Ch.210Chapter 210. Extraterrestrial Existence

Blight Cradle.

Tachia remembered him as an exceptionally intelligent, wise man who truly deserved the title of sage.

“Why… are you refusing?”

But when I arrived at his dwelling, what I encountered was a scene of him transforming desperate survivors into hideous monsters.

In his maniacal laughter, showing not a trace of guilt, I could no longer find any semblance of the brilliant sage he once was.

“Why are you rejecting me?”

So I dealt with him.

I butchered his endlessly swelling body and tossed just his head before me.

“…You’re insane.”

“No! I am not insane.”

Even now, the beak-like part of his severed head opened wide, spewing fervent madness toward me.

“And you are the same. You are merely ignorant. You must be enlightened, you must accept the blessing that has come to this land!”

Blessing?

Where is salvation in this bizarre plague that destroys people?

“Oh yes… I too initially thought this was merely a disease.”

Yet Blight continued to passionately expound his claims.

“But to call it a disease is absurd. What stirs within my body now merely feels overwhelming because it is a concept that doesn’t exist in this world… it is by no means harmful like an illness!”

If Baudouin had seen him like this, how would he have felt?

Would he have been angry, or would he have felt sorrow for his loyal subject who had gone mad from enduring such circumstances?

“And the reason such a substance was bestowed upon this land… is surely because the will of a great being is targeting this world.”

But loyalty to his lord was nowhere to be found in him now.

Looking up at the collapsed ceiling, he began to cheer as he took in the moonlight.

“Yes, all of this is the will of the great ones. Before those who transcend the concept of cognition, beings like us are nothing but insects…! In a world controlled by such great beings, to survive, we must admire them and prepare to accept their blood!”

These were nothing but the ravings of a madman, not worth listening to.

Though I understood this intellectually, the sword in my hand felt increasingly heavy.

“The ultimate…”

Taking advantage of this hesitation, he shouted.

“Pursue the ultimate life…!”

As if believing himself righteous despite becoming the perpetrator of this tragedy.

He repeatedly proclaimed his maddened convictions without restraint.

“Starting with this land, their will shall target the entire world! So, you living ones, worship the great blood and admire them! That is the only way to accept the world that will unfold hereafter!!!”

-Crack!

Finally, my sword, which felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, came down, and the tiny tentacles that sprouted from his head, now a bloody pulp, writhed violently.

Soon they lost strength and went limp.

The end of Blight Cradle, the wise scholar, was that miserable and empty.

“…Don’t assign meaning to it.”

My avatar’s rebuke came as I was swayed by such sensations.

Though she seemed displeased with the scene before us, sharing my memories, her attitude remained utterly resolute.

“What you just heard was nothing but a madman’s ravings. There was nothing here that you were looking for, and you simply ended a meaningless fight with a lunatic… That’s how you should interpret this and move on.”

Just a wasted effort.

Did she really perceive the fight and the intelligent scholar’s words that erupted during it as merely that?

“Is that really so?”

Despite having gone mad, Blight was an excellent scholar trusted by the king.

Even if he hadn’t found a solution, he might have discovered something about this situation.

Such truth might well be the reason for the madness he displayed at the end.

“What are you trying to say now…”

“Blight said this, didn’t he? The disease disrupting this land is composed of concepts that don’t exist in this world.”

I could dismiss those words as a madman’s ravings, as my avatar suggested.

But I have encountered many concepts not of this world.

Outsiders like myself, demons like Merilyn—we are all beings that have flowed in from dimensions outside this world.

Furthermore, the witches Plan explained to me who received knowledge from outer realms, and the vampires Virgil mentioned that originated from extraterrestrial flesh… and the monstrosities born from their bizarre convergence—these too were concepts that originally did not exist in this world.

“Concepts that don’t exist in this world have intervened in this world multiple times. Perhaps those are what Blight called ‘great beings.'”

“…Are you saying someone intentionally caused this disaster?”

“Yes, and that…”

My gaze shifted upward.

Beyond the collapsed ceiling was a dark sky, but surely beyond that, something must be looking down upon this land.

Something that exists on the same level as what Blight called “great beings.”

“…Perhaps it’s a being that we know as well.”

Irie Haven.

My companion who inherited the blood of a god that descended from the distant universe.

If there are multiple beings equal to the god of destruction she seeks to summon, and if such beings are intervening in this world with some kind of intention…

-Rumble!!

As my speculation began to take shape, the ground shook violently.

I stopped my thoughts and tensed my body, urgently scanning my surroundings.

“Wh-what? Is it collapsing again?”

“No, it’s not completely collapsing.”

Unlike me, my avatar maintained her composure.

Her indifferent gaze gradually turned toward the surroundings, beyond the ruins that were disappearing like dust.

“Remnants strong enough to manifest the past are dominated by the most distinct ones. If clear remnants remain from a time close to a just-concluded event, we’ll be led right there.”

“…So in simple terms, we’re skipping ahead in time a bit?”

The place where I now stood was still within the bounds of Briton.

The difference was that I had moved from a mansion to something like a temple, and on the altar erected in front of the temple lay a coffin.

“My King.”

It didn’t take long to realize who it was.

The people with tentacles sprouting from their bodies, bowing their heads before it, revealed this fact to me as I watched from behind.

“Our sovereign, may you be eternal.”

Baudouin Britannia.

The tragic righteous king who fought to save his people until the end, only to miserably lose his life in this land.

His body still retained human form, as if his breath had stopped before he could completely transform into a monster.

Whether his end came after a desperate struggle or by his own hand…

“My King, we remember you.”

But whatever his end was, it must have been noble.

That much could be inferred just by seeing the procession of those who had lined up before him, offering prayers.

“All those moments you were there for us… we will remember.”

“The things you sacrificed your body for us… even if the light of this land wishes it, we…”

“We will remember that light until the very end.”

No, most had already lost even their human form.

Tentacle masses sprouting from twisted bodies buried even the hands that were praying, and their voices were being eroded by gurgling sounds.

“We will not falter.”

Yet they still sought to offer prayers at the altar where their king lay.

“We will remember… your death.”

Even though they had already transcended the category of human, they sought to fulfill their loyalty to him until the very end.

“To pass on your nobility, your greatness, to future generations…”

The reason this didn’t feel completely alien was because I had seen something similar once before.

Phobia Homer.

He too, despite having fallen into a monster like them, maintained his sanity until the end and met his death as a human.

“…My King.”

Despite such nobility, one by one they completely devolved into monsters, now only able to offer prayers while rooted to the spot.

Among them, the only one reciting prayers was a woman presumed to be a clergy member serving the deity in this temple.

“My… love…”

No, not an ordinary clergy member.

She was the saint who served the deity worshipped in this temple, and the queen of Briton who had become the king’s companion, recognizing his nobility.

“I… remember… you…”

Gwen Hwibar.

A woman who was barely maintaining her sanity and form through the holy power emanating from her faith, even at the very end.

But even that seemed to have reached its limit, as her face was gaunt, and blood was seeping from tentacles that had torn through her skin.

Nevertheless, she prayed.

Regardless of the pain she felt, she remained in place, trying to continue her prayers.

“The feelings I hold for the fruit of our union… I wish to keep in my heart.”

To her companion who would never return, she wished to whisper her love.

“Even if that child… has walked a river of no return…”

Accepting that alone.

Even if living in a reality where everything she had cherished had been miserably destroyed was painful.

“If remembering that pain… is also a trial, I will gladly accept it.”

Even if she could never return to the glorious past, even if her current actions were meaningless, she believed that remembering the past alone had meaning.

“My King, be eternal… My King, be eter… nal.”

As she repeated the same words, I couldn’t bring myself to step forward toward her.

Even if she might show some reaction upon seeing me, I feared that reaction might weigh heavily on my heart.

“…Can’t you feel anything?”

After being frozen in fear for a moment.

When I shifted my gaze at my avatar’s words, I saw her staring at Gwen’s back with complicated eyes.

“You… despite having the same roots as me, can you feel nothing seeing her like this?”

“No, it’s not that I feel nothing…”

“Then why don’t you use that meddlesome nature of yours with her?”

A voice filled with intense emotion.

It was at odds with the demeanor she had shown until now.

Until now, she had shown a negative attitude when interfering with something, but even as she scolded me, her attention remained fixed on Gwen.

“Well, I suppose for you, ‘mother’ only refers to the adoptive mother who raised you.”

And following that, a bitter voice.

Despite not having a distinct form, her hands hanging down were clenched in frustration and trembling.

“No matter if she’s the mother who gave birth to you… unlike me, if you spent little time with her, it’s natural to consider her a stranger.”

It took me some time to guess where that anger came from.

“You, could it be…”

Little time spent together, unlike her.

That’s something only someone with Tachia’s personality who had spent a long time with Gwen could say.

And as far as I knew, Gwen was Baudouin’s companion and the one who resurrected Baudouin as an undead… a being who had reigned as a calamity rivaling the Demon Lord in this world.

“…Red Knight?”

“I told you, didn’t I? That I’m the residue you left behind as you passed through.”

Another me with the personality of the Red Knight glanced at me, as if confirming my guess wasn’t far off.

“Reason and memory properly took shape when you entered mother’s domain. Before that, I was in a state where even self-awareness wasn’t properly manifested.”

Only then did I realize why she had reacted sensitively to the name Pailoi.

She actually had the same roots as me, but had developed reason and personality through a completely different process.

“You were molded by that dragon’s hands, and when you realized she suffered from guilt even after her death, you accepted her as your true mother.”

That alone caused us to split into separate beings.

Despite having Tachia Pailoi as a foundation, I was molded by Tashian after death and came to better understand her sincerity.

“But I spent more time with the one who resurrected me from death than with her.”

As another me who was resurrected by my birth mother who had become undead, rather than by Tashian, and who came to understand the love she possessed.

“And I, no longer even an undead, didn’t need to cling to regrets. What remained more in my memory wasn’t the adoptive mother who abandoned me, but the birth mother who truly loved me even in death.”

As if to show that such love remained in her heart at this moment, her gaze once again moved toward where Gwen was.

“And now I’ve come to realize… how painful her end was.”

Cultivating love for her companion, and love for her birth mother who continued that love endlessly even after death, and suffering because of it.

“…Can nobility cause such suffering to those who follow it?”

Seeing another me trembling at the lamentation emanating from her, I silently turned my head away from her and looked at Gwen’s back.

As if unaware of our presence, she continued to pray before the coffin… a woman who seemed all the more pitiful because of her own nobility.

-Crack, crack!

But immediately after, the sound of fracturing began.

My gaze, alert with wariness, reflexively turned toward the ceiling.

Is the ceiling cracking?

No, it’s not the ceiling that’s cracking.

It’s space itself, starting from the ceiling.

As it opened and revealed something, I felt an indescribable pressure descend upon me.

Just facing it made my breath catch and my legs tremble so much that even standing became difficult.

“…A finger?”

Yes, a finger.

What came down through that crack was a finger so enormous it nearly overturned the entire space.

A being whose true form was so vast and unfathomable that I couldn’t even begin to gauge its size existed on the other side.

“What is that? Why is mother…”

“Remember what I said earlier?”

And I could guess what it was.

The speculation I had made before entering this situation was matching up too perfectly with the finger that had just appeared here.

“That beings from outer realms are intervening in this world.”

What appeared at this moment was the very entity responsible for creating the great calamity known as the Lord of Corpses.

It would be an entity called an Outer God, like the ancestor who passed blood to Irie.