick and tear things down, and they would pounce on me like a pack of hounds that had scented prey, truth be damned.
"...Should I turn my stream on?"
"Now? Don't tell me you're going to use Void Piercing—"
"No. Just to commentate."
That might actually put the fire out.
Yena shook her head.
"Pfft. That would just pour gasoline on it. Leave it alone and watch. If anyone starts dragging your name through the mud, I'll go on record and set them straight!"
"That really fills me with confidence."
"...Please put your soul into it."
"I meant it."
Yena truly was dependable. When I said it earnestly, she turned her head away with an awkward cough.
"...Anyway, off that topic — there's not going to be, like, a Phase 3 or something, right? Because that would be a genuine catastrophe."
"That can't be used."
"I see... I'm sorry, what?"
Thank goodness it's impossible.
That thing must never, ever come out.
"Whoa..."
Choco gripped her spear.
Gripped it.
Gripped—
"Ugh, seriously!"
Just die already!
How long is this going to go on?!
"Pathetic."
"You are SO dead!"
It kept dying. And it kept coming anyway.
The Copycat was not invincible. Blow after blow tore into it, wounds that would not regenerate, blood that kept flowing. And from the ninth revival onward, the end finally came into view.
"......"
Its movements were noticeably slower now, and that grating voice no longer needled at anyone's nerves.
Crack—!
The spear was landing far more damage than before. Gunshot and arrow wounds were piling up too. Its attack power remained ferocious, but at long last, the ending they had craved was within arm's reach.
"Yes! Now die already!"
"Hold on."
"? What. Why."
The sixteenth attempt. Choco stood frozen before the Copycat — one more thrust and it would die.
The one who had stopped her was her cousin, Rater. Lily's most devoted fan.
Choco frowned at him, baffled by the sudden hand on her shoulder.
"We're out of time. WoW could finish it off any second."
"I know. Why wouldn't I know that?"
"...Then what? Don't tell me you're about to say we shouldn't kill Lady Lily."
Choco asked half-jokingly, sure that no one could be that deranged — but thankfully, it wasn't that. He was, if anything, looking at the situation with even colder clarity.
"The Copycat wearing Lady Lily's face powers up when it gets cornered."
"...What?"
"When it's near death, it becomes overwhelming. On a level you can't even compare to right now."
A chill ran down Choco's spine.
Stronger than THAT?
Is he insane?
"Why didn't you say so?!"
"No point in injecting terror ahead of time. Besides, Lady Lily isn't weak enough that anyone would need to pull their punches out of fear of killing her."
"......"
It was true. If they hadn't committed everything, they never would have pushed it this far. And naturally, with all the time they'd burned, WoW had pulled ahead.
"Once it powers up, the Copycat's body starts dissolving bit by bit. Probably a Penalty for drawing on more strength than the vessel can hold. Almost nobody knows about this, so the other team won't see it coming."
"...And how exactly do you know that?"
"Basic fan literacy, as a Lily fan."
He'd learned it from rewatching LilyTube VODs dozens of times a day, he declared with total shamelessness. Choco had words crawling all the way up her throat, but she couldn't bring herself to say them and just shook her head.
"...Fine, you nerd. Just for today, I'll admit you're my oppa."
"Do me one favor."
"Then... first we force the transformation, stall for as long as we can, and bleed it dry."
Asa, Haneul, and Gunner were still waiting on respawn timers. If not for the Penalty, they'd have waited for everyone to revive and hit it with a combined assault. But now was different.
We treat the respawn as our safe zone.
One at a time, reviving over and over, whittling away at Lily's strength without pause.
Choco scattered the Holy Grail and took up her golden spear. The Copycat looked back at her through exhausted eyes.
"The one who wins is me."
The spear flew — and she died in the same breath.
It was burning.
Body and soul alike, burning away.
This was the second time, and still she could not get used to this thing called the Sacred Fire. Her body crumbled as though swept away by an overwhelming current, her soul screamed warnings — and yet, little by little, wielding the power grew easier.
She killed the mage who fired a bow. She killed the woman who shot shards of metal from a strange stick. She killed the warrior with the shield, then the pushover, then the one who got on her nerves.
Kill. Keep killing.
It still wasn't over.
Worse, they didn't come all at once — they came one by one, separately, and the drain on her strength was enormous.
If this continued, the Sacred Fire would devour her whole.
More than half of her body had already burned away.
I don't want to... I don't want to die...!
She wanted to live.
Living as a fake was bad enough. Dying as a fake was worse.
What else was there? Besides the Sacred Fire dragging in this overwhelming power, what else could there be?
She needed a way. A way to survive. A way to prove that she was the real one.
A way to cut down those beings who were, for all intents and purposes, 'immortal'.
She brought her hammer down on yet another enemy. Crackle... By now, not even the strength to grip it remained.
There had to be a way...
'...!'
She found it.
In the deepest recess of her memory. Wrapped and hidden away as though bound in layers of ice — but for the Copycat, digging through memories was trivial.
Peeling back the seals stacked seal upon seal, she dredged the memory up from the depths.
This would be enough. Power enough to sever that 'immortality'.
The price was far greater than before — but if it only had to be used once...
"...?"
A voice of unfathomable origin hummed through her mind.
She had never heard it before in her life.
And yet it sounded so achingly familiar that she lost track of the very enemy she'd been trying to kill.
Squelch!
Thanks to that, another wound joined the rest — but that hardly mattered now.
It's just like... Lily Elbrit's 'childhood'...
Who are you?
A voice like this. She had never encountered it anywhere in her memories. A voice that no amount of rifling through her past would ever surface — and yet it rang in her ears with unbearable familiarity.
As she floundered in confusion, the voice gave a soft laugh.
Listening closely, it didn't seem to be just one voice. Many voices called out, layered over one another, from somewhere far away.
The voice paused, as if soothing someone on the other end, then spoke again.
And then, inside the Copycat's mind, the voice conjured a single person.
Tia.
Brown hair in careful braids, orange eyes. Neatly dressed — the baker's daughter, Tia.
In that instant, the Copycat's eyes wavered.
The life I want...
CRASH! Something toppled over beyond the voice.
It echoed.
It echoed...
A life with friends...
Could I... do it again?
Live through those memories, one more time?
I'll do it.
She wanted to live.
She wanted to play with her friend again. And more than anything...
"I want to eat cake."
Tia smiled, bright as the sun.
"...?"
"......"
The Copycat had stopped.
The berserk state that had been spewing out overwhelming power seemed to have been released entirely, and now she simply stood there, staring at them, perfectly composed.
What was this?
"What the— what is this?"
"...Your guess is as good as mine."
They stayed on guard. With the frenzy broken, taking her down might actually be easier now — but this was Lily they were dealing with. There was no telling what trick she'd pull next, no telling whether she'd kill every last one of them again.
Lily opened her eyes.
Where moments ago her face had been blank, grim, it was now lit with something that looked a great deal like delight. Like a mischievous kid about to cause trouble, Lily stretched with a long hyuuuun! and drew out the jujutsu book.
"Alright... then shall I clean this mess up?"
Of course — the finale ought to be fought between the true leads.
A wave of cold surged through the air.
The crimson-stained jujutsu book froze over, brilliant white, and her blue hair turned white with it.
"...Baekseol?"
"One, isn't it. A finale should end on a fun note, no?"
So this is how it's done?