[535] The Final World (3)
In the standoff between guns and magic, the subterraneans were about to strike first by instinct, but Shirone's reason moved faster.
"Photon Cannon!"
As the sphere of light blossomed into a flash, the seven subterraneans scattered in different directions.
Tutatatatata!
The forest filled with lethal kinetic force; bullets and flashes aimed for throats and flew without pause.
"This won't work."
There were too many obstacles to get a clean line of fire.
"They're really nimble. What on earth are they?"
They ran along the treetops and rained bullets like a storm, so Shirone couldn't throw himself out carelessly.
"I need stronger power."
Shirone focused the energy in the photon floating in his right hand and dove toward the enemy.
Zigzagging between short-range teleports to dodge the barrage, he hurled a Photon Cannon at a subterranean hiding behind a tree.
A magical action amplified his omnipotence; the tree split with a crack, the shockwave struck the subterranean, and he coughed up blood and collapsed.
"Ugh!"
Now six remain.
Leaping behind a boulder, Shirone fired a Photon Cannon above another's crown.
The one dropping down took a brutal hit to the abdomen and fell.
Five.
"Boss! The ambush isn't working! It's like they've got eyes in the back of their heads!"
"Shut up! It's just luck! Everybody charge! Or you'll starve!"
"Kyaaa!"
Reminded of hunger, the subterraneans lunged in from all sides.
But with his Spirit Zone up, Shirone could track their trajectories precisely.
"My god…"
Woodga stared at the scene before him, dazed.
It wasn't just that Shirone was strong—his ability manipulated light.
For the Sun Children who photosynthesize, light was life; that's why everyone followed the Regent.
"Brother, listen—this sound!"
Woodga snapped back and shouted.
"This is bad! Ra's warning…!"
Shirone, having already taken down three more, cut through the ringing in his ears and realized from Woodga's voice.
"Magnetic field!"
They'd waited at the forest's edge because an electromagnetic field formed around the Life Tree.
"Get out! There's no time!"
Shirone pulled Woodga and Hamei with him and teleported away from the enemy lines.
"Chase them! Don't let them escape!"
"I'm eating! I'm eating today!"
The terrain was cluttered with obstacles, so even teleporting couldn't perfectly shake subterraneans who could leap from tree to tree.
"Hey! They're on us! Hurry!"
Shirone grit his teeth and concentrated.
He split his thoughts to the extreme; flashes passed between the trees like reflections in a mirror.
The desperate subterraneans brought every gun to bear; bullet impacts struck the ground and slid after Shirone like a snake.
"Argh!"
Spying the forest entrance, Shirone poured everything into accelerating the chain of teleports.
Then a high-pitched beep sounded and a vicious headache crashed over him.
"Ugh!"
The Spirit Zone collapsed, and Shirone and the others dropped to the ground and scrambled out of the forest.
"Ahhh!"
Turning at the gut-wrenching screams, Shirone saw subterraneans who hadn't made it out clutching their heads in agony.
"Save me! Aahhh!"
They were only thirty meters from the entrance, but the pain kept them from even thinking of moving.
Blood welled from burst vessels in their eyes and trickled down; then, with a sudden strangled cry, their struggling stopped.
Woodga said in a trembling voice, "…they're dead. That's what happens if you ignore Ra's warning."
He hurriedly looked to Shirone.
"Who are you, exactly? How do you have that ability? You're not even one of the Sun Children."
Shirone had no intention of chatting—after all, they wouldn't understand him.
"Magic…"
He'd lived in a world with magic.
But the image of himself stepping into an artificial dormancy capsule still lingered in his memory.
"Still, new memories surfacing is a good sign. First, I need a safe place."
Only then did Shirone look at Woodga.
"Take me to where you live."
Woodga nodded at the gesture.
"All right. You're our slave. But you won't be going back today. You won't get out of the contaminated zone."
Shirone understood what Woodga meant by pointing to the sun.
"There is one way. But will it actually work?"
Wings of light.
Golden wings unfurled brilliantly from behind Shirone's shoulders; Hamei stared as if enchanted.
"Wow…"
Ra—the name the Sun Children used for the sun.
Their scripture also said the one god who created life commanded angels with wings of light as his servants.
"Brother, maybe that person—"
Hamei cut off her sentence when Woodga stayed silent.
There was already a Regent in the colony.
There couldn't be two incarnations of Ra in one colony, so Woodga wasn't sure taking Shirone in was the right call.
"No—we can't stay here through the night anyway."
Newborn Sun Children needed to remain where light shone to stabilize as much as possible.
Having decided, Woodga led Hamei off.
"Let's go for now. It's not our fault. We'll report honestly to the Regent."
When the two clasped hands, Shirone looked up and slammed his wings of light down hard.
With a bang the air detonated and they shot dozens of meters up; Woodga and Hamei were terrified by a flight they'd never experienced.
Shirone, however, calmly scanned the landscape.
"This feels familiar. So maybe the magic memories are the real ones?"
As they rose, the ruined world stretched out plainly below.
Countless creatures flew between buildings like scorched matchsticks, and sparse forests dotted the horizon.
"This isn't just one or two places. It's civilization, all right."
Still, the largest swath of the view was the contaminated zone, mottled with slimy muck.
"Over seventy percent of the city is taken. What on earth is that? I feel like I should remember."
Woodga, collecting himself, pointed.
"That's our colony."
Through a gap filled with a cross-section of twisted scrap where buildings once stood, the colony came into view.
"All right, we're going in!"
Despite the warning, the Sun Children couldn't help screaming as the flight sucked them forward.
* * *
Shirone reached a distance that would take half a day on foot in less than ten minutes.
They landed on asphalt; skyscrapers that must once have been over sixty stories loomed, more than half broken.
"Follow me. I'll take you to the Secretary. But once you're in the colony, don't act recklessly."
Past the building forest stood a pyramid of tangled iron beams.
Its scale was astonishing for a human construction, and barricades ringed the exterior.
"We've finished the gathering mission. Open the way."
When Woodga said this to the sentries, two burly white men brought a fist to their left chests.
"Thank you for your hard work. Enter, please."
The guards didn't ask about race, gender, or age, but there was a common emptiness in their eyes.
"Familiar faces. Woken ones from the artificial dormancy?"
Inside, the pyramid was brighter than expected.
Shirone looked up at spheres of light floating from the ceiling.
"Lighting magic—Shining. There are mages here."
Woodga and Hamei went to the incubation room.
An old woman took the newborn Sun Child they handed her and set it down in soft light; at once the crying stopped.
"You've done well. It wasn't an easy journey."
"Hehe, since Woodga brother came with me it was fine. I think I can manage alone from now on."
The old woman only smiled gently; she knew it hadn't been as easy as Hamei put it.
"By the way, who's that slave?"
"Oh—this time we found a shelter of the ancients. Hamei discovered it. But…"
Woodga hesitated and then told the old woman what had happened at the Life Tree.
"Hmm, is that so…"
The old woman fell into thought, nodded as if she had a guess, and patted Woodga's head.
"It's best I make the report. Don't worry; I'll say Hamei found it."
Woodga and Hamei brightened.
Honestly, they'd been unsure how to report it.
"All right. Please."
As the two hurried out of the incubation room like fugitives, the old woman's gaze turned cold and she said to Shirone,
"Follow me. There's a rite you must undergo."
Shirone followed the old woman to the pyramid's apex and waited at the door until the report to the Secretary finished.
At last the door opened to a temple whose floor was neat and orderly, unlike anything he'd seen so far.
At the end of a torch-lit path stood an altar, and on the throne above it sat a stern man with cropped green hair.
"Regent, this is an ancient who wielded the power of light."
When the Secretary bowed, the Regent's eyes pierced Shirone.
"Is the Secretary's word true?"
Shirone gave no reaction, so the Regent summoned an elderly robed man who'd been waiting in a corner.
"Priest, examine this boy."
The old man approached unsteadily, murmured something like an incantation through a hollow mouth, and spun his palms in circles.
"What is this…?"
Shirone's eyes widened as the priest's palms glowed bluish.
Where his hands passed, golden codes appeared, like frost wiped clean from a window.
The incantation flowed without end as the priest swung his hands wider and inspected the codes circling Shirone.
Scanning from Shirone's face down to his stomach, the boy's body went translucent and further codes manifested.
"Hmm, so that's it…"
The priest reached out his right hand as if to grasp something in the air.
A specific arrangement of codes materialized as a pattern on a transparent band in his hand.
With his left hand he scanned Shirone's head again, revealed more codes, then pulled the band and linked them.
"Ugh!"
A rush of information hit Shirone so suddenly his limbs stiffened and he trembled.
"The language of the gods will perform miracles upon you."
Saying this, the old man turned to the Regent.
"Confirmed, Regent. This boy's body is inscribed with the language of light."
"A grievous matter. Why would Ra etch the language into a slave?"
The Regent flipped his right hand; a massive sphere of light rose from his palm toward the ceiling.
Shining….
Even as the Sun Children's language fused with the brain's information, Shirone saw everything clearly.
As the Shining magic took hold, everyone in the temple raised both hands and cried out thunderously.
"Incarnation of Ra! Grant us life!"
The Regent, chin lifted arrogantly, issued an order.
"Erase the language of light. Only those who obey us will continue their miserable existence of mere feeding."
"Erase it?"
Before he had time to be stunned that he was starting to understand them, Shirone noticed the priest's hostility.
"Don't blame me. There is only one sun in a colony."
The priest waved his right hand and this time grasped a band inscribed with crimson codes.
He shone light from his left hand onto Shirone to reveal the codes, then forced the band into place, connecting it.
"Arghhhhh!"
An enormous shock slammed into his brain; an unbearable flood of information rose as if to burst his skull.
"Endure! A slave shall know only obedience!"
"I am not a slave!"
Shirone resisted the self-annihilating code and clenched his molars.
The Spirit Zone tightened and frames began to form.
Where the priest's code and Shirone's codes met, an overload occurred and the terrified priest trembled.
"Th-this cannot be… How…?"
The whites of Shirone's eyes showed as his eyelids fluttered.
"I have to hold on. If I can't, it's over."
Unbreakable!
As an indestructible mental state formed, Shirone's eyes snapped open and the Spirit Zone expanded into infinity.
With a bang the codes detonated; the priest standing nearby screamed as he was flung all the way to the front of the altar.
He struggled up, pale as death, and finished the words he'd been about to say.
"How can one refuse the language of the gods…?"
Shirone touched the place where the codes had been linked and glared up at the Regent on the throne.
"What were you trying to do to me?"
"…"
Shirone's information recovery rate.
57 percent.