Chapter 123: Do You Understand Your Weakness Now, Grey?
“Admiration is the emotion farthest from understanding…”
The cold words were like a sharp blade, etched into Grey’s mind one syllable at a time.
Yet, even so.
At this moment, in the heart of the disheveled, ash-haired girl, there still lingered a final sliver of hope.
A hope she clung to like a lifeline.
Perhaps, Big Brother Rast was only hypnotized by someone using a power from the 「Shadow」 sequence, or was bewitched by some kind of special ability.
Brainwashed by a powerful mastermind, his memories altered, his personality rewritten, forcibly implanted with new thoughts… reduced to a mere puppet on strings.
And at this very moment, Big Brother Rast’s actions and his cold, heartless words were all the work of that mastermind manipulating him.
These were not his true thoughts, not his genuine feelings.
So, what she needed to do was find a way to awaken the real Big Brother Rast from within.
However, the moment such a thought emerged—
The next instant.
As if he had seen straight through her thoughts, the boy at the cliff’s edge opened his mouth once more.
“People change, Grey.”
“Long years are enough to change many things…”
“Just like a young couple in love, during their passionate vows, every word comes sincerely from the heart.”
“But after decades pass, and they step into middle age, looking back on those same vows, they can only scoff at how naïve and childish they once were… mistaking a fleeting hormonal impulse, a passing emotional high, for the entirety of their life’s meaning, even willing to live and die for it.”
Rast’s voice traveled across the cliff, cutting through the storm and wind, each word ringing clearly in Grey’s ears.
“From beginning to end, I was never mind-controlled, never hypnotized, corrupted, or bewitched by anyone…”
“Whether it was leaking the Shoreguards’ plan, getting Shadow Thrall killed, or murdering Helen to seize the Death God’s Holy Grail—these were all choices made of my own free will.”
“To this day, I still remember the scene when I first joined the Shoreguards. I still remember the joy of raising a glass with my teammates after each mission’s end.”
“I still remember every memory with you—from Frostwater Town to the Watchtower… and the ‘Shoreguards’ justice’ I once believed in so firmly I was willing to die for it.”
“But that… is all in the past now.”
“Life is the most fragile thing. If one does not become powerful, does not ascend to the legendary… then all so-called ideals and emotions, no matter how brilliant, are but soap bubbles, shattered at a touch—just like Queen Helen, who has already died and vanished.”
“Only by surpassing the limits of humanity, ascending to the divine, and becoming something inhuman, can one truly reach out and touch ‘eternity’ and immortality.”
He looked down at the ash-haired girl kneeling not far away, lost and broken in the storm.
“This is something you, as you are now, will never understand.”
“You have never experienced that long—so long it would drive one mad—journey of life.”
“You have never felt those close to you, one after another, grow old and pass away… from a banquet hall filled with friends, to a ruined wasteland, that indescribable loneliness and emptiness…”
“You’ve never felt, in the river of time, your flesh, your mind, your soul gradually worn away, eroded completely, until even your self begins to collapse into despair—”
“You, like this—”
“Have neither the ability nor the right to understand my thoughts, to understand what it is I pursue in this thing called ‘eternity.’”
His indifferent words drifted amidst the howling storm.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning tore through the dark clouds, illuminating the entire sky—shattering the final hope within Grey’s heart.
A few seconds later, the sound of thunder arrived, rumbling atop the cliff, shaking the forest and mountains.
As the roar of thunder boomed, Grey slowly closed her eyes.
Raindrops slid down her pale cheeks, forming winding ravines—making it hard to tell whether they were rain… or tears… or perhaps both.
At this moment, countless blurry images and hazy visions exploded within Grey’s mind, like fleeting phantoms across the surface of water.
In the illusory Frostwater Town, at the mayor’s dinner banquet, she had first met Big Brother Rast and Sister Shiltina…
Sneaking into their guestroom at night to steal the Shoreguards’ badge, only to be caught by Big Brother Rast, who had looked upon her confused self and told her, “The Shoreguards are not an honor, but a curse.”
The despair she fell into when she discovered the truth of Frostwater Town—and the black-haired boy who pulled her from that despair, from the endless loop.
Nearly ten years had passed since then, and her memories of Frostwater Town had already faded—but Grey still remembered that final image—Rast’s shattered figure standing in the firelight, his broken form gleaming bronze amid black flames.
And the shock and joy of finally reuniting with Big Brother Rast at the Shoreguards’ headquarters, after ten years.
The six months spent preparing for the “Lost Paradise” plan at the Watchtower, training together each day, exploring the surrounding towns afterward, and scheming within the Paradise to plan a date with Her Majesty the Queen.
Those were days filled with hardship and bittersweetness—but in retrospect, they were mostly sweet…
One scene after another flashed by—fragments of memory, illusions of the past—carrying all of a naïve girl’s hopes and dreams for a beautiful future.
Until—
All those illusions, all those memories—
Froze solid in the present moment—
Under the pitch-black sky, in the lightning that pierced the night, the scar on the boy’s chest that had pierced the Shoreguard’s wing badge.
And the cold gaze that crossed the raging storm, aimed straight at her.
All memories were frozen in the flash of lightning.
Then shattered.
Turning into scattered, glimmering fragments.
Until they fell into the void.
…
“Big Brother Rast…”
Grey reopened her eyes.
Her face was illuminated by the momentary lightning, and scorching tears rolled down.
That once delicate, pale face was now contorted and broken beyond recognition by surging emotions.
“You… damn traitor!”
Though her words were a scream of rage, her face was crying, and her hoarse voice sounded like a wail of grief.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang—
She suddenly drew her gun, and the muzzle flashed with firelight, briefly illuminating the quiet night.
This was Grey’s self-defense weapon.
It was because she had seen Big Brother Rast in Frostwater Town wielding a revolver so gallantly that she chose the same weapon, mimicking him.
Six brass-colored bullets shot out with tiny intervals.
Rapid fire with a single-action revolver.
It wasn’t just the weapon—Grey had copied Rast’s shooting techniques as well.
But at this moment, the skill once born from admiration had become a blade pointed back at the one she admired.
The bullets tore through the rain, flying straight toward the boy at the cliff’s edge.
No space to dodge.
Their trajectory was like a prison, sealing off all of Rast’s paths to escape.
Single-action rapid fire wasn’t a technique meant for precision shooting—and Grey was far from reaching the pinnacle that Rast had achieved through centuries of honing.
And the rain obscuring her vision on the cliff made precise aiming nearly impossible.
But she was the chosen of “fate.”
The six bullets fired, each carried with it the flow of time.
That was distorted fate.
In that instant, the order of cause and effect was reversed. The “result” that “the bullet hit Rast” arrived before the “cause” that “the bullet traveled the distance between the muzzle and Rast.”
It was a curse of “inevitability.”
The moment the trigger was pulled, the result was set—just like the legendary spear that, once thrown, would unfailingly pierce the enemy’s heart: 「Gungnir」.
This was a fate-locking shooting technique that made the bullets unavoidable, guaranteed to hit the target… and Grey had only just developed it.
In previous tests, she could only use it once in a short span—that was already her limit.
But at this moment, her control over fate advanced by leaps and bounds, applying the fate-locking trajectory to every single bullet.
Six armor-piercing rounds ripped through the air, fired at Rast.
There was no dodging.
No escape.
It was like a judgment handed down by fate.
And that wasn’t all.
As Grey fired with a roar, her emerald eyes were engulfed by dazzling white light, like molten silver.
Behind her, a thick tree trunk was snapped by the wind, swept into the air by the storm, then came crashing down toward Rast with deadly precision.
Beneath her feet, countless rocks and pebbles were blown up by the storm. Though they didn’t touch Grey, they formed a sandstorm at the cliff’s edge, swirling with sharp debris ready to tear flesh from bone around Rast.
Below the cliff, a towering wave crashed onto the jagged rocks, throwing up a massive spray, about to drag Rast into the ocean’s depths.
Above the oppressive sky, lightning split the heavens, a bolt of thunder striking directly toward Rast—
None of this was coincidence.
It was the power called “Fate.”
In this madness, born from her shattered emotional support, Grey completely crossed past her previous limits, pushing forward the steps of a Sequence path only she had ever walked.
As if resonating with the girl’s rage and hatred, the once quiet trickle of fate had now transformed into a roaring flood.
Countless coincidences, countless misfortunes, disasters and calamities, were conjured without restraint.
A wailing of despair and a deafening roar directed at Rast, the heartless traitor.
Yet—
Facing the roaring of fate.
Facing the judgment of a world that seemed to be turning against him.
In the glare of lightning, Rast’s expression remained calm.
He simply looked at the six bullets flying toward him, carrying the “inevitable” concept—undodgeable.
Then, Rast gently raised a hand and snapped his fingers.
“Cancel.”
The next moment, the bullet trajectories that had torn the air and stirred the storm froze in front of him.
Suspended within the dusky, pale aura swirling around Rast—a solidified twilight.
Then, all the bullets shattered instantly, bursting into countless fragments of copper.
That was the power of the 「Death God」.
Even lifeless objects—metal, bullets—could be issued a “death” command, leading to conceptual annihilation.
After forcibly embedding the Holy Grail of the Death God into his heart, Rast, like Queen Helen before him, gained partial control over that divine corpse’s power.
They now stood upon the Death God’s remains—the entire Paradise was Rast’s domain…
Though “Fate” was vast and immeasurable, the fate power Grey could control was still limited and bound by her frail body.
How could it compete with Rast, who housed the Holy Grail of the Death God?
The fragments of brass fell onto the rain-washed, slippery cliff, producing a crisp clatter.
Those bullets had indeed hit the target, fulfilling the “inevitable” concept.
But if the bullets themselves were conceptually destroyed and reduced to fragments, then even if they hit, it was meaningless.
The scattered bullets didn’t even slow Rast for a moment.
Under the dark sky, in the raging storm, he looked down with indifferent eyes at the girl crying in the mud.
Then, he walked step by step toward Grey.
With each step, the twilight and pale light beside him flashed, nullifying every calamity coming his way.
The falling tree—canceled. Before it could strike him, it was shredded into flying splinters.
The crashing wave—canceled. In the dim light, the tsunami turned to a gentle current, returning to the sea.
The storm of rocks—canceled. Thousands of pebbles fell back to the ground, like pearls scattering on jade, ringing out crisp notes.
The roaring thunder—canceled. In the pale light of “Silence Fault – Withering Pebble,” the sky-splitting thunder vanished into nothingness, leaving only flickering arcs of electricity in the air.
The world’s roar, the overwhelming calamity, the judgment of fate… none of it halted Rast’s steps in the slightest.
He walked straight to Grey, who had collapsed onto a rock, her body filthy and drenched in mud.
Then, he reached out and grasped the girl’s swan-like white neck, lifting her into the air.
“Do you understand your weakness now, Grey?”
Rast’s voice blended with the storm.
No matter how desperately Grey struggled in mid-air, his grip and tone remained steady as steel.
“This is the wine called ‘Power.’”
“If you have no power, no strength… then no matter how many vows, no matter how many ideals, they’re nothing but rootless dreams, bursting like bubbles.”
“This is the difference between you and me—”
“A chasm that can never be crossed.”