Chapter 194 - Episode 25. Deus Ex Machina (9)
Chapter 194: Episode 25. Deus Ex Machina (9)
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Only after hearing the sound of his sword breaking did Jaehwan realize he had lost. Within his Selflessness, developed to its utmost limit, time passed like a flashback.
With a sharp hiss, silver light burst from his upper body. The broken sword tip spun through the air. The twisting sight before his eyes seemed unreal.
One by one, his senses began to fail in the slowly passing time.
His body tilted, and his sense of balance vanished first. When he blinked again, Jaehwan felt the world spinning in circles.
He was falling.
A massive eye looked down at him from the distant sky.
It seemed to mock him, pity him, and perhaps mourn him a little.
Jaehwan stared up at that eye for a moment, then slowly closed his own.
Maiad’s incoming World Force dyed his vision white.
Then darkness fell.
For an instant, his ears went numb, then a soft, heavy impact struck his back. His sense of gravity disappeared. Someone had caught him in their arms. Soon, his hearing returned, and an explosive radiance burst before his eyes.
Inside a massive crater as though a meteorite had struck, someone held Jaehwan while blocking Maiad’s World Force.
“Wake up, idiot!”
It was Andersen.
“Karavan!”
At Andersen’s shout, Karavan ran over and took Jaehwan from her.
Jaehwan barely managed to focus his returning consciousness.
‘Stop. Run away.’
His words did not come out properly, but there was no way Andersen had failed to understand. She was not just anyone.
Yet Andersen did not run. She only looked at Jaehwan with strange eyes for a moment. They were resolute eyes, as though she had foreseen this moment long ago.
Maiad’s voice came through the exploding flames.
“Do you intend to interfere?”
“Sorry, but I have to.”
“The only one I can go easy on is Jaehwan.”
Maiad endlessly released pure white sword ki and attacked without hesitation. Andersen hastily stepped back several times, narrowly avoiding each attack.
Those sword strikes were enough to kill her with even a graze.
It was a fight anyone could see was hopeless.
Maiad was the strongest Rupture Lord, a being nearly on the level of the Seven Divine Thrones.
Even in her prime, Andersen had only been a high-grade god nearing supreme grade.
Still, Andersen was smiling.
“You don’t need to go easy on me. Looks like you don’t know who I am.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Naked Andersen.”
With a golden flash, Andersen’s body shot toward Maiad. Maiad swung Coexistence’s blade at Andersen as she came crashing toward Maiad like a golden cannonball.
Steel clashed against steel.
The following shockwave sent every nearby god rolling across the ground.
Fists and blades crossed again and again, throwing off enormous sparks.
Astonishingly, Andersen was fighting Maiad on equal footing.
‘Watch closely, Jaehwan.’
That was what Andersen’s lips said.
She was fighting. She was using 「Naked」 without being naked.
Maiad spoke with sincere admiration.
“Amazing.”
“Amazing? I’m just getting started.”
“I have heard your story. Andersen, successor to the Mad God.”
“So that rumor spread too.”
“But I heard you could not use that ‘power’ properly.”
“That was five hundred years ago. It is not like I spent all that time doing nothing.”
Rumble!
A red aura began to coil around Maiad’s white sword ki. Maiad too was finally preparing to release World Force in earnest.
At the same time, Andersen’s World Force exploded. A sphere of World Force, mixed with gold, white, and red light, rapidly expanded around Andersen and Maiad.
Gods who had been watching the battle from hiding muttered in shock.
“Andersen? That’s really Naked Andersen?”
“Didn’t she lose all her Followers?”
“Her World Force should have fallen until she became a low-grade god. How can she have that kind of power...?”
The sphere exploded, and Andersen and Maiad emerged from the flames at the same time. After landing, Maiad lightly rolled a wrist. It seemed Andersen’s fist had left it throbbing.
Andersen struck her fists together with a thud and chuckled lowly.
Maiad asked, “How can you have such strength when you are not even naked?”
“My World Force may have fallen, but I never neglected training my Setting.”
Clothed or unclothed, Andersen seemed to have transcended that distinction in that moment. It was as if she had surpassed the very concept of Clothes by one layer.
“When you get to my level, you start feeling naked even without taking anything off.”
It sounded like nonsense, but Andersen truly was displaying the Setting of 「Naked」 while wearing clothes.
Boom!
Still, no matter how strong Andersen was, the peculiarity of her Setting alone could not overwhelm Maiad.
Thirty seconds, one minute, two minutes. As the battle dragged on, sweat poured from Andersen’s entire body. With a cough, silver World Force flowed from the corner of her mouth.
Jaehwan understood.
Right now, Andersen was offering up her entire existence and turning it into World Force.
Karavan tightly held the weakly struggling Jaehwan.
“Even if you go, you can’t do anything in that condition. You’ve already reached your limit. Move any more, and you’ll die immediately.”
“······.”
“If you have the strength to move, then watch properly.”
Andersen was gradually being pushed back.
She was fighting within the ruined 「The World After the Fall」.
Jaehwan and Andersen’s Worldviews were resonating with each other.
Perhaps she was the only god in this world who understood destruction. In Jaehwan’s place, she was bringing destruction into this world.
Crack.
A large fissure formed across Andersen’s body.
But Andersen did not stop. She swung her fist again.
Rumble.
Jaehwan’s Sanctuary was collapsing.
The Part 「Fortress of Regret」 completely crumpled, followed by 「Metaverse」 beginning to collapse as well.
A tower that had already fallen once was collapsing again. As he watched, Jaehwan remembered the day he first decided to climb the 〈Metaverse〉.
It was a tower he climbed to find his lost Companions. In the end, he had not found them, and the tower had fallen. It had seemed like time without profit or meaning.
That was what he had thought.
“You told us to call for you, Jaehwan-nim.”
Someone ran past Jaehwan toward Andersen.
His vision blurred now and then, so he could not see the person clearly, but he knew who it was.
Martis.
The member of the Gods of Tomorrow who said he had received something great, despite Jaehwan never giving him anything.
“From here on, we’ll take them on!”
The Gods of Tomorrow following behind him let out fierce battle cries as they charged toward the collapsing tower.
Then a woman appeared behind them.
“I heard someone was picking on our beginner, so I came.”
The God of Fate, Minerva.
Jaehwan moved his lips with difficulty.
Minerva shook her head.
“I know. But.”
The enemy there was stronger even than the Metaverse Six Gods and the Leader, opponents they had struggled against. It was an enemy on an entirely different level.
Yet they were rushing into the battlefield.
The 〈Metaverse〉 where they had lived had already fallen. Then what were they protecting there?
“We can’t stand by and watch it fall twice.”
Ethan flew in atop a crow and bombarded the Awakened Ones.
The World Force of the heroes who had once ruled the 〈Metaverse〉 poured explosively from Ethan’s hand.
Andersen’s voice reached him in fragments, like an auditory hallucination.
‘Jaehwan. Did I ever tell you?’
They fought atop the ruins of the fallen 「Metaverse」.
‘Thank you for giving the 〈Metaverse〉 back to us.’
Only then did Jaehwan understand what they were protecting there.
They were protecting the world that remained even after the 〈Metaverse〉 had fallen.
It was the cursed world he had walked through alone for so long.
His vision shook.
He had always been alone. He had never asked for anyone’s understanding.
Jaehwan had only entered the 〈Metaverse〉 to save his Companions on his way to destroy this world.
And perhaps Jaehwan had saved his Companions.
Andersen was smiling brightly.
Jaehwan struggled.
His vision was gradually darkening.
He could no longer see Andersen’s expression clearly.
Even if it was not her face, he had to see her.
He had to see what expression she wore.
He could not see her face.
Through his blurred vision, Jaehwan saw Andersen turn her back. Andersen’s final voice came faintly to him, then vanished beneath a deafening explosion.
Karavan ran at full speed with Jaehwan tucked under one arm and Runald under the other. As the scene rapidly receded, Jaehwan’s consciousness gradually scattered as well.
Then enormous explosions rang out one after another, and a massive shockwave swept over them.
Through his fading vision, Jaehwan saw a brilliant golden light. It was a sight he would never see again in his life.
Andersen’s crow doll, tucked in his arms, was crying.
Its cry sounded like words in Jaehwan’s ears.
「I know you hate me. You probably dislike the fact that I was a ‘Cultivator.’」
“······.”
「The feelings someone like me had for a human must have felt like deception to you. Maybe you would not believe me even if I spent my entire life explaining it. It is my fault. I will take responsibility.」
Jaehwan tried to speak.
There was no need to explain.
What did it matter whether he believed her or not?
What meaning did that have in this world?
「It matters to me. It is the ‘world’ of yours that I believe in.」
Jaehwan struggled desperately. He had to go back. He had to help her. He had to defeat Maiad.
Yet the more he struggled, the farther his consciousness drifted away.
「So I hope you will believe it too. What I am about to prove.」
He tried to answer, but no voice came out. His body was already paralyzed in several places, and his senses were failing one by one.
「Go to the Great Forest with Runald. Find the ‘Mad God’ there.」
Another explosion erupted, and a gust of light blew in from somewhere.
The moment he felt the warm wind brush against his cheek, Jaehwan could feel the years Andersen had lived through.
The crow doll’s spring creaked, and its functions gradually stopped. At the final moment, the crow gave a small cry, but Jaehwan could not understand its words.
They were words even his 「Understanding」 could not understand.
Yet the moment he accepted that he could not understand them, Jaehwan suddenly knew what Andersen’s final words were.
「You can definitely become a good god.」
They had surely been words like that.
* * *
That day, the Hatchinold Auction House of 〈Caspion〉 vanished from the 《Abyss》.
Three days later, news spread across the entire 《Abyss》 that Deus Ex Machina, one of the Three Divine Artifacts, had appeared.
Along with rumors that a new Divine Throne had emerged.
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion