*Crunch*—!
The sound of cartilage being ground to pulp traveled directly through my hand, up through bone, and into my eardrums.
There was no pain.
Well—there was, but maybe I forgot it the instant it hit.
Without warning, my vision flipped upside down.
The floor became the ceiling and the ceiling became the floor.
Heaven and earth crossed and spun.
It wasn't exactly a dramatic scene.
This tower had no real distinction between ceiling and floor to begin with.
And it wasn't my head that had shot upward.
Only my vision had escaped my body.
Thanks to that, I could see the Death God girl I was possessing from a third-person perspective—
And immediately after, I watched the man who came charging in bring his sword down onto my head.
*Whoosh—*
It passed straight through.
The attack didn't connect.
I had become a ghost.
Suicide invincibility.
I had successfully activated Death's Edge Invincibility.
*Thud—!*
Then my vision dropped to the floor.
Hurled into darkness.
Sinking.
Where to.
The boundary of death.
I had crossed the line.
*
I opened my eyes.
A grey sky stretched above me.
Before me stood a massive cliff.
Below it spread a desolate world of white earth, utterly still.
I was lying there.
Incredibly comfortable.
"Mmm…"
I rubbed my eyes.
I felt so drowsy.
It was completely absurd.
Just moments ago I had been in such a desperate situation.
But it couldn't be helped.
Because—
*It must have been a dream.*
This place was reality.
That other place was all a fake world.
The tower, the modern world—none of that ever existed.
I had always been lying here.
This was home.
My sanctuary.
The place I was meant to be.
My bed, so warm and cozy and comfortable.
That conviction took hold of my mind.
Right.
Where else could there be a place this snug?
*So comfortable…*
I wanted to keep sleeping.
Every memory up until just now faded away like a distant fragment of a past life.
The urge to sleep commanded every single cell in my body.
I love sleep more than anything.
Nothing is better than slumber.
A languid smile formed on my lips.
I tried to bury my face deeper into the white floor.
Because I needed to sleep more.
Because I had finally been able to.
The texture of the floor against my cheek was a little hard, but it was cool, and that felt nice.
I rolled over contentedly and reached out to feel the floor with my hand.
*Clatter—*
"……Hm?"
I felt a round shape under my fingertips.
Smooth.
Two empty holes in it.
I peered through half-lidded eyes at the white lump in my hand.
"……"
It was a human skull.
"Eek—!"
In an instant, the drowsiness receded like a tide and goosebumps erupted across my entire body.
I jolted upright with a start.
The cradle I'd been lying in was a plain of white bones.
Human bones, grotesque monster bones, enormous skulls of unknown origin—all piled layer upon layer in countless numbers.
My eyes opened fully.
"…"
Why had I done that.
Rolling around on a mountain of corpses and calling it my hometown.
I must have lost my mind for a moment.
And only then did I realize something was gripped in my left hand.
A grotesque hourglass carved from white bone.
What was falling inside it—
*Drip. Drip-drip.*
Blood.
Crimson blood, falling in drops.
"So when all this blood runs out, I return to normal."
That was when it happened.
*Flash—!*
"AAAAAAGH!!"
Suddenly, a figure materialized out of the empty air nearby.
A hideous monster's form, screaming while weeping tears of blood.
It appeared to be another Death God, judging by the scythe it carried.
But that Death God vanished less than a tenth of a second after appearing.
So it only looked like a brief flash.
*Flash—!*
Again.
This time a figure appeared and disappeared farther away.
"……Are those Death Gods' dwell times really that short?"
Senior Death Gods who had visited the Death God Realm too many times, their dwell time whittled down to almost nothing.
"They must have overused Death's Edge Invincibility…"
It seemed to be a living example of what Death Note Grand Canon had warned me about.
If you could only come here for a split second like that, you'd get hit by any follow-up attacks or ongoing strikes you couldn't dodge.
I turned away from them.
Where was the Great Stone Tablet?
Conveniently, not far off there was a Death God who seemed to be staying for a fairly long time.
It was just as hideous a monster as the others, but for some reason I felt no fear at all. Maybe because they were the same kind as me. I felt no wariness whatsoever.
"Excuse me!"
I closed the distance in an instant with Black Shift and approached that Death God.
"Hiiik?!"
The moment it saw my black mist, the Death God recoiled in terror and stumbled backward.
"Could you tell me the way? The Great Stone Tablet… where is…"
It scrambled to its feet in a panic and started running away from me.
Why.
"Hiiiiik!!"
"Why are you running away?"
I gave chase.
"Why! Are you! Avoiding me!"
"Don't come near me! Don't come neeeear!"
*Thud-thud-thud-thud.*
"I need to! Ask you! Something! You're the only one! Here!!"
After thirty seconds of pursuit, I used Black Shift one more time and caught up.
"Wait! Stop! Just listen!"
I grabbed onto its leg and held on.
"Where is the Great Stone Tablet?!"
"Aaagh! Get away! That thing, that thing right there! That black thing!"
The Death God pointed with a trembling hand at the cliff ahead.
So the Great Stone Tablet was beyond that cliff.
"Thank you. But why on earth are you avoiding me like that?"
The Death God wailed with a tearful expression.
"Why am I avoiding you?! You're the Gate Keeper of the Demon King's tower!!"
"Did you think I wouldn't recognize you just because you're an apprentice?!!!"
"Get away from me!!!!!"
"……Pardon?"
"Let go! My time is up—!"
"Aaagh—! I still haven't erased my name yet!"
With that final cry like a death rattle, the Death God vanished.
I stood there with my hand outstretched into empty air and muttered blankly.
"So this Death God I'm possessing… was she famous."
I had no time to ponder that right now.
I turned my head and faced the massive black cliff the Death God had pointed to.
Was the Great Stone Tablet up there?
"How do I get up?"
I approached the base of the cliff first.
Just as I reached out to touch the rock face to climb it—
"……Huh?"
I noticed the marks carved into the cliff.
Countless gouged scars.
I took a step back and craned my neck upward.
It wasn't the surface of a cliff.
Characters filled every inch of it, packed so densely there wasn't a single gap.
"So this cliff itself… is the Great Stone Tablet."
It was so enormous I hadn't even imagined it. Because this was closer to a geographical feature than an object.
And that was exactly the problem.
"How do I find my name in all of this?"
How was I supposed to find one name on a surface this vast?
I wandered around for quite a while before—
"Is that how you do it…"
I spotted another Death God.
That Death God placed a hand on the tablet, and then moved rapidly across it before stopping at a single point.
I tried to imitate it.
I placed my hand on the tablet.
And then—
*Hummmmm—!*
The circle in my dantian began to rotate.
Using that power as a drive, my body traversed the tablet.
"So that's why you need a circle before you can learn the instant-kill skill…"
Hundreds of millions of names flashed past, and at last my gaze stopped.
Bottom right corner, near the edge.
There, flashing in red, were two names.
Two of them.
These two appeared to be the most recently inscribed names.
[■■■■ ■■]
[■■■■ ■■■]
I couldn't read them at all.
So I had no way of knowing which one was my name.
"I don't even know what this Death God's name is to begin with…"
But the one on top.
This one had a shape that looked familiar to my eyes.
I felt certain this was my name.
"If I erase this… I get the instant-kill skill."
Die by your own hand, and your name appears on the Great Stone Tablet—the Death Gods' register of the dead.
Then erase that name.
You have no other authority, but you can erase your own name—that must be how it works.
Do that, and you acquire the scribing authority of the Great Stone Tablet, which is what becomes the instant-kill skill. That's what I'd been told.
The blood in the hourglass was filling the bottom.
Without hesitation, I readjusted my grip on the scythe.
And drew the blade across what I presumed to be my name.
*Scraaape—!!*
As the scythe's blade tore through the stroke, the name cracked and was completely erased from the tablet.
"…"
But.
Nothing happened.
"Where's my instant-kill skill?"
No hologram appeared, and there was no change in my status.
"Or… did I just get it?"
There was no way to tell whether I'd acquired the instant-kill skill or not.
Something was off.
I stared at the tablet again for a moment.
The one remaining name was still flashing red.
"Was this one my name…?"
It seemed like it had been the lower name after all.
I felt embarrassed for thinking the shape looked familiar.
Can't be helped.
I wasn't sure if erasing two was allowed, but…
Now wasn't the time to be picky about anything. This was an emergency where I might not get the instant-kill skill at all.
I gripped the scythe again and drew it across the remaining name.
*Scraaape—!*
Simultaneously.
A hologram appeared.
"There we go…!"
[You have severed the binding of the register.]
[You acquire the scribing authority of the Great Stone Tablet.]
.
.
.
.
.
.
[Error. The relevant Death God is not present in the Death God Realm.]
Something seemed to have gone wrong.
"Huh."
"I'm right here though…"
"Is it because I erased someone else's…?"
That seemed to be the only explanation.
As I stood there confused and at a loss—
Another hologram appeared.
[The relevant scribe acquires the authority in their stead.]
[Unique Skill: *Sentence of Death – Slash* (刻) acquired.]
"Oh… so it worked…"
'In their stead' made it sound like I'd stolen it, which left a bad taste, but I was relieved for now. I'd thought I wasn't going to get it.
But this wasn't the end.
[As Sentence of Death re-awakens, the scribing authority is restored.]
[Error. Authority already exists.]
.
.
[*Sentence of Death – Slash* (斬) has re-awakened.]
[Error. Skill already acquired.]
"Huh…"
Something seemed to have gone wrong.
I had no idea what was happening.
After that final error message, I had to wait for quite a long time.
There was still more than half the blood left in the hourglass, but with no end in sight, I felt anxious.
Then this message appeared.
[The Great Stone Tablet gazes upon you.]
.
.
[To resolve the duplicate skill, the Great Stone Tablet elevates one of the two *Sentence of Death – Slash* (斬) to the next tier.]
.
.
[*Sentence of Death – Slash* (斬) evolves.]
.
.
[Unique Skill: *Sentence of Death – Sight* (視) acquired.]
It was all a bit dizzying, but the conclusion was clear enough.
I had acquired instant-kill skills.
Two of them, no less.
___
[Sentence of Death – Slash (斬)]
Immediately executes one target that comes into contact with the Death God's scythe.
Cooldown is determined by the user's Strength stat.
[Sentence of Death – Sight (視)]
Immediately executes one target captured within the Death God's gaze.
Cooldown is determined by the user's Magic stat.
___
"Holy…"
Just reading the descriptions, they were insane.
Touch something and it dies. Look at something and it dies.
It seemed like I could alternate between the two skills.
One of them appeared to have been taken from another Death God, but… nothing to be done about that.
*Drip.*
There was still quite a bit of blood left in the hourglass in my left hand.
I waited for all the blood in the hourglass to fall to the bottom.
The moment the last drop fell—
*Sssss—*
My vision began to recover.
The afterimage of the Death God Realm and the scenery inside the tower were overlapping.
Before my eyes, the bone-white plains of the Death God Realm and the male swordsman appeared simultaneously.
"̴D̷i̸e̷—̸!̵!̸!̷"
The contorted face of the man screaming in anguish.
His greatsword was coming down toward my motionless body.
*Boom—!!*
It passed through my neck and slammed into the floor.
I was still in a state where attacks couldn't touch me.
It seemed my physical body was still dwelling in the Death God Realm.
The man attacked me like a madman.
Horizontal, vertical.
But again.
He cut only air.
By the time my vision could no longer tell which was the afterimage—the Death God Realm or the tower—
The blood drops in the hourglass began flowing in reverse.
At last I could fully understand what my teacher had said.
When the dwell time decreases—
It means the time you have to choose when to exit the Death God Realm decreases.
Right now, I had plenty to spare.
Enough to leisurely wait through several of the man's follow-up strikes.
*Whoosh— Boom!*
The man swung his greatsword wide again and again, and for just a single instant—a razor-thin moment—he stopped moving.
An opening.
*Now.*
*Crack!*
I smashed the hourglass with my scythe while the blood was still flowing in reverse.
All the blood spilled to the floor.
*Shhhhhk—!*
Red mana flooded back into my vision as the black-and-white world shattered.
My body, which had been a ghost, solidified into substance, and the weight of reality came crashing down.
I was back in the tower.
Immediately.
I opened my mouth with the man fixed in my gaze.
"Sentence of Death. Sight (視)."