The sins humanity had turned away from until now... were far too great.
"You yearned for your souls to be immortal, to be judged after death according to good and evil. But that is the most horrific lie."
That was not human. It was a sin and a disaster in human form. The personification of death.
"There is no heaven, nor hell, in this world. The god you cry out to does not exist above the heavens."
Lightning pours down from the sky like rain. The earth refuses to support humanity. One who had never fallen in their life stumbles on flat ground; one who swings their sword at an illusion ends up stabbing their comrade. Beasts born from fruit surge forward like a tidal wave. The techniques developed to kill beasts twist in bizarre directions.
Blood and sparks erupt. Screams and thunder echo. Scorched remnants of flesh rise up with black smoke. Electrocution, burning, exsanguination, tripping, crushing, exploding. All kinds of death are displayed on the battlefield in the form of corpses.
In the very center of it all, the King of Sins walked, using death as his footsteps.
"There is no hall of valor for those who die fighting honorably, no paradise prepared for those who have endured hardship, no resting place above the clouds. After death, there is nothing."
Warriors who distinguished themselves in war, heroes who led impossible fights to victory, hidden recluses who fled from the ravages of war. The strong, armed with treasures and relics, wrapped in the blessings of wisdom, rushed toward the King of Sins.
They all died.
They couldn't even put up a fight. The King of Sins sneered at the masterpieces produced by the human race and shattered them one by one. Every time the sickle flashed, someone's head fell to the ground.
Shey was no different.
Jizan was broken. Cheon'aeng was shattered. Her crushed legs had no sensation, and blood gushed from the holes in her body.
Unlike the others, Shey was still alive, but that was only 'still' for now.
"What exists is only a deserted ossuary."
The King of Sins pulled out his sickle. Blood gushed from someone's corpse. Step, step. The footsteps of the disaster seeking its next victim headed toward Shey. Shey gripped the broken handle of Jizan and desperately forced her continuously drooping head up.
Before Shey's eyes, it was there.
The disaster created by humanity, the King of Sins.
"I am the smallest ossuary in the world. A library mourning the forgotten. A funeral director who picked up the bad checks you recklessly issued and made them into burial goods."
Messy hair sticking out in all directions. Pitch-black eyes as if having glimpsed the abyss of humanity. Tattoos drawn in blood on the face, wearing someone's skull flipped over. A savagery akin to a beast's child stands out.
However, even that appearance is terrifyingly beautiful.
Her head tries to drop. From exhaustion? No, her instinct facing that majesty and dignity is commanding her to bow her head. It screams that she can never win, so she must submit and beg for her life.
Even now she wants to fall to her knees, but Shey gritted her teeth and resisted that command. A rebel since birth, she rejected her instinct and looked the King of Sins in the eye.
This life is not the end. She must see one more thing, must take in even a little more. Even if just for the next cycle.
-But.
"Even if you have a next time, I shall return."
At those words, which seemed mindful of regression, even Shey couldn't help but lose her composure and freeze. A groan leaked from her open mouth.
"...Ah, ugh..."
"Go and tell them. Your justice has gone bankrupt, and I will soon come to collect. That the justice and morality you cried out for, using the future and destiny as collateral, have ultimately hit rock bottom."
Even death cannot be a refuge. The world beyond is not safe either. Only then did the regressor realize her fate.
That her regression would... continue unless she defeated the King of Sins.
Fear overwhelms her. A threat that even death cannot shake off. A wall she must overcome.
The destination found at the end of a tiring, overwhelming, and even lonely regression was... far too distant and high. Not even in a lifetime, even walking for eternity, she thought she could never reach it.
But.
Even so.
Despite it all.
Shey glared at the King of Sins instead of giving up, instead of weeping from exhaustion.
"Hmph... spouting nothing but incomprehensible nonsense..."
Because she was so foolish she couldn't even predict the obvious outcome. Because her insight was so shallow she couldn't fully grasp the gap between them. Because she was so stupid that even if there was a wall, she wouldn't know its hardness until she rammed into it.
Shey gripped the shattered Cheon'aeng with her bare fist.
"Someday I'll shut that mouth of yours... just... watch."
The King of Sins fell silent for a brief moment. Whether it was a sneer at foolishness, or a mark of respect for humanity.
At the end of the silence, the King of Sins smiled faintly.
"Until whenever."
Immediately after, the sickle moved. That cycle, that was the last thing Shey saw.
***
Hmm. Right.
I had expected it, but that is definitely the King of Humanity. He looks a bit too strong, but there must be some circumstances. For now, he is the King of Humanity.
But no matter how I look at it, it's not me. Face, physique, and gender are the exact opposite of mine.
Hmm.
'...It's not the King of Humanity. It can't be. It looks nothing like that thing from back then.'
When the King of Beasts meets their death, another King of Beasts is born somewhere in the world. The newly born King of Beasts is a separate entity from the previous king. They will bear the same covenant, but aside from that, their memories, appearance, and personality are different.
So... in other words.
It means I died in the previous cycle.
When? Where? How? I don't know. But considering what the lords of creation do, or what Seonghwangcheong does, it wouldn't be strange no matter how I died.
I die in a year. The world perishes in 10 years. My life got spoiled.
Of course, the fact that I die in a year hasn't been confirmed. But I was certain. After all, if the King of Sins destroys the world in 10 years, I must die before then.
Thanks to the regressor's appearance, I escaped the Abyss, but... because of that, I got deeply entangled in a far too massive current. I probably can't live ordinarily anymore.
Damn it, they told me to live normally, but to survive, I can't be normal. Still, it can't be helped.
The world perishing is not what I want. The extinction of humanity either. I don't know what on earth they did for the King of Humanity to embark on an act of racial self-destruction, but I have no intention of doing so yet.
Nebida or Seonghwangcheong and a few others might think a bit differently... but that's their business.
Just like the regressor does, I too have no choice but to struggle to survive.
***
NOTICE
Today's serial contains the content of a past cycle when the regressor Shey did not visit the Abyss.
As the extras who died in droves in the Abyss appear in large numbers, and the events that unfold are different, it may cause confusion in readers' understanding.
A brief explanation has been posted in the notice, so it would be appreciated if you refer to it before reading the main text.
***
The best way to escape danger is to keep a physical distance from it.
However, in life, there are times when you must risk danger to gain something. Then what should you do?
You must thoroughly investigate the dangerous elements as much as possible, meticulously remove them, and then approach cautiously.
I take pride in having faithfully accomplished that. Thanks to that, this Abyss was tranquil and pleasant.
But as expected, there was a slightly overlooked part, shall I say.
The Abyss is a bottomless chasm. A place where those who have fallen to the very bottom test their limits for the last time. No matter how carefully I removed the dangers, I couldn't do anything about the mayflies who willingly threw themselves into the Abyss. I am not a prophet.
Well, I've explained it in such detail, but the point I want to make is one.
"In the end, Ebon is trying to kill us all. Azi is holding him off, but it won't last long. So, what do we do?"
I'm screwed. Big time.
"Damn it. I shouldn't have trusted him. I should have realized that a general of the Military Nation would never let us live."
Kanisen Riverwood said in a heavy voice. He once burned with hostility toward the Military Nation, but having sunk all those emotions to the bottom of the Abyss, he was fully tensed up by the new threat.
Their identity was the Resistance who had invaded to destroy Tantalos. However, Tantalos was far too massive to blow up with the explosives they brought. The Resistance, who had understood the Abyss merely as a large pit, were frustrated by a situation completely different from their expectations, and I approached them and persuaded them to live down here.
As a result, we were living harmoniously at the bottom of this Abyss... but it seemed the Resistance weren't the only ones falling into the Abyss.
I said.
"That's why I signaled you hard from the first time we met. That person is dangerous. Let's prepare to get rid of him somehow."
Delta stuttered a reply.
"A s-signal? When?"
"I gave you a hand signal behind your back."
"Ah, when you kept bending and unbending your fingers behind your back..."
Tch. You guys received hand signal training in the Resistance. No wonder my memories of it were faint. You were the one who remembered at least a little, Delta, but did you forget even that?
This is why a mind reader shouldn't hang out with slow kids. We're so out of sync that I feel like I'm getting dumber by association.
"Ugh, it looked like something I'd seen somewhere... So it was a hand signal. I thought you were showing me a hand trick..."
"Even if I play with my hands often, what would I gain from showing off in that situation?"
"Sorry..."
As Delta answered in a shrinking voice, Beta, the sole woman of the Resistance, wrapped him up affectionately.
After settling in the Abyss, Delta and Beta, who became lovers, only grew closer. To put it a bit negatively, no matter what happened, they only defended each other.
Just like now.
"It's okay, Delta, no, Elsie. We didn't know either."
Show off, what a show off.
Tch, I didn't expect anything from you to begin with. What can you expect from an idiot who prays to the heavenly gods every time they eat, even in the Abyss, with the Progenitor Tiruknajaka sleeping right next to them?
"And we were distracted by Ebon's appearance. Hughs's hand signal just had to happen then, so it was hard to notice."
She acts like she's comforting him, but subtly shifts the blame onto me. Is she saving her boyfriend's face herself?
"In the first place, Ebon is the only bad one. Rather than blaming someone now, we need to think of another way!"
That's hilarious. This is a matter of survival, who cares about right or wrong? And if you're going to think of another way, you should have done it before comforting your boyfriend! What you're doing right now isn't coming up with measures, it's just playing politics!
"Y-yeah. You're right, Cindy! We need to think of a way now! Anyone, any good ideas?"
You're amazing for receiving comfort in the middle of all this. We just circled back to the same conclusion.
My vision goes dark at the fact that these are my colleagues. Alpha is just a strong and stupid ordinary person, and Beta is a fool on the exact opposite end of the spectrum from Alpha. Delta is a model student with low self-esteem, so they're utterly unreliable.
Kanisen, who was somewhat of a knight cadet, is smart and highly capable, but like a knight, his thinking is a bit rigid, so our compatibility is iffy. The one I can make the most use of is...
I commanded Gamma, the only engineer in the Resistance.
"Gamma. Take the explosives to the Point."
Gamma, the engineering technician, was startled when he heard my words.
"Th-the Point? That's...!"
"It can't be helped. If it's not there, the explosives have no meaning. At the very least, we must make a statement with them."
"But, if it explodes at the Point, this entire Tantalos could collapse...!"
"I will take responsibility. Hurry!"