Constellation?
Body?
What is she talking about?!
There's a constellation there?!
Absurd. Aren't constellations stars? Or, I don't know, deities?!
Despite this, I didn't doubt her answer for a second.
What else could cause this?
"So there's a constellation there?"
I asked. More like asking for verbal confirmation, actually.
[No.]
"Then..."
I couldn't say anything else when she spoke again. The blood is draining from my face...
[She's dead.]...
Dead?
Do deities die?!
What do you mean?
This revelation was so absurd that I thought she was joking... But it didn't seem to be. In fact...
She was a constellation too.
Of course, I never really believed in the notion of "God" or "Gods." Or rather, I never had any faith in any being, not even myself, regardless of whether they exist or not, so I accepted the notion of constellations when they appeared.
Or rather, they showed their existence through messages.
But what I witnessed now... is on another level.
The scale was simply inconceivable...
Fauna.
Flora.
Earth.
Skies...
Everything is changing like this because of a constellation...
A dead constellation, on top of that...
What kind of scale is this?
My stomach sank...
The greatest feat I had ever seen to date, and on TV.
It was the destruction wrought by an awakened one — Vivian Florença. An A-rank — in Antarctica, equivalent to a country the size of Croatia...
That's right. Destruction...
No, nothing like that.
Heheh...
What a joke... Am I even smaller than I thought I was?!
What am I? Something negative? Am I below zero?
"Hah. You must be loving this."
I didn't even need confirmation. That bitch must have just answered me to do what she does best, throw me into the depths of despair...
Is my suffering that good? Maybe it is.
I think I'd better leave...
The moment I made that decision, I saw it.
Not far from me, a fluorescent plant began to grow...
It was a branch of lilies.
I had seen it before. Or rather, I had seen the description.
They were similar to what a rank B awakened being said he had found three years ago in a crevice.
That report never left my mind, or the minds of several people, for the simple reason that that guy, Tsujima Akaji, is now rank S.
Of course, this one was different; what he said he found was carmine.
But it didn't matter, as long as it had a similar effect.
Only it seemed immature somehow, and soon I understood why...
A swarm of bees the size of my head landed on the lilies. Attracted by the sweet smell.
Something insignificant.
I just stood there watching. One minute. Two minutes. Five minutes...
When it reached the seventh minute, something began to change; the hue of the lily began to change, acquiring slightly fluorescent crimson tones coming from the stem upwards.
In ten minutes, the bees fell dry to the ground... Dead.
And the lilies took on vibrant, fluorescent crimson tones.
The same thing happened three more times over the next hour...
My gaze trembling the whole time.
The lilies attracted everyone: bees, wasps, moths, even a giant beetle, with their scent, and now they were fully ripe...
Totally crimson. Glowing with a fluorescent red energy.
That...
That was fascinating and scary.
Everyone just stood there. Nothing. The lilies did nothing visible, and yet... The bees and the rest were dead now.
It made me seriously reconsider getting close to the lilies, but greed spoke louder...
The prospect of becoming stronger was too intense to resist, so, like the bees and the rest, I was drawn to the lilies.
Their scent took over my mind. It seemed so familiar, lowering my mental defenses...
My senses dulling...
But it was useless. My mind was too much for the lilies.
My consciousness was in control the whole time...
Little by little, I got closer. Caution stamped on my face.
It was getting harder and harder to breathe because of the mana. My body is screaming not to go any further.
It burned. My skin already showed slight signs of burns, and my insides seemed to be cooking because of the mana...
My vision was already blurred. Tearing up.
But... But I was so close. Just a few more steps!
One step.
Two.
Three...
Seven...
With each step, what had once been a breeze tore at my skin, incinerating it instantly...
Five more! Come on, body! Just five more...
I was so close. This pain was too familiar to stop me... So I persisted, finally reaching the stem of the lilies.
I immediately felt my mana being sucked voraciously! Small thorns pricked my hand on the stem.
My eyes rolled back for a moment, but just as quickly, I pulled the lilies from the stem using the force of the thorns to my advantage!
I looked at the giant lilies for a moment before running away from all that mana...