The Foreigner on the Periphery

The Tentacle King asked herself a question.

Had the Committee's atmosphere ever been this grim?

"..."

The attendees in the virtual-reality meeting room had sat in silence for several minutes. This scene had played out multiple times today.

The king spoke in a frigid tone.

"If you have all sufficiently cooled your nerve cords or your brains, speak up. Are you telling me we have no viable plan? Clashing head-on with those who have nothing to lose will only hurt us. We need a strategy to tie them down longer and strike a meaningful blow."

She gestured at the screen with a tentacle and spoke.

"Look. 157 enemy ships have already breached the first layer of the Dimensional Wall."

Someone spoke up.

Pointless nitpicking.

A classic Kavite manner of speech.

The Tentacle King felt a spike of intense irritation. Who didn't know that? The current Dimensional Wall was a double-layered structure—the Committee had merely plastered a second layer over the wall that had existed since ancient times.

In other words, the Committee lacked the technological prowess to create a dimensional framework out of nothing. But that hardly mattered right now.

Suppressing her murderous intent, the king corrected her statement.

"Regardless, the fact remains that they are only a single dimensional jump away from crossing over."

"But they won't be able to breach it easily, will they? Even if they use those body renewal materials."

The Committee had recently gone beyond simply locking down all the Terminals in Dimension #00-001; they had dismantled the equipment entirely. This ensured that even if Asiph-1 spent a grueling amount of time brainwashing the operators, the facilities would remain useless.

Of course, that alone would not stop the tentacles' Jump Magic. So the Committee had played one more card.

The king spoke with an affirming look.

"Correct. Right now, our world... Dimension #00-001 is effectively sealed. Whether they use Jump Magic or board a Jump Ship, they will face resistance dozens of times stronger than normal."

That resistance was enough to turn a Jump Ship to dust; it was a pressure that would kill even an Endelion or an Ancient Dragon mid-transit.

Although the Committee could not touch the Dimensional Wall that had existed since ancient times, they had instead fortified their second, man-made wall to its absolute limit.

"However, monsters like Asiph-1 or Asif-666 might be able to cross over on their own. We must not lower our guard."

"With the operation to expend the prisoners having already failed, our remaining options are..."

As the meeting continued.

Beeeeep!

The Tentacle King's protrusions twitched. A familiar warning klaxon had echoed from somewhere—one eerily similar to the alarm that had blared on the day of the horrific terrorist attack not long ago.

Only this time, the sound was muffled and distant, faint enough that she almost suspected it was an auditory hallucination.

The Tentacle King soon realized the warning came from the physical location of another attendee's avatar. Specifically, the newly elected Kavite grand commissioner. The noise from his physical reality had bled into the virtual meeting room.

"What is this?!"

The Kavite appeared to be receiving a report on a separate line.

A moment later, the Tentacle King lamented that she had grown accustomed enough to that race to read a worm's expression. She could clearly identify the stark horror and dread dawning on the Kavite's face. Under the current circumstances, it was a deeply unwelcome sight.

"A d-disaster!"

Before the Kavite could even finish speaking.

Beeeeep!

Wooooooo!

Similar klaxons began to blare one after another from the physical spaces of the other attendees.

*

"What is that?!"

The Committee's mining base.

Deep underground, at the very core of the planet. Elite warriors were converging before a massive door placed where the planetary core should have been.

The group was a mix of Todds and Kavites, alongside a handful of ultra-small—by their standards—golems sent by the Endelions. The Kavites, having taken control of the Mint Bureau, had accepted reinforcements from the other races.

Their eyes were all glued to a single spot.

Thump! Thump-thump!

This was the site that had once voraciously harvested Talents. Before the war, it had been a space brimming with physical and spiritual energy, echoing endlessly with deafening noise. Lately, however, it had fallen into a cold silence.

Now, for the first time in a long while, a violent clamor was shaking the area.

It was an unexpected and thoroughly unwelcome change.

Bang! Cra-crack! Thump!

The triple-layered barrier walls were warping and bulging outward in various places. It felt as though someone on the other side was desperately trying to break through.

That was absurd. Who could it possibly be?

"...What?!"

Arriving in a frantic rush, the Ancient Race warriors recoiled in horror when they saw the shapes distorting the wall.

The bubbles rising from the metal wall looked like faces pressed into a plaster mold. Considering this was Magic Metal—a substance far harder than steel—the sight was bloodcurdling.

The warriors could easily identify the shapes of those faces. They matched the exact racial makeup of the forces gathered here.

Meaning most of them were Kavites and Todds.

Phantom faces bloomed like flowers across the frigid metal surface. There was the head of a Kavite, screaming with its round mouth stretched to the limit. There was the visage of a Todd, warped in sheer agony.

"No! At this rate, it will...!"

Having received the emergency summons, warriors were still converging from all over the mining base via Teleport and other means.

But before they could all assemble.

Craaaack!

A fissure tore down the center of the barrier.

"Block it!"

The moment the commander shrieked the order, boooom!

A black tempest erupted from the ruptured wall.

And like long-stagnant waters finally bursting a dam, a torrent of phantoms surged out, sweeping over everything.

"Hold the line!"

Because they were the utmost elites, they were not instantly swept away. Though they hadn't predicted the intruders' true identities—and were all the more horrified for it—they had already mobilized various defensive skills and artifacts, bracing themselves for impact. The spectral horde lunged at them.

A flood of the dead.

They surged forward, their spiritually manifested skulls split and oozing brains, flailing their broken limbs. The dead bared jagged teeth at the living. They dug their phantom nails into the warriors, pulling and clawing with desperate hunger.

Horrific psychic echoes rang out incessantly. I hate you. It hurts. The living are disgusting. It is unjust that beings who do not know this suffering still exist. I want to kill you. Die. Kill. The phantoms' minds were filled with pure hatred. They rushed forward, consumed by a thirst for slaughter. Their terrifying, overwhelming momentum refused to be broken by any obstacle.

The elite warriors had withstood the crash of that dark-gray torrent, but they crumbled under the attacks that dug deep into their very souls.

"Aaaagh!"

Starting with that single scream, terrible shrieks began to spread like a horrifying chorus.

Capable of interfering with both the material world and spiritual bodies, the ghosts took aim at the warriors' spirits.

The dead could not permanently fracture or tear apart the souls of the living. Snatching control of their bodies was also impossible.

What they could do, however, was inflict upon the living the same torment they suffered themselves. This was not physical pain, but spiritual torture delivered directly to the soul.

If a warrior struck by this torture showed even the slightest opening, the ghosts lunged without missing a beat. And the instant one Todd finally buckled and dropped to his knees in agony...

"...!"

A beastly scream ripped from his throat.

The phantoms stretched their spiritual bodies like long ropes, sharp awls, or jagged skewers, burrowing into the gaps in his shell. The soft, vulnerable tissue hidden beneath his hardened carapace was violated. The warrior's eyes rolled back from an agony he had never known in his life. The phantoms pierced the dorsal muscles beneath his turtle-like shell and squeezed his internal organs. They hooked onto whatever they could snag and yanked.

A moment later, the Todd's belly bubbled. The shapes protruding from his stomach looked just like the ghostly faces that had pressed against the metal door. As if annoyed that his scaly hide was blocking their path, the ferocious phantoms jabbed outward from within.

Splat!

They burst straight through the Todd's belly and scattered outward. A black firecracker detonated with his body as fuel. Instead of sparks and smoke, chunks of flesh and fresh blood rained down in all directions.

A Kavite in the rear was horrified by the sight. He flared his aura, trying to hold back the ghostly tide. If they could interfere with the material world, then physical attacks should be able to hurt them too.

The moment he prepared to strike.

Swish!

The warrior saw the sky and ground flip upside down.

Had he fallen over?

He struggled with all his might to stand back up, but his body would not obey. Soon, immense agony washed over him. Only after rolling his eyes did he see that his own lower half was tumbling away in the distance.

What had sliced his body in two was a large, round, flat piece of carapace that had flown in from somewhere. The shell the phantoms had ripped from the dead Todd's back had become a terrifying bladed weapon.

Never realizing the identity of the weapon, the Kavite's upper half floated into the air. Phantoms swarmed around the warrior's circular mouth. Then, spreading it wide like a rubber band, they yanked it in all directions.

Riiip! Teeeear! Blood poured from the mouth stretched to its limit. Mixed with clear bodily fluids, it quickly soaked him down to his chest.

And finally.

Squelch!

The Kavite was ripped into seven and a half pieces and scattered. The extra half was because one strip had not been completely detached; it dangled loosely, held together by connected nerves and muscles.

"Nooooooo!"

A mage screaming over his kin's corpse was the next target. Before he could even finish chanting a spell, the dead caught him. He was hoisted high into the air and violently rolled around.

Like eagles snatching their prey, the ghosts spun the mage in the air a few times before shifting direction and going into a steep dive.

Their plunging speed did not slow until the very instant before hitting the ground. Looking as though they meant to bore straight through the floor, the ghosts abruptly shifted their flight angle to near-horizontal the moment they collided with the surface. Even then, they did not stop flying.

Riiiiiip!

The result was the Kavite's body, entirely ground into the floor along their flight path. Like a skid mark, a long streak of dark purple fluids mixed with pale pink viscera trailed behind. It looked exactly like a straight, unhesitating brushstroke of thick paint.

Above the mage's corpse, the phantoms swelled wildly, filling the space. The psychic waves radiating from the dead showed no signs of stopping.

=Kiyaaaaah! Kiiyaaaaah!=

The warriors thrashed wildly, trying to pry off the phantoms gnawing at their napes. Paralyzed after his spine was eaten first, a Todd stared in stunned horror as his living flesh was sliced away like raw fish, slowly going insane.

The physical shrieks of the Ancient Race blended with the psychic wails of the dead.

=It hurts, it hurts, save me, it hurts!=

=Kyaaaaaaah!=

=Stop... Please, just stop!=

While the warriors were tied down by the phantoms, other ghosts scoured the area, nullifying the base's various barriers.

A command was seared vividly into their minds. There was something more important than expressing their hatred toward the living.

Bypassing the warriors guarding the door, the exploring phantoms finally pinpointed their true destination. It was an underground stronghold located just a few kilometers away from Zero Point, their point of entry.

There was another barrier there, different from the one they had already shattered.

"Hold them off!"

Here, too, Ancient Race warriors had formed up to guard the area.

Even with a base-wide emergency declared and the majority of available forces called to Zero Point, these warriors had received special orders to hold their current position without moving.

In the end, a similar fate befell them.

"Kuaaaaagh!"

Tearing, crushing, snapping, mincing, and biting.

The disaster wearing the skin of phantoms instantly reduced the warriors there to chunks of meat.

Finally, once the living had vanished,

=Kyaaa... Kyaaaaaaah!=

Just as they had when piercing the door during their invasion, the dead intertwined their spiritual bodies once more to create a black tornado.

The warriors who had just died never even knew what they were fighting to protect. That reason lay inside this barrier.

Ruummmmble!

After a violent roar and the screech of friction, craaaash!

The barrier shattered into pieces.

The phantoms surged past the broken shards.

=Kyaaah! Kyaaaaaah!=

Because of the name "mining base," people tended to imagine this artificial planet having only one function.

They judged that its sole purpose was to extract Talents from Zero Point. That alone was a monumentally vital function, after all.

However, within the chamber the phantoms had just discovered lay another reason why this artificial planet was a top-priority asset.

There was another facility that absolutely had to be installed at the exact center of the universe.

=Kyaaaaaah!=

Within the chamber unfolded a space just as vast as the area where the phantoms had first invaded.

From a slightly raised pedestal on the floor, a silver beam of light shot forcefully toward the heavens. Far above, up on the ceiling, a crystal-clear, brilliant sphere absorbed that silver beam.

Vwooooom!

The phantoms had no idea that the glowing sphere was the Spatial Folder, an imitation painstakingly developed by the Committee.

The phantoms also did not know that the pillar of light connecting to the sphere became the material and power source for the second Dimensional Wall the Committee had added.

Nor did they know that the place the light would touch and cover after passing through the Spatial Folder was the surface of the Dimensional Wall that had existed since ancient times.

Or that if the transmission of this light were cut off, the energy supply to the Committee's artificial barrier would cease.

Thus, the phantoms also lacked the knowledge that the sections of the barrier closest to this place would vanish first.

They only remembered the god's command.

=Kyaaaaaah!=

Eliminate that pillar of light.

Destroy the altar producing it.

=Kyaaah! Kyaaaaaah!=

Faithful to that directive, the phantoms charged forward.

*

"...!"

The bridge within the Elahu-Praga Order Command Ship.

Minjun smiled.

"It is done."

"What?!"

Minjun rose from his seat and spoke.

"The mold parasitizing the cell wall... no, those cancerous cells have finally been cleanly purged!"

Asiph-1 could not understand all of those words, but he deduced that "cell wall" probably meant the Dimensional Wall.

But why use such terminology?

As if he had no time to answer that question, Minjun immediately vanished from the bridge.

Flash!

Completing a Teleport, he reappeared in the vacuum of space outside the command ship.

The edge of the world was before Minjun.

The Dimensional Wall. A black void that absorbed all light. A pitch-dark curtain where no twinkle of starlight could be seen.

Minjun reached his hand toward the wall. And he began something no one else would dare attempt.

The god's hand touched the Dimensional Wall.

No captain holding the power of life and death over a crew would ever order someone to touch that surface. It would react by violently repelling them instantly.

That was why they relied on the special vehicles known as Jump Ships and the power of a Terminal to fold space and take a detour to bypass it.

Yet now, Minjun touched it without hesitation.

And the repulsion—

Was absent.

'Right.'

There were no stars radiating heat nearby.

So naturally, in this freezing void where not a single speck of warmth should remain...

Minjun felt warmth.

Focusing on the sensation transmitted to his fingertips, Minjun recalled the distant past.

Even the Ancient Race that remembered the distant past believed the Dimensional Wall had inherently existed.

Only someone on the level of the Tentacle King would know it was due to the sudden fragmentation of the universe. But even that king thought of the "dimensional fracture" as a natural phenomenon yet to be explained.

The god murmured inwardly.

'No, this is absolutely not a natural phenomenon.'

Everyone had merely grown accustomed to it and mistakenly assumed it was natural.

This soft, warm wall was originally one of the legacies left behind by the primordial race. For the era far in the future after they naturally awakened from their slumber.

In other words, control over that barrier rested with the primordial race.

And Minjun felt it: the foreign substance that had propagated and clung to the wall's surface like moss—the thing the Committee had added—was losing power, withering, and vanishing. It began with the wall directly wrapping and shielding Dimension #00-001.

Certain that the wall before him had recovered its original, "pure form," Minjun projected his will into it.

'I am here.'

After a brief silence.

'...!'

A will refracted and returned to his fingertips like an echo.

The wall had answered.

The man, who had become a single point in the black universe, smiled faintly.

And he rang out his mind once more.

'Open the door.'

The wall responded to the king's command.

*

"My god, that is...!"

On the bridge, Asiph-1 was reeling in shock at the unimaginable sight before him.

The end of the world rippled and moved, and a hole was tearing open in its center.

Although it opened in a pitch-black wall, its circular outline was clearly visible. Because there—in a void utterly devoid of matter that emitted light, and which absorbed all external illumination—a circular sea brimming with stars was suddenly blooming.

Asiph-1 knew that this was the scenery beyond a round tunnel. The space existing outside the pitch-black wall, the universe of Dimension #00-001, had revealed itself through the circular window.

The moment that hole swelled and expanded enough for a battleship to pass through—

Flash!

Minjun reappeared and sat upon the empty Divine Throne.

The gazes of the bishops, overwhelmed by the miracle just now, poured down upon him.

Receiving those gazes in silence, the god commanded in concise language.

"Entire fleet, advance."

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