Chapter 67
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The Sleepwalker V
Shin Noah
7
To state an obvious fact: Homo sapiens do not have wings.
In other words, most people have no intuition about flight.
Unless one is a pilot who regards an airplane's engine hum as their own heartbeat, or a paraglider who can truly feel the parachute as wings attached to their own arms, humans as creatures find that flying through the air is surprisingly unremarkable.
And where intuition is absent, fear is born.
"Aaaah! We're flying! Flying!"
"How high do we have to go!"
Screams erupted here and there as seven hundred Awakened soared into the sky, relying on nothing but a single broom each.
"Mom! I really hate this!"
"We're falliiiing!"
"Waaah waaah waaah!"
Of course, they had gathered multiple times beforehand for joint training. Awakened with acrophobia had long been excluded from the combat teams.
But even so, those cheap brooms were plainly unreliable substitutes for humanity's new wings.
Even an owl flying through the night sky looked at us with eyes that seemed to say, 'What are these? A new breed of suicide hopefuls?'
[The 'Saintess of National Salvation' announces.]
[The advance party has currently broken through an altitude of 300 meters.]
In a sense, the owl's eyes were accurate. What else would you call a group that created wings they never had just to charge at a special-grade anomaly, if not a suicide squad?
Only the Three Thousand Worlds guild members were displaying skillful mastery of flight.
[600 meters.]
Ah, for reference, I was also quite accomplished in broom flight arts. Despite appearances, I once took 2nd place in the guild's flight competition during my time at Three Thousand Worlds.
Trailing the screams of countless Awakened like elongated shadows, I led the vanguard together with Dang Seo-rin, the perennial champion of that flight competition.
[1500 meters.]
It was starting to get cold.
"Aah―――."
But it didn't matter. Dang Seo-rin was already singing another verse of her incantation.
The 4th Movement, Body Enhancement.
It was an all-in-one gift set Dang Seo-rin had developed by combining the existing 'temperature regulation' and 'breathing assistance.' It provided support to help withstand various environments unfavorable to humans—the cold deep sea, scorching deserts, the Void, and so on.
Sure enough, the moment Dang Seo-rin's chant ended, a pleasant warmth spread throughout my body.
[2200 meters.]
Higher. Even higher.
[2900 meters.]
Glancing down―
The ground had already become tiny and distant. I lightly dismissed the instinctive vertigo and turned my head to look back up at the sky.
There was the meteor shower.
From below, the starlight had felt like it would fall at any moment. Yet since beginning our flight, no matter how high we soared, the starlight had grown no larger.
An optical illusion. A glitch in the world. Gazing continuously at the starlight, I felt the sense of proportion between distance and size crumbling in my brain.
But this too was merely an illusion within an illusion. We were definitely getting closer to the meteor shower.
[3500 meters.]
Finally.
[4100 meters. Red Lotus, approaching.]
[Commencing entry.]
Swoooosh―
A noise like rippling waves echoed. A sound that shouldn't be heard at an altitude of 4100 meters, and shouldn't exist.
The moment we pierced through the surface of that noise, suddenly, everything around us turned pitch black.
A darkness more fitting to call 'dark deep sea' than 'night sky' blanketed heaven and earth.
Saaah, swoooosh―
Darkness rippled each time Awakened followed behind me. They pointed their brooms downward and momentarily hovered in the void.
At the utterly unfamiliar sight, the Awakened gaped.
"Good heavens, this is……."
"It's the Void!"
Before confusion could spread among the combat teams, I grabbed the radio and shouted.
"We have just entered the meteor shower's domain! There's no need to be surprised or nervous! It's simply the Void we've experienced to death, now spread across the sky!"
"Ah."
"Continue the operation! Reform the formation! Form squads with your team members! Rearrange formation and charge exactly as trained! I'm giving you 40 seconds!"
"8th Squad, assemble! 8th Squad, assemble!"
"11th Squad! Why are you over there! Get your asses here quickly, you bastards!"
The Awakened's formation, momentarily scattered from ascending to the night sky's Void, quickly reassembled.
Meanwhile, I watched unceasingly in the direction where the 'meteor shower' existed.
Starlight that created the illusion of falling downward at any moment. No, the hallucination that we were already falling.
Yet right now, that thing was definitely crouching still, watching us.
Beyond intellect and reason, the instincts of a regressor tempered across dozens of loops fiercely detected its hostility.
Unlike my instincts, the surroundings were utterly peaceful.
A sensation like being dropped in the middle of a calm night sea's horizon.
"…Something's strange here. Undertaker."
Dang Seo-rin brought her broom close to my side and muttered.
"The air is quite heavy. Breathing has become a bit difficult too. It feels not like the sky, but like we've entered shallow water."
"The monster must be planning to rain since it has water attributes. What did you expect? The Void was merely void."
"Well. That's true."
"I'm counting on you for the last song."
"Yeah. Leave it to me. …I'm counting on you too. This operation can't succeed if you fall."
"Of course."
Just then, the Saintess's voice quietly pierced my ear.
[Be careful, Undertaker. The altimeter is broken.]
Broken?
[It recorded approximately 4100 meters just before entering that Void, but currently it reads 7182 meters, -9699 meters, 21337 meters, 0.01 meters, the numbers are changing erratically. In real time.]
"……."
[Not just altitude. Air pressure and other values are also fluctuating ceaselessly. Good luck."
I nodded.
Exactly 40 seconds.
I looked behind. A perfectly reformed flight squadron of 700 was watching my back.
"Continue the operation! Charge! Charge!"
"Aaaaaah!"
Boss battle Phase 2, commence.
With me at the apex, the 700-person flight squadron followed like an awl. Dang Seo-rin, who had stood at the vanguard with me until now, shifted to the rearmost position and formed a formation as prearranged.
The starlight still showed no reaction.
That was our best opportunity.
"Aah―aaaah―a―――."
Dang Seo-rin's voice awakened the night sky from the very back.
The 5th Movement, 'Mirror of All Things.'
This too was a high-level grand magic recently developed. A masterpiece by Dang Seo-rin that sublimated [Concentration], [Absorption], [Reflection], and [Amplification] into a single song.
Its effect was obvious.
Chrrrrrr―
Semi-transparent mirrors formed around the 700 Awakened. Countless mirrors orbited our flight squadron like planets orbiting the sun.
I issued the command without hesitation.
"Everyone, pour in everything you've got!"
The Awakened unleashed their auras and mana toward the mirrors as if they'd been waiting.
The mirrors faithfully reflected the Awakened's auras toward 'other mirrors.'
Claang―
The mirrors that completed their reflection mission immediately shattered. Countless mirror fragments scattered in the void like white spring blossoms.
The procession of auras reflected from the back ricocheted toward increasingly forward mirrors, increasingly larger mirrors.
Claang― Claaang― Claaaang―
Each time, mirrors shattered, and each time, auras overlapped and overlapped again, transmitted to the preceding mirrors.
Resembling the colors of the auras, the glass was stained glass, pouring every hue across the night sky dyed in pitch darkness.
The radio crackled noisily.
[12th Squad, charging complete!]
[11th Squad, charging complete!]
That's right.
The role 'Mirror of All Things' performed in this battle was none other than firepower concentration.
With some variance, the 700-person strike force formed squads of roughly 60 people each.
In other words, a full 60 Awakened were concentrating their auras, their strikes, into the mirrors.
[6th Squad, complete! It's complete!]
[Loss rate, approximately 5%!]
Grrrrrr!
As auras of different colors and wavelengths mingled, thunder crashed. Like a massive beast growling.
From the 12th Squad to the 1st Squad.
Passing through the twelve-section intestine curving in twelve segments—the Korean Peninsula Alliance's beast-like roar had now surged up to its throat.
[4th Squad, complete―.]
[Loss rate below 3%. Within calculated range. Transmitting.]
[3rd Squad! Passed!]
Aura stormed like a tempest.
Hiccup-like screams occasionally burst. Awakened unfamiliar with flight wavered in the aura's storm.
This was anticipated. That's why I had placed less experienced Awakened in later squads and skilled elites in the vanguard.
There was no problem.
At the rearmost, Dang Seo-rin controlled everything; at the vanguard, I commanded everything.
[2nd Squad… passed! We somehow did it!]
[Go! Go! Go!]
Some Awakened exclaimed. Like ancient Egyptians who came to worship the pyramids they built, these too couldn't help but tremble at the torrent of aura.
And.
[1st Squad! Complete! Undertaker!]
The 1st Squad leader shouted. Yoo Ji-won. An Awakened who had served as my adjutant in the distant past when I belonged to Three Thousand Worlds.
[Now― now! Transmitted!]
[Loss rate below 1%! Below 1%!]
[Undertaker!]
Kwaaarrrrrr―!
Finally, the auras of 700 people reached right before my eyes.
All the mirrors Dang Seo-rin created had shattered. The magic mirrors fell to the ground, scattering countless fragments.
Except for the largest mirror covering my eyes.
A transparent concave mirror swirled with a typhoon of aura.
"Hup……!"
My whole body trembled.
A sensation of exaltation like becoming an omnipotent god surged up my spine. What mortal among mortals could be permitted such power, and who could properly wield it?
That was why I stood at the vanguard.
I poured my aura into the torrent of aura that seemed ready to escape my control and explode at any moment.
Ink-black. This was the coloring of my soul.
The seething torrent of aura in various colors, like water in a beaker being completely dyed by a single drop of ink, was instantly infected with blackness.
Pat, the skin of my right hand peeled away to the forearm. It couldn't withstand the aura output.
"……!"
My ears were ringing. I couldn't hear anything. Thunder constantly echoed around me, and with my vision dyed pitch black, I couldn't see anything.
The pain of blood vessels bursting.
But still, there was no problem.
"Saintess! The position is―."
[Adjust 3cm to the right.]
A voice quietly resonating directly in my head.
[Again, 11cm down.]
[Too far down. 2cm up.]
The 42nd-loop me didn't know, but the Saintess was using 'Time Stop' to carefully correct errors.
She had probably examined and calculated from countless Awakened's perspectives whether firing the aura like this would hit the meteor shower or not. Perhaps spending days and nights.
That long time was but an instant for me, and to endure that instant, I bore all the pain.
[Yes, just a little. Just a little more….]
[Now.]
Quietly.
[Now, Undertaker.]
The Saintess's time and my time intersected.
In that moment, I shouted and fired the storm of aura gathered before my eyes. I couldn't even hear my own shout.
Kwaaaarrrrrrrrrrr―!
Only, the roar of a massive beast.
That ink-black roar, piercing through 700 souls and 12 layers of intestine, shook heaven and earth.
-A҉?҉
Only then did the meteor shower, which had been silent all along, react. Like a being deeply asleep just waking up.
Boss battle Phase 3, commence.
-T҉w҉in҉kle҉,҉ ҉t҉w҉in҉kle҉,҉ ҉lit҉t҉le҉ ҉s҉tar҉.
I felt the meteor shower undulating.
-H҉ow҉ ҉b҉eau҉t҉i҉ful҉ly҉ ҉y҉ou҉ ҉sh҉ine҉.҉
-F҉rom҉ ҉t҉he҉ ҉eas҉t҉ern҉ ҉s҉ky,҉ ҉f҉rom҉ ҉t҉he҉ ҉w҉es҉t҉ern҉ ҉s҉ky.҉
A familiar melody. The meteor shower's lullaby that had led the world to ruin from the 23rd loop to the 41st.
It intends to put us to sleep like this.
"Ah―ah, ah―ah, aaaah―――."
And for precisely this moment, Dang Seo-rin drew her final card.
Singing voices began echoing simultaneously from both shores of the night sky. Yet the moment two wavelengths collided at the center―
-A҉?҉
―The song suddenly vanished.
The 6th Movement, Anti-Resonance.
An applied magic of [Silence] that nullifies all noise by emitting soundwaves that precisely counter the opponent's sound.
I cried out in ecstasy.
"The ability to create miracles with song isn't your patented specialty alone!"
The intersection of the meteor shower's Void and Dang Seo-rin's magic was precisely where I was flying.
Black ripples spread by the meteor shower and white waves spread by Dang Seo-rin collided endlessly. Black and white. The colors humanity's song possessed. The colors the anomaly's song painted.
While the night sky's battlefield was filled with human and Void song, only I raced through the silent front line.
Following the Saintess's guidance, ceaselessly aiming the aura's storm.
-A҉?҉ ҉A҉?҉
Perhaps flustered that its ultimate move wasn't working? Unidentifiable noise intruded between the lullaby the meteor shower was singing.
But, it was too late.
Solely to drive this one strike, this surprise attack into you, the 700-person combat team and 900-person support team had repeated training.
Dang Seo-rin developed three high-level magics, prepared radios, and cast medium magic on each one.
The Saintess had operated in secret, hiding her existence all this time to lend credibility to the Constellations' messages.
The time the Saintess poured in to gather all the Alliance's Awakened over the past 7 years must have approached eternity. The several days spent just now for precise aiming was merely the final seasoning of that eternity.
And my 150 years existed.
The optimal route. The best strategy.
-A҉?҉ ҉A҉?҉ ҉A҉?҉ ҉A҉?҉
Therefore, this was the first and final strike.
The one moment the meteor shower let its guard down. The moment it had never fallen to any ground, never destroyed any nation, never killed any Awakened—its most inexperienced moment.
Literally, a regressor's certain kill.
-A҉?҉ ҉A҉?҉ ҉A҉?҉ ҉A҉?҉A҉?҉ ҉A҉?҉ ҉҉҉҉҉A҉?҉҉҉ ҉҉҉҉A҉?҉ ҉҉҉A҉?҉҉ ҉A҉?҉
You cannot call it unfair.
For that has been the way you've fought all along.
Die while still asleep, anomaly.
-A҉A҉A҉A҉Ma҉A҉A҉A҉A҉?҉
Flash―――.
Starlight risen from the ground pierced the starlight fallen from the sky.
An infinite regressor showing off.