Chapter 276

Chapter 276

Thinking about it rationally, unification was never going to be easy.  

It wasn’t about erasing a personality but integrating it. Even between two beings with entirely different values and personalities.  

If one personality were to be obliterated, the brain itself would suffer functional damage, and Mushir al-Kashura wouldn’t get the brain he wanted.  

That was why a sense of bond and psychological adaptation was necessary for unification. There was a reason Kashura hadn’t rushed to extract my brain.  

Looking back now, analyzing everything with the knowledge I had, it was obvious. But at the time, it was impossible to realize.  

I come to the same conclusion every time I hit a wall.  

Akies Victima doesn’t create something out of nothing. It merely refines the human thought process, deriving the most optimal reasoning based on my experiences and accumulated information.  

It’s not some paranormal phenomenon like Force abilities, nor is it some transcendent technology from the Arcane Civilization.  

Akies Victima is a human technique.  

Akies. Insight. Victima. The weak.  

A means for the weak to bring down the strong—Akies Victima is that dagger.  

If I had possessed knowledge or foundational understanding of unification, I might have seen through Kashura’s scheme. I would have realized that his desperate kindness was nothing more than a tool to break me and wouldn’t have let my guard down so easily.  

‘It’s already too late.’  

A heart that has begun to waver cannot be undone. I was going to submit to unification.  

I had acknowledged Mushir al-Kashura. I had left a gap in my mind where I could accept complete defeat.  

Even if I resisted now, any superficial defiance would be meaningless.  

Kashura had been desperately waiting for my psychological barriers to crumble.  

‘The Imperial reconnaissance craft and my unexpected actions leading to our drifting…’  

That part wasn’t Kashura’s scheme. He, too, had faced unforeseen dangers and hardships.  

But he had turned adversity into opportunity. Rather than faltering in the face of hardship, he had persisted in trying to persuade me to the very end. And that desperate persuasion had pried open my heart.  

Saying it like this, it almost sounds like we’re in some kind of romance. How utterly ridiculous. Then again, at its core, isn’t it similar to romance? Damn it all. So does that make me the one being seduced?  

The more I think about it, the more I want to bite my tongue and die. I’m not joking—I mean it, for fuck’s sake. If biting my tongue could actually kill me, I would’ve done it already.  

Clunk. Clatter. Clunk.  

Kashura’s spaceship creaked uneasily as it sailed through the black sea of space.  

The captain was Mushir al-Kashura, and I was nothing more than his prisoner.

"This is an asteroid belt. Normally, no one would chart a course through here."  

Kashura spoke as he displayed the external view on the monitor. Countless small asteroids clustered together, moving along a fixed orbit.  

"You keep devouring and regurgitating other people's brains… all while continuing the life of Mushir al-Kashura. What kind of monster do you have to be to live like that? What are you even doing this for?"  

I muttered hoarsely. I had no real intention of extracting information. I just wanted to say something—anything.  

This is what it feels like to have your spirit broken.  

Mushir al-Kashura was the first person to hand me a true defeat.  

Both my body and mind had been utterly crushed.  

Suddenly, a storybook from the orphanage came to mind. The fierce storm had failed to strip the traveler of his coat, but the sunlight had made him remove it of his own will.  

I had disarmed myself, and Kashura hadn't let the opportunity slip by.  

"Luka, do you think I have some grand purpose? If I did, would you be moved and willingly accept unification?"  

"Who knows."  

It wasn’t sarcasm. I genuinely didn’t know.  

"Beyond the Niger system, there exists a nightmare we cannot possibly contend with. A disaster in every sense of the word. Just like our ancestors, wielding stone axes, faced an overwhelming flood, these 'Transcendent External Entities' are cosmic catastrophes beyond our ability to handle. Even the rulers of our world can do nothing but desperately conceal their existence from the public—hiding an unkillable terror behind a flimsy curtain. Before everyone loses their minds, that is.  

"The only reason we can live with our sanity intact is that we refuse to acknowledge memento mori—we forget that we will one day die. Sometimes, forgetting is the only way for a person to stay sane and continue living."  

If I were my old self, I might have been shaken by those words. But my heart was already shattered. There was nothing left to break.  

I felt nothing, as if it were someone else's problem.  

"So what? Are you saying you have something to do with those Transcendent External Entities?"  

"What if I told you I study them? That I seek a way to stop them? That I am a hero of a clandestine order, working from the shadows? Would that make you accept unification?"  

I let out a dry chuckle.  

"That's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. You're no hero. Not in a million years."  

I was beginning to understand Kashura, even if only a little.  

He was someone driven purely by himself. He had no interest in ideals, nations, or society.  

‘A 'supreme egoist'.  

That was probably why, even after absorbing so many brains, Kashura had never lost the core of his own identity.

"You're seeing right through me. That's a good sign. It means you're beginning to understand my essence."

"Maybe you are…."

"You are?"

Kashura's glowing eyes alone revealed emotions of curiosity and anticipation. I could recognize them because it was me.

A fully armored prosthetic body had no facial expressions. It lacked facial muscles in the first place. This was also why, when overused, such bodies gradually lost their emotional functions.

However, I could read Kashura’s complex emotions just from the light in his eyes.

We were beginning to understand each other, forming an invisible bond.

"…You just want to live as long as you please, don't you? Holding onto the power to realize your egoism without belonging anywhere."

Kashura didn’t respond to my guess. But he was probably smiling.

Dopamine must have surged through his multiple brains. I heard the bubbling sound of liquid in the tubes attached to the back of his head.

"I have lived for a long time. Some may think I am nothing more than a lingering wraith. But I believe I have lived. I have watched history unfold from the moment humanity settled on Planet Novus to the present day."

The hum of the spaceship's engine was fading. I could feel its speed decreasing. We seemed to be approaching our destination.

The spaceship moved cautiously through the asteroid belt. A single misstep could send us crashing into an asteroid, reducing us to mere cosmic dust.

"Haha, if you've lived that long, wouldn't it be natural for you to die?"

"Luka, intelligence begins with the rejection of what is natural. Our ancestors lit fires to fend off the cold, and lacking sharp teeth and claws, they carved stones into spears and blades. Eventually, in an explosive use of intelligence, they defied the natural order of life and death, creating imaginary realms—heaven and hell—under the guise of religion. Since they couldn't physically overcome death, they invented the concept of an afterlife to convince themselves that death was not the end."

"People must get preachy when they get old."

I chuckled, reminded of Ragnata for some reason. Kashura paid no mind to my remark.

"We are beginning to grasp the power to defy the absolute natural order of life and death. I am merely one of humanity’s great leaps, one of its earliest experiments. Soon, humanity will physically overcome death. They will abandon abstract heavens and hells built on imagination and claim eternal life in the present world. Luka, Luka, you're not going to spout some tired old nonsense about how immortality is meaningless and eternal life is futile, are you?"

A fairy tale I had seen at the orphanage came to mind again. It seemed I had read quite a few fairy tale books. Perhaps the Luka of my orphanage days had been more sensitive than I had thought.

"The Fox and the Sour Grapes."

Kashura's glowing eyes widened as he understood my words.

"Saying that something is 'useless, unnecessary, or meaningless' simply because you cannot have it is unconvincing. If one is to argue about the meaninglessness of immortality and eternal life, one must first obtain it. The fox criticized the grapes on the tree as sour because it could not eat them, but in reality, they were probably very sweet. You could tell just by the fragrant scent in the air. The same applies to eternal life. Just ask everyone in the world: if given the chance for immortality, would they reject it? Who, indeed, would refuse eternal life when everyone knows its sweetness? I am a fox that does not believe in sour grapes. The one who speaks the truth while everyone else lies."

"I have seen nobles of the Empire. They haven't even lived 200 years, yet their humanity is already crumbling. Our minds are not suited for immortality."

"That is not a flaw of eternal life, but a flaw of the fully cybernetic body. They failed to prevent the transformation and aging of the only biological part left—the brain. Biologically, their brains could not endure. If immortality truly proves to be futile, then we can discuss its meaninglessness when that time comes. But first, we must grasp it."

A sound argument.

Wooooong—

The spaceship was approaching an asteroid. Looking closer, it wasn’t just a rock—it was an artificial structure. Its exterior had been reinforced with stone to resemble an asteroid.

The outer wall of the disguised hideout opened, revealing a docking station designed to fit Kashura’s spaceship perfectly.

The ship landed. However, Kashura did not disembark immediately. He flinched and stared beyond the monitor. A yellow warning had appeared among the complex sensor readings.

"Luka, there is such a thing in this world as karma."

"Karma? You actually believe in that?"

"Karma is not a matter of belief. Karma is the causality of good and evil. Every action has a cause and an effect. Karma is a physical chain of cause and effect—so intricate and vast that we are simply unable to perceive it in its entirety."

Kashura’s demeanor was unusual. A drone appeared, opened his metal case, and replaced one of his brains.  

He was inserting a combat brain.  

Whatever it was, it would still be inferior to Zvely’s brain.  

"Your causality is astonishing. That the karma you have borne in a mere twenty-something years of life would seek to devour mine—how remarkable."  

The front camera monitor of the spaceship switched on. The far end of the docking bay was shrouded in darkness. But within that darkness, a pair of glowing eyes gleamed.  

Mushir al-Kashura had lived for an unfathomable span of time. He had survived, maintaining his existence and secrets, even amid the conspiracies and schemes of entire nations.  

His hideout was not just a secret of Planet Novus but perhaps of the entire Niger system.  

How many resources and sacrifices would it take to uncover such a secret in such a short time? I had no idea. I couldn’t even begin to estimate.  

Click. Clank.  

The glowing eyes advanced from within the docking bay, stepping toward the spaceship.  

A Legion.  

The Legion emerged from the darkness, its crimson Imperial Guard cape billowing behind it.  

This was not the usual shadowy, black-hued Shadow Imperial Guard Legion. The Imperial Guard-based Legion was massive, boasting a heavy yet ornate crimson coloration.  

It was a model I had never seen before. Imperial Guard Legions followed standard designs, but their armaments varied, giving them unique characteristics.  

Yet, perhaps because of the karma Kashura had spoken of, or maybe due to Akies’ intuition—  

I knew who this Legion was.  

…Ilay. Ilay Carthica.  

If it wasn’t Ilay, who else would have crossed the vastness of space to be here for me?  

"The Fox of Carthica has arrived."  

Kashura, now fully prepared for battle, disembarked from the spaceship as he spoke.  

They faced each other as if honoring a duel that had been formally arranged.  

Creak.  

Ilay, in the form of a Legion, bowed first in greeting.  

Whirr—  

Then, the front of Ilay’s helmet extended and closed, reshaping into the form of a fox mask.  

What an absurdly dedicated concept.  

"Hah, seriously."  

Against all reason, I found myself laughing at the situation.

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