Nonagram (5)
Chapter 307
Ray lifted his head and looked ahead.
The scene captured in his crimson-stained eyes remained far too surreal for any human to bear.
As the first human who ventured beyond the blue sky into the dark universe must have felt upon facing the sun up close for the first time—
Such moments bring forth fear, awe, and a sense of nothingness, all mercilessly pressing down on Ray’s consciousness.
Despite this, Ray did not turn away. He neither crouched nor stepped back.
Instead, Ray took a step forward, raising his sword toward the storm of flashes filling his vision.
Had someone been watching, they might have scolded him as foolish.
Even by cringing and taking careful steps backward, Ray could have deflected some of the power rippling through this space.
Yet Ray chose to stand tall, lifting his head to directly resist the force of the World Tree.
It was an absurdly reckless move—no different from suicide.
Krack! Crack!
His limbs twisted as if about to snap.
The light-infused armor he wore had already begun to erode.
Clearly, it wouldn’t last long before being overwhelmed.
Ray couldn’t imagine what would happen after being swept away by the World Tree’s power.
To survive, he needed to resist even more fiercely.
Ray swung the beam of light shaped like a sword.
Zzack! The trajectory of the sword carved into the air, and the storm of flashes extending from the World Tree momentarily faltered, revealing a slight gap.
But that moment was fleeting.
The gap was quickly filled by the surging waves of light behind it.
Ray’s body, which had barely managed to rise, wavered again.
He swung his sword repeatedly.
The faint trails of light left by the sword barely illuminated a few steps ahead before vanishing without meaning.
“…”
Ray gritted his teeth as the rising fear choked his throat—a clear mockery directed at himself.
Holding the sword felt awkward and unfamiliar.
The process of moving his feet and positioning himself was strange and foreign.
Every motion, from setting his stance to twisting his waist and swinging the sword, felt alien.
Ray didn’t understand the ultimate principles or the Nonagram embedded in the swordsmanship he had inherited.
Whether the entity that imprinted this swordsmanship on Ray had intentionally omitted parts or whether the replication failed, he couldn’t tell.
But Ray’s swordsmanship was incomplete.
The remnants flowing into Ray were merely remnants, lacking their origin.
Buried in forgotten times, these remnants were riddled with holes from start to finish.
Ray… could never become Harshia.
Not even the meager form of Harshia’s remnants could achieve such a feat.
No miracle could make it possible.
Krack!
Meaninglessly swinging his sword, Ray stumbled again.
He barely caught himself as his ankle nearly gave way.
The price of stubbornly standing before a transcendent being was approaching.
At this point, Ray should have crouched down, conserved his strength, and retreated.
However, Ray still held his sword and stared ahead.
Something began seeping into Ray.
The longing for the unattainable Nonagram, the sole remnant of his existence, was now merging with Ray.
Ray was aware that what was happening resembled mental erosion.
Still, he did not resist.
He believed that accepting the cries of the remnants flooding into him was the minimum responsibility of one who inherited Harshia’s sword.
Two imperfect beings were merging into each other.
Two flawed entities faced each other, reaching out their hands.
And thus, they began to fill and complement the voids left within each other.
Forcing his distorted joints back into place, Ray swung his sword again.
Zzack! The sword’s trajectory extended further this time before disappearing into the surging storm of flashes.
Ray continued to swing his sword.
It seemed like the distance the sword’s trajectory reached grew slightly longer.
But it was meaningless progress.
No matter how hard Ray swung his sword, he couldn’t take even a single step forward.
What difference was there between this futile effort and trying to part the ocean with a stick?
While Ray persisted in his futile attempts, the storm of flashes grew stronger, now threatening to engulf him entirely.
Gritting his teeth, Ray glanced at the remnants merging with him.
The two imperfect beings tried to fill each other’s voids but found many gaps still remained.
Is this our limit, then?
When Ray asked, the remnants pointed toward something vast beyond the emptiness.
In his mind, Ray took a step in the direction indicated by the remnants.
There was undoubtedly something at the end of the direction the remnants pointed toward.
However, most of the path and methods to reach it were lost and broken.
Still, Ray began walking in the direction the remnants pointed.
This was an incredibly dangerous tightrope walk.
Blindly climbing a mountain full of cliffs was less foolish and reckless than this gamble.
Why, then, did he stubbornly continue without stopping?
When this question arose,
Ray answered.
We have a duty to prove.
We have a duty to prove that his Nonagram was neither delusional nor misguided.
Crackling!
Ray corrected his posture, which had collapsed, refining it carefully.
The remnants inside him began calming and purifying the uneven flow of mana coursing through his body.
Ray’s consciousness continued advancing in the direction the remnants pointed.
Filling the empty voids by force and connecting hastily constructed supports, he continued moving forward.
Time was running out.
The storm of flashes from the World Tree was about to seize Ray by the neck.
Something had to be done now.
Ray slowly steadied his breathing one last time and raised his sword above his head.
“…”
A brief moment of silence enveloped everything.
The flow of mana surrounding Ray within a small radius came to a halt.
In that instant, Ray had finally reached the destination the remnants had pointed to.
After an incredibly precarious journey, the final resting place contained his unfulfilled Nonagram.
It took the form of a sword.
Its essence… the ultimate technique of Harshia performed with a single sword.
Ray slowly extended his hand toward the silent sword-shaped form.
He wasn’t unaware that he was choosing something beyond his capacity.
What lay within that sword-shaped form was not something that existed alone.
To obtain the result within that sword-shaped form, countless precise foundations had to align perfectly to open the way.
One was supposed to go through such a process to reach this place.
However, Ray had bypassed most of the necessary steps, barely managing to step into this location.
With the weak foundation Ray had built so far, he couldn’t endure the result hidden within that sword-shaped form.
‘Opportunity is…’
Only once.
The chance to recreate the technique contained within the sword-shaped form was limited to just this one attempt.
Failure meant self-destruction.
Even the slightest mistake would cause Ray to shatter completely, leaving no trace behind.
Ray’s hand hesitated briefly before the sword-shaped form.
Then, the remnants standing a step away approached and overlapped their hand with Ray’s.
Smiling faintly and shaking his head, Ray grasped the sword-shaped form in his mind.
And, returning his awareness to the battlefield, he adjusted his stance toward the World Tree beyond.
Failure meant death.
He had to flawlessly recreate the sword’s trajectory imbued with his Nonagram.
No matter how you looked at it, this was a foolish endeavor.
“Harshia.”
Still, the two flawed entities…
“To commemorate you.”
Supported each other, stepping forward and moving the sword.
*
After completing her mission and returning to Mother’s embrace, Raphaelle felt a sense of coziness.
She had gone into the human world to retrieve Ray and endured quite a bit of humiliation during the task.
Reflecting on the insults she endured while carrying out her mission made her blood boil, but Raphaelle restrained herself.
Complaining and sulking over mere insults wasn’t mature behavior. Raphaelle considered herself to be quite mature.
Before resting, she needed to file her report first.
Since this was a rather important matter, she had to report directly to a Guardian-class Elf.
When Raphaelle arrived to give her report, Aquitas, the World Tree’s guardian who had previously interacted with Ray, stood up, saying he’d move to another spot.
Raphaelle felt secretly proud to report directly to Aquitas and quietly followed along.
However, Aquitas soon stopped in the middle of the Elven streets.
Raphaelle, also halting her steps, perked up her ears and sensed something amiss.
“…?”
Looking around cautiously, Raphaelle noticed something unusual beneath her feet and jumped back in surprise.
“Wha…?”
Under Mother’s embrace, shadows rarely form.
This was because Mother’s blessings illuminated elves from every direction.
Yet, a fairly deep shadow now appeared beneath Raphaelle’s feet.
It wasn’t just beneath hers—it had formed under everyone’s feet in the street.
Startled by this minor anomaly, Raphaelle turned her attention to Aquitas.
Just then…
A sudden darkness descended upon Raphaelle’s head.
Without hesitation, she looked up.
Until now, whenever she looked up, Mother’s lush branches and leaves greeted her.
But when Raphaelle looked up this time, the sky was only a darkened void.
In the oppressive darkness, she couldn’t feel Mother’s blessings at all.
Bewildered, Raphaelle stumbled backward and almost fell on her bottom when—
From beyond that darkness,
A streak of trajectory began to form.
The single streak that started beyond the horizon stretched all the way until it crossed back over it.
Light streamed through the cracks in the darkness where the trajectory had cut through, illuminating the skies above.
Everyone gazed at the split darkness.
Someone murmured softly, “The sky… has split…”
In this moment, everyone beheld the same sight and shared the same thought.
Realizing belatedly, Raphaelle understood that the view beyond the rift was the real sky she had seen outside Mother’s embrace.
Sunlight filtered through the cracks, illuminating the ground.
Soon, tiny specks of light began falling like snow onto the earth.
Only a few Elves recognized that these light particles were fragments of the shattered World Tree’s leaves.
Most Elves froze, unsure how to react to this miraculous and terrifying phenomenon.
Aquitas quietly muttered with an expressionless face,
“The desert winds will blow.”
