Chapter 434: The Savior Ω VIII |
The Savior Ω VIII
The one who is reborn again and again. A reincarnator (還生者).
The one who deceives like an illusion. An illusionist (幻生者).
An existence where two meanings overlapped.
The prison she had sealed herself within was cleaved in two by a single strike from Emit Schopenhauer, the Swordmaster.
And then.
Brother.
The fragments of the shattered glass prison scattered through the air.
Before the mirror shards could even fall to the ground, something wrapped tightly around the nape of my neck.
It was Yuri's illusion.
The scent of apples rushed sharply into my nostrils.
A voice and gestures that Yuri must have been born with in some reincarnation embraced me from behind, whispering softly.
It wasn't just me who was experiencing this.
Father.
You came all this way to find me?
Yo-hwa unni.
I'm so happy.
Ye-ji.
The entire strike team.
Hundreds of illusions, hundreds of reincarnations that had sprouted from everyone's shadows were breathing sweet whispers, enchanting the strike team members.
Giggles scattered through the air.
"...!"
The sound of gasps being drawn in echoed unevenly from all directions.
A comfort overwhelmingly richer than any sense of duty to save this world. The sensation of the emptiness in their hearts, the one they'd been searching for since birth, being filled with warmth.
Let's become one.
No matter how firm their minds were, their brains melted dizzily at those gentle whispers.
Only ten seconds had passed since the glass prison shattered.
The battle hadn't even truly begun, yet the strike team was on the verge of being completely neutralized.
Groans burst like lumps across the battlefield.
"Ugh...!"
"Everyone, snap out of it! This is an illusion!"
Ahaha. An illusion? Father, that's too much.
"Ah, aah. Aah—"
It was hard to find any vitality in the voices of the awakeners trying to rally themselves.
Only then did I realize.
Even in her normal state, Yuri naturally maxed out favorability scores with people around her as easily as breathing, but even that was actually the result of Yuri exercising considerable restraint.
'Just hearing the voice feels like my nerves are burning up.'
For the reincarnator who had lost even the minimal will to remain human, there was no such thing as self-restraint.
Hungry, so she devours.
That level of instinct. With a desire no different from gluttony, the illusions of the reincarnator stroked the strike team members, caressed them, and pulled them close.
"Ji-won!"
In the torrent of pink temptation, there were only two people who maintained their sanity from the very beginning.
One was the legendary skeptic who had strangled the reincarnator when she was just a newborn baby, telling her not to live in this painful world.
"Yes. Mr. Matiz."
The other was someone who couldn't be satisfied with such illusions, someone who desired the one and only real Yuri in this world, the false Regressor.
Ji-won clasped her hands together in prayer.
At that moment, an aurora spread across the ground.
"Haa...!"
"Th-thank you! Team Leader!"
Poof! Pwoong! As the aurora's waves rushed all the way to the distant horizon, the sound of bubbles bursting echoed from all directions.
The seven-colored aurora swept across the ground, completely erasing the shadows cast by the strike team members.
When the shadows disappeared, the forms of Yuri that had been manifesting through them also faded away.
"Nice! Ji-won unni!"
Dok-seo shouted enthusiastically.
Just moments ago, she'd been drooling and delighted by Yuri's touch, but as befitting someone who wasn't a true possessor, the evidence of that shameful display had long since been scrubbed away with the back of her hand.
"See that! As long as mental manipulation doesn't work, it doesn't matter if she's reincarnated billions of times, she's nothing! You pink tentacle brainwashing one-trick!"
"It seems this strike team has a culture where the leader-type humans voluntarily summon cliché anomalies..."
"Huh? What are you saying, old man—"
Dok-seo's words didn't continue.
"—? ...!!"
Her lips kept moving, but no sound came out. No, the entire battlefield had fallen completely silent.
"..., ...!"
"...!"
A soundless outcry.
It wasn't just voices, even footsteps couldn't be heard. Hundreds of awakeners were present, yet not a single breath could be heard flowing.
It was an eerily cold silence, but I wasn't flustered at all.
'It's one of Yuri's abilities.'
[Sound Seal].
Go Yuri, who had lived countless lives, possessed countless abilities.
Most of them, even Yuri herself couldn't clearly remember. Because she lacked the ability to remember everything.
Even if she couldn't remember them, the fact that the abilities existed was undeniable.
That's why Yuri in her prime didn't fight with the intention of 'I'll activate this or that ability.'
If she thought 'it's a bit noisy.'
Just that alone, and the sound would disappear.
A state infinitely close to omnipotence.
[..., ...!]
The seal on sound wasn't limited to just voices. The telepathy from the Saintess holding position in the rear was neutralized instantly as well.
The Saintess wasn't slow to catch on either.
[Everyone, please don't panic.]
The Saintess quickly grasped the situation and switched the method of conveying messages from 'sound' to 'text.'
[Currently, the enemy appears to have chosen a strategy of neutralizing us rather than attacking us directly.]
[However, we've prepared for every contingency.]
[Even if this is an unfamiliar battle, please trust the command and engage in combat.]
Tatatatatak—
Text appeared before my eyes in rapid succession without a hint of lag.
The Saintess was probably mixing in time stops herself, saving even the scraps of time wasted on typing.
[Please attach the puppet threads spread by Puppeteer Ha-yul to your wrists or forearms.]
[In case text transmission is also blocked, please combine messages according to the colors glowing from the puppet threads and act accordi■■■, ■■■.]
[■■■ ■ ■ ■ ■■■ ■■■—]
Bzzzzt.
The text became scrambled with black noise.
Soon, the text was completely cut off.
When I turned my head to look in the Saintess's direction, I realized no one was there.
But I felt someone gripping my other hand tightly.
"Mr. Undertaker."
Time stopped.
Before I knew it, the Saintess had approached right next to me and was holding my hand. Beads of sweat had formed on the brow of her face, which had maintained its expressionless mask throughout.
"What's happening? Ah, sound works here."
"If I stop time, it seems I can resist Yuri's authority to some extent. But I don't know how long even this will last."
"What?"
"Yuri has the ability of [Time Acceleration]."
The Saintess let out several groans as if the burden was too much.
"If I hadn't hurriedly stopped time just now, dozens of years would have passed in an instant by this place's standards."
"...!"
"No matter how slowly time flows in this dream within a dream, if decades pass, there's no answer. In the outside reality, White Night would have arrived, and our operation would have immediately failed."
This was insane.
The Saintess's arm gripping my hand was trembling with small aftershocks even now.
A nasal grunt. Even at this very moment, [Time Stop] and [Time Acceleration] were clearly fighting for dominance.
"Did Yuri have... this kind of ability too?"
"Something similar existed. But that was only accelerating the flow of thought at most. To actually speed up time itself like this... Ah!"
I immediately realized the cause of the abnormality.
"This isn't reality, it's Go Yuri's divine realm! It's no different from the depths of her dreams. So as a result, [accelerating the flow of thought] has become equivalent to [accelerating the flow of time]!"
"...The ability to dream faster."
The Saintess groaned.
"We misjudged. We formulated our operation based on the abilities Go Yuri possessed in reality... If your speculation is correct, Mr. Undertaker, those abilities will have become far more severe."
"Yes. But there's no need to panic. Originally, it's natural for Outer Gods to become more powerful in their own divine realms."
"That's also… true."
Bzzzzt.
The Saintess's voice became distorted with noise.
What she'd just said was also fragmented. Like 'that's/also/true.'
Even she, the most powerful awakener, was gradually being pushed back. By the nightmare of red flesh. Humanity's oldest dream. By the authority of the Outer God, the reincarnator.
"Regression might be the right answer in the current situation."
The Saintess spoke with difficulty, grinding her teeth.
"Since we've scouted the enemy's true strength, this cycle had meaning too. Leaving the strategy to the next Ms. Dok-seo and Mr. Undertaker might also..."
"It's always an available option. But we can't presume that the data from this cycle will only flow in our favor."
The reincarnator Yuri also had abilities like [Memory Reading].
"No matter what operation we devise, the moment we make contact with the illusions manifested from the shadows, our side's information immediately leaks to theirs."
"Ah..."
"The reason the reincarnator is sealing sound and text first and accelerating time also stems from that. After completely reading through our operation, she's chosen the most efficient route."
"Counter-strategizing our strategy..."
Truly the worst possible enemy.
"Retreating here won't give us any answers."
It wasn't for nothing that we'd reached the conclusion that Yuri needed to seal herself.
Even if all of humanity except Yuri united, opposing this reincarnated monster would be hopeless.
The reincarnator couldn't even carelessly commit suicide.
For her, suicide was the start of another life, and at the end of that beginning, an even more powerful authority would be waiting to awaken.
The Saintess looked up at me with worried eyes.
"Then I'll leave it to your decision, Mr. Undertaker."
"..."
"We prepared as much as we could, but ultimately, the only person who has a perspective equal to that reincarnating being is you, Mr. Undertaker."
...There wasn't much time left.
In the first place, we'd jumped into this dream within a dream to overcome the ridiculous constraint of 'one minute time limit.'
Now that the opponent had also noticed this and begun counterattacking, the battle would come down to a clash of pure strength.
The current Saintess had joined up with Dok-seo early to level up intentionally, which was why she was managing to hold on, but at this rate—
'Wait.'
A flash of lightning suddenly struck through my mind.
'divine realm. Intentional leveling?'
I opened my mouth.
"One more layer."
"Yes?"
"Let's descend one more layer down."
The Saintess's sweat-soaked hair tilted slightly.
"One more layer... underground? I'm sorry, Mr. Undertaker. Wasn't this the terminal station for the divine realm where Ms. Yuri resides?"
"For Yuri, yes."
I raised my finger.
My index finger pointed to my own chest.
"But wouldn't I be different?"
"...What?"
"Since there's no one else listening besides you right now, Ms. Saintess, I'll tell you this. I was originally someone with a high risk of corruption, and after living through all of Yuri's lives exactly as she did, I've truly stepped outside the bounds of an ordinary human."
"..."
"This place is where Yuri's memories have descended all the way to her unconscious and taken root. Even Yuri, whose memory is ambiguous, was able to unfold a divine realm of this magnitude. Then... what about my dream within a dream, where I remember all those lives?"
"..."
The Saintess's face became peculiar. An expression that was exactly half seriousness and half absurdity.
"Um, in the end, that's basically admitting that you yourself are currently corrupted..."
"That's why I tried to get sealed away and disappear quickly. Dok-seo is to blame for dragging things out with hundreds of retries from there."
"Ms. Dok-seo did that out of a single-minded desire to save you, Mr. Undertaker."
"Ms. Saintess. We don't have much time right now."
I spoke hurriedly.
"I'll fall asleep first, so connect all available personnel through Ha-yul's puppet threads. And talk to Yo-hwa in advance, so that the moment [Time Stop] is released, you need to bring the strike team members into my dream. Understood?"
"...Okay."
The Saintess stopped nagging. Her will to not ask further questions after having already entrusted me with operational command was evident.
For a moment, the sensation of the Saintess holding my hand disappeared—
"Ms. Ha-yul. I spoke with Ms. Yo-hwa."
Having switched time stop on and off, the Saintess appeared before me again.
She was holding me with her right hand and Yo-hwa with her left. Yo-hwa had also been released from the constraints of time stop and was looking at me with a serious expression.
"Teacher. I heard the outline of the operation!"
"Good. Ms. Saintess, what's the time limit?"
"I only released it for a brief moment but already ten seconds have passed by reality's standards. Mr. Undertaker. Now we have to resolve everything within ten seconds."
I nodded.
"I'll fall asleep first. Please follow properly with the children."
"Understood."
"Yo-hwa, I'm counting on you."
"Okay!"
As Yo-hwa, who was currently acting as the master of the dream demons, interlaced her fingers deeply, my head became hazy in an instant.
'If this was Yuri's divine realm, then from now on the battlefield will shift to my divine realm.'
Of course, that didn't mean Yuri's authority would weaken.
As I'd told the Saintess, I remembered all of her lives, and relying on those memories, the reincarnator could demonstrate her abilities at any time.
However…
'Unlike Yuri's divine realm, [allies] that don't exist there will exist in my divine realm.'
Before I knew it, I had closed my eyes without realizing.
"Aha."
The moment I opened them.
"Ahaha, ahat—"
An orange ponytail swayed before my eyes.
A face that looked exactly like Yo-hwa.
But instead of a white uniform, a girl wearing a black uniform was smiling.
"Ahahahahahaha! Ahahahat! Ahahahaha—!"
Wild laughter.
Her face was dyed with excited exhilaration. Her eyebrows trembled with a thrill, and ecstasy surged from beyond her throat.
"Ahaha, see!"
Cheon Yo-hwa (天寥化).
"I was right! I was right, wasn't I! Ooh— Sunbae! Sunbae won! Of course there were many variables I didn't expect either... What does it matter! Either way, I bet on the winning side! That's all that matters!"
A former Regression Alliance member who barely maintained her existence precariously, only through me.
As the other strike team members followed one after another into the new battlefield behind me, Yo-hwa paid them no attention at all and grabbed my hand tightly.
"Welcome, Sunbae! Master of my divine realm! You really, truly worked so hard to get here! Yeah!"
The final strike team member.
Along with her twin sister, one half of the Taeguk, a fragment of the Outer God.
"The final battle! Let's finish it together!"
It was the moment the first and final strike team was completed.
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