Chapter 259

The phenomenon of humans transforming into monsters or having seizures was not confined to the exhibition hall.

“Ugh, ah! Stop, stop it!”

“Jamie, are you okay?”

It all began with a hunter collapsing while clutching his head, triggering mutations everywhere.

“Pull yourself together! Damn it!”

“Let’s become one! Ahh! You come too!”

“Commander? What do we do about those things?”

Amidst the confusion, Klein gritted his teeth and issued the next order.

“…Those aren’t humans! Shoot!”

The commander’s eye caught the wavering of the defense line.

One fragment of his divided consciousness was able to see the chaotic mass of humans through the eyes of the monsters.

“Moving to the next stage. Proceed.”

He made a decision. It was time to topple them.

According to his split thoughts, the forces of monsters divided and mobilized.

“Protect the heavy weapons! They’re flanking the assault unit!”

“Watch your heads! The monsters are targeting the top armor of the vehicles!”

As the more refined assault centered around medium and large monsters as well as flying monsters sought out weaknesses, the Apostle deployed a new reserve he had prepared.

New monsters, reminiscent of knights, emerged from among the throngs of beasts.

They bore armaments that resembled human swords and shields; at a glance, they appeared as lizard-like beings.

-Crunch!

“Ugh, guh…!”

“Watch out! They’re new monsters!”

“…What the hell is that? Could that be Code Omega?”

The Apostle, watching as his subordinates ravaged the humans beyond the gate, felt a sense of satisfaction and revealed his last card.

One of his divided thoughts manifested as a clone.

The clone, leaping into the battlefield, blinked. It felt the flow of communications and messengers converging in one place.

The clone casually walked closer.

There stood figures who appeared to be human commanders.

“What the hell, who are you—”

-Crunch!

A group of people led by a man in military uniform was crushed into a pile of meat.

Believing that the command structures of the Federation and hunters had been annihilated, he moved forward.

“Why aren’t they coming yet? It shouldn’t take this long to brainwash them.”

“Just give me a moment, wait a little longer!”

Just as the Apostle urged his comrades forward, a strike like a black lightning bolt came flying in.

-Kaang!

The Apostle welcomed the attack with glee. Who knew he’d encounter another interesting human here?

“So you’re the commander?”

Sophie El stared at the being before her with cold eyes.

This was the entity that had inflicted pain upon Violet. If she didn’t eliminate it, the problem wouldn’t be resolved.

It looked human, but it didn’t feel human. Waves of intense sword strikes surged forth.

Each time the Apostle’s gaze brushed by, the earth shook, and gravity trembled. Barely dodging all of those attacks, she continuously attempted close combat.

“Such a nuisance.”

The Apostle chose another method. As he stretched out his hand, ominous colors spread forth.

She managed to evade quickly, but when part of the attack grazed her, Sophie El felt herself being cleaved in two.

‘What the…!’

She felt bewildered by the unexpected obstacle.

Now her battlefield had become twofold.

While her mind resisted the erosion, her body had to continue to clash.

‘Is this what Seijis called a monster?’

In that moment, she was filled with rage at her secretive younger brother’s actions, having received no contact.

The perilous battle continued until the being before her unexpectedly withdrew.

“…!”

Simultaneously, the advancing forces of monsters temporarily halted.

“What’s going on? Why are they acting like that?”

The Apostle sensed something was off.

“Where is this…?”

The erosion of the human girl named Violet had not proceeded as anticipated.

At first, he found it strange. He had tried to stimulate trauma in the traditional way, but it seemed as if the memories were washing away as if they weren’t hers.

Could it be that this crude collective consciousness contained another segregated memory?

“The resistance is quite strong. What kind of human is this…?”

His companion instructed him, in a dubious tone, to pay attention to the scene.

The Apostle continued to try. Just a little more, and this beast’s trauma would swallow itself whole.

“Isn’t it…?”

It was strange. If these were normal humans, their self would have been colored immediately and broken beyond recovery.

In an instant, they should have become puppets of the forces.

The self remained intact. The girl with her eyes closed was merely thrashing in a nightmare.

And then something that shouldn’t have happened occurred.

“The erosion is… peeling away?”

The dark waves of erosion that had covered the girl’s body began to peel off.

No matter how many times he tried to erode her, the Apostle’s magical power brought forth no change.

As a lotus leaf silently let muddy water flow away, her attempts, like barnacles unable to settle on a coated hull, were rendered meaningless.

“Is this a manipulation error? How can her mental immunity be this high…?”

Sometimes, humans with high mental capabilities would resist their own brainwashing.

But was this girl such an entity?

As he pondered why he couldn’t penetrate the brain of such an inferior human, the Apostle suddenly realized that the empty landscape around him was gradually changing.

The blurry scenery, like a mirage above the desert, was slowly becoming more concrete.

By the time she noticed, the surroundings had already completed their transformation.

“…!”

The Apostle suddenly found herself in the midst of an alien city.

“Where is this?”

Equipping herself with sharp thoughts, she surveyed her surroundings.

The Apostle soon realized she was standing in a vast plaza.

A wide space stretched between towering buildings that seemed to pierce the sky.

The ground was laid with broad, smooth gray stone tiles, and to her right lay a black road wide enough for six cars to pass side by side.

Now empty, if this were a real city, it would be bustling enough to be considered the heart of a nation.

With curiosity gleaming in her eyes at the unfamiliar sight, the Apostle’s gaze locked onto a peculiar building in the distance. A sturdy stone structure with three large entrances.

She had a premonition. This place was not Trist. The dual-roofed architecture made of blue tiles was unlike anything seen in the academy city of Rustroom.

“Then, where is this place?”

Above the city gates, a crooked sign read [Violet Plaza].

Her curiosity escalated at the golden statue and the black-armored statue standing in the center of the plaza.

The statues depicted human males, and such attire and armor were things she had never seen in Trist’s former civilization swallowed by Aedos’s forces.

“Could it be that they came from another world—”

“Ugh!”

Violet, subdued by the Apostle, staggered to her feet.

Just as the Apostle was about to suppress her again, she glanced around at the suddenly overwhelming foreboding.

And she was horrified. Countless girls’ forces surrounded her.

“What, what is this!”

Through the glass windows of the building, countless hostile eyes burned with malice.

Girls approached from the alley.

The faces of the girls, plastered with suffering, were filled with a rage ready to erupt like a volcano.

In that moment, the Apostle felt the terrible truth dawning on her.

This plaza… this was the realm of humans.

“How could a mere human… create such a mental space…!”

The Apostle muttered in disbelief.

How could such a lowly, inferior human construct such an intricate and immense realm of consciousness?

It was impossible. It had to be impossible.

The possibility of a human having a space of this caliber was more difficult than a monkey triggering an industrial revolution by its own power.

Amidst her shock, she examined the inner space with the Aedos’s characteristic keen perception and insight.

This had to be an illusion. It had to be.

“There’s no way…! No!”

Unfortunately, the Aedos way of thinking was ill-suited for self-deception.

The Apostle came to realize why she hadn’t grasped the scale of this space.

“They say you can’t see the whole forest when you’re in it…”

This space was far too immense.

Unable to hide her confusion, as the Apostle took a step back, the Violets took a step forward.

“Didn’t you just call us bugs?”

One Violet spoke up.

“You may be right. You’re strong! Incredibly advanced!”

“Probably look primitive like cavemen!”

Another Violet chimed in.

“But do you know what animal kills the most people in the world?”

Feeling the pressure, the Apostle found herself muttering unconsciously.

“Isn’t it the monsters—”

The Violets shook their heads in disdain at the Apostle, who didn’t even possess common sense.

A silhouette of an indescribable form stared at her as if asking her what the correct answer was.

The Violet answered.

“You’re wrong! The answer is mosquitoes.”

“Mosquitoes kill people!”

That was not common sense in Trist.

It was a far cry from the statistics in the academy city of Rustroom.

But it didn’t matter to the Violets.

She decided to impose the knowledge she had, the knowledge she understood, upon this garbage-like monster.

Since they were trying to impose their way of thinking onto their world.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What the hell…”

The Violets crossed their arms and shouted.

“Anyway, this is our territory!”

“Illegal intruder!”

The girls in the street, with bloodshot eyes, glared fiercely. As the Apostle found herself involuntarily trying to step back, her legs wouldn’t move.

Snapping back to her senses, the Apostle looked down at what lay beneath her.

The girl she had tried to erode just a moment ago was gripping her leg.

“L-Let go of me!”

“No! You can’t leave!”

The Violet said as she bit down hard on the Apostle’s ankle. The effect was immediate.

-Thud!

A chilling pain shot through her left ankle. The Apostle knelt, collapsing to the ground.

“Kraaaak!”

With a chunk of her ankle, the Achilles tendon was vividly severed.

Her self immediately began the regeneration process.

In the next moment, something that should not have happened occurred.

Strange foreign substances filled the injured part of her consciousness, replacing her self.

“W-Why! How is this happening!”

The newly filled area was her body but not her own.

The Apostle realized.

She had naively stepped into a den of vermin.

It was as if she had placed her foot inside the digestive tract of a beast.

In the midst of the crisis, as her thoughts accelerated violently, the Apostle realized the shocking truth that pierced through her nerves.

This girl was a colossal abyss.

The moment they gazed into the abyss, it began to watch them back.

What she confronted in the depths of the collective was not merely an interesting discovery.

If her judgments were correct, if she stayed here too long…

‘This is dangerous! This thing could—’

She needed to inform them immediately. If this existence were to grow here, if it were to become even larger…

‘It could become our natural enemy!’

Before she could finish her thought, dozens of black waves came soaring through the air.

Wingsuit Violets fell from above, crushing the Apostle beneath them.

“You! I’ll kill you! You’re not getting away!”

“I’ll kill you!”

“Let go! You bug-like girl!”

As searing heat surged into the Apostle’s abdomen, it was about that time.

A thudding sound, blunt and heavy, as a sharp dagger embedded itself in the Apostle’s belly.

“■■■■-!!!”

An unutterable scream echoed, and a fragment of her comrade’s consciousness arrived at that moment.

“What’s happening? Is there a problem with the research analysis?”

“No! Get out now!”

The warnings came too late.

The two Apostles belatedly realized that a part of their consciousness had become trapped in the network.

It was too late to leave the moment they stepped in.

“This, this is! How! It’s impossible! A human with this scale of consciousness!”

The mental space of this lowly existence drew them in like a deep gravitational well.

The Violets, filled with a potent will to fight, charged at her in fury.

“You called us bugs?”

“Feel it! The humiliation of dying to bugs!”

Once again, a fierce roar shook the entire network.

“Violets are bugs!”

“We are bugs!”

Two thousand five hundred Violets clashed with the otherworldly Apostles.

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