Among the aberrations that had given Hio trouble, there had been many that blithely ignored things like the laws of the world.
Creatures so powerful that the cockroach aberration that had manipulated the abyss to turn Hio’s sky and earth upside down seemed laughable by comparison.
A crazed slug aberration, for instance, that moved slowly as if sluggish despite its four-meter bulk, only to fold space in an instant and unleash explosions.
An immortal aberration that plastered itself with the abyssal energy scattered around it, never dying no matter how much its body was cut apart and shattered.
The creator, the jellyfish aberration, which swam through empty air as if through the sea, manipulating the abyss to generate dozens of small, sharp, fingernail-sized aberrations right beside Hio.
Each and every one had been troublesome, the kind of creature that, when he first encountered it, had forced him through all manner of hardship and into mortal danger.
And yet in the end, all of them died.
Ignoring distance. Reversing space. Refusing to die. Being close to infinite.
All of those aberrations had knelt before Hio.
From the cockroach aberration, he had realized how to govern the abyss in the atmosphere.
From the slug aberration, he had learned how to move by folding space, which was itself the abyss.
From the immortal aberration that endlessly drew upon the abyss, he had gained a hint for turning the undead into a true immortal legion.
From the jellyfish aberration that manipulated the abyss to keep generating small aberrations almost infinitely, he had learned how to handle the destructive abyss with precision.
Thus, all of those aberrations became stepping stones for Hio as he moved forward, and nourishment for his growth.
They had given him inspiration, and shown him a path by which he could go farther.
Then only one remained.
The sole aberration that neither moved the abyss nor displayed any other flashy technique, and yet Hio had yet to defeat it—had not even found a way to do so.
The aberration he had tried to stop by manipulating the abyss to seal space, and had tried to meaningfully damage by concentrating all his mana into a single point, but in the end had only ever been busy running from.
An abyssal body that did nothing with petty tricks, but simply overwhelmed with pure power.
The giant aberration.
A powerful intuition, almost a certainty, rose within him.
Defeating it was impossible with the power he currently possessed.
He had to break through the wall and go farther.
For that, he faced it once again: the twenty-seventh night.
The aberrations rose to their feet.
—Kkieek!
—Kkieeeeeek!
The still silence of the abyss shattered in an instant and surged dynamically. The aberrations’ strange cries became a raging sea, shaking the end of the world.
In the midst of that sea of aberrations, Hio stood without the slightest movement.
The aberrations’ cries that disordered his ears.
The presence of the aberrations, so vivid it felt as though he could grasp it in his hand.
The sound of feet pounding the ground.
None of it stirred Hio much.
His head felt numb.
It was no wonder, after twenty-six long nights.
Throughout those endlessly long nights, without taking even a little rest, without being allowed even a trace of carelessness, he had manifested magic without pause and created several spells at the same time.
Of course, he had also altered and used magic to suit the situation, and in the midst of that, had even employed Reverse Connection, the technique for controlling the abyss, struggling desperately to survive.
The human mind had limits.
A worn-down mind could only recover by resting.
But for Hio, there was no rest.
Even when day came, he could not rest comfortably.
Because the abyss that touched his skin and seeped into his lungs was unbearably dreadful.
It felt as though all of it were Kreutzwald’s eyes and ears.
Even falling asleep was not easy.
If there were even the slightest change in Kreutzwald’s state of mind, Hio would die on the spot.
Even if it happened while he slept, he would simply die like that, knowing nothing.
Even with Teordo beside him, could an undead like him buy time against Kreutzwald?
Hio could say with certainty that one gesture would reduce him to dust.
It felt as though his heart, his life, had been seized in that monster’s hand.
And so, not even for a moment could he rest with peace of mind.
After leaving the safe zone and meeting Kreutzwald again that day, he had endured each day with that filthy, dreadful feeling, all the way until now.
“……”
With dazed eyes, he lifted his head and looked up at the sky.
He sensed no presence of the Watcher nearby.
It did not matter.
If there was no Watcher, he only had to make it come.
The moment he thought that, mana began to seethe and cover his body.
It raced swiftly through him so that he could unleash magic at any time.
Every aberration nearby that sensed the mana recognized Hio and began to rush at him, but of course, Hio’s magic was far faster.
His staff, having drawn power from each pattern to the limit, began to pulse, and amid that, he lightly poured in the destructive force of the abyss.
Thus were completed eight pillars of flame.
Kwaaaang!
Eight black pillars of flame mixed with the abyss.
They erupted all at once as though guarding Hio, bursting the aberrations charging toward him, while the great amount of mana released in a single stroke spread far into the distance.
—Kkieek?
—Kkeuaaaaaa……
Naturally, even more aberrations recognized Hio and began swarming toward him, and Hio’s staff aimed at them once again.
Kwaang!
It was the beginning of the long, long twenty-seventh night.
* * *
Less than five minutes after the battle began, the Watcher appeared.
And as always, every aberration that existed at the end of the world charged in to carve Hio’s body into pieces, to tear him apart and chew him down.
They were familiar creatures.
An aberration with grotesquely large forelegs.
An aberration that moved underground, making it difficult to predict when it would burst out from beneath his feet.
An aberration that erased its presence and hid within the abyss, only to appear like a ghost and try to take his life.
All of them were familiar.
That did not mean they were easy to deal with, but at any rate, it meant his body had learned how to respond.
The aberration with grotesquely large forelegs pretended to attack directly, but in truth it struck the ground.
If he was preparing to defend against or counterattack its strike, the suddenly shaking ground would make him lose his balance, and then he would be dragged away by the aberration hiding underground, watching for its chance.
Even if he somehow prevented himself from being dragged away, he would end up offering his neck to the assassin that appeared like a ghost.
It was not that the creatures were intentionally coordinating, but because there were so many strange ones, such phenomena occurred.
And there were not just one or two creatures like this.
If Abyss Monsters were beings born from existing lifeforms tainted by the abyss, aberrations were existences created by the abyss itself solely for destruction.
Naturally, they were faster, stronger, and stranger than the Abyss Monsters outside.
However.
Kwaaaang!
Hio had become more than familiar with even this.
He unraveled every scheme the aberrations aimed at him.
At the same time, he poured magic onto the ones charging in after them.
If possible, he used Ground Shrink rather than Blink; when that was not feasible, he found a space with at least some leeway and cast Blink the minimum number of times.
Then once again, he poured magic into the vicinity.
Kwaaaaang!
It was a complex, noisy, tension-filled scene, and yet Hio’s mind was as quiet as though submerged underwater.
—Kkieeek!
Even as all manner of aberrations charged in, thrusting forward sharp teeth and claws.
Even as he countered them with magic and Reverse Connection, his mind was silent, and the resounding noise could not cross the wall and reach the depths of his thoughts.
Because one who walks while looking far ahead does not look at the footholds beneath his feet.
‘I have to go farther.’
There were many reasons to advance, but the most desperate reason at present was to live.
Only by breaking through the wall and taking one step forward would this endless night end, in one way or another.
‘How?’
How was he to go farther?
He had learned how to use mana and magic, and even Reverse Connection, which used the abyss in the atmosphere, but he could not shake the feeling that these were mere tricks.
To truly go farther, he had to enter the realm of a perfect superhuman: the 7th Circle.
After reaching the 6th Circle, the 6th Circle spells he had learned from Kreutzwald numbered only three.
Even so, he had to go farther.
He had to realize it.
‘What?’
What was he supposed to realize?
Intent.
The conviction he truly sought to accomplish.
A mission for which he could give up his life with a smile.
He had to realize that.
—Intent is thought with a purpose.
The Dragon Knight who had guarded a dragon for a thousand years.
There had been a time when Regarda stood before Hio, holding a spear.
—Look at me. Look at my Intent, mage. What do you feel?
He saw a dragon.
He saw a dragon roaming freely through the sky.
—Find your conviction. That is the beginning.
The scene in his mind blurred.
Memory drew time toward him and reflected a past a little older than that.
The strongest Sword Star on the continent.
He had been standing before Vitalianus Mahel.
—Intent, is it? Unfortunately, that is not something I can teach you, even if I wish to.
That was how Vitalianus had answered Hio when he asked about Intent.
At the time, Hio had not understood his exact meaning, but now he felt he could vaguely grasp it.
If Vitalianus had given him any sort of advice, Hio would have clung to it and thought on it obsessively, and the breadth of his thoughts would have narrowed by just that much.
In the end, it was a problem he had to find and solve himself.
Vitalianus’s Intent had been a golden lion.
A roaring golden lion.
The roar of a predator at the very front of the legion, making the enemy tremble.
The Intent of a golden lion that crushed all enemies and reigned above them.
At the time, Hio had thought that it resembled Vitalianus, who had been a hero from birth, very closely.
Kuuung—
At the vibration strong enough to shake his body, Hio half-emerged from his thoughts, and his eyes turned slightly above straight ahead.
Kuuung—
The earth howled with a single step.
It was him.
The aberration he could not oppose. The giant aberration.
He had wondered why the surroundings had become somewhat quiet; the weaker aberrations had sensed the colossal aberration and had long since retreated beyond its range.
The fist it unleashed was, in a single blow, a calamity.
Even other aberrations said to be fairly strong were keeping a suitable distance while watching for an opportunity.
To devour the calamity that would soon occur.
To devour Hio after he was caught in it and ruined.
Hio himself merely stood still, his dazed gaze fixed on the aberration.
The same question repeated endlessly in his mind.
‘How?’
How could he surpass that calamity?
None of the magic he possessed could wound it. He could not block it.
Even if he used a skill, he did not think he could win.
In the end, only Intent was the answer.
The Sword Saint Vitalianus’s Intent was a valiant golden lion.
That was the life he had lived as a hero.
The Intent of Ataolf, leader of Black Fang, was black mist itself.
It was the rage of a man who had lost the direction of his life and, unable to rely on anything, had scattered hatred against the entire continent.
The Intent of the Dragon Knight Regarda was a free green dragon.
From the moment of his birth, the dragon had been everything to him, and it was the mission of one who had guarded it for a thousand years to make the sleeping dragon soar again.
Then what had his own conviction been?
What was the steadfast heart that could not be exchanged for anything?
His memories passed swiftly, and before he knew it, they had reached the 58th floor of the Abyss, where he had been continuing the final raid just before coming to the end of the world.
The red-eyed aberrations that had poured out in an instant.
When he had tried to protect the expedition to the very end with “Celestial Realm,” but had been unable to endure the transmitted impact and finally lost consciousness.
—Authority - “???” grows.
That message had appeared.
Why had it been at that exact moment?
Could there not be some hint in it?
He had thought that since long ago, and Hio had believed it was “sacrifice.”
Because no matter who looked at it, Hio himself had been “sacrificing” himself for others.
Kuuung—
The giant aberration had, at some point, come to stand before Hio and was slowly lifting one foot.
Even lifting its foot by only half the height of its enormous body was enough for it to already rise into the sky.
If that came crashing down, his body would burst apart and he would die, without any way to resist.
But Hio still stood there without moving an inch.
‘Was that really sacrifice?’
Had the message that his Authority had grown back then truly reacted to his sacrifice and grown?
Or had it perhaps reacted to some other reason?
With that thought, he examined the memory of that time in detail once more.
The situation then.
The countless red eyes looking down at him.
The stifling sensation of being trapped within them.
The indignation of wanting to go out and fight. The thought that he had to protect the expedition and the Saintess.
That state of mind. That emotion.
‘……So it wasn’t that.’
It had not been sacrifice.
The Authority had not grown in response to sacrifice.
Rage, helplessness, irritation, suffocation.
He had been holding them in.
Without even realizing it, he had been enduring yet again.
He endured to his limit, endured and endured and endured.
Even amid the impact, as if an explosion had gone off in his heart, he barely clung to his fading mind and endured, and endured.
And at last, the Authority responded.
Scenes tangled together and began to rewind at a speed he had never felt before.
And the place he arrived at was a memory from at least well over twenty years in the past.
Thinking back, it had always been that way.
Since childhood, I had been used to enduring.
From the orphanage, where my memories began.
Even when I faced the innocent malice of children who turned having no parents into some laughable joke, I held it in and endured.
With the single thought that I would hurry and grow up to become an adult better than them, I endured and endured.
Even when I grew up and became an adult, nothing changed.
Even after I lost, in a single moment, the friend I had trusted, the lover I had loved, and the comrade I had depended on.
Even in that moment when I limped like a cripple and received the pity of strangers whose names I did not know, I endured.
If asked what I endured, I endured the desire to die.
I endured the resentment I wanted to let burst out.
I do not know why I went that far.
Was it because I thought it meaningless? Because I believed it was futile?
Even after more time passed and I entered the world of Bentayle, I had to endure.
Because of my Trait, to obtain skills, because I had to become stronger.
All sorts of excuses had been attached to the reason for my endurance…… but now, I think I understand.
That is simply my life.
It is the entirety of the person called me, built up layer by layer until complete.
Though I had never realized it until now, and perhaps may even have been denying it, there was no such grand mission or conviction in my life.
Living as a hero.
Unleashing my rage upon the whole world.
Living a thousand years for the sake of a dragon.
I was not such a grand person.
I had merely endured.
I had only been a person who endured.
And that was what completed the me of today.
That was how I became Hio Pavlenko, whom people came to like.
“……!”
His blocked ears opened, and only then did all the surrounding noise rush in at once.
His mind awakened like the cold outside wind greeting him in the hazy dawn.
His head was clear.
The mana spread around him, the scattered aura of the Abyss, and the lurking presence of the aberrations felt clearer than ever before.
Whooong— The air was shoved aside rapidly, letting out a scream.
The colossal foot of the supermassive aberration descended, covering the sky.
Facing it, Hio slowly raised the staff in his hand.
His dazed eyes were sharply focused, and distinct strength filled the hand gripping the staff.
The giant aberration was so solid, strong, and enormous that no magic could stop it.
But that was all.
That was all there was to its existence.
For some reason, that was how it felt to him now.
And so, without any thought of retreat, he fired his mana, his magic, toward the falling foot of the giant.
Within it, he sent his own life flying as well.
Before long, the aberration’s foot and the magic he had launched collided.
What arose was a small explosion, pitifully meager compared to that enormous body.
Kwaaang—!
A tiny flame, not even a handful against that bulk.
And yet, it tilted.
“…….”
The giant body that no splendid magic had been able to stop was being pushed back by a single small explosion, slowly tilting.
Kwaaang—!
And so he fired magic once more.
Kwaaang—!
With rage, a little faster.
Kwaaang—!
With resentment, a little more.
Kwaaaang—!
Soon, explosions erupted all over the aberration’s body.
The enormous body of the aberration, unable to gather itself, staggered this way and that with each and every explosion.
Kwaaaaang—!
The giant aberration was strong.
It had been born strong.
And so it did not know.
The heart of the weak.
Their sorrow.
Kwaaaaaang—!
It was the same.
One who had never endured could not know.
The heart of someone who could do nothing but endure.
The weight they carried.
That tremendous weight, so heavy that it could only crush them.
Kwaaaaang—!
Because it had never experienced it, that enormous body staggered before small explosions like those.
It could not withstand the weight of endurance contained within them.
The explosions grew faster and more numerous.
Kwaaaaang—!
Vitalianus’s will was an overwhelming golden lion.
Ataolf’s will was a wrathful black mist.
Legarda’s will was a free green dragon.
Hio’s will was endurance.
The rage of one who had endured and endured.
The resentment of one who had no choice but to do so.
Regret and self-reproach.
Grief and sorrow.
And thus, at last, was born—
Kwaaaaang—!
A splendid flower.
A red marigold.
A feast of red flowers blooming all across the giant’s body.
Kwaaang—!
A pretty flower that endures all winter and blooms in early spring.
Kwaaaaang—!
Do you know the beauty of a marigold that endures and endures, and only then comes into full bloom?
Do you know that the endurance contained within a marigold’s brief life is heavier than the weight of a giant?
Kwaaaaaang—!
Red flowers covered the body of the giant, which had begun to collapse after staggering past its limit.
What was contained within them was Hio’s will, the weight of one who knew endurance.
Kuuung—!
The giant’s body, which had towered so high it seemed to look down upon the sky, finally slammed into the earth.
What had laid it low was neither splendid magic nor overwhelming power, but a small, pretty flower.
Amid the rain of red petals that began to scatter and vanish, Hio slowly closed his eyes.
A mind made clear.
An expanded sense of energy.
Five senses grown distinct.
If the realm of the 6th Circle was the stage of reconstructing and strengthening the flesh,
then the transcendent of the 7th Circle was the stage of opening the mind and rapidly elevating the rank of the soul.
And so he could tell.
The fallen giant aberration.
At the same time, every aberration that had stopped moving, as if time itself had frozen.
And.
“My disciple.”
The voice that came from right behind him.
A voice terrifyingly devoid of emotion.
How immense the power contained within it was.
How mighty, and infinitely dangerous.
“Pavlenko.”
How chilling Kreutzwald’s expression was when he turned around to look.
How deep and distant an Abyss the eyes revealed after he had cast aside his mask truly were.
Only then could he understand.
“You did well.”
He was afraid.
He was terrified.
This moment, facing Kreutzwald, was several times more frightening than the night he had been surrounded by hundreds of thousands of aberrations.
He had to be careful.
He had to be tense.
“Then……”
He knew instinctively.
This very moment was the moment Kreutzwald had longed for since more than a thousand years ago.
And so this monster knew the weight of endurance better than anyone.
“Now die.”
He was afraid, after all.
He wanted to escape this instant.
But he forced the corners of his mouth to twist upward.
“Fuck off.”
He had to endure.
「Hidden Trait: Violence Is Not Allowed! (Endurance: 997 / 1000)」