Chapter 87

“No.”

“No?”

“Yes.”

“You truly have no intention of killing the Outer Gods?”

“I’m not some pleasure-seeking serial killer. Why would I go out of my way to stab beings that are just floating around in the sky?”

When I answered without hesitation, the Sword Immortal reacted as if that was the last thing he had expected.

For a brief moment, the strength drained from the hand holding his cup.

With his trademark reflexes, he didn’t drop the teacup, but small ripples spread across the surface.

The oppressive presence he had been giving off until just moments ago was gone, replaced by nothing more than the look of a startled old man.

“I saw all the murals outside. Isn’t the being you serve clearly trying to eliminate all other Outer Gods?”

“That’s just them pointing out a direction. The choice itself is mine.”

Mala-nim only showed me the road ahead. She didn’t decide every single action I took.

At most, she was a compass floating in the sky for a pitiful boy who had fallen straight into the heart of the Demon Realm.

Whether I counted grains of sand in the desert, or walked forward while staring into the darkness between the stars—that choice was mine alone.

If I had always acted strictly according to her will, I wouldn’t even be on Earth right now.

I probably would have kept my distance from all those women who treated me like some alley cat, too.

Even if an apostle like me did something she disliked, all Mala-nim could really do was grind her teeth in frustration.

And the same applied to the other Outer Gods as well.

“From what I understand, Outer Gods aren’t beings with physical bodies. They’re closer to conceptual entities—something like living ideas or laws.”

You could see them as uninvited guests hitching a ride on a world headed for apocalypse.

They had firmly anchored their existence in a frozen universe and in Outer Gods that never shifted throughout the year.

Since I came to Earth, excluding Seona’s return, the influence of the Outer Gods had manifested in two major ways.

First, even after the Sea of Decay completely vanished with the recovery of the Star Scar, some of the dead still remained.

The waves that once guided resurrected corpses—those who rose seeking revenge from their former lives—no longer flooded the land.

But as long as there were people on the surface who deserved to be “judged,” even the very last corpse would continue to crawl toward us.

The second was related to the serial murder case that occurred in Busan.

Lee Do-hwan claimed that his reason for killing the elderly was for the sake of Busan’s “salvation.”

On the surface, it was supposedly about removing the weakness of the Pact of Mutual Annihilation and gaining leverage over Seoul—but honestly, who knew.

The one who ordered Lee Do-hwan to kill likely had something else in mind: the possibility of the city being occupied by demons.

A city like Busan, whose defining trait was eventual annihilation, was perfectly suited to be used as an enormous sacrificial offering.

Like this, the Outer Gods either tried to assert the meaning of their own existence or directed their hostility toward demonkind that had once opposed them.

They had no interest whatsoever in the safety or well-being of humans caught in the process.

The doomsday cults that were running amok with their revelations were no different; none of them were sane, but it wasn’t exactly new, so I just accepted it as how things were.

When I finished speaking, the Sword Immortal set down his teacup.

This time, what filled his eyes wasn’t confusion, but deep admiration.

“What a thousand-faced child you are. To think you can even read the heavens… If you had even a fragment of talent in martial arts, you might have become a baleful star capable of hunting down even the Heaven-Slaying Star. What a pity…”

“That’s a compliment, right?”

“Without hearing it from anyone else, how did you come to understand them so thoroughly?”

“I just thought of it now.”

It was a hypothesis I had come up with after staying awake until dawn, watching the stars.

Of course, I had been playing Monster Wars on my smartwatch at the same time, so it was more of a side activity.

Maybe it was because I was separated from Mala-nim.

Normally, I would summon a hundred tentacles and think things through together with her, but doing it alone for the first time in a while gave me a splitting headache.

At times like this, lightly slamming my head into Yoo Se-byeol’s shoe cabinet and inhaling the smell from the very bottom shelf helped a lot.

I made a mental note to stop by before getting off work later, then firmly rejected the Sword Immortal’s proposal.

“Either way, openly clashing with them right now would just mean making unnecessary enemies from my perspective. I haven’t even finished dealing with all the Archdukes yet.”

“…….”

“Besides, erasing an Outer God’s existence isn’t something as simple as handling other monsters. You know that better than anyone, don’t you?”

If the opportunity came, I would collect their Star Scars as well—but that didn’t mean I planned to seek them out and fight recklessly.

More than anything, I couldn’t understand his motive.

Unlike me, he had no need to gather Star Scars. So why was he turning his blade toward the Outer Gods?

“I don’t know why you’re hostile toward the Outer Gods, Sword Immortal. Shouldn’t you explain that part first if you want to persuade me?”

“…Is there really a reason worth spelling out?”

After hesitating for a long moment, he finally revealed what was in his heart.

The reason Sword Immortal Yoo Chae-seon had created the Gusin’s Sword School the Old Gods’ Wound.

At the beginning, it hadn’t been to nurture swordsmen like it was now.

“Those things have no right to look down on us from the sky. Even if the dimensions split and the lords of the Demon Realm arrive, bringing the apocalypse—like you said, we should be the ones to decide how we end.”

“That’s true.”

“Some people slander me, saying I want to erase the Outer Gods and take their place, but would a senile old man, already half in the grave, really cling to such shabby old greed and covet their seats?”

“Would you take it if they offered?”

“I’d take it if they gave it. Tch. Don’t make me say it out loud.”

So it was old greed after all.

If Archdukes attacked Outer Gods to gain power, there was no rule saying humans couldn’t use the same approach.

It wouldn’t be possible by normal means—but if it was the Sword Immortal, he had shown time and again that he didn’t walk normal paths.

If he truly wasn’t satisfied even with the Transcendent Realm and intended to kill Outer Gods to reach an even higher state, then I had not the slightest reason to cooperate.

However, his next words made me reconsider my intent to discreetly show him the door.

“It’s for Se-byeol.”

“Deputy Commander Yoo Se-byeol?”

“Yes. To erase that thing dwelling in Se-byeol’s body from this world. And to bring back the vanished Eighth Night.”

The Eighth Night.

Flauros’s manifestation had been the Ninth, so this had happened before that.

Chronologically, it was a few years before I crossed over to Earth, so I didn’t know the details.

The matter was classified; all the Bureau had ever disclosed was that Yoo Se-byeol’s mother died then, and her father Yoo Cheol-jin was placed on indefinite leave.

“To protect Se-byeol, I must bring it back into the light and deal with it properly. And for that, I need the power of an Outer God.”

“Is that true?”

“Do you think this old man would lie to you, of all people, who knows the truth? In the first place, I gave Se-byeol that scabbard because only the aura of an Outer God could suppress it.”

So far, it had been fine—but if her martial progress stagnated while time continued to pass, even the scabbard wouldn’t be able to hold it back forever, according to the Sword Immortal.

In that sense, our goals were quite similar.

Even now, I was absorbing Star Scars in various ways, but that alone wasn’t enough to deal with the Archduke’s avatar dwelling inside Yoo Se-byeol’s body.

Especially during the last Grand Labyrinth, I had personally witnessed the danger that the avatar could awaken at any moment.

That was somewhat of a convincing reason.

However, it seemed there was an additional, unexpected reason why the Sword Immortal had asked for my help.

“Under normal circumstances, this old man would have no reason to bow his head and make a request of you.”

“You’ve never bowed your head once, have you?”

“Listen quietly when an elder speaks. Recently, Se-byeol’s mental state has become extremely unstable, leaving no time to delay matters any longer.”

“Wh-What? Is that true?”

Yoo Se-byeol’s mental state is unstable?

What could that possibly mean?

“According to Chief of Staff Seol Si-heon’s report, Se-byeol’s smartwatch search activity has sharply increased since last week.”

“Does the Old Gods’ Wound even report that to the master separately? Even if she is your cherished granddaughter, isn’t that an extreme invasion of privacy…?”

“Most of the searches were things like ‘abduction,’ ‘confinement,’ ‘raising,’ ‘places selling sleeping pills,’ ‘how to act as a witness without suspicion when a subordinate disappears,’ and so on.”

That was indeed intrusive enough.

But the frightening details didn’t stop there.

“Especially the other day, when she returned to the mansion for the first time in a while, she went straight to the basement without greeting her beloved grandfather. She began installing CCTV and iron cages for Awakened subjects, and when asked why, she laughed and said, ‘If I miss it once, there won’t be a next chance.’”

“…….”

“That behavior reminded me exactly of what my mother said when bringing Cheol-jin in as a son-in-law… Child? Why is this happening? Cold sweat is running down my back.”

I was terrified.

Yoo Se-byeol, and her entire household, were terrifying.

I sincerely hoped that once that devilish Archduke avatar was removed, she could return to her original self.

Anyway, after hearing the full story, I promised the Sword Immortal that I would cooperate conditionally.

After all, even Outer Gods would not hand over Star Scars willingly, so maintaining a relationship with him could only be beneficial.

“Take care, sir. Watch your step on the way.”

“Alright. You also take care on your way back.”

After exchanging such warm pleasantries and seeing him off, I began preparing to return to the base when Sebas approached.

“Uh… Brother. Another guest has arrived.”

Again? Today was really turning into a busy day.

Had someone been spreading the word about my presence here?

Since that mural had been completed, all sorts of things had been going haywire.

“They’ve been waiting for a while, so I brought tea, but no one has touched it.”

Not a single person drank? Then it must be a group, not an individual.

Curious about their identity, I asked—and Sebas gave an even more suspicious reply.

“Who is it?”

“Well… by my sense, they aren’t human.”

Sebas pushed back his squirming hair, revealing that each strand was a thin, thread-like tentacle.

You’re gradually slipping out of the human category, too.

I checked the time.

At this rate, I probably wouldn’t make it back to base on schedule.

Another scolding from Kang Ha-neul later, I suppose.

Since I didn’t need to check on the construction progress here for the time being, I decided to finish up my pending tasks while I was at it.

“What should we do?”

“Sigh… Just let them in.”

“Understood. Please wait a moment.”

I returned to the reception room.

Before long, I heard someone climbing the wooden stairs outside the door.

The creaking was too light for a typical adult—it reminded me of the orphans at the prayer hall—but it was different.

They weren’t yet capable of fully suppressing their presence, and they had no reason to walk in perfect unison as if one body.

Curious about this second guest, I quickly put the mask from my pocket over my face the moment the door opened.

“Open market! The market is open!”

“Buy our goods! Master Patel!”

Dozens of tiny women, wearing tattered cloaks and pointed hats, each holding a tentacle in one hand, shouting Patel’s name.

They were witches who had come to see the dark magician, ‘Patel.’