The Construction Is All Ruined Again
The Construction Is All Ruined Again
After its birth.
The fragment seized the body in an instant.
The host's soul was shoved into a corner and discarded in the blink of an eye.
[Food!]
The fragment swallowed the soul of the host it had been dwelling in for so long whole, without much difficulty.
But though it had swallowed it, the soul was not in an easy state to digest.
That was because the connection was unstable, a result of being struck by divine magic every week for sixteen years.
If the connection had been strong and it had awakened while already burrowed into the core of the soul, the soul should have been laid out before it already shattered, easy to consume.
But because that hadn't happened, the host's soul it had swallowed was in too perfect a state, burdensome to digest.
Still, what could be done?
It had to eat first so it could digest the soul and spew curses from the resentment that came out.
After a first meal that left it feeling bloated and uncomfortable, the fragment checked its condition.
Its state was utterly wretched.
Because it had been hit with divine magic for sixteen years and hadn't been able to properly settle into the soul, the structure itself was severely destabilized. And on top of that, because it had been forcibly awakened before it was even complete, even the power of the curses it could spew wasn't perfect.
But aside from that, there were no other problems at all.
Because now it was fully awake and could swing the curse authority granted to it around like a madman.
[Everything. I'm going to eat everything!!]
It could feel them: the countless human spirits, the minds scattered all around.
The souls of the parents who had tortured their daughter, crushed by guilt and despair as they tried to save her.
The imperial princess who had endured pain and frustration, trying to build happy memories in an effort to save her other half.
The cowards who had quit the priesthood and fled, their minds broken from torturing the young princess.
The wounded and shattered psyches drifting around this capital.
All of them were its food.
The fragment wanted to eat them all, and so it did exactly that.
It levitated the host body it had seized into the air and, with all its might, hurled curses as far as it possibly could.
Curses seeped into human bodies, and souls began to be gnawed away.
The souls gnawed away like that were then delivered straight to the fragment of the Evil God, filling its stomach.
More souls.
More resentment created by digesting them.
And through that resentment, more curses.
It was the moment the first step of this endless vicious cycle was taken.
"Quickly! Invoke miracles and neutralize the curses!"
The fragment could see the priests resisting it, trying somehow to slow the curses, but to the fragment, all their efforts felt foolish.
The curses it scattered were different from ordinary curses.
Its curse stimulated the soul.
It was a vicious curse that directly instilled the terror of one's soul being shattered, and once that terror grew within the heart, it devoured that emotion and consumed the very essence of a human's existence.
Because the fragment of the Evil God was a part of a god, it knew this fact extremely well.
This shook the very root of a human's existential being, so there was no mortal who could endure it.
Saints. Saintesses. Heroes.
It would be the same even for those with the most noble and exalted minds and souls.
That was why the fragment of the Evil God wasn't surprised at all when a man suddenly appeared before its eyes, stepping through the empty air.
On the contrary, it sneered.
No human being could possibly be free of the terror of having their soul—the root of their existence—destroyed.
A fool throwing himself straight at the source of the curse.
If he wanted to die, then it had to kill him.
Thinking that, the fragment of the Evil God cast a curse, but the curse merely swirled around the man's body and couldn't burrow into his soul.
His soul was certainly trembling, shaken by the curse, but regardless of what his soul was doing, the man was rushing toward it as if he felt not the slightest trace of terror.
The fragment was horrified.
Was that possible?
Was this even a thing that could happen?
If you were a living human, then of course, when your very soul was shaken, you ought to be drenched in excruciating terror.
Wasn't that common sense?
At that moment, while the fragment was thrown into confusion by this situation that defied all common sense.
A belt slammed into the fragment's cheek.
And then.
A pain beyond all imagination came for the fragment.
***
I felt like I was going to lose my mind from rage.
I kept swinging the belt.
Both of the fragment's cheeks swelled up completely, and teeth burst out and flew through the empty air.
And did it end there?
"You fucking piece-of-shit wing, goddammit!!"
I grabbed the wings that had sprouted on the fragment's back and began forcibly ripping out and bursting the feathers and eyeballs that had grown there.
[S-stop!!!! Stop!!!! Please!! Please!!!!!!]
The fragment was screaming.
But I didn't stop.
"Fuck you, you son of a bitch!! You fucking bastard!! You feel it too!! You feel what Iomene went through!!"
I grabbed a grown wing with both hands and drove in a knee kick.
With a crack!, the wing bone snapped and broke off.
The fragment of the Evil God couldn't even scream anymore.
I once heard someone who'd had kidney stones talk about their experience, and they said when it really hurts, you can't even scream.
It was probably in a similar state.
But it wasn't over yet.
We were still far from done.
When I thought about what you did to Iomene, we were far, far from done.
I looked at the feathers I had ripped from the wing, now filling my hands.
The tips were sharp.
These would do nicely.
I approached Iomene's body, which couldn't react at all from the pain and was only making choked, whimpering sounds.
After lifting her hand.
I brought the sharp part of a feather under her fingernail.
"Thought it was over?"
The sharp part of the feather dug into the tender flesh under the nail.
Iomene's body jerked violently.
[Aaaagh!! Aagh!!!]
It tried to flee, but with the very space-time of its soles frozen by stopped time, how was it supposed to run?
I drove a fist into the fleeing thing's stomach and kept beating it, swinging the belt hard enough to leave bruises on its limbs.
It couldn't hold out for long.
Fragment of the Evil God or whatever the hell it was, it seemed it couldn't endure this kind of pain at Sensitivity 3000x.
[Aaaaaagh!!]
The fragment of the Evil God let out a horrifying scream and emerged from Iomene's body.
Viciously, a pitch-black lump spilled out through Iomene's mouth.
[You!! My—!!]
And then, shrieking, it flew straight at me.
I didn't resist.
I squeezed my eyes shut and accepted the Evil God's curse as it entered my body.
Good.
Now it was over.
Whether it was because of the positive impure thoughts around my body or some other reason, the curse didn't work on me.
Even the curses that the fragment of the Evil God itself directly scattered couldn't affect me.
In that case, I just had to put the fragment of the Evil God—the very source of the curse—directly inside my soul and then blow it up.
This was how I'd secure my one-way ticket to Korea.
I believed that without a single doubt.
The fragment seeped into my body and vanished.
Good.
Now it was over with this.
Goodbye.
Arkal Empire.
It was shitty knowing you.
Let's never meet aga—
[No!! No!! Aaaaaagh!! Aagh!!]
Wait.
Why was this bastard acting like this?
Why was it screaming like this?
[You!! You!! Tricked me!! Tricked me!!]
The fragment of the Evil God, which had been about to burrow into my soul, suddenly began to scream.
[Why—why is that inside your soul?!......Aaaaagh!!]
"Wait!! No!!"
Ignoring my scream, with a crumbling sound, the fragment of the Evil God shattered in an instant.
And just like that, it broke apart and vanished into nothingness.
Along with it, a brilliant light burst out from my body.
The light soon transformed into thousands of tiny fragments and quietly.
Began to descend to the earth.
A fairytale-like and truly beautiful sight, as if the stars themselves were shattering and falling to the ground.......
But goddammit?!
My reincarnation into Korea?!
My skip-hell cheat key?!
Wait, weren't you supposed to burrow into my soul and make me your new host?
Why the hell did you suddenly shatter and disappear, you asshole!!
Why!!
***
When the curse burst out.
Every human in the capital felt that sensation.
Naturally, Erpa felt it too.
The mages and witches of the Magic Tower, including her, also began to rush urgently toward the Imperial Palace.
And there, Erpa witnessed it.
Far away, against the sky where the morning sun was rising, a woman with black wings was firing curses from those wings.
And the sight of Saint Amael, boldly walking toward that woman, stepping through the empty air.
"Amael!!"
Erpa reflexively drew her wand and tried to rush toward the saint, but a priest of the White Order beside her urgently threw himself at her.
"You must not approach!"
"Why! I have to save the Saint! I have to—!!......."
"If you approach the source of the curse, your soul will only be contaminated and destroyed!! If you approach recklessly, you will die! It cannot be handled by ordinary means!! For a curse source this powerful, at least several dozen priests must use the Miracle of Evil Eradication together!!"
At the priest's words, Erpa felt a violent conflict.
She had to save the saint.
But there was nothing she could do.
"The Saint......can he survive?"
At her question, the White Order priest lowered his head in pain.
"It's too late. We must destroy the Saint's soul and the soul of the entity that became the host together, entirely, with the Miracle of Evil Eradication."
Erpa felt as if her blood ran cold.
Saint Amael.
Her love.
Her everything.
If he was gone, how in the world was she supposed to live?
Could she even live in a world without him?
In her heart, she wanted to shake off the priest right then and run to save the saint.
But she couldn't.
Because at the last moment, something the saint had once said to her came to mind.
To value Erpa herself more than him.
Now that she thought about it, it was a prophecy made for this very moment.
The saint was a Seer, so naturally he must have known this moment would come.
Erpa clenched her fist so hard it felt like it might shatter.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
The belief that the Goddess Lilia would never abandon her saint.
With that belief, she turned her back on the saint who was confronting the fragment of the Evil God.
"What should I do?!"
"Gather the people who've been struck by the curses! I will cast upon them the miracle that slows the curse in their souls!"
"Please hurry!"
Erpa chose the path of saving people instead of running to the saint.
Frantically swinging her wand, she magically moved the people who had been struck by the curses and were thrashing in agony and transported them to the priests.
But no matter how much she tried and tried, the curses scattering everywhere only increased.
No magic.
No miracle.
Could stop the curses from burrowing into people and gnawing at their souls.
All they could do was pour divine magic onto curses that had already burrowed in, trying to slow them down even a little.
"Please!......Please!"
Shedding tears, she moved as many people as she could far away from the source of the curses.
Nevertheless, as if mocking her pleas, the curses only continued to encroach upon the capital.
At the moment when, if things went on like this, the only future left was one in which a vast number of people would have their souls devoured and die.
"Th-the curses!........"
"They're disappearing!"
The curses that had been placed upon countless people's souls began to withdraw and return to their source.
Everyone lifted their heads to look at the sky.
The saint and the source of the curses were fighting each other.
The fierce fight was, no matter how you looked at it, turning in the saint's favor.
They were too far away to see properly, but the screams the source of the curses was letting out were clearly audible to everyone.
"Th-the Saint...?"
"This is absurd!! He's controlling a curse this intense?"
"Is that......is that even a possible act?!"
Everyone was astonished.
And Erpa, naturally, was astonished too.
But that wasn't the end.
The next moment.
The source of the curses let out a terrible scream.
And a brilliant light burst out from the saint's body.
The light, brilliant enough to momentarily obscure even the rising morning sun, soon transformed into tiny, glittering fragments of light and began to slowly descend from the sky to the earth.
The lights, one by one.
Settled onto the bodies of the people who had been howling in agony from the curses.
And along with that, the faces of the people in agony changed to tranquility.
"Those are the fragments of souls that were devoured by the source of the curses."
One of the White Order priests murmured that in a daze.
"A miracle."
"It's the Miracle of the Saint."
"He has......saved us."
Everyone in the capital was gazing up reverently at this fantastical spectacle.
The morning sun, now completely risen above the horizon, was brilliantly illuminating the capital.
In that intensely sacred morning sunlight, the saint stood upon the empty air, silently gazing at the sky, tears streaming down his face.
It was like a scene from a sublime myth that no one could deny.