Beyond the Eternity

A system message flashed before me: [Defeat the Magicians]

My eyes widened as panic surged. The territory master could assign roles?

Magicians, also called Sorcerers, were people who could freely manipulate mana and wield <Magic> as if it were part of their very flesh and blood. There were approximately 80 of those high school girls inside the cafeteria. If every single one of those girls were given the role of a 'Magician,' then...

Before I could even complete that thought, the voices of the high school girls rang out one by one and the formerly silent cafeteria slowly became noisy.

"Seraphiel, zaraqun imashia ve'orthaniel zellara, asphirael tuz'akkarun val'shekiel, zanasal tir'kasha len'seraphai al'kyrath..."

The first girl's eyes grew hollow as she recited those alien-like sentences.

"Lumiel, xathriel var'shilun ve'eladriel, ashaniel orath vel'themir al'sharia..."

Then the voice of the second girl overlapped with the first.

"Zarathiel, al'korath seraphiel, marathor il'kyran vir'thania, vel'orath el'draxian seraphim. Xal'koran na'rethiel va'sirian el'valior, ashaniel ta'zirar. Vel'dariel a'thalion xal'karath, mi'halon zariel sin'quor. Xilathiel vir'tharion el'nareth, vel'kadaral ul'marathil tharaniel. If'arel vir'thalion ishamar vel'orath, el'sarathiel kaltharion a'sharan vel'torion!"

The chanting continued with the voices of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and so on to the last. It sounded like a cacophony of incomprehensible utterances. A magician would would recognise those words as <Incantations>, but to me, those words felt like a countdown to certain destruction.

At that moment, the definition of the supernatural truly became apparent.

Each one of those high-school girls stuck out their tongue like a zombie and a ping-pong ball sized white glow manifested on the tip on the tongue. In the next moment, one of those balls shot out and transformed into a beam of light that travelled in a straight line.

Kwang!

The beam of light struck where I was previously standing, creating a hole in the lower floor and smoke along with dest erupted.

Looking at the melted floor, my mind abruptly recalled that the other king candidates were defeated and riddled with holes all over their body. Perhaps this was the attack that ended their stories.

"...!"

What if I was hit by such an attack? Would I also suffer the same fate as them?

At that moment, alarm bells rang inside my head upon the sense of a terrible premonition and I took an subconscious step backwards.

"Shit! RUN AWAY!!"

Upon my shout, Kagura and Lee Dokho snapped out from their reverie and broke out into a mad dash towards the exit along me.

"Wa–Wait, why are we running? Can't we just overwhelm them?"

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! ARE YOU INSANE! HOW THE EARTH ARE WE GOING TO DEFEND AGAINST ALL OF THOSE ATTACKS AT ONCE?! SOMETIMES, I WONDER IF THOSE BRAIN CELLS ARE WORKING INSIDE THAT HEAD!"

Lee Dokho screamed as if Kagura's very line of thinking was absurd. His panicked voice sounded rather strange. Even so, I could understand where he is coming from. Even with the blessings of the constellations, It would still be impossible to defend against all attacks without getting hit. Just one of those attacks was strong enough to melt the floor without resistance.

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If we were hit by that laser of death, It would be an instant ticket to hell.

Boom!!

In the next instant, multiple rays of light bursted forth and blew apart the floodgates that was the cafeteria entrance. As the zombie-like highschool girls lunged out from the entrance like a swarm, we had no choice but to flee down the corridor.

Lee Dokho glanced back and cursed under his breath. "Damn it! What now? There's no way we can take them head-on."

I kept my eyes forward, trying to steady my breath. "It looks that way."

"Deputy-nim, how do you look so calm in this moment? Do you have a plan?"

I resisted the urge to snap at him. Calm? How do I look calm in this bloody situation? Even so, one thing was clear.

"Well, you're right about one thing. I do have a plan but..."

"But?"

"It's risky. We'll have to split up. Fighting them together won't work, but if we can separate them, we might stand a chance. The problem is, there could be more enemies hiding in the dark corners where the eyes cannot reach. It would be disastrous if we get surrounded while we were alone."

We ran down the king corridor and finally arrived near the staircase. At the same time, a large number of light beams flew this way.

"You guys use the staircase! I'll find another exit."

"Are you sure?"

"I know what I'm doing! Just go!"

No time for hesitation. I narrowly dodged a beam of light that was aimed for the bakc if my head while Kagura and Lee Dokho sprinted down the stairs.

The zombie-like highschool girls noticed the split up and chased after them. But most of them decided to chase after me for some unexplainable reason. Even then, I did not panic. It was something that was already within my calculations.

I glanced back and saw the girls preparing for another round of attacks. There was another staircase right at the end of the corridor.

The Sookmyung Girls' High School was designed to have more than one emergency staircases in case one of the emergency staircases was blocked during a time of crisis. However, if I continued running in a straight line at my current speed, my body would be hit by one of those attacks before I even reach the staircase. Fortunately, I already had a solution.

[Exclusive skill – Endless One has activated.]

In this territory, all player stats and skills were reset to a fixed level. However, this didn't mean they couldn't be improved further. Furthermore, the coin function was still available.

However, increasing stats through the use of coins while in this territory will later prove to be meaningless since the stats and skills will be reset to their original level before they were restricted.

In such a scenario, I decided to use the cheat and the error that was the <Endless One>

[Exclusive skill 'Sprint' has been increased to its maximum level!]

Under normal circumstances, I would have needed to spend karma points to activate [Endless One]. But since this was the territory of an incomplete <Lord>, this entire campus would be overflowing with unstable karma. But that was also a bad thing so I couldn't use the 'Error' carelessly.

[Exclusive skill 'Sprint' has activated.]

"...!"

My body surged forward with unprecedented speed. The distance between me and the emergency staircase was ten metres. Yet somehow, I managed to cross that distance in an instant.

What was this ridiculous speed? I thought I had struck gold, but the feeling of joy was fleeting.

"Ack!"

As my body lunged forward, the beams of light fired from the tip of those girls' tongues. Most of them missed and brushed past me harmlessly. But one beam struck the spot where I was supposed to land, and I tried to twist my body to avoid it. The sudden misfire caused me to lose my balance.

Just because this was a novel-turned-reality didn't mean the laws of physics had completely abandoned this world.

I tumbled down the stairs like a tossed plastic bottle. The numerous stabs of pain that surrounded me made It impossible to even cry out. And even If I did, I'd probably end up biting my own tongue so I waited until my body finally stopped before I grumbled.

"Ugh... Fuck! My back! I'm definitely going to feel that tomorrow."

[A few constellations shakes their head upon seeing the pathetic display.]

I grit my teeth at the constellations' sadistic messages. They must be really enjoying themselves up there, huh?

...You fucking constellations! As if you would do any better if you were in the same position.

I would have loved to say those words out loud, but unfortunately, I couldn't afford to sit still. I forced myself to stand and dragged my aching body out of that location. A few seconds later, beams of light melted the ceiling above where I had just been lying.

Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!

Light beams continued to rain down from above. Shockingly, the attacks accurately tracked my position as I moved. It was as if those girls could somehow pinpoint my exact location despite being on the upper floor. I couldn't stop moving in such a situation. Instead, I continued my tremendous sprint and dashed downstairs.

Along with the sound of footsteps coming from above, there was also the sound of footsteps coming from downstairs. Someone was coming?

I saw one of the girls wearing the Sookmyung Girls' school's uniform and glasses awaiting me downstairs. She looked around 16 or 17 of age and 168 centimetres tall. Her body figure was slim and her hair was styled into a short bob cut. Perhaps she would even be referred to as those serious type within the school setting but her eyes was rather dull than serious.

Oddly enough, she seemed familiar, yet I couldn't recall ever meeting her before.

...Wait, could it be...

Abruptly, truly abruptly, I instantly recognised her as the girl that was bragging about her high score on the make up exam in the cafeteria. But something was rather suspicious. We started running even before the girls came out of the cafeteria and yet somehow, this one managed to reach the bottom floor before me.

How was that possible? It only made sense if she had jumped from the window above to reach the bottom floor, but the rules stated that no one could leave the territory once inside. Besides, she wouldn't have survived the fall even if she did jump. Forget that—she didn't even look like she could fight, let alone use magic.

"Intruder detected! Initiating defence protocols! Beginning self destruct sequence 000901!"

The words that came out from her cute lips caused a terrible premonition to settle in my heart. Self destruct?

Before I could even express my shock, the girl's skin slowly began to become reddish as if something accumulating inside her body was about to reach its breaking point.

[Exclusive skill 'Omniscient Wall' has activated.]

"?!"

My anxiety rose as a ridiculous amount of information flooded inside my mind. Though said information came from a realm beyond my understanding.

Every living being in this world (우주) possesses a pseudo-nervous system called Magic Circuits which spreads throughout their bodies.

Magic circuits was an important device for the players of the Nightmare Trial. Magicians use the magic circuits in their bodies to convert life energy into magic energy which is then used to conjure magic. However, there were multiple cases where the magic circuits in the body abruptly exploded.

Such a strange phenomenon occurred when there's an error in the command sequence, resulting in the flow of mana to become chaotic and the circuit would burn out. In addition, there were cases where the user would intentionally explode their magic circuits to commit suicide during extremely different situations.

A prime example was the protagonist, Soo Jinyoung who had used such a method to commit suicide when she was captured by the regressor, killing both of them in the process. In fact, that was how this entire story began in the first place.

Given this, what would happen if this girl did the same…?

"Stop it..." Those were the only words I could muster as cold reality slapped me in the face.

"Damn it! STOP IT, YOU FOOL!! CAN'T YOU SEE YOU'RE DESTROYING YOUR OWN BODY?!!"

But the girl didn't respond. It seemed she could no longer speak. At this moment, she resembled a kettle left on a stove for too long due to the owner's neglect. However, what was accumulating inside her body was far more dangerous than steam. It was magic power.

"Tsk!!"

On one hand, a girl was standing infront of me, teetering on the edge of self destruction. On the other hand, multiple enemies were rapidly approaching from behind. If I head back, I will die. And if I was not fast enough, I would also die. My only chance of survival was if I killed the girl infront and then conceal my presence using the Hermit Cloak.

To begin with, I could easily kill that girl by using the hand gun in my possession. I also possessed a secret weapon, however, the gun was the best option in this situation.

"?"

But as soon as I raised the gun from dimensional storage ring and took aim, I hesitated to pull the trigger.

It was strange. I didn't hesitate when I killed Shin Jinhyuk in the hospital or when I killed Kim Minhyuk but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger.

Why? A murderer like me hesitating in a moment like this?

The girl was an enemy that I must defeat to progress. I understood that. However, she was also a physically and emotionally wounded one at that. The reason I couldn't kill her was simply because she was different from the enemies I have killed so far. The girl was merely a puppet, bestowed with the role of a sacrificial lamb by the <World>, to take out the enemy upon her demise.

She did not make that choice on her own. Most likely, the girl must have not intended for this scenario to happen to begin with. She must have believed that she could survive if she joined the <World> but upon joining was manipulated and turned into a puppet.

Most people would have killed her without hesitation and justified their actions using the apocalypse as an excuse. Even so, there was no reason to abandon the girl to a fate forced upon her. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I used the easy route.

"Damnit it! Wait a minute, can I try that? That should work, right?

Upon realising something, I activated a skill from my status window.

[Unique skill, Zero One has activated.]

[The sequence '0' power has been imbued into the bullet.]

I aimed the barrel of the gun at the girl's forehead and squeezed the trigger.

Bang—

What followed afterwards, was the sound of something exploding from the gun barrel and the girl infront of me dropping on the floor.