Seoul Object Story - Chapter 491 Oku

‘Hug!’

A warm will, like the comforting embrace Hug Reaper loved, wrapped around my consciousness.

In that moment, the fusion with the Bleached Reaper began.

Like two droplets of water merging, our existences naturally blended together.

As the fusion completed, change was immediately felt.

‘Ma!’

As the Bleached Reaper’s will echoed inside me, the red aura of mental contamination that had enveloped me slowly dissipated, like the morning fog lifting.

I was able to regain control over my half-body, which had been moving against my will.

‘So this is immunity to mental contamination.’

My resistance to mental contamination had been a byproduct of accumulating firewood, but clearly, the Bleached Reaper’s abilities were of a different caliber.

It seemed like it had been born from an endless struggle, continuously resisting to survive in the melting of desires.

Then, suddenly, I had the feeling that the unrelenting resistance of the Black Giant might be similar.

I had been so focused on raising and letting the Mini Reapers roam free that I hadn’t imagined the Bleached Reaper could possess such a power.

It had always been the small child quietly following behind, murmuring “Ma-ma,” without any noticeable abilities.

To think that this child was such a special being!

The surprise didn’t stop there.

The sensation throughout my entire body felt radically different from before.

It wasn’t just the size of the power.

My movements became much more agile, as if I had been practicing martial arts for a long time, and combat skills naturally embedded themselves in my body.

At this point, I thought that the Bleached Reaper, with its short limbs, might even be able to defeat an ordinary Golden Reaper in hand-to-hand combat!

But the most surprising thing wasn’t that.

I controlled my transformed white hair, now like a new arm, and slowly raised it.

‘Is this desire…?’

At the tips of my hair, a large palm had formed, and inside it, faint grayish desire flickered and burned.

Now, I could handle desire, something that had been poisonous to both me and the Mini Reapers.

Of course, there were limits.

The Bleached Reaper’s ability was not a complete immunity to desire, but resistance.

If I tried to handle an excessive amount of desire, I would likely melt just like the Bleached Reaper did the first time we met.

Still, this was enough.

The Bleached Reaper also had the ability to produce significant effects with even small amounts of desire.

It had substantial alchemy talent.

That was the key point for achieving great results with small amounts of desire.

‘Maang!’

Using the faint alchemical knowledge of the Blue Girl and the Bleached Reaper’s talent for alchemy, along with a massive amount of firewood, I set the flame of desire ablaze, and the Bleached Reaper sent a proud will, almost boasting.

It was as if it was finally revealing a long-hidden trump card, full of pride!

But…

‘Hmph… Is this all?’

It was certainly impressive, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was lacking.

When compared to the perfect unity I had felt when I took on the body of the Blue Girl, the boundless possibilities that had poured out at that moment, this felt a bit lacking.

If I were to express that feeling in words…

‘Following the Blue Girl, I think I’ll come in second place forever.’

‘Ma!’

Upon my honest evaluation, the Bleached Reaper sent a shocked will.

The confusion from that moment was clearly conveyed.

It felt like the Bleached Reaper’s pride was slightly deflated, like a student who had taken a test confidently, only to receive an unexpected score.

Still, this was enough.

Handling desire and using alchemy to control space was an ability just as impressive as the Blue Girl’s, in my opinion.

The Blue Girl was an alchemist who excelled at everything, while the Bleached Reaper seemed to specialize in alchemy related to desire and space.

‘Well, shall we begin?’

No more hesitation was necessary.

I cast an alchemy spell, embedding the flames of desire into the firewood.

Then, as if replicating the Golden Reaper’s technique, I wrapped it around my fist and delivered a punch.

The flame that erupted from my fist was a magnificent fire, swirling with golden and white light.

It emitted a strange glow as if it were defying the laws of the foreign entity, moving forward, and the red mist blocking its path evaporated instantly, like morning dew.

In the vast space where the Marshmallow Garden extended to the horizon, the red mist and the garden clashed like massive waves, struggling to consume one another.

The collision of these two forces was like a giant storm.

In the center of it all, the wills of the Mini Reapers filled the sky.

Just moments ago, the children, who had been sorrowful seeing their mother pushed back, now had their faces full of hope.

‘Mom, you’re strong!’

‘Bleached Mom punch!’

The wills of the Mini Reapers rang out like small, clear bells, light and cheerful.

There was no more fear in their wills.

Instead, they were filled with the joy of victory.

At first glance, their mother’s movements appeared clumsy and incomplete.

It seemed like her posture was unstable, and she wasn’t fully in control without the Bleached Reaper’s help.

But that was just the outer appearance.

Each time her fist swung, a storm of golden and white flames erupted from the punch, exploding forth.

The Bleached Reaper’s two fists and the Gray Reaper’s two fists—four punches in total, each unleashing a storm of flame that burned away the red mist.

The Golden Reapers, seeing this exhilarating sight, tied their hair into two braids and began cheering, moving their hair like arms.

‘Mom, you’re amazing!’

‘Punch!’

Especially the Purple Reaper, who had the ability to control space, was admiring the sight.

The trajectory of the flames created by their mother’s attacks wasn’t just pushing back the red mist.

It was changing the very nature of space itself.

The very possibility of the red mist existing was being erased.

‘The trajectory of the flames is taking control of space itself…’

It was as if the laws of the universe were being rewritten. The red mist could find no place to stand where the flames had passed.

It was then that the behavior of the red foreign entity began to change.

It compressed the mist to its limit, taking on the form of a giant.

The scene that had been covered by the red mist was now fully revealed.

The ground and air had been twisted grotesquely, and the red flesh had emerged.

Amidst that distortion were the countless dead, people who had perished, and the Mini Reapers who had fallen asleep while constantly handing firewood to the humans.

As the red foreign entity gave up its domain, the Mini Reaper Garden quickly filled the surroundings.

From the horizon to the end, everything turned white.

‘We won!’

Seeing the form of the red giant, I had that thought.

Once a phenomenon takes on a physical form, the conditions for destruction are always clear.

<■ ■ ■ ■>

But strangely, the conditions for destruction were still not visible.

As I was startled by this bizarre phenomenon, the giant’s body exploded, scattering into countless tendrils that coiled around me.

‘!!!’

The collision of the red foreign entity’s power and mine began to annihilate each other in a double-edged battle.

I was genuinely shocked, and flames of desire erupted from my body as I struggled.

In terms of power, the red foreign entity was far superior, so if we fought like this, I was the one who would die.

But the flames of desire didn’t burn the red foreign entity fast enough, and my struggles were useless due to the overwhelming size difference.

My skin gradually turned red.

My body twisted like a dry twig.

My vision grew increasingly red.

I summoned the dream garden within me and grew to the size of the Black Giant, but it wasn’t enough to untangle the tightly wound red tendrils.

This is insane.

Is this how it ends?

Space cutting, space shifting, even the giant form of the Mini Reaper Garden…

All methods blocked, leaving me with a sense of helplessness.

In that moment of despair, a simple alchemy, one I had learned but forgotten, suddenly surfaced in my vague memory.

Alchemy made by weaving firewood, desire, and the created god together.

[Golden flame filled with hope. Gray desire toward the god. And…]

[The Alchemist’s God.]

In that moment, brilliant golden light burst from within the tendrils.

The red foreign entity, swept up by the golden whirlpool, collapsed in the form of a giant onto the white marshmallow ground.

[■■■, ■■ ■ ■■■■…]

And, spewing incomprehensible desire energy, it crawled miserably across the marshmallow plains.

[Desire… Desire ■■■… ]

‘!’

The red foreign entity, somehow sensing it, began to move toward the pit of desire.

The pit of desire had already been destroyed, along with the jelly flood that had filled the area from the aftermath of the red mist battle, as well as the facilities that had been blocking it.

Furthermore, the connection with desire seemed to have changed, as the amount of desire in the pit seemed considerable.

At first, I had planned to destroy the fallen red foreign entity, ensuring it couldn’t reach the desire, but I changed my mind.

I had a strong feeling that it would never be able to endure the desire.

‘If you like desire so much, why not try it?’

I used my control over space to lift the red foreign entity and throw it directly into the pit of desire.

The red foreign entity, no, the red giant, felt a sense of ecstasy when it was thrown into the pit.

‘What I lacked will now be fulfilled…’

But that ecstasy quickly vanished.

As the red giant sank into the gray desire, it rapidly melted away.

In unbearable, endless pain, the red giant was filled with endless questions.

Why was the desire that half of me had endured rejecting me now?

Why was what had been possible for an imperfect foreign entity impossible for me?