In Another World with Absolute Awareness

While Aventine conversed with the voices inside his head, the rest of Very Sighed were all staring grimly at the terrifyingly clean cuts beneath Kirivan’s coffin.

A hole had been sliced through by an impossibly sharp blade, looking as if space itself had vanished along the edges.

Quince felt a shiver running up his spine.

All of the enchantments had similarly been cut, and not by any magical spell. No, it bore the same traces as the hole itself.

Whatever sliced through was definitely infinitely sharp... but no larger than a bread knife.

That was what Ghush and Pulvir, being melee fighters, understood.

The cuts, although clean, were numerous. Each area had multiple slices in the same direction, and there was a general unevenness when looked at from afar.

"...What in the world...?"

The demons all looked at each other for a few moments and decided not to meddle with the peculiarity. It was already good that they had achieved their goal.

"Let’s go?" Shima asked.

"Mm," Li’lsuo agreed.

"...What about the other treasures?" Ghush eyed the remaining enchanted compartments.

"Leave them. I just got a really bad feeling in my stomach. Should be a foul omen." Pulvir answered.

And with that, they passed by Aventine on the way out and vanished.

"Heh,"

Still conversing with the voices in his head, he followed the group. In his hand was a breadknife-sized blade, <Astraeu’s Letter Opener>, which was a knife so sharp it could cut through space.

The embodiment of ’separation’ and an absurd existence that made no sense whatsoever.

At least, until he discovered its background.

Since he had the mana battery called the <Wyrm With No Name>, Aventine had checked a few days ago.

It existed because a god made a mistake.

Astraeu, who was still a mortal, had imbued his letter opener with his emotions of separation, having received a letter from his lover telling him that their relationship was over.

Then, when Astraeu ascended to become the God of Love... his letter opener, buried in a desk somewhere in Leisha, had also received a gift from the <Laws> in Astraeu’s jurisdiction, allowing it to ’separate’ all things.

Even space itself.

Thus.

"Can I cut off all these damn souls somehow?"

—[ Ah! How violent of you, dear master! ]

—[ Don’t abandon us! Noooooo! ]

—[ Have mercyyyyyyy! ]

Aventine’s brow twitched.

Somehow, these pleading voices were more annoying than the worm’s incessant swearing.

’Perhaps it’s because they don’t have any mana I can drain to silence them.’

Just like his own soul, all the souls anchored to the crystalline staff were indestructible. They did not require a source of energy to continue existing.

And, unless Aventine somehow destroyed <Soul Permanence> completely, these souls would keep on living.

"Sigh,"

Suffering from even more voices in his head, Aventine felt a headache coming on.

It had been a while since he had a non [Absolute Awareness]-related headache.

To think it was this...

’Well, at least they do know a lot of things...’

The souls anchored to <Soul Permanence> were from various eras and lived very different lives.

With them as leverage and fulcrum, Aventine suddenly gained access to a wealth of historical knowledge.

So...

Perhaps they could stay for a while.

’Either way, they pay rent without knowing they do.’

Thinking this, Aventine placed his focus back on the present.

** *

The return trip through the crypt was done in silence.

Having fought together through a tense situation, the group moved based on their latest habits. Their teamwork with their guide, Aventine, had also improved drastically.

With unwavering trust in their scout’s abilities, they acted solely on the information he provided. Preparations were always done with his words as the focal point.

Thus, they ended every skirmish in three to four strikes.

Even large groups of skeletons were wiped out with a single spell from Quince and Aventine’s timing.

Most of the time, the party did not need to fight.

They just slipped past the unruly throngs and fled through the crypt’s thin corridors.

Eventually, they made it out, only slightly winded.

The only problem was Ghush.

The Undead’s blight had spread throughout his system, and since <Berserker’s Rage> was no longer active...

He was growing weaker by the minute.

"Damn it... his wounds really won’t heal no matter what I do—"

Li’lsuo had exhausted her repertoire of shamanism. No injection of vitality was making a dent.

The berserker had simply absorbed too much blighting that it was on the verge of condensing into Malevolent Miasma.

Ghush, however, did not seem worried.

No, perhaps it was more accurate to say that he no longer had the ability to be worried.

His mind was blank. His gaze was still sharp... but it lacked the passion of a rabid berserker.

There was barely any movement in his chest as his lungs drew in less and less oxygen.

And, as if matching his slowing metabolism, even his heart rate dropped.

Aventine raised a brow, intrigued by the effect of the blighting as it polluted the demon’s body.

It wasn’t exactly killing him the same way other poisons did.

Instead, it seemed like it was slowly devouring his life force and using that energy to convert his body and soul into an Undead.

[Absolute Awareness].

Aventine peered through Ghush’s skin and flesh, watching as a spontaneous process occurred between his cells.

The bacteria in his system were evaporating, silencing their metabolism and therefore hindering their ability to convert materials at the micro scale.

Was that why the Undead only smelled of rot, yet never truly completed that process? Was that also why elite Undead had no scent at all?

It seemed like they terminated all life, even the microorganisms in charge of degradation.

Not just that.

It seemed like the state of Undeath also affected certain spontaneous chemical reactions. Cellular respiration died off entirely. Catabolism and ATP hydrolysis also stopped.

Proteins were no longer broken down and digested. Free energy no longer drove the non-spontaneous cellular processes in the body.

The only thing that did not die was the viruses.

’Does that count as a way to debate whether viruses are considered living or not?’

Aventine suddenly felt a weird urge to write a research paper.

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