"Yes."
"Sophia's completely blunt, idiot-like honesty is just like you, isn't it?"
Ash shook his head and complained before explaining what he had discovered underground.
It wasn't anything particularly major. He had simply found an ancient ruin and wanted Ariel to help identify what kind of ruin it was.
After all, there was no similar information in the Pope's memories, while Ariel had been running rampant across the world for all these years, so she should know something related.
However...
"Hmm~ I don't know. I only know there was a super huge nuclear explosion here in the past. Other than that, I've never heard of any military base or anything," Ariel thought for quite a while, but the information she gave was almost no different from what Ash remembered.
'In that case, could it be that some country had detonated a nuclear bomb above it to hide this underground base and keep people from approaching?', Just as Ash was making that guess, Ariel didn't even give a warning. Like Shiro, she jumped straight into the pit without hesitation. She moved so fast that Ash didn't even have time to stop her. Left with no choice, he could only jump down after her.
Although, at first, he hadn't planned on going down himself.
———
Accompanied by the howling wind rushing past their ears, the moment Ash and the others landed, what came into view was a pure white metal floor, its smooth surface reflecting a cold sheen in the dim surroundings.
Sharp, piercing alarms echoed one after another throughout the empty space.
As far as the eye could see, broken mechanical wreckage was scattered everywhere.
The original forms of these wrecks appeared to be rough-looking humanoid robots. There were too many to count, and every one of them held a large gun barrel. Those dark muzzles seemed to speak of the fierce firepower they once possessed, yet...
"Not a single one was left intact," Ash looked around at the robots covering the white space and shook his head helplessly, a trace of disappointment flashing across his eyes.
That immediately earned him a fierce glare from Shiro, whose eyes were full of resentment.
"You've got the nerve to say that!"
"What?"
"The moment I came down, countless energy bullets started shooting at me! You didn't even warn me!", Shiro puffed out her cheeks in anger.
"My fault?", Ash couldn't help laughing bitterly. He didn't know whether he should be happy that Shiro could now talk to him so smoothly, or depressed that she was taking her anger out on him instead, "You're so angry you're not thinking straight, are you?"
"If not you, then who?"
"Sure, I accidentally blasted through the outer shell, but you jumped down without thinking. That's the real problem, isn't it? Besides, aren't you perfectly fine?", Ash shook his head helplessly again, then crouched down, casually picked up a gun from the ground, and pulled the trigger while aiming it at his own palm.
However... the rather futuristic-looking gun didn't react at all.
"This thing actually has authorization?", Ash carefully inspected the weapon. He found no signs of damage, but did discover an authentication module built into it.
He clicked his tongue in disappointment, gave up on the idea of equipping an army with these weapons, and casually threw the gun back onto the ground.
"Anyway, let's see what good stuff this place has," As he spoke, he used magic detection to examine the interior while walking ahead on his own.
Seeing that, Shiro pouted.
Though still unhappy, she quickly caught up to him, staring at him without blinking while muttering,
"Apologize."
"Don't mention it," Ash deliberately pretended not to understand.
"I mean, apologize to me," Shiro raised her voice.
"No. I didn't do anything wrong. You were the one who acted on your own," Ash answered with a serious face.
"Ugh~"
Shiro stamped her feet angrily. Seeing that Ash refused to give in, she turned to Ariel for help.
However... Ariel was frowning with a solemn expression, completely ignoring her.
Just then, as they continued deeper inside, another large group of robots appeared ahead.
These robots came in all kinds of forms. Some carried humanoid rifles, while others resembled mobile artillery platforms. There were all kinds of different models.
The moment they spotted Ash and the others, they immediately opened fire. Energy bullets rained down with the speed and density of machine-gun fire.
But... the three people present were all monsters.
Even if those attacks hit them, they couldn't cause the slightest damage.
In fact, they couldn't even hit their targets in the first place.
Under this one-sided slaughter, the entire group of robots was wiped out with ease in mere moments.
Yet before they even had a chance to catch their breath, another group appeared, this time, tank-like combat vehicles.
These vehicles fired even more powerful energy cannons. Their dazzling light and massive energy fluctuations clearly demonstrated their destructive power.
Unfortunately, they had chosen the wrong opponents.
Their fierce attacks... still accomplished absolutely nothing against Ash and the others.
As the three advanced as though no one could stop them, the entire underground base seemed to become completely enraged.
Blinding red lights flashed nonstop.
At the same time, unbearably loud alarms echoed wildly throughout the facility. The deafening noise seemed ready to burst a person's eardrums, making the already mysterious place even more tense and chaotic.
At that moment, Ash's magic detection sensed an astonishing sight beneath them.
It was an enormous disc-shaped flying object whose total length had to be measured in kilometers.
It looked just like the legendary UFO, giving off an ancient, mysterious, and highly futuristic feeling.
Beside it stood a huge mechanical octopus with a bizarre appearance.
Both of them were now starting up, releasing immense waves of energy.
Without saying a word, Ash grabbed the two girls beside him and flashed away, instantly returning from the depths of the underground base to the surface.
At that very instant, the entire base began to shake violently as though the end of the world had arrived.
Hundreds of meters of earth split apart like fragile paper beneath an overwhelming force.
Then, a gigantic pillar of fire shot into the sky like a raging dragon.
The spaceship that had been buried deep underground was being pushed upward by that force, about to break free from the earth and soar into the sky.
Everything seemed to be heading toward an uncontrollable outcome...
"Get down!"
Ash's expression turned serious as he slowly lowered his outstretched right hand.
In an instant, gravity across an area several kilometers wide ahead seemed to fall under the control of an invisible hand, changing dramatically.
The earth let out painful groans as though bearing a weight it could no longer endure.
Under the brutal pressure of gravity, the ground was compressed, and even the surrounding space began to distort.
Both the ascending spaceship and the mechanical octopus were immediately affected.
Their flight paths changed at once, like birds being pulled back by invisible ropes. After only a slight struggle, they were forcibly slammed back onto the ground.
Boom! Rumble!
Accompanied by a deafening impact that shook both heaven and earth, Ash released the gravitational restraint.
A vast cloud of dust rolled toward the sky like black waves.
The spaceship and mechanical octopus, which had barely risen, crashed back onto the ground.
The impact made the earth surge like a storm-tossed sea, more violent than a real earthquake, while everything around them trembled and shook beneath the tremendous force.
Amid the apocalyptic tremors, Ash calmly waved his hand.
Another roar rang out like thunder.
A fierce gale swept forward, quickly blowing away the dust before them.
Looking down at the spaceship that came back into view, apparently having suffered some damage, he nodded in satisfaction and muttered to himself,
"As expected, the bigger and clumsier something is, the easier it is for gravity to counter it."
"O-Oh? This feels just like a space war," Shiro stared with wide eyes and couldn't help blurting out.
Beside her, Ariel couldn't help complaining, "No, no, no! Normal gravity magic couldn't possibly pull down something that huge... You're just a monster."
"More importantly, why do I feel like something inside that spaceship is gathering an absurd amount of energy?", Ash frowned slightly.
Compared to the girls' complaints, all of his attention was fixed on the abnormal energy fluctuation inside the spaceship.
It gave him a bad feeling.
The two girls behind him had sensed it as well.
If they weren't mistaken, once that energy erupted... it would probably be enough to blow the entire continent to pieces.
"Could it be... a self-destruct device?", Ash looked curiously at Ariel, as though asking whether that ancient civilization also liked using the strategy of self-destructing when they couldn't win.
"Forget that! Hurry and get down there!", Too anxious to explain, Ariel shot down like a bolt of lightning the moment she finished speaking.
Her figure instantly disappeared into the enormous crater whose surroundings had already been melted by the flames.
Shiro didn't dare hesitate either.
She hurriedly grabbed Ash and jumped into the crater with him.
Normally, getting inside the spaceship would have required breaking through its armored hull.
Fortunately, the giant mechanical octopus had smashed open part of the ship's upper hull when it crashed down earlier.
However, the "accidentally" crashed spaceship was still resisting stubbornly.
It continuously deployed all kinds of attack weapons toward the outside, tanks, robots, and even fighter aircraft roaring out from above.
But before any of those weapons could even leave the crater, Ash casually waved his hand, and gravity slammed them back to the ground, turning them into piles of scrap metal.
As for the endless stream of robots and tanks, the three of them simply had no time to deal with them one by one.
The more urgent crisis, the possible self-destruct device inside the spaceship, was threatening the safety of the entire continent.
———
Using the hole smashed through the spaceship's hull, the three easily slipped inside.
The moment they entered, they were met by countless robots launching a frenzied resistance, surging toward them like a tide while firing guns and cannons.
However, to these three, the robots' attacks were no more than a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
While advancing, they simply waved their hands, and the robots were dismantled one after another, collapsing into piles of scrap metal.
Surprisingly, when they rushed toward the source of the energy fluctuation, they found no great boss waiting for them.
There was only an extremely sturdy-looking door.
It appeared to be made from some special alloy, its surface reflecting a cold metallic sheen. It was obviously very solid.
A purple light flashed in Ash's eyes.
Without hesitation, he activated the Evil Eye of Distortion he had learned from Shiro over the years.
In an instant, the surrounding space twisted under the influence of magic.
The incomparably sturdy door twisted like soft dough into a spiral before breaking free from the wall.
Seeing that, Ariel flew forward and kicked the twisted door away.
The door slammed into the wall with a loud crash.
But the moment they stepped into the room, the pillar standing in its center suddenly began to change.
Its originally uneven surface unfolded like a flower blooming in an instant, rapidly producing countless gun barrels.
Those barrels continued transforming and extending, gradually taking on the form of a tank, like a steel beast awakening from its slumber.
"Annoying. Die."
Ash frowned.
He had no intention of waiting for it to finish transforming.
Simply raising his hand, he formed a distorted singularity like a black hole in his palm, constantly swallowing the surrounding light.
Then he directly pressed that distorted singularity onto the transforming robot.
Accompanied by a warped sound completely beyond reason that made one's eardrums ache, the robot, which hadn't yet completed its transformation, instantly froze.
Its body was pulled and twisted by the singularity before gradually being compressed.
Fortunately, because even the sound itself was being absorbed, their ears didn't actually suffer.
However, the robot's armor was extremely unusual.
It seemed to possess extraordinarily high M.A. energy.
Even under such overwhelming distortion, it wasn't torn apart like everything else and dragged into the void.
Although its body had been compressed considerably and its internal structure had warped strangely, its core remained completely intact, still struggling to complete its transformation.
Brilliant sparks flew continuously from its joints.
At the same time, loud Bang! Bang! Bang! sounds echoed through the quiet room.
But Ash had no interest in the transforming machine, whether it was showing stubborn perseverance or had simply broken down.
As he searched around for the self-destruct bomb, he immediately discovered an astonishing fact, the entire spaceship's energy seemed to be continuously gathering inside that transforming machine.
Before he could react—
BOOM!
With a dull explosion, the entire robot suddenly collapsed.
Its hard metal shell instantly turned into ashes that drifted through the air.
Among those ashes, a mechanical sphere no larger than a palm stood out.
Even though its outer structure had vanished, the spaceship's energy was still pouring continuously into the sphere through some kind of magic from afar.
"Destroy it directly?", Ariel stared at the object that looked very much like a bomb and couldn't help asking.
Ash shook his head with a serious expression, "I think we'd better not. If we destroy it directly, I doubt we'd survive unless we escaped immediately."
"Then what do we do?"
"Pick a continent to blow up. How about that?"
"Have you lost your mind? If a bomb with such dense M.A. energy explodes, not even our souls would remain. This world would end ahead of time," Ariel completely failed to catch his joke.
Looking at the bomb in Ash's hand, which was growing brighter and brighter, her face turned pale.
"Th-That thing... it's about to explode, isn't it?"
"It has been preparing to explode the whole time."
"I know that! I'm asking what we're going to do!", Even the usually composed Ariel had begun to panic.
Ash also frowned, desperately searching for a solution.
He even thought of a last resort... it seemed he could only use spatial transfer to throw it onto the neighboring continent.
He even regretted never flying into outer space before. Otherwise, he could have simply thrown it into space.
But just as he prepared to use spatial magic, he discovered that the spaceship's interior was protected by a strange barrier that completely blocked spatial magic.
He would have to run outside before he could use it.
Yet before he could move...
'This is bad! This is bad! This is bad! This is bad! This is bad! This is bad!'
Shiro screamed repeatedly inside her heart.
But she was so nervous that she couldn't say a single word out loud, only pacing anxiously nearby.
Then, as though she had suddenly made up her mind, she reached out and snatched the bomb away.
Afterward, before she even understood what she herself was doing, right before the stunned eyes of the other two... she swallowed the glowing bomb that was about to explode.
"W-What am I doing?"
Before the other two could cry out, Shiro herself looked at her glowing stomach and let out a panicked shout.
The two of them froze once again, completely speechless.
Just as Ash was about to cut her open, remove the bomb first, and heal her afterward, the next instant, Shiro's figure suddenly disappeared without a trace.
It felt as though she had used spatial transfer herself.
But... this was clearly an area where space was sealed.
And there had been no trace of any energy at all.
'Which means...'
"D did it?"
With the crisis suddenly resolved, Ash looked toward where Shiro had disappeared, and the first person that came to mind was that mysterious Evil God.
After all, that Evil God had always taken especially good care of Shiro, though no one knew why.
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