Episode 117. Lacrahan's Plan
"Everything is ultimately my victory. Adkins!"
The Supreme Being shouted, intoxicated with a sense of triumph.
He felt a sense of comfort, as if everything had finally found its proper place.
From the beginning, he had hoped to reverse the fates of Lacrahan and Bercheria and have them curse each other.
He wanted to make Adkins, who dreamed of death, experience the horrors of a god becoming human.
He waited for Bercheria to go mad, feeling the unbearable pressure of a human becoming a god.
So, pretending not to know that Adkins loved a human woman, he subtly tested him, suggesting that he would make her a god.
And what happened after he reversed their fates was completely beyond the Supreme Being's expectations.
Adkins, though miserable, endured it all with equanimity.
He didn't beg God to kill him, or that he couldn't live like this.
Even though those words could have made him a god again, they saved him.
“Presumptuous.”
Bercheria was no different.
Living as a half-god, born only through the Awakened, not fully possessed like Dipper, who had sinned and been cursed, he didn’t question God. He didn’t cry and beg, asking why He made his life so miserable. He simply endured, as if this were his destiny.
So, each time he was reborn as an Awakened, she used Lawrence to gift him an even more miserable life.
This life was even more miserable.
The next was even more horrific.
And this time, every breath he took was made agonizing and painful.
But Bercheria never gave up.
He never abandoned his will to live, and even if he briefly resented God, he never begged Him to take this tiresome life from her.
“Even if it went against the laws of the universe, I had to kill Bercheria. Even if I had to listen to your resentment, Adkins, I had to do it.”
Since they lived infinite lives, it was inevitable that Adkins's heart would eventually soften and he would fall in love with the Supreme Being. His impatience, fueled by a fear that he wouldn't be able to endure those long years, had thrown everything into disarray.
"Adkins. You are now a god like me again."
The Supreme Being smiled gently at the writhing Lacrahan.
"And Lawrence."
When he called Lawrence's name, time, which had stopped, began to flow again.
The humans, captivated by the power only the Supreme Being could wield, continued their actions, oblivious to the fact that they had been frozen for a moment.
Those who had stumbled collapsed to the floor, and those who had been wiping away the blood now wiped the rest with the back of their hands.
Lawrence, who had been looking down at the trembling and bleeding Dipper, raised his head in surprise.
"You kill Bercheria, and in return, I will grant you the power of the earth that Dipper possessed."
Lawrence blinked his brown eyes absentmindedly.
“...Huh?”
“Now that Dipper is dead, shouldn’t someone protect the Kingdom of Contana?”
“You’re making me a god?”
“Yes. We’ll need a weather goddess soon. It wouldn’t hurt to take that position.”
Lawrence looked down at the crimson blood that had splattered on her hands while supporting Dipper.
His trembling hands felt strange, as if they weren’t his own.
“But.”
Lawrence gulped, looking into the gray eyes of the absolute god.
“We must kill Bercheria. Do you understand?”
The Supreme Being's lips curled up.
Lawrence, who had a frightened expression, nodded in defeat and wiped his bloody hands on his dress.
“...Yes. Understood.”
The Supreme Being turned with a satisfied expression.
He slowly walked towards Lacrahan, who was agonizing in pain.
“Ha.”
He hadn’t realized the air of victory could be so refreshing.
Even the human voices wailing here and there, like beautiful songs, filled his heart with joy.
"Adkins!"
He grabbed Lacrahan's hair with one hand and lifted his face toward him.
His expression, stained with agony, was starkly visible.
"Your Highness!"
The knights of Lacrahan, too daring to approach, called out to him in pitiful tones.
"How are you, Adkins? This is truly miserable. You're a god now. You can't kill me because you're not human. You can only be defeated by me. What? Why are you making that face? Didn't you think of something like this?"
Lacrahan's pitch-black eyes slowly drifted down to the Supreme Being's gray hair, eyes, and strong jaw.
"No."
"What?"
"I did, but I didn't know you'd be so completely fooled."
"...What?"
Lacrahan raised a hand, and all the noise stopped in an instant.
The Supreme Being looked around with eyes wide as if they were going to burst.
"Time, time..."
She'll be seeing him for the first time, but she'll have a strange premonition, as if she's known him for ages.
She'll be watching him, blushing, as she tells lies that are obviously false—like having a husband at home, or that even without him, they'll struggle to overcome our differences in social status. But they'll already be in love.
They know how long they've waited for each other.
"Bercheria."
Lawrence's face contorted at Lacrahan's low voice.
"That damned Bercheria! Bercheria!"
Lawrence suddenly hardened her face like a madwoman, sword raised, and rushed at him.
"I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this! I'm going crazy! I bought a newborn baby, locked her in a tower, and abused and tormented her every day, but she won't let go! Do you understand?"
Her face, blood-stained and crazed, was chilling.
"Why can't I have you, Lacrahan? When I love you so much? Why do I keep becoming the wife of some stupid Emperor?"
Lawrence grabbed Lacrahan by the collar and screamed,
“I’m going to be the wife of the most talented man in the world. That’s my dream! What’s so great about it that she can’t even let you near me once!”
At the maniacal voice, Lacrahan simply twisted his lips into a smile.
“That’s not how love works.”
“What?”
Lacrahan looked at Lawrence, who was fuming, with calm eyes.
“That’s not how love starts, Lawrence.”
The last face he wanted to see was not Lawrence’s, but Bercheria’s, but it was worth it in itself to completely end the ill-fated relationship between the Supreme Being and Lawrence in this life.
“Kill me.”
Lacrahan offered his strong neck, veins bulging, his whole body relaxed. With the Supreme Being, his contract holder, gone, Lawrence would not be reincarnated after this life.
“It’s over.”
As Lacrahan closed his eyes, Lawrence, unable to contain her anger, raised her sword.
And at that moment...
The ground where the portal was embedded suddenly began to shake as if an earthquake had occurred.
"Everything is ultimately my victory. Adkins!"
The Supreme Being shouted, intoxicated with a sense of triumph.
He felt a sense of comfort, as if everything had finally found its proper place.
From the beginning, he had hoped to reverse the fates of Lacrahan and Bercheria and have them curse each other.
He wanted to make Adkins, who dreamed of death, experience the horrors of a god becoming human.
He waited for Bercheria to go mad, feeling the unbearable pressure of a human becoming a god.
So, pretending not to know that Adkins loved a human woman, he subtly tested him, suggesting that he would make her a god.
And what happened after he reversed their fates was completely beyond the Supreme Being's expectations.
Adkins, though miserable, endured it all with equanimity.
He didn't beg God to kill him, or that he couldn't live like this.
Even though those words could have made him a god again, they saved him.
“Presumptuous.”
Bercheria was no different.
Living as a half-god, born only through the Awakened, not fully possessed like Dipper, who had sinned and been cursed, he didn’t question God. He didn’t cry and beg, asking why He made his life so miserable. He simply endured, as if this were his destiny.
So, each time he was reborn as an Awakened, she used Lawrence to gift him an even more miserable life.
This life was even more miserable.
The next was even more horrific.
And this time, every breath he took was made agonizing and painful.
But Bercheria never gave up.
He never abandoned his will to live, and even if he briefly resented God, he never begged Him to take this tiresome life from her.
“Even if it went against the laws of the universe, I had to kill Bercheria. Even if I had to listen to your resentment, Adkins, I had to do it.”
Since they lived infinite lives, it was inevitable that Adkins's heart would eventually soften and he would fall in love with the Supreme Being. His impatience, fueled by a fear that he wouldn't be able to endure those long years, had thrown everything into disarray.
"Adkins. You are now a god like me again."
The Supreme Being smiled gently at the writhing Lacrahan.
"And Lawrence."
When he called Lawrence's name, time, which had stopped, began to flow again.
The humans, captivated by the power only the Supreme Being could wield, continued their actions, oblivious to the fact that they had been frozen for a moment.
Those who had stumbled collapsed to the floor, and those who had been wiping away the blood now wiped the rest with the back of their hands.
Lawrence, who had been looking down at the trembling and bleeding Dipper, raised his head in surprise.
"You kill Bercheria, and in return, I will grant you the power of the earth that Dipper possessed."
Lawrence blinked his brown eyes absentmindedly.
“...Huh?”
“Now that Dipper is dead, shouldn’t someone protect the Kingdom of Contana?”
“You’re making me a god?”
“Yes. We’ll need a weather goddess soon. It wouldn’t hurt to take that position.”
Lawrence looked down at the crimson blood that had splattered on her hands while supporting Dipper.
His trembling hands felt strange, as if they weren’t his own.
“But.”
Lawrence gulped, looking into the gray eyes of the absolute god.
“We must kill Bercheria. Do you understand?”
The Supreme Being's lips curled up.
Lawrence, who had a frightened expression, nodded in defeat and wiped his bloody hands on his dress.
“...Yes. Understood.”
The Supreme Being turned with a satisfied expression.
He slowly walked towards Lacrahan, who was agonizing in pain.
“Ha.”
He hadn’t realized the air of victory could be so refreshing.
Even the human voices wailing here and there, like beautiful songs, filled his heart with joy.
"Adkins!"
He grabbed Lacrahan's hair with one hand and lifted his face toward him.
His expression, stained with agony, was starkly visible.
"Your Highness!"
The knights of Lacrahan, too daring to approach, called out to him in pitiful tones.
"How are you, Adkins? This is truly miserable. You're a god now. You can't kill me because you're not human. You can only be defeated by me. What? Why are you making that face? Didn't you think of something like this?"
Lacrahan's pitch-black eyes slowly drifted down to the Supreme Being's gray hair, eyes, and strong jaw.
"No."
"What?"
"I did, but I didn't know you'd be so completely fooled."
"...What?"
Lacrahan raised a hand, and all the noise stopped in an instant.
The Supreme Being looked around with eyes wide as if they were going to burst.
"Time, time..."
Lacrahan was perfectly reproducing the ability that only the Supreme Being possessed: the ability to stop time.
"Have you forgotten?"
Lacrahan dusted himself off and stood up.
"My ability is to absorb the abilities of others and mimic them."
The Supreme Being's face twisted into an unpleasant grimace.
"But that's only for a moment..."
Lacrahan gripped the Supreme Being's chin tightly.
"It would take far too long to turn the Supreme Being into a human."
"Ah, ah, no."
Lacrahan raised his hand.
"By borrowing the energy of the universe, I will prevent the Supreme Being from interfering in this world any longer."
White light poured down from the sky.
"By the power of the primordial god, I am Graham."
The light poured down brilliantly over the head of the man who called himself the Supreme Being.
"I wish to become human."
As Lacrahan finished speaking, Graham shuddered as if struck by lightning and fell to the floor. Lacrahan closed his eyes. His eyelids were trembling beneath his tightly shut eyelids. Even if he could mimic power, it was impossible to perfectly imitate the Supreme Being with the power of a god who had just recovered.
"La, Lacrahan."
He had no strength left to lift a single hand. Lacrahan, barely able to keep from collapsing beside the Supreme Being, knelt down, hearing the sound of footsteps.
“Ha...”
Another fate, a tediously long one, was approaching him.
“Lacrahan. Are you truly a god again?”
Lawrence called out to him in a trembling voice. In her hand, stained with Dipper’s blood, was a sword. The fact that Lawrence was the only one moving at this moment, when all time had stopped, was perhaps because Dipper’s energy had flowed into her. Or perhaps because the Supreme Being had just given her a mission. Either way, it didn’t matter anymore.
The only silver lining was that Bercheria was safe. Even if there had been a slight deviation from Lacrahan’s plan, Bercheria’s life was at stake. He didn’t know the limits of the Supreme Being's power, and a slight mistake could have led to the destruction of humanity. He wasn’t exaggerating. Even Lacrahan didn't know what the Supreme Being, unable to control his anger, would do.
“Lacrahan. Was that what you meant when you spoke to me?”
Lawrence's trembling voice was coming out in a higher-than-usual tone.
“So this is why humans can kill gods when they sleep with them? To ask me to kill you?”
Lacrahan laughed weakly. He'd given Lawrence a hint in case he failed to transform the Supreme Being into a human. He knew that Lawrence's evil nature would ensure she wouldn't miss an opportunity to stab the Supreme Being. But the plan succeeded, and the blade turned toward Lacrahan.
“Yeah. I told you to kill me.”
Lacrahan straightened his back and looked at Lawrence with narrowed eyes. Because he was kneeling, their eyes were almost level. If Lawrence came to kill him, Lacrahan would have a chance. A chance to vanish the last being tormenting Bercheria. And a chance to be reborn. Perhaps in his next life, he'll meet Bercheria with all his memories intact. Then, as humans, in some ordinary, peaceful world, they'll meet at first sight and fall in love. He'll recognize her at first sight, and he'll follow her, prepared to be called a madman. He'll spout silly things like, "You're so beautiful, I can't take my eyes off you."
She'll be seeing him for the first time, but she'll have a strange premonition, as if she's known him for ages.
She'll be watching him, blushing, as she tells lies that are obviously false—like having a husband at home, or that even without him, they'll struggle to overcome our differences in social status. But they'll already be in love.
They know how long they've waited for each other.
"Bercheria."
Lawrence's face contorted at Lacrahan's low voice.
"That damned Bercheria! Bercheria!"
Lawrence suddenly hardened her face like a madwoman, sword raised, and rushed at him.
"I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this! I'm going crazy! I bought a newborn baby, locked her in a tower, and abused and tormented her every day, but she won't let go! Do you understand?"
Her face, blood-stained and crazed, was chilling.
"Why can't I have you, Lacrahan? When I love you so much? Why do I keep becoming the wife of some stupid Emperor?"
Lawrence grabbed Lacrahan by the collar and screamed,
“I’m going to be the wife of the most talented man in the world. That’s my dream! What’s so great about it that she can’t even let you near me once!”
At the maniacal voice, Lacrahan simply twisted his lips into a smile.
“That’s not how love works.”
“What?”
Lacrahan looked at Lawrence, who was fuming, with calm eyes.
“That’s not how love starts, Lawrence.”
The last face he wanted to see was not Lawrence’s, but Bercheria’s, but it was worth it in itself to completely end the ill-fated relationship between the Supreme Being and Lawrence in this life.
“Kill me.”
Lacrahan offered his strong neck, veins bulging, his whole body relaxed. With the Supreme Being, his contract holder, gone, Lawrence would not be reincarnated after this life.
“It’s over.”
As Lacrahan closed his eyes, Lawrence, unable to contain her anger, raised her sword.
And at that moment...
The ground where the portal was embedded suddenly began to shake as if an earthquake had occurred.
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