Chapter 67: There's No Longer a Need
Deep in the Pacific, the island fortress.
The carefully cultivated composure, the godlike hubris of Karasuma Renya, was utterly shattered in the next second by a piercingly shrill alarm.
It wasn't an alarm from the external defense systems. It was an emergency alert from the highest authority of the Organization's core network.
On the screens, the points of light scattered across the globe were vanishing. They represented the Organization's key strongholds and secret forces. One after another, the lights went out at a near-impossible speed.
This was not the planned chaos. This… this level of destruction was illogical. Who could have possibly uprooted all of them at once?! It's impossible!
At the same instant, the external defense system screamed a maximum-level intrusion alert, the wail so shrill it almost burst his eardrums.
[WARNING! UNKNOWN HIGH-ENERGY INDIVIDUAL DETECTED! ENERGY LEVEL… INCALCULABLE!]
[SPEED… EXCEEDING THEORETICAL LIMITS! TRAJECTORY… LOCKED ON THIS ISLAND!]
[ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL: CANNOT BE COMPUTED!]
The calm and composure Karasuma Renya had maintained for nearly a century cracked and peeled away from his face.
He was panicking.
He saw it. Through the highest-level surveillance satellites, he saw the blue point of light. It was heading straight for him.
"How was this place discovered?!"
"No… IMPOSSIBLE!!!"
He shot up from his seat, his withered body trembling violently with absolute terror.
"Kyubey!"
"KYUBEY!!!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?!"
"I KNOW YOU'RE HERE!!!" he roared at the empty control room.
"A contract!"
"I want to make a contract!"
"NOW!"
"IMMEDIATELY!"
"RIGHT NOW!"
He couldn't die. His grand plan was not yet complete. He had not yet become the guide for the new humanity. He had not yet escaped this damned cradle. He still had so much to do.
He… did not want to die.
The small, white figure appeared silently on the cold control console. It tilted its head, its ruby-red eyes as placid as ever as they watched the crazed old man.
"There's no longer a need, Karasuma Renya," Kyubey's voice echoed directly in his mind. "You are too late."
"Our energy collection quota in this world is about to be fulfilled. The threat you are facing is a direct consequence of your own actions. From here on, it is your problem, and has nothing to do with us."
Karasuma Renya froze, his mind a complete blank.
...? Nothing to do with them? My problem?
The cold words slammed together, shattering his final illusion. A wave of impotent fury exploded in his chest.
"You… what… WHAT DID YOU SAY?!!" he shrieked hysterically, his withered, twitching finger pointing at the small white creature.
"Why didn't you tell me about any of this?!"
"You… you demon! You monster! You deceived me! You used me!!"
"You watched me make my plans! You watched me push all of this into motion!"
"You knew all along, didn't you?! You knew this would be the end?!"
"You were just using me… as a tool to accelerate your energy collection?!"
"A pawn… to be discarded when its use was up?!"
Kyubey tilted its head even further, scratching behind its ear with a hind leg.
"Deception? Use?" Its tone held a note of genuine confusion. "I only stated facts and provided possibilities. It was you who made judgments and choices based on your own cognitive limitations and desires. To blame the information provider for your own failure… isn't that also… a typical mental illness?"
"You had the chance to become a Magical Girl, you know. Though your Karmic Destiny would not have been enough to grant your wish. And besides, you kept delaying in order to better bear the karmic burden of the wish you wanted to make, which led directly to this result. So, isn't this the path you chose for yourself? What happens next is your own business. Good luck."
With that, Kyubey turned without another glance at Karasuma Renya. Its small figure walked into the shadows and vanished.
"IMPOSSIBLE!"
"ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE!"
"HOW COULD MY KARMIC DESTINY BE INSUFFICIENT?!"
"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?!"
"COME BACK!! GET BACK HERE!!!!"
Karasuma Renya screamed in despair at the empty room.
He had lost. He had been played by a small white animal. He wasn't the chess master. He wasn't even a pawn. He was just… a petri dish, its value used up, about to be casually thrown away.
Nearly a hundred years of planning. A global organization. A so-called grand vision. In the end, it was all just an arrogant farce. A joke that had only accelerated his own destruction.
BOOM—!!!
A colossal sound, not from outside, but from the blue figure that had just arrived in the skies above the island.
Conan hovered in mid-air, looking down at the Soul Gem on his chest. The deep blue had been completely consumed by corruption. Not a speck of its original color remained.
Crack… crack…
A faint sound. From the black fissures, countless bolts of violent, dark lightning erupted, as if trying to tear space itself apart.
BANG!!!
The Soul Gem, along with the golden clasp that held it, shattered completely.
A Grief Seed.
The instant it formed, it began to madly absorb the surrounding energy, pulsing and expanding at a visible rate. The power contained within it was even more concentrated, even darker than the energy that had destroyed the Walpurgisnacht.
BOOM—!!!
An indescribable, massive shockwave exploded from Conan's position, sweeping across the entire island. The fortress's sturdy walls twisted and shattered under the impact. The sky filled with storm clouds. Countless bolts of black lightning rained down, striking every corner of the island.
The Grief Seed was still expanding, accumulating an even more terrifying amount of energy, as if it would drag the entire world into an abyss of destruction in the next second. The space around it began to warp and twist from the extreme energy.
And the boy who had caused it all, his Soul Gem now shattered, lost all signs of life. The gothic lolita dress that fused detective elements with its design also vanished. His body fell limply downward.
Before he could hit the ground, the Grief Seed, now expanded to its absolute limit, finally detonated.
There was no sound. No light. Only a pure energy storm that swept everything away.
Conan's small, lifeless body was thrown high into the air by the violent blast wave, tossed to an unknown fate.
…
And at that moment, Kyubey received a notification from the contract system.
[Ding—Energy collection for the current world is complete. The transition program can be initiated at any time to proceed to the next world coordinates.]
But Kyubey did not choose to depart immediately. Instead, it continued to watch the birth of the most powerful, and most evil, Witch in this world.