Wizard of the Deep Sea

[Let me start with the good news. You cannot die.]

That was the very first thing the Emperor said.

"...Because I’m an Outer God?”

[No. Something more fundamental than that.]

Looking up toward the heavens, the Emperor continued slowly.

[No matter what happens, you will not die. Even if that thing descends and brings about the end of everything, it will absolutely not kill you.]

"..."

I didn’t dismiss it as nonsense.

After all, he’d already done exactly that once. I’d experienced him sparing me even when he had every opportunity to finish me off. So it wasn’t hard to believe he’d do the same again.

"Why? If he kills me, does something happen? Is the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea somehow different from the other Outer Gods?”

[Nothing so convenient. However, the ruler of the Abyssal Sea would disappear, and a world of such magnitude must always have a master. The result would be that Great Void inherits the Abyssal Sea.]

"...?"

I tilted my head.

"So, if he kills me, Great Void becomes the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea?”

[As the only remaining Outer God in this world and the only being qualified to inherit it, yes. That is what would happen.]

"I don’t get it. Wouldn’t that be all the more reason for him to kill me?”

No matter how I looked at it, the reason he supposedly couldn’t kill the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea sounded like the biggest reason he should.

[...]

The Emperor didn’t answer.

The Emperor didn’t answer. Instead, he closed his eyes for a long moment. He wasn't avoiding the question. He seemed to be considering it.

[Before I answer that, allow me to ask you something.]

"What is it?"

[It seems you truly wish the heavens from falling.]

Having stated the obvious, he opened his eyes and looked at me with detachment in his gaze.

[But why?]

"...?"

[I witnessed your conversation with the heavens. Did it not tell you that life is pitifully insignificant?]

He raised a hand and brushed it across the desk. Tiny green sprouts bloomed where his fingers passed.

The authority of creation. For someone who wasn’t an Outer God and nothing more than a completely worn-out relic, his mastery over it was astonishing.

[Even I know this much. It is possible. For some like you, creating living humans would be effortless.]

"...”

[And you possess time that borders on eternity. For reasons I cannot fully comprehend, Great Void is willing to yield to you. If you fled into the realm of the Abyssal Sea and built your own world there, it would accept it.]

He spoke as though he were comforting, testing, or perhaps sincerely trying to advise me.

All of those intentions seemed woven together into his solemn words.

[It is not too late. If you wish, ask him. Tell Great Void that you will never again leave the Abyssal Sea. Ask only that he never set foot within your domain. If you do, he will absolutely agree. Of that, I am certain.]

"I have no idea what you’re trying to suggest. I’m trying to fight him, not negotiate with him.”

[It’s persuasion. Even I have no desire to go against the Creator’s wishes. If at all possible, it would be best if you simply abandoned your resolve.]

"I..."

[Ah, if you intend to reject my proposal, then explain why. If your answer fails to convince even me, then I cannot cross such a dangerous river.]

Was this a test?

I looked at the Emperor with a dubious expression before opening my mouth. My answer had already been decided.

"I have no intention of becoming a Creator like your master."

[Is that so? To me, it sounds as though you simply don’t wish to bear responsibility.]

"There shouldn’t be anyone who bears that kind of responsibility in the first place.”

There was something I realized after becoming an Outer God… No, something I’d known long before then.

Outer Gods should never exist.

And submitting to them was even less acceptable.

"So you’re telling me to live under the freedom that bastard permits? Absolutely not. Even if it really were an eternity of peace.”

[Why? For the sake of your own self-satisfaction?]

"No. Because if we did that, life really would become worthless.”

The fact that creatures ruling over nothing more than a handful of domains could casually create lives resembling humans…

That alone didn’t diminish our value.

But if we bowed our heads and obeyed simply because they had created us, simply because they could create us…

That was what truly devalued life.

It meant admitting that our lives, choices, and convictions were worth less than a single drop of water in this immeasurable sea.

If it came to that, no effort would have any value anymore.

Protecting humanity would become nothing more than playing with lumps of clay.

"Tell me why Great Void is afraid of becoming the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea. I don't have time to waste on pointless conversation like this.”

[...]

As I glared at him in irritation, the Emperor’s aged face assumed an expression I couldn’t describe.

Lowering his head toward the desk, he finally spoke.

[...Great Void was imprisoned within the Abyssal Sea.]

"What?"

[You already know this. The sky was crushed beneath the seawater and confined below, just like every other Outer God.]

"That doesn’t make any sense. He’s that big."

Frowning, I sensed Great Void with my Tide Sense as he continued passing through nearly half the mid-layer.

He was traversing his immeasurably deep sea as though cutting straight across it. His scale was so vast that even my senses warped trying to comprehend it.

"Sure, he must’ve been smaller back then after losing to the Abyssal Sea, but—even if he’d only been half, no, a quarter of his current size. I still don’t think the Abyssal Sea could’ve contained him. He’s the cosmos after all.”

[At the time, it was nowhere near that large. Compared to the other worlds, it was indeed vast. But beside the Abyssal Sea, it was nothing extraordinary.]

"Wait, the cosmos wasn’t extraordinary?"

[He was the sky.]

The Emperor shook his head as if to say that I was mistaken.

[The reason he became as immense as he is now was because he devoured the human who had reached the Heavenly Realm.]

Then he turned his gaze back toward me.

[Where do you believe the Creator is now?]

"The Outer God of the Abyssal Sea? I have no idea.”

Now that he mentioned it, right. I tilted my head.

At first, I’d assumed this guy was the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea. But he wasn’t.

He was merely one fragment of an artifact the true one had created, somehow surviving until now.

Which meant the real Outer God of the Abyssal Sea had never actually died.

The Emperor nodded, as though confirming exactly that.

[The Creator defeated every Outer God and absorbed every world they governed. They imprisoned them forever in the deepest abyss, where they could never escape, and then created the world known as the Reality Realm. Do you understand what an extraordinary feat that was?]

"Why are you suddenly bragging?"

[Because it required that much power. The Creator exhausted himself to the very brink of losing everything. And so—he chose reincarnation. Just as you did.]

"...?"

[Look at yourself. You accepted a world into your human body and became an Outer God. Correct?]

"그래."

[The Creator attempted the same thing. Maintaining the world while imprisoning the other Outer Gods forever was too difficult. So as a final measure, he decided that if one of his blood descendants ever became the Outer God of Magic, he would awaken through that bloodline.]

I blinked as I listened.

Then a chill suddenly ran down my spine.

"...Wait. That means—”

[It succeeded. The Outer God of the Abyssal Sea manifested within that body. And it was stolen away by Great Void, who had been hiding all along, waiting for its opportunity.]

The reason the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea had remained silent until this very moment...

The reason they had never revealed themselves despite still being alive had been answered in the worst possible way.

Staring upward in disbelief, I pointed at the sky.

"You’re saying your Creator is that?”

[Correct.]

The instant a single human became the Outer God of Magic, he also became the First Mage—

—And Great Void.

Only then did everything begin to make sense. His impossible size. The effortless way he manipulated seawater and wielded the authority of creation—and several other mysteries besides that.

"The relics and the method the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea supposedly prepared to stop Great Void. The reason every single one of them was destroyed…”

[It was because the Creator knew exactly what he had prepared.]

"...So there wasn’t a traitor.”

He simply already knew.

Everything he’d prepared could be destroyed because he was the one who had prepared it.

"Then what about their consciousness? Is the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea still somewhere inside him?”

[It seems you still misunderstand. That is the Creator. Their memories and will still remain. They are simply Great Void.]

"I don’t understand at all. No, forget that. So what am I supposed to do with this information?”

I came here looking for advice. Instead he’d just spent all this time explaining in great detail how terrifying my enemy was.

"So, why is he afraid of me? Tell me that.”

[Because devouring you may change what it is.]

The Emperor continued calmly.

[Great Void devoured the Creator. It also devoured the human who had become the Outer God of Magic. It could do so because neither of them was a complete Outer God. The Creator was the memories, and the Outer God of Magic was the body. And you—are the mind and spirit.]

"The mind?"

[Yes. The moment he devours you, the memories, body, and mind of the Outer God of the Abyssal Sea will all exist together within a single consciousness. What do you think would happen?]

"So you’re saying Great Void would be the one who gets devoured instead?

Then should I kill myself right now?

That thought crossed my mind, tilting my head. The Emperor shook his head.

[Great Void would never willingly devour you. And this is merely an uncertainty. Even if you truly were absorbed by him, the possibility that you could seize control of his consciousness is less than a speck of dust.]

"...Then what is it? Why won’t he kill me?”

[Because Great Void once overturned fate through a possibility just that small.]

His eyes met mine.

[It does not wish for your death to create any kind of ‘change.’ It wants you to remain exactly as you are. Neither dead nor alive. Simply existing quietly within the domain called the Abyssal Sea.]

"So there will never be any variables."

[Correct.]

I silently turned the Emperor’s words over in my mind.

Variables.

Fear.

Consciousness—

It felt as though something appeared in my mind just beyond my grasp. As I continued piecing my thoughts together, another question suddenly occurred to me while looking at the Emperor, who still sat calmly in his chair.

"Then what about the cosmos?”

[...?]

"I understand that he devoured the Outer God of Magic and your Creator. But why did he suddenly become the Outer God of the Cosmos? You said he wasn’t originally.”

The Emperor didn’t answer.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

[...I do not know. I am not omniscient.]

"What?"

[But there are two things I can say with certainty. First, the Creator unquestionably imprisoned every Outer God within the Abyssal Sea. And among them there was no Outer God of the Cosmos.]

He continued in a grim voice.

[Second, beyond the sky, there exists no world whatsoever. That place is the Emptiness. A world that does not exist. It is not a domain governed by anyone.]

"Then..."

[Yes.]

The Emperor nodded, already knowing what I was about to ask.

[Great Void is lying. The world he governs is not the Cosmos.]

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