“Mei…”
“You’re leaving, then?” Acheron was just the same as she had always been.
Though she was a person of unwavering conviction, she was also perpetually a little dazed.
“Mm.” You fell silent for a while.
But your eyes grew ever more resolute.
Over these sixty-odd years spent in each other’s company, the two of you had become close friends.
Though Acheron was somewhat inarticulate, the care she held for you was in no way false.
And you, at the start, had been quite talkative.
You’d effectively served as the mood-maker of the pair.
So the time you spent together had never felt too awkward.
Over this stretch of time, you had also come to understand fragments of her past…
For instance, there had once been a figure at her side who was always calling out, “Mei, Mei,” over and over.
That person had also been constantly shouting things like, “As long as Mei is by my side, it’s like having the strength of a hundred people!” and, “I’m definitely gonna become the strongest swordsman in the whole world!”—the kind of things that made you want to cringe with secondhand embarrassment.
And you happened to bear a striking resemblance to a departed companion of hers from long ago.
That was why, when she first met you, she had momentarily lost her composure.
You’d also grumbled in front of her about that irresponsible boyfriend of hers.
You’d called him unreliable, heartless, and a total scumbag.
But Mei hadn’t refuted a single word of it.
Only, her eyes had occasionally shimmered with a faint glisten of moisture.
And the gaze with which she looked at you had grown ever gentler.
After you’d learned that “Acheron” was merely an alias of hers, you’d decided to bestow a domineering title upon yourself as well—Nether Styx!
This name came from a work you’d encountered on the interstellar network.
One of the characters in it had perfectly suited your taste, and one of his traits was very similar to yours.
What was the line again…
“So long as the Sea of Blood does not run dry, the Nether Styx shall not perish”…
The moment you’d read that, you’d abruptly thought of your Nihility Connection Equation.
It was an absolutely perfect match!
So you’d decided to borrow this title for yourself.
“Mm…”
The atmosphere grew heavy with silence.
For the first time, you felt the stifling weight of parting.
You wanted to smile and offer her some comfort, but you found that all you could manage was to twist the corners of your mouth with great difficulty, producing a stiff, rigid smile.
Ever since you’d roughly come to understand the past, it had been a long time since you’d truly smiled.
You fell silent.
Acheron, too, was a person of few words—she buried everything deep in her heart.
And so these few sentences were among the sparse conversations the two of you had shared in recent years.
And this conversation, in turn, had farewell as its theme…
which was why the atmosphere had become what it was.
“…Want a peach?”
Then she asked, “Want a peach?”
For some reason, seeing this, the heavy knot of melancholy in your chest suddenly loosened a great deal.
A long-lost smile climbed onto your face.
You snatched the peach from her hand and took a ferocious bite.
Then you turned and strode away, waving a hand behind you without looking back.
“See you, Mei!” You felt, in this moment, that you were the very picture of nonchalant cool.
Acheron only watched your retreating figure in silence.
Her eyes carried a trace of loneliness and sorrow.
She could see it clearly—your death had already become an inevitability.
The final outcome would be one of three:
Harboring the will to die, you would take your own life.
Beneath the shadow of Nihility, you would lose yourself.
The stirrings of Mara would rise in your heart, and you would enter self-annihilation.
Not until your figure had vanished entirely from the far edge of her sight did she murmur softly to herself, “That idiot…
it was you all along…”
Perhaps your appearance had changed.
Your memories, your past, your identity—all of them had changed.
But in the instant of reunion, her heartbeat had recognized you before her memories had.
That heart, which had once beaten for you, had, once again, begun to stir.
Yet seeing you silently take that step backward, she had been forced to sober herself.
You might still be him.
But you were no longer the him who had once belonged to her…
When you heard the words he had once spoken with his arms wrapped around her neck—you felt embarrassment now, too…
Just then, a fine, pattering rain began to drift down from the sky.
She stood dazed for a moment.
Then she unfurled her crimson oil-paper umbrella and silently turned her head, walking in the direction of the River of Oblivion.
[Year 820.
Wandering through the cosmos, you encountered a strange group of people—Annihilation Scholars.]
They were Pathstriders who walked the Path of Destruction, yet their bodies were also coiled with the energy of the Path of Erudition.
How could one achieve the greatest detonation with the lowest expenditure?
How could a few choice words tip the balance of an entire planetary war?
When a certain parameter dropped below its threshold, the extinction triggered by the butterfly effect would unfold in ways no one could possibly anticipate.
They believed that destruction was the most perfect art in all existence.
No matter how exquisite the cosmic model, in the end, it was fated to be annihilated in fury.
“If there exists a formula sufficient to describe all things in the universe…
I believe it can only be Destruction!!!
You listened to their death-howls, like those of zealous fanatics, without a single ripple stirring in your heart.
You simply activated the Nihility Infection Equation for them and watched as they dissolved into nothingness.
From their memories, you read that the number of planets harboring intelligent life that had been destroyed by their experiments had already exceeded a hundred.
As for those without intelligent life?
Countless.
You did not claim to be any kind of saint.
But when it came to those who annihilated entire civilizations…
at the very least, you—who bore the bones of billions upon your back—could not simply stand by and do nothing.
[Year 823.
You encountered a group of people who revered you as their leader.]
They were obsessive Hunters walking the Path of the Hunt—fanatical zealots of Lan!
Their lifelong mission was to hunt the Denizens of Abundance and the Aeon of Abundance, even if it meant slaughtering entire planets.
They saw “purification” as the sole form of justice.
The moment they laid eyes upon the sword in your hand, they transformed into your most loyal followers.
From their words, you learned that this was a blessing conferred by the Aeon of the Hunt upon an Emanator—equivalent to the Venerant Spirits of the Seven Arbiter-Generals.
Only, you had beaten it into the shape of a sword.
You integrated this information with your own memories, and a dawning understanding settled over you.
So, back then, it had been the Reignbow Arbiter who had loosed that arrow toward the Devourer of Worlds, Rahu.
And that arrow had served both as pursuit…
and as a blessing.
Otherwise, by all logic, that single arrow could have effortlessly blasted the entire star system apart.
How could it have failed to detonate a single Activated Planet?
And it was precisely because of that arrow that you had been able to survive in that environment.
For without its suppression of the Devourer of Worlds, Rahu, you would most likely have died at its hands long ago.
Toward Lan, you couldn’t help but feel a surge of gratitude.
And toward the Abominations of Abundance, your loathing deepened even further.
As for the Sky Hunters’ devotion, you did not drive them away.
You tacitly permitted their existence.
At times, you even felt they were being a bit too conservative.
When a planet was already completely overrun by Abominations of Abundance, was merely slaughtering them all truly sufficient to eliminate all hidden dangers?
If the entire planet were simply blown apart…
No, no, wait.
I think I might be getting a little too extreme.
[Year 832.
Your Hunt-driven contingent gradually swelled in size.]
A band of obsessive Hunters walking the Path of the Hunt—the Flame-Chasing Hunters—also silently joined the ranks following behind you.
They used their own bodies as arrows, igniting the Path itself to track their prey.
Even if it meant mutual destruction, they would see the hunt through to its completion.