The drop of thick liquid, black as crude oil, lay silently on the dusty desktop, forming a tiny pool that seemed capable of swallowing all light.
No scent. No vapor. It simply existed, like a cold, absolute full stop, frozen in time.
The demolition notice had brought forth this silent "tear" from the abyss.
What did it represent? Pain? Anger? Or some... older response, beyond the measure of human emotion?
Ryuk had fallen completely silent in the corner. His massive body stood rigid in the shadows. Even the ever-present stench of decay seemed cowed by that black tear, thinning and stagnating. His crimson eyes remained fixed on that speck of blackness, roiling with an unprecedented, extraordinarily complex mix of emotions-fear, reverence, greed, and even a trace of... eerie sorrow?
"A... tear of the Black Spring..." He forced the words out in an utterly hoarse, barely audible whisper, as though afraid of disturbing the liquid. "They... have actually been driven this far..."
Black Spring? A term I had never heard before. It seemed to touch on a deeper secret.
I did not touch it. My fingertips tapped lightly against the desktop as I looked away from the black tear and back at the screen.
The incident in the Scottish Highlands continued to escalate. The "unexplained geomagnetic storm" had sparked widespread panic and fierce debate within the scientific community, with conspiracy theories running rampant. The authorities tried to reassure the public, but were clearly out of their depth.
The Deep Nest's response had been restrained, even... passive. No further supernatural interference, no verbal warnings. Only this silent black tear of uncertain meaning.
This made no sense. Unless...
Unless my attack had truly struck a vital point. Had the brief loss of control over the "focus" caused Them greater disruption or damage than anticipated? Had it forced Them into some kind of "defensive" or "repair" state?
Or was this a more cunning tactic? Feigning weakness to lure me into a reckless advance?
Countless possibilities collided in my mind, each subjected to analysis.
Whatever the reason, a window of opportunity had opened. I could not stop acting while the other side was temporarily silent. I had to seize this chance, extend my advantage, tear further through the iron curtain of the old order, and force Them to expose more weaknesses.
The next target. It needed greater symbolic significance, greater potential to trigger a chain reaction. I needed a target... that could strike both the worldly foundations sustaining the Deep Nest and its supernatural network.
My gaze swept across global news. Politics, economics, technology, religion...
Finally, it settled on a name.
The Global Research and Defense Initiative for Supernatural Phenomena (GRI). A semipublic multinational organization secretly funded by several governments, with large numbers of former SRO-7 personnel and recruits from similar agencies. Nominally dedicated to studying supernatural phenomena, it actually concealed, contained, and even exploited them. It was a crucial bridge between worldly power and the Deep Nest, as well as one of the executors of the Silent Council's will.
Destroying the GRI would sever a crucial arm through which the Deep Nest interfered with reality, while revealing the truth of supernatural phenomena-at least part of it-to the entire world, unleashing unimaginable social upheaval.
Its current director-general, Isabella Rossi, a woman so composed she bordered on heartless, was the key nexus of that bridge.
Her death should mark... the end of concealment.
I walked over to the desk. The Death Note lay open. The black tear remained at the corner, radiating an intangible chill.
My pen touched down. This time, writing felt even stranger. It was as though the tip no longer moved across paper, but through some cold, flowing, deeper medium. The drain on my mental energy seemed lighter, yet an inexplicable sense of resistance had grown stronger, as though I were writing through extremely dense mercury.
[Isabella Rossi]
Cause of death: disclosure of the truth. Time: three o'clock tomorrow afternoon, while she chairs a top-secret meeting at the GRI's Swiss headquarters (the meeting concerns how to conceal the truth of the Scottish "geomagnetic storm"). Cause of death: all shielding and countermeasures in her conference room will fail instantaneously. The entire meeting (including video, audio, and all data presentations) will be broadcast live worldwide, indiscriminately, for thirty seconds. After the broadcast ends, the memory-storage regions of her brain and those of all attendees will physically burn out, unable to withstand the sudden, massive influx of mental feedback from the global population (terror, anger, doubt). Before her death, the actual file numbers of every major cover-up in the GRI's history will automatically appear on the documents before her.
Location: classified core. Cause of death: information overload (global). Confession: public disclosure of file numbers. Outcome: collective brain death.
Let those who concealed the truth die by the truth they fought to hide. Let secrets die in the sunlight.
The pen lifted from the page.
The heavy resistance of writing through mercury vanished abruptly.
The writing... had succeeded.
But it felt... unusually... quiet.
Ryuk made no sound in the corner. He only stared fixedly at the black tear, as though waiting for something.
I waited.
For news from the GRI headquarters.
And for that black tear...
To see whether it would change.
The next day, at three in the afternoon.
Switzerland, the GRI's deep underground headquarters.
Her expression cold, Isabella Rossi listened to a subordinate's report on how to construct a scientific explanation for the "geomagnetic storm."
"...In conclusion, we can steer public opinion toward a rare combination of solar winds and geological activity..."
Suddenly!
The giant display in front of her, the terminals before every attendee, and even all the public information screens outside the headquarters building flashed at once!
They switched to a live feed from inside the conference room! Every face was clearly visible!
At the same time, an emotionless electronic voice rang out through every active television, radio, and online streaming platform across the globe:
[Global live broadcast. GRI top-secret meeting. Subject: concealment of the truth. Countdown: thirty seconds.]
For one second, the world fell silent.
Then it exploded!
Rossi's composure shattered instantly, replaced by absolute terror! She tried to leap to her feet, only to discover that her body had gone rigid!
The other attendees descended into chaos, screaming, trying to block the cameras, hysterical!
Thirty seconds.
Thirty long seconds.
Enough for the entire world to see their faces, hear fragments of their concealment plans spilling out in panicked, incoherent speech, and see the documents marked "Top secret" on their screens...
The thirty seconds elapsed.
The live feed cut off abruptly.
Dead silence filled the conference room.
Everyone remained frozen in their final pose, eyes wide, blood slowly trickling from their mouths and noses... their brains had already burned out.
In my room, the screen showed a worldwide internet collapse and indescribable social upheaval! GRI, supernatural, cover-up... those terms swept across every platform at explosive speed!
The world's understanding of reality was being forcibly reshaped.
Chaos. Absolute chaos.
And this was exactly what I wanted.
My gaze shifted to the corner of the desk.
The black tear,
Still lay there silently.
Nothing had changed.
As though that judgment, powerful enough to overturn the world,
Had nothing to do with it.
But the instant my gaze fell upon it-
The black tear,
Ever so slightly,
Rippled once.
As though an invisible breeze had brushed across it.
Then,
Beside it,
In the dust on the desktop,
Without a sound,
There appeared an extremely fine line of,
Formed from even finer grains of dust,
As though it might scatter the very next second,
Pale lettering:
**
The price is paid.
**
(The price is paid.)
After the lettering appeared,
It lasted less than a second.
Then,
As though wiped away by an invisible hand,
It vanished without a trace.
Along with it, the black tear,
As though it had evaporated,
Disappeared completely.
On the desktop,
Only a small patch, slightly cleaner than its surroundings, remained,
Circular,
A mark.
As though nothing had ever been there.
The price is paid?
Whose price?
Paid to whom?
I stared at that clean, circular mark,
For a long time.
So,
Was this your answer?
Deep Nest.
Using the destruction of the GRI,
And the world's terror,
As...
The price paid?
Then,
The transaction continued.
My pen,
Had yet to stop.
Before you continue