The Great Sinner of Sloth.
Cosmic Zak.
A man with a flower in place of a head sat alone deep within the Fairy Forest.
There was only one reason he was there.
To kill Liliran, with whom he had a bad history.
Liliran, a master of spatial magic.
It had been a long time since she and Cosmic Zak had become entangled.
He started humming a tune as he recalled a distant past—
In the heart of a war,
The day when flowers bloomed from human heads.
It was right after the “Day of Red Blood” when the No-Names massacred a great number of otherworlders.
Enraged, the otherworlders retaliated by hunting down the first generation of No-Names in large numbers.
That conflict eventually led to a huge war between the Transporters and the natives of this world.
Too many died in that war.
Hatred nearly drove the world to ruin.
Unable to bear it any longer, an Alliance composed of Transporters and Otherworlders was formed, bringing the war to an end.
Cosmic Zak had taken part in that war.
He had originally been a member of the Alliance that cried out for peace.
But that was long ago.
Once a supporter of the alliance, Cosmic Zak had become a war criminal and a Great Sinner, responsible for massacring countless people.
He had met Liliran back during their time in the Alliance.
She too had been part of the alliance during the war.
“Hmhm-hmm, hm.”
Cosmic Zak suddenly stopped humming his nostalgic tune.
“So, she’s here.”
He tilted his head to the side and stared off into the distance.
It was still dawn.
Moonlight filtered through tangled branches and scattered across the forest floor.
There, a small fairy appeared.
A pale white hand emerged from the long sleeve of her robe.
“Cosmic.”
When she called his name, Cosmic Zak let out a slow laugh.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Liliran…. the one who blew my head off.”
He laughed cheerfully, as if genuinely glad to see her.
But unlike his lighthearted tone, Liliran’s expression turned grim with disgust.
“If your head got blown off, you should’ve died gracefully. Why come all the way here to cause trouble?”
“After falling to the very depths of hell, I realized….I just couldn’t die.”
Cosmic Zak grinned from ear to ear the entire time.
“Is that head the work of Pride?”
“Fits me well, doesn’t it? I even chose a red flower to match my vibe.”
Cosmic Zak, the one who could make blazing flowers bloom on people’s heads with a touch, then explode them.
His grotesque hobby was more than enough to make Liliran frown.
The Great Sinner of Pride.
He was the one who resurrected Cosmic Zak, whom Liliran had once completely destroyed by blowing off his head.
She should’ve obliterated his entire body back then.
That arrogant bastard. He must have made preparations to ensure Zak wouldn’t die.
“You really haven’t changed, even after all these years.”
“Still harping on about something that happened 60 years ago? You sound like an old geezer.”
“By a Transporter’s standards, 60 years is long enough that dying wouldn’t be strange at all.”
“Isn’t it kind of silly trying to apply normal lifespans to people like us? You or me.”
“Disgusting creature. Does it feel that good, living by sucking up to Pride and begging for scraps of life?”
“Of course it does. Especially compared to our former Alliance leader, who probably died of old age by now.”
Liliran’s brow twitched.
Seeing that, Cosmic Zak gave a bright, flowery laugh. He was literally shaking his flower head.
“Liliran, you haven’t changed either. Still carrying that old man in your heart, I see.”
“Shut your mouth.”
At her fury, the forest trembled like a quaking aspen.
But even as he took that anger head-on, Cosmic Zak remained delighted—
As though provoking Liliran brought him boundless joy.
“Should you really be getting so angry?”
Cosmic Zak opened his coat.
At that moment, a white orb wrapped in tree roots was revealed, embedded near his heart.
Liliran’s face grew even more fierce.
The Essence of the Breathing Tree.
This was the nutrient essential for the birth of the next generation of fairies, born from the Breathing Tree.
The fairy race bore a new generation once every 300 years.
To do this, they gathered every three centuries, breathing life into the Essence of the Breathing Tree with their partners.
Through this, a child was born, nourished by the very essence of the fairy race.
Though it was a long-kept secret of the fairies, Cosmic Zak knew all about it.
That’s why he kidnapped a fairy’s parents and intended spouse—
Then ordered the fairy to retrieve the essence for him.
“Don’t worry. I already took care of that filthy traitor.”
Cosmic Zak waved his hand gleefully.
The fairy who had brought him the Essence of the Breathing Tree had begged through bitter tears—
pleading for the lives of his wife and parents.
Cosmic Zak sighed at the sight of his tearful desperation.
How could someone value individual lives more than the lives of the entire fairy race?
Unable to stomach the disgust, he ended up blowing the fairy’s head off as well.
The loved ones had already been killed, so at least they would’ve had a miraculous reunion in death.
“…Were you shaped from pure evil?”
Liliran could no longer hide her disgust toward him.
It was hard to believe there had been a time when she’d once trusted him as an ally.
Cosmic Zak said nothing.
Then, he tapped the Essence of the Breathing Tree with a finger.
Even that small gesture made Liliran flinch.
“You and I both know it, don’t we? In war, what counts as justice or evil is just whatever people happen to say.”
“What part of your actions could possibly be called justice!?”
“In my head.”
His head was a flower. Nothing more.
“Liliran, I just want to save this world. I’m trying to tear down a flawed wall and rebuild it from the ground up.”
Cosmic Zak kept tapping the essence, deliberately provoking her.
It felt as though even a slight misstep would make him blow it up.
“Let’s stop the useless talk here. You want something from me, and I want something from you.”
His patience had run out.
The lazy Cosmic Zak now wanted to bring things to an end.
“Let’s each get what we want.”
“Rip that filthy essence out of your disgusting body. Now.”
Cosmic Zak obediently extracted the essence of the fairy race.
Then, he slowly extended his arm to the side.
It was a clear sign. He was ready to throw it at any time.
“Now it’s your turn.”
Liliran, breathing in and out, slowly began to move her wings.
With that motion, the distance between her and Cosmic Zak began to shrink.
Once she was within one meter of him, escape would be impossible.
Cosmic Zak was well aware of that.
A silent space.
Liliran steadily closed the gap between them.
In the moonlight that seeped in, her shadow began to spread and gradually overlap with Zak’s.
Just before the shadows touched—
Liliran came to a halt.
Her eyes locked with Cosmic Zak’s.
He caught the meaning behind her gaze.
The essence of the Breathing Tree in his hand was tossed into the air.
When the essence had risen more than a meter away from Zak—
That’s when Liliran moved her foot.
Wham!
It all happened in an instant.
Cosmic Zak blew up the ground beneath him and, with a tremendous leap, snatched Liliran.
She was caught helplessly in his grip.
But the essence of the Breathing Tree had vanished.
It was Liliran’s spatial magic.
She had chosen not to teleport herself, but to teleport the essence instead.
“Hahaha! Liliran, you really have given up, haven’t you?”
Cosmic Zak let out a cheerful laugh.
Liliran had been his lifelong desire.
Now that she was finally in his grasp, he couldn’t have been happier.
Liliran remained quietly silent.
The moment she was caught in Zak’s hand, her life had effectively ended.
She knew that well.
And so—
“Cosmic.”
Liliran slowly raised her head..
The moment Cosmic Zak looked into Liliran’s eyes, the flower in his head began to tremble.
Crack!
A shattering sound rang out from deep within the forest.
It was the sound of the sealing stone, the one Zak had set, breaking apart.
Blood gushed from Liliran’s nose and eyes.
It was the price she paid for forcing her spatial magic beyond the output the sealing stone could suppress.
It was the kind of crazy act that could’ve burned her brain to ashes.
And in reality, cracks had begun forming not only in her brain but also in the space seed she had nurtured.
Chill—
Cosmic Zak felt a creeping chill from Liliran and gripped her even tighter.
Her frail arms and body were crushed in his grasp, and the sound of bones snapping echoed through the still air.
“You seriously thought you could escape after I caught you?”
If that was her plan, it was far too foolish.
“No.”
But Liliran hadn’t been planning to escape.
“You’re coming with me.”
Space shifted.
It was a scale beyond anything before.
Zak realized what kind of madness she was attempting.
She intended to teleport both of them….together.
He instantly activated his ability.
In response, Liliran’s entire body swelled with heat and burst into fiery blooms.
But even in that state, she smiled brightly.
“Where do you think you’re going, trying to survive all by yourself?”
Cosmic Zak’s ability was “Calculated Explosion”. He could make anything explode with precision.
His usual target was the mana circuit.
Since mana circuits spread throughout the body, he could send the ability directly through them to the brain and detonate it instantly.
But Liliran’s mana circuits were now over-expanded from excessive use.
Swollen and bloated, the circuits caused a delay in the ability to reach her brain.
And that brief delay….was all she needed.
Flash—
A blinding light swallowed the surroundings.
At the same time, the warped space hurled them away entirely.
It all happened in an instant.
Even Cosmic Zak felt disoriented. This spatial shift was that rough.
And so, he was dragged along without even the slightest resistance.
Rumble—
At that moment, Cosmic Zak felt his body begin to warp.
A crushing, compressing sensation gripped his entire form.
Then, through the blooming flowers, his vision came into focus.
A pitch-black void.
Bubbles frothed and rose between the blossoms.
Cosmic Zak finally realized where they were.
The deep sea.
They were at the ocean floor, thousands of meters beneath the surface.
He couldn’t breathe.
Pain stabbed into his chest like nails hammered into his lungs.
The water pressure was crushing his body.
In his hand—
Liliran lay limp and at her limit.
A faint, pale smile lingered on her lips.
“Let’s die together, Cosmic.”
Fury surged through him.
He couldn’t hold back the anger burning inside him—
Anger at the woman who had chosen to drag him into death with her.
“Liliran!”
As he shouted, he detonated her.
Her body exploded, torn apart into countless pieces.
And with what remained of her,
Cosmic Zak continued to plummet, endlessly, into the deep.
At least he wasn’t alone—
So perhaps it wasn’t a lonely death.
.
.
.
At that same moment—
“Time to get to work.”
In the fairy village of Aerialde, I rolled up my sleeves.
It was time to merge two corpses into one.
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