This is an important rite.
Not a single mistake is permitted.
Rrrrrrrrrrumble—
A vibration rolling from that dark sky.
Mun Gyeongnam speaks.
“Ah, do you hear me? O Great Origin, O Old Voice, O Source of Pollution, O Source of Life. O you who are the archetype of all that treads this ground to walk, run, and fly.”
Mun Gyeongnam swings a strange sword split into seven branches and awakens the final living offering.
Again: this is a crucial procedure. The living offering’s life must not be cut short, nor may they lose consciousness.
The pain, despair, and fear the living offering will feel shall also become ambrosial nourishment for the [Great Origin].
Thud— Thuuuum— Thud!
A tremendous boom from somewhere up in the sky. Yes, the One is pleased as well.
“!?”
The living offering now regains consciousness, but cannot move. It is the effect of the poison fed in advance. The living offering’s face twists with pain.
Mun Gyeongnam— no, the priest of the [Old Voice]—opens the living offering’s chest as-is and extracts what was hidden within.
Scarlet life gushes up like a fountain. The priest giggles with a ghastly smile.
Even outside the body, the heart jerks and carries on the familiar work it has repeated all its life. Each time it does— glug— gulp— blood spurts out.
Thud! Crash! Kwwa-gwa-gwang! Thud! Kugu-thud!
And then, as if responding to that heartbeat, a great pulsation is heard.
It feels as if this entire underground chamber—no, this entire mountain—shudders at the descent of the One.
The living offering’s expression contorts with fear.
Shaking his head, the priest brings the blade toward the living offering’s face. Riiip— shraaak— the sound of skin being cut.
Now the living offering will never close their mouth again. The priest shoves the living offering’s heart into his mouth. The bright red heart still wriggles, wriggle, wriggle— with vigorous life.
Everything is perfect.
In a single stroke the priest beheads the living offering.
A savagely cruel rite whose meaning is unfathomable. Performed again, and again, and again, and again—so many times that the floor around the altar is stained an indelible red.
The body that has lost head and heart is thrown outside the altar.
Holding the disembodied head, Mun Gyeongnam proclaims grandly.
“This is the final offering! O Source of all life! O Source of all pollution! O you who fashion every form that walks this land! Behold the unending progeny flowing from the body of the One! Receive the hand of the One who is parent to us all, our master, our savior! Very soon the Great Origin will open its eyes, rise, tread the earth, and head north!”
Kwwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!
Yes, very soon the [Great Origin] will open its eyes.
Its avatars, the [Source of Pollution] and the [Source of Life], have already descended and await the [Great Origin]’s coming.
The instant this Great Being, split into three, joins as one, the long season of ignorance and darkness will come to an end.
The cosmic winter will end and the cosmic spring will begin.
Crack—
At that moment, something odd enters Mun Gyeongnam’s sight.
What is that?
Craaaackle—
The ceiling of the underground chamber made of megaliths. A strange fracture spreads there? Come to think of it, that tremor and those impacts from before.
Was this supposed to happen?
Vrooooom! Kwoooooum!
Isn’t that a bit much?
Pajijijijik— kwajijijik—
Mun Gyeongnam’s pupils dilate to the extreme. A fissure racing across the ceiling, growing at a tremendous speed.
Kwooooooom!
Kwooooooooooom!
Kwooooooooooooooom!
Explosions.
Quake.
A thunderous roar.
Rupture.
Falling rock.
Collapse. Torrents of earth pour down. The ceiling is destroyed. Rocks plummet. Rocks. Megaliths that look like pillars of the underground labyrinth come crashing down. The blasphemous, hideous ornaments that adorned the maze above come spilling down.
Kwah-jik! Kwa-gwa-gwang!
The gigantic gate they passed to enter this underground chamber falls.
“Uaaaaaah!”
Mun Gyeongnam screams.
Collapse. Quake. Falling rock. Falling rock. Falling rock. Chain destruction erupts on all sides. Impact. Shockwaves. This old, ancient underground chamber is caving in. The underground city shaped by an elder race and hidden deep beneath the earth is being destroyed.
A horrid spectacle like the end of the world running on fast-forward.
So this is how the world ends? Is this the descent? Really? Isn’t something wrong?
“Hahahaha! Eat up!”
Kim Sinhwa’s shout echoes from somewhere.
“No way? No waaaay? That can’t beeeee!”
Mun Gyeongnam swings his sword with all his might. No! Nooo! he shrieks. From far away Kim Sinhwa’s voice rings out again.
“Smash it all to piec—
—es!”
What was that just now?
Did the bastard just stop time for a moment?
Rocks and soil pour down. Giant statues burst out of shattered stone. Grotesque nonhuman races that eked out miserable lives in the underground ruins plummet.
Everything breaks, slams, ricochets, cracks, splinters, and hurtles downward.
“If I just gape like this, I’ll die too.”
[The unique function ‘Wings of the Celestial Demon’ of L-grade clothing ‘Night Veil Wing Garment’ activates.
// Wings of the Celestial Demon: automatically casts the ‘Flight’ spell.]
Swishhhhh—
A pitch-black coat whose edges don’t even show a proper boundary whips in the wind, making a sound like a bird beating its wings.
Dodging the falling debris and deadly hazards, I climb upward— higher— flying like a bat or a crow
upward.
“Huh?”
The positions of the rocks I was seeing a moment ago have shifted a little.
A strange sensation as if continuity of time is cut. Did he stop time again just now?
“Yeah, keep struggling.”
From far off comes a screech— Tekeli-rik!
Shrrrrrr— splat! Thud! Rumble! Shlurrrp! Kwham! Zzzhrrrp!
The Shoggoth, still not fully recovered from its bug, tumbles down, convulsing in a grotesque way.
“This can’t be! This can’t be happening!”
Mun Gyeongnam’s howls continue.
Blinding flashes, lightning, and flames pour toward the ceiling and toward the Shoggoth.
[The cultist’s magic is......]
A thunderous roar. Explosions. The frantic fluttering of wings.
“Kiiiiiiii!”
A familiar cry.
“Red! You’re alive!”
“Uaaaaaah!”
Mun Gyeongnam’s scream.
Boom! Kwooooah! Kzzzzzt!
Spells go off in chains far away.
A huge fragment comes hurtling in.
I urgently change course and head in Red’s direction.
[Mental Strength check...... Success].
“People said I had delusions of grandeur, but I expected all this. Because I’m a clone the evil megacorp made by extracting genes from an abyssal being. Coka— you know it, right? The cola company? Anyway, the fighter jet they sent to save me is dropping cola. Do you know there are actually nanomachines in the cola we drink? Those nanomachines are in my body too. That’s why I drink two bottles of cola a day.”
Kzzzzzzzzzt!!
Huh?
That sounds a bit ominous.
A massive fragment slams straight into the altar for the [Great Origin]’s descent.
Rrrrrrrrrrumble!
The gigantic structure is collapsing. Heads rain from the sky.
“You really, perfectly ruined the rite.”
“What does that even matter?” “Now we’re about to die too!” “How do we get out of this?” “Feels like the whole ruin is going to collapse completely!”
“Right, this event is impossible to escape unless you have spatial movement.”
The developer of this game is truly deranged.
To torment players who skip the maze by smashing walls— this ruin is filled with things like [pillars whose destruction collapses the entire ruin].
What I destroyed were exactly those pillars.
This is an instant-death trap you cannot escape by normal means.
“Then we die too?” “You chose to stop the cataclysm and die instead?” “No thanks! I’ll sacrifice the world and save myself!”
“Ah, everyone quiet. I told you earlier there was someone to help us, didn’t I?”
“Who?” “The U.S. president you mentioned?” “A master assassin?” “A Russian spy?” “The cola company?”
What nonsense is that?
“Are you out of your minds? What are you even talking about?”
“Wow— this bastard’s driving people insane!”
“Calm down. Looks like he doesn’t remember what he said earlier.”
Rumble-rattle! Kwoooooooom!
Debris pours down.
“Everyone stop chattering with my mouth! We don’t have time!”
A human silhouette shows amid the chaos. That’s him! Mun Gyeongnam!
Threading nimbly between Red, the hurtling fragments, and the collapsing megaliths, I—
“Red!”
“Kiiiiii!”
A jet of high-pressure seawater blasts from Red’s mouth.
Ssshhhhhhhhh!
Slipping through the gap Red opened in the fragments, I barely dive in and close on the falling Mun Gyeongnam.
Frrrrrrrrip—
The hem of my coat roars.
“Hey, you there! Director Mun Gyeongnam!”
“Y-you! Y-you! You lunatic! You! You did this! You! The altar! The altar! The rite was just about to be completed! Because of you, the sacrifices of countless people have all become meaningless!”
Rrrrrrrrrrumble—
The collapse continues. Quakes.
Kwa-gwa-gwang!
“Uaaaagh!”
Mun Gyeongnam flails, a [Flesh Blade] gripped in one hand.
He tries to draw up mana, but it seems he lacks the Mental Strength to complete a spell in a situation like this.
“I’ll save you, so stop thrashing!”
Shouting that, I dashed at Mun Gyeongnam.
“W-what? Save? Save me?!”
“Not you!”
Without slowing my flight, I drove my foot straight into Mun Gyeongnam’s chest.
Smack!
Ow— did I break my ankle? Right, this kind of thing is for people with better bodies.
Whirrrr—
The [Flesh Blade] slips from Mun Gyeongnam’s hand and spins in the air.
I shoot out my left hand— ugh. Three of those fingers were cut off earlier.
My [Rapid Regeneration] trait healed the wound, but it can’t regrow lost fingers.
So I reach out with my right hand # Nоvеlight # again and seize the blade.
“Got it!”
I immediately triggered the power the [Flesh Blade] holds.
[The unique function ‘Time Stop’ of L-grade weapon ‘Flesh Blade’ activates.
// Time Stop: time halts. Its duration is proportional to Mental Strength.]
Why make something this simple into a whole chant, swinging and dancing the sword?
[Time Stop]
Jjjjjjzzzt—
A feeling like everything in the world freezes.
Rocks, debris, fragments, severed heads, droplets of blood, Mun Gyeongnam far away— all stopped in midair.
Exactly like the staging in the game.
Everything loses its color and turns black-and-white, as if seen through a gray filter.
‘So this is Time Stop.’
I opened my mouth a moment to try making a sound...... but no voice comes out.
Stopping time doesn’t change much, in truth. But there is something I can do only here.
‘That bastard Mun Gyeongnam. Swinging this blade in a ridiculous way without even grasping what it means.’
Time has stopped.
More precisely, I’ve sliced free the flow of time and slipped out, for a while, from the stream that moves along with other people.
‘I don’t know why he thought this would work, but—’
A conclusion reached by thoughts unrelated to any realm of understanding or logic.
‘Could I use magic?’
Just watching Mun Gyeongnam’s magic almost drove me into delirium, and I’m going to cast it myself? Am I insane? Out of my mind? Impossible. It will probably trigger an unavoidable, hideous delirium. But, but, but—
‘This madness isn’t mine.’
It is an artificial madness injected from outside. If I cast a spell while time is stopped— could I defer the delirium until time starts moving again!?
As proof, even though I’m now thinking of using magic myself, I feel no snag, no resistance in my mind. I don’t even sense the voices of the other personalities that had been murmuring in my head.
‘Right— this stopped time must belong to me alone.’
Either way, it’s just once.
Saying magic will truly drive me mad— that means I can use magic exactly once, doesn’t it?
Then it’s this spell!
I focused my will and invoked the spell.
[Perceive]
Zzzzzzzzzing—
This spell has no power to kill anyone or destroy anything. It exists only to analyze the structures and laws of this world.
Golden mana beams from my four eyes into the frozen black-and-white world.
Where is it? It has to be here.
Where? This way? No, more to the left?
Zzzzzzzzzing—
‘Urgh. Feels like I’m going to die.’
It’s a spell I usually used only in a limited way on a limited target. Using it across a space this vast...... the flood of information makes my head feel like it will explode.
Sssssss—
An unpleasant sensation like my brain is boiling. Maybe not an illusion. It really feels like my brain will burn out.
It must be here somewhere.
To the left here.
There. There. There on the left. I can see it.
From a direction you could never observe within the normal flow of time, something is watching me—
“1.”
A voice that speaks within the stopped time.
Impressive. That human can even speak here? An over-spec superhuman in many senses.
“2.”
No. I can do more than that!
I triggered the [Flesh Blade]’s second ability and cut the wall that stands between [this side] and [that side].
“3.”
I don’t care— come out, now!
I shoved my hand into the crack that opened at the far left and yanked whatever I could get a grip on. I pulled.
“4.”
This is my limit. But I did it.
I released [Perceive], and at the same time time—
—began to move.
Kwooooom!
An explosion.
Rocks, debris, fragments, severed heads, droplets of blood pour down on all sides, and Mun Gyeongnam, face sunk in despair, plunges into the dark.
And.......
Tick— tack—
A large clock floats where a head ought to be.
“You crazy bastard!”
The time traveler, Gong Isu, shouted at me.
