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HELHEIM SCANS
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At first, he didn’t feel anything.
No sense of time, no sense of space.
Only darkness and emptiness existed.
Where was he?
How long had he been like this?He tried to recall something, but there was nothing he could remember.
Complete nothingness... ambiguity.
One thing was certain, he had lost myself.
It felt as if the boundaries of his existence had crumbled, everything was blurred.
There was no fear, no relief, no confusion, just something that "used to be him."
He felt a dreadful void.
His consciousness shattered into pieces.
There was no need to resist.
Yet, at that moment when he was struggling without knowing why,
He began to feel something very faint in the pitch-black darkness.
A very slight movement.
A tiny fragment of light.
Though it felt distant and unreachable, he was staring at it for some reason.
He didn’t know what it was or why he was so desperate to see it, but the light drew in all of his consciousness.
"Go forward," a whispering voice said.
In a space where he had felt nothing, the light and sound were overwhelming stimuli.
‘...What is this?’
The voice continued.
Sometimes it was informal, sometimes polite, sometimes it was a man's voice, a woman’s, an old person’s, a child’s...
The voices were different, but they all demanded the same thing.
To move forward.
“Huff!”
He sat up.
Just a moment ago, he couldn’t even feel my body, but now his senses were so clear that they felt almost raw.
‘...Where is this?’
The first thing that returned was pain.
His skin felt like it was freezing cold while also being scorched.
When he rubbed it with his hand, he felt the sticky sensation of mud.
Uuuuuung—
As he gathered my mana and divine powers, fortunately, the mud slowly peeled off.
But the space was still dark and gloomy even in the bright light.
Everywhere he looked was an endless pitch-black world.
It was meaningless to keep his eyes open.
He stood still, unsure of where to go.
The voices that urged him to move forward had long since vanished like an echo.
He was about to take a step forward, aimlessly.
{Dopple, can you hear me?}
A familiar voice.
He stopped instinctively.
‘...Maktania?’
{Thank goodness, the terminal is working properly.}
‘No, how... is this possible?’
{Because you're my champion. How does it feel to be a priest receiving divine revelations?}
‘...It’s amazing.’
He then asked the most pressing question.
‘What’s the situation outside?’
{It’s okay. You can rest easy.}
Rest easy?
An unexpected answer.
‘Okay? Does that mean Avalon is safe?’
{Yes. As soon as you jumped in, all 50 masses of mud started to merge into a sphere. The waves stopped. The demonic energy subsided. Now everyone is out on deck, watching.}
As he said before, the Demon King’s power was not infinite.
In an extremely unstable state, when a massive amount of prey voluntarily jumped in, it seemed the decision was made to focus on him, abandoning other targets.
...Right at that moment, another voice echoed in his mind.
[Ugh...]
This time it was a more familiar voice.
[It’s already cramped as it is, and now something else crawls in.]
It was ???.
Unlike a thought-form, he groaned in pain and finished with a low curse.
[Damn, I felt like I was dying again when the connection was briefly severed.]
Despite his usual grumbling, Hero couldn't help but smile faintly, forgetting the situation for a moment.
What a noisy way to end things.
After laughing for a while, the endless darkness didn’t seem so suffocating anymore.
[Alright, let's move. You know better than anyone what needs to be done, right?]
{Dopple, listen carefully.}
Grrrrrr—
Just then, a terrifying roar echoed from a distant place.
It was a chilling sound, like thousands of monsters roaring simultaneously.
The black mud surrounding me shook violently.
But it wasn’t just anger contained within.
[It’s trembling in fear. Let’s go finish this.]
{Don’t worry. We’ll endure this together.}
[...Who said “we” would?]
{It will be very hard and painful, but I believe in you.}
The direction he had to go was already decided.
He started walking toward the direction of the roar.
The first few steps were easier than he expected.
The mud squirmed aside, and he could move forward without difficulty.
But at some point, the mud's behavior changed, perhaps realizing that he was approaching their master.
It wrapped around his ankles, slowly pulling him down, or condensed like stones, pressing down on his entire body.
Patsutsutsu—!
The barrier created by his mana sparked violently, resisting the mud.
But even with the near-infinite power amplified by the Eclipse, the overwhelming mass of mud quickly exhausted it.
He ran as fast as he could while the barrier held out.
...And yet the Demon King’s roar still seemed far away.
Tsutsutsu...
How much longer did he run?
When the barrier was emitting a light so faint it couldn’t even compare to when it first appeared,
??? whispered softly.
[Now the real battle begins.]
With those words, the barrier disappeared without a trace.
Cold, sticky mud engulfed his body.
* * *
On the surface, nothing much had changed.
The mud obstructed the hero, and the hero moved forward.
Every time the hero advanced a step, the mud desperately tried to stop him.
It poured down from the sky, wrapped around his ankles from the ground, and created a maze-like path in front of him.
It was very threatening, but... there was also a sense of urgency.
This was because the Demon King was in an extremely unstable state.
He needed to complete the full incarnation ritual as soon as possible to summon the "intelligence" remaining in the Demon Realm.
Otherwise, his existence would collapse.
So he hurried to kill the hero, the greatest obstacle.
Even in his mindless state, the Demon King continually moved toward that goal.
Gurururuk—
The mud attacked again.
The hero was gradually realizing how "dissolution" manifested.
It materialized things that had no physical form, then indiscriminately tore them apart and devoured them.
...At first, it was the cores he had replicated long ago.
“Hey, let's hit the jackpot again today!”
Whose voice was that?
...Right, it was Buck, who used to run through the back alleys of Harlem with him.
A Doppelganger experiences and feels "humans" more deeply than other humans.
Even in the past, when perfect replication was impossible, that remained unchanged.
Their lives.
Their memories.
Their emotions.
Observing, understanding, and mimicking all of these was the essence of a Doppelganger.
...So there was no way he could forget, no matter how old the memories were.
But at some point, Bucks' face began to fade.
The voice, the time spent together, and finally, even the name.
Everything slowly became blurry and deleted.
??? asked calmly.
[...It’s a terrible feeling, isn’t it?]
‘Indeed.’
What could be the most terrible thing a sentient being could experience?
Death? Pain? Aging?
No, the hero could now say with certainty.
The answer is the collapse of identity.
It’s the feeling that parts of yourself are being slowly cut away.
The pieces of life you held onto so tightly slip through your fingers like sand.
A core wasn’t just about power.
It was a bundle of everything related to the subject.
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HELHEIM SCANS
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??? added in a comforting tone.
[You're holding on well.]
If an ordinary human had touched this black mud, they would have already lost their sense of self and been absorbed by the Demon King.
However, the doppelganger was also a being accustomed to handling such conceptual powers.
It sacrificed the less important core memories first and defended itself so that as little as possible was devoured.
Even...
{I'll help you.}
As if poisoning the food, it infused divine power into the parts being devoured.
Had it been in a stable state, it would not have taken much damage, but now, it was fatal.
The more the black mud devoured the hero's core, the more it struggled in agony rather than delight.
A growl of pain grew louder.
As the situation escalated, the Demon King abandoned the last bit of finesse and began indiscriminately ripping out the hero's cores.
At that point, the hero also lost the thread of reason, desperately clutching only the cores that had to be protected, and walked forward.
In that moment, many things left him.
"...Hero, please."
The core of a swordsman who breathed his last breath in the great forest.
"Help my daughter to enjoy many things. Small joys, fears, all the intense emotions."
The memories of a chieftain who once ruled the north.
"I'm glad you returned safely."
The prayer of an old man who sincerely wished for Ted's safe return.
Many other pieces disappeared as well.
The hero wanted to scream, but no voice came out.
The bloody-smelling black mud clogged his throat and overflowed from his nose and eyes.
It was painful and miserable.
It was confusing and painful to keep moving forward while embracing his increasingly incomplete and crippled self.
Step.
However, the hero's stride never halted for even a moment.
Though he couldn't see or feel anything, he kept moving forward.
...And then it happened.
{Doppel.}
A warm voice echoed in his mind.
{It's time to say goodbye.}
That one sentence was enough for the hero to understand what Maktania was about to do without any explanation.
A deep emotion and sorrow pierced his heart.
The hero's gaze fixed on the faint light that appeared in the pitch-black darkness.
‘Thank you for being human until the very end.’
He heard a clear, laughing voice.
{Sometimes, that's what makes you endearing, your stupid moments.}
‘...What?’
{It's not for humans. Foolish.}
...Indeed, the Demon King's subjugation would also benefit the Celestials.
Just as the hero was about to accept that reasoning, Maktania said something unexpected.
{It's for you.}
‘...For me?’
{Everyone, including you, is fighting for this world, for humanity. So, can't I at least do this for you?}
The hero felt a warm sensation enveloping his body.
{Fighting fiercely, shouting, and moving forward—that's been your life, hasn't it?}
Maktania continued speaking gently.
{Despairing and agonizing over endless suffering and absurdity, yet never giving up—that's who you were.}
‘Maktania.’
{Could you keep doing that until the very end? So that everyone can see and feel it clearly.}
‘Maktania!’
The light pierced through the darkness that blocked the hero's path.
With a violent tremor and a flash of light, the black mud crumbled helplessly.
Tap.
Without saying a word, the hero ran down the path that had been revealed.
{...Run, my champion.}
The voice, likely created by the hero himself, echoed like a hallucination in his ears.
Tap.
The hero kept running.
He knew that soon the boundary of his existence would collapse, and he would return to a meaningless illusion with no form left, but he didn't stop.
A quiet voice whispered as the Demon King's agonized roar grew louder.
[...Tch, to think it would end like this.]
‘…….’
[Aren't you afraid?]
For the first time, the hero slowed his steps.
‘…And you?’
[I don't know.]
‘That's surprising. I thought you'd pretend not to be scared until the very end.’
The hero's tone was half-mocking, but the voice didn't get angry.
It just murmured in a calm voice.
[What is a human?]
‘…You.’
[Even after embracing hundreds of thousands, I still can't understand.]
A hollow laugh echoed in his mind.
[Knowing that you lose everything at the end and still moving forward.]
‘You….’
[Do all humans live with such feelings?]
Struggling in pain to achieve what they want, growing, and eventually fading away—that was the typical pattern of human life.
‘Then I guess we're all achieving what we want at the end.’
[Haha, is that so? If you say so, it must be true.]
The hero's words seemed to bring some relief to the voice.
[Though we started differently, the process was similar, and the end will be the same... You'll die as a human, won't you?]
‘…….’
[If that's the case... then I suppose I didn't do too badly either.]
With those words, the voice was no longer heard.
Instead of the cores the hero had desperately protected, the voice's residual thoughts were sucked into the black mud.
It was the most burdensome thing the Demon King had absorbed thus far.
Kuaaaaaa—!
Not a roar, but a clear scream.
A painful wail filled the space.
The hero was close.
He moved his body in the direction of the sound.
Step.
Only a few cores that most strongly supported his identity remained now.
When they were slowly devoured, he felt a bit bewildered.
It seemed that all the definitions of who he was and what he had lived for would vanish along with those cores.
But they didn't.
When those cores finally left him, instead of despair, a strange sense of peace found him.
The space that had been filled with countless colors, sounds, and scents was now quiet.
...There were still things that hadn't left.
"……."
And finally.
The hero exhaled a long breath and stopped.
The Demon King's trembling eyes stared at him.
"Haha…."
A smile resembling so many others spread across his face.
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HELHEIM SCANS
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