Chapter 640: How to Kill a God (6)
A ring of light flared open, and Lennok was flung from it as if bounced.
“Chwaaaak!!!”
“Cough!!”
Lennok, who had collapsed weakly and rolled on the floor, coughed violently and gasped for air.
“Haa, haa…!!!”
His entire body was drenched in cold sweat, and he could feel his limbs trembling uncontrollably.
“Ugh…!!!”
He pulled off his iron mask halfway and vomited its contents.
The side effect of being completely absorbed, as if submerged, beyond the Ascension Gate. His mana vibrated unstably throughout his body, and his physical reactions felt completely dysfunctional.
With a trembling hand, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a pill, chewed it, and swallowed. He then injected a stabilizer ampoule into his shoulder and poured in a potion, forcefully stabilizing his condition and suppressing the rampaging mana within his body.
A fierce repulsion and alien sensation, intense enough to endanger his life if not quickly addressed.
But even amidst the convulsions and recoil wracking his entire body, Lennok was recalling what he had seen beyond the Ascension Gate.
“Memory…”
There was a memory.
An overwhelming memory. A colossal and intense ego, capable of momentarily captivating even Lennok, existed there.
The memory of a Transcendent, worthy of challenging ascension.
A fragment of the most intense emotion remaining from their hundreds of years of life.
The space beyond the gate. What Hermes had seen was the memory of an Ascendant who dreamed of the Old World’s salvation.
He had not expected this.
He had never imagined he would see such a memory, in this place, in this manner.
That was why, despite being profoundly shaken, agitated, and fearful, he also, in a way, understood.
Because memories that could not have existed without such a great feat, without such trials and errors, were swirling in his mind.
“…This isn’t it.”
To Lennok’s quiet mumble, Hermes replied in a voice that seemed on the verge of breaking.
“This… is truly astonishing… How could a human, see, and return…”
“It wasn’t that.”
Lennok clenched his teeth, sprang up, and staggered to stand before Hermes’s head. His eyes, gripping Hermes’s hair, pierced through the iron mask, gleaming with intense light.
“It wasn’t the God-Slayer of the Old World… What you want is…”
The memory Lennok had seen.
It wasn’t the memory of a Transcendent trying to kill a god.
It was the memory of another Ascendant, observing the God-Slayer from beside them.
A manifestation of incredibly intense emotion and ego.
It was a blaze so potent that it wouldn’t have been strange for Lennok to lose himself, swept away and assimilated by its torrent.
The Will-thought of a Transcendent who establishes laws and challenges ascension by their own will.
If Lennok hadn’t possessed a transcendent Mind Imprint and an unshakable mind, he would have been swept away by that memory and Will-thought, losing his ego completely.
But even as he uncontrollably peered into the Transcendent’s memory, Lennok understood.
The Transcendent’s last memory.
The fleeting moment when they reflected their face on the surface of the vast, boundless sea.
Lennok remembered the clean, inorganic face of a young man with pure white hair.
Lennok realized that the Transcendent’s face was exactly identical to Hermes’s current appearance.
“Who are you?”
Lennok asked, gripping Hermes’s head.
“What’s your real name?”
This man was not Hermes.
He probably wasn’t even the white-haired, refined young man. He was just another seeker who, like Lennok, had encountered the memory of an Ascendant remaining beyond the gate.
But unlike Lennok, who returned from beyond the memory without losing his ego, Hermes had been entirely consumed by the Ascendant’s memory, transforming into a completely different person.
A being that, entrusting its ego and mind to the incomplete memories of an Ascendant, moves precisely as those memories dictate.
Hermes did not bother to deny that fact.
“Does it matter who I am…? But…”
Instead, he simply gazed at Lennok, then grinned with his severed head.
“You know…”
“…”
“You know who the God-Slayer is…”
His transparent gaze rapidly faded. The gaze that had remained intact and observed the situation even after his head was severed, now began to completely lose its power and grow dim.
With eyes rapidly losing their light, Hermes, who tried to look at Lennok until the very end, whispered,
“I won’t miss it… Soon, again, soon…”
Hermes’s head, unable to continue speaking, stopped breathing.
At that moment, from the top of his head, his white hair began to turn black, and the man’s face started to change.
The refined young man’s face was gone, replaced by the twisted face of a young man, somewhere tainted by dreadful madness.
Simultaneously, behind Lennok, the massive ring of light completely lost its power and collapsed.
“Kwagagagwang!!!!”
A powerful roar that shook heaven and earth spread rapidly across the lake’s surface in all directions.
The other soldiers waiting at the Underwater Barrier, or the surviving Meisters, must have also sensed that something was wrong.
Lennok silently looked down at Hermes’s head, then gently set it down and rose to his feet.
Davi, who had watched all of this from within Lennok’s arms, cautiously asked,
[Master, what will you do?]
“…Hermes isn’t dead. He just moved.”
Lennok replied, catching his breath with difficulty.
“The fact that he could still converse, retaining his will perfectly even after being decapitated… is because he was essentially a being entrusted with the Ascendant’s memory. Considering that, there’s probably more.”
Until the very end, Hermes had vanished, hinting at his next move rather than his death.
That was likely because Hermes himself had not died, but could transfer to another body and await his next opportunity.
And what that opportunity was, was clear.
“Hermes didn’t want the God-Slayer’s power.”
Lennok muttered.
“He wants to manifest Hermes, the Ascendant himself, in this world, using the memory of the God-Slayer as a medium.”
The Ascendant of the Old World, Hermes.
The memory of the Transcendent, left behind in a perished world, was trying to consume a human of this world and bloom again.
The fact that Hermes handled the gate’s power so skillfully, referred to himself as ‘we,’ and could directly converse with and retrieve the Old World’s spirit.
It was because Hermes himself was, in essence, the memory and existence of the Old World.
“Escape the Underwater Barrier and find Hermes’s true body. There’s not much time.”
After saying that, Lennok, with a pale complexion, turned and headed back.
“I’ll find the Magic Gun and escape immediately. I think I know where it is now.”
But even as he spoke, Lennok’s expression was stiffer than ever before.
As he staggered quickly out of the lake, only one fact occupied his mind.
“…The God-Slayer of the Old World.”
Hermes’s words were not wrong.
The Transcendent’s memory. The blaze of someone watching another trying to kill a god.
Although the God-Slayer’s identity, their name and face, were never revealed in the memory until the very end.
Lennok knew who the God-Slayer was the moment he faced that memory to its conclusion.
A Magic Gunner who, despite being one, achieved the Peak of Extremes without actually using a Magic Gun.
A monster who redefined the very concept of ‘shooting,’ by re-establishing the definitions of ‘bullet’ and ‘target.’
A heretic who ultimately twisted his own Talent for Duality to kill a god.
The original owner of the Old World’s Magic Gun, Teremer’s Demise.
“It was you…”
He still remembered the events in the Southern Great Forest, at the Well of the Codex, as vividly as if it were yesterday.
The culmination of that magnificent feat, where Kebaek’s body was used as a bullet and fired at an Outer God roaming beyond the Outer Sea.
He had always wondered how that was even possible, what arrangements the Director had made.
But now, Lennok finally understood the meaning of what he had accomplished with Pandemonium back then.
At that time, what The Clown and Lennok did was break through Pyeonram’s interference and push Kebaek’s body beyond the Well.
Lennok’s contribution in disassembling all of Kebaek’s Geas and forcefully shoving him into the Well was truly immense, but its true value lay somewhere else entirely.
A single shot that used Kebaek’s body itself as a bullet, targeting the Outer God.
No, could it even be called a ‘shot’ anymore?
A power close to a miracle, manifesting the concept of ‘shooting’ by using transcendent beings like Ascendants and Outer Gods as tools.
“Director, it was you…”
The Magic Gunner of WORLD 2.0. The Transcendent who obtained the qualification to challenge ascension.
The master of Pandemonium, and The Answerer who endlessly walks backward through the world’s timeline.
A madman who slew a god with his own Cybernetic Ability and carried that feat into the next world.
The God-Slayer of the Old World was none other than the Director of Pandemonium.
Tap, tap…
In the silent darkness, only the sound of water droplets echoed quietly.
The light from the regularly falling water droplets was as black as pitch.
The man, who had been listening to the sound of the droplets, slowly lifted his eyelids.
“Director, are you awake?”
A flat voice came from above his head.
The owner of the voice was not beside him.
Instead, she merely read his consciousness, which occasionally awoke and responded to its surroundings, from beyond the Imaginary Dimension, and spoke to him.
The ability to transcend the constraints of time and space, to transmit one’s will to anyone desired.
Moreover, the fact that the medium traversed the Imaginary Dimension was beyond human capability.
A hybrid of Ancient Species residing in the Imaginary Dimension.
“…Agneta.”
“It’s been months. Many people are looking for you, Director.”
“…”
He didn’t reply to Agneta’s words, merely gazed at the water droplets falling before his eyes.
A massive obsidian sarcophagus.
From its end, black water droplets slowly collected in a cup placed directly below.
“The Doctor and The Clown want to contact you about their respective tasks. The Prince is still pursuing you, and The Fisherman found another gate outside the continent. What do you want to do?”
“The necessary measures have been completed.”
He replied, his heavy eyelids difficult to lift as he looked up.
“I have nothing to say… Leave it to their own judgment.”
“If I deliver the same answer, their reactions will be something to see.”
Agneta said that, then instead asked the Director,
“Where are you now? Weren’t you supposed to shift your consciousness for some task?”
“…”
Instead of answering, the Director slowly touched his own face.
His appearance was still covered in intense noise, making him impossible to see clearly, as if he didn’t blend into this world.
His voice couldn’t be distinctly attributed to anyone, and his existence wasn’t fixed in one place either.
He simply appeared where needed, existed where needed, and did what was needed.
But the cost he had to pay to exist in such a way was by no means light.
He was paying the price for existing by transcending the world’s laws, with every breath and movement.
At this point, he barely remembered why he had to do it, his emotions growing dim…
“Memory is a frightening thing.”
“…What?”
“In defining oneself, one’s own will is surprisingly not that important. Perhaps entrusting it to others is more efficient.”
That was why fate had confined him not to himself, but to the belief and worship of others.
By hiding and concealing himself in the cracks of memories and thoughts, he could protect himself from the recoil and harm of ascension.
He understood that idea but couldn’t empathize with it, yet he agreed that the method itself was a powerful and dangerous way of existing.
Just by someone touching a memory related to him somewhere in the world, he would inadvertently react and awaken like this.
A connection was that powerful, and not easily severed.
In a way, that was the only method by which he could define himself.
“Something from long ago came to mind… and it was quite unpleasant.”
“Director…?”
A rare, faint sneer was mixed in with his voice, whose gender and age couldn’t be guessed. A reaction so clear that even Agneta, whose inherent emotions were dim, felt tense.
But instead of replying to Agneta, he slowly rose to his feet.
Should he intervene?
He considered it for a moment, but the moment he opened his eyes, he stopped thinking about it.
It was something from so long ago that he couldn’t even perceive the world’s time.
There had been far more events after transcending the end of causality than when he prepared for the conclusion while gazing into the Outer God’s eye.
There was more meaning and regret in the time he had lived since then.
If someone he had once been with remembered him from that ruined world, even in that way, it was enough.
“Tell The Doctor to finish whatever he needs to do beforehand. Time is running out.”
“If it’s about Jinwa, then it’s already…”
“No.”
The Director interrupted Agneta and silently stroked the massive obsidian sarcophagus.
A small nameplate attached to the bottom of the sarcophagus glittered.
[Jindun. Zaygis Eterno.]
“It’s about the other one.”