"But how do I get to the human world?"
With that thought, Ryo narrowed his eyes and casually reached out a hand.
In an instant, he grabbed the back of the head of a strange creature, little more than ten centimeters tall, with the body of a person and the head of a dog.
In the Crimson Realm, distance was essentially meaningless. As long as you could picture your destination, you could shift through space directly.
Having visited Campione, Ryo was more familiar with this kind of thing than most.
Wasn't it basically the same as the Netherworld? He knew that trick inside out.
So when a Crimson Realm creature happened to pass nearby, Ryo simply acted on impulse and snatched it.
"Oh, you're a Denizen," Ryo said, frowning at the little "dog" in his hand.
"C-Crimson Lord?!" the creature stammered in terror.
There were innate differences in status within the Crimson Realm. They were generally determined by the quantity and quality of one's Power of Existence, as well as the concepts one embodied.
Broadly speaking, the hierarchy consisted of Crimson Denizens at the bottom, Crimson Lords above them, and finally the Crimson Gods who each governed specific Authorities.
Among those three ranks, the higher levels possessed overwhelming superiority over the lower ones.
Of course, Ryo had only just assumed his new identity, so he hadn't converted much of his cosmo into Power of Existence yet.
Even so, the overwhelming difference in quality and sheer scale was enough to leave this Denizen trembling in terror.
Mistaking him for a Crimson Lord was only natural.
After all, in the Crimson Realm, if neither side used their Authorities, the difference between a Crimson Lord and a Crimson God wasn't actually great.
"I ask. You answer." Ryo kept it short.
The dog-headed creature nodded frantically.
In the Crimson Realm, survival of the fittest was practically universal law.
If a Denizen offended a Crimson Lord, having their Power of Existence drained was almost a certainty.
That was precisely why the Denizens yearned for the world where humanity lived.
In the Crimson Realm, they were little more than the lowest class of slaves. But in the Human World, they could become part of the privileged elite, gaining access to more Power of Existence and eventually rising to Lords.
That was the reality the Denizens faced.
"How do I get to the Human World?" Ryo asked.
The dog-headed creature hesitated.
A murky, gray-black flame suddenly emerged from its body.
The flame enveloped its entire form before splitting into two, one large and one small.
The smaller flame willingly drifted toward Ryo.
Ryo reached out and touched the mass of Power of Existence. In an instant, a huge amount of information flooded into his mind.
The information was simple.
There were two methods.
The first was to use a spell, Rift Crossing, to travel to the Human World and become a free Crimson Denizen.
The drawback was that it consumed Power of Existence, an energy source essentially equivalent to a Denizen's life force.
Of course, there was a way to replenish it. Everything in the Human World possessed some amount of Power of Existence. As long as a Denizen consumed enough, they could replenish more than they spent.
The problem was that plants, animals, and other ordinary living things in the Human World contained very little Power of Existence, and generally tasted terrible.
The most suitable prey was humanity.
Humans were complex mammals with extensive social relationships, making them particularly rich sources of Power of Existence.
Ryo might not have been a traditional Crimson Denizen, but because of his current identity, traveling to the Human World would still consume Power of Existence.
And because he was one of the Crimson Realm's Gods, the amount of Power of Existence required would be far greater than what was needed for an ordinary Denizen or even a Crimson Lord.
That was why the Crimson Gods generally didn't send their true bodies into the Human World. Instead, they used intermediaries and vessels to manifest there.
As for the second method, it was much more complicated. Many Denizens also hated it.
The method had been developed specifically to deal with those who indiscriminately consumed humans.
As mentioned earlier, Crimson Denizens needed to consume humans' Power of Existence to replenish the energy they expended while active in the Human World.
But doing so meant devouring that person's entire existence in the Human World.
Such brutal acts inevitably caused distortions in reality.
Some Denizens and Crimson Lords eventually realized that allowing those distortions to continue unchecked would lead to a catastrophic disaster.
So they created a second method. The Flame Haze.
A Flame Haze is simply a human who forms a contract with a Crimson Lord in exchange for power.
The contract causes the human to give up their former destiny and become the Lord's vessel. The Crimson Lord then enters the human world and resides within their body, eventually merging their existences into one.
Flame Hazes exist to maintain the world's balance and prevent Distortions. They hunt down Denizens who devour humans and steal their Power of Existence.
But what kind of person would willingly sacrifice their destiny and become vessels?
People who had lost someone precious to a Crimson being and whose hearts had been consumed by hatred.
That was why Flame Haze Warriors were essentially all avengers.
They were people who sacrificed everything they had in order to gain the strength to hunt down the Crimson beings that indulged themselves by eating humans.
"What a crazy world…"
After learning all this, Ryo couldn't help but sigh.
He had known some of this beforehand, but actually witnessing a world where eating humans' existence itself was carried out so openly made him understand just how brutal it really was.
The beings of the Crimson Realm were conceptual entities. Most of them had little understanding of good or evil. They were essentially hedonistic lunatics.
How could beings like that possibly care about whether humans lived or died?
So the consumption of humans became the dominant theme whenever Crimson beings entered the Human World.
The tragedies caused by it were practically countless.
And sooner or later, the distortions caused by their feeding would be repaid.
That, in turn, forced some of the more morally upright Crimson beings to rely on humans to slaughter their own kind.
Ryo had to admit that those relatively righteous Crimson beings weren't wrong. The distortions of the world really would eventually be punished.
And he, Ryo, was probably going to be the "great calamity" that carried out that punishment.
"Even if it weren't me, it would probably be someone else. And once the gods of Little Garden learned that the Crimson Realm was a world that preyed on humanity, they'd inevitably move to erase it…"
Thinking about that, Ryo shook his head. "And even without Little Garden getting involved, once the original historical transition period arrived, the sins accumulated by the Crimson beings would naturally be repaid through the 'distortion of the world.'"
It was much like the Heretic Gods.
Heretic Gods who brought calamity were eventually punished by Campiones.
Crimson Lords who ravaged the earth were eventually killed by the Flame Hazes.
No matter how you looked at it, the world's order would eventually move toward balance.
"Did these Denizens really think they could do whatever they wanted without paying a price?" Ryo muttered as he released his grip, tossing the dog-headed Denizen aside.
The creature landed hard on the dry, solid rock.
It froze for a moment before staring at Ryo in disbelief. "You… you're not going to devour me?"
Ryo glanced sideways at it. "Why would I do that?"
Any intelligent, communicative life-form was classified as a sapient being in Little Garden.
They could fight each other. They could kill each other.
But "eating" one another?
Even the Demon Lords of Little Garden looked down on that sort of behavior.
"If that's all, get lost." Ryo casually tossed a portion of his Power of Existence to the dog-headed Denizen as payment for the information.
Then he turned around and vanished from the rocky plain, leaving the bewildered Denizen behind.
...
Moving rapidly through space, Ryo soon arrived at the conceptual boundary of the Crimson Realm, the place closest to the Human World.
"So this is the Rift Between Both Worlds?"
Ryo frowned as he looked ahead.
The crimson sky and Earth stretched endlessly before him, with nothing unusual visible anywhere.
"Use the Rift Crossing?"
The moment the thought arose, the Crimson Realm itself instinctively resisted.
If that instinct were translated into a concrete image, it would have been something like a newlywed bride spending her wedding night alone while her husband announced that he wanted to stay out all night at a brothel.
Ryo's mouth twitched several times when he sensed it.
"Seriously? You don't want me to leave?"
Ryo understood perfectly well why the Crimson Realm was reluctant to let him go.
It was simply greedy for what he had.
After all, Ryo alone possessed five Authorities, not to mention other abilities.
Most of those concepts didn't exist within the Crimson Realm at all. Some were even completely unique.
They could provide an enormous boost to the Crimson Realm's development.
Until the Crimson Realm had thoroughly studied those concepts, letting Ryo leave would have been the strange thing.
"What a pain." Ryo clicked his tongue.
If he didn't still need to build up his influence within the Crimson Realm, he would have wanted to leave immediately.
But he had already thought of a way out.
An incarnation.
With it, he could completely fool the Crimson Realm. He could satisfy its instincts while simultaneously making his way into the Human World.
After all, an incarnation could use Authorities too.
"But if the Crimson Realm reacts this strongly, the Human World is probably the same…" Ryo frowned. "My identity as one of the Crimson Realm's Gods is probably going to cause trouble there too. Most likely, I'll create distortions in the Human World and end up being hunted down by the Flame Haze Warriors…"
He hesitated.
After a moment, Ryo decided he wasn't interested in inviting that kind of trouble. Instead, he paused and opened the Dimensional Forum.
"Send an invitation request to someone in the Human World adjacent to the Crimson Realm."
[Sending an invitation request requires 20 points. Please confirm.]
"Send it."
Traveling between worlds through the Forum was the safest option in Ryo's eyes.
That way, he could safely descend into the Human World while retaining his identity as one of the Crimson Realm's Gods.
All he needed to do was coax some lucky person who received the invitation into inviting him back.
The cost and benefits were nowhere near equal.
"Well then… Time to wait for my lucky one." Ryo closed his eyes.
_ _ _
Tendōkyū—
A young girl with jet-black hair lay beneath a tree, a peaceful expression on her sleeping face.
Suddenly, a mechanical voice rang out.
[The Crismon God, 「The Unfading Sun」, has sent you a conversation request. Would you like to respond?]
"Who?"
The nameless girl stared blankly into the distance.
.
.
.