Ch.199199. The One Who Speaks of the End

And so, I pushed past the soldiers who continued to fight despite facing an unstoppable being, and advanced toward the building where the council was located.

I was momentarily surprised to see those who waited silently, perhaps knowing that fleeing would be meaningless, but that feeling didn’t last long.

《······Ah.》

Belatedly realizing that my mind had wandered despite being before such courageous people, I felt ashamed of myself and began to face each of them with my full strength.

Though I could have crushed them to death with just my gaze or mere presence, I attacked them by swinging the sword and staff in my hands.

“Die—!”

Thud!

Perhaps realizing that ranged weapons were useless against me, one soldier charged with a bayonet—the most primitive method of attack. I cut him down with my sword, and he collapsed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, unable to utter another word.

Though the body was clearly sliced diagonally from the left shoulder to the right waist by my purple, noise-filled blade, the corpse showed no visible damage.

This sword, specialized only in severing the connection between body and soul rather than cutting through either flesh or spirit, would continue to separate countless soldiers’ bodies from their souls.

Meanwhile, the staff in my right hand, each time I swung it through the air, would kill exactly ten nearby targets with hostile intent by transforming their insides into pure muscle while leaving their exteriors intact.

So when enough time had passed that a path of corpses formed behind me, I naturally expected them to panic and flee in terror… but why?

“D-die—!!!”

Slash!

Despite being consumed by fear and trembling uncontrollably, they attacked me of their own will, even knowing their actions were meaningless and futile.

At first, I faced them directly as a way of honoring their courage… but thinking about it, something seemed slightly off.

Were humans always this brave?

Indeed. Even for elite soldiers with nothing to lose, the survival instinct—the greatest force that had kept humanity alive until now—was being extremely suppressed in them.

Curious about the reason, I impaled one of the charging soldiers with my tentacle to examine his condition.

‘Let’s see… Ah.’

Only then did I understand why these soldiers could fight so valiantly without fearing death.

I had assumed they were ordinary federal infantry because they wore federal powered suits, but these beings were slightly outside the category of humans to begin with.

They were based on humans but blended with various alien genetic material, with a dash of monster engineering and monster biotechnology, then implanted with all sorts of devices and fitted with these specialized powered suits.

Then, after injecting fabricated memories made from randomly combined elements and completing brainwashing through various scientific technologies and drugs, one private soldier for the current Prime Minister is completed.

With sufficient resources, they could be mass-produced in factories—to be honest, they were closer to biological machines, or bio-robots, than sentient human-like beings.

Having such a versatile and convenient psychic ability in mental domains, I couldn’t even imagine such material methods of brainwashing until seeing it firsthand.

But well, that was the extent of it.

《Hyah.》

Whoosh…!!

After analyzing this bio-robot by piercing its head with my hand, I instantly erased it, and thought how petty these actions were for someone I had made the Prime Minister of the Human Federation.

The fake human memories they injected would only erode combat effectiveness, and this clumsy attempt to mimic humans with drugs and imperfect brainwashing only weakened their fighting ability.

If they were going to recreate humans, they should have done it properly. The fake memories were so flimsy they would be exposed as false under the slightest scrutiny or interrogation, and the monster engineering wasn’t even meaningful.

Yet with all that, their combat ability couldn’t even surpass that of a veteran federal soldier, which honestly reeked of someone crudely projecting their desires to control other sentient beings’ lives as a ruler.

‘…Sigh. I can’t believe he was such a person.’

So, putting aside my complaints about that pathetic Prime Minister who was just a temporary placeholder, I snapped my fingers to sweep away all those private soldiers.

Whoosh.

I briefly relocated my completed terminal and immediately descended upon the main council building with a slight psychic aura—

“””Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!”””

“It’s here! It’s here!”

“Save me, save me, save meeeee!!”

The moment I appeared in the council building, the council members, their survival instincts triggered by the psychic energy aura emanating from me, went berserk, rampaging or trying desperately to escape.

Reading their thoughts, I found they had originally planned to face their end with dignity befitting their positions as Human Federation council members, but my arrival had reduced them to this state.

No matter how strong their psychic resistance through powerful psychic tools or implants, it was nothing compared to me.

‘…Oops.’

Realizing my mistake, I left their memories intact but reversed their physical time, returning them to their seats, restoring their sanity, and then freezing them in place.

A being that clearly appeared non-human had suddenly teleported into the heavily secured council chamber, and the mere impact had driven them all to madness.

Moreover, I had effortlessly restored them to their original state after that happened. Reading their minds, I could sense a fear bordering on reverence, which pleased me as I began to speak.

《Ah… dear council. Who would have thought I’d return like this.》

As I spoke, most council members looked at me with even greater terror upon hearing my voice.

Perhaps it felt like some petit Cthulhu appearing out of thin air and casually mentioning in Korean that it had been a while since visiting Korea?

While the council members were shocked by my appearance, which far exceeded their cognitive range, I looked at the familiar faces and spoke with a hint of amusement.

《Yes, yes. Everyone must be frightened. But there’s no need to worry. I say this as your former colleague.》

After saying that, the council members’ gazes were now consumed by the fear of seeing something bizarre—like a giant moth speaking human language.

《It’s me, Perseus. The former Prime Minister of the Federation.》

Suddenly feeling the urge to surprise them, I calmly spoke of the past.

Not too long ago, when I personally served as the Federation’s Prime Minister instead of the other monsters who had overused their face-changing abilities, I perfectly reproduced my voice from that time.

Need I say more?

Most either denied reality, thinking it impossible, or suspected I was using some trick to impersonate “Perseus.”

《My, it seems… my words have almost no credibility.》

Therefore, my decision was to—

No, wait.

Why was I bothering to engage in conversation and resolve their doubts?

My journey here was solely driven by my desire to exist by my own will alone. What happens to others is irrelevant and was never part of my objective.

If I had needed others, I wouldn’t have completely assimilated that child’s (Seah’s) soul into the hive mind. So my resolve is firm.

Only, only I am unique and complete.

This world is special to me because I exist in it.

So I moved with what might be considered startling speed and extended my “mouth” toward Earth one last time—

Moments later, nothing remained within this isolated space except for a single being.