episode_0352

I hold a small universe in my hand.

Countless nameless stars, faceless souls, glitter within.

I grasped it. When it resisted strongly, I suppressed it harshly; when it yielded, I soothed it gently. The so-called strong-strong-weak-weak approach. Two faces necessary for a ruler.

A snow-white sword is grasped in my left hand, symbolizing the ideal. Those who perished in this universe’s great malice, and those who will someday be reborn to watch over the world’s light with their own eyes.

The Sword of Stars and Souls. A guide for reincarnation, birth, and miracles. A testament to bestowing eternal happiness upon those who follow me.

Muyeonggeom (無影劍) Divine Might (神威), Seongryeonggeom (星靈劍).

A snow-white me stood at my left.

Meanwhile, beyond the mirror in my heart, I saw a pitch-black star.

Death, destruction, chaos, rage, darkness.

The mirror itself was an abyss. Stripped of my most hypocritical aspects, only my dark desires for my own pleasure remained.

I want to rape a beautiful woman. I want to corrupt her with blood and pleasure, making her my personal sex slave. I want to kill anyone who interferes. I want to sever their heads, split open their bellies, and display their insides in the square.

I want to exterminate the entire lineage of anyone who deeply offends me. And when I exterminate them, I don’t want to kill them easily; I want them to taste pain and death for a time approaching eternity.

I want to carve my own path through this universe. I want to dismantle those who call themselves gods down to the atomic level. If they don’t die, I want to directly absorb them into my body and seal them forever. I want to possess the bodies of mortals and defile them until their minds collapse.

I want everything beneath me.

“Hoooo…”

My head cleared after letting it all out. I grasped it.

A pitch-black sword is gripped in my right hand, symbolizing reality. Clinging like a swamp, sinister as a tentacle. Something I can never detach from myself, something I must ultimately confront: the essence of who I am.

The Sword of Desire and Sin. A brand that clings like a shadow, never detachable. The arrogance of destroying everything that comes my way, even if it’s fate, and defying it.

Muyeonggeom (無影劍) Divine Might (神威), Paeakgeom (悖惡劍).

A pitch-black me stood at my right.

What is this?

This feeling is strange. Suddenly, my whole body feels heavy. Did I do something wrong? I can’t breathe properly, and my heartbeat seems to be slowing down.

No, this isn’t wrong. What I obtained wasn’t just power—it’s an unimaginable amount of power.

My body feels heavy? I swung my arm. The Paeakgeom sliced across my right field of vision—shhh. The space where the sword passed was as black as if it had been inked.

‘Is… this my arm?’

Slightly startled, I unconsciously tensed the opposite arm. I turned my head to the left. There was a dazzling light.

It wasn’t physically blinding. What I saw wasn’t a ‘dazzling’ light, but dazzling ‘light.’ It’s mine; it can’t harm me.

I inhaled. Countless nebulae approached me. I exhaled. This time, they moved away.

My heart beats, I breathe, and the mere act of being alive feels like moving as the center of this universe.

Thinking back, drawing out the Divine Might was the first sprout of my growth as a human. I’m now outside, in the vacuum of space, far from the star that birthed me.

A child and an adult… almost that much of a difference. My being, having suddenly grown rapidly, my soul couldn’t keep up.

What can I do now? That question suddenly popped into my head. But I chuckled and flipped the question.

‘What’s impossible, on the other hand?’

I look at Shub-Niggurath and her offspring. Hairless black rawhide. Goat legs and a melting torso. And dozens of black tentacles sprouting from it.

I didn’t feel the terrifying feeling from just now. I just thought.

“Ah… it was just a beast.”

People feel fear in the face of something huge. But I’m no longer human, and this thing before me isn’t even that big.

A beast that runs through the plains, eats grass, sleeps with its young in the shade of a tree, and someday dies and becomes dust.

I just increased the scale. Why did I find this scary?

“I don’t understand.”

Truly, sincerely, I was full of things I didn’t know.

I swung the Paeakgeom.

All of Shub-Niggurath’s baby goats were split in two. Top and bottom; in half. Like roughly chopping down a cleaver onto a piece of meat.

It was just movement, not swordsmanship or anything. It was more like feeling exhausted, or something bothering me. But at the same time, a tiny thought crept in — the thought of trying it properly.

Meee-eeeeeee—

The baby goats that are still alive scream loudly. I swung the amorphous sword again, this time all over the place.

‘The blade must be around here.’

It’s too dark to see properly. I want to go into the settings and turn the brightness up to maximum.

Well, actually, I don’t need to. I’ve been swinging the sword without seeing the blade’s location since some point. It feels like an extension of my body.

“Tch.”

Paeakgeom style 1, Rip (裂).

Thousands of pitch-black sword strikes over thousands of baby goats.

In the blink of an eye, they were boneless meat with the bones and flesh neatly separated. I couldn’t hear the goat bleating anymore.

Ah, the silence was only brief, though.

Shub-Niggurath was a monster of immense fertility, constantly giving birth. Like me constantly spilling something, maybe?

Meee-eeeeeee—

The goats cry again, and this time I swing the sword broadly and bluntly, feeling like I’m hitting the entire space.

Paeakgeom style 2, Break (破).

Phik- Puk- Puwak-

Something bursts. It feels like crushing a mosquito. Is it a bit small? Ah, I guess it feels that way because it’s far away.

At the same time, I thought: Shub-Niggurath’s reproduction slowed down. Or I got faster. The seesaw balance of her giving birth and me killing has long since broken down.

I stepped and ran; it could have been a star, or maybe a severed head of a baby goat. I didn’t see, so I don’t know.

My footsteps suddenly stood before Shub-Niggurath’s main body. If it had eyes, they would have probably widened in terror. I was surprised, too.

“Surprise!”

Because I was so surprised, I just kicked it. She couldn’t scream because she didn’t have a mouth. Or rather, there was no part that corresponded to a goat’s mouth.

Up close, it’s even more disgusting. What is this? It’s like looking at a toilet bowl after getting drunk and vomiting the next day. The thought of a birthing hole being among the many gaping maws made it even more repulsive.

I’ve had enough fun. I gripped the Paeakgeom firmly again and swung it. This time, sharply, so I can definitely hit Shub-Niggurath’s head.

Paeakgeom style 3, Sever (斬).

Kiiiik— Thluck—!

I blinked. What I cut was a black door. A door appeared behind Shub-Niggurath, swallowing her, closing, and I cut the closed door panel.

“A devoted love? Just like me.”

Shub-Niggurath is Yog-Sothoth’s wife, or so they say. As I smiled and turned my head, there was a door there.

『Strange』

It was enormous. Of course, I only felt it so big because it was in front of me; in reality, it’s about my size.

No, I seem to have grown huge, so it’s big?

『More than strange』

I don’t know. It’s not important, either.

『Weird and strange』

『Why』

『Why does a mortal』

『Wield the same power as our ancient ones?』

Yog-Sothoth is muttering loudly. When I opened the door in front of me, countless more doors appeared within.

Kiiiik— Kkik— Thluck—!

It’s like a factory. Like the mechanisms of a factory, each one moves chaotically and complexly.

Opening, closing, pausing, opening again. The speeds and rhythms are all different. It’s like the din of a crowd.

『Abnormal. The universe is turning backward.』

『This shouldn’t be happening.』

『Quickly self-destruct.』

『Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out.』

I was about to cut down all the doors immediately, but hesitated.

‘Something’s wrong.’

Why is the [Door Opener] so flustered? I certainly did turn the tide of this fight completely, but there’s no way something like this would fluster it.

In a prolonged battle, it’s my stamina that will run out first. Yog-Sothoth wouldn’t not know that either. It still had many offspring, and I had accepted death multiple times.

Why? As I was pondering that, I saw something. A certain figure.

And, very slowly, I felt it.

Siiik-

I laughed.

“Must have indigestion?”

It was like Nix, throwing a fit because of a stomachache. When she overeats and overdrinks, she sometimes rolls around on the floor, clutching her stomach.

Kuhung—!

The doors, which were moving boisterously, closed simultaneously. It seemed I hit the mark.

Something that it swallowed caused abnormal changes. It acted unexpectedly and created a variable. Like dried seaweed, the amount of information suddenly increased, filling its stomach and causing indigestion.

Of course, I didn’t laugh at the sight of Yog-Sothoth complaining about a stomachache.

I laughed for another reason. My perspective is different. It wasn’t a stomachache; my eyes and soul were seeing the greatly swollen dried seaweed.

『No more.』

『You must die here definitively.』

『My children existing in the outer universe,』

『Gather before me without fail.』

Whether Yog-Sothoth summoned all the outer gods, summoned hundreds of millions of black doors, or if those doors slowly opened towards me…? I didn’t care.

I felt the existence of ‘another me’ from beyond. I knew it was a passage of time, which makes it even more interesting.

Of course, this also can’t make me smile.

『Come forth.』

Kiiiiiik—

Whenever, wherever, however this universe changes, or however I change;

Whether happy, sad, or struggling;

What always makes me truly laugh—

“Kukuk—They’re all dead?”

—is only my wives.

Inside the doors opened by Yog-Sothoth were countless outer gods that were already corpses.

Stabbed by daggers, burned by fire, cut by swords, crushed, melted, and frozen solid, corpses.