The Strike of Ruin (4)
The demonkin surged at Gaold.
"Now! Kill him!"
Red and blue bodies closed around Gaold, forming an impenetrable dome.
"Ugh…"
Air Press detonated outward.
With an earsplitting blast, the demons' flesh was torn to ribbons, and Miro's vision filled with sky.
"Gaold, you—"
Before he could finish, Gaold grabbed Miro by the collar and barked at her.
"What are you doing, you idiot!"
The look of relief in his eyes vanished, replaced only by seething hatred.
Any impulse Miro had to explain died on the spot. She dropped his hand and shouted, "That's not the point! I couldn't help it either! The dimensional wall—!"
"Watch out!"
The moment Gangnan shouted, every demon surged at Gaold again.
"Damn it!"
Gaold's hair went white in an instant as a crushing atmospheric pressure slammed down across the area.
Kuuuuuuung!
The demon bodies were flattened before they could even cry out; blood sprayed like fountains.
"Get back!"
Gaold grabbed Miro's hand and shot into the sky, Gangnan and Julu right behind.
Miro cried, "Let go! I have something to say!" The Thousand-Armed Guanyin's avatar hadn't completely collapsed merely because her mind faltered.
"The gate's been breached."
Though not on the same scale as her previous trance, even that strength was more than Nane himself had been able to easily destroy.
"They came intending a full assault."
Collecting herself, Miro wrenched free of Gaold's grip and hovered in midair.
"Wait."
When Gaold turned, Gangnan and Julu quickly closed in at his side.
Gangnan jabbed a finger. "If you're only going to keep interfering—"
"I'm going back."
Miro had endured every humiliation and still stood, so Gangnan narrowed his eyes.
"Going back?"
Miro glanced behind her. "Probably Jungcheondong. The Geopin gate Nane planned to use has been breached. The army of Heaven has invaded."
Things couldn't have gotten worse.
"They need to reach Sion before they meet Nane. Or… maybe the place they're after is Sion itself."
Their combat power was supreme. Besides, humanity's strength had already weakened.
"What they fear isn't powerful foes so much as the impossibility of clash because of the dimensional barrier."
"At any rate, I'll go. If the central continent stabilizes—"
"Wait."
Gaold said, "You going won't solve everything. But it won't be solved without you either."
To stand against the army of Heaven, Miro's mind had to be whole.
"Can't we talk about this later? It's urgent now."
"If you go, all you'll be doing is waiting for death. Either stay here, or abandon me and go to Sion."
Of course they had to go to Sion, but the fleeting emotion Gaold had shown earlier clung to him like an ankle hold.
"I'm not leaving you."
Miro bit her lip. "You didn't abandon me. I'll never abandon you either, okay?" Gaold turned his body.
"Julu, Gangnan. Go with Miro."
Once they reached Sion, Miro would have to choose.
"Why us?"
Gaold—more than anyone—knew Miro.
"You'll see what's right," he thought as he let Miro go, then passed Julu and Gangnan. "No other reason. Check Sion's outcome. I'll head for the central continent."
It sounded like he'd found a place to die.
"You don't mean—"
"No. Just go and come back quickly. The demonkin are a problem, but the army of Heaven is a truly serious matter."
Julu put a hand on Gangnan's shoulder. "Come on. We don't have time."
All Gangnan could do was promise himself to deal with Sion as fast as possible.
"I'll escort Miro and return. Don't try to handle everything alone—wait for us."
Only after confirming Gaold's smile did Gangnan mount Julu's summoned Kaedra.
Kiaaaaa!
The monstrous bird streaked south. Gaold watched it go; blood spurted from his mouth.
"Cough! Cough!"
There wasn't much time left.
"Heh. Heh heh heh."
Still, he could laugh—his greatest hatred belonged to his own flesh.
"All right. Try that. Try more."
Gaold glared at the apparition before him, his gaze murderous.
"I'll kill you horribly."
The last fireworks to burn away his life were waiting.
The Alfones Mountains.
Shirone, who had fallen from the Great Earth Temple toward the planet, looked down at the snaking range like the carcass of a giant serpent.
Before he'd enrolled at the Magic Academy, it had been the dragon haunt where he and Rian once stayed up all night talking.
"There's a core sleeping here."
Blitz, in human form, flew to Shirone's side and parted the mountains.
"Do you remember? We met you at the dawn of humanity."
Andre's First World.
It wasn't a span any normal creature would recall, but dragons did not know forgetting.
"After you left that age, the Mu-deung Dragon told me, 'Shirone, go find him.'"
Shirone looked at Blitz. "But why now? Since I entered Andre's First World the promise could have been fulfilled at any time."
"That promise had a condition. He said we would need you when you could understand the void of the universe. It was touch-and-go, but we made the time."
If they'd opened Mute a bit later, they might have failed to wake the Mu-deung Dragon and instead faced the angelic army.
"Now go. Connect to our core. Hear everything about this world there."
Shirone had suspected as much, but he asked anyway. "How do we wake it?"
"The Mu-deung Dragon only set a condition."
Shirone nodded, opened Mute's senses, and peered down at the land.
'There is no form.'
The mountains vanished, and in the void between information something lay sleeping.
'Wow…'
A vast mass of golden information.
'That's Karatorsa.' Time itself.
'I'm going.'
Distance had no meaning in Mute; Shirone's form vanished in an instant.
Blitz looked up and murmured, "O End of Time…"
Shirone pierced matter and the realm of matter and arrived before the great golden information.
"I heard you wanted to meet me."
The light that took a dragon's shape showed no hesitation. Shirone extended a hand slowly.
'A collision might happen.'
If the Mu-deung Dragon's consciousness reacted violently, converting that information into physical force would be catastrophic.
'But it won't.'
Setting the Tenth Sense and Mute as conditions meant the dragon had foreseen this day.
Shirone's hand dissolved into signal and gently touched the surface of the golden information.
"Ah…"
Karatorsa's data shimmered like a mirage; two eyes opened, blazing white.
"You are the information of Yahweh."
A voice beyond language penetrated Shirone's consciousness.
"O seeker who searches for meaning at the brink of the void—why have you come to me?"
"Heaven's army is going to invade this world. I heard you have something to pass on to me."
"Angels…"
Karatorsa, waking after a long slumber, recalled the ancient wars with angels.
"Are you omnipotent?"
Can you dismantle all signals in this world?
"Yes."
Shirone nodded, and Karatorsa slowly rose.
'I feel myself growing.'
An indescribable exhilaration flooded Shirone's mind as it linked to the signal.
"Then receive it."
The golden Karatorsa looked down at Shirone, its eyes burning.
"Every piece of information about this world."
Omniscience—that was what it offered.
Riding the arcane amplification circle Ataraxia, Ikael's voice rang out.
"We are here to bathe this land once more in God's mercy. The omniscient, omnipotent Anke Ra has entrusted that work to a single human."
Ikael drew a breath. "The Enlightened One."
Dahlia Nane.
"Therefore our first task is to find him. Henceforth, by the archangel's command—"
As Ikael's voice echoed, the giants seated on the ground rumbled.
"Too many words. Let's just fight."
They didn't have mountains under their feet like the other giants, but that only proved their power.
"Isn't that right?"
Girsin, the giant legion commander, turned to the one sitting cross-legged, who rested his chin on his hand. "O King of the Giants."
Imir curled a thick corner of his mouth. "Heh heh. Leave it be. Once it starts, not even an archangel will stop us."
Unlike his old self who had waited trapped in Helheim's ice, he radiated ease.
"Freedom."
He couldn't even remember how long it had been since his true body had last set foot on the battlefield.
"Let's enjoy this. It's entertainment, after all." Ikael issued orders.
"First, the angels will survey the land-form that governs this world's laws—"
On the ground, Son Yujeong snapped, "Hey! Shut up!"
Everyone shuddered at the fact she'd interrupted while Ataraxia was expanding.
"Is that really a human?"
More like a monkey, to be precise.
Her Ruyi staff extended from under her toes and lengthened, lifting her up to Ikael's altitude.
"If he's within Buddha's palm, we'll find him when needed. Do you think I came here for that old geezer? Where's Satan, that bastard? Find him now!"
"Yujeong, there is an order to things. Even you cannot defy the archangel's command—"
"Ah, forget it! I'll find him myself!"
Yujeong yanked the staff and took to the air; a sonic boom followed immediately.
She cleaved the air, compressing it so it seemed as if she rode the clouds.
Ikael's subordinate, the tri-pronged Mara Ashur, asked, "Shall we chase and kill him?"
"Leave him. More important is controlling this world's laws. Uriel."
"As you command."
Ikael amplified his senses and scanned the planet.
"South. Human law is strongest there. Go and handle it."
Uriel turned toward Sion.
"…The apostates?"
"Just as you heard."
"Understood."
Uriel spun her judicial halo and rose on a diagonal, swiftly taking her army with her.
'Is Miro there?'
When she reached the southern polar region, she looked down at Sion's expanse, white with ice.
'It doesn't matter.'
Whatever was there would be made unable to exist.
'Ragnarok.'
Uriel's judicial halo spun at light speed, concentrating the very concept of destruction.
"Uoooooo!"
White electric energy cloaked the angelic armor as lightning cracked and thunder rolled from all directions.
"What is that!?"
The clerics in Sion, now on high alert, saw the sky fill with lightning and clasped their hands.
"We must stop it!"
Kwarrrrrrr!
A sound like the heavens tearing open rang out as Uriel's body plunged down like a lightning strike.
"This—!"
And in the next instant—
"Damn it!"
A strike of ruin that would collapse the entire southern continent slammed into the planet.
To be continued in the next volume.