Chapter 314: The Slope of Heaven (2)
Chapter 314: The Slope of Heaven (2)
…It’s suddenly gotten faster.
While the chanting is in progress, I can’t rely on Un-ho’s support, so I’m pushing myself to block the attacks.
It’s not my imagination.
The weight of the tentacles stabbing at my hammer has begun to grow heavier.
It’s not yet at an unmanageable level, but it’s an undeniable fact that they are rapidly growing stronger.
And it’s not just the force pressing against The Hammer.
Even a quick glance shows that the total power possessed by the tentacles is swelling at a steep rate, and the number of holes appearing in the world is increasing fast.
Just what is it eating?
The only thing that has changed compared to a moment ago is Un-ho’s chanting.
But could it really grow this fast just by consuming that?
My enemies until now have generally increased in power in proportion to the quality and quantity of what they consumed.
By all accounts, that makes sense.
But what is this thing?
The only change was Un-ho joining in and starting his chant, yet it’s becoming this much stronger, this quickly?
What exactly changed?
And what did it eat?
Let’s think.
If I don’t solve this mystery, there’s no guarantee of victory even if I fire off my Ultimate Technique.
Does it eat origins?
Or perhaps, conversation?
Relationships? Trust?
No, it’s none of those.
For something to be eaten, it implies that the thing must decrease.
However, within every category I can perceive, there is no sense of anything decreasing.
It’s likely not a conceptual consumption of things like time or space, either.
If those were being depleted, there’s no way Un-ho wouldn’t have noticed.
Furthermore, if it were those elements, the entity wouldn’t have grown so explosively the moment Un-ho started his chant.
It’s consuming something that isn’t a human possession, nor a fundamental concept of the world.
Damn it. I thought the diversity of what the Gray Eater consumed was difficult to grasp, but I have no idea what this is.
I’ve definitely made a bad move.
Maybe I should stop the chanting even now and switch to a war of attrition?
But what if this thing is eating something else entirely, something unrelated to the chanting?
Then I’d have to start the chant all over again, and what if those lost few seconds lead to defeat?
Damn it, I really hate battles where I have to think this deeply while fighting.
Setting aside the damage caused by the enemies in my story so far, most of them were just tests of brute strength, so I never had to rack my brain like this.
This enemy has too many variables.
To think that not knowing what it eats could make things this difficult.
I agonized over it for a moment.
But I decided not to back down.
The power of The Enemy before me has already become too immense.
The only thing left for me to do is to strike it down with the most powerful force I possess.
And so.
“Agent of The Queen. By the authority of the Selector. I approve this.”
【Power shall have a will】
As the chant ended, I began to spin, charging the attack.
Whirr.
The Hammer, harboring a massive power within, began to rotate under my guidance.
Aside from The Hole pierced through my left hand, this was an Ultimate Technique deployed while my body was in near-perfect condition.
A storm carrying heat and weight began to howl.
Whirr.
The tentacles caught in the massive energy collapse.
It seems that while they have high resistance to physical force, they aren’t completely invincible.
The holes left in the world shatter into pieces and vanish.
It’s working.
If so, that’s enough.
The power of the tentacles is growing rapidly, but the speed at which my crimson-dyed hammer’s power grows is faster.
At this rate, I can win.
The moment I felt that certainty.
I spun The Hammer even faster.
My consciousness fades and my body screams, but I can see The Enemy clearly.
Even if all my senses vanish and I can feel nothing else.
I can still feel the holes remaining in the world, Un-ho perched on my shoulder, and The Hammer held in my hand.
That is enough.
As The Hammer’s power increases explosively.
The strength of The Hole tentacles, which had been growing at an absurd rate, gradually begins to feel insignificant.
—12 seconds!
Twelve seconds.
Simultaneously with Un-ho’s telepathy.
I unleashed everything.
Screeeeeech.
The world crumbles along the trajectory of the swung hammer.
Because my left hand isn’t in perfect condition, a slight deviation occurs.
“Go!”
Un-ho immediately summoned a Magic Circle to fine-tune the trajectory.
—--.
A silent discharge pours out behind The Hammer.
Following my will, it accelerates both The Hammer and my body.
The final Death Throes of the star harbored within the small hammer.
The tentacles receiving the blow couldn’t withstand that power for even a second.
The tentacles gave up on stabbing at The Hammer and began to fire toward my body instead.
The tentacles pierce through me.
As if proving it was an adversary that had absorbed immense power.
The tentacles reached my body, piercing through the aftereffects of the advancing Crimson★Hammer.
However, it wasn’t a great threat.
The flesh and muscle of my arm are blown away, and a hole opens in my stomach.
But what moves my body now is the power imbued with my will.
Stopping that was impossible for tentacles weakened by pushing through The Hammer’s wake.
Whirr.
The moment the tip of the raised hammer softly touched the earth.
“Release.”
Clack.
The shell of The Hammer opened, and the screams of the star within poured out.
If the one I used against the Gray Eater was a single-point concentration type.
This one was a wide-range scorched-earth type.
Countless, endless homing missiles intended for The Hole tentacles that had no clear Main Body.
The power to destroy the Earth takes root in the ground and fires rapidly toward only The Enemy, according to my will.
Invisible force spreads in all directions from The Hammer.
The Hole tentacles try to pierce me or flee to survive.
But they couldn't dodge an attack that pierces at the speed of light.
One by one. One by one.
They vanish from the world.
Twelve seconds to charge.
The time it took to fire all that power… was probably about two seconds.
In the aftermath, every enemy was gone.
I could no longer feel the power of The Adversary anywhere around me.
“Whew.”
It’s over.
In the end, I couldn’t figure out what The Enemy was eating, but fortunately, I seem to have succeeded in exterminating it.
I can finally breathe.
As the tension eased slightly, my body began to ache all over.
Twelve seconds.
As I thought, I overdid it.
Looking at The Enemy’s strength, nine seconds would have been enough. If I’d done that, my body wouldn’t be this broken.
“Well, as long as I got it, it’s fine.”
It would have been a bigger problem if I’d tried to save strength and failed to kill it.
Anyway, let’s be grateful for surviving.
Just as I thought that and was about to plop down on the ground.
Rustle.
From right behind me, I heard the sound of bushes shaking.
I immediately grabbed The Hammer embedded in the ground and took a combat stance.
“…What. Is it you, Baek Si-hyun?”
Emerging from the grass was Baek Si-hyun, walking blankly with her head bowed.
Since she was walking toward me, I also walked toward her.
“Where did A-bin go? Un-ho should have put up a barrier, why did you come out…”
A sense of dissonance.
It struck me.
I immediately twisted my body.
Thwack.
A Hole Tentacle slammed into the spot where I had just been standing.
What?
Startled, I turned my head toward the source of the tentacle.
Baek Si-hyun.
She finally lifted her head.
A being with a vacant expression and a hole in the center of her brow. From her forehead, a Hole Tentacle was fired.
It’s not that Baek Si-hyun is dead.
If that were the case, there’s no way I wouldn’t have noticed.
A life response still exists within my disciple’s body.
The only thing that changed was The Hole in her brow.
Tsk.
Does it have an effect that allows it to hijack another’s body?
Nothing for it, then.
“Un-ho! Prepare magic! Round two…”
Along with a massive sense of dread.
I feel the power of my Adversary.
The location is on my shoulder.
As I slowly turned my head.
There was a hole there.
Perhaps because of the small stature, The Hole had opened across the entire face.
My partner, Un-ho.
I tried to pull away immediately, but because Un-ho was attached to my shoulder, The Hole moved with me.
Swish.
With the sound of air being sliced.
From The Hole in Un-ho’s head, a tentacle was fired.
It’s too close.
I can’t dodge.
I can’t react.
The moment I realized that.
Countless images flashed through my mind.
Inside a forest, inside a house, inside a car, a cliff, an island.
Atop a tree. The sky. The earth.
They were images of places I had never been to or experienced.
But every single image had the same element engraved upon it.
The word LOOP, written in blood-red letters.
In that moment, I understood many things.
This Adversary is a nasty one, too.
To only let me know at the very, very end.
Or perhaps, it was just the trauma I’d built up through countless loops at the same moment of death finally resurfacing.
Regardless.
I haven’t lost yet.
“Then, the next loo—”
And so, as the tentacle pierced my brow, just as I was about to spit out those competitive words.
…Wait.
A thought crossed my mind.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t figure out what it was eating until the end.
It was that by being consumed, I didn’t even realize I was being consumed…
But that thought couldn’t reach its conclusion.
Squelch.
Simultaneously with the sound echoing through my skull.
My consciousness sank into the void.
* * *
“We meet for the second time.”
Facing me was someone I had seen once before.
The other me, draped in living black filth.
“Ah, no need to speak. I’m closer to you than that skeleton maniac you met a while ago. So I understand you deeply, and you can understand my words. To borrow the words of the woman from last time, I’ve been a man since birth, I was born in Korea, and I like alcohol. If that person from last time had a 99.2% synchronization rate, I’d say mine is roughly 99.99%.”
She was lying on a long sofa in front of a massive door, puffing on a water pipe.
“The second time is definitely better. Since you’re repeating, we can accumulate time as well. That’s why we can see each other often.”
Having said that, she stared intently at me.
With violet eyes that contained a twisted, fallen star.
…I feel like I’ve seen those eyes somewhere before.
“None of that matters. Family, is it? I wonder which side chose, and which side was chosen.”
“What are you talking about?”
“No need to know, Mr. Know-Nothing-Self.”
Cackle, cackle, cackle.
Her clothes laughed.
Just like I had seen once before.
As expected, is she the same person I saw last time?
“Yes, unlike the others, this is my second time with you. I’m treated specially because I’m guarding this door.”
She said that and reached out to knock on the door behind her.
Thud. Thud.
She seemed to knock lightly, but it produced a massive vibrating sound like a gong.
The sound was so intense that I naturally covered both ears.
“Don’t get cold feet. If it were going to break from something like this, it would have broken long ago.”
I’m not scared; it’s an instinctive reaction.
“Anyway. Well, since you’re here, rest a bit before you go. Not that you’ll remember this, either.”
Rest before I go? Didn’t she call me because she had something to say?
Coming here, many things return to me.
The memory of being here once, and the fact that I am currently in a loop.
“That’s because we’re backing up your lost memories. There isn’t enough time to explain it every time you come here.”
She said that and exhaled the water pipe smoke toward me.
A foul stench permeates my nose.
A stench so vile I could never imagine it coming from water pipe smoke.
“Well, that’s because it’s not a water pipe. Now, as for why I called you… I’m different from those other guys, so I don’t really have a reason to explain, but…”
Puff.
Another cloud of white smoke blew toward me.
I started to feel sick.
“I guess I’ll tell you. You’ll die if you stay like this.”
“…What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. You’re about to be defeated by the second one. It’s a continuous loop, but there is an end. There are several defeat conditions, and you’re close to one of them.”
“…How do I lose?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“…How can I win?”
“I don’t know that either.”
It’s not that she can’t tell me.
She doesn’t know?
“…Have you never defeated this thing?”
“No, I have.”
“Then why do you say you don’t know?”
At those words, she laughed.
With a torn mouth and twisted eyeballs.
Crunch.
The sound of a beast biting down echoed.
Grind.
With the sound of teeth gnashing, she appeared right before my eyes.
So close that our eyes almost touched.
“I’m suddenly annoyed. I’m sick of watching the same loop over and over, and someone like you talks to me like that?”
She pressed right up against me and spoke.
“Fine, let’s end the loop. Hammer my words clearly into your ears.”
I wanted to pull away, but her pressure held me in place, unable to move.
“Do you know this? The keyword ‘Third Eye’ appears in countless myths. Most of them have abilities like seeing what cannot be seen or greatly opening one’s senses.”
The white smoke spewing from her mouth blocked my senses.
Like a fog.
Cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle.
Her clothes laughed. On and on.
Piercing through my ears and brain.
“The Pure Eye, the Spirit Eye, Ajna, the Third Eye, the eye within the brain, even the pineal gland.”
She pulled her face away from mine.
Naturally.
However, the pressure binding me did not disappear.
“And most of them are located in a certain spot. Usually…”
While keeping me bound, she pulled back her bangs from a distance.
I saw what had been hidden by her hair.
A hole in the center of her brow.
A hollow hole, like the ones I had seen so many times.
“Between the eyes. That’s what they say, right? How is it? Does it look a bit cool?”
Cackle, cackle, cackle.
Her dress laughed.
I couldn’t utter a single word.
“A story doesn’t only progress by defeating The Enemy. You know that well, don’t you? Negotiation, retreat, summoning, sealing. All are possible. It’s just that in my case…”
Shhhhh.
Black tentacles erupted from her body, thrashing and beginning to pound on the door.
“It’s just a story where I was the one who ate it instead.”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The tentacles pound the door.
The closed door trembles slightly.
“In exchange, I gained new power, I moved further ahead, and I learned knowledge I should never have known.”
Boom.
A massive tentacle.
A thirteen-footed beast made of mouths and eyes bit into the door.
And then, everything went silent.
Creeeeeak.
The door opens.
Quietly, just quietly.
“You asked why I summoned you earlier, right?”
She turned around and smiled.
As if trying to look inside the door.
“Originally, I didn’t have any particular thought, but I’ve changed my mind.”
Creeak.
“You see, unlike the others, I don’t have much patience.”
The door opens.
“So, I want things to progress quickly. Whether that’s another ruin or a new step forward. It’s a perfect opportunity, isn’t it? I’m here, and the others are busy. So… let’s begin the interference. Let’s end the loop.”
The her outside the door speaks.
The her inside the door speaks.
A black snake that infinitely cycles and swallows itself pours out.
She sits on its edge. She opens her mouth.
She is swallowed by the snake.
The snake becomes her and opens a newly formed central eye.
An eye within an eye, a hollow eye that gazes upon countless worlds.
From the center of her brow, filth pours out.
The filth becomes a hole, newly invading the world and swallowing my surroundings.
“So, I’m going to leave a scar. A wedge that will remain in your memory. A mental trauma that will accelerate the loop.”
Gape.
She opens her mouth.
No, not her, but the snake.
The beast of the dead.
A giant grey-scaled lizard with slit eyes.
Scattering countless eyeballs, it opens its mouth toward me.
“I hope this makes the story move a bit faster.”
Cackle, cackle, cackle.
She laughs, not with her clothes, but with her own mouth.
With the disgusting laughter of a beast.
Remaining as the Magical Girl of filth riding the beast that swallows the world alone.
“You’ve learned a lesson, haven’t you?”
“Not everyone inside you is cooperative and kind.”
Snap.
Teeth clashed together.
“Then, enjoy your final moments. I’ll be praying for your failure.”
The mouth closed.
* * *
Perhaps it was the sunlight reflecting off the windshield.
My train of thought was momentarily broken.
For some reason, a chill ran down my spine.