Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 255

Chapter 255: Depth (22)

TL/ED – Miso

Mimicry, having just learned that the answer it had chased for half its life was nothing but an illusion, looked rather hollowed out.

“…In that case.”

Only for a brief moment, though.

Soon enough, the thing turned my body’s eyes back toward me, threw me a look whose emotion was hard to read, and opened its mouth.

“I’ll have to employ a different method.”

“…A different what?”

“I’ll dismantle you.”

There was no longer any anger in that flat, even voice.

It was unmistakably my own voice, and yet it sent a chill crawling down my skin.

“If I split you into thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of pieces and bring every last one of them under my control, then perhaps I could part the sea after all.”

“…”

The instant a plan it had likely spent at least several centuries building collapsed, the thing simply set its sights on the next goal and pressed forward. It reminded me, all over again, that this was a being utterly removed from humanity.

Well, I hadn’t exactly been hoping for the miracle of it falling into despair and killing itself on the spot.

“Do as you please. But, want me to tell you an easier method?”

“…?”

-Crack.

When I raised a finger and conjured a droplet of water, the thing’s expression twisted.

It had caught on at once that this was no ordinary droplet.

“What are you trying to…”

“The same thing as you.”

The moment I gained the Authority of Creation, I became able to create the air of the Real World as I knew it. That meant a return to my original world had become possible.

But if I created something other than air…

For instance, the Deep Sea that lay beyond the wall of the Middle Layer.

If I were to throw open a passage to it…

“There. How’s that.”

“…!”

Mimicry stared at the inverted space the expanded droplet had carved out, its eyes trembling.

It was small, but unmistakably a passage. A passage out of the Deep Layer. And there was no way an Outer God of Mimicry’s caliber could fail to recognize what it was.

The thing looked back and forth between me and the space beyond the droplet, as if it simply could not believe what it was seeing, then asked,

“What did you do?”

That reaction gave me my certainty.

-The Outer Gods could not create passages.

Of course they couldn’t. If they could, they would have escaped long ago.

I still didn’t know exactly why, but creating a passage seemed to be part of a unique ability that only the Wizard of the Deep Sea possessed, much like Nightchase’s ability to manipulate water surfaces, or Mimicry’s ability to copy its opponent.

It might look unimpressive, just being able to open a passage and nothing more…

But to Mimicry, it certainly wouldn’t feel that way.

“Speak.”

The thing was getting impatient now, demanding an answer.

If it could simply observe and acquire the ability on the spot, that would be a problem in its own right, but being capable of something and knowing how to do it were two different matters.

I gave it the only sensible answer, exasperated.

“If I were you, would I tell? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“…Fine, no matter.”

Mimicry chuckled before long and clenched its fist.

“Now that I know you can do it, it’s only a matter of time. Did you really think my power was limited to merely copying your outward form?”

“I figured not.”

In the end, Mimicry would steal even my unique abilities.

Now that I’d shown it this method, the thing’s escape was a simple matter of time.

If that was the case, then the solution became simple too.

“That is, if you can survive long enough to get there.”

“…”

This time Mimicry didn’t sneer at me the way it had before. If anything, it began to grow wary.

It made no real difference. The one who would face the thing wasn’t going to be me.

-Crackle, crackle…

“They’re starting to come.”

I slowly drew back from the passage and let them through.

Mimicry, by virtue of being so overwhelmingly powerful in its true form, hadn’t bothered to conceal itself in the seawater at all.

It hadn’t even bothered to hide my Blood Scent that it had swallowed.

To the point that even the Deep Sea Creatures of the Middle Layer could sense it.

[Aaa, aaa, aaaaa!!!!]

[Krgh, krrgh…!!]

Countless Deep Sea Creatures came tearing their way through the passage as though they would rip it apart.

Surrendering themselves to an instinct seared into their very being: the instinct to slay the Wizard of the Deep Sea.

Only, the Wizard of the Deep Sea they were chasing wasn’t me, hidden away inside my Water Barrier, but the thing that had Mimicked me.

Watching the swarm of Deep Sea Creatures rush in, Mimicry frowned and held out a hand.

“…If this is your answer for how to kill a god, it’s truly pathetic.”

[Gek, ge-gek?]

The countless Deep Sea Creatures all stopped at once, as though bound by invisible threads.

“Who do you think created these Creations to begin with?”

-Crunch!

The instant Mimicry closed its outstretched hand into a fist.

The Deep Sea Creatures were crushed into pulp on cue, as though that was simply what was supposed to happen to them.

Mimicry looked at me with a pitying expression, as if it had hardly used a fraction of its strength.

“What’s next? More Deep Sea Creatures?”

“No. Stronger ones.”

The moment Mimicry’s brow furrowed.

-Crunch!

The thing’s body bent over at a ninety-degree angle.

“…?”

Its spine had been folded in a single instant, an injury that would have killed me, yet the thing rose up from it perfectly unharmed and stared with a strange expression at the opponent who had bowed it at the waist.

-Click, click.

A pincer’s measured rhythm, the kind of sound that still raised goosebumps along my spine even now.

Looking at Ji-eo, Mimicry murmured slowly,

“I have no memory of creating something like that.”

“Of course you don’t. Do you have any idea how much trouble I went through because of you?”

If asked to pick the most horrifying Burden of the Deep Sea, it wouldn’t be Water Pressure, or temperature, or breathing.

It would be those monsters.

Beings forged from nothing but a single command, ‘capture me,’ set loose to drift through an empty Deep Sea and devour one another along the way.

Over the span of several centuries, they had evolved and evolved to a degree even their Creator could no longer fathom, and now they were sinking their teeth into that very Creator’s throat.

“…”

Mimicry raised limbs that had transformed into tentacles and immediately swept them through the Deep Sea Creatures around it.

That alone wiped out more than half of the ones that had come through. The Ji-eo that had bent Mimicry’s spine was likewise torn apart like a sheet of paper.

It made little difference. The number of Deep Sea Creatures was practically infinite.

This time, when Mimicry tried to swing a tentacle to take me along with them, it scowled for an instant on seeing that its right arm had frozen solid.

A swarm of Deep Sea Creatures with cataract-clouded eyes had become a single colony, all glaring at the frozen tentacle.

Mimicry hesitated a moment, then slowly opened its mouth.

“Extreme Ice…?”

“Looks like your Creations… ate something other than just me.”

The Deep Sea Creatures within the Deep Sea were members of the Crimson Circle that I had defeated and absorbed. They could use every one of those abilities.

It hadn’t been that long, so there weren’t many of them yet, but the number of Deep Sea Creatures that had crossed through the passage to kill me had long since passed several tens of thousands.

Even if only a fraction of them could use Extreme Ice, that was a staggering number.

[….]

The Deep Sea Creatures didn’t stop at simply locking down its movements.

A colony fixated on a single prey… no, more than that, behaving like a single individual. Without exchanging any sort of communication, they read the Currents and divided their roles with precision, hunting the giant that was Mimicry.

Whenever they read the trajectory of Mimicry’s tentacles and the larger Deep Sea Creatures took the hits and burst apart in their stead, the gap that opened up was immediately exploited by the others.

“Insects, the lot of you…”

-Crunch!

Mimicry, looking annoyed, crushed Deep Sea Creatures with tentacles that stretched out from various points along its body.

For the Deep Sea Creatures to band together against a single foe was an extraordinary feat of cooperation, but in the end, since the opponent was their own Creator, their overall firepower fell far short.

This was the part where I stepped in.

‘Get out of the way.’

I shifted the Currents just slightly to give the Deep Sea Creatures a hint.

[…]

[…]

For a brief moment, the things looked at me through Current Sense.

It was only for an instant. Then, as though they had read my will, they split apart at precisely the right interval.

Mimicry saw the opening too. It hurriedly extended a tentacle, but…

-Crackle!

“…You bastard.”

I was just slightly faster.

A blade of Water Pressure grazed Mimicry’s face, just barely. A small line opened up on Mimicry’s face, which had remained unscathed even when its spine had been bent.

It wasn’t much to look at, but it was the first effective strike I’d landed on an Outer God.

A furious Mimicry shot the sharpened tip of its tentacle straight at me. But the Deep Sea Creatures, which had already filled the gap, served as an excellent biological wall.

Withdrawing its tentacle without much to show for it, Mimicry silently studied its own wound.

Now, with tentacles sprouting from every part of its body except the face, it had become less a copy of me and more some sort of monstrous creature mimicking my shape, and it murmured languidly,

“This is starting to grate on me. Do you really think these little games of yours have any meaning?”

“They’re not meaningless. You got hurt, didn’t you?”

If something can bleed, it can be killed.

Repeat it again and again, dozens of times if needed, and it can be brought down all the same.

While I was gathering Water Pressure to prepare a follow-up strike, Mimicry slowly tilted its head.

“…Is that so.”

“…”

“You are difficult, and you are a nuisance. Capturing you alive would no doubt prove enormously useful, but I’m beginning to think the losses I’d incur in the process would be too great.”

The thing’s body began to swell.

Sensing some vague, unidentifiable unease, I stepped back without any clear reason.

“I’ll concede it. That you are a being that cannot be captured alive. Which means… that you are no longer of any use to me.”

“What are you trying to…”

-Pop!

With a sound like a balloon bursting, Mimicry’s swollen body burst apart.

[??]

[?]

Along with the suddenly vanished Mimicry, the Deep Sea Creatures lost their target and began searching the surroundings.

I, too, swept the area with Current Sense in a hurry. But I couldn’t find Mimicry anywhere.

‘Where did it go?’

There was no way it had simply burst and died like that.

The thing had clearly transformed into something. The problem was, I didn’t know every World it had swallowed, so I couldn’t tell what it had become.

Something invisible, like thread? Dark Night’s? Or something else?

“…No, that’s not it.”

Something was off.

No matter what it had become, it should still register on Current Sense.

If a being were so impossibly powerful that Current Sense couldn’t reach it, then at the very least there should be a region where Current Sense was being blocked.

But right now, the thing had quite literally vanished from Current Sense.

While I kept my guard up and surveyed the surroundings, getting ready, a change came.

-Pop!

“?”

A Deep Sea Creature far in the distance was crushed.

As I stared blankly at the lightly mangled creature.

-…Crunch!

-Crrrunch, crunch!

One after another, the Deep Sea Creatures began to be crushed in a chain.

Current Sense still wasn’t picking up anything. Nothing except the fact that the Deep Sea Creatures were being pulped to death in midair, by Water Pressure that had suddenly grown stronger.

That meant it was using the Deep Sea’s powers somewhere.

…But where, exactly?

-Crunch…

[Geek…]

It took less than five minutes for the very last Deep Sea Creature to be crushed.

Since the thing that had Mimicked my body was gone, no more Deep Sea Creatures came pouring through. I just kept my nerves on edge, waiting in the silent Deep Sea.

“-Ngh?!”

The Water Pressure came for me too.

The instant my throat was being crushed, I realized.

This was not Water Pressure being applied through the Deep Sea’s powers.

“K-khgh…”

It wasn’t even remotely uniform.

It wasn’t being applied to my entire body; it felt more like an invisible something was strangling me by the throat.

A flow of Water Pressure that clearly carried the will to kill me, yet wasn’t visible at all.

“So, that’s how it is…”

I gritted my teeth, gripping the throat that was being squeezed shut, and grasped the truth.

Mimicry wasn’t using the Deep Sea’s powers.

‘I didn’t know it could mimic not just life, but a World itself…’

-It had simply become the World known as the Deep Sea.

*****

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