Ch.8484. Master of Humanity

Yu Se-ah.

My senior who became a monster and is also a top-tier hunter ■■■—that is, she who has been captured by me, is currently unconscious and tightly bound.

I’ve administered over a hundred different psychic suppression drugs to somehow reduce her psychic abilities to upper B-rank (level 3), and finally tied her up with bindings made from monster hide containing anti-psychic properties.

And covering her head—like something out of a tentacle-themed book or thin novel—are tentacles descending from the ceiling, enveloping her eyes and entire head. This allows me to draw only her consciousness into the Hive God’s sub-dimension, where I temporarily manipulate the environment to run simulations showing all possible scenarios.

Within the sub-dimension—not implemented in reality—I am somewhat omnipotent, making such simulations possible.

In simple terms, these simulations transfer all elements of reality into the sub-dimension, then implement various variables to show Se-ah, the subject, the potential futures or endings this world might actually experience.

Of course, this doesn’t mean the simulations only show negative scenarios.

Among the outcomes derived through simulation, there are certainly positive endings or futures where humanity reaches space or completely eradicates monsters, but…

The problem is that those positive endings and futures are limited to just those two possibilities, and everything else that exists is uniformly bleak—and there are at least hundreds of thousands of such endings or futures.

Most futures unfold with monsters narrowly winning after hundreds of years of repeated war, or humanity winning but then self-destructing due to environmental destruction, resource depletion, and war.

The next most frequent development is a future where humanity slowly withers away, neither eradicating monsters nor advancing into space, slowly consuming resources until they ultimately self-destruct.

Some futures end with humanity’s extinction at the hands of various monsters that have evolved beyond the singularity to reach godhood (not an incomplete god like me, but truly omnipotent gods).

Each scenario is depressing and gloomy, and she’s watching them in real-time thanks to accelerated thinking, with each second simulating 100 years.

Of course, being a person…monster with a conscience, I absorb the mental strain she experiences during such extended periods, but the emotions apart from that are completely different.

After continuously watching tens, hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of repeated failures—

‘This is… the result of freedom?’

Anyone would fall into skepticism, wondering if human free will is actually just licentiousness.

※ ※ ※

In a space that might be dream or reality, Yu Se-ah was witnessing all forms of futures.

Humans killing each other, fighting, stealing, and simultaneously hurting others for their own benefit.

Because of different ideologies, different skin colors, being from different countries, or simply out of dislike.

Humanity, fighting each other with all sorts of justifications, inevitably perishes at the hands of monsters—the forgotten enemy of mankind—in almost every future.

‘…’

After observing this for at least 10,000 years, Se-ah could no longer believe in humans.

Beyond the common level of human distrust, she genuinely believed, like a villain from fiction, that humans should not be left completely free.

For 10,000 years, she witnessed absurd events where someone tripping on the street could trigger world destruction. After such a long time that even she wondered how she hadn’t gone mad, she finally acknowledged that her senior’s ideology, which she had so strongly denied, was correct.

And at that very moment.

When she fully empathized with his heart, her psychic abilities suddenly began moving on their own, triggered by this realization.

‘What, what are you doing! Stop! I said stop!’

No matter how hard she tried to control it, her psychic power not only refused to be controlled but moved according to its own will.

As if some living entity possessed psychic abilities and was moving them, her psychic power established a connection somewhere and through that connection, sent her consciousness flying somewhere—

‘This, place is…!’

When she regained consciousness, she was falling through the mysterious space her senior had once created, with only her mind remaining.

Between skyscrapers stretching unrealistically high, she was falling toward a foggy ground that seemed reachable in just a few dozen seconds, yet strangely, the distance to the ground wasn’t closing.

Amid the continuous strange phenomena that made it impossible to maintain rationality, Se-ah’s consciousness naturally began to fade, and just as it was fading again—

At some point, she found herself walking in a dark space filled with thick fog.

Her body feels heavy.

Her mind… is confused.

Her consciousness, similar to when her senior disappeared, seems unable to see even an inch ahead.

Confusion slowly erodes her, making her unsure if she has arms, if she’s really walking, or even if she is truly herself.

As she gradually feels resentment about why she’s in such an absurd situation, she simultaneously recognizes that this resentment is flowing in from outside, not originating from within her.

Gradually feeling something pressing on her from the surroundings, her consciousness as a consciousness slowly begins to blur—

‘…!’

Before her eyes, a shimmering light began to appear.

This extremely dim light seemed like it might disappear at any moment, but it was the only thing that existed wholly in this dizzying space where emotion, matter, and mind were mixed.

Therefore, Se-ah used that light as both a guide and an anchor to prevent her mind from collapsing, and unlike her previous aimless walking, she clearly began walking toward the light as her goal.

Of course, that process was still as painful as before.

In this space, emotions that weren’t her own continued to flow into her mind, and with her judgment—which allows clear perception of the world—almost lost, her consciousness was endlessly eroded.

But that light, though dimming, never disappeared and firmly remained as her support—

Thanks to this, at some point, she had emerged from the fog and arrived at a certain place.

It was a very quiet place.

Everything around was dyed pitch black, and the floor was covered with an extremely thin water surface that didn’t move even a fraction despite her stepping on it.

Without even the slightest light source, she should not be able to see an inch ahead, but somehow she could see her surroundings, which gave her a sense of dissonance.

Just then, she suddenly became aware of something in front of her.

It was a massive statue.

Its basic form was simply an incredibly tall—unidentifiable cone, but the surface of the cone was covered with extremely intricate statues of various monsters stuck to it.

It featured well-known monsters like orcs and battle wolves, as well as dolphin men, red hawks, drakes, wyverns, chimera beasts, and all sorts of monsters carved into it, and even had a giant psychic whale directly attached to it.

One would naturally be wary of such a bizarre statue in an unknown space, but the problem was that in this space… it was presumed that nothing existed except this statue and her consciousness.

So, to do anything at all, she had no choice but to approach the statue, and Se-ah slowly began to move toward it—

As she got closer, the statue gradually melted away, eventually becoming completely liquid and being absorbed into the floor.

But she neither cared about nor wanted to care about such changes in the statue.

Because as the statue melted away, what appeared from within was the very light she had used as her guide.

Captivated by the bright and beautiful light that was incomparable to the dim one from before, Se-ah stared blankly at it.

And as she continued to gaze at the light, its form slowly began to change.

It was the figure of a thin, short man, then a woman holding an axe in one hand, then a solemn-looking old man, then a woman wearing a giant armor bodysuit, then passing through the form of “something” obscured by noise, the light finally became the form of a young man seated on a throne.

And seeing the familiar face of that man, she finally understood what the light was, and who the master was that she—and by extension, humanity—should serve.

As her senior had said, humans should not be left free but must be controlled.

And that control must come from the hands of a great being.