[730] The Body (3)
* * *
Ten minutes before Rian realized the Heart Sword.
Shirone stepped aside, and Seongeum's finger pointed at empty air.
Embarrassed, she let her arm fall.
"Go on ahead?"
The Anchal had said you can't collide with what isn't there, yet Shirone was plainly standing right before Seongeum.
"No. You're the one running. You're trying to sweep this under the rug because you know you can't beat me."
Turning to Shirone, Seongeum jabbed a firmer finger at the space between her brows.
"I'm one step ahead of you. Admit the fact and meekly accept defeat."
Shirone thought for a beat, then bowed her head.
"I lost. You're above me."
"No!"
Seongeum flared.
"That's not what I want!"
The victory Seongeum had imagined—the place at the top—didn't feel like this.
"Aren't you angry? You're about to lose the title of the world's greatest mage. If you give up so easily, what did you run all this way for?"
'What did you fight for?'
Now she thought she understood.
"For—"
Shirone placed both hands over her chest.
"To become who I am now."
"...."
Seongeum felt dizzy.
"I put my life on the line, I fought and fought to get here…."
The truth was, she didn't want to fight.
"To fight you, to raise my Kar score—why? If I step back just once…."
Shirone was smiling.
"No one has to suffer. Maybe we could become good friends. If you just yield one step."
"One step… yield?"
Seongeum pictured walking side by side with Shirone.
No.
Beside Shirone stood Mungyeong; beside him, the Sambo warriors; beside them, all humanity holding hands…
"No!"
It was an image that denied Seongeum's whole life.
"It can't be that easy! Someone will try to use us! Someone will trample you to prove themselves!"
To love the whole is impossible.
"Right. I'm not saying I'll run. I'll fight harder. But no more—"
Shirone's skin grew more translucent.
"I won't fight for a phantom that doesn't exist."
"A phantom? A phantom?"
What had she been fighting for all this time?
"Fight with me. For everyone's real happiness, not a phantom's. You can do it."
-You can't collide with what isn't there.
At last the Anchal's words pierced the veil in her mind.
"Together. All together…."
Seongeum, who had been staring hard at the hand Shirone held out, slowly moved her arm.
'If I just take that hand—'
It was absurdly easy.
'We would be equals.'
That thought blocked Seongeum's heart.
"I refuse, idealist."
Shirone's words were right in that everyone dreams of it, but unrealistic because no one can actually do it.
"Don't mistake me offering you an il-bo for granting you anything. I will walk my own path. If the world needs saving, then this True Seongeum will do it. That is the highest mission."
Mungyeong clenched his fists.
'Excellent, Your Highness!'
Though uneasy about giving up an il-bo, she still bore the most noble blood of the Jincheon Empire.
'Go that way. Don't look back. Ascend to the highest place.'
Seongeum turned coldly.
"Let's go back. There's no Ra Enemi here either. I'll enter the last remaining maze and subdue Nane."
At that moment a ripping crack echoed from outside Andre.
"What's that?"
The Sambo warriors all turned.
"There seems to be someone outside as well. Shall we check?"
Mungyeong couldn't issue the order.
'That's the sound of a sword.'
Only a master among masters could tell it had been swung at a speed beyond imagining.
"Huh? What is it?"
Right after the sound, Jixs, feeling a weight, pulled Imir's molar from his pocket.
"Hey—this…"
Oddly, it felt heavier than before.
"Aaahhh!"
It became so heavy no human could hold it; Jixs's shoulder dislocated and he collapsed with a thud.
"Help! This, this—!"
He screamed with his palms on the ground, but none of the Sambo could get close.
With a sick crack all five of Jixs's fingers twisted and were drawn into Imir's molar.
Crack. Crack.
The wrenching that began at his hand spread through his body in a gruesome spectacle; Jixs couldn't even groan.
With the sound of hundreds of bones breaking, the shredded mass of flesh clung toward Imir's molar.
As that chunk of flesh—about the size of a human torso—kept compressing, a wave sound reached Seongeum through the aether.
"Stand back! It's a gravity wave!"
We do not yet know gravity's true meaning.
'A mass that can fold a person?'
To five-sense beings, gravity converts to mass, but Anke Ra—who once dreamed of the stars—defined it thus:
-How intensely does it exist?
"It's waking up! Avoid it!"
Before Imir's combat instinct fully awakened, it had been nothing more than a single molar.
"Shut up! I will never run!"
As the mind that had unified a billion humans stirred and radiated, the physical presence it emitted…
"Your Highness! It's Imir!"
It was nailed to space-time by a presence that no cosmic force could shake.
"Who woke me?"
Regeneration that had begun at the molar formed a face; along the shoulders the body rapidly restored itself.
"T-That is…"
Even Mungyeong, worried for Seongeum, was transfixed by the figure from myth.
Nearly three meters tall with broad shoulders.
A solid jaw, a neck thicker still, arms like logs.
The Giant King, Imir (the Molar).
As the body regenerated, the gravity wave faded, but its mere existence made the space around it ripple.
"What are you lot?"
As if uninterested despite two Ivory Tower candidates being present, Imir looked around with indifference.
"Where is this? Why was I awakened?"
Part of the original body, yet imperfect—this form's memories were fragmented.
Imir's step thudded and the ceiling trembled.
"Hmm."
Keeping their distance, the Sambo watched as Imir glanced between Shirone and Seongeum.
"He's fine. But boring."
This molar had long since separated from the main body; Imir's flesh-brain had no memory of Shirone.
"Are you Imir?"
True Seongeum was the first to step forward.
"As befits one called king, you are solid in stature. I hear you absorbed a billion humans…"
Imir's face twisted horribly.
"What I say next will determine your lifespan."
If she didn't say what he didn't want to hear, Imir seemed willing to go back to sleep.
"Can those billion humans kneel before me?"
"Kekekeke."
Imir's eyes rolled; his fighting spirit surged and dust fell from the maze ceiling.
"You're wrong."
The Sambo surged.
"Kill! Protect the Princess!"
As the empire's elite, their speed was lightning—but the moment they met Imir's gaze they understood—
'They'll be shattered.'
Their minds were crushed first.
Divine Transcendence—Heart Fist.
Then Imir's fists swung in all directions and the eighteen Sambo's faces exploded like watermelons.
"Kuhahahaha!"
Among the eighteen faceless warriors collapsing, only one had not been struck down in mind.
'I'll kill him!'
It was Daeseok, Sambo's lieutenant.
"Finally, some decent reaction."
Imir laughed and raised his fist at him. Daeseok threw his whole body back.
'I didn't get hit!'
Proof his mind was still intact.
'Right in front of my eyes…!'
As he measured the gap with superhuman sight and raised his sword, Imir's fist stopped with a pop.
"Aaaahhh!"
A terrible gale stripped Daeseok's facial skin away.
"Aaaahhh!"
His hair was ripped out, his eyeballs burst, his ears torn off.
Aaaah.
When the screaming finally ceased, a skull with no skin knelt before Imir.
"D-Daeseok…."
Mungyeong could not accept the miserable fate of a man as skilled as he.
"Your body's quite stiff."
As if merely warming up, Imir rolled his shoulders and turned back to Seongeum.
"One person."
Seongeum's shoulders shook.
'A body?'
Aren't humans, aren't living things, great because they possess mind?
"Princess, step aside. I'll block him."
Having accepted Daeseok's death, Mungyeong stepped before Seongeum's Sambo and raised his sword.
"Run."
Shirone said.
"We don't need more victims. We can still flee. Leave this place."
"Was it all just talk then?"
Seongeum narrowed her eyes and snapped.
"So your 'I'll fight' only applied to opponents you can beat? And then you tell me to give up a step?"
"I'll stop him."
Even setting Shirone's ten thousand and nine thousand aside, Seongeum could not leave while Rian and Kido remained.
"This is my maze. Take your men and retreat."
To be honest, Seongeum couldn't be sure even her power could escape Imir.
"I brought that giant."
Seongeum stepped past Mungyeong and approached Imir.
"I'll take responsibility."
"No! If you get close—!"
Before Shirone finished, Imir slammed his fist into the ground and launched himself.
With a crash the earth collapsed and Imir's body surged toward Seongeum at terrifying speed.
Aether Wave—Theatre.
The aether vibrated, and space rippled outward from her like waves.
"Your Highness—!"
Mungyeong's voice flew to the ends of the earth.
"Kuhahaha!"
Imir's laughter rolled in.
How?
If space's waves were rapids, Imir's presence was a rock splitting them.
'We must push him back!'
Hearing the roar of gravity waves from Imir's body, Seongeum bit her lip.
"Using strange techniques."
Imir's voice drifted near and far like a stretched rubber band.
"You're the kind I hate the most."
The vibration's scale spanned the world.
When Seongeum locked eyes with the foremost of the wildly trembling Imir, she realized.
'He's aiming at me.'
The mind struck first.
'I can't dodge.'
In an instant stretched to the extreme, Imir's fist moved slowly toward her brow.
No living body could react to a strike like this; Seongeum's body failed to function.
'Am I going to die?'
That thought filled her, and as Imir's fist finally bore down through Seongeum's il-bo—
'Sibulsangpokmae!'
Shirone, colliding time with space by reversing the aether wave, rushed in.
'You too?'
Faced with everyone vaulting over their limits, Seongeum's pride crumbled and she pushed her Immortal Function to its utmost.
Aether Wave—Ultra-Theatre.
Shirone moved away again, but Imir still held his ground.
The fist that seemed to push but not be pushed advanced again, shoving the very air toward Seongeum.
'This is the end.'
As her consciousness expanded into infinity and Seongeum's self began to shatter, the seesaw of time began to level.
'How?'
In the aether that spread at light speed, someone returned at furious velocity.
'No way…!'
Now Seongeum's head was faster than Imir's fist, and in her vision she saw Shirone, who had unfolded a black-and-white magic circle.
'Valhalla Action!'
Shirone, having drawn in the time of all 19,000, reversed cause and effect and leapt beyond it—
"...,"
— and True Seongeum took a single step.
'Got it! I've got you!'
As Shirone seized Seongeum's waist and threw her body aside, Imir's fist cut through empty air.
Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom!
The blast swept the ground clean and surged forward; from deep within the cavern a cracking boom echoed.
Imir's face contorted in a terrible way.
"Grrrrrr!"
His Heart Fist shattered.