#369
Behind Star
The ideal world that must inevitably arrive (Brave New World).
It’s the mental projection of Messiah from the original work and the reason he reigns as the strongest in this world.
A ridiculous ability that nullifies all unauthorized supernatural powers within the mental space.
The only means to counter this ability is the colorless magic.
At the same time, Messiah is the craziest bastard with the strongest belief in this world.
A cult leader lost in his own belief.
Therefore, his mental projection’s effective range covers the entire Earth.
In the original work, as soon as he initiated his mental projection, all heroines and supporting characters, except the protagonist, fell.
I heard a wind sound near my ear.
[Paahhhhtthhner!]
The Black Prince’s voice echoed in my head as if played in slow motion.
I’m not the protagonist of this world.
I don’t possess the colorless magic to nullify Messiah’s abilities.
But right now, I’m using magic inside Messiah’s space.
Woooooong.
I felt a vibration.
I didn’t need to see it to know.
The Earth floating above my head was nullifying Messiah’s mental projection ability.
Like a behind star.
Furthermore, to prevent his mental projection from spreading outside the ruins, the stars, galaxies, and nebulae within my mental world were binding Messiah’s ankles.
My mental projection hasn’t disappeared yet.
“Why…?”
Messiah’s eyes shook.
The confidence that flowed over his face disappeared.
I waved my hand.
Sparkle.
Strange stars began to rise one by one above the sky of the mental projection, the New World, created by Messiah.
“Blessing of the stars.”
Woooooong!
The stars responded, shining under the restraint of my command.
It was the behind star.
The intangible starlight pouring from the brightest star reached the fallen heroines.
Colorful magical energy began to rise from their bodies.
Those who were helplessly on the ground started to rise, regaining their powers with the strength of the behind star.
“I’ll come help right away! I’m your personal maid!”
I heard Olivia’s voice.
“Master! Just hold on a little longer! Eri will be there soon! Master, Eri will protect you!”
“Deok-Sung, wait a moment. Your future bride will be there soon!”
“Wait for me. Your future wife will be along soon!”
“Master’s Master. Please wait a moment. I, the thief Bella, will follow you.”
“Junior!”
“My lord, as your sword, I will protect you!”
“Mr. Kim Deok-Sung. As the Student Council President and your betrothed, I will protect you. Please trust me.”
“Mr. Kim! The teacher will be coming, so just wait a little longer!”
“Hehehe. Deok-Sung Oppa. JK Haru is ready to make a super speedy entrance! You believe in Haru, right?”
“Hey, kid. I’ll be there soon. This time, I will protect you, so…”
“…I will be there shortly…”
The voices of all the Heroines present echoed around.
As they rose from their seats, they charged toward Messiah with determination.
“I don’t know what means you used to stain my New World, but…”
Messiah said with a serious expression.
“…At this point, it’s inevitable to use slightly more aggressive methods.”
Snap.
With a snap of his fingers, a dark flash sparkled from his body.
His form rapidly divided.
His clones, the thought forms, multiplied exactly to the number of Heroines and blocked their paths.
“W-What?! What the heck is this? So sneaky!”
“Ugh… How dare you obstruct the path of Olivia Napoleon Bonaparte?! How rude! Disappear!”
“I will show you the true power of Shinozaki’s style.”
I heard the voices of the Heroines, including Eri, Olivia, and Rin, in my ears.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Soon after, sounds of magic colliding echoed all around.
Messiah’s clones clashed one-on-one against the Heroines on the battlefield.
Messiah.
His clones were thought forms with strength comparable to his own.
Even the Heroines who had regained their magical powers and abilities through the baptism of stars were struggling against such formidable foes.
“Now the battlefield is returning to a one-on-one format. Can you really… ”
Ignoring Messiah’s nonsense, I activated the power rotation technique combining black light and white flame.
White flame wrapped around one half of my body, while the other half was shrouded in dark shadows.
The burning white flame and the sticky black darkness surged along Durandal, perfectly slicing the blade in half.
Finally, my belief imbued the sword.
The dual-edged sword of black and white, the Heaven and Earth Sword, resonated and howled with the flame-infused magic sword Durandal.
White flame and black lightning stretched from the dual-edged blade, tearing apart the illusions created by him.
[Partner! Right! That’s it!]
Swish.
A knight adorned in black armor appeared behind me.
The Black Prince.
The moment overwhelming black magic erupted from the physical form of the Black Prince, I felt it.
A connection between my mind and the Black Prince’s.
It was unity.
Through this unity, his genius talent and experiences were engraved directly in my mind and body.
I swung the dual-edged Durandal.
[Heaven and Earth Sword Technique]
[First Form]
[Earth Break]
【Earth Break】
The first form of Heaven and Earth Sword Technique.
Earth Break.
A fatal downslash that crushes the earth and mountains in one strike, concentrating overwhelming power in the blade.
The action itself was basic swordsmanship, nothing more than a simple downward slash that couldn’t even be called a skill. But the more faithful one is to the basics, the stronger one becomes.
With overwhelming power capable of toppling mountains and tearing apart the earth, this sword technique, focused entirely on a single downward strike without losing even 1% of its force, was supposedly a sure-kill blow according to the original work.
The skill that once shattered the world’s glass barrier with sheer strength finally manifested in my hands.
Despite the horrifyingly overwhelming power infused in Durandal, the process of the downward slash was devoid of any sound or backlash.
It was just frighteningly fast.
Downward slash.
It was a feature of the Heavenly Sword Technique, where 100% of power was concentrated on a single motion without waste.
With energy coalesced beyond a nuclear explosion, the downward slash fell toward the Messiah, scattering the afterimages of the black-and-white blade with chilling silence.
“Ragnarok: End Type── First Form!!”
The Messiah shouted the skill’s name.
Vwoosh!
Along with that, his blade-less sword, Levantein, erupted with swirling black flames.
The black flames that rose from Levantein ignited the space.
A halo floated behind the Messiah’s head, radiating black brilliance.
I knew.
His skill, Ragnarok: End Type, was a skill that embodied the user’s belief, much like my Heavenly Sword Technique.
But unlike my unfinished Heavenly Sword Technique, his Ragnarok: End Type was already complete.
“Fimbulvetr.”
Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!
The first sign of doom.
As the sword technique signifying the winter of disaster unfolded, the area around him rapidly froze.
A realm of absolute zero, where all molecular movement came to a complete halt, spread around him.
Truly, the winter of destruction.
Even in the space where everything was frozen and motionless, the Heavenly Sword advanced, casting light from its black-and-white blade.
“Ghhhhhhaaaaaaaaa!”
I gritted my teeth and shouted.
With the power of the Heavenly Sword and the strength of my backing, I struggled to overlay my own belief onto the absolute zero space he had created.
The belief of the Savior.
While I could accept it when I saw it in the original work, facing his belief in person was overwhelmingly high and profound.
How insane must one be to materialize such a crazy technique in reality?
In the frozen space, the Messiah swung his sword.
It was an incredibly slow, but unavoidable strike.
There was no retreating from here.
The only choice I had was to counterattack.
[Partner······. Argh!]
Ignoring the tragic voice of the Black Prince, I swung the Heavenly Sword down toward the Messiah.
Just then, as the Messiah raised Levantein to parry my downward strike with Durandal—
KABOOM!
A deafening explosion filled my vision with blinding light.
Thump, thump.
The Black Stone in my chest throbbed wildly.
BEEEEEEEEEEEP.
A ringing filled my ears.
The Black Stone vibrated.
At that moment, I felt it.
The imperfect Philosopher’s Stone, the Black Stone, resonated with the Philosopher’s Stone possessed by the Messiah.
“Ugh!”
A headache struck.
Along with that, memories of someone began to fill my mind.
It was the past.
The past of the Messiah, which was shown in both the original novel and the anime.
He lost his parents to the otherworldly beings when he was young, lost his first love to a villain’s terror, and lost his sister because of a hero.
The guy who gained Dokta Shinahel as a subordinate, killed Five Crowns, and corrupted Jude into a Professor.
His twisted beliefs in a warped savior and his obsession with the New World passed by me like a panorama.
He truly believed it.
That psychic powers and magic, gates, and otherworldly beings had tainted this world.
He was convinced that if those things disappeared, a true utopia would unfold, and tragedies stemming from them would never be repeated.
He believed that the New World was humanity’s true salvation.
“Is this guy out of his mind or what?”
His past was surely pathetic.
But that’s beside the point.
It’s true that the pity-worthy past justified his madness, but that did not legitimize the terror and evil he unleashed upon this world.
No matter what his past was, he was now a lunatic trying to annihilate both this world and the real world to create his so-called New World.
Above all, I hated that damn typical light novel trope of glamorizing villains and washing their narratives clean.
So, the Messiah had to be dealt with right here.
For my ultimate goal.
Just then, I thought that.
“…I see.”
The Messiah’s voice echoed.
Along with it, the dazzling light faded away.
In the frozen world, he looked at me with the sun and moon on his head, glowing with a black halo.
“Black Beast. My adversary. Your hometown, your utopia… there exists a novel, a fiction, a light novel recording the information of this world’s past, present, and future. Its title is ‘The Weakest Hero is the World’s Savior,’ and…”
The Messiah laughed.
The space of absolute domination erupted from his body, enveloping the entire ruins.
The sun of day and the moon of night split the sky, casting merciless light upon the frozen world.
My body trembled uncontrollably.
[Partner, what the hell is that…??]
I wanted to move.
I needed to stop that guy from spilling my biggest secret from the mouth of the most insane being in this world.
But I couldn’t move.
His beliefs, the resolution of his twisted salvation manifested as an intangible force that bound my entire body.
“You are the reader who read that novel to the end, and the ‘Kim Deok-Sung’ of the parallel world. Now everything makes sense. Why a mere C-rank suitability would grow close to being my adversary, and why you could obstruct my New World plans at every turn. It’s truly absurd, it leaves me speechless. Ha, hahahahaha, hahahahahahaha!!”
The Messiah laughed.
In a voice that everyone could hear, he exposed my secret.
Indeed.
Just as I had checked his past, he, in reverse, had seen mine through the resonance of the Black Stone and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Groaning.
My teeth ground together.
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