Chapter 36: The Luminary’s Last Stand

The appearance of the teddy bear is ordinary.

A round body covered in soft fur, simple and pure eyes.

It’s the perfect size for hugging and sleeping.

But every time I swing the teddy bear, a heavy recoil, unlike its cute appearance, climbs up my forearm.

The aftershock is so powerful that it leaves the world enveloped in a heavy silence.

The being in front of me vanishes without a trace, and the world,

unable to handle the aftermath, remains in silence for a moment.

The teddy bear in my hand.

Why does this seemingly ordinary stuffed toy hold such overwhelming power?

‘Could it have some great secret?’

I recalled the memory when this teddy bear was first given to me.

I was extremely sleepy at the time, and a system message appeared.

As usual, I didn’t bother to read it properly and just skipped it.

So, I must have unknowingly received a mystery inside this teddy bear.

I imagined for a moment.

The system message turning on, with complicated phrases and texts appearing, each one explaining something.

‘Name: Teddy Bear. Principle?’, ‘Item Attribute: Legendary, something like that Who’s the creator?’

Those explanations would appear in order, and all my questions would be answered.

‘Ugh, just imagining it makes me shiver…’

Without meaning to, my body shuddered.

‘Reading anything longer than three words is too much work for me. I’ll just keep using it as I am now.’

Once again, I concluded that alarm hell was a punishment I deserved.

I tapped the teddy bear.

“Master. I am deeply sorry for showing such a disgraceful appearance.”

Thanks to my teddy bear, Kiriel, who was freed from the tentacles, lifted her red face.

Her golden hair was messily disheveled, and faint drops of sweat beaded on her forehead, glinting softly.

‘A lot of effort went into this.’

I stared at her expressionlessly, inwardly sighing.

If she had stepped back from the start instead of forcing herself, it would have been wiser.

Kiriel is proud of herself as a Valkyrie of the heavens, but honestly, I don’t think she’s particularly skilled in combat.

‘People should do what they’re good at.’

Kiriel always wakes up before me, making stew and boiling it to perfection,

then after eating, she makes sure not to leave a single grain of rice in the bowl, cleaning it until the floor shines.

The clothes hanging in my wardrobe are always dust-free, and the floor reflects like a mirror.

Everywhere she’s been, there’s no place left untidy.

‘Especially her window-cleaning skills are top-notch.’

When a housekeeper goes into battle, their wings get torn, and their armor becomes a mess.

Shivering.

There she is, completely drained, struggling to stay upright.

Her breathing is heavy, desperate like a bird trying to take off with torn wings,

and every exhale is weighed down like a branch trying to endure the force of gravity.

Perhaps touching those tentacles drained her strength because she looks weaker than usual.

Every time she stumbles, her chest slowly sinks downward under gravity, only to bounce back up gently.

Unlike me, it’s clear that she’s well-endowed.

Under the mysterious laws of physics, the two pieces of flesh shamelessly made their presence known.

‘Will I ever become like that?’

I glanced down for a moment.

The sensation in my hand was there, but it hardly mattered.

I didn’t think my future looked promising.

“You’re injured, so rest for now. Once the job is finished, I’ll treat you. Please don’t overdo it.”

“But… my mission is to protect you, Master…”

Kiriel lowered her head deeply, unable to continue speaking.

Was her pride hurt, or was she afraid I’d be disappointed?

Her expression was tangled with complex emotions.

I spoke lightly.

“It’s okay. Kiriel, you’ve already been protecting me. Even with your window-cleaning skill.”

“W-windows…? Master…”

Although she said that, Kiriel’s actions were not meaningless.

I felt it as I looked at her.

The reason Kiriel stepped forward to endure all the wounds and pain was not for mere honor or victory.

It was her heart toward me, her boundless, transparent devotion. Her determination to protect me no matter what.

I could sense that, and it seemed I could vaguely understand now.

The answer was right there in her movements, her breath, her gaze.

“Did you ask what love is?”

[Yes. I am very curious about how a being like you perceives love.]

In contrast to the way I had saved Kiriel, the tentacle monster showed no sign of interest at all,

even though I had taken care of its subordinate.

‘Does such a being even deserve to ask me about love?’

A question arose in my mind.

But is that how all angels are?

Before I could ask my own question, a strange urge rose within me to answer the question I had been given.

I felt that not answering the other’s question before asking my own would be rude and improper.

So, I suppressed the question rising inside me and glanced around at the scene.

A magical girl whose clothes were torn to pieces.

A female knight, her face bright red, holding her large chest with both arms.

All the grown women were dressed provocatively.

“Love is…”

As I spoke, I felt the silence settle in the room.

I didn’t know why, but all eyes were on me.

Even Kiriel couldn’t hide the hopeful expression on her face.

Her desire for me to say her name was clear.

Why was everyone so focused on this?

It’s not that big of a deal.

“s*x.”

“…?”

“…?”

They looked as if they hadn’t heard it right.

Kiriel widened her eyes and grabbed her neck, her lips trembling.

She screamed in horror.

“Master… you… se-se-se-s*x… AHHH!”

She didn’t stop there. She collapsed and started coughing up blood.

“…These young ones are fast, but to think a child would… so early…”

Did my words sound that strange?

I looked at them blankly, my eyes half-lidded as usual.

What’s wrong? I didn’t say anything bad.

Their appearances, with shoulders hunched and breathing heavily, seemed odd.

“What’s wrong with that? It’s in the textbooks.”

I tilted my head.

I was just saying something I had briefly heard in health and physical education class.

Is s*x really a bad thing?

I’ve never done it or seen it, so I’m not sure.

When I force myself to say swear words, they often get filtered,

but since there’s no filtering here, it doesn’t seem like a bad word.

[Child, is that your answer?]

The voice of the Immortal Mother was still peculiar.

It had a resonance, as if encompassing all life in the world.

[What you spoke of, the act called s*x, can come from love. ]

[It is also a sacred connection that can give birth to life. However, it is not all that love is.]

I stared at her.

What? Does this mean my words weren’t entirely wrong?

[Child, love is more than what you imagine. ]

[It cannot be defined by a simple act. It transcends life and existence. ]

[Love is not about giving and receiving; it is about encompassing everything and making everything complete.]

The Immortal Mother extended her hand no, her tentacle sweeping through the air.

An indescribable sense of rejection spread through my body.

[The love I possess is different from what you know. ]

[My love begins with bringing all beings into unity with me. I embrace them. I make them a part of me.]

[ And through that, we become beings who no longer suffer. All beings, without separation, understanding each other, becoming one… that is true love.]

I was silent for a while.

Is that love?

No matter how I thought about it, it seemed absurd.

“Is making someone’s body a part of your own love?”

How could that be love?

I thought love was about liking each other, marrying, and having children.

Wasn’t it something like that?

[Yes. Child, once you become one with me, you will no longer be lonely. ]

[You will no longer be in pain. You will no longer be afraid. Becoming one with me, that is the love I give, and that is my salvation.]

To give, embrace, and swallow without anyone’s consent, calling it love…

From the perspective of the one receiving it, I thought it could only be seen as violence.

If what that being called love is complete and peaceful, then why does it feel so suffocating?

As an angel, I couldn’t resonate with the Immortal Mother’s words at all.

“No matter how I think about it, that’s not love. It seems like just a bad thing.”

[No, child. It’s just that you haven’t fully understood the depth of love yet.]

[ But that’s okay. You’ll become one with me soon enough. Come, child. Let me embrace you.]

As soon as those words were spoken,

The Immortal Mother’s form wavered like an unanchored wave, and the extending tentacles began to reach for me.

I spread my wings and flew, but the tentacles moved against time.

My attempt to dodge had already become part of the future she had predicted,

and the place I was trying to leap toward was already where her tentacles had reached.

The order of time, space, and causality was powerless before the Immortal Mother.

It was as if the very laws of the universe had collapsed and were shaking, twisting.

It felt as though time and space themselves favored that being.

Whoooom… KUN!!

The space I was standing on immediately twisted.

The ground flipped, and the sky poured down beneath me.

As I turned my head, trying to find a space to dodge, the tentacle was already there.

It existed nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

“There’s nowhere to escape, is there?”

At that moment, when it felt like my whole body would be covered by the tentacles.

Paaaah!

In an instant, I entered a world moving at the speed of light.

Here, time held no meaning for me.

Maybe it was because my mind wasn’t sharp enough,

but whenever I reached the speed of light, it always felt like time had stopped.

The world around me seemed to stretch and warp.

Colors distorted and faded as their wavelengths warped.

Only the beams of light moving forward sharply bent and filled my vision.

However, the intuition of an angel was still fully intact.

I could clearly see what I had to do to win.

‘It doesn’t matter if I can’t see it. It’s the same as if I could.’

I gripped my teddy bear tightly.

Even in the world of light, I could still feel physical force.

The weight of my teddy bear remained, still present in my hand.

“Another hit, and it’s over. Let’s finish this quickly and go to sleep.”

The enemy was frozen in place.

But I moved.

My toes rode the speed of light, leaving a radiant trail in its wake.

The overwhelming speed advantage would complete the angel’s punishment.

As I moved at the speed of light, I passed through all the frozen objects and beings.

A simple motion.

Just approach, and strike.

It would be over in an instant, just like when I knocked out that bad uncle.

I thought this time would be the same.

…That is, until the strange shadow moved.

Ssssssss…

In the world of light, all beings and objects should remain still,

yet for some reason, the Immortal Mother still wriggled, spilling her tentacles.

Screeeeeeeek!!

‘Does moving at the speed of light not matter?’

I tried to move my body to dodge, but the very act of dodging seemed impossible.

Even here, the tentacles twisted time, already reaching my “future.”

The outcome was inevitable, suffocating every choice I made.

The result preceded the cause.

[The clash of transcendent beings is usually decided in an instant. Child, you are still inexperienced.]

The enemy seemed relaxed.

Just before the tentacles wrapped around my body, I formed light into a spear.

Woooosh!

A skill I frequently used in Heaven RPG blossomed brightly in my palm.

An angelic technique, infused with the property of exterminating evil.

Sacred Spear
Longinus

Flash!

With a blinding brilliance that seemed to tear the sky, the light spear raced through the space.

The tentacles that were about to engulf me disintegrated into ash, even though the spear didn’t strike them.

But the light lost its way in the warped space.

The spear seemed to stretch endlessly forward, but it could never reach the Immortal Mother’s center.

It bent with the curvature of space, continuing to bend and curve.

It was as if an invisible force was pulling it, endlessly spiraling around the Immortal Mother.

“Child, I can love even your light.”

The movement was like a black wave stirring.

The wriggling tentacles swallowed the spear.

The sight of the spear, filled with the light of Phama, being absorbed was unnervingly grotesque.

‘If it touches those tentacles, will even the light be swallowed up and disappear?’

Still, in the corner of my chest, the certainty of victory boiled up.

I had the feeling that I could win easily.

But something felt off.

Why was the situation so unfavorable?

Was I mistaken?

‘No, even the gods would punish evil deeds, the strongest character in Heaven RPG, the angel, is never wrong.’

The angel was omnipotent.

In Heaven RPG, I had built the strongest specs, becoming a being capable of judging all evil deeds.

All the absurdities and wrongdoings of the world would vanish like dust in the presence of the angel’s light.

And the one wielding that light was none other than me.

Reliant on auto-hunting and auto-progress, I, Yoo Baekseol, had solved everything with just a few clicks.

I was that F-class Hunter, Yoo Baekseol, who couldn’t even sleep properly and struggled through each day with lethargy.

Though I could wield the power of light, truly controlling that power was difficult.

I was lazy, didn’t exercise, and found it a hassle to read anything longer than three characters, and all I was good for was sleeping.

I couldn’t fight.

‘Unlike before, just moving, swinging, and emitting light in simple motions won’t be enough to handle the being in front of me.’

The Immortal Mother had compressed all possibilities of past, present, and future into “one point.”

My existence was entirely bound by her plan.

No matter how hard I struggled to break free, time and space enveloped me, pulling me back to where I started.

Even if I moved at the speed of light, I would still end up fixed in one spot.

All my movements were repeated within the path she had designed.

“In the realm of transcendence, your light means nothing. The light you have is simply embraced by the infinite love before it.”

The tentacles, like waves, rushed toward me as if to finish me off.

In the movement that twisted time beyond the speed of light, I took a deep breath and hugged my teddy bear tightly.

A perfect trap, where not even the light could escape.

Victory itself was being given over to the Immortal Mother, loving her and siding with her.

Is this.

Infinite love?

“This time, it’s my turn.”

If it’s all because of infinite love,

Then, I should just unleash infinite divine power, right?

Compression.

Compression.

Compress the light.

All the willpower infused into the light was compressed into the teddy bear.

It shone.

The teddy bear seemed to have become some sort of holy sword.

…I never really thought about giving it my all, but I can’t let those tentacles destroy me.

I’m pushing the output to the limit. If I’m not good at controlling it, I’ll just overpower them with damage.

It was like energy, twisted in agony, condensed into an intangible core.

The light gradually sank deeper and heavier into the teddy bear.

The space twisted.

Even so, as if it wasn’t enough, I forced the light even deeper, even heavier into the teddy bear.

If it doesn’t reach, I’ll just press it down until it does.

The once solid and heavy teddy bear now felt like it had become a star.

It shone so brilliantly, and at some point, it began to swallow all the light, growing darker.

Inside, the energy of light churned like a wave, swirling.

The surrounding space bent, twisted, and ripped apart, as if it were clay being pulled in an instant.

The space could no longer bear the weight of the teddy bear.

That weight was so enormous that it couldn’t stay in my hands, flowing down like it was pouring into infinity,

yet it originated from the light within me.

“What kind of immense power is this?! Has the chain of causality been broken? ”

“A constellation cannot wield such a great power on the ground!”

No matter how much the tentacles writhed in horror…

“It’s over.”

With both hands, I slammed the teddy bear down, and a dazzling light exploded.

The light spread out, sweeping away all the darkness,

and the explosive force split the space in front of me like lightning piercing through dimensions.

The chunk of compressed light dug into the space,

and the Immortal Mother, standing before me, was torn apart and split by the shockwave of the light.

As if it had evaporated.

Only a few drops of liquid fell to the floor, making it hard to believe she had even been there, as she was perfectly obliterated.

This was the technique that imbued divine power into the light to deliver physical damage.

It was the holy light cannon’s teddy bear version.

But then…

Thud.

“Huh…?”

I heard the quiet sound of a fragment hitting the floor.

The teddy bear was split in half.

The torso remained in my hands, but the head rolled off and stared up at me with an expressionless gaze at my feet.

Our eyes met.

The thing I would normally hug to sleep was gone. I felt tears welling up.