Chapter 654: The Right to Ascension (4)
Whoosh!
“Everyone, step back! Absolutely do not touch the gate!”
“One mistake and you’ll be sucked in. Do not approach the gate!”
The Sidesquad agents recoiled, beads of cold sweat trickling down their faces.
“Contact Ex Machina. Demand an immediate re-evaluation of this operation!”
“No contact! The communication network is completely cut off…!”
Thump—
At that moment, a dull roar, as if the sky itself was breaking, reverberated.
Immediately after, the shadow force members were crushed as if stomped on, then disintegrated into a handful of flesh and exploded.
“Aargh!”
Screaming desperately, the members vanished as if sucked into the gigantic ring of light.
At that moment, a flicker of focus seemed to return to Hermes’s somewhat vacant eyes.
Every time Hermes absentmindedly gestured, all matter possessing mass was crushed and sucked into the gate.
A colossal gate form that pulverized and swallowed all humans and natural objects, except for the Furnace General’s Workshop, which firmly supported the gate’s foundation.
Hermes, who had been sitting on a pristine white throne, staring fixedly at Lennok’s face, smiled.
“Even as I fell asleep, I was so curious about that face. It’s been a truly long time since I wanted to see someone’s face.”
“……”
“What do you think of this gate?”
Hermes asked, not waiting for Lennok’s reply.
With a somewhat languid demeanor, perched precariously on the throne as if about to fall asleep at any moment.
He gasped, as if even continuing his words was difficult, yet he asked Lennok.
“The Machine City’s greatest failure. Across the entire Eastern Continent, a more tragic and perfect downfall than this would be rare.”
“……”
“Yet, the people of this city casually sacrificed their own fates beyond the gate to preserve this failure.”
Hermes smiled.
“That lingering attachment, obsession, stubbornness, and delusion, between which I responded to—”
“People who sacrificed their own fates to the beyond of the gate.”
Lennok cut Hermes off and asked.
“Was the Furnace General one of them?”
“……”
The beautiful appearance of the Workshop Tower, as if several palaces were stacked in layers.
The remains of the Ascension Gate, revealed only after overturning the entire workshop facility, and the white throne at its center.
It would be strange if there wasn’t someone’s hidden arrangement in this space, which seemed ready to open the gate at any moment.
And it seemed certain that the mastermind behind this scheme was the Furnace General, the creator and owner of the Workshop Tower.
The Furnace General’s death was not an assassination or an accident.
From the very beginning, he intended to make his workshop the foundation for reopening the Ascension Gate.
For the failure of the Ascension Gate, to leave that failure with meaning, the Furnace General sacrificed himself to the beyond of the gate.
Lennok pressed the revolver hard against Hermes’s forehead and muttered.
“Three answers to a single failure… ironic, but understandable because of it.”
The Ascension Gate, unable to become the answer to the next, reached the second world that perished, and the answers left behind were each different.
Artemeyer, who placed no meaning on the failure; Maiya, who accepted and tried to salvage it; and the Furnace General, who couldn’t accept it and even sacrificed himself to find meaning.
Even after failing to find an answer, someone’s lingering attachments branched out in different directions.
Even such echoing stubbornness, unable to find meaning, sometimes becomes yet another answer.
“I knew you would understand, Lyman.”
Hermes nodded.
“Because if you maintained your sanity after seeing those memories beyond the gate, you must have reached the same conclusion as me.”
“……”
He remembered what the Director had said at the end of the labyrinth.
The question and answer that he would seek a new answer before it was too late, even if it was in a direction he never desired.
At the time, he hadn’t understood what those words meant, but now…
“If someone must accept impossible wishes, then I shall become that necessity.”
Hermes’s translucent eyes flashed as he slowly spread his arms.
“If that alone is the answer beyond salvation, then with me…!!”
Bang!!
At that moment, the revolver in Lennok’s hand fired, and the bullet embedded itself in Hermes’s heart.
The arrow-like projectile slowly pulsed like a heart, accurately penetrating his solar plexus.
Immediately after, it passed straight through Hermes’s heart and vanished as if sucked into the gate beyond the throne.
“…Ah?”
“No, this is far enough.”
Lennok spoke to Hermes, who was staring blankly at his chest.
“The Doctor was right. The very idea of extracting meaning from beyond the gate was flawed. Even if something incredible remained within it…”
The legacy, information, and memories of the Old World were ultimately just a means.
Values and answers that failed to achieve ascension could not become new answers in this world.
Hermes summoning the spirit of an Ascendant was merely stubbornness, an attempt to repeat a failed answer once more in this world.
“……”
Thump, thump!
Blood gushed from the hole that pierced Hermes’s chest.
At that moment, the form of the gate, recognizing the previous Lighthouse Keeper’s will-thought, greatly warped like a crack in a glass window.
Crack!
The massive ring of light floating on the workshop wall seemed to break for an instant, creating an illusion.
It wobbled, losing balance, and tiny fragments seemed to fall from it.
Behind Hermes’s back, the gently rippling wave vibrated irregularly and convulsed.
Flicker, flicker.
Even the light form grew faint, and the radiance that had brilliantly illuminated the entire workshop faded.
The remains of the Ascension Gate, which existed in the Furnace General’s Workshop.
Hermes’s gate, forcibly completed using the Machine City’s district shift, was collapsing in a frenzy simultaneously with its completion.
“Cough…! I see…”
Blood spilled from the hole in his chest.
The sticky crimson streamed from his lips, trickling down his neck and soaking his collar.
But Hermes, more than his dying body, showed interest in the true nature of the bullet Lennok had just fired.
“The previous Lighthouse Keeper’s will-thought… I thought it had all been used up as a landmark, but to think such a precious relic remained…”
What Lennok had used as the revolver’s bullet was a catalyst made by directly materializing the will-thought left behind by the previous Lighthouse Keeper.
It was one of the only two solutions Maiya had acquired from the Divine Statue and then split for the two of them.
The immense will-thought of an Ascendant completely fills the void of the Old World connected beyond the gate and crashes the entire system.
The iron rule that you must always receive back more than you gave.
The moment the Ascendant’s will-thought, which could not be established within that law, was offered as a price, the exchange ratio broke, and the gate’s function collapsed.
Cough.
Even covered in blood, Hermes couldn’t suppress a laugh.
He coughed incessantly, exhaling a self-mocking laugh along with it.
“The will-thought of the Ascendant who looked the farthest ahead in this world… if it disrupts the gate instead of guiding it, it’s only natural for the system itself to break down…”
“You are not an Ascendant. You are merely an avatar consumed by their memories.”
Lennok said, rubbing his aching hand.
“……”
“If the Ascendant’s spirit doesn’t respond from beyond the gate, wouldn’t your existence, which was not bound to a physical body, also vanish?”
Hermes had been able to exist by switching bodies because he was a being deeply encroached by the Ascendant’s memories from beyond the gate.
But if the Ascension Gate’s system broke, Hermes would no longer be able to exist in the same way.
That would be no different from true death for Hermes himself.
Lennok was asking if Hermes himself fully accepted that fact.
But Hermes chuckled dismissively at Lennok’s words.
“Lyman, what meaning would that hold…? In this world, we are dying every moment without even gaining the proper qualifications.”
“……”
“As a seeker of answers, even after confirming the gate’s memories… are you still unable to cease your contemplation of death?”
Hermes cackled.
“That is not the salvation I envision… If the plan had succeeded, everything would have been swallowed and vanished… a meaningless exchange.”
“Yes. I suppose so.”
Lennok replied, slowly placing a hand on Hermes’s shoulder.
Hermes leaned weakly on the throne, looking as if he might slip off at any moment.
“But I believe even that exchange is a process to obtain qualification.”
The fear of death. The yearning for life.
If he hadn’t fully recognized and accepted that terror and longing, Lennok wouldn’t have survived until now.
The same goes for the impending doom at the end of causality and a predetermined conclusion.
The despair of no longer existing is always directly linked to an obsession with life.
The moment Lennok denied or deemed that fact meaningless, he would become different from how he was when he first fell into this world.
He is not different. He does not change.
Even as everything around him changed, Lennok struggled to remember the hope of that first moment.
“A process… ha, haa…”
Hermes’s eyelids fluttered, then slowly lost strength and began to close.
His breathing rapidly slowed, and his heart rate quickly ceased functioning.
A normal cessation of vital signs, completely unlike when he survived for a long time after being decapitated in the Heart-Star Vault.
As the gate’s system broke, Hermes’s ego rapidly lost its ability to sustain itself and vanished.
Hermes muttered with difficulty, his breath barely coming out, like a whisper.
“Still, I…”
Before he could finish his words, Hermes’s breathing stopped.
Simultaneously, the flow of the gate, which had been sucking in everything around, completely halted, and the ring of light floating above the throne collapsed.
Boommm!!
A thunderous roar shook the entire Furnace General’s Workshop. The impact caused Hermes’s lifeless body on the chair to shudder greatly.
The storm ceased, and an almost unbelievable silence descended.
Lennok stepped back, gazing at Hermes’s slumped corpse on the chair.
Thud!
The Iron-Plated Wings, which had been inserted between the throne, detached, supporting Lennok’s body instead.
[Ascension Gate function completely ceased. Program code matching copied.]
“…Good.”
Lennok slowly regulated his breathing and turned around, hearing Davi’s report.
The Sidesquad agents stared at Lennok with disbelief.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to intervene in the situation that had just unfolded.
It was their hesitation, as they couldn’t recklessly approach out of concern for Lennok’s divine status and Hermes’s safety.
Lennok had accurately seized that fleeting moment and, with a single bullet, brought down both Hermes and the Ascension Gate itself.
The operation agreed upon with Maiya ended here. From now on, it was territory he had to navigate purely by his own judgment.
“Escape the Workshop Tower and immediately evade pursuit. Considering the remaining magic, I can do it twice…”
He quickly made his decision and spread the Iron-Plated Wings wide, just as he was about to leave the peak of the Workshop Tower.
A voice echoed from behind Lennok.
“Still, I believe I was not mistaken.”
It was a calm yet distinct tone, completely unlike the weak, dying voice from moments ago.
The magnitude of the will-thought carried in that tone was so immense and potent that even Lennok found it difficult to measure.
“…!!!”
As Lennok sharply turned his gaze and conjured magic in an instant,
A pristine white wave erupted from behind Hermes’s slumped body, dyeing the heavens and earth in white.
Fwooshh!!!
The manifestation of magic, the expansion of will-thought, the warping of laws.
There was no premonition for this series of miracles.
Upon deployment, it invaded reality, overturned laws, and transformed all existing matter into its own.
Kiiing!!!
All inorganic matter in the Furnace General’s Workshop transformed into gleaming platinum forms and flashed,
And the agents, shouting and screaming with desperate expressions, froze as if time had stopped.
At the end of the empty timeline, only Lennok and Hermes’s corpse retained their colors.
No, could the being who just spoke to Lennok still be called Hermes?
Whoosh!!
From behind the pristine white throne, someone slowly stepped out, their hand resting on the shoulder of the deceased Hermes.
Platinum matter coiled and surged, creating its own body on the spot, transforming into a human form.
It took on a form perfectly identical to that of the deceased Hermes.
A human body from which no presence could be felt, eerily transparent and white.
With eyes so white they were translucent and devoid of focus, he met Lennok’s gaze and spoke.
“When looking into someone’s memories, one must be wary of their own inner self being peered into in return.”
“……”
Every time Lennok slowly retreated, unable to hide his perturbation.
The other naturally took a step forward and spoke.
“Sharing precious memories is an unpleasant experience, but because of it, one can also learn certain truths.”
“You are…”
“Your inner self, I found, was more obscured than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
He smiled.
“So, I wanted to meet and converse with you in this way.”
A subtle smile, as if only the corners of his lips were pulled up on an expressionless face.
An awkwardness, as if a being who had lost all humanity was forcing himself to imitate a human smile.
But Lennok could not respond to his smile.
He instinctively knew that this platinum spacetime unfolding before him, and the manner in which he extended an invitation to converse, pointed to one possibility.
The being standing before his eyes was not an Ex Machina committee member, whom Lennok had been dealing with in Machina until now.
“Since when?”
Lennok quietly asked.
“To bring something from beyond the gate, a price must be paid. But you completed the Ascension Gate without paying a price. You didn’t even have time. Rather…”
“A price is something that must be paid to take something from another.”
He replied quietly.
“That is why I do not pay a price. There is no reason to.”
“What do you mean…”
“Above all…”
He subtly shifted his gaze, looking at his own corpse slumped on the throne.
The smile on his lips momentarily regained its vitality.
“[I] do not speak so frivolously, Lyman.”
Realizing the meaning of those words, Lennok fell silent.
There was no doubt.
The being standing before Lennok was not an Ex Machina committee member, who had been consumed by the Ascendant’s memories and mistaken himself for a Transcendent.
The Viceroy of Ruined Kingdoms, Steel Ghost, Platinum Commander, and the War Proxy who brought countless civilizations to ruin.
The great spirituality he had sacrificed his life to summon from beyond the gate.
The true Transcendent who had gained qualification in the Old World.
The Ascendant, Hermes Orokhnier, had descended upon the Third World.