If Sei could deflect the axe by converting matter into waves, then she would simply make an axe that cuts waves themselves. The Human King had reached that conclusion.
“Ripples can be cut.”
The Human King crossed two axes so that their blades faced inward. The shape was like a pair of scissors. The area where the axe blades passed turned pitch black, severing light and sound.
It was as if seeing the principle of the Lord of Geohae Palace, who cuts everything. A conceptual severance that cuts anything within it. Yet, it was far too high-dimensional to call a mere imitation. This axe even cut light.
To be precise, it trapped waves within an infinitely deep, narrow well forged by alchemy and gravity anomalies within the axe blades. But in the end, it was no different from cutting.
‘A blade that imprisons, not cuts… It could even kill my body, protected by the Original Sin of Uncertainty.’
“Then I should be able to cut you too. Right?”
The Human King leaped forward and swung her axes simultaneously. The black slashes were like brushstrokes upon the void. Sei could not deflect them with the Wave of Existence, so she had no choice but to dodge. Sei blinked as the axes bore down on her.
The axes struck the ground, unleashing a massive impact, but strangely, no vibration could be felt this time. It was silent, as if even sound itself had been murdered. An eerie stillness more terrifying than a thunderous roar quietly shook the world.
Thud, thud thud. It was like muffling a pillow and striking down with an axe. Even as successive destruction rained upon the Earth Mother God, the noise remained silent. The trajectory of the axes, devouring everything in existence, even swallowed Sei.
“Ha, ah—.”
The King’s attacks, brimming with killing intent, were far too swift. Though Sei reacted with the Cheonbangyeong, her body could not keep up.
Had Sei not blinked, she would have been devoured by the axes’ black slashes.
The Human King raised her axe. Sei, who had been beneath her just before the strike, was now seated about six meters away.
The King surveyed her surroundings. No wind blew. Not a speck of dust stirred. Not even a shift in posture. There was no trace of the process required to move. Sei had simply omitted the intermediate steps and changed position.
The Human King muttered in displeasure.
“Another strange thing has appeared.”
“I agree. Even I find this power strange when I use it.”
Infinite, Stair Step.
The power to control the minimum energy unit of matter. By amplifying that minimum unit within her body, she converted position and velocity. As a result, Sei’s movements were cut off in frames. There was no process, so even the Human King could not keep up.
“But your movement distance is identical down to the decimal point. You have a limit.”
Though alien, its limit was clear. Since it controlled the minimum unit, the minimum unit of movement was also constant. Instantly grasping Sei’s movement limit, the Human King enlarged the size of her axes. The length of the axe blades was six meters. They rivaled a halberd—no, the blade of a guillotine.
Though they were naturally heavier as they grew, that weight seemed irrelevant to the Human King. The slash swept through a radius of six meters around Sei. Unable to dodge, Sei swung Jijan to meet it head-on.
Axe and club. The two masses collided, scattering fragments. The sword bearing the weight of a mountain blocked the guillotine blade.
But Sei felt a sharp pain in her wrist. Jijan, which granted its weight only to Sei, was a sword with no recoil, but her opponent was the Human King. The Human King could not borrow Jijan’s power, but neither was she hindered by it. The shock of the axe was transmitted directly.
‘The Human King’s power is endless comprehension and conquest. She evolves every moment. A direct confrontation is impossible after all.’
Realizing this anew, Sei walked the Stair Step.
Snap. A discontinuity formed, and Sei’s position changed. The Sei who had tilted her head to avoid the axe vanished, and the Sei who had lowered her posture and driven Jizan into the earth appeared. Hunched low, Sei swung Jijan.
Earth Staff Style, Silent Whale.
A whale the color of soil swam through the earth, surging above the ground. It raised clouds of dust instead of spray, earthquakes instead of waves, crushing the Human King beneath it. Friction of earth against earth. The colossal force that was the source of earthquakes sought to grind a single human into a handful of blood. Only the leaping Sea Calamity could compare to its grandeur.
However.
“An ordinary earthquake.”
The Human King stomped down mightily. The whale that had wriggled upward beneath her foot regained its humility. Cracks spread radially from the whale’s head, and the clods of earth hovered, neither rising nor sinking.
Simultaneous manifestation of earth art and gravity anomaly. Having neutralized Jizan’s power, the Human King reached out and grasped the soil.
“Now, the grass devours the iron.”
As the King pulled back her arm, the earth tore apart with a loud rip, and long grass roots were yanked up from below. Long, sharp vines flew toward Sei with deadly intent.
They were not pre-existing plants. They had grown by some power.
“The Tree of Origin…”
Sei ran across the earth, dodging the surging vines. Behind Sei, who leaped across the world with Stair Step, a forest grew. It was not a forest of verdant life, but a forest of death, where sharp thorns pierced flesh and thirsted for blood.
She ran swiftly, but the forest blessed by the Demon God’s Law grew too fast. Finally overtaken, Sei cut the thorny vines before her eyes with Jizan. And she was thrown off by the alien texture.
“Ah—.”
Tchak. The vine ensnared Jizan and did not let go. How could a mere vine seize a relic of a Demon God? During that brief delay, the growing thorn bushes surrounded Sei. Sei’s eyes momentarily flashed green.
“Vines made of iron. You’ve forged and woven plants into steel.”
A fusion of alchemy and the Tree of Origin. The metallic plant, structured from iron, was denser and harder than anything Sei knew. It was even swift and sharp. Before she knew it, it had completely enveloped her, leaving no gap to escape.
‘Nevida’s Demon God harbored the chaos of life… It’s incompatible with the Saintess, who is based on light and observation. Does that mean I am also a Saintess?’
The space was completely filled, so even Stair Step could not free her. The Human King’s devised methods for conquering Sei were all fatal.
Unable to flee, Sei instead drew out the principle she had hidden most deeply.
Infinite, Original Sin of Uncertainty.
The source of Sei’s power. She observed the countless possibilities experienced by her, who possessed infinite chances, within the eye of fate and narrowed them down. Only by narrowing them could she exist. For one who could become anything is nothing.
It was because Sei’s current body was formed through ‘observation’ that she could leap across space with Stair Step and permeate matter with the Wave of Existence.
“Cheongeomgi, Half Cut.”
She released the uncertainty that constituted her existence. Eyes tinged with seven colors flickered. The power vibrated madly. The broken remnants of Cheonaeng rampaged unpredictably.
The slash of uncertainty covered the steel forest. The iron fibers were randomly severed by roughly half. Not half the forest or half the stems, but roughly half of all molecular bonds within the slash’s range were randomly severed.
It penetrated the interior of the structure and destroyed it randomly. It was a fatal poison akin to radiation exposure. Moreover, because the plants were made of iron, the aftereffects were far greater.
The growing force lost its direction. As it tried to cover Sei, the structure was severed and misaligned, growing bubbles and collapsing into grotesque, mutated forms. They blackened themselves without even touching fire.
‘It’s fortunate they were steel. If it had been an ordinary forest, the aftereffects would have affected people too.’
Freed from restraint, Sei flew into the sky to avoid being swept up in the steel forest’s death throes. She sought the Human King to prepare for the next attack. Even from a great distance, Sei, with her Seven-colored Eyes open, could immediately spot her. The Human King and Sei’s eyes met.
The Human King was holding up her finger as she looked at Sei. Before Sei could even ponder the meaning of that gesture, a sizzling sound rang out and a sharp, acrid smell assaulted her nose.
“An ordinary lightning bolt.”
It could no longer be called ordinary lightning. Lightning does not pour down like rain. Nor does it concentrate on a single spot. This was bundling all the lightning that would strike an entire continent and pouring it down in a cluster.
If she deflected the power, then with even greater power. And—
The Human King raised the finger she had struck down with once more. As if the world were perched upon her fingertip, the very earth trembled at the King’s gesture.
“Upside-down lightning.”
The fallen bolts lost their volatility. The steel forest the Human King had created on a whim. Using the iron vines and stems as wires, the lightning coiled around. Instead of raindrops, lightning breathed new life into the forest.
Currents, shimmering like heat haze, budded flowers from the vines. As if spring had come even to the steel plants, metal petals bloomed in full. From the fully blossomed yellow flowers, bolts of electricity clotted together.
“Swirling lightning.”
Lightning, once the sole property of thunderclouds, surged from the earth. Hundreds of millions of metal flowers shot lightning strikes toward the sky. The rebellion of the plants that had seemed so insignificant. They collided with the descending lightning, triggering widespread explosions.
The earth melted and the air was torn apart. The air, shattered into fine particles, spread like a sharp poison. Stone pressed down by the thunder turned to lava and flowed.
Common sense collapsed. Limits shattered. Though it was called void because there was nothing, in this moment, only lightning existed between heaven and earth.
The infinitely circulating atmosphere, the realization of Chiu. Into it, lightning was inserted instead of water droplets. That was all it took for the world to transform into a state just after creation—or just before the apocalypse.
‘Jizan, being the earth itself, can absorb lightning, but at this rate…’
The voltage and current beyond all reason transcended simple lightning, reaching a point where all matter was decomposed into subatomic units. Even trying to deflect it, it passed through Sei’s body, creating countless errors. Neither the energy arts nor Asin could withstand it.
‘I must imprison it in the Black Dwarf Sword. Otherwise, I cannot overcome it. With Hyujeu here, I can’t destroy the world, but if I don’t land even a single blow—’
To think she could not face her opponent unless she resigned herself to mutual destruction. How could she be so strong? Sei wrung out her last vestiges of strength and observed Jizan.
Black Dwarf Sword. The end of a planet, reached after repeated contraction and expansion.
It was a phenomenon that could not occur on land, and must not occur. It could only be brought about by twisting reason with the Infinite, and even then, if used for too long, the world would be destroyed.
Sei had once killed the Human King with this power. But she had not been able to claim victory. For the outcome was no different from the world’s ruin because of Sei.
‘Just a little. I can’t defeat the Human King if I hold back…’
It was an irony that she could not use a power so immense. Sei could not help but hesitate, instinctively, no matter what. That brief hesitation created an opening.
“Green Barrier!”
In that instant, the Tree of Origin burrowed into Jizan. The plant that rooted in Jizan disrupted its fusion with Cheonaeng.
Sei spotted Nevida, who had pushed through the lightning and approached her. Nevida, her body wrapped in bark, stretched out roots from her fingertips and coiled them around Jizan. Even as the lightning burned and scorched her body, Nevida did not release her power.
“I won’t let go…!”
Nevida had seen it. That ominous sword symbolizing the end of matter. That darkness that even swallowed light had cut not only Nevida but even the Tree of Origin. It would definitely reach the Human King as well.
Though Nevida had died and been reborn, retaining only faint memories, she had etched that shock alone in full.
“I cannot lose my lord again…!”
Even if the battle between Sei and the Human King shook the heavens and earth, Nevida was also a Demon God. She possessed the right to stand on the battlefield.
Faced with that fierce will, Sei hesitated for a moment. Only a moment. Sei kicked Nevida away. Nevida, now with a much smaller frame than before, could not defend properly. Yet even as blood spilled from her mouth, she clung tenaciously. Like a rooted plant.
She could not be removed unless killed. Sei swung Cheonaeng toward Nevida—
“I have no intention of going anywhere even if you don’t do that. Do not worry.”
But in an already unfavorable situation, there was no leisure to deal with Nevida. The Human King, who had appeared without notice, pulled Nevida back.
Cheonaeng burrowed into the Human King’s shoulder. Blood splattered. But only a little. The blade of Cheonaeng did not withdraw.
The Human King raised her hand. The opening was far too large. The shadow of death bared its fangs. Toward Sei, who had exposed a massive weak point, the Human King seized and twisted the rules of the world.
Demon God’s Law.
One Death.
That was the result. A fatal blow that would inevitably sever one part of the target’s life if not overcome, as long as they lived.
The lightning vanished in an instant. No, it was consumed. To kill the single human called Sei, the rampaging current that had covered a ten-kilometer radius converged upon a single point and evaporated.
Nothing remained. The extremely compressed lightning was now like a beam of light. It left nothing in its path. Only a faint smell of burning—a mere sense that something had existed.
Sei was dead.
It was written as the rule of the world.
Jizan, having lost its master, was the first to fall to the ground. Cheonaeng was nowhere to be seen. But there was no Sei anywhere.
“Truly, a hindrance.”
The Human King, who had landed with Nevida in tow, gently stroked Nevida’s face. Though she had protected herself with the bark of an old tree, the lightning that had burrowed through the gaps had burned and split Nevida’s skin.
Even as she groaned in pain, Nevida offered counsel to the King.
“My lord, do not put your faith in them. The followers of the Record of Succession cannot be fully trusted. They may someday harm you again…”
“Nevida. Do you trust a measuring stick?”
“What do you mean…?”
“Do you trust the length of a wooden rod you hold in your hand? Do you trust the heat of a flame? The act of placing a measuring stick against something and comparing it. Is that what you call faith?”
Nevida understood. That the Human King did not place her faith in the Saintess in a human sense. She meant to use the Saintess as a measuring stick, literally.
Then, there was only one thing for Nevida to do.
To ensure that even if those wicked Saintesses changed their minds, they could not harm the King.
The most threatening Saintess was dead. Now no one had the power to harm the King. Even so, Nevida would protect the King first. She would never lose her again.
This cruel yet gentle King of hers.
The Human King would go to the empire and become the true king.