[743] The Great Purifier (3)
"Truly a fearsome obsession."
The executives of the Ten Elders were those who had conquered the fear of death; Beron's obsession, therefore, had its meaning.
"But the opponent is Nane."
Even though rulers across the nations had identified the altars, they could not act—there was nothing they could use to stop it.
"There is no way to stop a Buddha."
- Poor thing.
Beron's iron staff would be an obstacle to the future Nane sought to bring about, but the voice bore no bitterness.
"Rather, pity."
If obsession breeds suffering, then Beron's iron resolve had reached the limits of human fixation.
- I will free you from your suffering.
A cloud in Nane's likeness clenched two fists and took a charging posture toward Beron.
"Shura, leave."
"No. I will protect the Chairman."
Beron tugged the corner of his mouth sideways in a crooked smile.
"Sometimes your lies come out clumsy."
"...."
"I can't squander an opportunity like this. Have you not waited for this day ever since you became human without passing through reincarnation?"
Beron's cheeks puffed, his pupils bulged half out like a toad's.
"Only the one who kills the Buddha can become Buddha. Nane's righteousness is only righteous for now."
A long, blood-red tongue shot out between Beron's lips; Shura's shoulders trembled.
"The Chairman is sincere."
If she counted correctly, it had been well over five thousand years since Beron had put everything behind any one plan.
"I will kill Nane, and I will become the new Buddha."
- Anyone can become a Buddha.
When Nane's cloud—over two kilometers tall—charged toward the ground, the vegetation shuddered violently.
"Chairman!"
As Shura cried out, Beron raised his staff, his eyes wild with madness.
"This is my extreme."
He slammed the staff into the earth. The air shook like a rubber sheet, and a clean hole was punched through Nane's cloud.
A warning blared in Shura's head.
'It's beginning.'
Judging by the scale of the fight, she should have withdrawn at least a hundred kilometers, but her gaze remained fixed on the battlefield.
Nane was not flawless either; she had to watch this confrontation through to the end.
"Go!"
When Beron struck the ground a second time, Nane's cloud condensed into a single point in the sky and detonated.
Beron murmured as he watched a massive ring spread to the horizon.
"...Is the real one coming?"
Where the cloud had been, a multicolored radiance bloomed and Nane revealed himself.
Sermon—Tathagata.
Shura's mouth fell open.
'It feels like it came from immeasurably far away.'
Blades of light fanned out around Nane in a circle so bright they dimmed even the sun.
Sermon—Immeasurable.
In an instant the radiance exploded and countless blades of light, nearly as bright as sunlight, speared down toward the ground.
"Uoooooooh!"
As the light rained like a downpour, Beron swung his staff at terrifying speed.
Krrrrrrrum.
A thunderous roar rose from the earth; in an instant a one-kilometer radius was leveled.
'The Chairman?'
As the thick haze rolled back, a booming voice sounded.
"Is that all you dare call yourself, Buddha!"
Beron twirled his staff and deflected the blades of light; Sermon—Immeasurable scattered into a storm of refractions.
"Ugh!"
Shura squeezed her eyes shut, but the light was so intense she could see silhouettes through her eyelids.
'Even against a Tathagata it holds its own. Perhaps—'
No one had yet ascended to godhood; Nane, too, could not know the limit of his strength. He might be bound by mortality after all.
"You are trapped by the self… how could you realize non-self?"
Nane smiled and spread his arms; a gray sword began to tremble over his head.
Sermon—Piercing.
A gray line slashed down from the sky; the blade split Beron's staff in two and surged into his chest.
"Ugh…"
Beron spread all ten fingers wide and, just before the blade pierced his chest, pressed his palms together and seized the blade.
"Aaaahhhhh!"
The Law concentrated between his hands to halt the blade's penetration, but his body was hurled backward at terrifying speed.
Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud!
Even as he was driven back nearly a kilometer, Beron's Law compressed with even greater intensity.
'I must destroy it!'
As he braced to crush the blade, Nane turned with an empty expression, formed hand signs, and aimed at Beron again.
"Sermon. Colossal."
The gray sword grew without end; Beron's palms were forced open and the speed at which he was pushed back suddenly surged.
"Waaaaaaaah!"
"That—"
Something caught Shirone's eye as he surveyed the ground from the Great Earth Temple.
A gray blade that had risen at a point in the southern hemisphere—the Kingdom of Aieron—was vibrating at a size 7.8 times that of the planet.
'No, it's advancing.'
Using his mage senses he confirmed it: faint but definite, the blade was advancing at about one kilometer per second.
"Amitabha holding against that is impressive, too."
Taesung asked, "What do you think? You saw it directly. If it were Shirone, could you stop that Sermon right now?"
"Yes."
In scale it was roughly comparable, which was why the universe had not yet closed.
"An extension of a non-substantial entity—by Law it can be defended against."
"Hmm."
Taesung listened to Shirone.
"But it keeps growing without end. Eventually it will reach a level even I cannot handle."
That was exactly what Taesung wanted to say, but not the time yet to voice it.
Not alone, not in numbers—but everyone must stand together.
'Even if it's impossible—'
"Huuuuuu!"
At the end of the eighteen-kilometer gouge Nane's Sermon had carved into the planet, Beron's face twisted with brutal determination.
'Can it not be stopped?'
A tunnel formed along the path he'd taken to the horizon; the heat set the surroundings ablaze.
'It's coming in.'
Now a blade whose scale could no longer be measured pierced between his palms and reached his chest, bringing scorching pain.
'This is my end.'
A memory flashed.
'Why did I… cling to life so desperately?'
Gurgle. Gurgle.
Before he had a name, he had been nothing more than a fat little poisonous toad.
Gurgle!
He'd sit by a pond, hop about, and flick his tongue at passing flies.
'I want to eat. I want to breed.'
Repeating the same desires every day wasn't a bad life.
'Predator! Predator! Predator! Predator!'
He realized that truth when a snake—the toad's natural predator—swallowed Beron whole.
...
The snake's venom was more terrible than the toad's poison, and trapped in that cramped stomach he could only blink in terror.
'I'm dying!'
He couldn't even scream—that was the fate of a creature born to be prey.
'I'm suffering. It's suffocating. I'm dissolving.'
Like many poisonous toads, Beron was meant to become nourishment in the snake's belly.
'Dying?'
Everything that made me would be annihilated.
Kieeeeee! Kieeeeee!
Losing consciousness to the paralyzing venom, Beron opened his mouth wide and wailed.
'I don't want to die! Not like this… not like this…!'
As the venom seeped into the mucus, the snake's stomach pressed harder.
Save me.
Predators are born with all the digestive tools to dissolve prey, but this time the venom was especially potent.
The snake writhed violently to speed digestion, and perhaps that would have been the end.
Sharp teeth pierced the snake's skin and struck Beron's back.
Gurgle! Gurgle!
The snake began to regurgitate him; the mucus kept the fangs from tearing his skin.
When Beron crawled out and looked back, the snake was being torn apart by a predatory wildcat.
'I survived!'
If he hadn't struggled, the snake wouldn't have moved and the cat might never have found them.
'I survived! I survived!'
Beron ran like a madman and hid deep in the lake's reeds, falling into a stupor-like sleep.
Gurgle.
When he awoke again, countless stars sparkled overhead.
Looking up, he was seized by a strange feeling.
'I am ashamed.'
A raw, wordless emotion washed over him.
The image of himself writhing inside the snake, screaming for his life.
'Why is that so shameful?'
The first answer he ever reached after being born contained a strange logic.
'Because it was meaningless.'
Struggling with no reason to live felt utterly pathetic.
'Meaning. The reason I must live.'
The toad who realized its incarnation stared at the stars until dawn.
'Obsession, was it?'
Nane's blade ran on and Beron's body began to sink into the earth.
'Maybe so.'
All the flesh from his palms had been torn away and the blade had pierced from collarbone to belly.
'But this is my immortality.'
Even if his body vanished, the meaning he left behind would support this world forever.
'Death is also life.'
Death, too, becomes life.
"It is not shameful!"
Beron thrashed with all his strength; the world-encompassing Law concentrated between his palms.
"Go!"
Kiiiiiiiiing!
Nane's blade twisted with a screech and shattered into fragments from its tip.
"Ughhhhhh..."
Barely regaining his balance, Beron took in the cataclysmic scene before him and moved his lips.
"Shura, is Hexa there?"
He tore the space open and Shura appeared.
"Chairman, are you all right?"
"Go to Hexa. Do not let the meaning I left in this world be rendered void."
"No! You know how much I hate that brat! What about the Ten Elders?"
When Shura met the calm look in the eyes of the man who had let go of everything, she quickly averted her gaze.
"Why—why me of all people…?"
Beron patted Shura's shoulder.
"...Live."
With those words, Beron collapsed. Shura drew her brows into an expression of woe.
"I don't know how to live forever…"
At the sound of footsteps she turned and saw Nane approaching with composed movements.
"So in the end you chose to remain?"
For Beron, lost and wandering between worlds, they had to close this world as quickly as possible.
"Creature of obsession, will you follow in your predecessors' footsteps as well?"
Shura looked down at Beron's body.
- Go to Hexa.
Remembering Beron's voice, Shura's eyes hardened. She turned and knelt before Nane.
"What opinion could I possibly offer one who overwhelmed the head of the Ten Elders?"
Her forehead touched the ground.
"I will follow you."
Nane nodded, clasped his hands behind his back, and turned; Shura fell in behind him.
"What will you do?"
"I will open the altars."
The altar where Beron's iron staff had been planted had been razed, but 3,599 altars still remained in the world.
"Sermon—open."
A single sword pierced the sky and shot into space, then split into thousands of flashes that plunged down.
Taesung said, "The Great Purification has been opened."