The Foreigner on the Periphery

The order and the Committee.

Both sides opened fire simultaneously, launching a concentrated bombardment at each other.

Photon cannons and missiles rained down like a downpour, locking onto their targets. Fiery blooms of nuclear fusion blossomed everywhere as torrents of energy swept through the void.

Commander Todd paid close attention to the order's movements.

“Oh?”

Staying clustered made them an easy target for concentrated fire. Yet, the order's fleet maintained its tight formation even after the engagement began.

It proved once again that the tentacles' prediction was correct.

“Let's see how long you can hold out.”

Following his orders, the Committee's trap-like formation began to tighten. The artificial intelligence precisely calibrated the destructive power and range of the photon cannons.

“Struggling is useless!”

The Committee had been terrified when they heard the dimensional barrier was breached. The news that 157 battleships had crossed into Dimension #00-001 all at once was a horrific report. If those ships scattered across the dimension, they could attempt a brutal guerrilla war.

However, the order was moving as a single mass. The commander figured this was inevitable for a hastily assembled army relying on a mind-control ability user.

“Very good. Closer! Narrow the gap!”

Countless missiles detonated as photon cannon fire scattered. A massive explosive reaction registered on the Committee's radar.

“Confirmed enemy battleship shot down!”

It was only one ship for now, but the commander was certain the pace would only accelerate from here.

“The enemy is retreating!”

It seemed they realized there was no chance of winning like this after losing a single ship.

The commander was highly satisfied with a battle situation that was playing out much easier than expected.

‘What, is this all they amount to?’

Todd smiled.

“Too late for that now. Entire fleet, pursue!”

This was their chance to wipe them out while they were still clustered. If the enemy realized their mistake and belatedly scattered to hide across Dimension #00-001, it would become a massive headache.

Burning with fighting spirit, the commander roared for pursuit.

And so, they began to push further and further toward the outskirts of the star system.

   *

The mining base was a small celestial body merely 3,000 kilometers in diameter.

Nevertheless, this artificial planet did not orbit by the pull of the star system's sun or other planets; it remained permanently fixed in one location.

For the ancient race, even the slightest movement of the base would be disastrous. Since the location of the Talent vent—the Zero Point—was fixed, the machinery and facilities connected to it also had to maintain their exact positions.

Thus, Endelion had used magic to imbue the surface of this artificial planet with an incredibly heavy mass.

The sheer mass distorted the spacetime around the base, and the resulting gravitational field continuously adjusted itself according to the trajectories and distances of neighboring planets to prevent the base from being dragged away.

Of course, if that terrifying gravity affected the residential or operational areas inside the base, the people and machinery would inevitably be crushed into grotesque shapes. Therefore, those spaces were protected by localized anti-gravity fields.

The king of Endelion feared that the rampaging ghosts might tamper with those very protective systems. If that happened, the interior of the base would be subjected to the massive gravitational field of the outer hull, ultimately reducing it to a hollow lump of scrap metal.

=Kiyaaaaaah!=

A gruesome hellscape was still unfolding inside the base.

Dark gray waves surged and burst everywhere. A tide of spirits filled the corridors, flicking their greedy tongues.

=Aaaaagh!=

=Save me, help... It hurts so much!=

=Gyaaa, aaaaah!=

Even after achieving their goal of destroying the altar that emitted the silver pillar of light, the ghosts did not halt their violent rampage. There were still many survivors inside the base. The spirits relentlessly threw themselves at the living.

The resilient warriors held out to the end, fighting back against the phantoms. Believing the Committee headquarters would send reinforcements if they just waited, they launched counterattacks against the maddened ghosts.

Such pandemonium could not be observed from the outside. At least, not with the naked eye.

A massive celestial body, incomparably larger in scale, approached the mining base and its smooth metallic decks. It was a planet where the boundaries between continents and oceans were cut as perfectly as if drawn with a ruler. There wasn't a single prominent ridge on the land, let alone a mountain range.

The homeworld of Endelion.

The tentacle operator driving their star reported.

“Entering firing range. Halting movement.”

The tentacles' planet had traveled along the path with the lowest concentration of interstellar matter before stopping at a distance where its gravity wouldn't interfere with the attractive force of the mining base.

The trajectory the planet carved during this movement was relatively short, as it had already been relocated to the center of the dimension prior to this.

“No, what on earth is the king trying to do now?!”

Due to the king's emergency order broadcast in the meantime, the citizens of Endelion were once again thrown into mass hysteria, fleeing to the Shelter. The news of the dimensional barrier being breached had been withheld due to information control, but it was obvious that the tide of war was taking a dire turn.

Only a few of them maintained their composure, looking up at the sky.

It was common for the constellations above to change as their habitat moved, but right now, they had approached one planet far too closely.

A special planet that couldn't be mistaken for any other star.

“The mining base?!”

“Why are we suddenly all the way out here?”

Confused and oblivious to the reason, they suddenly felt the earth tremble.

Rumble!

The continent facing the mining base split open, and a towering spire began to rise. It was a facility they believed wasn't nearly ready to see the outside air. A researcher tentacle shrieked in horror.

“That's... That's the new Execution Tower we've been building?!”

When prisoners captured by the Committee failed to pay their living tax on time, or committed unforgivable sins even while incarcerated, the Committee sentenced them to Soul Erasure.

And the only race capable of developing and constructing the device for it was, naturally, Endelion.

The first Execution Tower was used for the very first prisoner. Unfortunately, it failed to achieve its purpose back then because Asiph-1's soul had shattered into fragments big and small and scattered to the fringes.

Even so, the Execution Tower underwent continuous advancements. Now, the Committee had reached a stage where they discussed the hypothesis that perfectly erasing a soul might actually be impossible.

The theory suggested that just as energy in the material world is neither created nor destroyed, soul particles don't simply vanish; instead, they are endlessly broken down, increasing in entropy and disorder.

But even if that were true, it was still possible to shred a soul so finely that the very concept of its ego ceased to exist.

Just as they had experienced until now.

Rumbleee!

Although it was still in the final testing phase and kept on the Endelions' planet, the Tentacle King decided to use it, prematurely or not. The existing Execution Tower currently in active use—the older model housed at the Committee headquarters—could not be moved, but the tentacles' planet could.

Instead of aiming at the planet's surface as originally designed, the tip of the tower locked onto the exosphere.

A vassal reported.

“Firing preparations are complete!”

The souls to be erased this time numbered far more than one or two. It was an entirely different situation from their usual executions. Therefore, the Execution Tower was currently loading a terrifying amount of power. The fuel was none other than the Talent they had mined in advance.

The king was now even drawing upon the emergency reserves meant for the body renewal of the fallen and the wounded.

He knew there were still Committee warriors (excluding the Endelions) alive inside that artificial planet, but he couldn't afford to sit idle and wait until the ghosts completely destroyed the interior. The Committee members from other races had already consented to this as well.

The king gave the order.

“Fire.”

The moment the command dropped.

Vwoooom!

An intense, invisible wave erupted from the pinnacle of the Execution Tower.

It pierced through the atmosphere, soared across the pitch-black void of space, and struck the mining base.

The pulse had absolutely no effect on the metal structures making up the base. It carried no electromagnetic radiation, so it didn't even interfere with the machinery's operations.

Its sole targets were living creatures—or, more accurately, the souls dwelling within their flesh.

“Ku... Kuaaaagh!”

“Wh-What is this? What the hell is headquarters doing... Aaaargh!”

The warriors who had survived until then, fighting desperately against the ghosts, instantly felt their souls fracturing and splintering into pieces.

It was an agonizing pain of a completely different nature from physical suffering. The very source of their existence boiled and evaporated.

If they had simply blown up the entire planet, it would have ended in mere death. But this was an attack aimed squarely at the core of their ego.

The warriors collapsed one by one. Their souls transformed into unobservable microparticles and scattered. They faded into the surroundings like blowing ash.

The indiscriminate attack hit the ghosts directly as well.

However, their reaction was somewhat different.

The ghosts, who had writhed in torment themselves even as they brutally murdered the ancient race warriors, now acted differently.

=Ah, finally!=

=I can disappear. It's finally over!=

=Thank you. Thank yo...!=

Their mental waves were brimming with joy. The ghosts embraced the annihilation of their egos with sheer ecstasy.

This was the opportunity Minjun had given them.

A chance to escape their eternally repeating hell and completely cast off the shackles of consciousness.

It was the phenomenon of an incredibly complex and delicate mind returning to chaos. It was the dismantling of the ego—all the yearnings that accompanied existence fading away, allowing them to finally escape the prison called ‘self’.

=Finally...!=

They had at last found their salvation.

   *

Some time later.

The screams, shrieks, and vicious curses that had swept through the mining base quietly subsided.

The ghosts vanished without a trace. In truth, finely crushed soul fragments—or soul dust—must have been piled up everywhere, but they were incredibly miniscule particles. So small that not even an outstanding spiritual resonant could detect them.

Even now, the waves fired from the Endelion planet did not stop. At the same time, they launched a legion of soulless golems out of their atmosphere, sending them toward the base.

There was a reason they dispatched them in such a rush. The king knew it all too well: the fact that even at this very moment, the ‘Gates of Heaven’ leading to the core of the planet was still open.

And standing before that defencelessly open door, which laid bare the passageway within...

Flash!

The incarnated god revealed himself.

Zzzing!

The pulse meant to crush souls washed over Minjun as well. It was an attack potent enough to make even a god furrow his brow.

He immediately raised a hand to form a barrier. The waves attempting to rip his soul to shreds dissipated in vain.

Minjun did not spare a glance for the torn flesh, spilled organs, and pools of bodily fluids of the ancient race scattered everywhere. Instead, he stared intently at the reason he had come here.

Right there stood the door leading to the dimension the order called Elahu-Praga.

‘What on earth happened in there?’

When he formulated the plan to infiltrate the ghosts into the base, he had braced himself for a certain amount of Talent to scatter and be lost. He assumed that the moment the ghosts broke through the door, the sheer pressure would inevitably cause the Talent to leak out.

However, there were absolutely no traces of that around him.

That was because the lower reaches of that blood vessel were completely dry in the first place, with no flow of blood whatsoever.

‘I need to check it out.’

It was an issue that had to be resolved before he took his next step. It was a situation that could potentially threaten the very core of his plan.

His ‘most precious thing’ was out there beyond it. That was what the primordial race believed.

=Kiyaaaaaah!=

Although all the previously summoned ghosts had broken down and vanished, Minjun called forth new ones from within the barrier he had erected. This time, it didn't matter if they weren't fully fused with Adkiel. The entrance ward set up by the ancient race had already been shattered, after all.

Hsssss!

After engraving the same seal upon their souls, Minjun pushed the ghosts into the entrance to Heaven.

‘Go. Go see what has happened inside!’

The ghosts that entered the blood vessel relayed internal information back to Minjun. The bone-dry walls of the vein were continuously visible. Like cameras attached to the end of an endoscope, the spirits projected a real-time feed into Minjun's mind.

As they continued to push upstream toward the heart...

‘...!’

The ghosts finally stopped moving.

That spot was in an awkward middle ground—neither the upper reaches where the papal vicar had previously entered, nor the lower reaches connected to the mining base.

If one had to categorize it, would it be the midstream?

‘That's...!?’

Sharing their line of sight, Minjun's expression hardened. The ghosts couldn't advance any further. There was an obstacle that hadn't been there before.

The obstacle was a spiritual body. To describe its appearance, it looked like a spiritual manifestation of a heavily bloated, drowned corpse.

Minjun muttered his name.

‘Ha Eun-seong!’

It was grotesque.

The ghost's original form was nearly impossible to find.

First off, the very size of the soul was completely different. It had swelled and expanded to a degree that couldn't be compared to when they first met. Devoid of almost any outline or contour, it had become a single, massive lump of spiritual matter.

Because of the radiantly glowing sphere that was originally Ha Eun-seong, there wasn't a single gap left in the blood vessel. It might even have extended its spiritual body beyond the vessel walls, cannibalizing its own shape to expand.

Staring at the bizarre sight, Minjun mumbled.

‘He absorbed Talent desperately to stop his ego from collapsing.’

But in the end, he hit his limit.

‘That guy is a soul capable of piercing through any barrier... But regardless of that fact, he's reached a state where he absolutely cannot absorb any more Talent. In other words, the Talent can no longer pass through Ha Eun-seong's spiritual body. It simply blocks it on contact.’

To put the result simply, it was this:

Having absorbed Talent to his absolute limit, Ha Eun-seong had become a clotted lump of blood himself, tightly plugging up the vessel.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!