Kamen Rider Zi-O, Dimensional Descent

"First of all, I have to thank you... thank you for saving those two human girls."

"What reason do you have to thank me for this? What do those two girls have to do with you?"

"No, but in your human terms, I guess I'd feel happy if I saw innocent people being saved?"

"I don't even realize it," said Cupid.

"I'm so glad you rescued those two innocent girls, protected their safety, and safeguarded their lives. I'm very happy!"

puff--

Yan Ming grabbed Qubi's body, pulled it up from its spot, and stuck all five of his fingers into its face.

"Tell me the truth."

"...I don't understand why you're so angry. I was just telling the truth!"

Despite being choked to the point of near suffocation, Kyubey remained unmoved and spoke in a completely indifferent tone, as if it had no feelings at all.

"I am indeed happy that the two girls were rescued, not only because their lives were saved, but also because their rescue allows us to further our plans."

"I see. It seems that all incubators are like this. They will tell the truth, but they will deliberately hide the facts and try every means to take advantage of others."

If Yan Ming hadn't asked Qiu Bi, the other party probably would never have told him his true thoughts.

"To be honest, I've been wondering about this ever since just now. How were you able to detect my presence? And how do you know my true identity?"

Cupid couldn't understand this.

"Even if you have been to other worlds, there is no reason to prove that you should know the secrets of our race. Could it be that the flow of time was different when you entered and exited the world, causing you to experience many things that were beyond the theory in other worlds? Or did you go to a parallel world of this universe?"

It actually knows that it once entered and exited this world... Yan Ming felt that he had underestimated the Kyubey race.

"You've harmed so many young women under the guise of saving the universe. Can this really be called saving lives?"

"Don't get me wrong. All we did was explain our technological capabilities to those girls. As for what choices they made, that was their own decision. We didn't force them; we were just making proposals."

"And ultimately, the girls who were consumed were only a small fraction of the total human population. If consuming such a small number of humans can save the lives of the entire universe, shouldn't that be a very worthwhile thing from a profit perspective?"

"Sacrificing oneself to save the greater good—that's exactly the ideal of the righteous hero that girls who aspire to become magical girls dream of. We've just helped them fulfill their wishes. In fact, those human girls should thank us instead."

That's absolutely right; the Kyubey race never believes that what they do is wrong.

The entire universe is facing a crisis called "heat death," and sooner or later the universe will face destruction. Kyubey is one of the civilizations living in this universe. In order to save the safety of the entire universe, they have to find a way to keep the universe going.

Ultimately, by observing the human race, they understood from the time of human origins to the present day that the outburst of human emotions can produce a tremendous energy effect that theoretically surpasses entropy.

This will save the entire universe—with this thought in mind, the Kyubey race began to coat their plans with a deceptive sugar coating, so that the girls of this world would be attracted to become magical girls, sell their souls, and constantly experience emotional changes, eventually causing their emotions to explode, thus creating corrupted souls that are filled with enormous energy.

Kyubey will collect these corrupted souls and use the emotional energy that erupts within them to mitigate the reality of heat death in the entire universe... This is what they have always done.

By reading Homura Akemi's past history, Yan Ming learned all of this.

That's why he came to this deserted place. He knew he had stopped Kyubey from turning Madoka and Sayaka into magical girls, so Kyubey would definitely come after him. And reality proved his guess; Kyubey had indeed tried to lure five witches to attack him.

Unfortunately, Qiu Bi had no idea what Yan Ming's actual abilities were.

"Now that I know all this, you can probably guess what I'm going to do next."

Are you planning to kill me?

Despite facing a life-or-death crisis, Cupid remained unmoved.

"It's no use. Even if you kill me as an individual, we incubators are a group whose consciousness is connected as a whole."

"I can have as many bodies as I want, so even if you kill me now, there will definitely be another me coming back to Earth."

"Moreover... even if you kill me, you still can't stop this desperate connection between magical girls and witches from continuing to occur in this universe."

Yan Ming's interest was piqued after hearing what Cupid said.

"What does this mean? If I kill you, then there will be no one to turn those girls into magical girls, right? Without new magical girls, there will be no new witches. Wouldn't that put an end to it completely?"

"When magical girls are in despair, their spiritual cores erupt and they become witches... This is just us expressing your human way of expressing negative emotions in another form. It has nothing to do with the fact that you humans still need to release negative emotions."

In a way, it seems like Qubi is threatening Yan Ming.

"Even without our presence, the outbursts of your human emotions will still generate enormous energy, especially during negative emotions. At that time, the negative emotions of all the people in the world will continue to gather together in a self-governing manner, and may even become a terrifying negative monster capable of destroying your entire human civilization."

"It's more accurate to say that you're safer because we brought magical girls to this planet, and then turned them into witches, thus creating this direct and clear method for releasing human negative emotions. Otherwise, since ancient times, you humans would have been wiped out tens of thousands of times due to the monsters and curses accumulated from the outbursts of your own negative emotions."

When Yan Ming first heard what Qiu Bi said, his immediate thought was that it was all nonsense.

If what it says is true, it has been to so many worlds, and there are countless humans in those worlds who have negative emotions. Why didn't all of their negative emotions erupt into monsters and destroy the world as it says?

“I know what you’re trying to say. You’re probably thinking, ‘Why doesn’t this happen in other worlds you’ve been to?’ That’s actually quite easy to understand, because the rules of operation in each world are different.”

Qiu Bi seemed to have guessed Yan Ming's thoughts and said as if to answer his question.

"I don't know what the basic rules are like in other worlds, but the worlds you've been to must have had some things that this universe can't do, right? Conversely, some laws in this universe don't exist in other worlds. Perhaps in other worlds, the outburst of human emotion is less powerful than the energy of a child's firecracker."

To put it simply... even if the Kyubey race no longer existed, it wouldn't stop humanity from facing a crisis; at best, it would only allow human civilization to survive for a short while.

"So you're saying you have no intention of giving up harassing those girls no matter what, right?"

“That’s right, why should we stop this behavior? It’s a good thing for the universe, and a great thing for you humans. Shouldn’t you be thanking us?”

They will neither feel embarrassed about what they have done nor think that there is anything wrong with what they have done.

Believing that everything he does is right, disregarding the feelings of others, and arbitrarily destroying other people's happiness, all for such a high-sounding reason, is enough to reveal the true nature of Kyubey.

Perhaps this is no problem for them; perhaps it is the right thing to do for them, who have no feelings.

"OK then."

Yan Ming responded.

In an instant, a weapon called the Time Limit Sword appeared in his hand.

"If you think it's okay to do this, then I think it's okay for me to do it too."

"What—uh?!"

*Pfft!*

With a wave of his hand, he used the strength of his body to pierce through Kyubey's body with a single sword strike, instantly turning him into a blurry mass of flesh and blood.

But letting it die like this is too easy for it. Considering Kyubey's ability to resurrect infinitely, there's no way to subdue them by this method alone.

Unfortunately.

Just recently, Yan Ming had actually learned how to deal with those enemies who could resurrect infinitely.

Buzz! Time stopped, and Kyubey was frozen in the instant of his death.

After a short while, time resumed its flow, and Kyubey was once again returned to his original, undamaged state.

"how…?!"

The next moment, it faced death once again.

After repeating this countless times, Yan Ming took out the Decade control dial, opened an aurora curtain leading to the depths of the universe, and threw the Kyubey in front of him into that deepest space.

“You incubators can share experiences and feelings with each other… right?”

As expected, Cupid's body reappeared from the alleyway not far away.

But in an instant, it collapsed to the ground, and a different kind of emotion flickered in its otherwise emotionless eyes—

pain.

The feeling of being pierced to death, the feeling of being thrown into an abnormal space where cold and heat coexist, more intense than ordinary space—it keeps cycling through its body.

"What...did you...do...?"

"The suffering that you have caused to humanity so far is far greater than what you are experiencing now."

There was no explanation, but even so, Qiu Bi still understood what Yan Ming had done to him.

This is an effect that cannot be avoided even with the ability to resurrect infinitely... There is no way to avoid it, and no chance to change it, unless we can research an effect that completely severs all of the Kyubey's senses. This is not difficult, but it would be equivalent to fundamentally denying some of the basic beliefs of the Kyubey race.

It must endure, at all times, this experience of suffering beyond ordinary death every minute and every second.

Until the other party is willing to stop at this moment.

"...Here's one last piece of advice for you."

Upon entering the scene, Cupid collapsed completely to the ground and whispered to Yan Ming, trembling.

“That girl, Madoka Kaname… according to our calculations… the overlap of timelines… may lead her… to become a magical girl no matter what.”

"You alone cannot stop it... This possibility is inevitable... Nothing in the universe can stop it... Making Witch's Night disappear is just another form of prolonging its existence..."

*Pfft!*

Yan Ming once again raised his knife and ripped the Qiu Bi in front of him to pieces.

"...Whether I can change this is none of your business to talk about, you piece of trash."

By putting the Time Limit Sword back into the driver, Yan Ming could be said to be taking out his weapon to fight for the first time without transforming.

He looked around but didn't see Kyubey. He figured he probably wouldn't be showing up anytime soon.

Volume 6, Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Chapter 237 The Fleetingly Lighthearted Everyday Life

Magical girl, witch...

"I can't believe such a thing exists..."

After returning to the apartment, Yan Ming explained everything he knew to Wozniak and Gates.

Gates might not know what to say, while Wozniak...

"If what Kyubey said is true, my Demon King, I don't think we can change this world with our current power."

"how do I say this."

"The idea that 'human beings create corresponding curses and monsters in the real world because of their negative emotions'...this is practically an immutable law of this world."

Although Yan Ming and Gates possess immense power, even capable of altering time and space, they are still not powerful enough to arbitrarily change the laws of the world.

"Even if all the Kyubeys were killed, the human race would still experience twisted and negative emotions in their hearts for various reasons every day and night. Once these negative emotions arise, they will manifest in the real world in different forms. So, to completely solve this problem would be to make all of humanity free of negative emotions every day... This is harder than climbing to the sky."

"Then...are we just going to give up?"

Gates didn't know what to say either, only that the issue they were discussing was difficult to resolve.

"However... in reality, we don't necessarily have to resolve all these issues, my Demon King."

Seeing Yan Ming deep in thought, Woz quickly came over and spoke to him.

There's a saying that goes, "Do what you can. We should do what we are capable of, and there's no need to force ourselves to do what we can't."

"As you are now... you can't do anything, that's all. Although I like to exaggerate your power, I absolutely do not like to boast. My Demon King, if you really want to solve everything... you can only completely change this after you obtain the strongest power."

"The strongest power... does it really refer to Oma Zi-O?"

"Once you become Oma Zi-O, you will no longer have the concept of 'enemy' in any world."

Woz's words caused Yan Ming, who was deep in thought, to pause again.

The main issue is that what he said felt a bit... exaggerated.

When I transformed into... Oma Zi-O, I did feel an unparalleled sense of power, but it shouldn't have been as exaggerated as Woz described.

But if you turn around and think about it from a different perspective, it's a completely different story.

At that time, Yan Ming not only couldn't control his power, but everything he did was also subconscious.

The power he felt under these circumstances was probably only a tiny fraction of that of Oma Zi-O, and didn't even reach that level.

"Once you become Oma Zi-O, nothing will be a problem, whether it's the affairs of this world, any world you want to go to in the future, or those demons."

Woz's words sounded like the devil's whispers, and to onlookers, it seemed like an attempt to lure Yan Ming into an endless abyss.

Even Gates knew very well that what Woz said was true.

Yan Ming looked at him thoughtfully, and finally nodded.

"Once I successfully obtain that power in the future, I think I can indeed become what you described."

Afterwards, Yan Ming left the room, and Gates and Woz both watched him leave with complicated expressions.

"...Were you just trying your best to instill the idea of ​​turning him into Oma Zi-O?"

"Hasn't this always been our goal, Mr. Gates?"

"Don't get one thing wrong... The only reason I've been following you is to find traces of that guy, Sougo."