The first option: an eternal farewell between head and body.
It goes without saying, but a person dies when their head and body are separated. They might retain consciousness for a few seconds, but death is the inevitable result. Even a mage could not ignore the laws of life.
So, was the second option any better? Not at all.
What mattered to a mage was not the physical body but the bloatedness of the self, including the soul. A mage with a small ego could never grow strong; a certain degree of arrogance was necessary to reach a higher realm.
This did not mean acting recklessly. A mage was considered complete only when they possessed arrogance alongside a firm grasp of their own limits. And Mariang had been a fully accomplished mage for years already. Her record of a hundred battles and zero defeats was no poker bluff.
She had meticulously chosen opponents she could thoroughly defeat in combat and avoided clashes with enemies she could not overcome. After surviving thus, she devoured her fallen foes and then fought others she should have been forced to look up to, seizing victory once more. That was Mariang’s way.
This time was no different. At a glance, it looked like she had recklessly plunged in headfirst, but beneath it lay meticulous calculation.
A massive summoned beast. An entity with outstanding physical force, but nothing more. The moment she judged that she could win by ignoring it and targeting the mage, she carried out her plan without hesitation.
And this was the result.
She had been defeated, and the man commanding the summoned beast had won. The causes of defeat were that the summon’s strength exceeded her expectations, Ian’s calculative ability was superb, and his quick wits were outstanding. Simply put, there was an error in her judgment.
But it was too late for excuses. The battle was already over.
In a situation where victory and defeat were clear, the only thing she could do was beg for her life. Her arms and legs were already severed—what else could she possibly do?
Though mages are of a kind who regard the lives of others as no more than ants, they also treasure their own lives above all else. Mariang was no exception. Even she, who relished tearing apart and consuming defeated opponents, trembled before her own death.
In the end, only one choice remained for her.
"...I."
Mariang murmured, blood streaming from the corners of her mouth.
"...I choose the latter."
"Unconsciousness followed by personality restructuring."
Ian’s inorganic voice bored into her ears.
Even hearing it again, it was a chillingly ruthless combination of words, but she had no other choice if she wanted to keep her life.
She had killed countless others without a second thought, yet she wanted to prevent her own death at all costs. Even if the price was a change in personality, Mariang did not want to die.
"...Do whatever you want. Just don’t kill me. Please, spare me."
"When you say it like that, I end up looking like the bastard here. Though in reality, it’s the other way around."
Ian straightened up and looked down coldly at Mariang, whose limbs had been blown away.
To be fair, it was Ian who had attacked her first and beaten her one-sidedly, but none of that really mattered.
After all, wasn’t she a mage belonging to a criminal organization? Even if he had smashed her head outright, no one would have blamed him for it. They’d probably have applauded him instead.
Anyway.
Ian placed his foot on her back as she squirmed like an insect and flipped through his grimoire. Mariang groaned in pain, but he paid it no heed.
"Chronicle. Like you did at the hospital last time, can you just knock someone unconscious without killing them? You smashed Cechilia’s skull back then."
[Woom!]
The Deep Sea Chronicle vibrated briefly, as if to affirm it could. Ian nodded and gripped the grimoire upside down, firmly.
A stance convenient for smashing with the corner. Mariang, who had never expected "unconsciousness" to be achieved through physical means, hastily opened her mouth.
"W-wait a moment. Even so, if you hit me with a grimoire, my skull will—"
"It regenerates anyway. Seeing as the stumps of your arms and legs are already bubbling and gradually healing, you won’t die just because your skull gets shattered."
Ian cut off her words and gave a wry smile.
"So just focus on regenerating."
"...Ah."
"Goodbye, first-generation Mariang. What I’ll see before me next will be second-generation Mariang. You’ve worked hard staying alive until now."
Without waiting for an answer, Ian struck down like a hammer with the grimoire onto Mariang’s head.
Crack!
A rather loud sound rang out as her head slammed into the floor. Blood gushed from the crushed head, but he paid no mind and checked the pulse of the now-limp Mariang.
"Thankfully, she’s alive."
He had worried what he’d do if she dropped dead, but her heart was still beating steadily. Ian nodded and looked back at the Recycler.
"Let’s load this onto your back. Can you do it?"
[Kreung.]
The Recycler responded as if the request was obvious, raising a single claw precisely to hook it like a gaff onto Mariang’s clothes. Then it flung her onto its back. Blood spattered everywhere due to the fairly hard toss, but there was no need to worry about death from hemorrhage since he’d given her a potion. With the Recycler's help, Ian climbed onto its back and swapped grimoires.
[Codex of the Azure Shackles and Contracts]
The vivid blue-covered book and the silver chain glittered under the sunlight. He settled into a comfortable position, secured Mariang’s body with the Recycler’s blood vessels, and began reading through the grimoire.
He already knew how to contract with an intelligent life form. Maintain a state of bleeding, near-death, and unconsciousness, place an offering nearby, and establish physical contact—that was it. Simple in its way, but compared to other Outer Gods and their magic, it was admittedly somewhat more complex.
Well, it was a grimoire born not long ago. He’d have to cut it some slack.
The offering required for the contract was ten intact corpses of the same species as the target you wished to contract with. In other words, ten human corpses.
It was a volume one could never imagine outside an apocalyptic society. If Ian were a psychopathic mage who considered human lives cheap, that would be one thing, but he was not that kind of antisocial figure. The notion of abducting a passerby, slitting their throat, and offering them as a sacrifice was impossible for him.
He had no desire to abandon human morality. Nor would he likely ever. It felt like the moment he laid hands on an ordinary civilian, something essential he must possess as a human being would shatter. Unless someone was connected to the Mysteries, he wouldn’t kill or harm them.
But the crazed cultists of the apocalypse were the exception.
Could he really regard people who execute others simply for not believing in their god as civilians?
Moreover, this place was not reality in the first place, but a virtual space created by the Mysteries. It could essentially be seen as a simulation.
If there was absolutely no connection to reality, there was no need to hesitate. He’d originally planned to find the Reptilian horde first, but seeing how things had turned out, it looked like he’d need to visit the cultists first.
Having set his destination, Ian tapped the Recycler’s back and gave an order.
"Let’s head to the place nearby with the most people. And the strongest stench of blood. Can you do it?"
[Kreung!]
At his command, the Recycler nodded its head vigorously. It sniffed with its small nostrils, then immediately began sprinting toward the left.
It was the direction to the cult’s stronghold, as indicated by the fanatic whose head had been destroyed.
*
"Now, let us all pray."
Inside a ruined building’s ground floor—everything above the third floor had been blown away, but below that was relatively intact—an elderly man draped in a pure white robe spoke. His voice buzzed through the cramped chamber via a Bluetooth speaker.
"Under the names of our Father Lord and our spiritual pillar, the Buddha. We shall not yield to the lizard’s tyranny and shall save this world."
The cramped chamber, slathered thickly with white paint, had not a single window. Instead, crosses, goat heads, prayer beads, wooden gongs, and Buddha statues hung on the walls like interior decorations.
It was an absurd form blending Christianity and Buddhism, yet no one present found it strange.
On the contrary, everyone gathered in the chamber bowed their heads, clasping their hands as if in prayer. Some even wept.
The man leading the prayer also shed tears as he clutched prayer beads and recited the Lord’s Prayer.
"Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven."
Slide.
As he chanted the prayer, the door at the back of the chamber carefully opened, and two brawny men dressed as priests slowly walked out.
Each carried a burlap sack. Blood seeping from inside the sacks trickled down the corners, etching dark stains into the floor.
There was no hiding it.
Inside the sacks were living humans. Living sacrifices, their eyes, ears, and mouths all sealed shut, their fingers all severed. Originally faithful priests of the order, they were now victims being disposed of, having outlived their usefulness.
"Uup! Uuup!"
"Ke-hek, kooup. Uup."
The sacks squirmed, faint groans emanating from within.
But no one paid them any mind. Everyone was solely focused on prayer.
The priests dragged the sacks right in front of the old man, then stood on either side of him like guards. At that moment, masked monks came forward carrying sharp knives heated over a flame—specifically, the flame of the devotional candles.
"The sacred fire has touched the blades of reincarnation."
The old man intoned as he watched.
"Once more, we raise our brothers and sisters onto the ring of reincarnation. O Father. O Buddha. Please deliver them from hell, and save them from evil. Amen. Namu Amida Bul."
"Amen. Namu Amida Bul."
"Amen. Namu Amida Bul."
The congregation echoed the old man’s words. Priests and monks chanted hymns and sutras simultaneously, and the monk holding the heated knife walked over to the sacks and plunged it deep into the center of a writhing sack.
"Uoooup!!"
"Euuughk!!"
The sacrifices inside the sacks convulsed from the searing, sharp pain. The sack slowly soaked red as the monks stepped on the knife hilts with their feet and struck the wooden gong. The old man took the microphone again.
"Behold. Our brothers and sisters are crossing over to the other shore. We celebrate their reincarnation and pledge to wet our mouths with their flesh and blood. Thus, we too earnestly aspire to someday achieve liberation and mount the ring of reincarnation."
The convulsions gradually ceased. The flowing blood soaked the pure white floor, and the old man, looking at the bowed heads of his congregation before him, felt his mouth corners quiver. As if he himself had become a god, dopamine flooded his brain.
Thirty years living as a cult leader. The first apocalypse he encountered in his life was for him not an end but a new opportunity. Although money had become useless scraps of paper, there was much else he could extract from his followers.
From the men: blood, flesh, and labor.
From the women: their bodies and milk.
The madness formed under the guise of faith felt to him sweeter than any wine.
'I hope this apocalypse lasts forever. At least until I die.'
It was just as he was thinking this and inadvertently smiling.
CRAAASH!!
All of a sudden, the chamber’s outer wall shattered, and a massive gray snout thrust through. It gaped its maw wide and crunched down on the praying believers along with chunks of rock. Blood mist spread, and the surviving members stared blankly at the 'something' that had suddenly appeared, their mouths agape.
"Goo-day. A mage, here."
And from behind it.
Behind the immense head, the black-haired man seated there waved a blue-covered book and smiled brightly.