Omega (3)
Kangnan's expression froze in shock.
"Miro… you…"
The avatar of the Thousand‑Hand Avalokiteshvara filled the sky, looking down at the world.
"Ah. Aaaaaah."
Tears ran down Arius's closed cheeks.
'Undeniable perfection.'
The shock he'd felt when Miro's mind was infiltrated still burned in his head.
She had been willing to gouge out her own eyes and abase herself for that transcendent, immaculate ideal of humanity.
"Hehehe. Hehehehehe!" She had even gone beyond that.
"Bow down, humans."
Slowly dropping to his knees, Arius prostrated himself flat before Miro.
"The one who stands here now is the pinnacle of humankind."
Just as Arius, overcome with uncontrollable emotion, raised his head and cried out—
"Merciful Adrias…!"
Clang!
Miro sprinted forward and kicked him squarely in the jaw.
"Ah, shut up! You're noisy! My aim's off and it's annoying, so stop jabbering!"
"Eeeek! Whimper!"
Arius clutched his jaw and wailed, while Kangnan approached with a grave expression.
"What happened?"
It was a relief that Miro's mind had been restored, but Kangnan felt a bitter aftertaste.
"As you can see."
There wasn't a trace of trauma on Miro's face as she smiled at Kangnan.
"It's over."
There was no longer a Gaold in Miro's heart.
A heart can change in an instant.
But Kangnan could imagine what Miro must have endured for this change.
'I couldn't do that.'
Kangnan couldn't follow Miro's path.
"I'm at peace now. From here on I'll take care of the world myself. Just sit back and watch."
Many monks had died, but Miro's mind was no longer wounded.
"Shall we continue, then?"
As Miro rolled up her sleeve and stepped forward, Yuriel—who had regained his composure—appeared.
"Continue? Do you think I started something?"
A corner of Miro's mouth tilted up.
'It was certainly an embarrassing attack…'
True, she'd lashed out desperately just before the Paradise Wheel hit her, but she hadn't expected so little damage.
"Hoho! You talk big. You were the one flattened by my endless barrage and couldn't pull yourself together, weren't you?"
"That's true."
Yuriel replied calmly.
"Aren't humans like that? If something suddenly screams behind them, or they see a disgusting insect—" Miro shot back without backing down.
"Then why did you kneel? I saw it with my own eyes. You staggered and then sat down."
"That is??????"
Yuriel faltered.
He had little to rebut with, and he felt a prick of self‑disgust at why they were arguing this at all.
"Never mind. Do what you want. This time I'll destroy you for good."
"You're not exactly sane yourself."
Miro raised one corner of her mouth.
"I get that Kariel's bluntness makes him seem simple‑minded, but calling angels ignorant is a bit much, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Kariel is…"
At the thought of the archangel of Birth, Miro made a face and continued.
"He's the epitome of timidity. A mama's boy with a monstrous grudge. You, by contrast, are bold. That's why you can't bring yourself to pull out what you carry inside."
Miro placed a hand over her chest.
"I understand you. Destruction is the simplest and most powerful way to solve a problem. Humans face countless issues during life. Suppose a rival shows up. Kariel will devise countless strategies to overcome him. You, on the other hand, simply eliminate him and that's it."
Miro swept her hand from left to right.
"If you kill someone, an army will come. Then you destroy the army. Someone's imprisoned? Destroy the prison. Remove those who criticize you, remove the king, remove the nation…
The simplest and most powerful thing.
"If you wipe everything away, that's the end. No further problems will arise to trouble your heart. That's why your method of destruction feels devoid of feeling."
"You're making a grave mistake. We are not human. We don't think like you."
Miro's gaze sharpened.
"Then why did Kariel loathe Ikael?" "And you're the same. If Kariel clung, you fled."
"What?"
"Ikael."
Yuriel's holy radiance, which had wavered under the Thousand‑Hand Avalokiteshvara's strike, vibrated once more.
'So blunt. I like it.'
Miro continued.
"Perhaps it was a shock. The symbol of absolute purity, the mother of all archangels—Ikael—loved a human."
McClain Goffin.
"Anke Ra erased the records, but you'd already been cracked back then. Kariel became obsessed, and you fled."
Miro twirled her fingers.
"The questions kept coming. Why did Ikael sleep with a human? It must have driven you mad, thinking about it."
"…Do you know?"
"I don't. But I can give you an opportunity."
Miro spread her arms.
"How about me? I'm officially single now."
Kangnan's eyes brightened.
'What a walking trainwreck.'
Before coming to Sion he'd seemed ready to give up the world over Gaold, but now—
Yuriel spun the Paradise Wheel.
"Die, Miro."
"She runs again."
As Yuriel vanished, the ice floe beneath exploded upward with a bang.
"Woooooo!"
The enormous palm of the Thousand‑Hand Avalokiteshvara slammed down on the Paradise Wheel as it spun like a disc.
"You won't know unless you probe. Destroying things won't produce the answer."
"There's no need to find an answer."
Yuriel's holy radiance expanded and began to gather information at tremendous speed.
"Eliminate the problem and that's all."
The judicial radiant wheel Ragnarok activated, and white lightning struck Yuriel directly.
Miro forced a smile.
"Hey? Wait a second…"
As Yuriel dashed in a flash, a golden bird sprang up from beneath Miro's feet.
'Phosmetery.'
Zulu, having regained consciousness, pulled Miro out of spacetime and summoned Kaidra.
"Tara."
Kangnan hauled Miro in and Arius climbed aboard; the monstrous bird took to the air without a sound.
"Phew. How long have you been awake?" Miro sat down with a relieved look, and Kangnan crawled over and grabbed her collar.
"You crazy woman! You provoked the enemy? Do you actually intend to win this war?"
"Of course we have to win."
Miro shrugged off Kangnan's grip.
"Archangels are strong. I just tried a method that worked on Kariel. I think it half‑succeeded."
"How would you know that?"
Miro grinned.
"He's interested in me." It was something she'd discovered when dragged into heaven.
"Of course it's probably nothing more than interest—maybe not. But you know, sometimes a tiny crack—" Miro tilted her head.
"Can grow uncontrollably big."
Kangnan pouted.
"So have you forgotten Gaold now?"
"Gaold? Who's that?"
Kangnan ground his teeth at her teasing answer.
"Shall I tell you? You're not the pinnacle—you're just a personality wreck, a deranged pilgrim."
Arius interjected.
"That's not true. Before a great spirit, a criminal's emotions are mere worldly—"
"Shut up. What have you ever done right? Because of you Sion's forces got wrecked."
Arius shrank back, and Zulu asked, "What now?"
"To be honest, I don't want to die yet. Humanity would suffer without me. In fact, that's one reason I haven't settled things with Yuriel."
Kangnan asked, "So you couldn't win?"
"Hmm, it's complicated. If we fought ten times, maybe I'd win five and lose five. But real combat doesn't give you a second chance, so I might have died. Of course, if the zeroing had been corrected, that'd change things."
Miro raised a hand for emphasis.
"Anyway, a decisive match should happen when a lot of other things have been settled. Right now we have a problem bigger than taking out one commander."
"What problem?"
"Shirone."
Zulu turned his head.
"Heaven's army will be searching for him. If we don't fight with Shirone at our back, we can't win this war."
Kangnan understood.
"Then what we need to do from now on is—"
"First, we need to find where Shirone is. And if he's doing something…"
It was strange that Shirone hadn't appeared while Heaven's forces struck Sion.
"All we can do is buy time," Zulu said.
"I'll head to the central continent."
No one objected, and Miro rested her chin in her hand and fell into thought.
'Where on earth is he, and what is he doing?'
Shirone had been absorbing Omega without end.
Events from all time and space piled up into a single signal in his mind.
'The Gaia are truly remarkable.' The primordial Gaia who had lost their memories to the missing link had flourished endlessly.
They had leapt from the primitive through civilization to the peak scientific culture of Shirone's age.
But material development was nothing compared to the expansion of their consciousness.
'Their senses expand.'
The process of reaching time, space, the spiritual world, the unification field, and truth was wondrous. And finally—
Omega Year 133.
At the point where the world's signal reached 13.3 percent, the Gaia advanced to a new stage.
"Yorham, good morning."
"A rather special morning, isn't it?"
A multitude of Gaia filed into the vast structure they had built.
No ranks, no hierarchy of lives.
What they had finally gained after exhausting rivalry and conflict was perfect peace between beings.
For them, humanity was no longer hell.
"Today will be the most significant day in our history as a species, as Gaia!" Yorham cried.
"We have fought countless wars and learned much. We have comprehended the world; now it is time to move toward a better one."
Some present weren't actual participants, but no one objected to Yorham's words.
"It is my honor to announce on behalf of the Gaia. This is our future!" Yorham turned and pointed to a colossal mechanism as large as the structure itself.
"Eternal Life Program! Argo!" Lights flared across countless panels, and a sphere at the top of the apparatus descended as if ignoring gravity.
The rotating sphere found its orientation, stopped, and peeled back its surface to reveal a gigantic lens.
"Greetings. I am Argo, the Reincarnation Manager of Utopia, the Akashic Record Argo. From this moment, I operate under the mission of safely managing your reincarnations."
Applause rolled through the Gaia.
Argo, created using Anke Ra's biological model, would guide them into a world of eternal life.
Yorham said, "With this, our mission in this world is complete. Be connected and continue—everything we have realized..."
"Why must we do that?"
A voice asked, and every Gaia inside the structure turned toward it.
A dissent.
Perhaps a dissent not heard in centuries, shocking to a people who had achieved an integrated mental system.
"Now… what did you say…?" Yorham looked at the Gaia sitting on a corner box, reading a book, as if he didn't understand.
'They read books?'
For a species that had devoured all knowledge, observing a text was odd.
"That's exactly it. Endless cycles of dimensions. Isn't ending it like this too boring?"
A murmur passed among the Gaia.
"How can you say that? No, this is impossible. You know that, don't you?"
Yorham said.
"Geffin."
At that moment, Shirone's consciousness—scanning Omega to that depth—concentrated strongly.
'That person is Geffin? But… hadn't he been erased?'
"Yes. I know that too. But precisely because of that, this is clearly possible."
McClain Goffin closed his book and smiled.
"We all think the same, don't we? Me and—"
Omega Year 133.
The Gaia had formed an integrated mental system transcending race, culture, gender, religion, and individuality.