Chapter 117: Execution! |
Beneath the upside-down palace.
Celt was sprawled on the ground, dragged down by a strange sense of falling. The Lunatic's World Travel Guide lay overturned nearby, its pages spread open against the floor.
He hadn't resisted the order King Kolimon had issued. When Kolimon commanded him to notify the original body, he had obeyed without hesitation.
Celt wasn't the type to say things like, "I'll hold them off, you guys go first."
If you can't win, you can't win. If you can call for backup, you call for backup.
Throwing your life away pointlessly benefited no one, including himself.
But there was no need for him to actively seek help anyway. The moment Sereia had left, the Travel Guide had already sent out a distress signal on its own.
The book lying to the side suddenly flipped a few pages on its own, despite no wind stirring, and stopped on one page in particular.
A head emerged from the book, then a neck, shoulders, a body...
As easily as walking up a flight of stairs from the first floor to the second.
"Oh? Haha." The moment Samuel appeared and saw Celt lying on the ground, he let out a merciless, jeering laugh. "What kind of pose is that?"
"What are you laughing at? This is all aimed at you," Celt said, somewhat speechless.
"Is that so?" Samuel chuckled, lifting his gaze toward Kolimon above. "You're being pretty petty, aren't you?"
"It's just a tiny little disagreement between us. This isn't really necessary, is it?" He raised his left hand, pinching his thumb and index finger together to show a "tiny little bit" gesture.
He genuinely didn't think this king had any real reason to kill him.
Even if Celt had rebelled, shouldn't Kolimon be going after Celt? What did that have to do with him?
But Kolimon said nothing, merely floating high beneath that inverted palace.
The smile at the corner of Samuel's mouth widened slightly.
The moment he arrived here, he had immediately sensed something off.
This proto-Divine Realm was very different from Ethen's Perpetual Arboretum.
Ethen's Arboretum completely isolated the inside from the outside, but this one had an indistinct connection to the real world.
Samuel never assumed others were fools, and he guessed this world probably wasn't completely lacking in other "Absurdity Clowns."
Since that was the case, Kolimon couldn't possibly be unaware that Samuel drew power from others' genuine joy and could resurrect through heartfelt laughter.
A sealed proto-Divine Realm would be an excellent way to cut off inside from outside, just like Ethen's Arboretum had completely severed Celt's connection to ordinary people back then. Even Samuel's own connection with Celt had nearly been broken.
But the Kolimon before him had chosen not to do that.
Samuel could think of two possibilities.
One: he simply couldn't do it.
Two: as a king, he drew power from his subjects, so he wouldn't cut himself off from them.
Samuel leaned more toward the latter, because Kolimon could easily have temporarily sealed the proto-Divine Realm through a Law Contract.
Thoughts raced quickly through his mind, but his actions never paused.
He took two steps forward, and his own Spiritual Flame ignited around his body.
Unlike Celt, who was being suppressed, Samuel's spirituality didn't seem completely restricted.
His spiritual reserves were vast enough to break through the shackles and manifest physically.
Samuel, highly sensitive to emotions, noticed that Kolimon, not far above his head, showed a flicker of understanding when he saw Samuel's boundless spirituality.
It seemed this king knew exactly why Samuel had an inexhaustible supply of spirituality.
Seeing that Kolimon, for whatever reason, hadn't struck immediately, Samuel made a light downward gesture with his hand. His translucent flames ignited and rapidly spread, corroding a small area nearby and enveloping Celt, who wasn't far away.
Samuel's Spiritual Flame was a grayish-white color, flecked with traces of other hues.
There was gold, white, green, and pinkish-blue.
The instant Samuel's Spiritual Flame surrounded him, Celt felt the weight pressing down on him vanish.
He let out a long breath as he lay on the ground.
Being crushed and going "ho-ho-ho" was really quite unpleasant.
It was at this moment that Kolimon finally spoke.
He looked at Samuel, who had just appeared, and his voice remained majestic and heavy.
The golden longsword in his hand pointed at Samuel.
"Submit, or die."
The same sensation of one's spirit being exiled and plummeting rapidly descended upon Samuel.
But Samuel just grinned.
"Oh? A domineering CEO type, huh?"
He raised his hand and stretched lazily.
"What's this? Got your eye on me? Want to take me back and make me your bed-warmer?"
Kolimon's face remained expressionless. He slowly raised his left hand, the one not holding the golden longsword.
"Fine. Even dead, you'll still be useful."
*Thump!*
The sound of a gavel striking echoed out of nowhere.
Samuel suddenly felt his body grow heavy, his movements sluggish.
*Thump! Thump! Thump!*
Three more gavel strikes followed in quick succession.
One after another.
With each strike of the gavel, Samuel noticed his surroundings changing a little.
At the first gavel strike, a circular platform appeared beneath his feet.
At the second, a guillotine materialized before him.
The third gavel strike came with the rattling sound of chains.
Samuel found his hands bound behind his back in an instant, and he himself had appeared on that guillotine platform.
It was a guillotine that looked brand new, unadorned but not needing to be.
"Huh? What kind of wild talk is that?" Samuel was still joking around. "What do you mean, 'even dead, you'll still be useful'? Corpse appreciation isn't a good habit, just so you know."
But Kolimon apparently had no intention of chatting with Samuel.
He closed his eyes, his sword tip lowering slightly, while his left hand clenched into a fist and rose high.
After a one-second pause, he swung it down.
"Execution!"
A golden blade, made of the same material as Kolimon's longsword, fell from the sky and landed on Samuel's neck.
His neck was severed, and his head rolled off.
Colorful confetti and ribbons sprayed from Samuel's neck.
It was a paper doll that looked exactly like Samuel!
Samuel had swapped places with a dummy at some unknown point.
And Samuel's real body had appeared behind Kolimon.
Samuel had somehow managed to get behind Kolimon, floating slightly higher than him, holding a black inflatable toy hammer.
It was the common kind of balloon hammer, with a long handle and a horizontal, barrel-shaped black head filled with air to make it puffy. On its horizontal surface, written in slightly cartoonish lettering, were the words "One Hundred Million Tons!"
Samuel twisted his body sideways, raised the inflatable hammer high, and struck a perfect baseball-swing pose.
Kolimon hadn't expected to kill Samuel with that one blow anyway. At the same moment, he sensed the person behind him.
He spun around quickly, lowering his body to create distance while raising his left hand, aiming it at Samuel.
Their eyes met. A new mouth had somehow opened on Samuel's forehead.
This mouth was delicate, moist, and far more beautiful than Samuel's own mouth.
"Don't move~." Samuel and that mouth spoke simultaneously, their voices laced with laughter.
Samuel's voice carried amusement, while the voice from the mouth on his forehead carried a melodious tone, as if it were singing.
That "don't move," filled with laughter, lingered around Kolimon's ears like ocean waves, layering one upon another, causing him to be momentarily distracted. His attention was slightly scattered, as if rinsed by seawater.
This was a little trick Samuel had come up with after upgrading the Travel Guide.
Now that the Travel Guide was fused into his soul, items inside it could enter and exit through their bodies.
Since that was the case, as long as Samuel and any of his clones, who were essentially the same person, simultaneously hosted the Travel Guide, they could not only share spirituality but also transfer parts of their bodies to each other.
This allowed them to use The Lunatic's World Travel Guide as a relay station.
They could even achieve the feat of "one person crawling out of another person's body."
"Home run!" Samuel mimed a baseball swing.
Although his attention had been forcibly diverted slightly, Kolimon's body instinctively reacted.
He raised his left hand, fingers spread wide, to catch the hammer hurtling toward him.
The inflatable hammer with "One Hundred Million Tons!" written on it was swung in a full arc and smashed into Kolimon.
*BOOM!*
With a loud crash, Kolimon vanished from his spot in an instant.
He hadn't teleported.
He had been blasted away.
"Haha." Samuel maintained his swing pose, watching Kolimon fly off. "You didn't think those words were just me bluffing, did you?"
This single strike immediately snapped Kolimon out of his momentary distraction.
Having been knocked away, he was still flying sideways due to inertia. But in the next instant, that inertia disappeared. He stopped completely mid-flight, brakes jammed, without any sliding.
The kinetic energy seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Samuel hefted the hammer over his shoulder, about to press his advantage.
But in the next moment, a thin line of blood appeared on his neck.
"Huh?"
In Samuel's confused gaze, his head detached from his neck and fell into his hand, which he had stretched out to catch it below.
Blinking, Samuel raised his hand and pressed his head back on like putting on a hat.
But the wound didn't heal. He couldn't reattach his head.
Within this proto-Divine Realm, beheading meant beheading. If the head had been cut off, then it no longer belonged on the neck.
This was Kolimon's "Restraint."
Unavoidable. Unstoppable. Unblockable. No substitutions. No repairs.
What had happened could not be changed.
If it weren't for the fact that maintaining his humanity was purely a hobby for Samuel and that his head wasn't actually his fatal weakness, that single strike would have successfully killed him.
Even Samuel's substitution had been useless.
Before the blade had even fallen, Samuel's head had already ceased to be on his neck.
Anyone whose fatal weakness was decapitation would have died in that instant.
"So this is a 'proto-Divine Realm'?" A look of keen interest appeared on Samuel's face.
Holding his head on with one hand, he looked expectantly at Kolimon, who had been knocked far away, waiting for the next "execution."
But after the first execution ended, the second one didn't come.
Samuel suddenly understood.
It seemed this so-called execution had a cooldown; it couldn't be used multiple times consecutively on the same person.
Below, Celt, who had been lying on the ground with Samuel's spirituality coating him, pushed himself up off the ground on his own.
Raising his hand, his own Travel Guide appeared in his grasp.
Reaching into the equipment stash that Samuel had opened, he rummaged around for a bit, then pulled out a bundle.
Soon, he drew an umbrella from the book.
It was an umbrella without ribs, with eight small stone balls evenly distributed around its edge.
Fairy Tale Materialization: The Umbrella of Helskogen Mosken.
This was a toy Samuel had created based on Yun Tianming's fairy tale.
Its effect was to grant immunity from all negative external effects.
It was a piece Samuel had made a long, long time ago. In that life, he had just become the Toymaker and wanted to make as many toys as possible.
Over time, during eighteen years, he had filled an entire warehouse.
Lately, bored with nothing to do, he had refurbished them all.
Not just this one; every toy in the warehouse had been upgraded by Samuel.
Celt held this umbrella, which couldn't be opened due to lacking ribs, and twisted the handle, causing the whole umbrella to spin.
The eight evenly distributed small balls were immediately set into motion by the rotation, their centrifugal force spreading the canopy open.
Casting a casual glance downward and seeing that Celt was ready, Samuel smiled and withdrew the Spiritual Flame he had spread out to cover Celt.
In the next instant, the sensation of falling, which should have returned, failed to descend.
*Whoosh...*
"The Umbrella of Helskogen Mosken" spontaneously ignited with a Spiritual Flame.
It was Celt's own white Spiritual Flame.
A special barrier materialized beneath the umbrella, shielding Celt, leaving him unaffected.
But at the same time, Celt felt his already insufficient spirituality rapidly drain away.
A rough estimate suggested it would be depleted in less than a minute.
His spirituality had never been plentiful to begin with, and a Law Object that granted "immunity from all negative effects" clearly had a high mana cost.
Celt's expression grew somewhat complicated as he glanced at Kolimon above.
Just resisting the passive influence within this proto-Divine Realm was nearly enough to drain all of Celt's spirituality in a minute.
The gap between them was simply too vast.
Letting out a helpless sigh, Celt reversed his grip on the Travel Guide and thrust it into his own chest, letting it merge inside.
Super battery installed.
Samuel's endless, surging spirituality instantly flooded every corner of Celt's body and soul.
Not only that, but from then on, all spiritual consumption was on Mr. Samuel's tab.
A delighted smile spread across his face.
Seriously, all he'd said was that the gap in their strength was a bit big, which made him a bit dazed.
He'd never said he wasn't going to cheat.
He usually didn't like to cheat anyway.
But when a fight wasn't going his way, and he had an unlimited mana pool, if he didn't use it, he'd be a fool.
The next moment, a pair of pure white wings unfurled from behind Celt.
Celt, who had previously only been able to barely conjure a few ethereal feathers, was completely transformed with an abundance of spirituality.
"I declare the illegal imprisoner guilty." Celt opened his mouth and pronounced the Law Edict.
This was explicitly directed at Kolimon.
But the Law Edict failed to take effect.
Or rather, it did take effect, but its effect was virtually zero.
As the king, Kolimon held supreme legislative authority over Liastan.
Furthermore, this was Kolimon's own proto-Divine Realm, and Kolimon was the Law Inscriber of [Restraint].
What was right and what was wrong was for Kolimon to decide, not Celt.
The "Lawyer's" extraordinary ability had become completely useless.