Chapter 51
World Collision (1)
“Bom, something urgent came up.”
“Huh? Something urgent?”
“I’ll call you again later. Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay, but what happened?”
“The world is in danger.”
“What are you talking about?!”
***
「A World Collision has begun.」
「There is a considerable difference in rank between you and the opposing god.」
「The disparity will be adjusted in accordance with the Laws of the Stars.」
「1. A [Preparation Period] will be provided to prepare for the collision.」
「2. [Information] about the opposing world will be provided.」
「3. Your divine power and interference power will be temporarily increased.」
The status windows continued to appear.
「The rules of World Collision will now be explained.」
「Gods whose worlds have collided may interfere with each other’s worlds. You may expend interference power to perform [Direct Interference], or send your followers into the opposing world to exert influence.」
「A World Collision will continue until either a god’s influence over their own worlds falls to zero or the number of followers present in their worlds falls to zero.」
「The World Collision may be stopped at any time if both gods agree.」
Zero influence over one’s worlds.
Zero followers remaining in one’s worlds.
Both conditions were downright brutal. In other words, unless both sides agreed to stop, the conflict would continue until one of them was destroyed.
「Information about the opposing world will now be provided.」
「A World Made of Chains and Shackles」
「Chief Deity: Beliar」
「Religion: Unbroken Shackles」
「Doctrine: Obedience」
「Followers: 222,437,321」
「Primary Race: Ironmen」
「Overall Assessment: A military world powered by the productive capacity of the countless worlds it has colonized. Beneath the Ironmen, an outstanding warrior race, exists a legion composed of numerous races.
Due to the active interference of the Evil God Beliar, more than half of its population consists of fanatics. They do not fear death and will throw away their lives to seize victory until their final moments—as they always have.」
「Name: Beliar」
「Disposition: Evil God」
「Rank: Upper-Intermediate」
「Overall Assessment: A conqueror who has never suffered a single defeat. He must possess everything he desires and refuses to let anyone take away what is his. He is currently consumed by rage over the fact that a god of human origin stole one of his colonies.」
The information he had been given was utterly despair-inducing.
‘What the hell...?’
The number of followers alone was overwhelming.
Two hundred million.
That was more than the entire population of South Korea, where Lee Shin lived.
Moreover, Beliar—the god who possessed such an enormous number of followers—was an upper-intermediate god, far above Lee Shin’s rank.
Lee Shin had overcome numerous trials and grown beyond comparison to when he had first begun. The title he had earned through all that effort was that of a lower god.
But upper-intermediate was several ranks higher than that. Lee Shin was outmatched both in the scale of the worlds they possessed and in the power of the gods who ruled them.
The situation could not have been more daunting.
Just then—
「Beliar has requested a [Private Conversation]. Would you like to accept?」
A status window appeared with a chime.
Lee Shin had no reason to refuse.
‘...Is he willing to talk?’
The rules of World Collision were merciless. If they had to fight until one side’s world was completely destroyed, both sides would inevitably suffer losses.
‘Maybe he just wants to preserve his pride.’
When Lee Shin had briefly browsed the gods’ community, he had learned that many gods possessed considerable pride. That would be even more true for a god who had never experienced defeat.
‘Kneel before me, apologize, humiliate yourself in front of the community... I could accept any demand like that.’
His pride did not matter.
If casting aside his dignity could save even one of his followers, Lee Shin would kneel a hundred times over.
He believed that was the attitude a righteous god ought to possess.
With that thought, Lee Shin pressed the accept button.
The scenery before him immediately changed.
Just as he had been transported to a vast grassland when he held a private conversation with Blue Star, he had once again been summoned into a different space.
However, there was one key difference. The place to which Lee Shin had been summoned this time was unbearably dreary. There was not a single trace of nature. Instead, everything he could see was made of gray steel.
Gray walls, a gray floor, and a gray ceiling. At the center of the vast chamber stood an enormous throne. Seated upon it was a being whose entire body was composed of steel.
It resembled a living suit of armor.
“So, you are the one?”
Creak.
The sound of metal grinding against metal echoed through the chamber.
“You are even more insignificant in person.”
“To think an inferior creature made of nothing but flesh and blood would dare steal what belongs to me and subject me to such humiliation...”
Burning fury filled his voice.
“Insignificant lump of flesh, I will make you this offer only once.”
“...”
“I shall show you mercy and grant you an opportunity to preserve your existence. With the exception of a single soul, personally extinguish every life that breathes within your pathetic worlds. Then surrender all your worthless worlds to me, including the one you stole from me.”
“If you do so, I shall make a special exception and spare you from annihilation. You understand, do you not? As long as even one follower remains beneath you, you can start over as many times as necessary. I had intended to erase your existence completely from the World of Stars, but after hearing that you are acquainted with the Master of Eternity, I have personally chosen to show you mercy.”
The eye sockets of his iron, helmet-like face turned red and gleamed ominously.
“I heard you were originally human.”
“...”
“Then, when you extinguish your followers’ lives, descend into their world and do it personally with your own hands. Do not use your authority. Stain those pathetic hands with their blood as you watch them scream, their necks snap, and blood pour from their mouths. Watch them writhe and shriek their final cries as you kill them.”
“Then I believe my anger might subside a little.”
A laugh resembling metal scraping against metal followed.
The moment Lee Shin heard those words, he instinctively understood.
He finally understood exactly what beings known as evil gods truly were.
「The [Private Conversation] has ended.」
Negotiation had never been an option in the first place.
Lee Shin had never encountered a being so overflowing with malice. Even the creatures that bore the name of demons had never been like that. He even found himself thinking that the name “demon” might suit that being far better.
Ultimately, only one choice remained.
「Preparation Period」
「240:00:00」
「Prepare thoroughly.」
To fight back.
「TIP: As long as you remain in the World of Stars, [World Collision] is an unavoidable event.」
「TIP: Victory or defeat will be determined by which world is greater and which of the two gods possesses superior qualities as a god.」
The die had already been cast.
The status window continued its explanation.
「TIP: Records of past World Collisions show that there have been many cases in which a side emerged victorious despite being greatly outmatched in the size of its worlds and the number of its followers.」
「TIP: Ultimately, what matters most are the fundamentals.」
「TIP: Your three worlds exist in harmony with one another. Although they are small, your influence within those three worlds is absolute.」
「TIP: The Evil God Beliar possesses hundreds of worlds, but he cannot possibly exercise absolute influence over every one of them. If he could, Beliar would have become a higher god and gained widespread renown long ago.」
「TIP: Most followers who worship evil gods do so not out of genuine faith arising from their souls, but out of false devotion born from power and fear.」
「TIP: Although the difference in the scale of your worlds is tremendous, I am certain that you are in no way inferior to Beliar when it comes to your ‘qualities as a god.’」
「TIP: That must become the foundation of our plan for victory.」
The status window offered Lee Shin heartfelt advice.
He carefully read each message.
‘My qualities as a god...?’
The Evil God Beliar whom Lee Shin had seen certainly had not appeared to be an “excellent god.” However, even Lee Shin did not know whether excellence was the standard by which a great god was judged.
Blue Star, for one, was hardly what anyone would call excellent.
‘In the end, the worlds are the main players, not me.’
The amount of influence he could exert through [World Interference] was limited. It was something he had learned painfully through the numerous trials he had faced thus far.
Lee Shin began by examining the opposing world in greater detail.
「Using [World Observation].」
It was an advantage he had received because of the considerable difference in their ranks. After activating World Observation, Lee Shin was able to glimpse a portion of Beliar’s world—the World Made of Chains and Shackles.
‘It’s enormous.’
It was on an entirely different scale from the Small World.
Even if all three worlds under Lee Shin’s control were combined, they would only be comparable in size. A single city in the opposing world was practically equal to the entirety of one of Lee Shin’s worlds.
Furthermore, Beliar did not possess only that one world. He had hundreds of colonial worlds under his control. In terms of sheer scale alone, the disparity was utterly hopeless.
‘So those are the Ironmen.’
The inhabitants of the world Beliar had created, the Ironmen, resembled living suits of armor. They stood roughly three meters tall, and their bodies were made entirely of steel. They were living weapons created for battle. Their appearance resembled the form Beliar had taken during their private conversation.
But Ironmen were not the only ones there.
Vast legions had been assembled throughout the cities of the World Made of Chains and Shackles. Among their ranks were dragons like the ones that had invaded the dwarves’ world, humans around one hundred and seventy centimeters tall, and other races such as beastfolk, whose forms seemed to combine humans and animals.
After all, Beliar’s enormous number of followers was the result of invading and exploiting other worlds.
Of course, there was no way to condemn him for it.
No law against war crimes existed in the World of Stars. Human morality and law held no authority here.
This was, quite literally, the World of Stars.
Lee Shin observed the legions preparing for the coming World Collision. The Ironmen personally molded by Beliar displayed neither fear nor agitation, but the other races were different. The expressions of those who had been told that another war would soon begin were grim.
“How much longer must this go on...?”
“How many of us will die this time?”
At first glance, they appeared to be an iron-blooded legion.
But the truth was different.
Lee Shin immediately took note of that fact.
‘The Ironmen possess unwavering faith and physically superior bodies, but there aren’t many of them. A small number of powerful individuals rule the rest by crushing them beneath fear.’
It was an unfamiliar arrangement when viewed as a relationship between a god and his followers. However, if he thought of it as a relationship between a ruler and his subjects, similar examples could be found throughout Earth’s history.
Such relationships never lasted forever.
Lee Shin carefully studied their eyes.
What prayers did they offer?
What resentment festered within their hearts?
And what sort of “fate” could be created from those cracks?
“What the hell is this?”
Lee Shin’s father, Yeonghwan, let out a groan.
“Isn’t the difference between your forces way too severe? Even the advantages they gave you to supposedly balance things out seem pretty useless... What kind of system is this? It’s even worse than a game’s ranked matchmaking.”
“What’s a ranked matchmaking system?”
“It’s a system that pairs players of similar skill levels.”
Yeonghwan scratched his head before speaking again.
“There’s no answer to this one...”
It seemed even his father could not come up with a solution this time. After wrestling with the problem for quite a while, Yeonghwan left, saying he would search the internet.
Apparently, it was a difficult problem even for a master of strategy games.
After his father left, Lee Shin continued observing the world.
If this were a game, perhaps defeat would already be certain.
But this was not a game.
In the real world, nothing was truly impossible.
That was what made the world beautiful.
“This old man has thought of something.”
The ingenious plan came from an unexpected person.
Santiago.
“You know those new friends who have now fully become our brethren? The dragons from the Bountiful World.”
The experienced elder of the Small World, who always performed admirably as a commander.
『Those dragons are incapable of fighting by nature.』
“I know that as well. But this is a war, isn’t it?”
『...?』
“War is different from combat.”
Santiago had never been a soldier or a military commander.
“Do you know what the most important thing in war is?”
『The number of soldiers...?』
“Supplies.”
Santiago was a hunter.
“The larger and grander an army becomes, the more important the supplies required to feed it become.”
『...』
“When this old man was young, there was a time when enough monsters to cover this entire world came swarming toward us. Do you know how the dwarves defeated them?”
A hunter always found a way to bring down his prey.
“We starved every last one of them to death.”
Santiago’s eyes gleamed.
“The youngsters today may not know it, and neither may those dragons themselves... but since ancient times, few beings have ever been as terrifyingly powerful in war as druids.”
『...』
“If druids desire it, they can turn any land into a realm of death. Without their permission, no life can sprout from the soil.”
If they could make the land fertile...
Then they could also do the opposite.
A reversal of perspective.
“Steel and fire are not the only things that can take lives, my God.”
He was right.
Games rarely accounted for something like that.
“If new friends have joined us, we ought to give them a chance to play their part.”