[479] Direct Pointing (1)
Plu, wounded, hauled himself up and stood before Shirone.
Among the seventy-two ranks of fairies, Mirka—of the second rank—radiated an aesthetic force unlike an angel's.
If an angel's beauty was vast and reverent, Mirka's came from the quaint, storybook hues of a fairy tale.
None of that mattered to Plu.
Half-naked and racked by burns that clawed along his nerves and scraped at his brain, the professional mage nonetheless formed a Spirit Zone with relentless will.
"Tch, I knew it. No wonder I felt uneasy."
Plu's gaze flicked to Peope, who stood at Mirka's side.
Was it pangs of conscience?
Peope kept her head bowed the whole time, which only made Plu angrier.
The awe-inspiring fairy Mirka approached with a solemn expression.
"How dare a pathetic band of humans defile heaven and torment so many subjects. Receive the aura and beg forgiveness now. Then depart this world cleanly."
"Peope."
Ignoring Mirka, Shirone called Peope's name. Peope's shoulders twitched and she slowly raised her head.
Deep terror filled her large eyes.
Faced with the fear that Shirone might be harmed, Shirone fell silent.
It wasn't that he didn't suspect Peope—he had simply banished even that suspicion from his mind.
Because she had…
'tried to die for me.'
The image of her willingly throwing away her life for him in Jebul still lingered in Shirone's thoughts.
'No, that's not it.'
He realized suddenly: perhaps some part of him had wanted this.
A battle with heaven was inevitable; in the end they would become enemies.
And with that, the feelings each had offered the other were recalled.
"Peope."
Peope still did not answer.
She only waited for Shirone's words, filled with fear—or perhaps a faint sliver of hope.
One function of the Vajra Armament—mana amplification—activated, and Shirone's robe billowed violently.
"I'll kill you."
He said it as if to root his sincerity in the ground, and a cold killing intent pierced the fairies' minds.
Peope felt the chill in Shirone's spirit as well.
Her face hardened, and the two of them closed off their hearts to one another.
"Try it, if you can. I'm not who I used to be."
Peope had certainly grown stronger.
When Shirone first came to heaven she had been the youngest of the fairies, but now she held a mid-level rank among the seventy-two.
Her meteoric rise had much to do with her relationship to Shirone.
As the Shamanist uprising accelerated, the Internal Government promoted Peope, and higher-stage fairies tutored her in varied mental disciplines that let her skill spike rapidly.
She could not turn her back on the Internal Government.
Though her heart had raced more than anyone's when Shirone returned to heaven, she ultimately chose the fairies who had accepted her.
"Arrest Shirone."
When Mirka extended a hand, dozens of fairies flew out from behind her.
Shirone and Plu stepped back and took in the scene.
The best course was to reach Arabot as fast as possible, but the fairies arrayed around them were not to be underestimated.
Even without exchanging looks, Shirone felt Plu's intent.
They needed a chance to break free—and a trigger to time it.
"Wait!"
At that instant, Dayna—her avatar broken, out of her mind—fell to her knees before Mirka.
"I am a Great Immortal. Please spare me! They tried to kill me!"
Mirka looked at Dayna with contempt.
Anke Ra distrusted humans because they possessed an active courting of death.
When humans actively sought death, they could achieve what exceeded ordinary humans.
But since gaining immortality, Dayna had lost humanity's greatest strength.
Not every immortal was as weak as she. The Ten Elders over ten thousand years old were said to have escaped even life-and-death's bonds.
"Foolish one. What greatness does a creature like you possess? For the sin of despising Ra's grace, you are sentenced to death as well."
Death sentence.
Those words, which should never have entered Dayna's mind, pierced her skull and her avatar screamed again.
She had not felt the possibility of death in a thousand years; the terror shattered the last shreds of her already-deranged mind.
"Nooooooo!"
Dayna poured everything into raising her mana.
A madman's magic resonated with her mind and soared without limit, but with no coherent purpose.
Still, a powerful atmospheric flow spread outward.
"No! You die!"
As Dayna thrust both hands forward to cast an ancient spell, her neck snapped with a sickening crack.
Peope—the spiral fairy—had spun her with spiraling force, quickly tearing her head from her body.
As Dayna's shocked face flew into the void, Shirone and Plu realized at once.
'Now!'
Their bodies turned to light and shot into the sky. Mirka cried out.
"Chase them! Catch them in Sehakim!"
Arabot was the most sacred district in heaven, where Anke Ra resided.
From the fairies' perspective, humans penetrating it was an unprecedented shame in the Internal Government's history.
Though the events had unfolded suddenly, the fairies moved without hesitation.
Dozens chased Shirone while fairies from every direction of Sehakim rose like a flock of birds.
It was clear the Internal Government's key figures were watching Sehakim closely.
"Peope…"
There was no doubt Peope was a main perpetrator in the incident.
Once her identity was exposed and the fairies began pursuing them, the only option left was to infiltrate Arabot by the shortest route.
"Shirone, go first!"
Wounded, Plu couldn't match Shirone's speed.
She stopped and turned back, thinking at least one of them had to escape.
Countless fairies charged toward her.
Activating the Dawkins Algorithm, she dodged the fairies' magic and spat forth flames.
Shirone, who had soared straight up, saw Plu struggling far below and summoned Photon Cannons in all directions.
But nearly a hundred fairies dove at him.
Their magic wasn't the multi-step reasoning of angels, but the fairies' emotionally charged spells were still threatening.
Even with Armand's physical enhancements, evading every attack was impossible, and Ringer's Skin activated as his robe transmuted into a heavy ultra-hard metal.
"Ugh!"
Unable to bear the weight, Shirone deployed his radiant wings through his artificial brain module.
When the wings struck the air with a boom, his body shot forward dozens of meters in an instant.
The sky flashed with a rainbow of magics as the fairies coordinated, converging and dispersing to herd Shirone to a single point.
He had no idea how far he'd flown or where he was now; Shirone strained to defend against their onslaught.
A bang rang from where Plu had been, and Shirone saw her body plummet.
"Senior!"
Just as Shirone lunged, the sleeve on his right arm spun fiercely and twisted as if to wrench the arm from its socket.
"Ughhh!"
The robe constricted as Ringer's Skin hardened into ultra-hard metal.
Only after the rotation stopped did Shirone look forward.
Peope, eyes narrowed viciously, was deploying an ability against him.
"Eeeek!"
Peope poured all her strength into spiraling power.
It was undeniably potent, but still Ringer's Skin did not budge.
'Senior Plu.'
Plu had already vanished from the aerial scene.
All Shirone could do now was hope she had survived.
"Peope!"
Shirone ground his teeth and extended Armand's tentacles.
Two tentacles appeared and were immediately caught in the spiral force and ripped apart, but Kancer's absolute restoration rapidly produced new tentacles.
When whip-like afterimages lashed out, Peope finally faltered and stepped back.
At the same time, the fairies who had sent Plu falling surged in and began to swarm Shirone.
Enemies of Plu.
A blaze rose in Shirone's chest, but the cold logic of a mage snuffed the ember in an instant.
That did not mean his anger was gone.
"Seize him! Kill him if you must!"
As the fairies closed in and began casting spells, Shirone's eyes snapped open.
'Buckshot Movement!'
Puff-puff-puff-puff-pow!
A colossal burst of light detonated in eight directions.
One fairy, unable to dodge, fell, and a teleportation flash bent sharply and lunged toward that spot.
Buckshot spread without end, and the void quickly became a net of Photon Cannon flares.
With Galtomic's magic amplification added, the Photon Cannons tore through the field with a power on a different scale, and most fairies scrambled to avoid them.
Peope watched in a daze as countless comrades plummeted.
This was a different class of force from the fairies that had tormented him when he halted Ilhwa's rite in District 73.
Moreover, the fairies here were mid-ranked seventy-two stage fairies with strong mental power—no ordinary opposition.
"Follow! Don't stop!"
Even as comrades were annihilated, the fairies kept diving in.
Shirone, radiant wings spread wide, wove dazzling movements and engaged them in aerial combat.
"Damn it…!"
Belatedly the fairies noticed the red dots marked on their brows and bit down.
Homing Photon Cannons equipped with seekers fired, and the fairies surrounding Shirone scattered.
But the Homing Photon Cannons doggedly pursued, and far off in the sky the sounds of death rales and detonations burst out.
'Even with this many fairies they can't stop me?'
According to the Internal Government's report, when Shirone had stopped Ilhwa's rite his combat power could have been held by a squad of sixty-five ranked fairies. Now, dozens of forty-ranked fairies rushing him were the ones who should worry about annihilation.
'I'm going! To Arabot!'
Shirone beat his radiant wings to maximum and picked up speed.
Fairies with weak minds fell behind one by one until none could keep up.
-Pathetic lot.
Just as he thought he'd won the speed contest outright, a fairy's voice sounded in his head.
Drawing a blue flash as she flew, Mirka of the second rank suddenly blocked his path.
Shirone deployed sixteen Homing Photon Cannons and poured them all at her.
As the flares arced through the air, she raised a hand.
Extracanonical—Razor of Truth.
Thin, silvery blades like threads flashed at tremendous speed around Mirka, and every Homing Photon Cannon drove straight into them.
Puff-puff-puff-puff-pow!
Shirone braced his radiant wings and slammed to a halt.
'This is…?'
Mirka, as if untouched, still extended her hand and fluttered her wings.
'She didn't just block it. It's some kind of ability.'
Fairies were not especially durable.
Even a second-rank fairy could not stand intact after taking sixteen mana-amplified Photon Cannon shots.
"This makes it clear."
Mirka looked down at the bewildered Shirone and said solemnly,
"There is absolutely no variable by which you can defeat me."