Chapter 70: For the Next Page

Some stories,

Demand a life for the sake of the next page.

As I looked at the seven heads of the ‘Apostle’ that rose endlessly, I thought of that.

“Now I understand.”

The world collapsed from beneath one’s feet.

“That was the root.”

Among the seven heads, the largest one.

The one standing tall in the center, spewing some kind of powder from its whole body like a cloud.

That ashen ‘spore’ covered all things, seeped into the earth, and corrupted everything.

Like tree roots burrowing into a levee, toppling a reservoir that must have been someone’s life, that thing was now collapsing this world from the ground up.

“So that’s how Roberland was born.”

The sight of the land corrupted by spores. To me, it was all too familiar.

The Ashen Lands.

A land of monsters where everything was ashen, where no life could survive.

The ground seeped with spores, turned gray, and expanded little by little.

Realizing that fact, I soon understood something new.

‘If I can’t kill that thing now, the future—at least the future I know—will disappear.’

The very thing Seah had warned me about again and again.

* Events of the past can greatly alter the future.

That was what was happening right now.

Because of this so-called ‘historical revision’ triggered by some unknown being, the Apostle had been fully resurrected.

That creature, which was still regaining its strength little by little while recovering from exhaustion—what would happen if it fully restored its power?

If it continued rooting itself here, expanding the Ashen Lands without limit?

The future would change.

Perhaps even the map of the continent itself.

Therefore,

‘I must kill that thing, and move forward.’

Only then could I see the ‘next.’

The true identity of the thing that gnawed at the world.

The secret of the Book of Fate.

And above all else, the most precious……

“My siblings. I want to see them.”

For that,

‘I’ll have to stake my life.’

It almost made me laugh.

Why was my life always like this?

Risking my life in battle, breaking apart, then living as nothing more than a cripple until just a few months ago.

Now that I was finally coming back to life and daring to dream again, why did things like this keep happening to me?

‘Can I survive this?’

It was a fear that inevitably surfaced when facing something so vast, so incomprehensibly high-level, and so monstrous.

Of course,

it wasn’t as if I had no weapons.

Even now, the aura of the dragon writhed inside my body.

But still,

‘Just five seconds.’

That was my limit.

The amount of time I could control this mad, raging dragon aura.

Within that time,

Could I pour out all of this aura?

Could I control that ferocious power?

Could I survive,

and see my siblings again?

An answer came to this question that seemed hopeless.

Woong– Uwoong–

It was the King’s Sword, Banroa.

Banroa spoke to me of my own courage and determination that even I had not realized.

That I could do it.

“Yes. Let’s try.”

Let’s bet everything on a fleeting charge and reach it. To the tomorrow beyond.

Kwaduduk!

I gripped Banroa’s hilt tightly.

*         *         *

Some moments contained eternity.

There were such moments. A single instant heavier than a lifetime.

[Please.]

The dragon’s thought spoke. Its tone was utterly different from before.

[Kill that thing.]

Yes.

That was exactly what I intended.

The dragon’s thought and my will aligned.

I grasped my sword and poured all my intent into it.

The Book of Fate.

The secrets of the world.

My siblings.

I would throw open tomorrow and see the end of this story.

All of me placed upon that single line of resolve.

Krrrrrr—

Was it an illusion?

Aura howled.

The moment I unleashed the force I had pressed down so tightly, the ‘Apostle’ noticed my presence.

Distortion looked down on me.

Its authority to twist space was the most troublesome of all.

I had to cut through the space it warped, and even beyond that.

It was the moment I steeled myself.

Jjeoeoeoeeong—!

Before my eyes spread a blue horizon.

‘Lorraine!’

This was her message.

That now was the chance.

At the exact moment when the Mana Cannon of the 10-Refim class drove its final, desperate straight into Distortion’s face,

Kwaaaang!

I kicked off the ground.

Distortion spewed ashen blood like a waterfall as it toppled, and the path I had to take opened wide behind it.

I hurled myself down that path.

I thought of nothing else.

I roused Banroa’s Sword Spirit completely, sharpening the keenest sword energy,

gathered the dragon’s aura, bursting from my whole body, and concentrated it all into an Aura Blade,

and to sustain it all, I laid down both my life and the dragon’s thought.

Then, for just five seconds, I poured out everything.

Contamination.

The source that created the Ashen Lands.

Puhwaak!

The dragon’s aura ripped that massive head from one end to the other.

The head blazed as it soared into the air.

『Kieeeeeee—!』

『Krarrararara!』

As the central head was severed, all the other heads thrashed and shrieked.

The ominous energy that had filled the surroundings dispersed for an instant, as if wind had rushed in through a flung-open window.

I exhaled aura and twisted my direction in midair.

Next was Distortion.

I was sick to death of that wretch.

Kwajijijik!

Another head flew through the sky. Ashen blood erupted like a volcano and scattered through the air.

So the central head had been the core after all? The other heads flinched! but their reaction was not as dramatic as before.

They only trembled, unable to shake off the pain from earlier.

Good. Just stay like that.

Protection

I had clearly seen how, every time this one spat out orbs, people’s hearts would break.

Sseok!

I cut it.

Thunk! Kwoong–!

Hearing the sound of the heads I had already severed crashing down to the ground, I once again exhaled aura and twisted my direction.

Annihilation.

This bastard that wouldn’t be satisfying even if I chewed it to death……!

Kwaaaang!

By the time I swung my sword at Annihilation, my Aura Blade had already warped beyond recognition.

I gave up trying to keep it sharp, instead scraping together all the strength that remained and slamming it down in a single strike.

Like being smashed by a colossal mace, like being bitten into by a beast, Annihilation’s neck was gouged deep.

And that was it.

That was where the five seconds ended.

‘Ah…….’

Strength slipped from my fingertips. I nearly lost my grip on Banroa, so I hurriedly shoved it into subspace.

That had been the right choice.

‘I…… didn’t expect it to be like this…….’

A shadow fell before my eyes.

My mind drifted into a haze.

Suddenly, a thought struck me.

‘……I will survive this, won’t I……?’

In the fading haze of my consciousness, I thought I heard the dragon’s thought whisper.

[Thank you.]

Something warm embraced me.

*         *         *

It was more like a prayer.

Forsaking the chance to raise one last Shield, they instead fired the final mana shell.

That prayer, blue as the sky itself.

Some had doubted it, some had longed for it, some had agonized over it, but at the end of that prayer—

there was an answer like a bolt from heaven.

Lightning climbing from the earth to the sky. No, could such a thing even be compared to mere lightning?

Because everyone present there was a researcher, they recognized it all the more desperately.

That was, rather, ‘Reason.’

Like an unstable snow mountain collapsing into an avalanche, like new buds blooming over a burned forest, like a scab forming over a cut as new flesh grew beneath…… That kind of Reason.

A searing flame that corrected the irrationality devouring the world.

In the command and control room, which had been filled with silence and dazed faces, Lorraine suddenly asked.

“Observation Unit. Did you record that……?”

“Y-yes! It has been recorded.”

“Well done.”

Lorraine shivered once in rapture. In her eyes was the sight of the ‘Apostle’ writhing in pain.

Thump!

Just now, the head of Annihilation, which had been barely clinging on, fell to the ground as well.

Now only three heads remained.

Delirium, Summoning, Gluttony.

Even those, weakened and agonized, no longer looked threatening in the slightest.

“Director. I think it’s safe to retreat now!”

One of the senior researchers cried out with joy.

Lorraine, who had been smiling with satisfaction, suddenly contorted her face.

“Retreat? What do you mean by that?”

At the fierce atmosphere, the senior researcher broke into a nervous sweat and stepped back.

“N-no. It’s just, we don’t have the strength left to fight……. Even if those things look like that now, once they come to their senses, we won’t be able to deal with them……”

“Ha!”

Lorraine sneered coldly.

“Don’t you see?!”

She pointed to where the wounded had gathered.

Wounded, but in truth, every one of them was a horrifying sight.

“Ugh……. Aaah…….”

“Kh! It’s too late……. The mutation has spread too deep inside their bodies……!”

A researcher whose body was covered in eyes and writhing limbs.

“Krrrk! Aaah……. Please. Please……. Kill me. No, save me, rrrrk!”

A researcher in whom Contamination had already advanced to the point of becoming a monster.

They were in conditions so severe that even magic could not help them.

Lorraine looked down at them all and spoke firmly.

“The basis of healing is killing the caster of the spell! If we want to save our colleagues, we must utterly annihilate that thing called the ‘Apostle’!”

The gazes of the researchers toward Lorraine turned strange.

‘That person……. I thought she only cared about money and had no interest in us…….’

‘Was she actually thinking about us all along? Just not about our health…….’

That was indeed Lorraine.

She loved money, and was madly devoted to research, but at the very least, she knew how to protect those who came under her wing.

The pride she had built up as the successor of the once-prestigious House of Scottbean.

But it wasn’t only because of that.

Lorraine had to kill that monster here, no matter what.

‘Besides. If things end like this, then what about Ransen?’

Ransen, who had fulfilled his duty at the cost of his own life, lay collapsed beneath the Apostle.

She could not run away, leaving him there.

And,

‘This may be the first and last chance. To learn the secrets of this world!’

Why had that radiant Mythic Era fallen?

What was this world made of, and where was its end?

Perhaps the clue to unlock that ultimate secret lay just beyond.

The one and only chance to glimpse the next page of a story that had happened in the past, and might yet repeat again.

Hwaruk–

In her pupils, a deep green flame blazed once more.

“Look!”

Lorraine pointed at the ‘Apostle’ before all the researchers.

“Beyond that! The ‘Truth’ is there!”

A true researcher,

never retreated in front of the truth.

Even the senior researcher who had suggested retreat was deeply moved by her words.

But……

Even he had his reasons for insisting on retreat.

“But Director. We’ve run out of mana shells.”

Then the leader of the Cooling Unit added,

“The Mana Heart just died. We can’t revive it anymore.”

Without mana shells, there was no way to kill that monster.

As everyone said this, Lorraine shook her head.

“Mana shells only require an over-compression of mana and a structure capable of converging the law, don’t they?”

“In theory……. yes, that’s correct?”

“Then gather every single sample and prototype of Magical Armor we have! Just what’s here in the Academic Hall alone should be quite a lot.”

“Wh-what?!”

“We’ll make the shells from those. And as for the Mana Heart, we’ll combine all of our mana to substitute it. I’ll design the spell formula myself.”

She said it as if it were nothing, but to the researchers, it was a shock like having a mana shell explode right in front of them.

Was that really the money-grubber Lorraine?

“D-Director! That’s our research center’s core assets! We already lost an enormous amount of data, and if we lose those as well, then we……!”

“Is money the problem right now?! I’m ready to be penniless, so bring out everything!”

Money—what was money compared to this?

Lorraine glared at the writhing ‘Apostle’ with eyes burning hot.

And she thought of Ransen, somewhere beneath it.

‘Don’t die. Ransen.’

I endured……

So you must, too!

Not long after,

azure mana shells, fired by burning up Magical Armor and the magics of wizards, rained down upon the Apostle’s body.

Though their power was far weaker than before,

their hue was bluer, like the horizon, like the light of dawn, covering everything around in brightness.

*         *         *

Darkness.

In the deep darkness where I could feel nothing, a voice brushed my ear.

[The Apostle is annihilated. It will ‘never again’ exist.]

[Absorbing large amounts of Twisted Timeline.]

[The Twisted Timeline has reached its critical point.]

[The Book of Fate blossoms into new possibilities. Level 2 achieved! ‘Exploration’ function unlocked.]

[You have escaped the grasp of ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛. Broken Causality acquired.]

What the hell was this……

I just wanted to see my siblings.

But then another voice came.

Unlike before,

this one carried a tremor.

[One crisis transforms into one miracle. You have done well……. Thank you.]

[Broken Causality consumed. 「Prologue, one-time」 acquired.]

And then,

Pallak–

I heard it, from somewhere.

The sound of a page turning.