The battle was one-sided. No, I wasn’t even sure if it was right to call this a battle in the first place.
*Fwhoooo…!*
The air churned in the wake of the Harbinger’s fins. Infinitesimal seawater from the outer universe seeped into the generated currents, which moved like saw blades and carved the girl’s body to pieces.
A massacre occurring almost simultaneously with her regeneration. If the girl had been small, she might have been able to dodge, but she had grown to be as large as an average building. Since every roughly swung attack hit her dead on, to the Harbinger, it must have been like playing with an oversized toy.
And indeed, that was the case. She cackled as she looked down at the lump of heart divided into five pieces.
[How unsightly. She charges in so boldly, yet can’t even manage a proper attack.]
It was something the girl would have found terribly unfair had she heard it.
The truth was, it wasn’t that the girl was weak—it was that the Harbinger was anomalous.
Her own weight class was already absurd, and for a being fused with the world, flinging massive chunks of organs and building debris, to be considered weak by common sense was preposterous.
Even Ian, right now, had no way to take her down without the Harbinger.
Handle the remaining three museums, then deal with her chasing after him and Lailie at the same time? If this were a game, nothing but “this fucking broken-ass game” would come out.
But the Harbinger was not an entity bound by common sense, and was free from the laws of the world. The chunks of falling organs melted the instant they touched its body and became outer skin, and physical attacks were torn apart before even making contact, scattering like rain.
The pinnacle of unreason.
As expected of the first child of an Outer God, it was covered in utterly fraudulent abilities. Even Ian, who had summoned her, couldn’t easily think of a way to handle her.
*‘I could probably manage it with Recreation magic, but that requires making contact unconditionally. But contact… I don’t think that’s possible.’*
Right now, he could touch the Harbinger’s body without issue, but with her rampaging having lost all reason, it would be impossible. His arm would be torn off like it was being ground in a mixer before he even touched her.
Well, a situation where he would be hostile to her would never arise in his lifetime anyway, so it didn’t matter. He just needed to escape this place before he ran out of time.
Thinking so, Ian sat down comfortably on the Harbinger’s back. The Harbinger slightly adjusted its posture to make it easier for him to sit.
“Thanks.”
[Not at all, Father. Please think of it as filial piety.]
*KWAAANG!!*
The sound wave that flowed out along with the Harbinger’s voice exploded the fallen girl’s body with a bursting pop. Regurgitating blood poured down like rain, and a piece of torn organ flesh splashed onto Ian’s face, flopping like a freshly caught fish. Ian shrieked and tore the flesh away.
Then, the Harbinger skewered the girl’s heart piece and opened its mouth.
[Father.]
“…? What. Tired? Shall I help?”
[No. Dealing with that is not difficult. What I wish to tell you is that I cannot see that flower head anywhere.]
“Ah.”
Ian let out a sigh.
Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen Lailie since earlier.
It was hard to believe she was dead. Lailie had already become a monster, an existence close to immortality. She was one whom even Recreation magic could not kill.
If such a creature had suddenly disappeared, stealth was far more likely than death.
*‘With the Harbinger here, she won’t attack me directly… then what’s left is the Bureau agents.’*
Ian narrowed his eyes and looked down at the Bureau agents in the middle of escaping.
The altitude was quite high, so he couldn’t see clearly, but he could roughly make them out leaving one by one in turn.
“…….”
It was impossible for them to exit all at once, so the escape speed was inevitably slow. And it wasn’t as if there were few Bureau agents. There were easily over thirty, so they absolutely had to wait at least two more minutes.
It was a structure inevitably vulnerable to attack. If one wanted to ambush them, now was the perfect time.
If he were in the position of a hunter hunting them, he would never miss such an opportunity. Thinking so, Ian narrowed his eyes.
“Hm.”
There was nothing… particularly visible, but a mage shouldn’t rely solely on sight. Ian immediately drew a magic circle on the Harbinger’s back with a pen, placed a piece of Lailie’s flesh upon it, and activated a detection spell.
“Find them. For the one who shall punish them is here.”
*Ooom.*
The magic circle glowed, searching for monsters in the vicinity. Information flooded into Ian’s mind.
The unmoving monsters were all paintings. Perhaps because the museum was half-destroyed, there weren’t many paintings left.
The ones moving were the Watchers. Most seemed to have followed Kim Iseo’s group; there were none near the escaping agents.
But among the stationary ones, he detected something with a far more powerful presence than the other monsters, squirming stealthily.
It was Lailie. She seemed to be moving slowly along the flowers while hiding her presence, but she couldn’t evade detection magic. Ian let out a long breath and slowly stood up.
“I’ll leave that lump of heart to you. Play with it as you please.”
[Do you intend to deal with the insect yourself, Father?]
“I have to. If I leave it to you, the people over there would get caught up in it too.”
[Understood. Then I shall let you down.]
The Harbinger tilted its body slightly to the side. Ian rode the seawater of the outer sea surging from her skin and slowly set foot on the ground. The seawater melted others the instant it touched them, but Ian was an exception.
“Uh, Mage-nim? Why all of a sudden….”
“Did something happen?”
The agents who had been moving the injured opened their mouths with slightly tense expressions. Ian waved his hand as if it were no big deal.
“There’s a monster aiming for this place, so I came to handle it.”
“Ah, that much is fine. We can handle it ourselves.”
“If that were possible, I wouldn’t have come. Don’t talk back and focus on escaping. I don’t want anyone seeing me use magic, so don’t even look.”
Ian deliberately used an overbearing tone and scrunched his face. At that, some of the Bureau agents who had expressed confidence nodded with stiff expressions.
He faintly heard mutterings of “Who says he’s not a mage, what a nasty personality,” and voices saying “But he’s still helping us.”
He ignored them. Ian wasn’t so narrow-minded as to fuss over others’ mutterings. At least, that’s what he thought.
“…….”
He looked up at the Harbinger floating in the sky for a moment, then slowly moved his steps following the information in his head.
Near the main gate, the escape zone. A small flowerpot located after turning right once in the hallway, then left again. Above it, blood-red roses were in full bloom.
“Ha.”
At the sight that seemed not even to bother with the pretense of breathing, Ian let out a hollow laugh.
He immediately kicked the flowerpot, shattering it, and switched his grimoires. The *Abyssal Chronicle* fell to the floor with a thud, and a blue grimoire took its place.
“Krrrgh!”
Lailie crawled out from inside the flower scattered on the floor. When her upper body was about halfway revealed, Ian turned the pages of his grimoire and chanted an incantation.
“As His proxy and companion, I command. Those outside the Veil shall not see what lies beneath the Veil.”
*Szzzt.*
At the same time as the spell’s conclusion, static flickered over Ian’s form. A blue chain rose from the floor, wrapped around his body, and rapidly unfurled in reverse. In the place thus revealed, no one existed any longer.
“…Did you… go into hiding…?”
Lailie, who had regenerated even her legs by now, muttered.
At that moment, the back of her head was pierced without any warning whatsoever. A chain that had sprouted from the empty air had penetrated straight through bone and flesh.
There was no room to resist. She couldn’t even sense any presence. She had merely blinked once, yet the chain embedded in the back of her head was sticking out through her forehead.
“…Huh?”
A stupid sound flowed from her mouth, unable to comprehend the situation. The chain did not wait for her, rotating once and smashing her brain. Brain fragments scattered in all directions, and she was reborn by splitting her womb, looking around with bloodshot eyes.
But all she could see was the ruined art museum. The chain that had existed until just now had also hidden its traces.
“…Where are you!”
She shouted, feeling instinctive revulsion.
No answer came. Instead, a silent stillness settled like background music.
If it were stealth, this degree of silence made no sense.
To move, a person had to move their legs, and that inevitably meant touching the stone dust scattered on the floor. Had this been a clean place, perhaps not, but it was far from that.
But in this place, his presence couldn’t be felt at all. There wasn’t even a trace.
Literally, as if he had evaporated from this place, there was nothing to detect.
“Aaaaah!!”
Feeling impatient, Lailie clenched her teeth and swept her surroundings. Sharp petals sweeping through the space scratched the remaining walls, ceiling, and floor.
Yet the feeling of hitting something still didn’t exist. The petals that had meaninglessly torn through the empty air finished their role and subsided on their own.
It was at that same time.
“His protection is solely for those who exist beneath His Veil.”
“…!”
A voice was heard right beside Lailie. She immediately thrust her sharply stiffened hand in the direction of the voice.
But again, there was nothing. Only the voice continued to resonate.
“Those outside are no different from insects, dust, or less.”
“Mage…!”
“Thus, as His executor, I command.”
*Tik.*
With a sound like something breaking, Lailie’s vision flipped upside down.
“Reap.”
*Tzz-geogek.*
A piece of blue cloth that had bloomed from nowhere wrapped around her neck. It didn’t stop there but covered her entire body.
*Kwajik!*
Two chains flying from diagonal angles respectively pierced her feet and burst out through her shoulders. Chains that crossed at her abdomen twisted irregularly and fixed themselves, then elongated sideways, splitting her flanks and crawling out.
“Ugh!”
Resistance was meaningless. Her mouth was covered by cloth, and her four limbs were blocked by chains and unable to move.
Yet death was not permitted either. The heart wrapped by a small chain would never stop without Ian’s permission.
“It is a sealing magic created by an Outer God.”
With a swishing sound, chains that had burst out through her flanks coiled over the chains wrapping Lailie’s body. Beyond the cloth slowly beginning to cover her face, Ian’s face was visible as he took off what seemed like a blue cape.
“I thought about it for a bit, and if killing is hard, sealing seems to be the answer for now. Classic, isn’t it?”
“…Ugh!”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
*Kuh-luk. Kuh-luk.*
Ian spat out bloody phlegm, rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, and shook out the cape he held. Then the cape turned into blue particles and scattered into the air.
“Hoo… It’s originally a ritual spell, but since I forcibly used it like a ceremonial one, the recoil is pretty severe….”
“Eugh!”
“Still, I don’t feel bad.”
Ian stared at one of her eyes that was still uncovered and let out a smirk.
“Wait like that. I’ll send you along with the art museum, into the Harbinger’s stomach.”
“Ugh—”
*Ssuseuk.*
Unable to resist, her entire body was wrapped in cloth, and she fell to the floor with a thud like a mummy.
“I should have done this from the start.”
Ian stepped on the head of her wrapped in silver chains and blue cloth, and took out a cigarette to place in his mouth.
It stood like a mast.