[475] As Far as the Road Behind (2)
Gaold's Vacuum Press struck Uriel square in the face.
Kraaaang!
A tremendous shockwave detonated, pushing the air in the hall outward before everything began to be sucked back in.
Those on the ramparts could not escape the storm's aftereffects and turned around in the wavering air.
"Th-that…"
Everyone's eyes filled with disbelief.
Even after taking Gaold's devastating Vacuum Press head-on, Uriel still stood in the exact same spot as before.
Watching Gaold's twisted expression, Uriel spoke calmly.
"So this is the despair you called human despair?"
Uriel's sacred-light form flashed and spread outward in a ring.
"Then it is a truly pitiful despair."
Uriel's judicial halo flared golden and unfurled, birthing the Elysian Wheel — the Celestial Galaxy Wheel.
At the sight of the roaring, spinning wheel, Gaold fell back and forced an immense air pressure around himself.
As the Galaxy Wheel scraped the ground and charged forward, the earth split with a crack and reached out as if to swallow Gaold.
Gaold's eyes widened.
This was not a collision of bodies.
As if tearing through a space without matter, everything the Elysian Wheel touched split apart like foam on the spot.
Kuuuuuuung!
As Gaold's Press bore down on the ground, the shockwave from the Elysian Wheel rushed in and snapped his defensive barrier open.
Kraaaang!
The ground cleaved beside Gaold as he spun around in panic, and the indirect shock alone rattled his insides—Gaold spat blood.
"Guhk!"
Gaold's brute strength had no effect.
That fact filled Sein and the others with despair.
"Damn it! Move!"
Sein quickly recovered his composure and led the group toward the Hall of Corruption.
Judging by the gap in power, Gaold could hold out at most a minute. If they didn't reach Miro within that time, nothing would remain but annihilation.
It wasn't fear of death.
What truly terrified them was the thought of the project they'd poured their lives into collapsing right before their eyes.
When several archangels and maras still inside the Hall of Corruption blocked their path, Gangnan stepped forward.
I'll reach Miro.
I'll meet the woman who drove a man who'd followed her his whole life to ruin and tell her—
"Sir…."
Gangnan's nose wrinkled like a wolf's as she spotted a massive Rank-1 Mara charging from the front.
"Graaah!"
"From here you won't take a single step."
The Rank-1 Mara, three meters tall, reared a gorilla-like, fur-covered torso and swung all six arms at once.
Gangnan bent at the waist into the lowest stance she could hold and twisted her hips.
Her right foot whipped through and struck the Mara's shin with a crack as the leg snapped.
"Kraaaah!"
Before the scream finished, Gangnan slipped behind the Mara and launched two more spinning kicks.
Kraaaang!
The wolf-clan ancestral schema activated, and the broken-necked Mara's body flew several meters.
"Miro—"
Gangnan lifted her head and searched for Miro's location.
From the outside it had looked like a sheer wall, but inside the structure was complex, with countless intersecting stairways.
The sky was already claimed by scattered maras, and several fallen angels held key points on the stairs.
They weren't as strong as the enemies they'd swept away so far, but given how long Gaold might hold out against Uriel, they were troublesome foes.
"Go!"
Gangnan pushed off with both legs and launched upward; her stockings split with a pop as her body rose vertically.
Many maras swarmed in to meet her, but one by one they began to pop and fly off with final, agonized cries.
"She's impressive."
Kuan and Etella knew better than anyone how formidable Gangnan's Muwi was.
They were masters of celebrated schemas themselves, but Gangnan's body was a weapon in and of itself, not merely a technique. Watching her fight, it seemed every part of her was made for destruction.
"Good fighting. Still the Mage Association's secretary-general?"
"That's not it."
Julu fell in beside Sein and said, "If Gaold brought us here, then from now on Gangnan must get us out."
Sein weighed Julu's words.
Since the Heaven Project began they'd walked different paths and rarely communicated. Yet somehow Gangnan had been at Gaold's side for a while. There must be a story, but Sein pushed the thought away.
In a situation where one mistake could ruin the operation, they had to use everything available—even if it meant exploiting one person's precious heart.
"Bastards…!"
Kuan spun and leapt, sweeping enemies in every direction.
At last the view opened and they could see the summit of the Hall of Corruption.
Nothing had changed from below. Kariel remained composed, and Miro still didn't even turn her head; she merely observed the battle between Gaold and Uriel.
Only Gaold looked grave.
He'd been pushed back about a kilometer and his body was battered by Uriel's every attack.
What his bones had managed to hold until the end had been reduced to minced muscle.
"Haah. Haah."
Gaold's arms hung limp as he glared at Uriel and drew ragged breaths.
Muscles didn't mean much against a mage, but for someone whose power source was nociception, extra pain was no aid.
The problem was that his Vacuum Press no longer produced the power it once had.
'Damn, this is unlucky,' Miro murmured.
"Gaold can't win."
"Guhng?"
Arius, lying beside her, groaned and turned toward her as if seeking an explanation.
"It's not a matter of the body."
Miro narrowed her brows and clenched her teeth.
'So that's why you're an idiot, Gaold…'
A catharsis condensed over twenty years had erupted all at once.
A human will do anything to vent such pent-up feeling, but once it's expended, it takes time to reach that intensity again.
'Yeah, it's not entirely your fault.'
Pushing Gaold forward had been her doing.
So Gaold expected nothing.
He hadn't come thinking he'd be welcomed like a prince on a white horse, nor that he'd be kissed through tears of gratitude. He had simply come.
His heart ached so much that he would have gone mad if he hadn't come to meet her.
Terribly selfish, yet because all that feeling was aimed at Miro, it was also selfless.
'If there's a way to—'
There was only one way to pull Gaold's fighting spirit back up.
"Miro!"
Bang!
Gangnan, drenched in mara blood, blew away a cluster of enemies and reached the rampart.
"Say it!"
Miro kept her mouth shut and didn't even glance at Gangnan.
Gangnan drew a deep breath.
She'd finally arrived.
The woman who had invaded a man's every thought at night stood before her.
"Tell him—"
Gangnan spat out with everything she had.
"You love Gaold!"
Her voice echoed, carrying even to the battlefield a kilometer away, where countless shockwaves churned.
Gaold halted, and Uriel responded to him.
War was as familiar to Uriel, the archangel of destruction, as life itself, but he wanted to know.
Why are humans so tumultuous?
As if time had stopped, everyone turned to Miro.
Under that silent pressure, Miro finally opened her mouth.
"What I love is myself—"
Her head slowly turned toward Gangnan.
"—and nothing else, including you."
From the moment she had cast herself away for humanity twenty years ago, she had abandoned everything.
She was a wall, a system, a phenomenon.
Gangnan ground her teeth.
"What would you know?"
Right—what did Miro know?
Could she be so brazen merely because she'd once possessed a man's heart twenty years ago?
Without knowing what he'd lived through, what pain he'd suffered, how he'd come here, is that all she could say?
'I will take you. I'll make you kneel before Gaold!'
As Gangnan pushed off the ground to charge, Kariel raised a hand.
"Come forth, Erg."
A black sphere swelled in front of his palm and the Rank-1 Mara Erg appeared.
Unlike the other maras, Erg resembled a giant insect of metal, its long face centered with a single metal lens.
Its epithet: the Computation Engine of All Principles.
Kariel typically summoned Erg when committing to front-line defense.
Kiiiiiing!
Tens of glass chimes on Erg's back shimmered with electricity and countless magic circles spread around it.
Over four hundred and twenty layers of runes cast shields against every attribute, and Gangnan could do nothing but halt before the physical magic circles.
"What do you dream of, foolish human?"
Kariel sneered. "All that awaits you is the punishment that angers the divine."
Kariel's finger swept across the wide sky.
Darkness fell over everyone's faces as they looked where he pointed.
Countless fallen angels were flying in to swarm them.
"An aftershock?"
The enemies they'd bound with Stop magic had regained their freedom.
It didn't feel unlucky. Thanks to the absurd ability to freeze time, they'd reached Miro so quickly.
But it didn't change that the situation had worsened.
Sein issued orders at once.
"I'll dismantle the magic circles. Hold them off while I do. But Stop and Forcemetry are prohibited."
Even if they destroyed Erg's shields, two archangels remained here. If there was any magic that might give even a sliver of a chance to carry Miro away, it would be Stop or a spacetime Forcemetry.
No one failed to understand, and the group quickly moved to advantageous positions and readied for battle.
Seeing that, Uriel turned his head to Gaold.
"What a pity. Once again you've been abandoned by the one you most desperately wanted."
Uriel's tone had dignity, not sympathy.
And that was precisely why Uriel was not human.
"Kuk. Kkkkkk."
Gaold curled his lips and lifted his head. "As expected… you're the best, Miro."
Through the archangelic resonance he'd heard Miro's words, and the world felt like it went dark.
Perhaps it was true, and perhaps it was effective.
"Still struggling? Is that what humans are?"
"You know nothing of humans."
Kukukukukukuku!
The atmosphere around Gaold began to convulse.
That force—different from before, the same energy that had once swept countless enemies away—whirled again.
Kraaaang!
A vacuum sphere formed in front of Gaold's hand.
His muscles were already shredded and he could barely swing an arm, but he pushed forward with every last ounce of strength.
"How could you know?"
'Danger!'
Uriel hastily raised an arm and swung the Elysian Wheel before his eyes.
Beyond the rapidly rotating afterimages was Gaold's ghostly face, his arm stretching out like a rope.
Yes—how could he know?
The less he could have, the more he wanted—
"Human filthy desire."
Nociception multiplied ten millionfold — Vacuum Press.
Kraaaang!
The torn air shot skyward with a thunderous roar across a radius of several kilometers.