Age of Struggle (1)
"Kiiiiii!"
The auditory hallucination that only Seina had been able to hear now rang in everyone's ears.
The black droplets she'd forced from her heart coalesced into a malevolent shape and hovered in the air.
"W-what is that?"
It was enormous—large enough to blot out the sky—and Seina's followers had never seen anything like it.
"Evil…? Is that… evil?"
Their fear was magnified because the thing in the sky was an emotion of the living: human hatred.
Something everyone carried deep inside.
'I am not afraid.'
Only Seina watched the shape of evil with utter calm.
'It seems unrelated to me. I don't even suspect it could harm me.'
There was no fear because there was no attachment.
Of course doubt might blossom later, but for now it felt like a wondrous phenomenon to her.
The emotion of prejudice twisted like a vortex and finally scattered into a concept of chaos.
'The Yahweh of this age.'
Seina turned to Shirone.
Seeing eyes that held no hatred at all made her heart tremble for a moment, but she quickly shook her head.
'I can't accept it!'
To accept Shirone would be tantamount to denying the one god Kria.
'I was merely weak! All humans are beneath God. Humans cannot become gods.'
She snapped.
"Don't think you've won with this. Our doctrine is far more devout and holy than you imagine."
Shirone, who didn't want to be entangled with the Rami Church more than necessary, thought that was enough.
"Order your men to stop committing suicide. We must prevent meaningless sacrifice."
"It's not suicide; it's martyrdom. And there's nothing we can do about it. It isn't coercion, but we were taught from birth never to yield to evil."
"In that case…"
As Shirone stepped toward the holy knights, the voice of the Five of Prejudice grew louder.
"Kill Yahweh! Yahweh will kill your family and steal your lovers. That Yahweh is the absolute evil that must not exist in this world."
Doubt rose in Seina's mind again, but the aura of purification still lingered.
Other holy knights, however, could not contain their anger and almost in unison lifted their heads.
"O Lord! I dedicate my body to you!"
"You don't need to die."
Shirone, now at the center of the line, said, "What that woman says is true. So you may attack me if you wish."
"Shirone! What are you doing!" Naide shouted, but there was no answer.
'There's no other way.'
When Shirone drove the evil from Seina's heart, he perceived it with his eleven senses.
Evil on a scale comparable to Satan.
'Even Eden felt fear from that emotion. You'd need faith on Seina's level at least.'
"Yaaaaaah!"
Once the prejudice was confirmed, the holy knights drew their blades and charged.
"Fools! Stop—!" Seina, running toward her men, widened her eyes and froze.
Every time a blade imbued with divine power swung, Shirone's upper body produced multiple afterimages.
"Evil demon! Die!"
A holy knight tempered by battles with the demon races had skill on par with world-class fighters.
But no matter how fast the swords cut, there was no neck where Shirone stood.
Iruki muttered, "Quantum superposition. That's dangerous." It was a matter of probability.
The advantage was that any attack could miss; the risk was that on bad luck even a child's knife would strike.
Naide said, "Could it be… that's why he isn't moving?"
"No—he simply doesn't need to move. If the roll of the dice decides everything, action is meaningless."
Most of the time the odds let him evade; only with very low probability would he be hit.
"Anyway, while Shirone buys time, deal with it. Attack the Five of Prejudice."
Seina stepped forward. "Wait! If you rush in and fall again to the temptation of evil…"
"I won't fall."
Naide glared forward. "No matter what lies she spreads, I won't attack Shirone."
"How can you be so sure?"
Having experienced the Hidden Code firsthand, Seina knew how fearsome the heart's workings could be.
"I tried once. I tried to kill Shirone." It was the first time she'd said it aloud. "Shirone said that if I didn't keep struggling he would sink—and I thought maybe then I could live for myself. And it actually happened. I achieved my dream, and I met someone I loved. So…"
Blue electricity rose along Naide's body.
"Shirone can do whatever he wants to me. I will never resent him."
Kraaaang!
The condensed electricity in the sky became Lightning Reincarnation and surged toward the Five of Prejudice.
She spread her arms. "Heh heh, as much as you like."
The Lightning Reincarnation struck viciously, but its path slid right past him.
'Hidden Code.'
Seina intuited it, but no countermeasure came to mind.
"I have to step in."
Iruki walked toward the Five of Prejudice. Seina fell into step and asked, "What are you going to do? That's an evil deception."
She didn't know Siok, but she seemed to fully understand the nature of evil.
"Which is why it's interesting. Logic that violates reality. If so…"
Iruki's eyes lit up and a string of atomic bombs tore across the air.
"Then I'll learn it."
Paf paf paf pafpung!
The chain explosions traced paths everywhere except where the Five of Prejudice stood.
'This is absurd.'
Iruki smiled; the corner of his mouth trembled.
'Something impossible under my reasoning is happening. It's like a dream…'
As he focused, electricity began to spark from his eyes.
'Overdrive.'
Performance comparable to Ex Machina.
Neurons in his brain sparked as they analyzed the logic of the Hidden Code.
'It's not logic trapped in a single dimension.'
A multidimensional equation.
This was the transcendental logical system that composed human dreams.
"Kruuu—!"
It was as hard as collapsing all existing mathematics and creating a new one.
'No—this is different too.'
There are no immutable truths in a multidimensional field.
'Just a bit more…'
Iruki raced through a vast maze of doors that approached infinity at the speed of light.
'Open this door here…'
When a red door opened, a spark fired in a particular region of his cerebral network.
'Turn here and open this door.'
His brain felt like it was burning, but Iruki returned for the first time.
'Aha.'
Self-pity was a luxury.
'Try again.'
After cycling it thousands of times, a faint image of chaos began to take shape.
'A door means you can return. That's what logic is. But a multidimensional equation…'
Once you open a door, the door that leads back disappears.
'It's chaos.'
Seina had already joined the fight, but Iruki couldn't see her.
"Heh heh heh. Heh heh heh."
Blood streamed from his eyes, nose, and mouth, but Iruki laughed without noticing.
"This is fun."
Meanwhile, Shirone grew increasingly anxious as time passed.
'This is getting dangerous.' The number of attacks he'd avoided via quantum superposition had surpassed forty thousand.
'Is Iruki still far off?'
Even without exchanging words, the three knew their roles.
'You can't break the Hidden Code.'
But if anyone could, Iruki could convert a moment of chaos into the realm of logic.
'If only for an instant.'
"Hah!"
At that moment a holy knight activated his saint's sight, and it spread contagiously until everyone's eyes lit up.
"Get out! Get out of me!"
The Four of Sloth began to operate in earnest.
"No! I don't want that! Oh, God, I'm sorry. I am—"
Their arms rose bit by bit, sharp blades poised at their throats.
One figure stood out.
A holy knight who kept his sword lowered, glaring at Iruki with a hungry look.
'He's yielded to temptation.'
When his saint's gaze blinked out, the man bared his fangs, pushed off the ground, and rushed past Shirone.
"Iruki!"
"Grrrrr! Grrrrr!"
At the boiling sound in the knight's ears, the Four of Sloth whispered.
- No one can harm you. Help me. Then I will make Seina choose you.
Which holy knight does not know love?
"Se-Seina."
But demons burrow into small human wishes and amplify them into monstrous desire.
The holy knight raised his sword at Iruki. "I am the strongest!"
Shirone cast Miracle Stream, but it was blocked by the Hidden Code and faltered.
"Iruki! It's dangerous!"
Iruki snapped his head up, revealing eyes smeared with blood as he stood.
'That's enough.'
Chaos has no logical pattern. But if you fix a specific moment like a photograph, that form can be mathematical.
'A one-time password.'
If it's mathematical, Iruki could say this.
"Cancellation."
Information inverted entirely, and the Hidden Code that powered the Four of Sloth shattered.
"Uaaah!"
Caught off guard, the Five of Prejudice—more precisely, Rabika's left arm—was cut by Seina's sword.
'What the—why was it cut?!'
The Four of Sloth's whisper came: - The Hidden Code was hacked. It's a one-off, but there's a hacker with superhuman ability.
'Ridiculous…'
Naide's Lightning Reincarnation surged forward, visible to all.
"Damn!"
Rabika's facial bones twisted again, and Shirone, feeling like he'd landed a major catch, cast Stop.
The Law's time vanished, and for 0.666 seconds two Sioks manifested.
The instant their faces came into view—
"Th-that man…!"
Shirone, Iruki, and Naide, furious to the tips of their hair, lunged together.
"Dieeeee!"
The Lightning Reincarnation turned into bolts and surged, and an explosion shaped by the ultimate detonation equation detonated.
Kraaaaang!
Startled by the thunderous rupture that split heaven and earth, Seina and the holy knights looked up.
"Damn! He got away!"
The Five of Prejudice carried the Four of Sloth at his waist and flew off into the distance.
Naide said, "No—there's still one move left."
The holy knights turned at the sound of the air tearing behind them.
A gigantic fist of light rose over the horizon.
"Yaaah!"
Shirone stooped and swung his arm; Hand of God rushed forward at lightning speed.
At that moment the Five of Prejudice hurled the Four of Sloth like a flash and dodged aside.
"You…!"
The old man's face flushed red. "You! How dare you… ugh!" The old man's eyes popped and burst like fireworks under the impact of Hand of God.
"Hmph. If you're useless, you die."
Mocking the Four of Sloth as it fell like scraps of paper, the Five of Prejudice dissolved into the air.
"Hah, hah."
Shirone, who had watched intently, stamped his foot as if his anger hadn't been fully sated. "We missed one."
Iruki approached. "Can't be helped. At least we got the feel of it. I'm glad it ended this way." Seeing Shirone's bloodstreaked face, he steadied himself.
"Sorry. I knew it would be dangerous, but I had no choice in the moment."
"What are you talking about?"
Iruki wiped the blood and smiled. "Now I feel alive. Glad I followed you."
A commotion rose from the holy knights' ranks.
"Let go! He's going to die! Put him down!" The man who'd tried to attack Iruki and yielded to evil was being held by his comrades.
"Calm down! Anyone could fall for that!"
"No, I— I… uaaah!"
Shirone's group watched, speechless, as the man broke down in tears.
"He was really strong. He must have trained his whole life."
"But his heart couldn't reach it. You can't exactly blame him."
How many in this world have no crack for small desires where evil can slip in?
'If there are any, they're extremes.'
Shirone began to understand why the maze emphasized depth of spirit over mere martial strength.