The Forbidden Upgrade

YggON had analyzed the situation with cold clarity. Lilith had done something idiotic — she had tried to manifest something far beyond her power to control, and the thing had swallowed her instead.

"Asea!"

Ryu Hwi glared at the being wrapped in a dress of night sky. She was no longer 'Asea'. She was nothing more than the thing that had once been Asea. As proof of it, 'Nox' spared Ryu Hwi only a single glance, showing no reaction whatsoever.

[That is not a being you can deal with using your current power, Master.]

"Tch!"

It was the same as the first time he had faced Nox. Ryu Hwi knew instinctively that his power simply didn't work on her, and YggON had stated the fact in that flat, dispassionate voice. Fortunately, Nox showed no particular hostility toward him. For now, there was no choice but to fall back.

"Hold on, what on earth is going on right now?!" Noel asked, flustered. "Chat is in full meltdown! What is this?! What did Lilith do?!"

"Shut down the event. Announce that a sudden update caused an unexpected bug, and end the broadcast."

"What?! If you do that, Jucheongwang's image is going to crater!"

"Now is not the time to worry about that."

"Ugh, seriously!"

Nox was dangerous. There was no telling what she might do. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The moment he found out where Bisque and Ragna were, he had to get out of Legend of Lambda — not a second later.

Ryu Hwi waited for a gap in Nox's attention and quietly backed away. Whether he left or not, Nox paid him no mind at all. She simply stood there, motionless — and that alone was enough to drown Lambda's sky in darkening night.

[Lilith's avatars have begun moving independently of one another.]

Noir Lilith, caught in Nox's power, had vanished on the spot. Whether Noir herself was all right, there was no way to know.

"Where's the closest avatar?"

[This way.]

Ryu Hwi deployed an Airode toward the point YggON marked. Riding his bike down the aerial road at full speed, he witnessed a bizarre sight.

'The monsters are fighting each other?!'

The monsters of Legend of Lambda were tearing into one another. The S.E.N monsters had always been designed that way, but the rest were supposed to be indifferent to each other. The spectacle of them savagely biting and clawing, as if some bug had seized them all at once, was genuinely horrifying to watch.

'Is this Nox's influence too?'

The situation was deeply abnormal — though if there was a silver lining, it was that he didn't have to fight every monster in his path.

Ryu Hwi brought his bike to a halt at the Forest of Jade. There, one of the avatars who had inherited Lilith's soul sat in perfect leisure. A black-haired girl in effortless harmony with this world of night — Sellen Lilith, the one who had come to Jucheongwang to deliver Lilith's message.

"Lilith, your plan failed. Reaching for something you couldn't even begin to handle!"

"Looks that way. Absolutely pathetic."

Sellen Lilith spoke as if passing judgment on someone else's disaster.

"The defeat of a fool who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠couldn't even gauge her own strength... Well, I'll go with that. Congratulations. It's your win."

"You're remarkably relaxed. Tell me how to stop that thing."

"Isn't that impossible? She tried to manifest a nightmare, and apparently never dreamed the real thing would pop out."

"You talk like it's someone else's problem entirely."

Sellen Lilith gave a light shrug.

"Every so often, one of Lilith's individuals develops a strong ego. We're all Lilith, but it really does feel like someone else's mess."

"So that's why you can afford to be so smug?"

"Aren't you the one with no business being relaxed? I wonder — where might your subordinates be right now?"

Sellen Lilith transmitted data to Ryu Hwi. The moment he checked it, his breath caught in his throat. The data displayed Bisque and Ragna's current location.

The Ancient Temple. The very place where Nox had appeared.

"Ishur... Noir Lilith moved them there to use as hostages. I'd guess she intended to play that card if things turned against her."

"Damn it!"

Ryu Hwi ignored Sellen Lilith entirely and bolted. Even a second wasted standing here was too much.

[My apologies, Master. It appears they layered concealment two and three times over — difficult even for me to detect.]

"Save it!"

Even his Intuition hadn't caught it. Blaming YggON would accomplish nothing. Could he really extract Bisque and Ragna without Nox noticing?

Before long, Ryu Hwi arrived back at the temple. Nox still hung motionless in the air, doing nothing at all. She showed no sign of caring that he had returned.

If that's how it is...

Ryu Hwi dismounted and crept toward the temple, strangling his presence to the absolute minimum. Using the [Warp Gun] would have been ideal, but with no way to predict how Nox might react, acting rashly would be the height of foolishness.

At last he slipped inside the ruined temple. A powerful 'Concealment' had been laid down — he hadn't sensed it from a distance, but as he drew near, his Intuition finally stirred.

Ryu Hwi advanced carefully in the direction his Intuition pointed, agonizing over every single step, terrified that Nox might react to the slightest sound.

'There.'

As he drew close, the concealment dissolved naturally, revealing Ragna and Bisque. Both lay utterly still, as though unconscious. Outwardly, at least, they appeared unharmed.

"YggON, force-log these two out—"

The words never left his mouth.

Nox was standing directly behind him.

She gazed down at him in silence, black eyes ringed in bands of gold. His hair stood on end, and cold sweat beaded across his forehead.

Even prey pinned under a predator's stare wouldn't feel like this. It was as if inescapable, absolute death had taken its place at his back.

Thump. Thump.

[Master, do not react.]

YggON warned him in the coldest voice it had ever used. He knew perfectly well without being told. His Intuition was pounding out alarms at a level without precedent. His body was so wound tight that even exhaling took effort.

Black hair spilled down beside Ryu Hwi's shoulder. Not a trace remained of Asea's snow-white hair.

Nox's breath brushed his cheek. Her eyes held him in that same unblinking stare, even now. The impulse to survive seized at his body, trying to move it on its own — and he crushed the impulse flat.

React rashly, and he dies.

Even the violent pounding of his own heart felt deafening. Then, after a long moment, Nox stepped back — as if she had simply lost interest.

Step. Step.

The sound of her footsteps faded into the distance. Ryu Hwi allowed himself a breath of relief. With Nox's attention drawn elsewhere, this was his chance to take Bisque and Ragna and log out.

"Ryu... Hwi?"

"Boss...?"

Nox had returned, and now she stood right in front of him. The instant their eyes met, his mind went white. Even coherent thought became impossible.

Nox reached out her hand. The instant he felt death, Ryu Hwi detonated every ounce of strength in his body.

He mobilized every means at his disposal, amplifying his power to its absolute limit.

A single strike carrying the entirety of his internal energy. Layered on top of it: the damage amplification of Meteor Strike, the speed boost of Swiftness, and the successive-strike effect of Flying Chain Slash. The blow — every scrap of power Ryu Hwi could currently muster — triggered a cascading chain reaction and erupted with a shockwave like a bomb going off.

"...!"

The shock alone whipped a violent storm across the surroundings, violent enough to tear the terrain itself apart.

And yet Nox received the Great Annihilation — a strike carrying everything Ryu Hwi had — by raising a single finger.

"Huh?"

It was over in an instant. Nox flicked her hand, and Ryu Hwi went hurtling through the air.

His vision was red. Pain control seemed to have failed entirely; his whole body screamed. He couldn't even draw a proper breath, and the agony made it feel as though he might die then and there.

It hadn't even been a real attack. One dismissive wave of the hand — the kind of gesture you'd use to shoo a fly — and this was the result.

Nox began walking slowly toward him. In that void of dead silence, only those small footsteps echoed.

YggON attempted logout again and again, only to be blocked by an unknown force. The power of Nox saturating this space was proof positive that it reached beyond even the system interference of UR YggON.

"Un...gh?!" Ragna tried to force himself upright, but a small hand clamped over his mouth.

Sellen Lilith, who had appeared here at some point, was holding Ragna and Bisque back, keeping them from doing anything reckless.

"Stay still if you want to live."

Pinning the two of them down, Sellen Lilith smiled faintly at their struggling. She looked barely into her early teens, yet those eerily luminous violet eyes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sent a chill straight down the spine. She whispered, quiet enough that only the two of them could hear.

Both Bisque and Ragna understood perfectly well how dangerous this situation was. This was a game labyrinth — normally, even death would mean nothing more than a game over. But that thing was different. Some instinct told them that being struck by it would not end with anything so clean as a game over.

Ragna and Bisque struggled against Sellen Lilith's grip all the same. They knew how dangerous it was — but they couldn't simply leave Ryu Hwi to face it alone.

"Friends of the avatar, after all. Humans worth corrupting, in their own way. But now's not the time for that."

A girl they had never met in their lives spoke as though she knew Ragna intimately.

"Damn that Lilith. If you can't clean up your own mess, at least have the decency to stay put. Well — as a fellow Lilith I do have some affection, so I'll make a special exception and spare you, her friends. Though the Lilith attached to that avatar seems to already be dead."

Bisque realized at once that 'that avatar' meant Noir.

"That thing is a natural disaster. Get caught in it and you're finished. Really... she should have double-checked before summoning it. Why am I always the one cleaning up after the other Liliths? Haah."

Sellen Lilith grumbled about her sisters. She couldn't deploy a 'Field'. With only a fragment of Lilith's divided soul, resisting Nox's power was beyond her. To pull Ragna and Bisque out of here, she would need to get as far away as possible — assuming that were even an option.

'I'm a being that was once human too, twisted by ▆▆▆▆▆ — but even I was never this far gone.'

The thing before her eyes was the Origin itself, warped out of shape.

'You grossly underestimated human hatred, Hecate. What exactly were you planning to do about the cleanup, creating something like this?'

If things stayed as they were, everyone here would die. And then Lilith felt something strange. The aura radiating from Ryu Hwi had changed.

'Is the UR Master planning something?'

A desperate situation. At this rate, everyone here would be finished.

'Why...'

Death was closing in.

'Why did it come to this?'

What, in the end, was any different from when he had been an Unknown?

He was every bit as wretched as he had ever been.

Faced with absolute death, human beings react in every manner of way. Those who give up entirely. Those who scream and wail in panic. Those who resist by any means, desperate to survive. Those who accept death with quiet composure.

What does Ryu Hwi do in the face of death? What is the emotion filling him in this moment?

Rage.

He understood it, once again, at the deepest level. Ryu Hwi's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠origin lay in rage. That rage became his strength — the engine that drove him forward. And now, that rage moved Ryu Hwi.

[Master, you must not.]

YggON realized what he was trying to do.

[Your Lv is at its limit. No further. It cannot be done.]

"Shut... up!"

[...!]

Ryu Hwi gritted his teeth. He refused — absolutely refused — to accept an ending like this.

"Level... UP!"

Still. Still, this much wasn't enough.

[Master!!]

Ryu Hwi reached his hand into the forbidden domain — toward the unknown territory that must never be approached.

A meteor flashed across the dark night sky.

Divine Comedy's Asgard.

In a world that existed for him and him alone, Loki — who had been whiling away the hours in idle ease — sensed something and rose to his feet.

"Ha..."

Laughter spilled out of him unbidden.

"Pushing forward without even possessing 'Mental Resistance'? Is it arrogance, or foolishness... No — no, that's not it. Could it be that he understands all of it, and chooses anyway?"

Loki knew better than anyone what kind of skill 'Intuition' was. He knew, too, exactly why Crowley coveted it.

Among all skills in existence, Intuition was the most singular. The most special.

The one who had pulled a UR had now laid hands on Intuition as well. That could hardly be a matter of 'coincidence'.

"UR Master. Hell awaits you on the road ahead. And if you can somehow climb over that hell..."

▆▆▆▆▆.

The path beyond it would be waiting.