Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Chapter 246
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The Experimenter V
The Awakeners battling on the last line of defense—and even the survivors still living in Busan—were all gazing blankly in this direction.
Wooooooong!
On one side was the Spear of Death. The red beam of destruction launched by the Anomaly that had devoured every city on the planet except for Busan.
“Hahaha! It doesn’t even itch!”
On the other side was the Absolute Shield. While its mental fortitude was mediocre, its physical defense would block anything—the last shield humanity possessed.“Look at this! The Anomaly is nothing but trash!”
Was she intoxicated by the thrill of single-handedly enduring an attack capable of destroying the world? Today again, Dok-seo’s chuunibyou was at its peak, perhaps even touching a new realm of delusion.
But that wasn’t all.
“Seo-rin.”
“Yes, I know.”
With a loud “Ahhh—,” Seo-rin began to sing.
As the relentless attacks from the aerial warships pounded on the shield, her voice broke through the noise. It was a melody everyone knew well.
The Fifth Melody, Mirror of All Creation.
An exceptional composition, combining Focus, Absorb, Reflect, and Amplify into one.
If you’re wondering when such a song was added to her playlist, it happened during the Meteor Shower Extermination Operation.
Yes.
In the Meteor Shower Operation, 700 Awakeners each gathered and compressed their Aura, forging it into the first and last ultimate strike. I, the Undertaker, took the final baton and unleashed the beam at Meteor Shower. 𝘳АＮO͍₿Ёs̩
“Aaah—aaaah—ahhh――”
That Cursed Song Incantation descended once more upon this battlefield, stained in crimson. But there was a distinct difference from the operation against Meteor Shower.
Back then, hundreds of Awakeners painstakingly pooled together their Aura, layer by layer, to gather enough power. This time, that wasn’t necessary.
Wooooooong!
Thankfully, we had someone else up there gathering the beam on behalf of humanity.
“Dok-seo! Spread your wings!”
“Aye aye, sir!”
Dok-seo stretched out her fingers on both hands. With her gestures, the shield bent. The beams from the aerial warships refracted off its surface, redirecting them. Where the beam was directed, it struck the mirrors conjured by Seo-rin’s incantation.
Chaaang!
Although the beam was powerful enough to shatter the mirrors quickly, it didn’t matter.
Before breaking, each mirror reflected the beam to another, and again, from mirror to mirror, the red light continued to bounce.
“Ah――”
Long ago, in the 42nd cycle, Seo-rin could only manifest about 700 mirrors. She couldn’t summon more due to her limitations, which also limited the number of allied forces.
“AH――aah――aah――”
Now, in the 687th cycle, Seo-rin and I had refined her incantation through extensive trials and training, hiring dream-writers early on and practicing simulations repeatedly.
Now, the number of mirrors she conjured in Samcheon World reached no less than 12,000.
Chaaang—chaaang—chaang, chaaang!
The refracted beams split into countless fragments, reflecting endlessly off the mirrors, each of their paths precisely calculated. The vivid red lasers traced innumerable routes across the sky, forming a spiderweb over Busan.
Chaaang!
Starting from Haeundae, the beams soon spread across the entire sky, as if the heavens themselves were a shattered glass pane.
The sky, painted red by the Anomaly’s intrusion, was now overlaid with humanity’s fireworks, streaking across as red lines. At the beam’s origin, Dok-seo shouted, “Hey, mister! Time’s almost up!”
Her shield could only hold for 60 seconds. We had to finish this within that time—and so we did.
Eight seconds, seven seconds, six seconds, five, four.
“Seo-rin!”
Relying on my precise sense of time, I gave the signal. In a world where every clock, whether digital or mechanical, could be corrupted by the Anomaly, only my internal time remained sharp.
“Blow them away!”
The Great Witch sang.
All 12,000 mirrors shifted their angles in perfect alignment. Their target was obvious: the sky.
The aerial warships numbering in the millions.
The beam of death, unleashed by the Anomaly to annihilate the world.
Reversed, stolen by humanity, and redirected skyward to deliver death back to the Anomaly!
Ruuuuumble!
12,000 beams, fired by Seo-rin, swept over the warships. Red lines carved into the bodies of the ships, slicing them into two, three, four pieces. And then, they began to fall apart.
Whirr, clank, clang.
The warships, desperate to stay afloat, frantically turned their gears. Only now did they cease firing and switch to self-repair.
But the attack the Anomaly unleashed to engulf every city on Earth had indeed been deadly. The retaliatory strike by Seo-rin left countless ships split with hairline fractures. The Anomaly that had always scoffed at humanity’s feeble attacks could not escape death from its own ultimate weapon.
Clank, whirr, whirr, whirr.
In the end, scrap metal rained down.
The spire of Tokyo Tower, the tip of Burj Khalifa, the iron framework of the Eiffel Tower, the hands of Big Ben, the antenna of the Empire State Building, countless factory chimneys, concrete—
Humanity’s monuments, once gleaming achievements, now peeled away from the ships like the outer wall of a building―and fell.
Clank, clank, whirr.
Waves splashed.
These were waves from the remains of civilization crashing down. Just as life had once originated in the sea, humanity’s landmark creations now returned to the ocean. The grandest burial at sea.
But the scraps weren’t alone, the Anomaly that dared to consume them was also sinking.
Wooooooong.
One last remaining warship staggered in the sky, stripped of its skin, skeleton, outer shell, and inner frame. Its true form was nothing but a Paper Airplane. It bore scorch marks from Seo-rin’s attack, charred edges on its once-white paper.
The plane tottered before falling into the sea, hovering briefly on the water’s surface before sinking forever beneath the waves.
“...Ah.”
As the waves rocked her from the debris of civilization, Seo-rin’s body wavered. I reached out and steadied her by the shoulder. Wrapping her in my Aura to prevent her from being swept away by the waves. I included Dok-seo as well.
“...Undertaker.”
Leaning her weight on me, Seo-rin turned her head my way, revealing a face marked with deep fatigue, as was to be expected. She had fought tirelessly alongside me these past days, moving ceaselessly across battlefields.
A faint smile graced her face. “We... really... did it. We killed such an impossible Anomaly... we did it.”
“Yes.”
“All that training in the Kingdom Project... all that practice in the simulated dream... it wasn’t for nothing. Hahaha. This isn’t a dream, right?”
I held her hands and shoulders tightly instead of replying. She closed her eyes as though she’d received enough of an answer.
Waaaahhh!
In the distance, cheers rang out.
- Seo-rin! Seo-rin! Seo-rin!
- Long live the Undertaker!
- Literary Girl! We believed in you!
The battle’s mood shifted from grim determination to dragging another Anomaly into hell if necessary.
We could do this. We might actually win.
They defeated the Hollow, the city-devourer, and the rest of the Anomalies. They were still fighting and winning.
Meanwhile, humanity’s final stronghold remained steadfast.
Though exhausted, not a single Awakened warrior had perished. Not one was injured! The civilians in the rear continued supplying materials. So―
Tick.
At exactly 61 hours, 11 minutes, and 32 seconds since the Final Defense War began, people came to realize.
The miracles and comebacks that had unfolded like a dream had all stemmed, from the start, from the sacrifice of a single girl.
The countdown reached its end.
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