Surviving Among the Entities

[Seung-hoon, the being who created me.]

The Scales of Good and Evil remembered Seung-hoon.

[However, justice must be fair.]

The scales’ gaze pierced through him.

[The World’s Greatest Troublemaker, not a human but an entity, all falsehoods.]

For the scales that judge good and evil, the lies created by the Cross of Reversal held no meaning.

[Misfortune is an obstacle hindering a smooth life. What obstacle do you fear?]

The scales read Seung-hoon.
After scrutinizing him for a while, the Scales of Good and Evil discovered something.

[Prophecy.]

The symbolic prophecy seen through the Quest Ticket.
The ‘Surviving the Entities Gallery’ appeared as the symbol of the prophecy, which Seung-hoon could not interpret.
Instead, he made various conjectures about its meaning, including the possibility he hoped would not occur.

[I know what obstacle suits you.]

The Scales of Good and Evil tipped completely.

[Misfortune equal to your wickedness shall bring it to fruition.]

The space in the sky where the scales resided distorted.
To summon misfortune.
To draw chaos from another dimension.

[Receive the misfortune brought by your wickedness!]

Not just one, but many.

“?”

Instinctively, I looked up at the sky.
I do not know the reason. It was simply an instinctive action from an indescribable feeling.

“Your defeat, adversary.”

Taking advantage of the moment my gaze was averted, a man drew a ceremonial dagger and stabbed his own heart.

“For us, death is rebirth.”

Like a burst pipe, black blood gushed from the stabbed heart.

“From the start, there was no path for you to defeat us.”

The gushing blood flowed upwards above the man’s head, pooling and then showering down like baptism.
The man’s time began to reverse.

‘Rebirth.’

His injuries healed, and his physical age reverted to the twenties.
Not limited to just his body, even the clothes he wore changed to new ones, and the previously lost devil’s grimoire was clutched in his hand.

“We do not die. Not until we depart from the vile Creator’s embrace and become independent.”

A dangerous moment.
I did not know what he would do, but he would certainly employ a dangerous act using an entity.

“Sitri’s Summon.”

Indeed, the opponent used a spell, and the other two Anti-Christs were summoned right beside him.

“Andras’ Destruction.”

The two summoned individuals had their heads explode like overripe melons thrown from a rooftop.
Similarly, black blood gushed and baptized their flesh.

“Ugh, dead.”
“Oh no, we were done in.”

They too went through the same process and were unharmed.
But I had no time to pay attention to them.

‘Something is coming.’

‘Dried Friendship’ also enhances intuition.
And my intuition told me something dangerous was coming from the sky.

‘The sky is distorting.’

The starlight warped.
Specifically, the sky right above my head, and noticing me staring blankly at the sky, the Anti-Christs belatedly raised their guard.

“What is it?”
“The starlight is distorting?”
“Spatial distortion!?”

The moment everyone’s gaze turned to the sky,
the distortion vanished like a lie.
Instead, something white fell from where the distortion had been.

‘A person.’

Snow-white hair and a healthy brown complexion.
A patient’s garb consisting of a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, with tattered scars on each joint and forehead, like a boy.

“An ally?”
“Dismiss it.”

The Anti-Christs attacked the boy.
It seemed they mistook him for an ally I had summoned, since I had been looking up at the sky beforehand.

“Astaroth’s Needles.”

Dozens of massive needles thicker than ordinary reinforcing bars, generated in mid-air, were fired at the boy.
Not just piercing, they shredded the boy’s body.

“Insignificant specks achieve nothing before returning to the soil and rot.”

The shredded pieces of the boy’s flesh reflected in the mirror.
Each piece instantly decayed and crumbled.

“Rrrt! Kkwah! Hhhwik! Bbuap!”

Thinking the boy had died, the man wearing the crown of thorns tried to steal my power again, only to have a seizure.

‘A familiar face.’

Looking at the pieces too unsightly to be called a corpse, I recalled the boy’s face.
It was definitely the face I had seen in the Wall-Mounted TV’s advertisement.

“Frankenstein.”

At that moment, the corpse was restored.
In the blink of an eye, the pieces returned to their original form, and the shredded chunks reconnected through nerve bundles and muscle bundles into one complete body.

“……”

Eventually, the boy opened his eyes.
And as if instinctively aware of who had attacked him, he turned his gaze towards the Anti-Christs and opened his mouth.

“Owie.”
“!?”

The falling boy vanished.
Only I saw his movement, and he arrived on the ground as if shooting upwards, now standing behind the man holding the devil’s grimoire.

“As mean as the Professor!”

The boy’s small hand aimed at the man with the grimoire.

“Thitchithitchi!”

0.03 seconds.

That was the fleeting moment I perceived, and in that time, the boy tore the man into thousands of pieces.

‘Fast.’

But the man would not die.
He would simply rewind time and be reborn.
Black blood tried to gush from the man’s flesh, now divided into thousands of pieces.

“Can’t die! You an experiment too?”

Frankenstein, seeming well aware of rebirths, opened his mouth with a smile.

“Then just eat!”

With unbelievable speed like his previous attack, the boy gobbled up the shredded pieces of the man’s flesh.
Swallowing without chewing, he ate the pieces, and before the last piece could hit the ground, it entered the boy’s mouth.

“Thanks for the meal!”

He tore apart and ate one person.
Yet the boy’s stomach did not bulge at all.
Instead, it seemed to squirm a few times as if attempting rebirth from within, but that soon stopped as well.

“You bastard! How dare you devour the First Apostle!”

The other man aimed the mirror.
The boy’s entire body distorted, losing its human shape.

“Hehe.”

The boy laughed in his distorted state.

“One more meal!”

“Thanks for the meal!”

The Anti-Christ with the Mirror of Falsehood was also devoured by the boy.
Smelling the same scent from the convulsing Anti-Christ on the ground, the boy asked me.

“Can I eat this too?”
“Yes, you can eat it.”
“Thank you!”

Watching the boy noisily chew and eat the convulsing man, I pondered his identity.

‘Frankenstein, a life form presumed to be created by Dr. Janus.’

His strength was such that even Janus himself, let alone his assistant, had attempted to use him as a weapon.

‘Didn’t they say he gets stronger the hungrier he gets?’

The hungrier he becomes, the more violent he grows, with various inventions by Janus installed within his body.
To satiate such hunger, he had to eat something, but organic intake alone could not sustain his energy requirements, I recalled.

“By the way, there is……”

The boy, having finished devouring the last Anti-Christ, looked up at me.

“Can I eat you too?”
“No.”
“Why?”

Fortunately, I had found a way to satiate his hunger.
Through steadily observing the boy during the fight, I discovered a small charging port on the back of his neck.

“I’ll give you something else to eat instead.”
“Wow! Really?”
“Do you like pudding?”
“Yes! Really really really like it!”
“Here you go.”

From the snacks I had brought in my Void Pocket, I took out a pudding.

“Wow! Pudding!”
“Sit here and eat.”

After having the boy sit on a chair I took out, I retrieved a portable auxiliary battery enhanced with a strengthening potion.

[Seung-hoon, wasn’t that for my use?]
“That’s true, but make an exception this time.”
[……]

I brought the charging cable to the port on the back of the boy’s neck.
I worried the port might not match, but miraculously, the moment I brought it close, it automatically changed to the same port as the cable.

‘Dr. Janus’ scientific prowess.’

The boy was delighted when charging began.

“Yummy! And my tummy is full too!”
“There’s more, so eat up!”
“Okay!”

It seemed he had been quite hungry, as the auxiliary battery and prepared snacks were quickly depleted.

“Sleepy.”

The boy nodded off from a food coma and soon fell asleep.
After putting the boy in the backseat, I pondered what to do.

‘Dr. Janus did leave a number to contact him.’

However, we had a less-than-friendly history, so I could not predict his reaction.

‘If he still remembers my gaze, he may become hostile.’

Moreover, Janus himself was a powerful variable.
Who knows what would happen if I called that scientifically and medically armed man.

“Should I contact him after this is over?”

Now that all those who called themselves apostles had been devoured by Frankenstein, dealing with Jezebel would be easier than before.

“Let’s hurry to Uluru.”

The Foundation’s independent dimension.
In the management conference room overseeing all Foundation affairs at headquarters, Seong Yu-ra convened a meeting.

“At the center of this Australian incident is the external special consultant, Seung-hoon.”

A presentation displayed on the screen.
She analyzed and identified the cause behind the mass sleep incident in Australia and the mass seizures suffered by Foundation personnel.

“A few days ago, the external special consultant warned that a special event involving an entity of an unknown concept called the ‘Primordial Being’ would occur in Uluru, Australia. He left that warning.”
“Why didn’t we intervene?”
“Rash intervention could empower the opponent. That’s just how entities are. But the current situation is urgent. The information from Seung-hoon the special consultant has changed, and he has undergone perception change to be recognized as an adversary to the world.”

While most Foundation personnel treated Seung-hoon as a dangerous entity, the managers did not waver.

“He was that kind of person from the start.”

They had treated Seung-hoon as an entity from the beginning.
They only treated him as human due to the Sephiroth’s warning that he should be treated as such.

“But his abilities are undoubtable. If even he was affected, then the problem is serious.”
“Have you tried contacting him?”
“Rash contact now, when we don’t know how the information corruption occurred, could lead to greater harm.”
“Information on the enemy?”
“They call themselves the Anti-Christs. Not the amateurish Anti-Christs we’ve seen before, but existences who directly received entities from demons.”
“Hmm, then the answer is one.”

The managers reached a consensus.

“Physical resolution.”
“Even if there are losses, it’s better than a demon’s descent or the world’s end.”

“Any objections?”
“Personnel alone are insufficient.”

Seong Yu-ra changed the screen.

“In light of this, I propose launching the strategic weapon for mass destruction missions that was fully repaired three days ago.”

The screen showed a massive ship straight out of a sci-fi movie.

“Length 127km, width 88km, equipped with 27 black hole engines and a Dimensional Field device capable of spatially isolating all of Australia to minimize external damage, 27 million drone ships and 1,622 rail guns, 3 Destruction missiles for planetary destruction.”

“Approved.”

The managers raised their hands one by one before she could even finish speaking.

“Even at the cost of sacrificing Australia.”
“We must stop it no matter what.”

Seong Yu-ra also nodded gravely.

“Formerly the 97th ranked weapon among the Foundation’s Top 100 weapons, it is now our greatest force.”

For the sake of humanity.

“The ship Doomsday will set sail.”

“Ah!”
“Professor? What’s wrong?”
“Frankenstein’s location has been pinpointed!”

Whipping his white hair, Dr. Janus furiously typed on the keyboard.

“His location couldn’t be pinpointed all this time, as if wandering the dimensional crevices! On top of that, his battery was 48% depleted, so he couldn’t even transmit location data!”
“And now?”
“His dimension has stabilized, and his battery has been recharged! Let’s see, 75%? Impressive! He recharged 27%? That’s enough organic matter to feed a nation for a day, or the electricity a nuclear power plant produces in half a year!”
“Nuclear? That’s too much of an exaggeration.”
“I was using an analogy based on the dimension he fell into. But whoever retrieved Frankenstein is clearly no ordinary being. Plus, his planetary coordinates……”
“What about them?”

The screen displayed Australia.

“How could I not know that place? It is the most meaningful location across all dimensions. Especially for those like me and my assistant who share this appearance!”
“Really? I don’t know about it.”
“The assistant needs to study more history! Anyway, I can’t tell if the one who retrieved Frankenstein has good or ill intentions.”
“Probably good intentions?”
“I’d like to think so. But……”

Dr. Janus changed the screen.

[External Attack Detected]
[Attack Pattern: Attempted to fix the future using tachyon particles and quantum tunneling]
[Details: Attempts to interfere with the future and fix destiny were observed. The future they tried to change could not be observed.]
[Result: Defense successful. Tachyon particle pair annihilation confirmed, quantum tunneling blocked.]

“Someone tried to control us and change the future to what they wanted, it seems?”
“Eek!? They tried to use us?”
“That’s how it appears. Now, how should we handle this? Ah, that’s a good idea.”

As he typed on the keyboard, the entire space he and his assistant were in detached and floated up.
The research lab ceiling opened, and they rapidly jumped through spaces several times.

“Bring the army, just in case!”

Lined up on the ground were countless humans with the same face.
The artificial life forms without selves, born from the scientist’s hands, were armed with weapons of his invention.

“About 100 million should do.”
“Just sending them?”
“No.”

He smiled at his assistant’s question.

“I should go too. Frankenstein must be waiting, so how can I just send these ones?”
“Hehe. Then I’ll just take a nap at home……”
“The assistant has to come too.”
“Why!?”
“In case Frankenstein cries, the assistant needs to comfort him. He doesn’t really like my bosom. I guess they need to be bigger. Human instinct.”
“Then the Professor should just get bigger ones too!”
“My shoulders would hurt.”

In a warehouse stacked wall-to-wall with countless boxes of documents,
a warehouse said to take 200 years to reach the end once entered, a man was taking a nap.

“Were you here?”
“Oh, what brings you here?”

The demon Baal woke from his nap and asked.
Having been procrastinating for weeks, he gave the excuse, or rather non-excuse, to Asmoth who had found him.

“I wasn’t slacking off. I was sleeping to fulfill Seung-hoon’s request without disappointing him.”
“Did he ask you to find something?”
“Yes, he asked me to investigate the entities we gave to humans before leaving this dimension.”
“Unfortunately, that’s impossible. No one knows where those records are buried.”
“If it’s the Chairman, there’s no need to pull a tiger’s whiskers.”

Baal provided additional information, saying this matter could benefit the company.

“Word is, the Anti-Christs, those who once worshipped us, are about to summon something. It seems to be a summon ritual requesting protection, so if they summon one of our managers or executive line members, it would provide strong justification.”

If they actively intervene in the human world, the Eastern Hell would protest.
Additionally, heaven, which had lost its will, might regain its motivation.

“That would certainly provide strong justification.”
“If humans request our help first, who can object?”

While an individual’s request could be considered a minor transgression, the current events were presumed to be a grand ritual representing all of humanity to summon a transcendent being, making it a justification no one could intervene in.

“That’s why the Chairman summoned me.”
“The Chairman, you say?”
“He said some trifling being vexed his spirit. It seems he sensed an attempt to alter the axis of destiny, and worse, they tried to use the Chairman himself.”
“What is that about?”
“I don’t know the details either. He just said, ‘To summon misfortune, not me? How vexing to be used.’ Anyway, the Chairman observed that the being the Anti-Christs are trying to summon is likely not one of ours. He did not sense any reverence for us from the Anti-Christs.”

Not trying to summon a demon?
Then there’s a problem. If another transcendent being descends, it could become difficult to intervene.

“So he ordered you. Go there and either disrupt the ritual or change the being to be summoned, taking as many subordinates as needed.”
“Truly a bothersome mission.”

Waving his hand dismissively as if bothered, he left the warehouse.

“Changing the subject is impossible, so I’ll just owe Seung-hoon a debt for this.”
“How many will you take?”
“Well, if we can’t stop the ritual, the chances of a transcendent being descending are high, so……”

He headed to the main office to recruit those who would accompany him for this mission.

“I suppose 30 million interns, 10 million employees, and 5 million managers should do.”

The navel of the earth.
Once called Ayers Rock and now known as Uluru, Jezebel closed her book atop the massive rock, the largest in the world.

[Constellations of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres]

The book she had been steadily reading for years in preparation for this day was now frayed and tattered from wear.

“Then I shall begin.”

She set up altars.
Three altars venerating totems were placed at the northern, southeastern, and southwestern ends respectively.
After arranging them, she stood in the center.

“The ritual to summon the new god and protector of humanity.”