Chapter 350: As a Result of Unwanted Desires, Someone Blesses Him. Curse It! For It Shall Be the Beginning of a New Life!
Chapter 350: As a Result of Unwanted Desires, Someone Blesses Him. Curse It! For It Shall Be the Beginning of a New Life!
The battle dragged into a war of attrition.
Attacking The Enemy wasn't particularly difficult. Whenever an attack landed, The Enemy’s body was dismantled with ease—hardly surprising, given that everyone gathered here stood at the absolute pinnacle of their respective fields. However, the stalemate was unavoidable.
The techniques The Enemy employed were excessively specialized for a long-term engagement.
High-speed regeneration and Causality Reversal, which rendered attacks themselves moot.
Thanks to those abilities, we were forced into a protracted fight, but that didn't mean we were without a chance of victory. We hadn't been fighting blindly against the Otherworld for decades for nothing.
We knew that in situations like this, information gathering was the top priority.
And we knew that, within the structure of a 'Story,' there is no such thing as true omnipotence.
A sword that never misses and carries a special effect that kills the target instantly upon contact? Such a thing does not exist.
…Well, there was that Nautilus, but let’s count that one as an exception.
There had been some debate within the Management Bureau regarding this.
In the end, a rough consensus was reached.
It was the perspective that everything is a 'Story.' In other words, there was a firm belief that no matter how extremely difficult or cruel the process might be, there is no enemy that cannot be overcome.
As a result, it was a vague theory suggesting that a hostile target couldn't maintain their advantage forever. It faced significant pushback and wasn't formally recognized by the Bureau, but among those who had fought for a long time, the idea was firmly lodged in their minds.
And based on my personal experience, that was likely the correct answer.
What exactly are our stories?
Are they not the playthings of 'those guys above'?
Thinking about that, I felt certain it was the truth.
Anyway, putting aside such personal deductions.
The Enemy’s fundamental technology was Reality Manipulation.
Comparing it to other instances of Reality Manipulation:
The Librarian could only affect non-living objects.
Prohibition could affect living beings, but it was limited and had a narrow range.
The Nautilus was of the Causality Reversal type, but it could only change the outcome of specific actions.
By comparison, this enemy possessed an excessive degree of Reality Manipulation compared to the others.
However, the limitations of the tentacles were also clear.
This was a conclusion drawn by the mages and verified after I had faced it head-on with my own body for a long time.
First: It cannot voice multiple desires simultaneously.
Whether it was because only one voice could exist at a time, or because it had to gather strength again after fulfilling one desire, I couldn't say. Regardless, it couldn't manifest countless desires all at once.
Second: The Enemy’s desires are influenced by the meaning of the sentence.
For example, a desire that doesn't specify a target can be applied to anyone. While it was possible for a desire without a designated target to occur by cutting out the preceding or succeeding phrases of a specific wish, it seemed extremely difficult for such desires to affect others.
Perhaps out of desperation, it once spat out the phrase, "Die!"
Far from dying, it felt like the pain of being hit in the head with a single bullet, so I was able to ignore it and keep charging. From this, we deduced that the more ambiguous the interpretation of the sentence, the weaker its power became. We didn't have time to verify this fully, but it was likely correct.
And finally.
A desire, once used, cannot be used again.
This was something I understood instinctively, but the geezers at the Mage Council quickly came up with the same hypothesis. It started from the suspicion that if it could reuse desires, it would have simply reused self-strengthening wishes over and over.
This meant my description of the number of desires as 'bullets' was an accurate expression.
With this, The Enemy’s ability was more or less confirmed.
A twisted form of Otherworld Erosion that utilized the desires of others.
It was versatile and effective, but its power weakened as its interpretation became unclear, and it had a limited number of uses.
The moment we grasped that...
A breakthrough was established.
"We beat that bastard until he dies."
A truly simple and clear answer.
And to realize that, we continued to wage battle.
We would deplete The Enemy’s stock of desires and induce it so it couldn't consume any more.
The Council had already laid the groundwork for the latter throughout the entire Geneva Branch, and we were currently executing the former.
It seemed there were quite a lot of bullets related to me, as most of the attacks were being poured in my direction. However, there appeared to be almost no bullets related to The Council's mages; after a few attempts, The Enemy gave up and shifted to suppressing their magic or manipulating phenomena instead.
On top of that...
"Yah! Yah! Take this!"
Tragic as it was for The Enemy, there was one more factor in our favor.
The White Fur Ball running busily across the battlefield.
The existence of Un-ho.
His presence was so faint that there were almost no desires related to him. His magical structure was also different from the mages of our world, so he couldn't be blocked by general desires. Furthermore, he possessed a mud-like tenacity that allowed him to ignore ambiguous desires that didn't designate a target, whether they hit him or not.
That being was bouncing around, gnawing away at the tentacle's body. Meanwhile, my hammer—a force so extremely simple that it was difficult to block with a desire—slammed down, leaving The Enemy’s body in tatters.
Realizing that the threatening stacks of desires had run out, even the mages began pouring in beams and Coordinate Designation Magic.
How many hours had passed like that?
At some point, the offensive desires began to dwindle.
The majority of the desires were now for self-protection or recovery.
The long, tedious, yet pain-riddled battle was finally nearing its end.
Still, no one let their guard down.
We didn't know what kind of desire The Enemy might swallow next.
We refined the words we spoke aloud so they wouldn't become seeds for desires, and we bolted the gates of our hearts shut.
Even so, small, detailed desires—like, 'It hurts like hell, isn't there any recovery magic?'—naturally leaked out. There was no helping that.
But even this factor worked in our favor.
"…!!!"
The Terminal Tentacle, which Baek Si-hyun and Han A-bin were guarding at the very rear instead of joining the attack, writhed as if trying to express something.
It was probably telling us not to make such wishes.
That there was a limit to how much it could filter.
Yeah, I get it.
But I can't help it, can I?
I grinned at the tentacle even as I was pelted by chunks of ice. If I said it didn't hurt to get hit by something like this, I'd just be a madman.
Just filter that much out for me.
I didn't know if the Terminal Tentacle could hear me, though.
And so, with everyone's strength combined, the power of the Main Body tentacle was rapidly depleted.
I still couldn't be 100% sure the Terminal Tentacle was on our side, but I continued the assault, believing that if it kept doing what it was doing, we could eliminate The Enemy without any major issues.
A little more time passed.
* * *
The tentacle collapsed.
Despite the barrage of attacks, it was no longer blocking or reflecting them.
At most, it just kept spitting out phrases with unclear meanings, like:
【Save me!】
【Doctor! Hospital!】
I could feel The Enemy’s end approaching.
Perhaps it was safe to relax a little. It didn't seem like it had any hidden cards left to play in this situation. If it had something like that, it would have used it long before things got this bad.
Nevertheless, we didn't stop and continued to hammer it with attacks. Even I, whose body was in a manageable state thanks to numerous healing spells, continued my assault—though countless phantom pains haunted me, likely due to the sheer amount of trauma I'd endured.
Anyway, this battle of endurance that had lasted for hours...
【…!】
...came to an end as the tentacle, struck by my hammer, let out a voiceless cry.
It seemed it had finally used up its last stack of desires.
In fact, while numerous beams from behind me were piercing the tentacle's body, it only flinched and failed to utter a single desire for over ten seconds.
I raised my hammer toward the tentacle, which had become nothing more than a target for practice.
Words were unnecessary.
There was no need to speak and let those words become seeds for a desire.
So, without a word, without a thought, I swung The Hammer down.
And simultaneously.
"…!!!"
I felt the tentacle I had been monitoring behind me go into some kind of convulsion.
"Fruit! Danger! Bad! New child!"
Along with the voiceless scream of the tentacle, a sound like a shriek erupted from Un-ho, and with that as a signal, the world began to warp.
Blackness spread out from the Public Enemy.
The sky, which had been decorated with an oily gradient, was dyed black, and blue stars began to embed themselves like shards.
A fragmented sky that looked as if it would crumble like a waterfall, stained with the void and shattered.
Truly, literally. A hollow, black darkness began to pour down.
The black, sticky oil embedded with blue stars poured down like cold water from a broken faucet born from the collapsing sky.
The world, which was no longer the sky that once had its original color, even stained the ground with Black Oil, becoming one.
The ground, contaminated in an instant, merged with the sky and lost its presence.
Yet, I could stand.
Instinctively, I perceived that the invisible ground that had originally been there was still here.
The only thing that had changed was the sensation the world conveyed to me.
However, such a change in reality was not what was important.
Something was coming.
The disappearance of the ground, the world being dyed black, the firmament falling and sobbing while scattering black tears.
None of it mattered.
What mattered now was the action of the Public Enemy that had caused this phenomenon.
It still wasn't moving.
Since our investigation had shown it possessed a body that was inherently immobile, this was only natural. It was twitching slightly or vibrating its body, but The Enemy was still doing nothing more than that.
And yet.
I could feel its gaze.
An eyeless gaze was fixed upon me.
It was mocking me.
Even though it didn't use words, it was conveyed.
Thank you.
Thank you for leading things to this situation.
Thank you for creating all these desires.
Thank you for letting me be born into this world.
To the deep abyss of everyone... thank you.
At that last phrase, I understood.
Those weren't words directed at me.
They were words directed at everyone.
A chilling cold flowed in.
In the Night of Oil where the sun had vanished and the heat had dissipated.
The coldness I had felt from others spread out.
The immobile tentacle mocked me.
The Public Enemy, who had been born as a root and fulfilled its role.
No, The Enemy of my story, who had been reborn as a Public Enemy through my desire.
【May The Child, please】
【Be safe】
【In a beautiful world】
【Be able to be born】
In different tones, with different words.
They became a single sentence.
And an endless euphoria spread out.
I ran through the Night of Oil.
Stepping on a non-existent earth.
Striking away the oil that poured down as it became one with the world.
Wishing for the warmth of others that could no longer be felt in the cold seeping into my organs.
Believing that the weight of The Hammer in my hand would resolve everything.
Toward the giant tentacle that stretched its two limbs toward the sky like a prayer, sucking in the stars and the oil.
I brought down The Hammer with all my might.
Praying that everything would end before it could even begin.
【Congratulations. It’s a beautiful daughter.】
However, that was...
...blocked by a sentence that was unclear if it was even a desire, filled with someone's sincere joy.
And the tentacle began to bloom.
Like an egg cracking, the tentacle created numerous fissures on its body.
As those cracks covered its form, the tentacle's euphoria diminished.
An eternal moment that had begun from the start of my attack.
Crossing that eternity, my hammer touched The Enemy’s body.
As if that were a signal.
The exterior of the tentacle crumbled away.
A torrent of immense power, erupting from within the tentacle, pushed me back.
And, riding that power...
"A person... believes they are right."
"A group... believes they are just."
"Did you never consider? That the one who is wrong is yourself."
"Shouldn't you consider? That we are the ones who are wrong."
"No. The only one who can resolve this is oneself."
"Yes. The only ones who can resolve this are us."
"That is why the seed was planted there."
"In the place where a group more arrogant than any other exists."
"In a place that is more open than any other, yet rejects the other."
I heard human voices.
Voices I felt I had heard somewhere before echoed through the Night of Oil.
"A person's strength comes from the collective."
"Then, when that collective disappears."
"The one who believed they could do everything alone..."
"...when they break, what kind of reaction will they show?"
I corrected my posture after being blown back.
I looked toward the direction where the power was felt.
A world of black night made of oil.
Countless blue stars were embedded in it.
And in the sky, a single giant eye floated, staring intently at me.
Like a sun during a total eclipse, rimmed with a red band.
And beneath it stood a humanoid being.
The Enemy, who had uttered all those voices, looked at me.
"If you exist alone in the world."
"If there are no others, then all your actions are right."
She raised a Red Pry Bar.
A Pry Bar that was burning like the sun.
She continued to speak.
"A dream that rejects others and worships its own righteousness."
"A world where everything is fulfilled, where the unified desire has arrived."
She pulled her lips into a twisted smile.
"Welcome, to the end of all desires."
With my own face, distorted.
Uttering a voice full of laughter.
【The collective shall walk alone.】
"Let's go fulfill the final desire."
She laughed.