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The sound of glass shattering echoed from all around. Just now, though invisible to my eyes, it was proof that the Saintess\'s aura had activated.

The bullets rushing towards me like a swarm of sharks shattered all at once. The hand axes tumbled to the ground. The sight of thousands of bullets, crushed into powder and mingling with the snowflakes, was truly a spectacle.

“…….”

The creator of this miraculous scene, the Saintess—or the Corruptor she would later be named by me as the \'Executioner\'—was staring blankly at me.

“What are you trying to do?”

The Saintess\'s tone seemed casual at first. However, having spent countless years with her, and expecting many more, I knew it was difficult for someone bound by thousands of years of destiny to perfectly hide their emotions.

The Saintess was disconcerted.

‘As expected.’

I nodded.

This fight was never viable to begin with.

The Saintess really had no intention of killing me. Her goal was merely to subdue.

What plan the Saintess harbored now was beyond me. Regrettably, I had mastered mind reading only in the 554th cycle, and this was merely the 107th.

Yet, there were clues for speculation.

"Saintess."

"Yes."

"Please stop using Time Stop. Send back the Awakeners you called as well. Otherwise, I will commit suicide immediately, without any delay."

“…….”

The Saintess looked into my eyes. For a moment. Perhaps for eternity. Or maybe she was looking at herself through my eyes. Eyes within eyes met.

Thunk.

The axe the Saintess had been holding buried itself in the snow. Snowflakes continued to fall from the sky. Snow settled on the thousands, tens of thousands of footprints that marked the ground.

Time passed.

"It has stopped."

That was how the Saintess chose to describe it.

I suddenly felt an overwhelming emotion. We both lived in a twisted flow of time, making us kin in that aspect.

Typically, one who has lived in a familiar space is called a compatriot, and one who lives in an unknown space, a stranger. What about time then? To ordinary people, weren\'t we both helpless foreigners?

Snow fell. I thought of this place as an exile from any world, a place abandoned by the universe.

Coincidentally, exile originally stemmed from returning home. At some point, returning home had become a punishment.

Then, perhaps this flaw in the world was our true homeland.

“…Very well. Since you do not wish for my death, and I do not wish for yours, we should be able to have a conversation.”

“I agree.”

The distance between us was just over 6 meters.

"Let\'s first establish each other\'s demands. I wish that you do not suppress my freedom."

“…I, likewise, hope that you do not interfere with my executions.”

The Saintess spoke.

“If another regression occurs, and the 108th cycle begins, Mr. Undertaker will certainly try to prevent me from ‘becoming this way’.”

“…….”

“You wouldn’t want me to become a murderer. You always want to place me in a position that is just and beyond reproach. But this decision—to personally inflict pain on those who have sinned—is a conclusion I have reached myself.”

“So you intend to subdue me?”

“Yes. I planned to detain Mr. Undertaker until I found a way to erase only specific memories. The world is vast and there are many Awakeners, so surely somewhere there is a power to manipulate memories. In the worst case, I could rely on Go Yuri.”

Go Yuri is not an option.

“Speaking of which, you mentioned earlier that you had summoned Go Yuri. Is she on her way here?”

“That was a lie.”

The Saintess said indifferently, her expression unchanging.

“The claim that I had summoned other Awakeners in the name of the constellation was also a lie. It was a strategy to make Mr. Undertaker anxious and force a mistake. No one else is coming here but us.”

“…I see.”

So it was all a bluff. One really could never let their guard down around her.

I took a deep breath, then sheathed my sword.

“Saintess, I assure you that I will never hide from you the fact that you have decided to punish the villains yourself, not in the next cycle, nor in the one after that, no matter how many regressions I undergo.”

“…….”

“I promise. So, please calm your uneasy mind.”

“…….”

“I am on your side, even if you were to set the world ablaze.”

Silence fell.

As snowflakes landed on the Saintess’s shoulders, a tiny, almost imperceptible sound of glass cracking could be heard. Only the sounds of snow falling and glass shattering softly echoed in the entire world.

“I am distressed.”

The Saintess’s voice seeped in like a shadow among the pale, transparent sounds.

“That this memory, this conversation, might be completely forgotten by me in the next cycle. That memories of the 16 years I spent with Mr. Undertaker might melt away like snow.”

“…I will remember.”

“Yes.”

The Saintess slightly lowered her eyes.

“That makes it all the more regrettable.”

“…….”

“It\'s embarrassing. You will probably be sadder than me, but I couldn’t bear it. The possibility that all things, all memories, the meaning of someone\'s death, might disappear. That I should bear all that on my shoulders.”

“It\'s okay. I can handle it. And so can you.”

Snow fell.

With a tinkling sound, the Saintess’s lips parted.

“When an Awakener’s power reaches its peak, it becomes no different from a grotesquery.”

This was the first time in my regressions.

And perhaps the first time in human history that the phenomenon known as \'corruption\' was elucidated through a human’s mouth.

“Really?”

“At some point, I was able to move freely even in a frozen world. My telepathy evolved to replay not only my voice but any sound I remembered.”

The Saintess was earnest. She carefully constructed her words at a pace I could follow.

“At first, I thought it was just the blossoming of my abilities. It was a natural conclusion. But as time passed, another hypothesis, another possibility, began to circle in my mind.”

“What possibility?”

“That it wasn’t so much that I was growing, but rather, that I was losing myself―a hypothesis.”

The Saintess’s eyes narrowed.

“Originally, telepathy transmitted only ‘my’ voice, but what if I transcend my physical body? What if I move further away from being human? Then, wouldn’t I be able to reproduce many sounds, not just human voices?”

“Uh... Logically possible, yes. But couldn’t the phenomenon you described be interpreted as just an expansion of your scope or identity?”

“Yes, but the two are not much different.”

The Saintess shook her head slightly.

“…It’s very hard to explain this feeling to someone else, but the symptoms are too distinct to be regarded merely as psychological unease.”

“What symptoms?”

“Transparent aura.”

Why? When the Saintess spoke those words, I too was seized by an ominous feeling.

An invisible tongue seemed to lick my spine from the nape of my neck to my pelvis.

The Saintess was looking straight at me.

“Each Awakener’s aura has its own color. Mr. Undertaker, you interpreted the lack of color in my aura as it being ‘transparent’.”

“…Yes.”

“But what if it wasn’t aura at all?”

The Saintess murmured, likely pondering a problem she had often considered within the frozen time.

“As if it has the effect of aura enhancement, but is not aura. Such phenomena must have been witnessed countless times by you.”

“Grotesquery...?”

“Yes. Monsters.”

The Ten Legs did not use aura.

They are simply born with bodies that seem enhanced by aura.

My heart thudded. Synced with my heartbeat, a continuous noise echoed from the Saintess’s entire body.

“I am increasingly being eroded by the void.”

“…….”

“That’s not all.”

Snap.

The Saintess flicked her fingers.

At that moment, my vision flipped.

“……?”

No, to be precise, it hadn’t flipped.

It was as if I was experiencing an out-of-body experience―seeing my own body from ‘above’.

My perspective shifted from first-person to third-person.

“Saintess?”

My lips moved. I saw my lips moving.

It was an exceedingly strange sensation.

I could see my own back. If I were to perform strength training in this state, I could precisely measure the weight, but a third-person world did not offer only advantages.

“What in the world…?”

A sensation of buoyancy.

A person\'s self is ultimately attached to the body.

The body is the most direct object. If the body loses its directness and is laid \'side by side\' with other objects, becoming just one of many things, then a person\'s self also floats aimlessly on the waves of a vast ocean without an anchor.

“That is the world I see, Mr. Undertaker.”

Rustle.

The Saintess stepped on the snow and approached me. I was unable to maneuver like an infant who hadn’t yet learned to control their body.

“At first, this perspective only unfolded when I used Clairvoyance, but as I grew accustomed to it... I’ve reached the point where I can no longer distinguish between my own view and the third-person view.”

The Saintess took my hand.

The touch of her hand, chilled by the snowflakes, was vividly felt. Yet, that touch felt somehow \'distant\'.

Should I describe it as if touch had a color? Touch, more than anything, should be felt directly on the skin, yet a sense of distance was perceptible.

As the Saintess said, it was a sensation difficult to explain to someone else.

It was bizarre.

It was extraordinary.

“When you discovered my secret, I thought I was in big trouble. But now that I think about it, I\'m glad I was discovered now. If a little more time had passed... I might have lost the most important part of myself.”

The Saintess whispered right in front of my nose/spoke monotonously from afar.

The Saintess gathered the little remaining warmth in her hands around my hands/The Executioner assumed a posture as if praying to the sky.

“If it had gone that far, I might have been able to halt time to prevent your regression from proceeding. No. Not might— I am certain of it.”

“…….”

“I would lose my color, my vision, my form, and even time, becoming merely something that looks down upon and watches everything. Such a grotesquery.”

Vapor streamed from the Saintess\'s mouth.

A slender thread of human warmth rose in the middle of a snow-covered world.

“Please remember, Mr. Undertaker. This fight, the challenge to save the world, is not a game where time is given indefinitely. There are only infinite opportunities to challenge, but once you enter the stage, there is a ‘time limit’.”

“Time limit…”

“The duration of that time limit is probably 15 to 20 years. When Awakeners become so familiar with their powers that they are consumed by them, they will become like me, nearing grotesquery. Do you understand? An Awakener’s power is not purely a blessing. It is a double-edged sword.”

Crackle—

Somewhere, in front of me, or perhaps very far away, the sound of glass cracking resonated.

I then realized that it might not be glass but a kind of transparent film surrounding the Saintess, the human being.

“This time it\'s because Mr. Undertaker focused on my growth, resulting in me becoming like this the fastest... But in other cycles, who knows. My intuition tells me that the more powerful an Awakener’s ability, the more dangerous it seems. For example... Dang Seo-rin of Samcheon World would not be an exception.”

“…….”

“20 years. Please try to restore the world to its original form before 15 years approach. Please remember, Mr. Undertaker, the time limit…”

The sound of glass breaking became more distinct.

I understood the Saintess\'s intentions. Therefore, I pulled her hand and embraced her back. It might have been a bit too forceful since controlling the body in a third-person perspective is quite difficult.

The Saintess\'s eyes widened.

“…Ah.”

“You plan to kill me. To make sure the regression happens before you completely change, but that\'s just greed, to bear it all on your own.”

A soft laughter was heard.

“Mr. Undertaker, you really do know me well.”

“Let’s go together.”

“…….”

“I haven’t mentioned it, but in fact, I\'m quite adept at mental management. I once traveled around the country for three cycles and even worked as a convenience store owner.”

“Convenience store owner?”

“Yes. You, Saintess, might also need to learn to let go a little.”

I pulled up the aura from my entire body.

As the glass-like barrier began to shatter in earnest, crackle—crackle— countless bursting sounds echoed as my aura enveloped us both.

Snow fell. Glass broke. Even as snow continued to fall, the two shadows etched on the white snowfield were not buried.

“…It’s warm.”

The Saintess closed her eyes.

“Why, people. People... even though they are people.”

Clang.

The world quietly stopped the snow.

That was the Saintess\'s last will.

There is an epilogue.

This epilogue is not limited to a specific cycle.

In the 109th, 110th, 111th cycles... in every cycle where I formed a blood pact with the Saintess, this scene was invariably recreated.

“That happened.”

“…….”

After listening to my entire story, the Saintess quietly propped her chin. She seemed deep in thought, occasionally tilting her head on her own.

“It doesn’t feel like my story, even though it is about me.”

“Is that so?”

The Saintess looked at my face. Her expression was seriously intense.

“It’s unlike you to be wandering outside so energetically.”

“…….”

That was it.

The Saintess stood up and fed the fish in the aquarium.

Fish that she had carefully collected before the world became like this quickly gathered at their owner\'s gesture. Red, white, yellow, blue—creatures of various colors swam through the water.

“It’s hard to understand why you would anonymously punish villains, considering how diligent you were to roam around outside. The strategy to elevate oneself to a divine position to instill fear in people is effective, but it comes from a mindset that does not trust others. If you were that diligent, shouldn’t you have declared your existence and your powers to the world and directly organized a government?”

“Hmm. Maybe I wasn’t that diligent?”

“That\'s what I thought. It\'s mediocre. You don’t want to become mediocre, so you chose a life of seclusion.”

The Saintess\'s fingertips gently skimmed the surface of the water.

For the fish, it was the boundary of the world, the surface that constituted the screen of their world, lightly disturbed. The Saintess seemed to enjoy the sensation.

“More than anything, in the 107th cycle, I depicted that the phenomenon of corruption automatically occurs as an Awakener’s powers awaken but that\'s a flawed analysis. There’s clear proof against it.”

“Proof?”

“Mr. Undertaker.”

The Saintess spoke.

“You have regressed for countless ages and continued to develop your powers. If my theory were correct, you should have experienced corruption before anyone else. However, since no such phenomenon has occurred for you, it’s likely that corruption is merely a psychological issue.”

Just a psychological issue.

The Saintess was still very strict with herself.

“But I do understand the meaning of your last words.”

“What do you think it means?”

“That a person kills another person. Even though they are people, they kill. It\'s always a painful truth. And…”

“And?”

“…….”

The Saintess glanced back slightly.

I blinked. It was as if I was a crab in the aquarium, clicking my claws and blinking my eyes.

Then something truly rare happened.

The Saintess faintly smiled.

“It’s a secret.”

Footnotes:

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