Seoul Object Story
Chapter 345: Orb of Wishes (9)

The night sky over Seodaemun-gu filled with golden light.

Unlike the usual quiet darkness, the sky was now a spectacle of light that seemed to breathe with life.

This magnificent sight, created by several times more fuel than Yerin possessed soaring into the sky, was like the sun rising in the middle of the night.

Perhaps because it was made of fuel, the golden aurora’s streams of light undulated and danced like living flames.

As the curtain of light covered the sky, the ruins below were enveloped in its shadow.

The shadows moved ceaselessly like ocean waves, making it seem as if the collapsed buildings were breathing.

Even the stars and moons that had adorned the night sky moments ago were now hidden behind this intense golden radiance.

I teleported to the center of the aurora and grasped the Golden Horned Reaper, which appeared to be the cause of this situation.

‘Long time no see.’

I enjoyed the sensation of squeezing the soft horns of the mischievous Golden Reaper I hadn’t seen in a while.

A deceptively hard-looking but jelly-like, addictive texture.

As I pressed the horns, the Golden Horned Reaper scrunched up its head as if ticklish and giggled.

‘Did you create this fuel aurora?’

When I asked about the golden aurora filling the sky and flaunting its presence, the Golden Horned Reaper nodded with a giggle.

I patted its head a few times, then gently placed the Golden Horned Reaper on top of my head.

The two on my head then grabbed my antennae together, like holding onto the handles of an amusement park ride.

‘Let’s go then. With this much fuel, we should be able to do anything, absolutely anything.’

I started walking, looking at the ‘Old God’-shaped man who was staring up at the sky as if bewildered.

Late at night, Sehee Research Institute.

Yerin was watching TV intently, her arms full of Golden Reapers.

The Golden Reapers were staring blankly at the sky beyond the ceiling, emanating a soft golden aura from their bodies.

Unlike their usual faint golden glow, this light spread out in cotton candy-like puffs.

Some Golden Reapers were playing with their hair.

They shaped it upwards as if trying to form horns, twisting and molding it.

Finally, they fixed it in place using their ability to move hair, then poked Yerin’s cheeks with it.

The Golden Reapers grinned, pointing at their horns as if asking how they looked.

“It suits you well. So cute.”

Yerin smiled at the sight and took out star-shaped candies she always carried for praising Golden Reapers, feeding them one by one.

The TV was showing a live broadcast of Seodaemun-gu.

On the screen, space was bending and twisting like a scene from a movie, with shockwaves raging wildly.

‘The Reaper looks like it’s in so much pain… Will it be okay?’

The scenes unfolding made even Yerin, who thought the Gray Reaper was invincible, feel uneasy.

At that moment, the broadcast screen began to fill with golden light.

[A golden aurora has just appeared over Seodaemun-gu.]

[The aurora has rapidly expanded its area, now reportedly filling the skies over all of Seoul.]

As the anchor spoke, the camera drone turned towards the sky.

The screen was filled with a magnificent aurora adorning the entire sky.

‘Wow.’

Yerin was admiring the scene when she suddenly thought of the Golden Reapers and lifted them up to compare with the TV.

‘It’s the same.’

‘The light spreading around the Golden Reapers is exactly like that aurora!’

To Yerin, the mist-like aura of light rippling around the Golden Reapers was identical to the aurora.

She looked around to make a direct comparison, but there were no windows in the isolation room.

No matter how disorganized Sehee Research Institute was, they wouldn’t put windows in an isolation room.

Yerin hurriedly placed Golden Reapers on her head and shoulders, hugged the remaining ones to her chest, and left the isolation room.

When she reached the courtyard of Sehee Research Institute, the aurora filling the sky came into view.

It felt somehow familiar.

Like the Gray Reaper’s eyes, or the Golden Reapers.

As Yerin was looking up at the sky, Sehee Research Institute employees began to appear in the courtyard one by one.

Each employee held a Golden Reaper in their hands as they looked up at the sky with curious expressions.

Those Golden Reapers were also clinging tightly to their Attachment Humans while staring blankly at the sky.

The man wearing the Halo was staring up at the golden aurora as if mesmerized.

To the man, it resembled Ardent Wishes but was infinitely different.

Compared to Ardent Wishes, it was an infinitely lighter energy with less power.

‘I see. So this is the ‘different’ Ardent Wish he spoke of…’

The man was recalling an old conversation with her.

A very old discussion about positive and negative emotions.

The man and the alchemists who used negative emotions as fuel because wishes, Ardent Wishes, are born from lack.

And the blue-haired girl who endlessly opposed that idea.

At that moment, seeing the Gray Reaper charging in while tearing through space, the man spoke in a low voice as he fed Ardent Wishes to the God’s Fragment.

[Yes, a byproduct.]

[Let’s continue the debate that ended long ago. I’ll show you what true Ardent Wishes are.]

With those words, a wave spread from the brightly burning Halo, but the result was quite different.

The spatial slash, filled with golden light, did not disappear despite the Halo’s interference and cut through space as it was.

Of course, even that golden spatial slash couldn’t penetrate the infinitely layered space, but the fact that it had overcome the Halo was an unexpected result that surprised the man.

‘The God’s Fragment… the Ardent Wish lost?’

Though surprised, the battle-hardened man didn’t stop moving and immediately attempted a counterattack.

He raised his arms that were hanging down almost to the ground and began manipulating space.

The space around the Gray Reaper separated into cubes and twisted into a spiral.

But golden flames rose over the spiraling space, shattering it with a sound like breaking glass.

[This is… impossible….]

As the God’s Fragment, the Halo of Space, shone brightly, space twisted, but the golden flames burned it all away.

And this repeated over and over again.

[How can a force that desires no change and has no direction…]

It was a shock as great as if the world the man had lived in was crumbling.

At that moment, an intense flash of light suddenly appeared, filling the man’s vision.

Looking up at the sky, I could see the fuel sent by Mini Reapers from all over the world flowing abundantly.

Normally, fuel would dissipate and disappear instantly like perfume sprayed into the air, so seeing it clumped together and flowing like this felt a bit strange.

‘Now it feels like a fair fight.’

It had felt too unreasonable with the opponent using Ardent Wishes flowing on a global scale while I was only using the fuel stored in my body.

Pushing in lots of fuel definitely made it more manageable.

‘Still, I can’t break through the barrier protecting that man’s body…’

It was a bit frustrating that even spatial slashes filled with fuel couldn’t cut through.

Is there no solution?

Do I really need to summon the Black Giant?

As I was about to summon the Black Giant after burning away the enemy’s attacks with fuel, the Golden Cloak Reaper on my head started tugging on my antennae.

‘Mom, there’s a way!’

‘Oh?’

But the Golden Reaper’s solutions were usually like the First Sword’s swordsmanship lessons - incomprehensible and impossible to execute.

So I listened with skepticism, but surprisingly, it was a method simple and easy enough even for me to do.

‘Gather as much fuel as possible in your fist, then punch!’

I really liked it because it didn’t require sensitive perception or athletic ability.

Especially since handling lots of fuel was the one area where I was uniquely better than the Mini Reapers.

‘Gathering fuel.’

I clenched my fist with all my might and channeled the fuel from my body into it.

My body gradually turned golden, and a brilliant sun formed on my fist.

There was so much gathered fuel that just the overflow was creating a firestorm, turning the surroundings into a sea of flames.

The Golden Reapers holding onto my antennae were blown away by the aftermath.

‘Concentrating fuel in my fist.’

I slowly pulled back my fist.

The man wearing the Halo tried to use spatial manipulation to stop me, but it all burned away in the firestorm of leaked fuel.

‘Keep going, keep going. Keep gathering until the limit.’

Now the aurora in the sky started being sucked into my fist.

The aurora swirled and rushed towards me as if the sky itself was being pulled in.

After absorbing all the aurora, the sky that had become as bright as midday was now all contained within my fist.

As I slowly swung my gathered fist forward, the fuel became a beam of light accompanied by a storm.

It pierced through the enemy.

Flash.

It was a moment’s brilliance.

Simultaneously, the man could keenly feel his defeat.

The Orb of Wishes.

A hole was punctured in the large orb at his core, and it slowly began to crack.

With that, he lost control of the Ardent Wishes that had been moving according to his commands.

The grasp of Ardent Wishes began to move on its own.

The hands that had firmly supported his body and infused it with Ardent Wishes now began to tear him apart and drag him into the ground.

They were truly greedy hands.

And it was a phenomenon the man had never seen before.

‘My body feels heavy.’

So heavy he couldn’t even look up at the sky.

‘I wanted to look up at the sky one last time…’

As the man was torn apart and sucked into the flow of Ardent Wishes, he recalled the memory of a girl.

A very old, very very old memory.

Memories of the time they spent together at the academy just before it closed.

‘It wasn’t like this back then…’

And he was swallowed up by the flow of Ardent Wishes, ruminating on his regrets.