[495] That Afternoon (3)
"What is that now?"
Kuan was the first to step forward, his belligerence plain to see.
He was human, but there was something about him that felt off—like he didn't quite meet whatever standard people expected.
"I... what was I born to accomplish?"
His features looked ruined, almost grotesque, and the skin visible below his neck was sheathed in Garas-like chitin. His fingers jutted out as if he wore steel gauntlets, and thick, sharp bristles stood from his arms like a porcupine's quills.
A Nephilim born of Adio, the angel of attainment: Nameless.
For one who had followed the question lodged in his heart like a vocation since birth, a name meant nothing.
When Nameless opened both hands while watching Kuan's sword, light burst from his palms with a pop—and two swords formed in his grip.
Kuan raised an eyebrow in irritation and glared. Nameless hefted the blades and asked, "What is this thing called?"
It was odd to manifest swords without even knowing what they were, but Kuan was blunt.
"A sword."
"A sword. How do you use it?"
"How do you use it, you ask...?"
Kuan drew out his outer gravity and launched himself.
"This is how you use it," he answered.
Spinning with rapid rotation, Kuan's body whirled like a top before Nameless and slashed.
At that moment Nameless realized.
That blade would soon cut his throat and end his life.
Bang!
Nameless's twin swords blocked the path, and Kuan's blade slammed into them.
It wasn't technique or tactics—just a defense to survive.
The only reason Kuan could parry the Kaizen Sword School instructor's blade was his body—gifts inherited from an angel and Garas.
Sparks flew as metal met metal, and Nameless's body slid back and slammed into the wall.
Barely regaining his balance, he kept his guard and bowed his head, murmuring something under his breath.
Kuan found the response curiously underwhelming.
"Does he not know swordsmanship? Then what was that intense dissonance I felt when I first saw him?"
Having finished the thought, Nameless finally lifted his head.
"I understand."
"Understand what?"
Kuan tightened his grip and strode forward.
"What a sword is."
Nameless disappeared from Kuan's sight.
Because Kuan's schema concentrated all its functions on Movement, mere speed alone couldn't explain this.
As Kuan searched for traces of the vanished foe, his pupils fixed on a deep spot to his left.
Clang! The blades met again—and this time the tide had completely turned.
'He can't react?'
Is human thought truly infinitely free?
It was a question that had never left Kuan's mind since he first took a sword. The conclusion he'd reached after years of swinging blades was clear: no.
Human thought looks free, but to a truly free observer it is mechanical and pattern-bound. Kuan had trained Movement his entire life to transcend that limit and had reached his current level.
But Nameless's Movement now exceeded even that.
'Did he already know swordsmanship?'
The thought flashed and then Kuan corrected it.
Not that he already knew—he was growing as they clashed.
'No—this is practically evolution.'
Explosive, inexplicable growth: a realization in swordsmanship that could only be called evolution.
Nameless's twin blades began to arc along paths outside Kuan's assumptions, and within five minutes they'd dealt Kuan a wound that could have been fatal.
"Ugh!"
Kuan, his chest cut, spun back to check the approach and retreated to the end of the corridor.
The humiliation as a swordsman stung more than the wound.
If Nameless had picked up a sword for the first time today, he'd matched thirty years of Kuan's achievement in five minutes.
'Is that even possible?'
Nameless was a Nephilim—the hybrid offspring of the angel of attainment and a Garas. Through that grotesque union—perhaps unprecedented in Heaven—a new trait had emerged. The angel's pursuit of lofty spirit fused with the Garas' reproductive drive, converting the latter's transcendent urge to breed into an all-consuming hunger for attainment.
If Garas sought only reproduction, Nameless's mind consisted instead of a deep understanding of technique and a further realm beyond it.
Barriers that a human would scale only through years of training Nameless broke through at astonishing speed.
I want to be better. I want to be better. I want to be better.
Like a hole that swallowed everything, Nameless absorbed Kuan's thirty years of swordsmanship and sublimated it to a higher plane.
Faced with attacks informed by that new level, Kuan was reduced to pure defense.
"This can't be! This can't be happening!"
He gritted his teeth and held on, but Nameless's swordsmanship grew more obsessively inventive, leaping past every conceptual limit.
"We have to help!"
Just as Armin and Shiina moved to cast, Kuan shouted, squeezing the one sliver of time he could manufacture in his head.
"No! Run!"
Only those who had fought Nameless could know his terror.
But Armin and Shiina had already begun to act.
Armin cast Flicker to disrupt Nameless's sight, and Shiina fired seven Ice Spears at once.
Thanks to that, Kuan escaped the brink of death—but he knew the cost would be monstrous.
Dodging the spears and creating distance, Nameless turned his attention to the mages' techniques.
"What's that?"
A craving to surpass all human imagination struck Nameless's mind.
'I want to do it! I want to do it! I want to do it! I want to do it!'
That enormous desire pushed every one of Nameless's functions past their limits, and the Spirit Zone opened.
Armin, who perceived Nameless's Spirit Zone synesthetically, got goosebumps.
This wasn't merely finding a point of mental focus.
'He's opened an Immortal Function.'
After casting Flicker, Nameless moved behind Armin and swung his blade.
Facing his simultaneous use of Spirit Zone and schema, Armin felt every hair on his body stand on end and bent his waist.
One strike missed, and Nameless immediately cast magic—pummeling Shiina with Ice Spears.
Only then did Armin understand why Kuan had been pushed back without being able to raise a hand.
'Damn it! How can such a being exist?'
It was cheating.
No genius could copy a freeze spell used by a sanctioned Grade-5 mage in an instant.
But that was only emotional outcry; Armin also knew the truth.
There are no cheats in this world. If something is born that way, grotesque though it may be, it is simply reality.
'Once he masters Flicker, there's nowhere to run.'
Armin's cool mind could not find a framework to judge this unprecedented creature.
The only option was to throw everything at eliminating Nameless immediately—but if Nameless's growth outpaced their expectations, they would be the ones consumed.
Still, that should have been the choice. Yet if taking it meant a high chance of Shiina dying, Armin's judgment shifted.
'I have to save Shiina. No matter the cost, I must return her home safely.'
The only gift he could stake his life on for the sister he'd loved his whole life.
Armin pulled the helpless Shiina into his arms and rolled across the floor.
"Anything more interesting?"
As Nameless's mad eyes lunged, Armin understood what he must do.
'I'm sorry, Kuan.'
As Nameless's blades crossed in an X, Armin cast a Stop barrier around himself and Shiina.
"Hngh!"
Nameless stopped his blade just short of being caught by Stop.
It was a motion impossible by ordinary inertia—only achievable by some unknown realization Nameless had reached.
'What is this?'
Nameless's Spirit Zone immediately analyzed the Stop magic's oddness and fed the data to his mind.
If he'd advanced another step he would have been trapped where time stopped.
Armin, holding Shiina, watched Nameless beyond the barrier with a tense expression.
Because the field emptied its interior, the two were free from the time-line; if Nameless showed the slightest gap they planned to grab Shiina and run.
'If he masters Stop too...'
The thought alone was horrifying.
Maybe it would have been better to die here.
But for Armin, who had only ever had Shiina, that choice never needed to be considered.
"Hmm, so that's it, is it?"
Nameless sampled the Stop field briefly, then widened his eyes and cast a spell.
Armin's heart, pounding like a mad thing, eased for a single breath.
* * *
"D-Don't think this ends here. Ra will never tolerate your existence... ugh!"
With a pop, another ordinary angel exploded, its neck crushed in Satan's grip.
Frankwine, who bore the concept of Satan, hunted down the hidden angels like a game of hide-and-seek and dispatched them one by one. As their numbers dwindled, the seesaw of the Law tilted rapidly.
"How dull. Lesser angels don't even make a dent."
The Law beyond the Law—the Law that lies past ordinary Law.
No matter how grand the concepts the angels wore, they could have no effect on Satan.
Thud! Thud!
Two impacts shattered Jebul's ceiling and slammed into the corridor where Frankwine stood.
"Oho? This time, something noteworthy?"
A grin tugged at Frankwine's mouth at the arrival of heavyweights.
The archangels of fusion and decomposition—Metiel and Satiel, sources of the strong force and weak force—had arrived.
"A paltry rat hiding on the other side of the Law runs wild without knowing fear."
Metiel shot a cold glance and advanced.
Sensing that Metatron had been annihilated, the two archangels flew to Jebul at once.
If they could rebalance the seesaw of the Law, it would be best to avoid damage—but in Jebul all the ordinary angels hid under Ra's orders. If their numbers there fell any further, even both archangels together couldn't guarantee victory, so they chose to settle the matter quickly.
"Do you truly think so, archangel? Is it not Ra of the Law who should fear, not I?"
"Don't put on airs, ill-defined hybrid. Your words offend me."
As Metiel slowly raised a hand, Satiel beside her unfurled her radiant halo.
Metatron's gravitational field was a pure manifestation of a source concept—powerful, but because Satan is invulnerable to the Law, it might even play to his advantage.
Metiel and Satiel were different.
Together, the two archangels could manipulate every particle in the world, leaving room for vast secondary applications.
"Heh heh—watching pretty ones put on a show is amusing."
At Satan's taunt, Metiel and Satiel struck at once.
As the powers of the strong and weak forces combined, matter melted like paint and Jebul's scenery transformed into something utterly impossible.
Unnameable, grotesque substances manifested bizarre properties, and phenomena beyond reason began to occur around Satan.
Amid an insane abstract landscape, the two archangels rained down tremendous attacks on Satan.
Radiation spewed, ravaging his cells; an air that burned to extreme heat seared his body.
"Graaah!"
Particles that warped time bound his hands and feet, and metals that distorted space crushed his flesh like clay.
"End this now."
Metiel said, and Satiel nodded and surged forward.
Normally antagonists, the two angels made a partnership in battle like none in all Heaven.