Chapter 1353: Designed Transcendence (31)

The master of inevitability, encountered at the end of the Ascension Ritual.

The Director, tracing the path he walked in the Second World, now walks alongside Lennok on the same timeline.

Yet, even as Lennok conversed with the Director, he instinctively knew this moment couldn’t last long.

The Director’s presence here, meeting Lennok, was only possible because he had manifested in this world for his own purpose.

It was a miracle, possible only because he knew Lennok would arrive here after transcending the Ascension Ritual, and waited for him.

As one who slayed a god and ascended, the Director’s very existence is an impurity unacceptable in the Third World.

Thus, the Director must pay an immense price for every moment he exists in this world.

This is why he is sacrificing a part of his time, which he would normally use for his own purposes, for Lennok.

Surely, it’s because the Director, too, shares a hint of the same emotions as Lennok.

If the Director viewed Lennok with similar sentiments, just as Lennok reflected upon himself through the Director, then it would be proof that his second self still retained humanity.

Watching the Director slowly move, Lennok asked,

“Already… is it time?”

[Walk. It’s dangerous to stay here much longer.]

“Mental issues don’t matter. In the first place—”

[It’s not about you.]

Suddenly, Lennok was speechless at the Director’s unexpected answer.

It wasn’t Lennok who was in danger. That meant, in other words—

[You stand atop an infinitely tall tower.]

“……”

[If you look up, you can keep your balance, but if you look down, you realize how high you’ve climbed and your heart wavers. This moment is like that.]

The Director was the Answerer from the Second World, who succeeded in slaying a god and ascending.

Despite existing in the Third World, his origin belonged to the Second World.

For such a Director to describe this moment as looking down, it must mean—

“This place where you and I are meeting wasn’t reality, was it?”

Lennok slowly looked around and asked,

“The Second World… was it somewhere in the memories of a world already destroyed?”

[I knew where this place was from the start.]

The Director’s gaze turned towards the colossal wall stretching before his eyes.

[Adjusted its authority after slaying a demon… this is the memory immediately after gaining transcendence.]

“…A demon?”

Instead of answering Lennok, the Director silently stared at the wall.

As if responding to his gaze, the massive barrier filling their vision slowly quaked.

Rumble—

A tremor shook the entire world with just a slight movement, as if the very ground was collapsing.

Only then did Lennok realize that what lay before his eyes was not a wall.

It was simply too enormous, a monstrous corpse comparable in size to an entire nation.

The space occupied by that corpse was so vast that even Lennok’s senses perceived it as a gigantic wall.

“……”

The Director’s memory of the Second World, where he had slain a demon and adjusted his Acquired Authority.

He had heard that the Second World was where the struggle between transcendents and Ascendants was fiercest in history.

So even the demons that existed in that world had such grotesque and massive forms?

As Lennok realized this, he was momentarily speechless and raised his gaze. The Director then spoke.

[Somewhere in the Outer Universe, there are beings who chose self-corruption instead of ascending to the heavens.]

“……”

[The Un-named Ones… who abandoned becoming gods and confined themselves to their own Hells. Such beings, or ‘phenomena,’ are what we call demons.]

The Director raised his gaze.

[The reason I adjusted my authority against a demon was that the target I had to kill was fundamentally not a living creature. I believed that if I could slay the phenomena or corruption of the Outer Universe, I could also succeed against an unstoppable apocalypse.]

“…Is that why you succeeded?”

The Director did not answer.

Instead, he merely turned his gaze with a pensive expression.

[For a long time, I sought a way to break free from the cycle. I believed there were things that had to take precedence over delaying destruction or my own ascension.]

“……”

[I pursued God-Slaying because I thought it was the most fundamental solution to the problem I could conceive. But….]

The Director whispered,

[I cannot say that I didn’t hesitate until the very end.]

“…You.”

It wasn’t merely glimpsing the Director’s memory; it was hearing his true thoughts for the first time directly from him.

At the same time, the Director’s entire memory began to distort counter-clockwise and vanish.

Fwoosh!!!

A line of infinitely dark light rotated in a spiral, creating an unsettling sensation as if absorbing and expelling everything.

In the center stood the unwavering afterimage of the transcendent, letting all memories and emotions flow past him.

As the entire world moved forward, he alone remained, seemingly walking backward.

The moment Lennok saw the Director, he realized that there was no way to change his answer.

No matter how much it wavered, no matter how much he regretted, some outcomes remained unchanged.

Having already determined the outcome, he continued walking backward towards the process of its realization.

“The One Who Walks Backward.” That phrase, uttered by Ascendants with both reverence and fear, accurately described the Director’s true essence more than anything else.

[The words of Coincidence never align perfectly, yet there is one part I empathize with.]

From beyond the vanishing memory, the Director raised his gaze.

[We are both the same and different, different yet the same. Even if one tries to force sameness, or force difference, it will not change.]

“……”

[You empathize with me and seek to gain something from me, but my thoughts are different.]

Seeing Lennok standing still, unable to speak, the Director said,

[The reason we don’t entirely despise each other is that the concept of uniqueness is rare to us. Perhaps it’s because we found an answer that defines us more strongly than the identity of the self.]

“…That’s.”

[You already hold the key. Do not confuse its meaning.]

Could Lennok’s answer be a more correct solution than the ways of coincidence and inevitability?

That could only be known by reaching the very end of this world.

But it was clear that the ways of coincidence and inevitability contained a logic comparable to Lennok’s answer.

Even though the worlds and times they lived in were different, that was certainly an answer Lennok’s own self had chosen at some point.

That’s why the Director was conveying that they shouldn’t mix, that they couldn’t mix.

“……”

Indeed, that too was a fragment of the Director’s humanity. Proof that he still wished to be human.

But Lennok vaguely sensed that the Director, too, couldn’t endure much longer.

Yet, if there was a reason the Director wished to convey this to Lennok, it was because—

“…Right. Even that concept is a truth that you, from long ago, experienced and realized firsthand.”

At the edge of the collapsing memory, Lennok raised his gaze.

“But if I were afraid of different answers mingling, I wouldn’t have even started.”

[……]

“I draw a world that embraces everything under creation. If even that is part of my choice….”

Lennok met the Director’s gaze through the static and said,

“Then there’s no need to think differently about coincidence and inevitability either.”

[…Arrogant.]

For the first time, a faint smile seemed to grace the Director’s lips.

[But perhaps that is why you are the last.]

Falling.

KWA-AAAAANG!!!!!

A deafening roar echoed as he returned to reality.

A powerful impact, as if falling from an infinitely high heaven, enveloped Lennok’s entire body.

The shock and hollowness were so intense, the emotional gap so vast, that anger swelled within his chest.

An emptiness like losing a right he’d possessed since birth. A sense of loss as if something precious had been stolen.

Perhaps this was the sorrow of an Imoogi, dreaming of ascension while clutching a Yeouiju, at the moment of its failure.

But Lennok knew this was not his true emotion and calmly collected himself.

His body was merely failing to accept his choice to reject the outcome that should have been granted, but Lennok had chosen.

Now, having received invaluable advice from the Director, advice he couldn’t have gained at any cost, he could heal and refine his mind and body all the more quickly.

Lennok emerged from the overflowing light and looked around.

“I was still… inside the Consciousness Space.”

Millions of eyes across the megacity were focused here now. The vast nightscape of Vulcan spread beneath him, stretching into the distant horizon.

It was the scene just before he met the Director at the end of the Ascension Ritual. A sense of déjà vu, as if he had returned to the moment just before crossing the line at the center of the pillar of light.

Beyond the pillar of light, an Ascendant with light green hair stood alone, quietly.

“…I see.”

A faint regret in her empty, emotionless eyes.

A small tremor in the heart of an Ascendant who had abandoned her emotions and approached the realm of plants.

In a fleeting moment, he could easily understand what she had experienced.

Lennok slowly turned to Dadam and asked,

“Did you receive an answer to your wish?”

“……”

Dadam did not answer, but Lennok felt certain from her reaction.

An Answerer of the Director’s caliber would have had no trouble delivering an answer to Dadam the moment he met Lennok.

That her wish to turn her own corpse into a bullet could not be granted, that it was not a wish he could fulfill.

If Dadam had received that message at the end of the ritual, her current reaction was understandable.

“…I.”

The Ascendant, who had been silently looking up at the pillar of light, spoke.

“I have lived too long.”

“……”

“It wasn’t like this when I first challenged ascension. I intended to cast everything away, to fly freely, even abandoning my heart and emotions.”

Dadam turned her empty eyes towards the ground.

“Even when I learned this world was the last, I did not give up. I believed that even without following the Emperor’s method, I could surely do it someday.”

“……”

“But only after emptying my heart did I realize. That very resolution to shed everything was the delusion I myself could never shed….”

A quiet silence fell.

Lennok listened silently to her confession at the end of everything, pondering why the reclusive Oeroe Tribe Ascendant had visited Vulcan, and what her true purpose in using this Ascension Ritual was.

“To love all things equally is, in other words, to love nothing. The path I sought was precisely the opposite of that.”

“……”

“I tried to empty everything from within, but that, conversely, was the act of assigning value to everything in this world… How could I abandon this world and ascend?”

A Seeker whose mind had reached the realm of plants. An Ascendant who had shed her own heart and emotions.

Dadam’s expression, having lived for so long with an empty inner self, looked a little tired.

“An Ascendant is a being who has become a contradiction in themselves. Even so, I tried to leave meaning until the very end, but it doesn’t work as one wishes. The One Who Walks Backward read my weakness.”

Having lived for a long time, Dadam understood that her path contained an unachievable contradiction.

Even so, to uphold the resolve she had at the beginning, she had attempted to ascend beyond the world, even by becoming a bullet herself.

But even that was proof that Dadam had not completely abandoned her lingering attachments. It meant she was not like Jindun.

The Director knew this fact and had informed her that she should not become a bullet.

The answer of inevitability that still retained humanity. The way of a God-Slayer who does not easily kill people.

That’s why—

“You can’t just call it weakness. An answer that transcends worlds is bound to contain some contradiction.”

“What did you say?”

“I have trodden on countless answers and rejected others’ methods… but I, too, don’t believe there’s a perfect answer for this world.”

He stepped forward through the overflowing light.

“I merely wish to give one chance to those who haven’t even received a chance. Just as I did.”

“……”

A light answer, seemingly passing by.

But Dadam stood silently, listening to Lennok’s words, without any reply.

As if something was filling her inner self, which had been empty for so long, using Lennok’s words as a starting point.

Only after seeing that did Lennok realize that Dadam, as an Ascendant, could fundamentally never be truly evil.

She clung to everything, so she sought to abandon everything.

She was bound by everything, so she sought to empty everything.

Ultimately, Dadam’s answer was a contradiction born from the process of transcending her own origin.

Though different from the previous Lighthouse Keeper or Jindun, she, too, in some sense, was a being who loved this world.

Lennok walked past Dadam and said,

“I’ve thought about it for a long time, but I still can’t do as you did. In the first place, I wouldn’t want such a method.”

“……”

“I don’t know what will become of me at the end of the conclusion, or how far my answer can hold meaning. But….”

Lennok stood at the center of the pillar of light and raised his gaze.

“Perhaps precisely because of that, there are choices that hold meaning. Maybe that’s why I’m here.”

“…Adamant Thunder.”

For the first time, a faint surprise appeared on Dadam’s face.

“Surely, you’ve already…?”

“Meeting him made it clear.”

Lennok reached out his hand toward the pillar of light and said,

“I will reach it even without this method. Even without this way, I… desire a process for what comes next.”

“……”

Because he wanted to look back at everything and make a choice, even the moment of crossing the line was determined by himself.

He wanted all these choices to be a process for what came next.

That’s why he couldn’t follow the method chosen by the Director.

Having reached his conclusion, Lennok closed his eyes and gathered his intent.

“I will conclude the Ascension Ritual here.”

Lennok himself had presided over and conducted the Ascension Ritual in Vulcan.

Therefore, Lennok himself had to put an end to it with his own hands.

Lennok approached the pillar of light, which was swirling as if about to explode, and slowly raised his hand.

“Wait.”

Whoosh—

Before he knew it, the Ascendant had approached Lennok and gripped his wrist.

Her expression was blank, yet her demeanor held a peculiar hint of more emotion than before.

But Lennok was more surprised by her movement than her reaction; he had almost instinctively gathered mana.

Her presence and movements were so ethereal and free that even Lennok’s sensory perception found it difficult to detect her approach.

If he had fought Dadam in this place, Lennok would have had to brace for significant damage. He felt that instinctively.

“It would be dangerous. You shouldn’t end the ritual like this.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. So, you intend not to close the Ascension Ritual after coming all this way?”

“That was based on the assumption that I would meet the One Who Walks Backward and bear fruit.”

Dadam said softly,

“If the ritual is stopped midway without an outcome, the power gathered in the Consciousness Space will run wild in all directions.”

“……”

“Not only will both of us at the center of the ritual be affected, but the entire city will be swept away by its repercussions. We need a vessel to contain the power.”

The ritual currently unfolding in Vulcan was based on a mirror created with the Ten Laws of the World.

Once such a massive power contained within the mirror was used to begin the ritual, it could only be safely ended by producing an outcome in some way.

Either Lennok would succeed in the Ascension Ritual and become an Ascendant, or Dadam would be taken by the Director’s hand and become a bullet to slay a god.

Now that neither had properly occurred, it was obvious where the power, concentrated to its extreme through the ritual, would pour out.

KWAAA-KWAAA-KWAAAAA!!!!!

The pillar of light overflowed, transforming into a mighty storm and rotating.

Lennok looked at the Ascendant amidst the raging storm of light and asked in a calm tone,

“It seems you didn’t anticipate this situation, even after inducing the Ascension Ritual. Did you think there would be a significant outcome either way?”

“This is no time for idle discussion. Do you have a solution?”

Dadam averted her gaze.

“Since you directly rejected the ritual, the vessel to contain the power must be related to you. And yet, it must be able to absorb the power without issue—”

“Strictly speaking, you are the one who caused this situation, aren’t you? Are you irresponsibly demanding I clean up your mess?”

“…You’re not wrong.”

Dadam flinched, turned her gaze away, then was silent for a moment before lowering her hand.

“Just once. If it’s something an Ascendant can do, I will grant one of your requests. If you have a plan, now is the time to—”

“It’s decided.”

*Pat! *

As Lennok snapped his fingers, something rolled out from beneath their feet.

“Of course, I had a way to deal with the ritual’s drawbacks prepared from the beginning.”

“…This is?”

[Snore~]

It was the sight of a gigantic baby dragon, shimmering pure white all over and with a protruding belly.

The Guardian Spirit Beast lay there, undisturbed even by the roaring explosions and raging storm all around, still fast asleep.

The moment Dadam’s mouth fell open at the unexpected appearance and the utterly incongruous sight of the dragon, Lennok spoke.

“Open wide. It’s feeding time.”

[Nom nom nom nom]

The little dragon, lying on its back and embracing a dark blue bolt of lightning, smacked its lips as if dreaming.

Seizing the opportunity, Lennok began to pour the overflowing storm of light into the Guardian Spirit Beast’s maw.

KWA-KWA-KWAAAAA!!!!

The Ascendant, staring blankly, muttered,

“…I’ve lived for hundreds of years, but there are still madmen I’ve never seen before.”