[470] And Then Again (3)
The Hall of Corruption came into Gaold's sight.
The moment he saw Miro standing on the rampart, his heart turned into an even vaster black smoke and blanketed the world.
"They're incoming! Stop them at the entrance!"
Elite fire-giant soldiers lined up to block the drawbridge entrance.
They averaged a towering seven meters in height, each clad in heavy armor, and there were easily hundreds of them.
When a row of giants charged and brought down a colossal greatsword, the bridge itself trembled.
Gaold leapt into the air and unleashed a powerful air-press.
Kuuung!
The force of that air-press, wielded by a mage whose pain perception had been multiplied two millionfold, was a potency the mightiest of the giants had never before experienced.
"Graaah!"
But the giants held their ground.
It was possible because of transcendent physical prowess equivalent to at least Stage-5 Ilhwa's Brew, schemas layered fivefold, and superb technique that employed folding and crossing maneuvers.
'So the real thing only starts now?'
Sein, who had arrived late after defeating Tiara, felt a chill at the sight of Gaold's power finally being stalled for the first time.
Miro, watching from the distant ramparts, also understood how desperate the situation was.
This was literally the strongest unit in Purgatory.
'There's no chance if this keeps up.'
It wasn't only warriors attacking Gaold.
True to the fire-giant race's use of innate magic, a variety of fire techniques rained across the bridge.
"Chargeee!"
Gaold plunged into the mass of giants and tore through the battlefield.
Jets of air spat in every direction, punching holes through the giants' armor.
The air, compressed into near-solid under extreme pressure, was no longer a mere projectile.
Sharp currents of air, several meters long like spear blades, spread outward and repeatedly pierced giant flesh.
"Grab him! One strike and it's over!"
No matter how powerful Gaold was, he was fundamentally a mage.
If even one of the giants' attacks connected, he would be rendered combat-ineffective in an instant.
But Gaold's true nature began to show now.
He hadn't earned the title of Tormia Kingdom's strongest battle mage through brute force alone.
Twenty years of enduring every kind of agony and honing his skill had seeped into his body until, even in a state of lost reason, his body moved toward the most appropriate responses.
As enemy attacks were dodged, every sweep of his hand produced a razor air-cutter that sliced through space.
Bodies of giants with muscles stronger than steel were chopped into chunks; schemas-stripped corpses were crushed under air-press and sprayed into particles of blood.
It was a fireworks display carried out with living flesh.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Giants detonated from all around and the density on the drawbridge loosened.
"Graaaar!"
Gaold clenched his jaw until his teeth threatened to snap and kept cutting down foes.
Sein's group, having just reached the drawbridge, could do nothing but stare blankly, unable to react.
'Is that really Gaold…?'
Armin erased every vague image he had once had of Gaold before coming to Heaven.
Pain is the most extreme method of control for a living being.
Any desire naturally withers before that pain.
But Gaold chose pain.
For his desire.
It was a decision that defied the basics of life itself—so it could only be called a human madness.
'A human…'
Armin understood why everyone there followed him.
They hadn't come to Heaven merely to save Miro or to prevent a final war.
They followed Gaold to see how far a single human could transcend humanity.
"Kraaaah!"
Gaold pushed forward, driving the giants with brutal air-pressure.
Air-press alone couldn't make an intact giant explode, but the inertia of his charge converted wholly into willpower, shoving the giants' mass backward.
"Graaaar!"
The giants gathered at the last gate were indeed strong.
They pushed desperately, yet had only advanced about a kilometer.
Given that a dense formation was good for blocking a charge, the enemy clearly knew this place would serve as their last line.
'Bastards…'
Gaold glared ahead with a terrifying stare.
It wasn't aimed at anyone in particular; it was hatred for everything.
'From the start… I should never have relied on something like you.'
If he hadn't depended on a transcendent being and had instead honed his own strength fully—
If that had been possible, perhaps he could have spared Miro.
It was a hypothesis only he could make, having endured twenty years of ascetic discipline beyond human limits.
"Close ranks! Do not fall back!"
The giants blocking Gaold shouted, and others clung more tightly from the rear.
The weight ratio between Gaold and the giant force had already surpassed one to a thousand, yet it was the giants who were the ones giving ground.
"T-this…!"
Gaold poured more power into himself.
Slowly, step by step. That was all he had to do to reach Miro.
'I hate you.'
Gaold's hatred became a body larger than the giants and shoved the world forward.
'I'll give you everything… and yet you gave nothing.'
That which gave nothing — that name was God.
Tutuk! Tututuk!
Heat from Gaold's ascetic training rose and his upper garment began to singe.
Countless scars, carved only by blind abuse, embroidered his skin beneath the muscle.
"Hold them! Don't retreat!"
The giants at the front shouted.
Their screams ended as they were crushed by pressure and burst.
"Kkuh. Kkukkuk."
A hollow laugh slipped from the torn corners of Gaold's mouth. His black heart laughed too.
A voice mocking the world and deriding God sounded.
'Well, there's nothing to hate—really. From the start…'
Gaold's expression distorted as the air-pressure that had been pushing the giants transformed into a sharp blade and detonated all at once.
'Because you never existed!'
Paaaaargh!
Dozens of giants were flayed into shreds and scattered, opening a path.
Once momentum took hold, nothing could stop Gaold.
He plowed through mountains of flesh and at last passed half the drawbridge.
As the giant unit's mages at the bridge's end drew power for a final strike, heat-warped mirages distorted the scene like whirlpools.
'To hell with God…!'
Gaold drove forward headfirst like a creature that could do nothing but charge.
His heart became a giant flame that clashed with the fire the giant mages produced.
Kuaaaaaaang!
The unimaginable blast carried clearly even to Miro, six kilometers away.
Miro squinted one eye and turned her head.
The hot wind Gaold was sending pressed all the way to her.
Thump thump.
Her heartbeat accelerated.
Maybe—maybe he really could come this far.
"Graaah!"
As he cleared the drawbridge and the giants' density dropped, Gaold made a mad dash.
Little by little, he was closing the gap.
"Ga! Gaold! Gaaaaa!"
Sein's voice reached him even through Gaold's loss of reason.
Distance to Miro: six kilometers.
"Whole force, engage!"
When Surtr gave the order, all the giants charged at Gaold.
At their vanguard was Uriel's triangular Mara, Shiva.
'Foolish human…'
Shiva drew the polearm at his waist with both hands and charged Gaold.
The powerful air-pressure hit first, but the embodiment of destruction's sheer force tore the air to pieces and closed the distance.
"Uaaaaa!"
As a show of strength between Gaold and Shiva unfolded, the other giants scattered to the sides to seek opportunity.
If they approached Gaold, who had pierced the drawbridge alone, without finding a decisive chance they would burst into froth.
No one used an explosive technique, but everything near their movements detonated.
The oddity of colliding with Gaold in the flesh exceeded Shiva's imagination.
Even as a triangular Mara, he was Uriel's right hand of destruction.
To be pushed by a mere human was something he had never experienced since his birth.
'No, it's not a matter of pride.'
Shiva recognized Gaold.
He was no longer simply human.
He could not be readily defined, but he was someone shifting from human to something else.
"He's worthy of being my rival!"
Shiva threw everything into pressuring Gaold, and the more he did, the more Gaold's combat power rose.
Miro was there.
Gaold's pain perception climbed to the highest it had ever been in his life, and every time Shiva's crescent glaive sliced his skin, a brain-rending agony assaulted him.
"Graaah!"
Gaold crushed an immense area with air-pressure and advanced.
There was no room in his mind to think of felling Shiva.
Only forward. Toward Miro.
Anxiety began to creep into the minds of everyone watching from the ramparts.
Distance to Miro was now only about one kilometer.
'Going!'
Gaold raised his pain perception further.
Kuuuuuuung!
Even the solid ground was crushed by his aura, forming huge craters and sinking.
Distance to Miro: 500 meters.
Shiva ground his teeth and struck with everything he had.
Each swing of his crescent glaive, at speeds invisible to the eye, whipped gusts that were deflected by Gaold's air-pressure and hurled outward.
Kurururung! Kurururung!
Wherever Shiva's wind-slashes rebounded, dust puffed up and giant scars over forty meters across were engraved on the earth.
Distance to Miro: 100 meters.
'I'm going. I'm going to Miro!'
Gaold stuck out his tongue like a fiend and screamed.
"Kueeeee!"
A man who had worshipped God, hated God, and finally erased Him from his existence.
"Kueeeee!"
He had withstood every blame and mockery of the world to get to this point.
"Kueeeee!"
At last he came.
The damn twenty meters that had never closed was now right before him.
'Now.'
Shiva's eyes flashed open.
The only flaw in the flawless Gaold.
In a most extreme attempt to change his thought—at twenty meters—Shiva's crescent glaive split Gaold's belly.
"Kraaaak!"
As Gaold's pain perception soared, the physical impact drove an immense agony into his brain.
"Push them all in!"
"Gaaaaaah!"
The giants let out muffled howls and swarmed Gaold.
Gaold snapped back to his senses but could not cope with giants pushing into him with brute force.
No matter his training, the giants' sheer strength crushed him, and the intensity of the pain escalated.
'I hate you… I hate you!'
Images from twenty years ago flickered through Gaold's mind.
Miro was slipping away just as before.
'I'll kill you! I'll mock your name, curse you, and erase you from the world!'
Only hatred of God rose.
The human madness that desires what one cannot have resented a God who did not exist, hated Him, and even sought to kill God… but—
'Miro…'
Gaold stared at the rampart visible through the giants' bodies.
He wanted her so badly.
He wanted her so desperately and wanted her to be his above all else.
'Miro…'
Gaold's right hand, reaching toward Miro with agonized effort, trembled.
'Oh God…'
Once again, a human reached for God.
'Why, why won't it work? After all this suffering, why won't it work?'
Distance to Miro: 150 meters.
'I'll gladly live an eternity in the pit of hell. Just please, her… only her…'
Distance to Miro: 200 meters.
"Drive them! More, more!"
Gaold coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Bitter and furious that all his efforts might be in vain, a sour lump of anger boiled up from his guts and surged back up.
"Huuuh! Huuuh!"
Shiva slipped through the giants and glared at the weeping Gaold.
'We have to kill him here.'
Sharp blades slid toward Gaold's heart, but he watched the sky without sensing them.
On the day before the Twenty Judgment, Miro's voice thundered in his head.
—Then go save her.
"Huuuuuuuugh!"
Nerves shivered through Gaold's entire body as an immense ascetic power unfurled.
A sea of flame spread to the horizon and his black heart roared in a shape huge enough to swallow the world.
"Kraaaaaaaaagh!"
Pain perception.
Ten millionfold.
Kukukukukukukukukung!
Everything that surrounded Gaold poured down like rain.
The ground quaked and rolled in waves, and the giants ahead were bitten by the jagged earth and shoved beneath the soil.
"Kruuuugh! Huuuuuugh!"
Gaold trembled in agony, pounding his legs and shaking his limbs.
"Prevent access! Don't let him reach!"
At last Surtr, watching from the rampart, leaped down.
Gaold flailed his arms in every direction and ran straight to the wall.
Distance to Miro: 100 meters. 80 meters. 50 meters.
"Uooooo!"
When Purgatory's greatest swordsman Surtr swung his flaming blade, Gaold extended his right hand.
Kuuuuuuung!
The air-shield around his body blew the flame away whole, and Surtr's eyes filled with horror.
"T-this…"
As Surtr stared at the blade reduced to a skeleton, Gaold swung his hand.
The instant Surtr's body exploded, he disappeared without a shape.
Distance to Miro: 20 meters.
"I'll kill you!"
The giants, leaderless now, rushed forward filled with fury.
But their rage was nothing but bubbles before Gaold's hatred.
Pang! Pa-pa-pa-pang!
Every giant on the ground died.
Only the giant-mage deputy corps commander Urotas remained, and he was already too terrified to dare climb down from the rampart.
"Haa! Haa!"
Gaold walked beneath the rampart where no one remained to stop him.
Six meters. Four meters. Two meters.
Miro looked down at Gaold coming up at her with an unreadable face.
His bloodied body looked incomparably stronger than twenty years ago and was covered in countless scars.
Finally, Gaold stopped at the base of the wall, tilted his head back vertically, and looked up at Miro.
Distance to Miro:
"Haa! Haa!"
None.
(End of Volume 19)