Rusty Golden Pegasus (3)
Screeech—!
The sound of cartilage being pulverized traveled straight up my arm through my bones and into my eardrums.
There was no pain.
Well, there might have been, but I forgot it instantly.
Suddenly, my vision flipped upside down.
The floor became the ceiling, and the ceiling became the floor.
Heaven and earth swapped places and spun.
It wasn't some dramatic scene.
This tower didn't distinguish between ceiling and floor anyway.
And my head hadn't actually exploded.
My vision had simply detached from my body.
Thanks to that, I could see the shinigami girl I'd possessed from a third-person view.
And right after, I watched as a man charged in and brought his sword down on her head.
Whoosh—
It passed right through.
The attack didn't land.
I had become a ghost.
Suicide invincibility.
I'd successfully activated Death Boundary.
Thud!
Then my vision dropped to the floor.
I was flung into darkness.
Sinking.
Where to?
The boundary of death.
I'd crossed the line between life and death.
*
I opened my eyes.
A gray sky stretched above me.
A massive cliff loomed ahead.
Below it lay a vast white plain in a silent world.
I was lying there.
Incredibly comfortably.
"Mm…."
I rubbed my eyes.
I felt so languid.
It made no sense.
Just moments ago, I'd been in a desperate situation.
But it couldn't be helped.
After all…
It had to have been a dream.
This place was reality.
That other world—the tower, the modern world, all of it—was fake.
It never existed in the first place.
I'd always been lying here.
This was home.
My sanctuary.
Where I belonged.
My bed, so warm and cozy.
That conviction dominated my mind.
Yeah.
What could be cozier than this?
Feels good….
I wanted to keep sleeping.
All my recent memories faded like fragments of a distant past life.
The urge to sleep controlled every cell in my body.
I love sleep more than anything.
Nothing beats it.
A drowsy smile spread across my face.
I tried to bury my face deeper into the white ground.
I needed more sleep.
Finally, I could have it.
The ground felt a bit hard against my cheek, but it was cool and nice.
I wriggled happily, groping the surface with my hand.
Clatter.
"……Huh?"
I felt a round shape under my fingertips.
Smooth.
Two empty holes.
I peered blearily at the white lump in my hand.
"……."
It was a human skull.
"Eek…!"
Sleep fled like the tide, goosebumps erupting across my skin.
I bolted upright in shock.
My cradle was the Plain of Bones.
Human bones, monstrous beast bones, unidentifiable giant skulls—countless layers piled into this landscape.
I fully opened my eyes.
"…"
Why had I done that?
Rolling around on a mountain of corpses, babbling about home?
I must've lost my mind for a second.
Only then did I notice something gripped in my left hand.
A grotesque hourglass carved from white bone.
Falling inside it was…
Drip, drip.
Blood.
Red blood dripping in drops.
"Once this blood runs out, I go back to normal, right?"
That was when it happened.
Flash—!
"Gaaahhh!!"
A figure suddenly materialized in the empty air around me.
A hideous monster shedding bloody tears, screaming in agony.
It held a scythe, so probably another shinigami.
But it vanished less than 0.1 seconds after appearing.
Just a brief flash.
Flash—!
Again.
This time farther away, a figure appeared and disappeared.
"……Do these shinigami only stay for such short times?"
Senior shinigami whose stay times had drastically shortened from overvisiting the Shinigami Realm.
"Overusing Death Boundary…"
Just like Death Note Commander had warned.
If they could only come here for split seconds, they couldn't dodge follow-up attacks or ongoing assaults.
I turned away from them.
Where was the Great Slate?
Over there—a shinigami lingering much longer.
Another hideous monster, but it didn't scare me at all.
Maybe because it was kin. No sense of threat.
"Hey!"
I closed the distance in one Black Shift and approached it.
"Eek?!"
It freaked out at my black mist and fell backward.
"Can you show me the way? Where's the Great Slate…"
It scrambled up and fled from me.
Why?
"Eeeek!!" "Why are you running?"
I chased the shinigami.
"Why! Are! You! Avoiding! Me!" "Stay away! Stay awayyy!"
Thud thud thud.
"You're! The only! Person! I can! Ask!!"
After a 30-second chase, I caught up with another Black Shift.
"Wait! Stop! Look!"
I grabbed its leg and hung on.
"Where's the Great Slate!" "Aaaah! Get off! That thing, that black thing!"
The shinigami pointed a trembling hand at the cliff ahead.
Was the Great Slate beyond that cliff?
"Thanks. But why are you avoiding me like that?"
The shinigami wailed.
"How could I not! You're the Demon King Tower's Gatekeeper!!" "You think I don't know I'm an apprentice?!?!" "Get lost!!!!!" "……Pardon?" "Let go! My time's up…!" "Aaaah—! I haven't even named it yet!"
With that death-rattle cry, the shinigami vanished.
I reached into empty air, murmuring blankly.
"Is this shinigami I possessed… famous or something?"
No time to ponder that now.
I turned to face the massive black cliff the shinigami had pointed at.
Was the Great Slate up there?
"How do I climb?"
I approached the cliff.
As I reached out to grab it and scale the wall—
"……Huh?"
I noticed marks on the cliff.
Countless gouges and scars.
I stepped back and looked up.
It wasn't the cliff's surface.
Characters filled the entire cliff without gaps.
"This cliff itself… is the Great Slate."
It was so enormous I hadn't even imagined it.
More like terrain than a slate.
And that was the problem.
"How do I find my name here?"
How to find one name on this vast slab?
After wandering a while—
"Is that how…"
I spotted another shinigami.
It touched the slate, then rapidly moved to a spot and stopped.
I imitated it.
Hand on the slate.
Then—
Vwoooom—!
My dantian's circle began to rotate.
Powered by it, my body traversed the slate.
"That's why you need circles before learning insta-kill skills…"
Hundreds of millions of names flashed by, until my gaze halted.
Bottom right corner.
A blinking red name there.
Two of them.
These seemed the newest entries.
[■■■■ ■■]
[■■■■ ■■■]
Completely illegible.
So I couldn't tell which was mine.
"I don't even know this shinigami's name to begin with…"
But the upper one.
It looked more familiar to the eye. I was sure that was mine.
"Erasing this… gets me the insta-kill skill."
Kill yourself to etch your name on the shinigami ledger, the Great Slate.
Then erase it.
No other permissions, but you can erase your own.
That grants Great Slate scribe rights—the insta-kill skill.
The hourglass bottom was filling.
I gripped my scythe without hesitation.
And slashed at what I thought was my name.
Scraaaape—!!
The blade tore across; cracks spread through the name, and it fully erased from the slate.
"…"
But.
Nothing happened.
"Where's my insta-kill?"
No hologram, no status change.
"Or did I get it…?"
No way to confirm if I'd acquired it.
Weird.
I glanced back at the slate.
The remaining name still blinked red.
"Was this the one…?"
Probably the lower one.
Embarrassing to think the shape looked familiar.
No choice.
I didn't know if erasing both was okay, but…
This was an emergency. Might not get the skill.
I gripped the scythe again and slashed the last name.
Scraaaape!
Simultaneously.
A hologram appeared.
"Yes…!"
You have severed the bonds of the ledger.
You have acquired Great Slate scribe rights.
The corresponding shinigami is not in the Shinigami Realm.
Something had gone wrong.
"Huh."
"I'm right here…"
"Did erasing someone else's… cause this?"
That seemed the only explanation.
As I floundered in confusion—
Another hologram.
The corresponding scribe acquires the rights instead.
Acquired unique skill: Death Verdict - Slash.
"Oh… it worked…"
"Instead" made it feel stolen, a bit uneasy, but I was glad. Thought I'd fail.
But it wasn't over.
Reawakening Death Verdict restores scribe rights.
Rights already exist.
Reawakened Death Verdict - Slash.
Skill already acquired.
"Huh…"
Something was wrong again.
I had no idea what.
After that last error, I waited ages.
The hourglass blood was still over half full, but no end in sight made me anxious.
Then this appeared.
The Great Slate peers into you.
The Great Slate removes duplicate skills by upgrading one of the two 'Death Verdict - Slash' instances.
'Death Verdict - Slash' evolves.
Acquired unique skill: Death Verdict - Gaze.
A bit messy, but the conclusion was clear.
I'd acquired the insta-kill skills.
Two of them.
Death Verdict - Slash
Instantly executes one target touched by the shinigami's scythe. Cooldown based on user's STR.
Death Verdict - Gaze
Instantly executes one target captured in the shinigami's eyes. Cooldown based on user's MAG.
"Insane…"
Just the descriptions were OP.
Touch or even look, and they die.
Alternate between the two skills.
One was stolen from another shinigami… but oh well.
Drip.
Plenty of blood left in the left-hand hourglass.
I waited for it all to drain.
The final drop fell.
Shooo—
Vision recovered.
Shinigami Realm afterimages overlapped with the tower interior.
The bone plain and the male swordsman both visible ahead.
His distorted face screamed: "DIE! DIE! DIE—!!"
His greatsword slammed toward my frozen body.
Boom—!!
It passed my neck and smashed the floor.
Attacks still phasing through.
My body still lingered in the Shinigami Realm.
The man went berserk, slashing horizontally, vertically.
But again.
Cleaved empty air.
As my vision blurred between realm and tower—
The hourglass blood began flowing backward.
Finally understood my master's words fully.
Reduced stay time meant less control over exit timing from the Shinigami Realm.
Mine was generous.
Enough to leisurely wait out several follow-ups.
Whoosh—Boom!
After whiffing his greatsword countless times, the man panted, pausing for a split second.
An opening.
Now.
Crack!
I shattered the reversing hourglass with my scythe.
All blood hit bottom.
Shwooo—!
Red mana flooded my vision; the monochrome world shattered.
Ghost body solidified with reality's weight crashing down.
Back in the tower.
Instantly.
I locked eyes on the man and spoke.
"Death Verdict. Gaze."