Heresy (1)
At the moment the black orb drew near—the instant the incident began—Ozent's head spun.
It wasn't as fast as light, but it carried the signature of Law that only a mass-bearing thing could produce.
That was the sensation.
'Venda.'
Time slowed, and the afterimage of the black orb overlapped so vividly it revealed its trajectory like a concrete object.
At the exact point where his mind and body met, Ozent's two empty arms fell to his sides.
Idea.
To Ozent, who had ascended to the pinnacle of swordsmanship, this was a concept that did not belong to this world.
The whole of the Law warped, and the landscape that had hung behind him split apart.
'What is that?...'
In the time-delayed blur of the halo spinning at impossible speed, Kariel saw it clearly.
Three-dimensional terrain compressed into two dimensions, and the edge of the world opened right before his eyes.
As if the world he'd known until now had been nothing more than a picture painted on a thin curtain.
'The universe...'
It was opening.
A concept penetrating from beyond the universe engraved a sword into reality and struck the black orb.
'It's over.'
Heaven would be destroyed.
The Seventh Thousand Arabot.
The enormous mass pulsing at the tip of the spire—Anke Ra—blinked its great eyes wide.
'Apostasy!'
Even an instant could stretch into an eternity for Anke Ra, who dreamed this world. From a state beyond birth it scrutinized, with frozen attention, the supreme Law of this world and the point of Apostasy that would shatter that Law.
'One mere creature tears the universe.'
If asked how that could be possible, Anke Ra could only answer like this.
'Isn't that a truly human doubt?' What deserved real suspicion was not "how is it possible?" but "what is the world in which it is possible?"
'I am the Whole.'
Thus it questioned.
'Can anything exist that transcends me?'
Each time its thoughts scaled a mountain, Anke Ra's pupils flicked.
Time was nearly stopped, so even the shake of a bell approximated the speed of light...
'It exists nowhere.'
Having calculated the Akashic Records nearly to infinity, Anke Ra finally reached a verdict.
'You must declare that it does not exist.'
Because this was a matter of faith rather than proof, the conclusion wasn't logically airtight.
Hence a glaring error.
But the Akashic Records were literally the totality of this world, so a contradiction emerged: they could not be wrong.
'Apostasy is impossible.'
Make it so.
'I have opened my eyes, and everything is mine.'
Anke Ra manipulated the Akashic Records and exiled a fragment of the Great War to a remote corner of the universe.
'As far away as possible!'
Even when one second was divided into near-infinite fractions, the space that could be thrown away amounted to a sphere only about forty meters across.
"Uaaaaa!"
At Ozent's kiai, a vertical shockwave slammed into the projectile.
With a roar, the lush forest's trees were torn up and hurled away, leaving a wasteland.
"Hah! Hah!"
Ozent, his arms gone, buckled at the knees and glared ahead with terrifying eyes.
Kariel sat on the ground, his left shoulder severed.
"You..."
Even Kariel could not analyze power that exceeded the very concept of an archangel.
"Smille."
Bones and muscles began to rebuild rapidly at Ozent's shoulders where his arms had vanished.
'Cell regeneration? No—this is...'
A giant might restore a body, but what was happening to Ozent was on another level.
'Information is being reconstructed.'
A signal from outside the universe was perfectly reconstituting his information.
'To break that man, I must use the same method.'
But for an archangel who relied on Anke Ra's Law, Apostasy was utterly intolerable.
Needing to buy time, Kariel looked around.
'Where are we?'
He had never been here before; beyond the radius Ozent had destroyed the forest stretched without end.
"Give me Smille."
Ozent stepped toward the glass globe filled with black liquid.
With space collapsing, time for a life had been suspended, but there was still enough time for a person to suffocate.
Kariel scrambled to his feet and barred the way.
'I stopped Heaven from being destroyed, but if I can't stop this thing, it will be the same in the end.'
Wielding an Idea wouldn't instantly end the universe, but it wasn't theoretically impossible.
"Will you stop me?"
Ozent raised his hand slowly.
"Then die."
As another Apostasy was about to be enacted, the space between Kariel and Ozent twisted like a whirlpool.
"What...?"
Anke Ra had sent something here again, but before the phenomenon finished, space itself tore.
A hulking body exhaling white steam like vapor lunged at Ozent.
"Krah!"
As the fist detonated, Ozent's body vanished from where it had stood.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Kariel, who had been staring dumbfounded at a figure streaking through the forest, turned his head.
"You are???????"
"Heh heh heh. It's been a while since I had a fun fight."
Anke Ra, treating Apostasy as an error, had chosen not the archangel but the king of beasts—Imir.
After flinching from the impact transferred through space, Imir looked back at Kariel.
"You got hit properly."
Kariel, an angel of higher order by Law, showed his displeasure.
"Don't get cocky. La sent you because—"
"Uaaaaaa!"
A massive shout rang out, and before long Ozent's fist crashed into Imir's face.
"Gah!"
The shock made Imir's pupils wobble, but his body did not move. Instead, the earth beneath him crumbled like a cookie and another shockwave detonated.
The glass sphere holding Smille flew off into the distance and Ozent's gaze snapped to it.
"Smille—"
"Is that all you've got?"
Imir's fist carved a gale as it curved and struck Ozent again.
'Nothing special?'
Contrary to Anke Ra's command—wage the giant's pride and eliminate a single human—the result was unexpectedly anticlimactic.
"Kuuugh..."
But then something odd lit in Imir's eyes.
'He threw it away?'
A punch that had reached the limit of a living being's force had been stopped by Ozent's jaw.
"Smilleeeeee!"
And Imir saw.
From the far reaches, from the edge of the universe, a massive wave of Law came flying.
'Ah...'
At the moment he received Ozent's second strike, every piece of the common sense he'd held shattered.
'This is the one.'
Even Imir, who defied gravity, spun so dizzy he didn't know where he was flying.
'The reason I exist.'
The apex of a being unified from billions of Gaia dreamed, paradoxically, of self-destruction.
'This one can break me.'
Kururururung!
Imir slammed the brakes on his inertia and planted his feet; earth was shoved aside and two mountains rose.
Imir had, too, reached the realm of Apostasy.
Ozent flew in and struck that huge torso dead center with a razor blow.
"Kahahahaha!"
A brawl that made no distinction between sky and earth raged, and the forest was razed.
Amid the terrified cries of animals, a bat watched the battlefield from up close.
The other bats fled the cave by instinct, but one remained, hanging upside down from the ceiling, studying the world intently.
A bat has no reasoned thought, of course, yet even the scenery it took in shook the creature's inner being.
'What is that?'
A natural disaster can be experienced a few times in a life, but this was different; watching the world itself tear like a lightning strike sent endless chills through it.
'It can.'
It can be done.
Animals are born knowing their limits, but this bat, witnessing those limits shatter, would be transformed into something else entirely.
"Move! I said move!"
Ozent grew more desperate by the second; he had to reach the glass that held Smille.
'How can this be?'
Even the Idea a creature attains when it descends to its deepest depths was useless against a giant.
Every time their blows crossed, Ozent's body shattered.
Worse, the Idea that constituted him was being destroyed as well.
"If this is the end..." Imir lifted one corner of his mouth and raised his fist.
'So it comes to this.'
Destroy Ozent, destroy Heaven, destroy this world—then it would suffice.
"Smille..."
A voice leaked out from under the broken jaw.
"Smilleeeeeee!"
When Ozent struck Imir's face, a force unlike anything before was delivered.
"Guhk!"
Molars snapped; Imir fell on a diagonal toward the ground, and on impact a shockwave burst.
Kraaaaang!
The blow was strong enough to stagger a massive creator; Imir was sent tumbling.
For the first time in his history, shock took him and he lost control of his body.
'Truly strange.'
It seemed like the end, yet it was not.
'What is a heart?'
Something he already possessed and dismissed—was there really a means to create something greater than that?
Imir crashed with a thud and had to wait helplessly until his body recovered.
'If I endure, I win.'
Ozent had learned that from the previous strike, but he did not go to Imir.
"Smille! Smille!"
Kariel stood before the glass sphere.
"Stop. This woman—"
Before he could finish, a straight punch flew and sent Kariel hurtling hundreds of meters away.
"Please! Please!"
The glass orb shattered and the black liquid—the Black Elixir—poured out in a torrent.
Smille was no longer alive.
Seeing her half-melted form flowing away, Ozent's eyes bled tears of blood.
"Uaaaaa!"
He had hoped for a miracle, but the world remained cold and indifferent.
Recovered, Imir walked forward, shaking the ground.
'Is it that woman?'
The Idea of a single human.
"Let's keep fighting."
There was courtesy in Imir's words, but Ozent paid it no heed.
Absent-minded, he stared at the ground with soulless eyes and muttered.
"Smille."
His body, fossilized with rage, began to melt as the Black Elixir soaked into it.
"Is she that precious to you?"
"You said you wanted to fight me, didn't you?"
Ozent, melting from the waist down, turned his head slowly.
"Protect Smille for me."
Knowing what was happening, Imir asked with regret in his eyes.
"What's your name?"
"Ozent."
When even his upper body began to dissolve, the Black Elixir flowed into Smille as if it had life.
"I will disappear, but—"
Ozent looked up at the sky.
"My will will continue through Smille."
Tears ran down the face with only a neck left.
'So it is, Smille.'
The sky dazzled him in his final gaze.
'Life is so beautiful.'
Ozent's body vanished completely and the black liquid began to restore Smille's body.
'I am Ozent.'
Only his consciousness whispered softly.
'Not a savior of worlds, not a fulfiller of grand causes—just a swordsman...
His genes passed down through countless generations.
'They conveyed it clearly.'
At last it reached a man.
'Ozent... Rian.'
Rian, letting the 〈Idea〉 hang at an angle, raised his head and glared at Faust.
"Huuu..."
The match would be decided in a single blow.