[446] Mental Armament (1)
Two iron radiant rings meshed into one, forming a world in which everything changed.
That was the Sun–Moon Radiant Wheel.
A technique that made Sein the strongest of the Black Line mental class, it could perfectly control the environment within the bounds of the equalizing horizontal value.
In other words, if the horizontal value was 100, you could reduce speed to 1 and raise strength to 99.
Because the transformation values vary by setting, the actual mechanism wasn't this simple, but handled the right way it contained terrifying potential—enough to crush opponents far superior to oneself.
—New program detected. Scanning.
Babel's radiant wheel immediately sensed the change in the world.
The biggest change was that Sein's speed had overtaken hers.
It wasn't that Sein had accelerated, nor that Babel had slowed.
To be precise, it was the result of equalizing the relative speeds of the two entities.
Babel's repertoire of instant-kill countermeasures, once numbering 2.7 billion, had abruptly fallen to a mere two million.
It had been a long time since Babel had computed this deeply for a single entity—a human, no less.
Of course, two million possibilities to instantly kill Sein still remained.
But what made Babel truly terrifying was that it was a completely emotionless program—incapable even of relief.
No complacency, no panic.
Babel simply repeated its calculations and relentlessly pressured Sein.
This is tricky.
Sein had equalized hundreds of battlefield variables in his favor, and what he'd sacrificed to match the horizontal value was his mental strength.
Among mental mages his Spirit Zone was one of the largest—rivaling Jonathan's—but it had shrunk to only twenty square meters.
Babel closed to melee without hesitation.
There was no reason to refuse when the number of fatal countermeasures could increase by 830,000.
It's a monster. Not a single gap.
Even Sein, who had faced countless powerful foes, had to click his tongue at the force before him.
It wasn't a transcendent ability, but the combat power derived from a flawless algorithm rivaled that of an angel.
Kiiing! Kiiing!
Each time Babel's metal grazed Sein's cheek, a high-pitched screech stabbed his eardrums.
I'm already trapped.
Sein sensed Babel beginning to reach a certainty.
He could not hold out.
If this continued, in ten seconds Sein's neck would be severed.
—Fatal response patterns: 32,564.
A cause produced a result, and that result became the cause of a new result.
All causal rates since the start of the fight contributed to the current outcome, and the number of countermeasures plummeted exponentially.
And that meant only one thing.
I'm going to die!
Even as Sein realized it, the rebels could not move.
Only Sein perceived the approaching, unmistakable death.
Kwaaaang!
A massive steel pillar slammed down before his eyes.
Sein raised his head before he could even be sure if Babel was still pinned to the ground.
A thirty-meter armored frame had struck the surface with its arm.
It was a Titan—a Stage 3 mecha.
There were only three at the rebel command. Their terrifying physical force—nearing three thousand tons of mass—and the power of their thermal flare cannons, produced by magnetic pulses, made them the pinnacle of mecha technology.
Producing one required hundreds of thousands of elixirs and thousands of tons of ore, and not just anyone could design the programs that formed their system.
If a Piper was needed to operate a Guroi, a Titan could not be piloted without riding in a Guroi.
Moving a single Titan arm required ten tons of force.
Power transmitted from Piper to Guroi to Titan made the system extremely sensitive for its size; the pilot's skill therefore determined its combat effectiveness.
The pilot of Titan Unit One crushing Babel was Crud—genius pilot and rebel commander.
He hadn't jumped in because Sein was in danger; he'd come because he was confident he could finish it now.
That confidence shattered moments later as overwhelming force pressed against his control stick.
"Uuugh!"
With the sound of metal scraping, Babel lifted the Titan's enormous palm with both hands.
As Crud pulled the controls, the plasma engines roared and pushed back with explosive force.
The more force was transmitted, the faster Babel's radiant wheel spun.
It even flared outward like a nova, flinging absurd weight away and sliding her body clear.
Kuaaaang!
When the Titan's palm crashed down again, the ground ruptured and columns of earth shot up dozens of meters high.
Sein slid back and took in the battlefield.
Guroi volley fire stitched the sky, and the two remaining Titans fired thermal flare cannons at the airborne Babel.
Mixed among the frantic fighters were Kanya and Rena, who had lost their father.
"Die!"
Kanya fired through tears.
But she couldn't hit something moving faster than a bullet.
—Babel program: wide-area combat system activated.
—Target: entire battlefield.
—Combat pattern: massacre.
—Fatal response patterns: 7.
With a new algorithm applied, Babel tore across the field at terrifying speed.
Every Guroi in the path of a silver streak exploded and fell.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Each time the three Titans slammed the ground, vibrations traveled even to Sein's feet, dozens of meters away.
You can't take it down with Guroi. It's already beyond any category where force comparison makes sense.
Crud matched Babel's movement with exquisite piloting.
Her speed was almost impossible to track by eye, but Babel's trajectory still showed up on radar.
That was only measuring inertia; actually scoring a hit was entirely the pilot's responsibility.
Here!
Vwoooom!
The Titan's pauldrons opened on both sides and cavernous muzzles thrust out to fire thermal flare cannons.
—Evasion probability: 0%. Entering defensive posture.
Babel stopped flying and crossed her arms in an X. At once a monstrous flare drove the metal body into the ground.
Kwaaaang!
The earth glowed dark red and melted like lava; Babel stood there, knees bent, belching smoke.
Damn it! What is it made of?
It was certainly not pure mineral.
But he couldn't imagine what alloy could withstand that heat.
Ten seconds.
If the thermal flare cannons could concentrate energy for more than ten seconds, even Babel would begin to melt.
But Crud smiled bitterly at that thought.
It was obvious when one considered what Babel could do in those ten seconds.
As time passed, casualties mounted.
Even though Sein had equalized every environmental factor to be unfavorable to Babel, he was being pushed back.
This is strange. Really strange.
Sein only realized it after stepping back from the fight.
This machine was never made by humans.
It only looked like a machine; its internal program was far beyond human design.
A work of an angel? Or something beyond that?
That was the odd feeling Sein had about Babel.
—Combat system change.
When the rebel numbers fell to the set amount, Babel finally stopped.
"Now! All fire!"
Crud ordered immediately, and thousands of rounds struck her.
Sparks flew from Babel's body; she looked like living flame.
—Map weapon activation. Codename: Babel.
At last Babel revealed her true raison d'être.
She arched her upper body like a bow; her neck slipped free, the torso fell backward, and her chest opened.
A barrel embedded with a glass orb was exposed, and with her upper body thrown behind her legs, her arms and legs planted into the ground as supports.
Krrrrr!
An electrical phenomenon crackled before the glass orb aimed at the Titans.
"Thermal flare cannons! Fire direct shots!"
Sensing the crisis, Crud concentrated the six muzzles of the three Titans.
Directing wide-area weapons straight down at the ground wasn't in any manual, but there was no time for protocol.
As six streams of thermal flare fire surged toward Babel, a massive photonic cannon fired from Babel's glass orb.
When the two energies collided, the command headquarters lit up like midday and the world filled with the sound of burning.
Crud's Titan, with a hole in one shoulder, staggered as if it might collapse.
"Damn it!"
—Babel test fire complete. Burst fire activated.
Babel's muzzle spat photonic beams in all directions, unconcerned with previous restraints.
A literal map weapon.
Firepower enough to level the entire headquarters within a minute.
"Damn it! We can't stop it!"
Sein charged Babel and tried his last option.
He rammed the equalizing of the Sun–Moon Radiant Wheel into Babel's system, and whooooom! His mind trembled and his sense of reality blurred like a dream.
What the hell is this…
A loose, convoluted system so complex that even he, who had trained his mind countless times, sank into a swamp of oblivion.
A blue vein of light pierced the heart of those countless circuits.
* * *
"Hah, hah."
Only the guide's breath could be heard in the frozen silence of Niflheim.
Even the one who had a contract with a frost spirit looked unlikely to last more hours in this state.
Even a Tier-2 monster like a Salamander could no longer raise its flames.
They were merely not frozen to death yet; the shadow of death slowly crept up toward their ankles.
Gangnan forced his frozen lips open.
"Where the hell is Hel? We didn't take a wrong path, did we?"
The guide answered in a dying voice.
"I only came the way I was taught. Beyond that I… don't know…"
The guide was paying dearly for his greed.
His dream of buying piles of Black Elixirs and becoming ruler of the mainland had turned into a mirage before the reality at hand.
"I—I can't go on…"
As the guide tried to speak his last words, Julu's steps halted.
The brutal cold was ravaging her body, but her face remained composed.
"Gaold, over there."
Julu pointed; beneath the ice at that spot a massive shadow moved.
Small shadows flowed in from all directions and merged, rising into a convex bell shape that pushed through the ice.
Enemies?
Whatever it was, it was the first change since they'd routed the Grim Reapers.
It was also the reason Gaold had patiently followed the guide this far.
For a moment, no one moved.
It was a natural sight in Niflheim, but the moment the rising darkness began to take shape, everything changed.
Kukukukukuku—thrum!
The ice trembled as Gangnan steadied himself and glared into the darkness.
Something ten meters tall, clad in a black robe with a white band, rose into the sky.
No legs were visible; the robe's hem split into dozens of trailing segments.
This is… incredible!
Gangnan clenched his teeth and took a fighting stance.
The sun itself grew dim.
Screee!
At the sound from below he turned and saw the Salamander's flames snuffed out and freezing.
"W-what?"
The guide cried in surprise.
Elation rose from his toes, but by the time it reached his head he had already become a completely frozen corpse.
"Incredible mana."
Julu cleared the Salamander's body away and focused her mind.
Which type of summoning to cast depended on the foe's nature.
"I am Hel, god of death."
Gaold's brow twitched.
"Wanderers of Niflheim, I will harvest your lives."
"Krkrkr."
Gaold strode forward even facing an opponent incomparable to the Grim Reapers.
With the Salamander gone, they would now have to kindle fire from their own bodies.
"So that's it. Not a region after all."
The king of the land called Death.
That was Hel's true identity.