[480] Direct Pointing (2)
"You absolutely can't win?"
Shirone didn't brush Mirka off.
The reason she'd remained unharmed after a direct hit from a photon cannon had to be some kind of fairy irregular form, and if that was true, Mirka's claim wasn't empty bragging.
"What on earth is it?"
Shirone fired the homing photon cannon again.
As expected, Mirka didn't dodge. The photon cannon struck and detonated with a thunderous boom.
Seeing Mirka's faint smile, Shirone realized something new.
She hadn't blocked it.
She was outright immune to the attack itself.
"Then can you withstand this too?"
Shirone amplified her mana and fired an even stronger laser.
No matter how durable the material, a laser that excites molecular vibration can't be held off forever. Yet Mirka absorbed the magic without a twitch.
Only then did Shirone cease her assault.
"This is bad."
Whatever its activation mechanism, Mirka's irregular form was simple and devastatingly powerful.
"Invincible… is it?"
Mirka simply nodded.
"Yes. You are weaker than I am, so you can never defeat me."
Mirka's irregular form, the Razor of Truth, triggered when it first took an attack that clearly carried murderous intent.
Once activated, a judgement comparing the two beings' strength began. If it judged Mirka superior, she entered an invincible state and became unaffected by any attack from that opponent.
The superiority comparison didn't depend on measurable stats but on the avatar's existential presence. Because the Razor of Truth removed all anomalies and variables that could arise in battle, the invincible state couldn't be overturned.
In practice, victory proves strength, but Mirka's irregular form removed every battlefield variable and reduced combat to pure power—the stronger one simply wins.
To establish such a potent principle required a costly equivalence. The judgement canceled if the target left Mirka's sight, and even if kept within her gaze, it lasted at most around thirty minutes.
But the gravest risk was that Mirka had to stand defenseless against the first attack that carried obvious murderous intent.
If Mirka lost the superiority judgement, not only would she be hit by the attack, the Razor of Truth would reverse and grant invincibility to the opponent instead.
In short, facing someone stronger in raw avatar power meant almost certain death or defeat—near one hundred percent.
A brutally fitting balance to realize absolute invincibility.
Yet Mirka never doubted her power.
She was currently third in the fairy 72-rank hierarchy.
"Shall we begin?"
Mirka unleashed a merciless assault on Shirone.
Irregular Form — Law of Obedience.
Another irregular form linked to the Razor of Truth activated.
When Mirka plunged into Shirone's solar plexus at speed, a massive impact spread through Shirone's body with a sickening crack.
"How—?"
Even struggling for breath, Shirone felt incredulous.
Her Ringer skin—the armored mineral-type skin—wasn't activating.
And the physical force was far too strong to be called mere fairy power.
"So this is an ability too."
Shirone's guess was correct.
When Mirka gained superiority in the Razor of Truth's judgement, the Law of Obedience nullified all the opponent's attacks and even repelled the reactive force generated in return.
In effect, it was a double critical hit: Mirka's physical strikes in her invincible state delivered blows no one in Shirone's vulnerable condition could withstand.
Mirka kept battering Shirone with bare-handed attacks.
As long as she faced Shirone, her body was invincible, so she attacked without restraint.
Receiving blows like being struck by a heavy boulder, a single thought passed through Shirone's mind.
She can't win.
Having encountered countless irregular forms before, options for counters flashed through her head—many she'd seen work.
One obvious answer was escaping Mirka's line of sight, but that wasn't the core issue.
This was a fairy occupying the upper ranks among the seventy-two; her lifespan and avatar strength were on a different level. Without overwhelming superiority of avatar power, Shirone couldn't hope to beat the Razor of Truth.
As Mirka bound Shirone's feet, dozens of fairies arrived and rained down spells.
When the attacks weren't Mirka's, Armand intercepted most of them, but even the sturdiest defenses have limits under continuous bombardment.
"The irregular form is the problem."
An ability that seals off combat variables at the source.
To Shirone—who had felled stronger foes through sharp insight and quick improvisation—this was almost a natural predator.
"This is the end."
Mirka dropped vertically and struck Shirone's belly with a physical blow.
"Ugh!"
Shirone felt her abdominal muscles tear and couldn't draw a breath.
The sky's rim darkened, and two-thirds of her vision went black.
"Now! Unleash everything!"
Armand, resonating with Shirone's consciousness, weakened as her awareness faded.
Seeing the tentacles droop like waterlogged grass, the fairies unleashed all their magic.
They intended to cut her consciousness entirely; Shirone would die before she hit the ground.
The fairies' full assault streamed in through Shirone's narrowing sight.
Watching the riot of colors, Shirone squeezed out her last reserves.
Judicial Radiant Wheel — Valhalla Action.
The radiant wheel spun and instantly calculated a single spell.
Judicial Radiant Wheel — Super-Magic Amplification Array: Ataraxia.
As the giant wheel unfolded, the fairies targeting Shirone clutched their heads and screamed in shock.
The only one who could still look on was Mirka—already in an invincible state.
"Dammit—"
Seeing the Ataraxia conjured at birth, she shouted to the surrounding fairies.
"Everyone, get out of the way!"
The photon cannon passed through the Ataraxia, and an overwhelming flash filled the sky.
The force swept away the raining spells, and the fairies caught within the radius evaporated in an instant like flies consumed by flame.
"Ugh!"
When the light faded, no fairy remained except Mirka.
Mirka searched the sky for the vanished Shirone, then ground her teeth in resignation.
Ataraxia—Archangel Ikael's signature technique.
They hadn't acted despite knowing Mirka was invincible because an instinctive fear at the root of the mind had frozen them.
"She can't still be alive. She fell from this height…"
That was what Mirka wanted to believe, but she couldn't be certain.
"Search. Don't stop until you've cut that body into pieces."
At Mirka's order, the surviving fairies surged toward the ground.
That they were flying over the Whale's Valley—Shehakim's most treacherous gorge—only made it more aggravating.
"I should have finished her."
Mirka's pride as the third-ranked fairy had been badly wounded.
Still, she shrugged off regret and followed her subordinates to descend swiftly into the gorge.
"Focus. I can't lose consciousness."
Falling toward the valley floor, Shirone forced her mind to cling to life.
It was astonishing concentration, born in a state anyone else would call near death.
If she kept consciousness, Armand could at least restore something after the fall.
But if her mind went blank here, no one could promise what would happen next.
Thud! Thud!
She felt no pain—only dull impacts hammered the back of her head.
Shirone struck the gorge cliff, bounced, slammed her head into the opposite wall, and fell.
Eyes shut, blood streamed down her brow.
Only five hundred meters remained to the ground.
If she landed headfirst, her neck would snap for sure.
At that moment, a single fairy moved with terrifying speed, gliding past the gorge's jagged crevices and diving for Shirone.
It was the spiral fairy Peope.
"Eeeek!"
Peope grabbed Shirone's robe and hauled with all his strength, but the fall's inertia was overwhelming.
Using spiral magic he tried to disperse the impact, but all he managed was to slow the descent.
"Gah!"
His shoulder felt like it would dislocate; Peope gritted his teeth.
Thud!
When Shirone hit the ground, his body was flung away and rolled along the floor.
He had no time to nurse his pain—Peope rushed back to Shirone.
"Shirone! Shirone!"
Panic hit him when she didn't move. He pressed his ear to her chest.
Thump. Thump.
A faint heartbeat pulsed.
It might stop soon, but it was a sliver of relief.
"Oh—this isn't the time for that."
If other fairies began scouring the Whale's Valley, discovery would be only a matter of time.
Grabbing Shirone's robe, Peope scanned the area and found a cave barely large enough for a person. He dragged Shirone inside.
"Phew. She should be okay for now."
Peope wiped sweat from his brow and stared at Shirone's face, which lay like someone in a deathlike sleep.
He had been able to track her this far because he hadn't seen the Ataraxia.
Somehow… Peope had come to understand what Shirone would do.
"Of course."
He gave a sad smile.
"We're friends, after all."
Would anyone understand that he'd wanted Shirone over the Internal Bureau? That he'd chosen the chance to rise from the despised lowest rank among the seventy-two to a mid-level position?
"Shirone, I…"
Searching for words, his eyes grew moist.
"You changed me when I met you."
He didn't say he loved her.
Even with the purest intention, he knew that to declare it was to throw his heart away; had he grasped that fully, he might never have spoken.
He'd learned more emotions from the higher fairies.
The more he learned, the more each word he'd said spread through Shirone's heart like light through a prism—splitting into a spectrum that shimmered and stung.
"Still, I don't regret my choice."
Choosing the Internal Bureau had been the right thing.
"Igrin said humans and fairies can't love. Because I'm—"
Peope folded the chest-exploding sorrow into a smile.
"Too small."
His voice cracked, and hot tears welled endlessly from his large eyes.
Armand's adamantine armament disengaged and shifted into the form of a magic sword.
Shirone's consciousness had finally slipped away.
Her body was a ruin. Fractured bones lay under blue bruises, and her organs were hurtling toward death.
Peope looked at her with pity, then flew to Shirone's face.
He knelt beneath her chin and stroked her cheek.
They'd known each other only briefly; he couldn't claim to truly know her.
But he'd already thrown himself away—there were no regrets left.
"I'm sorry, Shirone."
Closing his eyes, Peope kissed her mouth. His body began to burn with a sudden light.
He poured his entire remaining lifespan into compressing it into a single life force.
"I love you."
A concept he understood more clearly than a year ago, Peope once more cast his heart toward Shirone.