Chapter 23: Directive: Eliminate

The girl walked through the darkness, trudging along a muddy path.

A black moon hung overhead, terrifyingly large, as if it were pressed against the city sky. One could almost touch it from a rooftop.

‘I… seem to…’

Chihaya Sayo smiled bitterly and kept walking, letting the pouring rain soak her.

If she remembered right… she had already died, hadn’t she?

She could even feel the agony of flames burning her body, and vaguely see her form carbonized by artillery fire, utterly destroyed.

If only she could let the ‘Rule’ inside her act… maybe she could turn the tide completely. But…

It had said it was Rule, nothing more. It had no desire to live, so naturally it would not willingly take over the mess she left behind.

‘Your power and hers were always shared. It is Rule, nothing more. It is only because you refuse to accept your true self.’

Her true self…

The girl stopped and slowly extended her slender hands.

Her true self?

She was no protagonist, no important figure. In her previous life she was just a low-level employee at the bottom of society, a nobody who had never even killed a chicken. Even with a Spirit’s power… she could not be as decisive and ruthless as the protagonists in real novels.

Chihaya Sayo shook her head and stopped thinking. She kept walking, even though…

Even though she had no idea where the road led.

Maybe a waste like her should never have transmigrated. Such a good chance given to a piece of trash… it would have been better to give it to a stray dog by the roadside…

‘And so, the mission you bear is to…’

“A mission?”

Chihaya Sayo let out a soft laugh and did not answer.

What mission? That ridiculous mission to destroy humanity and eradicate evil?

What a joke. In her previous life she had been a decent young person with sound values. How could she do something so horrible?

Besides…

A villain who destroys the world for no reason does not exist. Her dream was simple: to live peacefully in a quiet city. Why would she destroy the world? Even if she succeeded, she would only be buried with the ruined world.

‘Correction: destroy humanity, not destroy the world.’

“So what? Isn’t it the same thing?”

‘The world can function fine without humanity. War, suspicion, jealousy, hatred… these are carved into the human soul. As long as humans exist in this world, hatred and evil will naturally evolve from unequal distribution of interests. This cannot be changed… Five thousand years of human history proves it, and they will continue along this set path.’

“Heh…”

Chihaya Sayo lifted her head, as if questioning herself, yet also answering that nonexistent voice.

“Aren’t I human too?”

‘Once you became a Spirit, you left the category of human… You need to change your perspective. You no longer stand on humanity’s side. Behind you is the will of a planet already riddled with wounds. What you must do now is simple, something as great as what Jehovah did: destroy the world and recreate all things. You will become the god who destroys evil, recorded in the future Book of a New Genesis.’

The Lord saw how great humanity’s wickedness on earth had become, and He declared He would use a flood to destroy all living creatures under heaven that had flesh and breath. Not one would survive.

But…

Chihaya Sayo stopped softly.

“All people are born free and equal. I have no right to control others’ fates, no right to bring judgment upon them. Even if someone is utterly wicked, they should be punished by their own nation.”

‘But law only targets the weak masses like you, nothing more. Look at that island nation dumping waste into the sea, killing countless marine creatures. What law can punish them? Look at those Western powers conducting military operations in other countries and seizing their resources and property. What law can punish them? What you speak of is something born from evil itself, merely a tool to restrain ordinary people.’

“But there are still good people in this world. This is too extreme.”

The girl gritted her teeth and persisted, her voice rising despite herself.

Without her noticing, the rain had grown denser and completely soaked her clothes, coating her in a gray-white filter.

In this world of black and white, the last light of the world seemed about to vanish.

‘So what? Didn’t Jehovah do the same? And we possess power comparable to His. We can reshape heaven and earth… leave a spark of hope for the good, make them the foundation of a new genesis… don’t we?’

“But… but…”

The girl fell silent and took a few steps back. She knew she was not clever and had no idea how to refute that mad, evil plan, but…

For some reason, it all felt very wrong.

‘Don’t you want a peaceful, stable life? With your identity, you can never live peacefully in human society. Unless you come with me and change heaven and earth, create a perfect species without humanity’s flaws, and remake the world…’

The sky was torn by wind and rain. Chihaya Sayo lifted her head and looked into the vast sky. A black moon hung there.

No, not one. Two enormous black moons hung symmetrically in the sky. Then…

The two full moons flickered.

Crimson light scattered from them. A titanic figure coiled through the endless night, faintly visible. Around that enormous thing was pure, ultimate darkness and evil. Each breath it took seemed to gather the star-breath of the entire world.

****

“Report: Jormungand confirmed eliminated. Only… only…”

“Only what? Nightmare has already broken into the DEM building. If you don’t go support now, the Second Spirit really will be taken!”

Honestly, Ellen was disappointed.

Was this the Spirit of pure ‘evil’ Westcott had spoken of? Far too weak.

If she had not seen the girl blown apart by artillery through the live feed, she would never have believed this was Jormungand, the one in Tengu City said to have slaughtered over three hundred thousand people.

She could definitely kill ‘Nightmare’, but Ellen did not intend to act.

After all, Westcott’s goal had never been to kill those Spirits. The Second Spirit’s value had been squeezed nearly dry. The original plan was to release the Second Spirit and trigger an Inversion. Since Nightmare happened to want to rescue her, they might as well let her have the Second Spirit.

But they could not simply give the Second Spirit away for nothing. If someone wanted to snatch her… they would have to leave something behind.

“Report: The shadow Jormungand left behind seems to be moving… It looks like…”

“Huh?”

A clone trick? Or some resurrection method?

That was not unusual. After all, Nightmare had openly died in front of her many times. If she was a Spirit… strange abilities were no surprise.

Ellen watched with some exasperation as the black substance where Jormungand had stood slowly surged upward, forming a black fluid mass that moved like an upright worm.

This seemed to be…

In the image, the magicians kept attacking that strange black fluid mass, but it had no effect.

Somewhat…

Ellen frowned. Just looking at that completely inhuman fluid on the screen filled her with a strange confusion…

It seemed…

The black fluid slowly receded, and Jormungand reappeared in the same spot, unharmed.

She stood quietly like a dormant doll, her chest not even rising or falling.

The shadow beneath Chihaya Sayo’s feet spread rapidly, covering every corner of the city in mere tens of breaths.

This was…

The magicians around swallowed. An indescribable fear slowly clenched their hearts.

It was an emotion beyond control, like ants seeing their natural enemy, seeing an existence completely beyond their dimension…

A Spirit? No, perhaps this was a god?

That absurd thought appeared in everyone’s mind, and in an instant it was carved deep into their souls.

What seized the magicians’ hearts was not only fear, but anger, sorrow, anxiety… Real time had passed only an instant, yet each of them felt as if they had lived through countless ups and downs.

Except for the Chihaya Sayo before them, there was nothing else in their eyes. They feared her, hated her… though even they did not know where these inexplicable emotions came from.

But…

“Damn Spirit!”

This was the pained cry of the British AST captain.

“Vile Spirit!”

This was the angry shout of a DEM magician squad leader.

Everyone forgot another, seemingly more important matter. Everyone forgot their special orders before the operation. Everyone was urgently calling for support from AST branches across Britain and the DEM magicians stationed there. Everyone used their most familiar attacks against the thing that merely stood there and filled them with loathing, fear, and hatred. They even… abandoned ranged anti-Spirit equipment to fight in close quarters.

Humans should be like this.

At the center of the shadow, Chihaya Sayo slowly opened her eyes. There was no trace of her earlier fear or panic, nor any excess emotion.

What stood here now was not Chihaya Sayo, but a simple ‘Rule’.

The girl parted her lips slightly and looked at the swarming magicians. She slowly raised her palm.

“Execute directive… Eliminate.”

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