Chapter 357
That energy was not concentrated for a spectacular attack, but to give absolute weight and precision to a single basic strike.
His right hand hardened into a dense fist, solid as stone, every muscle and bone aligned with a single intent.
Then, with a swift and direct motion, Theo drove the fist forward.
The target was not a fatal vital point, but the deputy chairwoman's cheek.
Baaaam!!
'Removed from the story, extinguished from memory, erased from every possibility.'
The defense the deputy chairwoman had built proved futile.
She poured all her strength into it, compressing Lu Core energy and Human Change power at the late Svenus to early Sosh level through her right arm, forming an energy shield that should have been able to withstand ordinary physical attacks.
But what she faced was no ordinary force.
The RWIA woven by Theo was pure creative aspect, a conceptual power that was an extension of himself as the original author of Last Prayer, the work that inspired the very birth of the world of Flo Viva Mythology.
When the fist imbued with RWIA collided with the deputy chairwoman's strongest defense, a horrifying penetration occurred.
That conceptual force did not merely pierce through, but instantly nullified and transcended the worldly defense.
The right arm that served as her bulwark did not break in a conventional physical sense, but disintegrated at the most fundamental level.
Muscle, bone structure, blood vessels, nerves—everything unraveled and vanished in an instant, like an image erased from a canvas by the painter's own power.
The unstoppable momentum of the punch did not stop at the arm.
In a split second, the fist reached and obliterated the deputy chairwoman's face.
Yet the destruction was more than physical.
The power of RWIA operated on a narrative and existential level.
The deputy chairwoman's very existence within the scenario of the game Flo Viva Mythology was erased.
Body, soul, and the concept that formed the foundation and justification for that character's presence in the game's storyline—all were annihilated by a single punch woven from the Resolve, Will, Intent, and Ambition of the Author.
'There is nothing left.'
After that silent explosion of nothingness, Theo stood motionless where he was.
There was no sense of victory on his face, only a focus shifting toward technical matters.
He looked at his right hand, the fist that had just become an instrument of existential erasure.
There, despite the deputy chairwoman's body having vanished from reality, a residual stain remained—a trace of blood that might have formed in the microsecond before total destruction, or perhaps merely the residue of the concept of "blood" that had been erased along with her.
With an almost ritualistic motion, Theo began to flick his right hand.
The movement was not frantic, but measured and patient, as though he were brushing away extremely fine dust.
He continued the action, observing the surface of his skin and his knuckles.
Then, precisely after about one second, something extraordinary happened.
The bloodstain did not smear or dry.
Instead, it began to fade from the edges inward, vanishing into nothingness like the character he had erased.
In an instant, his palm and fingers were clean again, without a single trace, as if they had never touched anything at all.
This fading was no ordinary miracle.
It was a direct effect, a logical consequence of his previous action.
Because the deputy chairwoman's existence had been annihilated down to its conceptual root by RWIA, all attributes attached to her—including the "blood" narratively linked to her—were also erased from reality.
The stain disappeared not because it was cleaned, but because the cause of its existence—the deputy chairwoman herself—no longer existed to give that stain any "meaning."
'No magical shockwave, no alarms triggered. A clean operation.'
The slow-moving air in the void left after the annihilation carried a dense silence.
Theo did not hurry.
His movements resembled the ritual of someone closing a chapter rather than a warrior who had just fought.
From within the fold of his jacket, he drew out a small yellow notebook, its worn leather reminding one of autumn leaves preserved between pages.
To him, the book was not merely a recording tool, but a vital organ of his existence.
The fingers that had just served as instruments of destruction now turned its pages with contrasting gentleness, finding a blank sheet waiting to be filled with the ink of decision.
The surrounding atmosphere seemed to freeze, as if reality itself were holding its breath, waiting for the author to define what he had just done.
With the cold tip of his pen touching the paper, Theo began to write.
Each stroke of the letters was not a description, but a decree.
He was not recording events.
He was reweaving the reality he had torn apart.
His sentences flowed with cold precision, immortalizing the final seconds of the girl dispatched by the Bathee Family.
He wrote of how her body, before being torn apart by conceptual force, briefly formed a graceful arc like a broken flower.
He wrote of how the light in her eyes faded not from pain, but from the realization that the entire narrative of her life had been canceled.
The black ink on yellow paper became a tomb more permanent than any gravestone, an erasure paradoxically confirmed through written characters.
There, between those lines, the fate of the girl who served as deputy chairwoman and failed to secure Erietta Bathee's return found its final form.
A footnote in a larger story, whose conclusion had already been written by the very hand writing it now.
'It's been more than seven minutes since I finished my part. Aldraya should have given a signal by now.'
Time crept forward slowly, bound to the rhythm of a heartbeat and the soft friction of pen against paper.
Seven minutes was not a long duration, yet in Theo's grasp, every second felt dense and heavy, filled with the weaving of words that determined fate.
The small yellow notebook had absorbed a new paragraph, a short episode that ended in total annihilation.
The black ink dried quickly, locking the story into a state that would never change or develop again.
As he closed the book's cover, a soft sigh escaped his lips—not from exhaustion, but as a transition from the role of author back into the trap of human consciousness.
In the silent space after that act of creation, a question arose like mist from the depths of his mind, a rare and personal concern that finally took shape in a murmur spoken to the empty air.
He wondered, in a voice barely audible, whether Aldraya was encountering difficulty in carrying out her task this time.
"Only cold efficiency."
Not long after he had finished cleaning his hand, the air around Theo began to vibrate with an unfamiliar frequency.
A visual distortion appeared before him, forming an unusual teleportation portal.
The gate was not a simple circle, but resembled a complex heptagonal square, layered and filled with overlapping geometric solids that slowly rotated.
There were prisms with sharp angles, cylinders with imperfect ends, cones stacked like steps, and spheres floating between them, creating a gateway that was at once a doorway and a living mathematical riddle.
From within that beautiful yet disorienting geometric chaos, a silhouette began to emerge and step through.
Yes, it was Aldraya Kansh Que, her long white hair perfectly unfurled despite having just passed through a complex teleportation process.
She appeared calm, not disturbed or startled in the slightest.
Her face, as always, maintained an unreadable, flat expression—a perfect porcelain mask.
She walked toward Theo with relaxed yet purposeful steps, exactly as previously instructed.
In her left hand, held casually, she carried a shortened shotgun—the weapon taken from the chairman.
Her right hand was raised higher, and there lay proof of her success.
With a rough and effortless grip, her fingers clutched the outside of the chairman's skull, holding it as though it were nothing more significant than a bag.
The way she carried that proof of death, combined with her expression that showed not the slightest hint of disgust, revulsion, or satisfaction, confirmed that she had completed her mission with cold, emotionless efficiency—exactly as Theo had expected.
"Did you encounter any difficulties? The process seems… far more intense than planned."
"I didn't encounter any difficulties. In fact, it was too easy. It's just—"
Fuuuuuh!
"I think it would have been more fun if the head I'm holding belonged to you, Theo."
'No sly smile, no playful wink. Just a flat statement, like reporting the weather.'
Hooooh!
And precisely because of that, I feel a stronger sense of dread than usual.
As if she truly thought about it—and stated it as a plain yet horrifying fact."
Theo's voice broke the silence, a brief question asking whether Aldraya had experienced any difficulty while dealing with her target.
It was a routine post-mission check, but it also carried a trace of curiosity about his ally's capabilities.
Aldraya's response came without pause, in the same flat and monotonous voice as always.
Yet her words made the air around them feel colder.
She stated, in a tone utterly devoid of flourish, that she would very much enjoy it if the head she was holding right now were Theo's own.
The statement hovered between them, a sentence that was, quite literally, a horrifying death threat.
Theo heard it, and a quiet murmur slipped from his lips.
To be continued…