Chapter 313: The God of Another World

In the space where he had been taken by the god of another world, Yuri had nowhere to run.

But he didn’t need to.

“Is this outer space?”

[…]

“So it’s a space halfway between two places.”

On Guilty, mana began to swirl.

What at first was a weak rotation gradually expanded, until it encompassed and devoured all the void around him.

The vortex was more overwhelming than ever.

“Maybe the power of chaos has something to do with this place.”

Muttered Yuri.

The chaos he controlled spread from one end of this space to the other at his will.

As if the reins had been taken off.

Even so, that didn’t mean it was uncontrollable.

At first, he was surprised by the great changes that occurred with just a small act of will, but after a few attempts, he got used to it.

There were no limits.

[…]

From the god of another world came another message along with an intense determination to kill him, and it also conveyed something like advice about the void and chaos.

Yuri couldn’t help but let out an incredulous laugh.

“I don’t know if it’s kindness, arrogance, or stupidity. I can’t tell.”

[…]

Being entities separate from the root—one human and the other something completely different—perhaps they could never understand each other.

In any case, there was one thing they both agreed on at that moment the other must be eliminated.

“You have no objections?”

[…]

Yuri was the first to move.

In the darkness surrounding the god of another world, thousands, tens of thousands of tentacles emerged.

They wrapped around him again and again, trying to suffocate and kill him.

But when he swung Guilty, they were all cut.

They disappeared.

And reappeared.

In this space, the difference between existing and not existing was minimal.

They could become larger than ever or as small as a speck of dust.

The indiscriminate possibilities that responded to will turned into weapons to try to kill the other.

For Yuri, that took the form of a sword. For the god of another world, it took the form of tentacles.

The space was torn apart.

Time was shattered.

Their battle was both serene and violent. A roar capable of rupturing eardrums coexisted with a deadly silence.

Space and time intertwined.

At one point, Yuri found himself, in the middle of the void, without his sword in hand and in front of the god’s real body.

It was gigantic.

Compared to its size, Yuri was nothing more than a speck of dust.

A grotesque face riddled with tentacles, limbs formed from more tentacles, and a body covered in a viscous substance.

Such was the colossal scale of a being that roamed outer space.

An enraged face stared at him. Red pupils covered his entire view.

The infinite void gripped his whole body.

Concepts and landscapes impossible to comprehend pressed and twisted his soul.

It was as if a being the size of a planet was crushing an ant. His mind exploded.

His soul disintegrated.

Amid overwhelming pressure, his mind and spirit were torn to pieces.

But. Yuri, instead, smiled.

At some point, Guilty had returned to his hand.

“Compared to the dreams I have every night, this is almost sweet.”

Since obtaining the power of chaos, not a single day had gone by without falling into mental invasion.

That instant of closing and opening his eyes became an extremely long time for him.

He told his master Moyongchan that he was fine, but that meant he could endure it, not that nothing happened.

Chaos.

Manifesting a domain that exists only as a possibility, beyond reality itself.

A power too great for a human.

Because of that, Yuri had witnessed, every day, countless branches of his life.

He had lived and died.

He had spent long years only to, in the end, have to destroy his own happiness.

Sometimes he had been tortured to the extreme and had sunk into hallucination.

A single life is already too heavy, and he lived, at every moment, the other possibilities of himself.

A normal human would have gone mad. But he did not wear out.

Pain that doesn’t kill is just fertilizer; the deeper his mental invasion, the stronger his sword became.

For Yuri, the pain that the god of another world tried to inflict was nothing more than part of the infinite dreams he had already experienced.

Yuri closed and opened his eyes.

In his hand was Guilty once more. In a timeline isolated from the outside, his world distorted again.

Chaos overlapped with chaos, creating a black, dense substance of uncertain origin.

Chup.

When Yuri raised his sword, the space cracked and from the fissure began to ooze that dark and viscous substance.

It was the very essence of chaos, filtered again and again.

So deep that even the god of another world stepped back.

[…]

Yuri placed Guilty on his shoulder and looked up at the god.

Its size had diminished.

Or perhaps he himself had grown larger.

For someone who held chaos in his hands, anything could happen.

“Shall we continue?”

Yuri and the god of another world stared at each other.

In outer space, empty and populated only by entities so enormous and strange they could well be called gods, everything began to tremble.

***

Jared, aiming at the back of the monster’s neck, launched his sword.

He and everyone else were desperately squeezing out all the mana they had, unleashing bursts of sword energy toward that horrid face.

But, suddenly.

Yuri, who was at the front line, was no longer in sight.

“Your Highness?”

Not only that. Something strange also happened with the monster.

The darkness that enveloped its face disappeared, and the horrifying figure that dwelled within vanished completely.

In its place, it had a flat, viscous lump embedded instead of a head.

The sword energy rained down on it.

The flesh burst and blood began to flow.

“Uh…”

The monster was no longer like before. Although the tentacles counterattacked, they were no longer as fierce, and when sword energy was unleashed, they were suspiciously easy to cut.

With the enemy suddenly weakened, the others also hesitated for a moment to attack.

Jared spoke quickly.

“His Highness has disappeared!”

“What?”

Some nodded as if they already knew, others looked around in surprise.

Jared shouted again.

“Could it be that His Highness did something? This guy weakened all of a sudden, so we must rescue him…”

“I don’t know, how…?”

“Should we ask Lord Inariel?”

“I hope he hasn’t collapsed.”

Shortly after, the knights descending through Inariel’s magic circle still didn’t understand the situation and shouted, showing their determination.

But, realizing everything was silent, they lowered their voices awkwardly.

“Aaaahhh! Ah…”

“Die! Die, die…”

Even so, they kept attacking steadily. Blood gushed from several points on the monster’s shoulders.

Soon, the creature’s body began to sway.

“Stab your swords in and keep your balance!”

Jared also quickly stabbed his sword into the monster’s shoulder to use it as support.

The creature staggered and fell to its knees. Its body shook violently.

“Damn…”

The monster’s movements were coming to a halt.

“Isn’t this the time to finish it off?”

“Don’t you think something’s strange?”

“We have to find His Highness first. Let’s go down.”

Each voiced a different opinion. Jared and the others looked around for Yuri.

It was, without a doubt, strange.

While fighting alongside Yuri, he had suddenly disappeared, and the monster lost its strength and collapsed immediately.

There was surely a connection between the two events, but they couldn’t figure it out.

“At this moment, without knowing where His Highness is, we can’t predict what will happen if we kill this monster. It could put him in danger.”

Hearing Jared, everyone nodded.

“Let’s get down from the monster before it collapses completely.”

Since the creature had gone still and knelt, the height was much lower.

Jared went down its shoulder, jumped to its knee, and then landed on the ground.

“Your Highness…”

The absence of Yuri was deeply felt. Until just a moment ago, everyone fought with the determination to kill Cedric and save the continent.

But without Yuri, now they didn’t even know what they should do.

Kill this monster or not? Where was Cedric and could they face him? Would there be other dangers?

Without Yuri, who always took the lead and swung his sword first, they felt like mere soldiers without a commander.

Even this brief absence was heavy. Without him, would it have been possible to form the Anti-Imperial Alliance?

“For him to just disappear for a bit and you’re already making that face… Tsk, tsk…”

The mocking voice came from Inariel.

“Lord Inariel, what could have happened to His Highness?”

“Who knows.”

“Pardon?”

Leaning on his staff and helped by the knights, his salmon-colored hair seemed a bit lighter.

“I don’t know. That guy right now…”

He frowned and muttered.

“I have the impression that he’s been dragged into outer space.”

“Pardon?”

Inariel pointed at the monster.

“That thing is an amalgam of black magic and the power of a god from another world. But, suddenly, the presence of that god disappeared. That’s why it can’t function properly anymore.”

“Did he take it with him?”

“Seems like they had something to do together.”

“If it’s something between the two, it can only be a fight!”

“Most likely.”

“Ah…”

“I don’t think they’re having a friendly chat.”

Jared put his hands to his head.

He knew, even if only generally, what outer space was and what kind of being a god from another world was.

To a cosmic existence, humans were like ants. And if they ever faced each other in person—

“His Highness is going to end up a bloody pulp…”

“What?”

“He’s going to end up drenched in blood…”

Murmuring distractedly, Jared instinctively turned around.

“Huh?”

There was Yuri, with Guilty on his shoulder.

“Y… Your Highness?”

Jared, who was about to run toward him, stopped dead in his tracks. Something felt different.

His appearance was the same, but it was as if he had returned from an extremely long journey that had aged him. His clothes, torn in several places, looked very worn, and his expression showed fatigue.

Moreover, his aura had changed. He seemed even more mature and stronger than before.

For some reason, it felt harder to treat him with the same familiarity as always, so Jared asked cautiously.

“Is it really you, Your Highness?”

“It is.”

“Where… have you been?”

“Me?”

Yuri looked up at the sky and replied.

“Who knows…”

He smiled faintly.

“Nothing happened.”

“Pardon?”

“I said nothing happened.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Or do you think I went to space or something?”

“Well…”

“Or that I was in a place where one second here equals several years there, and that I spent all that time fighting to the death with someone called Kruphpk before coming back?”

“Huh?”

That was suspiciously specific.

“And what is Kruphpk?”

“Ah.”

Yuri turned. The monster, now motionless, was kneeling, trembling at times as if having spasms.

“The name of the god from another world.”

“Is that its name?”

“Well, it’s not exactly a language or a sound, so it’s strange to express it in words. But, if I had to pronounce it in human tongue, Kruphpk would be the closest.”

“I see… So you even formally introduced yourselves.”

“That’s right.”

Yuri inhaled deeply and then exhaled.

“Even breathing feels strange after so long.”

“Pardon?”

“Things that happen.”

Sensing a certain distance, Jared approached Yuri. He wrapped an arm around his shoulders and gave him a few pats.

“What are you doing?”

“It felt strange, so I’m trying to get close like before.”

“Have you ever patted me on the shoulder so confidently?”

“No, never. It’s really you, Your Highness.”

Jared withdrew his hand.

“Then, did you defeat the god from another world, Kruphpk?”

“Defeat…?”

Yuri shrugged.

“Well, if you want to call it that.”

Jared glanced sideways at Inariel, who seemed to be the only one capable of understanding this situation.

Inariel stood with arms crossed, watching with a strange look, as if seeing something both suspicious and peculiar.

“Inariel.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Of course, Lord Inariel. You’re as adorable as alwa—”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Just now…”

“Not yet!”

Yuri gripped Guilty tightly.

“We still have work to do. Now that we’ve dealt with the god from another world, we must take care of the trash that was already here.”

Yuri’s eyes focused.

The kneeling figure of the monster began to melt, revealing a black core inside.

“Cedric.”