That thick black tear quivered slightly on the yellowed page like a living thing, then was greedily absorbed by the paper, leaving only a small, indistinct damp stain darker than its surroundings.
Like a tiny wound that had just opened. Bloody tears seeping from inside the notebook...
The price had been paid.
So Deep Nest wasn't the only one paying a price. The notebook itself was also suffering some kind of... wear I didn't yet fully understand, with every judgment that exceeded the ordinary?
The pen turning against its master?
No. It felt different. This wasn't backlash. It was more like... consumption. A cold deduction based on the principle of equivalent exchange. Every challenge to the boundaries of the rules, every redefinition of existence itself, was consuming some part of the notebook's essence?
Ryuk let out an extremely strange choking rattle from the corner. His enormous body no longer trembled; instead, it had gone utterly rigid. His crimson eyes were fixed on the damp stain in the notebook, roiling with an emotion I had never seen in them before, something approaching... fear? No, it was more complicated than fear: a violent mixture of greed, longing, wariness, and some ancient sorrow.
"It's... it's hungry..." he rasped, forcing out the words as though each syllable burned his mouth. "You've... played with it until it's hungry..."
Hungry?
The notebook... was hungry?
What did that mean?
"It... wasn't like this before..." Ryuk's gaze grew unfocused, as though he were recalling something from a very distant past. "It used to eat only names... only lives... now you've fed it protocols... focal points... faith... it's gotten a taste for them... it wants... more..."
His voice sank lower and lower, finally fading into an almost unintelligible gurgle.
More... what?
More unconventional judgments? More twisting and trampling of the rules themselves?
I stared at the damp stain, my fingertips tapping unconsciously against the desk. So using the notebook beyond its normal functions required an additional price, and that price depleted some part of its essence, making it... hungry?
That would explain why writing lately seemed to take less mental effort, yet the invisible resistance and viscosity had grown stronger-the notebook itself was cooperating with, even encouraging, this kind of writing because it could draw more from it?
A cold realization swept through me.
I wasn't simply using a tool.
I was... feeding a living... entity with needs and desires of its own.
And it had begun demanding more.
The next target. It couldn't be another conventional symbol of evil like Pope Winchester, even if his death had been unconventional. That might no longer satisfy the notebook's growing appetite. It needed something more... nourishing? Something better able to fill the hunger left by paying the price?
What possessed enormous energy while also being intimately connected to Deep Nest's operations?
My mind raced, rearranging every clue. Focal points. Protocols. Faith. The price. Black Spring's Tear.
A term surfaced from the fragments of my memory.
Spirit Vein Nexus. Not a geographical concept, but a term for the key nodes within Deep Nest's hidden system that coordinated, distributed, or, more accurately, pumped some form of supernatural energy-perhaps the very power that allowed those beings to interfere with reality. Such a node could be an object, a location, or even a... specially modified person.
Destroying a nexus like that would not only deal Deep Nest a devastating blow; the enormous energy it released might also... sate the notebook?
The risk was tremendous. But the potential gains were just as enticing.
Found it.
The Silent Hymn Hall. Not an actual church, but a code name for the Oceana, a massive cruise ship that sailed the high seas year-round and never docked. The ship served as a mobile sanctuary where certain factions under the Silent Council and Deep Nest held high-level secret meetings, conducted illegal transactions, and, most importantly, performed regular rituals for gathering and harmonizing energy. At its heart lay a device called the Core of Harmony, whose operating principles were unknown.
Destroying it would directly sever one of Deep Nest's important energy supply lines.
And its guardian-the ship's captain, a mysterious figure known as the Navigator who almost never appeared in public-was the key.
His death should be... a reversal of the energy flow.
I walked over to the desk. The Death Note lay open. The damp stain seemed to radiate heat, scorching my gaze.
The pen touched down.
This time, writing felt utterly different!
The instant the nib touched the page, an indescribable pull, both icy and searing, surged from the depths of the notebook! It was as though, rather than passively accepting the writing, it was actively, greedily sucking in my willpower and the words I was about to write!
That invisible viscosity vanished, replaced by a terrifyingly smooth sensation of losing control, as though I were plunging into a vortex!
["Navigator"] (his life is deeply bound to the Oceana's Core of Harmony) Cause of death: core overload. Time: midnight tomorrow, while the ship is performing an energy harmonization ritual somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Cause of death: after receiving a series of erroneous, mutually conflicting harmonization commands (generated and injected directly by the notebook), the Core of Harmony will enter an irreversible overload state. An enormous surge of energy will flow backward, first completely vaporizing the Navigator, who is bound to it, at the molecular level, then destroying all of the ship's propulsion and control systems and triggering a violent energy explosion powerful enough to attract international attention (disguised as a violent explosion). The dissipating energy will cover a radius of one hundred nautical miles.
The moment the pen left the page, I even felt a faint wave of dizziness, as though more mental energy had been drained from me than ever before.
On the notebook's page, the words I had just written seemed blacker than usual, more... deeply etched, even slightly... raised above the paper?
As though it were... digesting.
Ryuk abruptly shrank back in the corner, as though scorched by the invisible aura emanating from the notebook.
"Mad... you've really gone mad..." he muttered, his crimson eyes filled with a kind of foreseeing dread. "You fed it... this... it'll become... even greedier..."
He never finished.
Because the open Death Note,
suddenly,
all by itself,
gently closed.
It gave a muffled,
sigh-like sound, as though after a full meal,
a soft little sound.
Clap.
Judgment had been passed.
The feast had begun.
I didn't know,
once it had been fed,
what the notebook would become.
Nor did I know,
what this explosion of energy,
would attract.
But I knew,
the game,
had already entered...
an entirely new round.
Before you continue