From the moment he was born, he already knew what he needed to do.
It was something terribly vague, yet he could somehow feel an unwavering certainty that he would never stray from the right direction.
If from the very beginning, the place you were meant to go had already been decided—and you could follow that path without a single question—and if it filled you with more joy than anything else in the world...
Then... wouldn't that truly be a wonderful, wonderful life?
And so, he—
Spent this day as well, reveling in his existence without harboring a single doubt.
Without a moment's hesitation, he greedily hoarded magic power and crushed other lives beneath his feet. He obtained the power to look down upon everything, positioning himself at the pinnacle of all things.
Clutching that absolute certainty—which didn't even need to be called resolve—to his heart...
He, today as well—declared the name of the magic
that had created him
to be his own name and identity, and set about annihilating everything in his path.
◆
If things continued like this, he was going to die.
Pelted by an endless rain of magic, Karma arrived at that conclusion with absolute certainty.
Ermes's analysis was impeccable. By relentlessly bombarding him with magic that exceeded his capacity to respond, they were wearing him down before adaptation could take hold. The fact that they had calculated every last bit of his reserves—his magic power and all other capacities—and prepared exactly enough to drain him completely was nothing short of brilliant.
Therefore, if this continued, he would be obliterated and killed.
Yes. If things stayed the way they were now.
And so, Karma began to think.
(—
Then
,
if I just evolve now,
that's all there is to it, right?
)
He concluded, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.
And continued thinking — about how he should evolve.
They were trying to kill him by attacking at a speed that exceeded the limits of his adaptive ability — in other words, his greatest trait: Evolution.
Ah, then what he needed to do was simple.
— Just evolve faster than that.
Become able to adapt to everything more swiftly and precisely than before, to learn magic.
If he could
become
a creature
right
now,
in this very moment—
be
reborn—
that would be enough.
.
Truly, a child's way of thinking.
It was a jest that didn't even rise to the level of armchair theorizing — the kind of nonsense everyone would dismiss with a scoff, saying, "If that were possible, nobody would ever have to struggle."
And yet.
He was, perhaps, the only person in the world at this moment who could actually do it.
Karma only needed to think it. That alone was enough — his body, the supreme flesh forged by primordial magic, would begin moving of its own accord to make it a reality.
More precisely. More robustly.
His body underwent transformation after transformation, enabling an evolution swifter than ever before. The magic inscribed on his body — or rather, his very being, where every single cell that composed him was magic itself — soon arrived at the answer.
The reason evolution took time in the first place was that cells were normally at rest. They existed in a state of stillness, unchanging. Just as no creature could suddenly accelerate to maximum speed, nothing that had stopped could undergo rapid change.
So, then, reverse the thinking. All that was needed was a state of constant, ceaseless change.
It need only be magic that never stopped moving, that accumulated evolution without pause for even a single second or single instant. Rather than a point of stillness, it must be an existence like a ring, tracing infinite cycles. A being whose entire flesh was composed of such magic.
With a pulse, the cells sprang to life. They underwent tremendous, repeated transformations — fierce enough to rival the magic that surged through them without cease.
Karma did not doubt that this attempt would succeed. Not the slightest crack appeared in his conviction that he was precisely this kind of being.
How much trouble Ermes and the others had gone through trying to defeat him — he couldn't have cared less.
What those who opposed him felt, what intentions they harbored — not a single one of those things factored into his consideration.
Just as a child easily topples a sandcastle. Karma made the world as he willed it, as he desired it.
Those who followed him survived. Those who defied him were swiftly removed. This world was built that way, and his body was built to make it so.
(...Ah, now that he thought about it. One of the people he had killed so far had said something rather nice.)
His own body, transforming with tremendous force. As he luxuriated in that flow, Karma wove one final thought, and a single phrase surfaced in his mind.
(—'Those who believe shall be saved.' ...Ah,
Absolutely.
Without a doubt.
That's exactly right.
—isn't it?)
All I have to do is believe.
Just that alone, and everything will fall into place exactly as I wish.
That is precisely what makes magic so wonderful.
With that final thought, he grew certain that his body had crossed into an entirely new realm.
And there, at its uttermost end—
◆
"......"
Every last spell had been spent.
Everything Ermes could wield at this point—every ounce of magic at their disposal—had been hammered out in full, with nothing held in reserve.
Undeniably, without question, every shred of power that could be squeezed out in this very instant had been exhausted.
And yet.
"......Ah."
The moment Karma's voice—something that should never have been heard—drifted from the settling dust of the magic's impact.
Ermes's defeat was absolute.
"I should say thank you, right? For times like this—when you were able to accomplish something thanks to someone else.
In this case—thanks to you, I was able to become something even greater than I was before."
He said that.
The moment I saw Karma emerge from the dust cloud, a tremor ran through me, and with it came a chilling certainty.
Impossible.
Things like this
should not
be.
Right before me.
Just as Karma had declared, he had transmuted into something entirely different from before.
No living creature should emit such magic power. Should contain such magic. Its structure, its very existence, everything imaginable had left far behind the common sense of anything I had ever seen, placing it in a realm where I couldn't even be sure it was alive, the boy standing before me.
And above all.
Despite being such an entity—his outward appearance was utterly unchanged. That single, jarring incongruity only amplified the eeriness, the alienness, and above all, the overwhelming sense of transcendence.
"So, as thanks—"
Karma spoke.
"—all the magic I received from you, I'm returning it now, okay?"
At the same time, he amplified his magic power. Without even a chant.
All the magic Ermes had unleashed until now—
All of it, simultaneously—
Without any motion at all, he fired it off.
"—!"
There was no way to resist.
The barrier magic hastily deployed, swallowed up in an instant before that overwhelming volume of power. A swarm of magic identical to his own yet incomparably more powerful surged toward Ermes with no recourse.
"Ermes!"
Lucius too cried out at the scene unfolding before his eyes.
He had witnessed something impossible, but what needed doing now was obvious. Since the plan had failed, there was no reason to remain — seize whatever slim hope of survival Ermes still had, extract him, regroup quickly, and move on to the next—
He couldn't even execute such a course of action, let alone find the time to think it through.
Before that, such a luxury was hopelessly out of reach.
"As for you—"
When he came to his senses, Karma was right in front of him.
At a speed that far surpassed his own, with agility so extreme it defied even sight.
Or rather—closing the distance at a pace that even Lucius, the fastest in the kingdom, couldn't react to, Karma drove a fatal fist into his gut without so much as a thought.
"Guh—"
"I was just genuinely irritated, you know. Because unlike that girl, you don't have any magic worth showing me, yet you're still strong. So I'm killing you. That's all there is to it."
And so.
With a tone so innocently arrogant it was terrifying, he spoke his farewell.
"There's no way a creature faster than me should be allowed to exist in this world, right?"
At a speed like a cruel joke, he sent him hurtling to the far beyond.
One strike.
Ermes with magic, Lucius with fists—in their respective domains, the fields where each should have been the strongest, and yet Karma had still felled each in a single blow.
He surveyed the surroundings, the broader state of battle beyond this fight, and spoke.
"…Yeah."
With a satisfied smile, everything was going exactly as planned.
"
They're doing
just fine
,
the Monsters
are winning.
……At this rate, I suppose I could slaughter all the other humans before too long. ……Well, I've got nothing better to do. Maybe I'll go lend a hand."
With that, he casually kicked off the ground at an inhuman speed.
—The rampage had begun.
Next update is scheduled for Saturday, November 5th.
I'll do my best to write the decisive battle all at once, so I hope you'll keep reading from next time on!