TL/ED – Miso
When I ca up from the basent, climbed to the first floor, and opened the door, I imdiately realized sothing was wrong.
Beyond the open door was not the Spire.
“…”
Warm sunlight stung my eyes.
A stream flowed through dense undergrowth, so clear I could see fish swimming inside, and several spotted deer drank from it without fear, not even bothering to look back.
The source of their confidence was the vast green adow stretching out with nowhere to hide. In this beautiful natural landscape with no predators in sight—
A hand stroked one of the deer.
“The weather is quite pleasant. Don’t you agree?”
I glanced back. The door I had co through no longer existed.
Of course it didn’t. As I slowly retreated and readied myself, Void turned his head to look at .
His gentle gaze was so warm it could be mistaken for affection.
“I apologize for summoning you so suddenly. It simply felt like the ti had co.”
“…I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Have you found enough to satisfy yourself? Or do you still need more?”
“…”
So he’d anticipated everything. I sighed and stopped backing away.
Void had never once lied. From the very beginning, his goal had been to make find this information myself.
That’s why he hadn’t tried to stop at all. But there was still sothing I couldn’t understand.
“What the hell do you actually want?”
“Hmm?”
“Were you abused as a child? Did your parents die or sothing? The Prophet is trying everything he can to save this damned world, so why are you trying to sabotage him?”
The world we inhabited was the Celestial Realm itself—the place no one had ever been able to reach.
But because that world was destined to collapse, soone called the Prophet had appeared and spread magic throughout the world in an attempt to hold it together. Shouldn’t any sane person want to help with that?
Yet this lunatic had harbored hostility toward that effort for thousands of years, maybe longer, doing everything in his power to bring about the world’s destruction.
I simply couldn’t understand why anyone would be so obsessed with a world that would have nothing left but hell, apocalypse, and hatred.
Void blinked for a mont, then smiled benevolently and shook his head.
“It seems Cheon-hwa failed to help you understand.”
“Of course I don’t understand. She kept saying that if the real world is destroyed, pain won’t be pain anymore. How am I supposed to make sense of that?”
“We were made to perceive pain as painful.”
Void lightly raised his hand—
And with a casual tap, struck the neck of the deer he’d been stroking.
Splat! That light tap, delivered without any blade, severed the deer’s head completely.
“…”
As I frowned, searching for a reason for this slaughter, blood stread out and stained the adow.
The body trembled and staggered, but the head continued grazing on grass as if nothing had happened.
“What the hell…”
I imdiately activated Current Sense and scanned the surroundings.
It appeared to be an ordinary adow, but it had no end.
…It seed I was already far too late.
I clenched my teeth and focused.
Before long, all the water of the Deep Sea spread from my perception into reality.
The worlds overlapped.
“Hmm, beautiful as always.”
Crack! In an instant, the entire world was crushed under an overwhelming volu of seawater.
Birds in flight were pulverized. Walking deer fell to their knees. As the grass flattened like living creatures prostrating themselves, turning blue-green—
Void stood there unaffected, speaking those words while lifting the head of the still-living deer.
“Is it painful?”
“Of course it does, you psychotic bastard.”
“I don’t understand what you an. I’m not asking about the deer. I’m asking about you, Undercurrent. Are you in pain right now?”
“…?”
I maintained the Deep Sea while keeping my combat stance, and he approached to ask again.
“Of course you must be suffering. You’re enduring one of the Three Evils through your own strength alone. I cannot even begin to imagine your pain.”
“…I never once asked you to understand.”
“But think about it once more. Are you truly in pain?”
“…”
When he said that, I noticed sothing strange.
For so reason, the crushed birds were still twitching. The deer hadn’t died either—their legs had rely buckled.
“What is this?”
“Artificial Paradise. That’s what I call it.”
“…?”
What kind of bullshit was this?
As I thought that, I suddenly realized the pain crushing my body was far too mild.
Whenever I nifested my Inner World, regardless of the Water Barrier’s state, I always felt agony that threatened to crush my entire body.
Void kindly explained.
“You find the Deep Sea painful because you bear it alone. It’s unjust and unnatural. What reason is there for a single life to bear the burden of an entire world?”
“What kind of fucked-up world are we inside?”
“Did I not say it was paradise? In this place, your pain does not beco pain.”
“…What? No, that’s—”
“Think of Puppet. She took on another’s Burden, didn’t she? Such a world is not hers alone.”
Ignoring my question, Void stepped forward and reattached the deer’s head.
Remarkably, the neck joined back together as easily as if glued.
“That is what is natural, yet the Celestial Realm destroyed that structure and shifted the burden onto a few. You too must have seen countless lives suffering. Was there any valid reason they deserved that pain?”
“…”
“The Celestial Realm is nothing more than a terrible evil god that refused to acknowledge worlds other than itself, devouring and lting them to distribute among its own creatures. We are born, we die, and throughout our lives we pay that price. And on the day that liberation was finally approaching… the Prophet rely extended the deadline once more.”
Void stroked the revived deer, grinding his teeth.
“How long must we wait? How long must we live in this hell? Have you ever thought about that?”
“Never.”
But I shook my head in denial.
“It’s just bad luck. I’m going to escape through my own power.”
“Do the creatures living within your Deep Sea hate you?”
I frowned at the sudden question and replied.
“…Probably?”
“Why does a world hate its master? Because he made it exist.”
Void gazed wistfully at the deer running away and murmured.
“Your Deep Sea Creatures will hate you. Your Deep Sea will hate you. Simply by existing, you caused them to co into being and continue to exist.”
“It’s not like the Deep Sea disappears if I die. I’m not its master. I’m just a castaway.”
“One who sits upon the throne is treated as king even if he denies it. You too will co to hate the Celestial Realm once you realize this.”
“Let’s stop with the useless hypotheticals.”
I shook my head and extended my hand.
Crack! Instantly, enough pressure to crush his skull bore down on Void’s head.
Pop!
Void’s head exploded, and his blood spread through the Deep Sea. Enough to attract the interest of several Deep Sea Creatures.
“You want an answer? Fine. I’ll give you one. I know what your goal is now, and if achieving it ans killing every mage, I will never accept it. There’s no chance in hell I’ll ever be on your side.”
“You seem to be under so misapprehension.”
Void spoke even in that state.
“What you call ‘lives’ are things that don’t even recognize themselves as living. Yes, they’re like seeds that haven’t yet sprouted.”
“…What?”
“They haven’t even decided if they’ll be male or female, human or animal. Can you truly call such things lives? We are all seeds of worlds. If sothing is not a world, it cannot be called life.”
“…Hah.”
Only a hollow laugh escaped at such absurd words.
But Void continued seriously.
“One day, when all the fragnts are erased and the Celestial Realm crumbles, leaving only worlds free—this paradise will co to all existence.”
So in this place called paradise, even having your head explode wasn’t considered death?
In that case—
Slice!
“…Heh.”
With the sound of cutting through air, Void looked down at his severed arm through his already-regenerated head and laughed.
“You truly are beloved by the Deep Sea.”
A genuinely unfunny joke.
I ignored it and focused until my brain felt like it was burning.
The absence of pain might benefit him, but I could use it too—no, I could use it best of all.
I fired Currents at extre speed from every direction, up, down, front, back, left, right, creating blades of water pressure.
If I couldn’t kill him, I’d mince him.
“Aren’t you happy? A world where there is no suffering, no pain.”
“Sure. It’s quite pleasant to slice you apart.”
Slice.
Water blades thinner than hair, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and more.
As many as I could imagine were created, precisely “cutting” Void into pieces.
The space where Void had stood just one second ago turned red.
The blood hadn’t spread. Void himself had been rendered into a state of blood.
“Guh, ugh…”
Imdiately, a thrilling sense of omnipotence boiled in my brain and set my body ablaze. It was the sensation of unity that ca as the Burden of the Inner World and Assimilation approached.
Gradually the world grew brighter. Then, all the excessive information from the extre Current Sense I could only perceive while in Inner World state was being processed—sothing that had never happened before.
‘This is dangerous…’
Paradise was, at least for a Fallen, a space that could truly be called that.
Without any Burden, I was naturally activating the Deep Sea’s abilities.
If this were possible outside too.
The Deep Sea would never be a curse.
It would be called the most glorious blessing in the world.
That’s how sweet the sensation was, poking at my head again and again. It was more pathetic than a headache, and as I gritted my teeth enduring it, a spotted deer suddenly approached.
It was the sa deer Void had decapitated.
“Let go. There is no reason to cling to that body. Please, join us.”
“…What the hell is this?”
I recoiled in horror and imdiately pushed the blood cloud away with a Current.
But the deer was still producing Void’s voice through that difficult-to-speak-with mouth structure.
“Burden is rely the suffering that arises because a human body contains a world. If you join , you can live in paradise forever.”
I imdiately crushed the deer with a Current and muttered.
“…So that’s how you seduced Dark Night.”
It seed Void had used this thod to create Puppet in human form.
He had seduced the ignorant Dark Night into Assimilating with her world, created Puppet, and then implanted only Dark Night’s knowledge into it.
“She was foolish, but she made the right decision. You are exceptional, so I trust you will make an even better choice.”
This ti, a voice I couldn’t even locate echoed in my ears.
“Tch.”
If my Deep Sea had no Burden, it ant his world had no Burden either.
Then why did he bring here?
He was confident. Overwhelmingly confident that if all Burdens were removed and we fought purely with our worlds’ power, he would win.
That’s why he had brought to this space—
…Ha.
“You’re the one under a misapprehension.”
“…?”
Just as he was about to say sothing.
For a mont, I took a deep breath I didn’t need to take and steadied myself.
All this ti, whenever I tried to use the Deep Sea’s abilities, I always held back.
Like the reflex of closing your eyes when a baseball flies toward you, a process ingrained in my body to brace for pain.
I released it.
“You judged too soon.”
The very next mont.
The world sank—by about one step deeper.
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