Doom Strike (1)
He split the instant into endless fragments.
In doing so, Shirone realized this world was by no means continuous.
'This world…
The second hand of a clock looks like it sweeps from 0 to 60 without a gap.
'But it's discontinuous.'
If you keep dividing the span between 0 and 1 second, you eventually find the void between moments.
'This world is fundamentally nothingness.'
Pisho's words came back to him—the sense that something exists is only a human delusion.
'Like a video recorder.'
Flip through dozens of frames per second and the brain won't notice gaps on the screen.
Human-perceived time is the same; Shirone thought of it as stepping-stones of time.
'And when you combine all these facts…
There's a possibility that this world, where all things seem to exist, is nothing but electrical signals—not substance.'
'If that's the case…
Where does the power that keeps the universe running right now even come from?'
'In the beginning there was light.'
And from that light everything began.
Shirone pictured the universe switching on suddenly from nothing.
'Don't be certain. If I pry open the lid and imagine freely, nothing becomes impossible.'
Only what's closed is real.
'But if there truly is a supplier…
the power needed to run this universe might not be as huge as we think.
'Scale works like that.'
The universe is immense to humans, but to the supplier it could be the size of a palm.
'They could make thousands of universes at the same tier.'
In other words, there could be worlds outside Shirone's universe—some similar, some utterly different.
'And if the supplier's world itself receives power from a higher dimension… then, in parallel and series, new universes would be born and endlessly burrow into the void.
'Infinite.'
A chill ran through him.
'How far did the Gaians go?'
The Gaians had left the photon realm, but there was no guarantee the place they reached was a terminus.
'If they keep drifting like that, what will be at the end?'
Pisho called it infinite nothingness.
'I think I understand a little.'
There's a world where only Shirone and an apple exist.
Shirone sees the apple and realizes nothing else exists.
'Nothing. This is the nothing humans can imagine.'
But if he'd never seen the apple in the first place, what could Shirone even imagine?
'He wouldn't even think to imagine.'
Perhaps Shirone's mind would be…
'Truly empty—and precisely because of that, a state in which anything could come into being.'
A delusion with no deluder would simply flow.
'In the end everything is built up from nothing.'
Shirone felt a little sad.
'Nade was right.'
The more he opened his senses and discovered new facts, the clearer the truth of this world became.
'But I wasn't wrong either.'
Nade had said the same.
'If this world is truly hollow, then places that hold a heart are the only ones with meaning, aren't they?'
In the face of the world's truth, emptiness and attachment part ways.
'I will fight, Nade.' Having finished the thought, Shirone found Terraforce combatants waiting before him.
"Have you arrived?"
The question was halting, but Shirone—having surpassed that realm—understood.
"Stop. I don't want to fight. I only want to hear why you're hostile toward me."
"We are not human." He did not mean it in the biological sense.
"For Terraforce, war is a dead word. We act solely for the order of the universe."
"You mean this order displeases you."
"That's right."
The Terraforce fighters reached out again.
"Because you're human."
As a shockwave that shook heaven and earth crashed out, Shirone vanished from his spot.
"Slow."
Shirone had already arrived behind every combatant; he turned slowly and said,
"No—better put, far."
The Terraforce fighters twisted quickly, but Shirone was no longer there.
Back in his original place, hands clasped behind his back, he walked at an easy pace.
"Too far to notice."
Or infinitely slow.
"If it's superluminal…"
If the Terraforce fighters had expressions, they'd have looked like routed soldiers.
"There's nothing faster than light. That doesn't mean impossible—it means meaningless."
Shirone had realized that every signal composing this world was transmitted on a photon basis.
"The speed at which information is instantiated in this world—we convert that speed into time and perceive it." Even though he'd reached a state theory called impossible, his gaze remained calm.
"So being faster than light would mean perceiving information faster than time."
It wasn't a problem of velocity but of perception.
"I feel the gaps between moments."
The world Shirone saw with his Mu-tae sense was nothing like the one the brain had recognized until now.
'There's nothing.'
Where he looked there was Terraforce—beyond them, no buildings or land, just a realm of nonexistence.
'If you don't perceive it…'
The vast sea beyond the Terraforce fighters vanished from Shirone's vision.
'It never existed to begin with.'
The moment Shirone's consciousness reached out, a specific signal instantiated the landscape at light speed.
'That is the nature of the Law.'
Now he understood.
Unless you perceive it with your senses, no world exists behind you.
"But it also exists because the Terraforce fighters perceive the village landscape spread out behind my back.
'That's why it's Mu-tae.'"
Anke Ra had seen it, and it was still reflected in Nade's eyes—the world Shirone now saw as well.
"I'll give you one last chance. Stand down."
Terraforce did not yield.
"Didn't I tell you? We don't retreat because we lack purpose. We act out of necessity."
The gauntlets of the Terraforce fighters trembled and formed a wave-field barrier around Shirone.
"Null Zone."
If you block radiation as well as convection and conduction, no phenomenon can occur.
"I hate using the body, but—" Blades of beam flashed from the fighters' gauntlets as they launched themselves forward, pounding the ground.
"There's nothing to be done with foolish humans!"
Their speed was astonishing, but to Shirone—who perceived superluminal motion—it meant nothing.
"Far."
Shirone appeared outside the Null Zone and levitated a photon cannon above his palm.
'It won't be as simple as stepping across space.'
Terraforce's consciousness was another signal composing the world; to subdue it, collision was necessary.
'Increase the power…'
As a test, Shirone levitated a photon cannon above his palm and hurled it at the enemy ahead.
KRAAAAASH!
A flash tore through the shield.
"Gyaaaah!"
A Terraforce fighter, far from stoic, screamed, flew dozens of meters, and rolled on the ground.
"That's enough."
If he could pierce the shields, there was nothing to fear. Dozens of photon cannon shots lit the night.
When the seemingly endless detonations died away, the lonely sound of waves rolled in.
"Huff."
Having annihilated the Terraforce unit, Shirone exhaled deeply and moved on.
"In the end they couldn't find out?" He had tried to leave survivors, but Terraforce refused to give up to the point of madness.
"What is that????"
On the dawn horizon Shirone watched, and a craft perched atop the Mero cliff came into view.
"I can't leave it behind."
When he fired a photon cannon, the air around the craft rippled and absorbed the shock.
Weighing whether to increase the power, Shirone shook his head and unfolded Ataraxia.
KRAAAAAAASH!
A gigantic flash swallowed the craft and erased it without a trace.
Shirone spread his radiant wings and flew into the sky.
'Time is short.' As he tried to leave the island at top speed, a majestic roar came from inside the clouds.
As the clouds dispersed like smoke and a sliver of the craft was revealed, Shirone narrowed his eyes.
"Terraforce?"
A voice sounded like a divine revelation.
"Come up, Shirone."
At the Grand Magistrate's command, Shirone climbed and dove into the clouds.
It was a city-sized craft.
At the core, a maw opened like an octopus' mouth and sucked him in as if gravity didn't exist.
No one came to meet him, but one of the many doors connected to every direction opened.
Led along a path, he arrived at a commune the size of a village.
"So we meet again, Shirone."
Thud! Thud!
It would be a human mistake to assume identical size just because they were the same species.
As the Terraforce Grand Magistrate approached, Shirone had no choice but to tilt his head all the way back.
"Meet again? When did we meet?" A long finger, seemingly able to pierce a human body, covered Shirone's ear.
"When we implanted you with the memory-transfer device. Of course, it seems I removed it now."
Shirone frowned.
"You put a chip in me?"
"Yes. To be precise, you requested and persuaded us, and I agreed."
"What?"
He had no clear memory of it, and even if it existed, he doubted he'd made that request.
"Why?"
The Grand Magistrate turned his body.
"First, sit. I'll take you to the Ivory Tower. I have something to tell you."
Shirone climbed into a chair large enough for a giant, sat cross-legged, and waited.
The Grand Magistrate, having set the destination, returned.
"First, I owe you an apology. I thought your argument had merit, but other kin apparently disagreed."
"What do you mean?"
"They were radicals. They found out you'd installed that chip and hacked the broadcast. If you hadn't gutted them, I wouldn't have found you either."
"In other words… it had nothing to do with you?"
"I'm not making excuses. It was my mistake. I just want to make clear it didn't represent the will of all Terraforce."
"I don't get it. You possess mental capacities far beyond humans, and yet you can't coordinate opinions?"
"It's rare, true. That shows your idea was radical. But to be precise…"
The Grand Magistrate leaned his face close to Shirone.
"Even we who rule the universe have not formed a perfectly unified mental system."
Shirone closed his mouth.
"Gaians. They're unique. Think how difficult and magnificent it is: to maintain individual diversity and still think as one."
The Grand Magistrate touched Shirone's head.
"To put it at a human level: murderers should be punished. Most would agree. But from the murderer's perspective, the reasoning differs."
It wasn't perfect integration.
"Terraforce is a bit better. At a crossroads do we go left or right? The right answer varies with circumstance, but our choices are without exception the same. That means the criteria for action are perfectly established."
"But this time it split." The Grand Magistrate removed his hand with a sheepish air.
"Yes. That shows how difficult a unified mental system is. And because of that, even though you opened the Tenth Sense…"
A deep voice reverberated.
"You cannot open the Ultima System." It was the question that had lingered in the back of Shirone's mind ever since he awakened Mu-tae.