Chapter 280 - Disaster (6) |
Imagine someone who had never taken a single sip of alcohol in their entire life.
If you gifted that person a perfectly aged vintage wine, something so exceptional that even a professional sommelier would marvel at its quality, what kind of impression would it leave on that person?
Unfortunately, they’d probably just think it tasted like grape-flavored alcohol. They might not even be able to tell whether they were drinking wine or some fruit-flavored liquor.
The reason for that was simple. They had nothing to compare it to.
But if that same person developed a taste for wine from that day onward and spent years drinking every cheap bottle they could find, eventually there’d come a moment of realization.
They would realize that the first bottle they had was really something extraordinary.
That was exactly the situation I found myself in right now.
"Mimicry really was a huge catch."
[...Ah..........]
'Only three times larger, huh?’
Even after devouring 9 Outer Gods, my domain had only grown to roughly three times its original size.
The domain I had started with had entirely come from Mimicry. In other words, Mimicry alone had possessed territory equivalent to roughly three ordinary Outer Gods.
Had I not begun my life as an Outer God by devouring that monster, this hunting strategy would never have gone this smoothly.
[Ruler of the Abyssal Sea…]
"Hm?"
Just as I was sighing in relief when the Outer God, or Wraith according to Nightchaser, spoke in a fearful voice despite having been completely crushed.
[I shall resist no longer. All I ask for is liberation.]
"That’s going to be difficult. Sorry, but you’re going to die.”
[If by death you mean taking my domain, then so be it. But you understand, do you not, that beings such as us possess no concept of death?]
"Is there really a difference?”
[No. Yet if you come to govern such a vast domain, then one day yours shall become the only world that exists. When that day arrives, allow us to love not as gods, but as something else…]
The only world?
The Outer God dissolved into blood after leaving those behind. I stared at it fading away in confusion until Nightchaser, who had been watching with a sour expression, spoke up.
"That’s a matter for the future. It’s nearly impossible, but if you bring down the sky, what worlds will remain afterward?”
"I’ll drain all the seawater once Great Void falls.”
"The water isn’t the important part. In the end, no world except the Abyssal Sea will remain. The Abyssal Sea will become the sole surviving world.”
Nightchaser watched as the blood gradually dissolved into the Abyssal Sea, wearing a strange expression.
"When that happens, they’ll simply live within the Abyssal Sea. They're asking for mercy. Just like I did.”
"After defeating Great Void, huh?”
I nodded as I started to understand.
The Outer God from earlier hadn’t grasped the situation. It had no idea what kind of monster Great Void had become outside.
So it assumed that I, as the Abyssal Sea, would become the strongest Outer God and devour every remaining world. That was why it had begged for mercy.
Honestly, I didn’t have much interest in showing mercy to those things, but—
'Do I need to start thinking about what comes after all this?'
I didn’t want to count my chickens before they hatched, but it felt like I should at least consider what to do about the Outer Gods and the Abyssal Sea once Great Void was dead.
After all, now that I had become the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea, it wasn’t something I could simply forget about once everything was over.
As I pondered over that, Nightchaser pointed toward the few remaining Fallen.
"So are you going to keep going?”
"No. That’s enough for today.”
I slightly shook my head.
The Outer Gods couldn’t defeat me within the Abyssal Sea. In the first place, entering the Abyssal Sea itself meant they had already lost.
Even so, an Outer God was still an Outer God. I’d used quite a bit of power, and I was starting to feel the strain.
"Now that I know how efficient this is, I’ll have to keep fishing them out one by one until Great Void shows up. But these guys are way dumber than I expected.”
The Outer Gods had fallen from the bait Elisia made almost embarrassingly well. It really did feel like fishing. For beings who called themselves Gods, anyway.
"That’s how desperate they are. Have you ever tried living at the very bottom of the Abyssal Sea?”
"Yeah."
"...But not for very long. For us, thousands of years is the bare minimum.”
Still grumbling, Nightchaser followed me back to the real world. Afterward, I made a few requests of Carose, who had still been waiting.
"I’d appreciate it if you could tell me where there are more prisons holding Fallen like these. Ah, and…it’d be nice if you could point me toward somewhere completely deserted as well.”
"Telling you the location of more of these prisons is no problem at all, but a deserted place? You mean somewhere remote?”
Carose titled her head in confusion, seeming quite baffled by my request. I scratched my head awkwardly and explained.
"I mean abandoned cities. Countries, even. Somewhere large enough that absolutely nobody lives there anymore.”
"Ah…”
Nodding as if she understood now, she pointed her finger toward the north.
"About 2 weeks that way, there’s a desert. Around it are quite a few cities. Though I believe there aren’t any people left in them anymore.”
"Are you sure? From the way you describe it, it sounds like an entire nation.”
"I am sure. There was a plague.”
Carose frowned.
"At first it seemed harmless. Something like a common cold. The infected recovered after a few days, so nobody thought much of it. But 3 days later, every citizen, including the city’s Lord, dropped dead.”
"...A Fallen?”
"Yes. Fortunately, it never reached the capital. But everyone who entered afterward met a similar fate. Anyone in their right mind avoided the place. Even people looking to end their own lives would have chosen a less painful method.”
"That’s perfect. Tell the capital I might be delayed by about 2 days.”
"2 days? Even if you use those strange puddles of yours, that’s still a 2-week journey…”
I closed my eyes in front of the bewildered Carose.
'How far can I reach now?’
After devouring 9 Outer Gods, my Abyssal Sea had grown vast enough to rival an actual ocean.
"...Would it happen to be a city surrounded by red brick walls?”
"Yes—wait, are you looking at it from here?”
"I can see the skeletons scattered through the streets. The lord’s corpse is hanging from a rope in his office…No, he didn’t die from the plague. Looks like he killed himself out of guilt.”
"Hah."
Carose could only stare at me in disbelief.
"When I first heard that you’d become an Outer God, I thought it was some kind of metaphor—only now am I realizing you meant it literally.”
"I still haven’t fully come to terms with it myself.”
If I could identify the location, I could reach it.
Without a shred of hesitation, I created a puddle and stepped through it.
-Splash!
The moment I emerged, I was greeted by sticky air and a raging sandstorm, utterly unlike the relatively pleasant weather outside the underground prison.
A foul, stale odor drifted from the elegant red-brick walls that surrounded the city. It didn’t particularly bother me. There was no chance this body could contract a plague.
"...Are you really going to do this?”
Nightchaser had followed me, but unlike me, she looked genuinely tense.
"The moment you do this, Great Void will know. He’ll immediately understand what you’re planning, and he’ll know exactly what he needs to do to stop it.”
"It’s not like I can hide forever.”
There was no such thing as launching a surprise attack against the sky.
It was better to start filling things in slowly before he figured out a countermeasure.
"Stand back.”
Nightchaser reluctantly retreated a few steps—
before I turned my gaze toward the city walls.
This time, I didn’t summon the Abyssal Sea itself.
I merely drew out the seawater that belonged to it.
'Let’s start with just this much.'
At first, nothing happened. The desert remained a desert. There wasn’t a single drop of water in sight.
Then the well in the center of town began to overflow.
-Driiiiip…
Water spilled onto the streets littered with countless skeletons.
Moisture seeped from the ground, then it burst forth.
-Boom!!!
"Uwagh…”
Nightchaser grimaced and jumped aside as seawater erupted like a struck oil well.
The underground water exploded upward without end. It took less than 5 minutes for the city to fill completely.
After every street had vanished beneath the waves, I had to create an air bubble around Nightcaser to keep her from drowning.
"Isn’t this exhausting?”
"Not at all. I don’t even feel like I’m using any strength.”
Beyond the occasional stream of bubbles rising through the water, the submerged city was completely silent. But the view outside, seen through my Tide Sense, was in complete chaos.
Like a dam had burst. No, that wasn’t enough to describe it. An overwhelming mass of water had swallowed the desert in an instant.
Dozens of cities, one nation, and then two vanished from the map as though there had never been anything there except the ocean.
They had been drowned.
"...”
"..."
We stood upon the surface in silence, starting at what I had done.
"...Are we really sure this is okay?”
"No idea. This was your plan."
In less than 1 hour, the desert had become a sea.
It had to be done. There was no way I could drown the entire world in 10 minutes. The lower regions had to be submerged little by little before the Ark was completed.
The only problem was that watching an entire region disappear beneath the waves was far more violent than I had imagined.
I had always known, at least vaguely, that something like this was possible. But actually witnessing it happen was an entirely different experience. As I stood there staring at the transformed landscape, wrestling with the strange mixture of feeling accomplished and questioning if I should really do something like this, an odd phenomenon began to appear on the surface of the water.
-Blublbub, blubblublub...
"What now? Did you make deep-sea fish or something?”
Countless bubbles rose from below, making the sea surface look as though it were boiling. As Nightcaser stared in confusion, I casually extended my Tide Sense.
"It’s not an air pocket trapped beneath the desert.”
The bubbles weren’t coming from the seafloor.
Then had some animals drowned or something?? There hadn’t been any when I’d checked. Following the source of the bubbles with my Tide Sense, I suddenly widened my eyes.
"...The skeletons are breathing.”
"What?”
Corpses that had died long ago. Bodies that had been stripped clean by the desert heat and endless winds, reduced to bare bones and denied even the right to be buried.
Bubbles were emerging from every joint.
...As though they were living creatures drawing breath.
'An enemy?’
I frowned and increased the water pressure. Whatever it was, it certainly didn’t seem friendly.
"Wait."
Nightchaser stared beneath the water for a moment, seemingly having realized something. She then waved it off.
"Oh, that’s all. It’s just a natural phenomenon, so no need to kill them.”
"What do you mean? The bones are alive and moving, you know?”
"You just killed and devoured a Wraith, you idiot.”
Nightchaser sounded genuinely exasperated.
"So?
"Bones just move in your Abyssal Sea.”
"...?"
Seeing how I just blinked in confusion, Nightchaser repeated her words as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"From now on, bones are just alive and moving in your Abyssal Sea.”
...My Abyssal Sea was rapidly turning into some kind of purgatory.