The Crimson Sky of Faded Glory
Red light swept over everything.
The bike, skewered by the meteor, went hurtling into the distance and slammed into the crumbling castle wall. A virus must have burrowed into it—the machine flushed scarlet, then detonated with a deafening roar.
“Hm.”
Linpel stood in a dignified pose atop the crimson road unfurled across the sky.
“So this much isn't enough to beat you. You truly are remarkable.”
Nothing of his old arrogance remained in that voice, which rang out with imposing grandeur.
“I gave up on everything, cursed the whole world, and fell. I tasted with my own body the suffering of all the things I used to look down on.”
At times, that voice almost sounded like a confession.
“I couldn't endure the days without dreams or hope, so I reached for things like digital narcotics. As a human, I was finished.”
It was ironic. Only now—after falling as far as a fall could go, after ceasing to be ‘human’ at all—had he finally acquired the bearing of a strong one.
“The result is what I became: ▆▆▆▆▆. But you are different. You were dragged down to rock bottom because of me, lost everything, sank into despair—and yet you refused to give up.”
Linpel raised his spear high.
The steel frame that had formed the shape of a horse came undone and streamed toward his spear.
“You clung foolishly to hollow hope, and knowing full well it was a meaningless, stupid thing to do, you burned with vengeance and endured to the very end.”
The steel stretched out like fine thread and coiled around Linpel's spear.
Little by little, his spear swelled larger, exhaling an ever more sinister aura.
“My sincere respect. Even as I regret casting you into the abyss, I rejoice in the fact that I played the decisive role in the birth of the being called ‘Ryu Hwi.’”
The dust kicked up by the crimson meteor settled, revealing Ryu Hwi's battered figure.
The shockwave had thrown him—but not a single meteor had been allowed through. He had blocked them all.
He had the power of a UR behind him, sure, but it was Ryu Hwi who wielded it.
Watching him, Linpel felt a shiver run down his spine.
No longer human, Linpel had discarded every petty emotion from his human days.
“Thank you. Your existence led me to become ▆▆▆▆▆. You completed me. Your existence delights my soul.”
Soul.
Entertainment.
Network.
Those who pursue the pleasure of the soul.
The old Linpel Darius was dead—and here stood the reborn monster, the S.E.N's Linpel Darius.
“They say revenge comes full circle, huh.”
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
A vicious impact.
Apparently even the Game Labyrinth's pain-suppression didn't apply to an ‘S.E.N’ attack.
“So this is what my revenge produced? What a hilarious joke. I don't know what this Abyss is, but—”
Linpel Darius.
The enemy he absolutely had to bring down. The nemesis who had trampled his entire life into the dirt.
“But now, Linpel Darius isn't worth anything anymore. He's less than a pebble on the roadside.”
Your bike has been corrupted by the virus. Activating antivirus. Full restoration will require at least one week.
“In Game Labyrinth time?”
In Human Realm time, Master.
“Well, isn't that a goddamn delightful piece of news.”
He loosened up his body. He reverted the Shuffle Gun from its Fire Sword form back to its original state, then beckoned at Linpel with a lazy wag of his fingers.
“Save the speeches. I've got zero intention of playing along with your little show. Come at me.”
“That's exactly what makes you my nemesis.”
Linpel laughed, sounding genuinely delighted.
“Here I come.”
Linpel's spear flushed red and charged in as a single streak of light.
Meteor Style—a simple charging technique that threw the whole body into a single lunge. But in the hands of the Linpel of now, even that crude charge became a killing blow.
He met it by unleashing Heavenly Demon Divine Art Lv4. He'd returned the Shuffle Gun to its original form because this was the more efficient way to run the art.
MR — Heavenly Demon Divine Art Lv4
↳ Heavenly Demon Fist: Fist Extremity Lv4
He read Linpel's Meteor Style charge—a speed his eyes could never track—through Intuition, and deflected it using the gauntlet on his left arm.
Not a parry that slapped the blow aside, but a true redirection: taking the attack head-on and turning its own force back behind him.
He meant to follow through with a counter, but Linpel responded with practiced ease, as if he'd known all along that his attack would miss.
Every single movement was a different beast from the Linpel of old. There was no carelessness to be found anywhere.
Several exchanges of offense and defense flashed by in a span of seconds.
Linpel was offense incarnate; Ryu Hwi flowed around the attacks, hunting for counters.
But neither could seize a decisive opening.
He triggered the card ability without hesitation and accepted Linpel's attack head-on.
The spear that should have pierced his heart bounced away.
He'd deliberately taken the hit to carve out an opening in Linpel's guard—but the man didn't so much as waver. The worst he exposed himself to was a deflected spear.
“Last time too, I thought I'd won the moment I ran you through—and then you countered. Nostalgic memories.”
“Tch!”
Linpel, pride cast aside, was absurdly strong.
Like brother, like brother, all right—he reminded Ryu Hwi of Gabriel.
The moment the card fired, Ryu Hwi's deck reshuffled itself.
He activated the drawn card's ability, and the combination of Heavenly Demon Divine Art and Haste unleashed terrifying force.
Every step shook the earth and kicked up shockwaves. He absorbed that recoil head-on as he chased down Linpel's movements.
Even Haste wasn't enough to outpace the man's reactions.
“Is that your new weapon? It certainly suits you better than the one you used before—in the sense that I have no idea what you'll pull off next!”
“Don't stand there grading me like a critic!”
With every exchange of blows, the destruction rippled outward in all directions. Objects stamped with indestructible flags were pushed past the limits of the impacts they could absorb, and collapsed.
This wasn't merely a question of what happened to some ‘game data’.
The crimson meteor light poured down without pause.
One clean hit meant death.
Intuition grasped that truth, and Ryu Hwi gritted his teeth and held the line.
A new card fired, and a ‘Mine Field’ bloomed around the caster.
Any foot that touched a spawned trap would arm the mine.
BOOM!KRAKOOM!
Detonations thundered out on every side.
Linpel charged straight through, as if the mines' shockwaves weren't even worth a glance.
“Mines this time! I remember these! I've missed them! The trembling of my soul just won't stop!”
“You absolute monster!”
“If fighting you is the price, I'll be a monster or anything else you like!”
Amid the chaos, Ryu Hwi kept searching for the opening that would let him land the killing blow.
Linpel was doing the same.
Each hunted for the moment that would guarantee a decisive strike.
Blows rained back and forth without end—and at last, an opening for that one strike appeared.
A shark-shaped shell punched through the ground and rocketed skyward.
It wasn't aimed at Linpel. Aiming at him would be pointless—this thing couldn't deal him any real damage.
Ryu Hwi rode the shark shell erupting from the earth and soared into the sky with it.
“……?!”
This move, at least, had been beyond prediction—Linpel's eyes went wide.
But the point of the maneuver wasn't simply to startle him.
Atop the rising cannon, he triggered the next card.
He pulled the trigger, and a round tearing through space carved a path to the space directly behind Linpel.
“What—!”
Linpel's breath caught.
He didn't let that crack go to waste.
The Shuffle Gun's card abilities fired in rapid succession.
The light of a meteor gathered in his fist.
At the sight of that light, Linpel showed no fear whatsoever—he cheered.
“Meteor Style! You're using my technique! Hahahahaha!!”
In that instant, chains burst from Linpel's spear and snapped his broken posture back into form in the blink of an eye.
“Your strongest against my strongest! Let's see which one prevails, Ryu Hwi!”
Linpel's spear radiated a red deeper than red.
A cascade of buffs amplified Linpel's power in an instant. That ready stance was burned into Ryu Hwi's memory.
It was the awakening skill that had once crumbled before Delete.
Heaven-Piercing Meteor Strike!
He clenched his jaw and tightened his fist even harder.
The moment he tried to retreat, Linpel's spear would skewer him. Intuition Lv3 delivered that absolute, despairing ‘truth’ with cold certainty.
Then so be it—just as Linpel said, he would simply duel to see whose strongest was stronger!
“My sky is not blue. The heavens of faded glory are nothing but endlessly, endlessly red!”
Here it comes!
Linpel Darius's supreme killing technique!
Not the Heaven-Piercing Meteor Strike.
The rising sun sinking below the horizon—the crimson light that proclaimed the end. A spear steeped in the light of annihilation closed in.
“Master, this is dangerous!”
YggON's warning hammered against his eardrums. He didn't need telling. Intuition had been shrieking at him for a while now.
Cold sweat ran down his back. A chill brushed his spine. Every nerve in his body stood on end.
Even so, he did not retreat.
MR — Heavenly Demon Divine Art Lv4
↳ Heavenly Demon Fist: Great Heavenly Demon Annihilation Tribulation Lv4
Meteor Style and Flying Chain Slash—and layered on top, the Great Heavenly Demon Annihilation Tribulation, inner force gathered to its utmost—cut across the empty air and collided head-on with the crimson meteor.
The instant they met, he knew.
I'm going to lose this.
Even the Great Annihilation Tribulation, executed as a skill combo, fell short of piercing through that meteor—the very symbol of faded glory.
At this rate, he would be defeated. Skewered by the crimson meteor.
A fraction of a heartbeat. A moment that stretched into eternity.
Even Intuition Lv3 pointed toward ‘death’—a hopeless situation.
And in that instant, Intuition gave Ryu Hwi its instruction.
As if drawn along by Intuition, his body moved on pure reflex. It felt less like Ryu Hwi thinking and choosing, and more like Intuition commandeering Ryu Hwi's body for its own use.
Physical limits forcibly elevated one full grade.
At the instant of stalemate—power locked against power—he used the physical Limit Break, the same one he'd wielded against Gabriel.
An explosive surge.
But even that force was crushed beneath the light of decay.
The balance shattered, and Linpel's spear was sucked straight toward Ryu Hwi's chest.
“I've won!”
In the collision of force against force, in that overwhelming clash of raw power, the victor was Linpel.
Certain of his triumph, Linpel rejoiced—
facing an enemy he could never afford to underestimate.
Ryu Hwi gritted his teeth, shaking off the filthy sensation of his body being puppeted against his will.
“I've still got one card left!”
The Shuffle had brought in seven fresh cards. Ryu Hwi fired the last one remaining in his hand.
He hadn't expected this ability to show up twice—Linpel's eyes bulged.
“Ghk—!”
An impact that even One-Time Guard couldn't fully hold back.
Ryu Hwi's entire body swayed like a willow branch, funneling the force all the way down into his feet.
MR — Heavenly Demon Divine Art Lv4
↳ Heavenly Demon Sovereign Step
The absolute one who treads upon all under heaven takes a single step.
Ten thousand demons—bow before the Heavenly Demon.
All Demons Bow in Submission Lv4
The instant his foot came down, the earth's axis trembled and an immense aura fanned out in every direction.
By the principle of Fist Extremity, Linpel's power itself was poured wholesale down into the ground with that single step.
And that one step didn't merely shake its surroundings—it collapsed the terrain outright.
Linpel's Annihilation Meteor Strike crumbled.
“Hahahaha!!”
Linpel burst out laughing.
“Yes! This is it! This is exactly it!”
Even with the aura-laden fist of the Heavenly Demon Sovereign Step bearing down inches from his face, Linpel kept laughing.
Linpel's soul was trembling.
In this entire world, only Ryu Hwi could make Linpel's soul tremble.
Confirming that truth once more, Linpel accepted Ryu Hwi's fist with an air of deep satisfaction.
“Hah… hah… haah… hah.”
He'd burned through everything in a single instant, and exhaustion flooded in. His legs shook without pause, and his heart pounded violently.
He took stock of what the Heavenly Demon Sovereign Step—riding the force of the Annihilation Meteor Strike—had accomplished.
Even the indestructible-flagged objects had been blown to smithereens; the whole area had been blasted apart as if a bomb had gone off.
“Master, are you alright?”
“Where is he?”
He was annihilated by your strike, Master.
“Annihilated? You mean he's dead?”
No. He will likely be able to reconstruct his body.
Just like Hecate.
Short of deleting him with Delete, a complete removal would be difficult.
However, the Field itself sustained damage as well, so a rapid reconstruction is estimated to be impossible.
“I see….”
Left to his own desires, he'd have wiped the man out entirely so no loose ends remained—but that wasn't possible right now.
He scanned his surroundings.
The Field wrought by that faded glory, Linpel Darius, was dissolving away. With Linpel—the core of the collapse—gone, Rider-On would return to normal as well.
──Let us meet again.
“?!”
The voice of Linpel lingering in his ear vanished along with a wind blowing in from who-knows-where.
“Yeah. Let's meet again. Next time, I'll put a period at the end of this long, long bad blood once and for all.”
Linpel wasn't the only enemy he'd have to face from here on out. The S.E.N's ‘games’ wouldn't stop—they would only continue.
To delight the soul. People who lived for that alone wouldn't stop at one or two rounds.
He felt, more keenly than ever, the need to grow stronger.
Before long, the world of Rider-On, staged across Zone 17, came into view.
“……?”
Something was off. On the surface it looked normalized, but the sense of wrongness wouldn't go away.
Intuition's warning signals hadn't stopped either.
⟪Truly remarkable, as expected.⟫
Hecate's voice drifted in. These days, merely hearing that voice made his blood pressure spike.
⟪But isn't it a little too early to relax? Your fated counterpart isn't ‘Linpel’ alone, is it?⟫
Don't tell me—
Fated counterpart.
There was one more person in this labyrinth bound to him by a karmic thread.
⟪You'd best hurry. That one is, if anything, worse than Linpel.⟫
“Hecate, do you get off on pissing people off like this?!”
⟪What a hurtful thing to say. Everything I do, I do entirely with you in mind.⟫
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean—”
⟪You hate them enough to want them dead, don't you?⟫
His breath caught.
The killing intent he had accumulated over years of living in despair showed its face.
⟪Linpel is no longer ‘human.’ Killing him would be no problem at all. And of course, the same goes for ‘her.’⟫
“You—!”
⟪Holding back is unwise, you know. For delighting the soul, freeing the heart is the very best medicine.⟫
Hecate's transmission cut off.
And then a call came in from Seven.
“Ryu Hwi, emergency! I'm sending you the coordinates—get over here, now! Please!”