Molting

"Ugh…"

His eyes opened.

The instant he rose, bewilderment and dizziness washed over him.

"…What in the world."

What had happened?

Clutching his head, he pushed himself up from the ground and took stock of his condition.

Ruins. A floor of sand, strange murals painted across the walls. As his gaze drifted from one mural to the next, memories he had forgotten began to surface, one after another.

After I was cast out, I wandered from place to place until I reached the desert. There I found that magnificent body… and then…

…!

That woman!

That celestial woman had appeared out of nowhere and hammered him into unconsciousness. Which meant this place had to be…

"Huh?"

"Kiiiik?"

A pincer?

KWAAAAAANG!!

The sandy floor split open, and through the fissure a golden pincer shot toward his throat.

Shriek—!

Even a graze was enough to draw blood from his neck.

Having barely evaded the strike, the Forgotten Emperor could not hide his shock as he spread his golden wings and took to the air. Only then did he see what had attacked him. Something enormous, glinting with a golden sheen…

"…A scorpion?"

"Kiiiii!"

"A mere vermin—!"

Sand soldiers rose. Paladins clad in divine armor lined up in a ring around the scorpion, spears leveled. To think such vermin dared wound this body. Unthinkable. He was a transcendent being who possessed not only a magnificent body but divinity itself. With two powers combined, the Forgotten Emperor could become the strongest—and though he had been defeated, it was, quite literally, only a matter of time.

Someday, even that woman will fall before m—

"KIIIII!!!"

"Struggling to the end, are we—?!"

The paladins scattered. As though their true master had been someone else all along, the authority that had formed them—everything except their divinity—collapsed and flowed into a single point. The golden luster that had shimmered over the scorpion deepened, and from the familiar emblem carved into its head, he felt a power he knew all too well.

"Why do YOU have that power…"

"You. Like. Me."

"What?"

"I, Scorpio."

Chueok. The pincer of the scorpion that called itself Scorpio pointed somewhere behind him. When he turned his gaze, his face twisted on its own.

"…Damn it all."

"It's been a while."

Her. The woman who had snapped his wings even as he fled into the sky.

"Great one. Decided. You and I."

"…Ha? You dare compare a mere vermin to ME?!"

"Past. Irrelevant. What matters is the sun."

Vwoom.

"Taking it. That body."

"How amusing. Fallen though I may be, a mere insect could never—"

His mouth snapped shut. No—it had to shut. A sandstorm erupted, and a tail whipped through it faster than sight, slamming into his body. Even his mighty frame was sent flying clean across the ruin ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and driven into the sandy floor. The displaced sand coiled around him as if baring its hostility, binding his body tight.

If only he could break free…

"A scorpion? Still, the Emperor should win, right? What happens if he loses?"

Well…

"The other one takes it, I suppose."

"…Do not mock me!"

This body is MINE!

"I'll be taking that power of yours as well—all of it!"

And so the battle began.

There were two Legacy Inheritors.

Neither of them was technically a 'person' to begin with, but let's just say there were two. In any case, the scorpion 'Scorpio' and the celestial 'Forgotten Emperor' had both laid claim to the legacy Pharaoh left behind in the past.

My plan was to meet the Forgotten Emperor in the second era, give him a suitable education, and then move on to the third—but a variable had appeared.

Lily Elbrit.

Confronting the Lily of the past had burned through far too much of my Interference Power. If I so much as touched the Forgotten Emperor in this state, I wouldn't have nearly enough left to spend in the third era. So in the end, I put the Forgotten Emperor into a deep sleep and decided to move on to the next era. Right up until I crossed over, the Lily of the past never came looking for me. When she was attacking, teeth clenched, I'd assumed she'd try to hold onto me by any means necessary—so seeing this, I half-wondered if she'd simply given up on everything.

…I can't tell.

As I said before, the Lily of the past stands at the end of a transitional period. Where she'll ultimately fall is something not even I can know—and even if I did, there wouldn't be much I could do about it.

The third era lay quite far ahead—roughly several hundred to a few thousand years later. And I was in the ruins.

The ruins rose ten floors underground, centered around the sleeping Forgotten Emperor. I'd considered climbing up, but the moment I appeared, Scorpio came straight for him.

The creature froze the instant it laid eyes on me—before making any move first.

'Great one. One more.'

Bowing its head, it said it had come to claim what it had long yearned for. What Scorpio wanted was a portion of the authority still lingering in Pharaoh's body. The Pharaoh of the future needs the body, so a fragment of the authority is something I can spare—but Scorpio was hardly going to extract it gently. It would leave the body a mangled wreck, no doubt. Not that the authority is strictly necessary; nice to have, not essential.

But subduing Scorpio and managing both of them would take far more Interference Power than I had, so I made a single proposal instead.

"Shouldn't the stronger one be the one to claim the power?"

At my words, Scorpio nodded, looking none too pleased about it, but conceding: 'Strong one. Understood.'

And so the Forgotten Emperor awoke, and the two of them went at it.

Whichever of them won, I intended to keep my promise.

Watching their fight, I checked the chat, which had descended into complete chaos.

Ever since my bombshell announcement, the viewer count had blown past another million. Two managers, then three, weren't enough—my editors had stepped in to help—but the situation was so explosive there was no reining it in. It's not that I never ban or temporarily mute people, but I usually don't bother unless the chat is truly egregious. This, though… this was a serious matter.

"Gah…!"

"Not bad. Truly a great one."

"You insufferable—!"

"Like I said before, it was a secret I couldn't help keeping. It was a confidential mission—how was I supposed to talk about it publicly?"

Still, they don't really seem to buy the whole "alien" thing. Not because my track record hasn't been unique or extraordinary—it's just…

Too unrealistic.

I can say until I'm blue in the face that DeoEn is actually a game made by grinding up aliens, a second world where you experience all five senses as vividly as reality. In the end, DeoEn is a virtual reality game. A world somewhat removed from our own. No matter how true DeoEn might be, how genuinely another dimension, its fallout can't reach into reality itself.

Well—technically, some rankers are being affected. But it's a vanishingly small number.

A hundred at most?

Even that is barely perceptible, and fewer than ten people feel it directly, so to the average person it simply doesn't register. Better to believe "Lily's just hacking or using NPC privileges!" than to swallow the idea that she came from another dimension. Plenty of people believe it's a Penalty, too.

So many questions.

Kiiik!

UAAAAAH!!

Meanwhile, oblivious to all of it, the two protagonists of this ruin kept tearing into each other.

The fiercer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their battle grew, the more wounds accumulated on the body—but it didn't matter. I was here, and a body like Pharaoh's was well within my power to heal. Better yet, he was a celestial. He carried divinity of his own, which would resonate with mine and grant him an even stronger recovery.

That said…

"They're fighting remarkably well."

Pharaoh's body versus Pharaoh's authority—and the winner of the authority was the scorpion, Scorpio. It hadn't been some special species, nor had it been born with a physique befitting an ancient monster.

Just a scorpion.

And yet this creature—the very thing the mighty dismiss as "vermin, insect"—was fighting the Forgotten Emperor, wielder of both a celestial nature and Pharaoh's body, as a complete equal.

Crack!

"Kgh?!"

Worse, it was pressing him, steadily racking up damage. Even if the Forgotten Emperor's abilities had been weakened to near-sealed levels, there was still a fundamental gap in raw specs. In that light, Scorpio's existence was a genuinely anomalous result.

Presumably the product of nurturing Pharaoh's authority for hundreds, thousands of years.

"Haa… haa…"

"End."

At last, the contest was decided. The Forgotten Emperor clutched his torn wings in fury, while Scorpio—unscathed save for a few shallow gouges in its carapace—gazed down at him through the Eye of the Sun. Its razor-sharp tail moved to pierce the Emperor's body… then didn't. Instead, it turned toward me.

Waiting for my verdict.

Of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the two, the Forgotten Emperor was the one with true intellect—yet when it came to reading the situation, Scorpio was the sharper.

"That's enough. You've won."

"Great one. My victory."

"Yes. Now, your reward."

The authority of the Sun burst free from Pharaoh's body.

I used my divinity to heal Pharaoh's body. The flesh had recovered decently, but the shock had been so great that it showed no intention of moving. There was a chance the Forgotten Emperor's body might suffer damage later on—but I had woven a few restrictions into the authority I was granting, so it would be fine.

A small sun rose into the air, and the Forgotten Emperor stared at it with vacant eyes.

Gulp! Scorpio swallowed it whole in a single bite.

FWAAAH!

Light blazed from Scorpio's carapace as fissures began to spread across it.

Molting. Just like the power of the Sun that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had once rewritten what it meant to be vermin.

Having seized the Sun's shattered power for a second time, Scorpio pried open the 'door' that had barred its way and pushed through.