Living (1)
Apocalypse.
Darting between the buildings of a future city where the Law had triumphed, Shirone bit his lip.
"There's nowhere to hide."
The city, not a speck of dust left, was inhabited only by androids called Jets.
The mechanical whir of the Jets filled the air.
"Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form."
Shirone launched himself up to avoid the hail of rounds and stared down at the ground with wide eyes.
"Damn."
Across the vast city, it looked as if only the area beneath his feet had been painted silver—jets swarmed everywhere.
"Where are they all coming from?" As a Jet hovered into position on a magnetic field and traced a rune, every Jet began outputting the same sacred script.
"Eradicate heresy. Flame-net annihilation."
Countless projectiles rose from the surface and struck Shirone like a net of fire.
"Tch!"
An explosion roared; Shirone defended himself with Miracle Stream and landed on a rooftop.
"Why?"
The question returned every time he scouted the city.
What was he missing?
A future where the Law had won meant the Fairies had still prevailed in the species war.
"So they sent the Twelve Apostles to the Elves. And yet the outcome doesn't change…"
There had to be a variable outside Shirone's perception—a factor from the outside world.
"Eliminate worldly desire. Eliminate worldly desire."
Jets clung to the walls like spiders and began crawling up the building, making the hairs on his neck stand on end.
"Winning here changes nothing. How long—"
Then a mechanical voice spoke.
"O lost sentient being."
One Jet sat cross-legged.
"When did that—?"
As a sacred script flickered across its faceplate, the Jets in the sky scattered as if they'd lost their eyes.
Shirone watched in a daze. When he looked down again, an entrance had opened in the ground.
"If you seek the other shore, follow me."
Feeling the vibrations of the Jets along the walls, Shirone threw himself into the black aperture.
Countless eyes began to pierce the ceiling of Gaold and Miro's wedding hall.
Hearing the sound of the 1.5th floor collapsing, Miro couldn't take her eyes off Gaold.
"Gaold."
The boundary between dream and reality crumbled; memories that felt unreal overlapped.
What was clear was that Gaold's choice now was something beyond desire.
Gaold groaned.
"It hurts."
The pain came again.
With his threshold for pain gone, he perceived this world more vividly than anyone, and the power of the magic born from that perception made him, indisputably, humanity's strongest—but the clearer his senses, the more the pain matched them.
Curse or blessing?
Gaold called it simply life.
"Life is suffering."
As more than half of Imir's defining gaze penetrated him, reality pressed in closer than any dream.
"It's neither curse nor blessing."
Without sudden death to free him, his only escape from the pain was to end his own life.
"Who wouldn't want to die?"
He wanted to hang himself right now, slice his wrists, leap from a cliff.
Better to be struck by lightning, crushed by a rolling boulder, to have someone cut his throat in his sleep.
"Why can't I die?"
He snorted at what might still remain in the rest of his life.
"Because I'm human."
Maybe something good could happen tomorrow.
It would never happen—decades of waiting hadn't changed that fact—but still: tomorrow, that tomorrow that had not yet come…
Hot tears flowed like molten lava.
"You never know!"
For the first time in his life—maybe the last—he hoped a day might come when he could laugh without worry.
"Just once."
He'd give up everything—his flesh and blood—for that.
"Just once."
He wanted to feel happiness.
"Miro."
My ideal.
"There is no tomorrow here."
Suffering makes humans philosophers, and his philosophy had bent toward an extreme.
"You're not there."
Perfect order.
Close your eyes and you feel the righteousness everyone already knows, endlessly practiced—the realm of the extreme line.
"If you could smile in that world—"
Gaold clenched his teeth and the extreme discipline of the Great Primordial Flame Hell flared.
"Would I be able to smile then?"
Could even a heart lost in hell find rest?
"Ugh!"
Will tomorrow come for me, Miro?
As Gaold's face grew young as if time ran backward, water began to flood everywhere.
Luber let out a low sigh.
"So it comes to this, then?"
The human heart is like a sunflower: when it sees a ray of hope it inevitably turns toward it.
"Humans can't discard even the tiniest doubt. That's why the outside world's existence is dangerous. The world must stay closed."
Monga shouted.
"Luber! What do we do? At this rate the 1.5th floor will flood!"
It was already beyond stopping.
"Protect Odaeseong."
"But—"
Hadn't they taken refuge on the 1.5th floor because they couldn't withstand the pressure of Deep Layer Level 2?
"Right now it's the only option. Hold on as long as you can. At the very least, the one we must keep breathing until the end is Odaeseong."
Better to leave even 0.1 percent hope.
"Yes."
Monga understood Luber's resolve and hurried out of the wedding hall.
"My God…"
Looking out toward the open sea, a tsunami of indeterminate height surged toward the city.
"Odaeseong!"
Monga reached home by the shortest route and still held the sleeping Shirone tightly.
"Pressure isn't the only problem. The impact of the wave alone—"
At that moment an astronomically massive volume of water slammed into the city, and together with the debris of the 1.5th floor, Gaold and his party sank into the abyss.
Kangnan's eyes widened.
"Ah."
Everything snapped into focus.
"They suppressed Leviathan at Deep Layer Level 2. Then the surface suddenly rose…"
So this was the situation.
"It was all a dream."
Nearly twenty years spent on the 1.5th floor felt like an instant after waking.
"Gaold refused to compromise."
Now that Kangnan was back in reality he had no one to blame, but the situation remained unchanged.
"What are you planning? Are you really going to die?"
The pressure they felt now was Imir's mind itself; unless they could deliver a shock stronger than that, they would be annihilated.
Gaold stared into the darkness of the deep.
"I can do it."
He'd subdued the Tamo organization on the 1.5th floor.
"Imir cannot feel sensation." He is too strong.
"The frustration from lack of sensation drives him into battle. His threshold is probably as unfathomable as this sea's depth."
So if they couldn't strike the ground, Imir might not even know Gaold's party was there.
"Air Press."
The moment he cast the spell, a monstrous pain surged up, but there was no time to hesitate.
He had already given up the comforting lie.
"I've come this far."
Gaold's eyes rolled back, and the power of Air Press climbed without limit.
It was a seesaw between a human at the peak of sensation and a giant at the extreme of numbness.
Air Press was vast in scale, but to Imir it would be like a needle.
High-speed pounding air pressure began to push down through the water pressure.
"Damn! Still not there?"
The depth was enough to breed despair, but a will that had transcended desire matched it.
"Urgh!"
How long could they hold on? It felt like the moment when everyone should have suffocated.
"No. It's too far. I can't reach it." A voice he'd never forgotten, even in dreams, whispered like a hallucination.
"Miro."
As if pushed by someone, when his mind pierced the limit of pain, a terrible agony washed over him.
Blood ran from his eyes into the sea, his limbs convulsed, and then—thud.
Resistance.
"I've reached it."
A shock transmitted into Imir's nerves.
Scalding heat followed; the sea vaporized entirely, and Gaold's scream tore out.
"Argh!"
Kneeling on the seabed, clutching himself, he couldn't even summon the word pain.
"Ugh!"
There is a reason to endure even in hell: because there is a tomorrow.
While Luber and Monga checked Shirone's condition, Sein, Kangnan, and Arius hurried over.
"You okay? Snap out of it!"
Kangnan stopped when he saw Gaold's face.
Horror flooded him, as if touching someone whose skin had been peeled away.
"Get out of the way."
Miro stepped forward and, before anyone could stop her, slipped her arms around Gaold's neck and hauled him upright.
"Argh!"
A fierce fire lit in Kangnan's eyes.
"Are you crazy? Do you know what state he's in?"
Miro ignored him, tugging Gaold's neck while ruffling his hair with the other hand.
"Good."
Gaold, finally regaining his senses, trembled from the pain and slowly lifted his head.
Miro smirked.
"No matter what, being held by the real thing is the best, right?"
"Ugh!"
In Gaold's blood-smeared eyes, anger flared.
"Right… this is what you were like."
How could anyone forget?
"You lunatic. You damn psycho! Of all people—!"
Consciousness waned again. Gaold's eyes gently closed; he smiled and said,
"Yeah."
Since school days this woman had made his heart flutter—he liked her too much.
When Gaold's head slumped, Miro gently set him on the floor, still watching him.
"Anyway, we've come this far. Below here is Imir's primordial psyche—Deep Layer 1."
Miro stomped on the ground.
"Ugh—"
Then, as if still not satisfied, she stamped harder.
"Die! Die!"
"It won't help."
Arius, who'd suffered through the dream like a dog, stepped forward.
"Gaold pierced the realm of numbness in the deep and transmitted stimulation. But this stratum is solid too. Hitting it like that won't even send a signal."
"Is that so? Then should we smash it to pieces?"
When Miro activated the Thousand-Armed Kannon avatar technique, Kangnan thought she was genuinely angry.
"The wish to return even a little of the pain Gaold felt…"
For that reason, Kangnan had to accept reality.
Arius continued, "It's possible. Since the numbness has been broken, we could dig in and reach it. But I don't think that's necessary." Beyond the horizon Arius pointed to, an undersea volcano loomed.
"The moment Gaold's Air Press hit the ground, that volcano probably erupted. That heat vaporized the sea."
"Is that even possible?"
"The mental world is made of symbols and metaphors. Interpreted another way, it means Imir's longing is that hot and powerful."
The group fell silent.
Kangnan swallowed at the thought that desire alone—simply through pain—could blow away the sea.
"How much has it built up? I don't want to imagine the other implications."
"Haha. Don't worry. Giants have no reproductive capability. Of course Gaold would be ecstatic. And Shirone—"
Luber walked up carrying Shirone on his back.
"He's safely asleep. That means he's still receiving information from the victory dream."
Miro nodded.
"We can't wait forever. Time here will pass fairly quickly, too."
Miro hoisted Gaold onto her back.
"Let's go. The final gate—the place where Imir's incarnation is."
Sein stepped forward.
"I'll carry Gaold."
"I'm fine."
Miro started toward the volcano and glanced back.
"I'll have words to say later as well."
Sein considered the meaning and nodded.
"…Yeah."
And so they headed toward tomorrow.