Infinity (1)
McClain Guphin was a real person who had existed in the world until just before Shirone was born.
Though erased from the records, the shock of seeing such a figure before their eyes was considerable for Shirone and the others.
"No—how…?"
Arius's face was grave.
From what Shirone had heard, Ruan had already clashed with Guphin in his infancy.
'I thought that would obviously be the final gate…'
Others had also, vaguely, assumed Guphin would be the last gate.
If Imir's unconsciousness is tiered by the magnitude of sensation, Shirone finally understood the situation.
"It's not surprising Guphin showed up first. Even though they clashed, they didn't go all out against one another."
Even so, the force was tremendous.
"Just being at depth five is proof of how powerful this is. Either way, we have to fight." Shirone was calm.
The form was Guphin's to the letter, but it was only an imaginary figure fabricated by Imir.
'Still—strong.'
Just from the size of the Hand of God hanging in the sky, you could tell how great his prime must have been.
Miro spoke.
"Start, Shirone."
As the Thousand‑Hand Guanyin incarnation rose into the sky, Guphin's Hand of God bore down.
"Ugh!"
Miro's face twisted.
The Guanyin's fists—palms of light—struck rapidly, but they were simply crushed by the overwhelming force.
"It's coming down!"
Sein's Sun‑Moon Light Wheel and Gaold's strike hit at the same time as Shirone's.
A coordinated assault at the center—
"Grrr!"
Overwhelming power.
Guphin's Hand of God slowly spread across the ground, neither widening nor slowing.
Everything brightened, and soon Shirone looked out over a world gone completely pale.
A voice came from somewhere indistinguishable—there was no way to tell whether eyes were open or closed.
"Shirone."
It was an eerie, chilling voice.
"Where am I?"
He could sense neither direction nor gravity; it felt as if even time had stopped.
"Aaaaaah!"
At the succession of screams, Shirone cried out.
"Who are you!"
"...th—th—there's—"
He couldn't parse the broken syllables, but one thing was clear.
'Anger.'
They were calling to Shirone.
"Kreeee!"
A single syllable layered over a billion times, sounding like a thick string being plucked.
Inside that cosmic soundwave, Shirone intuited the voice's owner.
'Gaia.'
Those who had been integrated into Imir—anger and despair had lodged in their unconscious.
'No. The Gaias were already absorbed into Imir. So why does it sound like this…?'
A fleeting thought flashed through his head.
'〈Zhuangzi's Butterfly〉.' He'd heard it could temporarily leave the photon realm.
A hypothesis formed.
'If there's an outside world, when 〈Zhuangzi's Butterfly〉 is triggered, the ones affected would probably be… the user.'
'In reality, the Gaias were integrated into Imir. But in the outside world they remain distinct individuals.'
Since 〈Zhuangzi's Butterfly〉 opened at depth five, they couldn't have fully awakened.
'Still, if they've regained some consciousness and their minds are leaking in…'
Goosebumps rose.
'What state is Imir in right now?'
"Aaaaaah!"
Shirone clapped his hands over his ears at the next scream, but it was useless.
The soundwave was shattered; his ears could not make sense of it.
'They're calling me.'
He decoded the signal with Ultima, yet even its meaning came through in shattered fragments.
'What do they want to say?' Shirone gritted his teeth.
Before meaning could form, he felt the extreme texture in that language.
If he had to put it into words, it was something no array of a hundred million words could convey.
'Indifferent. The gods are indifferent.'
Shirone knew—once you convert a feeling into language, most of what they convey becomes distorted.
If you simply dissolved into that concept without thinking, it would be perfect in itself…but that would also be emptiness.
'Think. You must think.'
Shirone forced words together and tried to pin meaning to the sensation.
For example—
'A point circles a circumference.'
A point that never stops, endlessly tracing its orbit—that could symbolize Infinity.
Perfect, indifferent.
'Trapped in Infinity.'
To phrase it further, it was being trapped inside the definition of Infinity.
That wouldn't be true Infinity.
…then a Gaia's voice said.
Perhaps true Infinity is to forget the concept of Infinity itself?
To achieve that, rather than endlessly advancing, shouldn't there be nothing at all?
'A mu that doesn't think of limits.'
In other words, an infinity without infinity.
'Empty your mind.'
Shirone emptied his mind.
'Forget your existence.'
When Shirone's existence vanished, the universe and matter and concepts reverted to a state of never having been.
'That would be the mu of non‑Infinity.'
So, if Shirone still exists now or remembers anything, it is only an illusion.
'An illusion without a subject.'
There were no screams, no Gaia's voice, yet the illusion persisted.
'How is it?'
Perhaps he imagined hearing those words.
'Are you infinite now?'
Shirone let out a silent roar.
At the same time, he flung his eyes open and the whole world exploded into light; concepts were born.
The world was created.
"Uaaaah!"
Around Shirone, a curtain of light peeled away like burning cloth, and a distant, clear voice came through.
This time it was distinct.
'We are imprisoned gods. Infinite humans.'
The landscape of depth five returned, and the party compressed beneath the Hand of God came back into view.
'Open it, Hexa.'
For a moment, a signal from the outside world—something none of them should know—drove into his mind.
"Guh!"
He didn't understand its meaning.
Maybe it was the name of some obscure creature, like a sand‑digger scarab not used in the real world.
'But… it was a signal from an outside world.'
'I can't imagine the unimaginable. But I picked up a fragment.'
A very faint image of the outside world painted itself in Shirone's head.
Even if the image was entirely wrong—
'No way…'
The imagination it sparked was unlike anything in reality; it made his skin prickle.
"Shirone!"
At Miro's shout, the Thousand‑Hand Guanyin was nearly being crushed flat.
Shirone, who had been staring up at Guphin's Hand of God, clenched his teeth and widened his eyes.
"Infinite?…"
Like rocket exhaust fanning out, Miracle Streams shot everywhere.
'Hand of God.'
As if propelled, Shirone's own Hand of God slammed into Guphin's palm.
'It's just an illusion.'
The group, who had been straining with all their might, suddenly felt the pressure lighten and turned their heads.
"What—what is this?"
Shirone's Hand of God kept expanding endlessly and slipped its fingers into the hand of light Guphin had formed, locking together.
"Yaaah!"
Like an adult wrenching a child's wrist, Shirone's Hand of God shoved fiercely and shot up into the sky.
'Guphin.'
Then, together with Guphin's Hand of God, it began to fall vertically toward the ground.
'Though you are the one Imir remembers, I'm glad I saw you.'
Kukukukuku!
Struck directly by the waterfall of light, Guphin vanished while remaining upright.
At that instant Shirone thought he saw something.
In the face of Guphin buried in light and fading, a faint smile had formed.
The waterfall of light continued for a while, and only after five minutes did it fade.
"Is it over?"
Arius, still cowering, looked up to find a huge hole gaping before him.
Kangnan winked and gave a thumbs up.
"Well done, Shirone. You pulled it off this time."
They were a team, so who succeeded didn't matter, but Gaold had wanted to keep his intervention as a last resort.
"Just luck."
"Luck…"
Miro watched Shirone with a serious expression.
'The technique is the same. If he could raise its power, it's because he reached some realm. But…'
Strangely, it didn't feel like a realm.
'It feels wrong. Really wrong.' She didn't even want to ask Shirone what had happened; it felt like something too unsettling to approach.
'A sense of alienness. Yes, a vague dread that wells up from deeper than instinct.'
In other words, a cosmic otherness that transcends living beings.
That was likely why Luber looked at Shirone so coldly.
'〈Zhuangzi's Butterfly〉. I thought it was dangerous…'
Luber sighed.
'Shirone is… a good person, and so are the Five Great Stars.'
As an incarnation of Drimo, he loved every dreaming being, and Shirone's dream was truly pure.
'I'm sorry. This isn't something I can help with. Probably the "others" are the same…'
He couldn't predict the scale of the aftereffects, but at least the situation had become entangled.
'Argones won't stay idle. Even if they don't reach the "final moment."'
Luber was about to consider whether he should at least clarify that, then shook his head.
'He's not someone who dreams immaturely. He exists in reality too; he'll get through it.'
He simply didn't want to see Shirone later screaming in grief.
Arius said, "Let's go down for now. We've wasted too much time. Have we been here a week already?"
Miro snapped, "It's your fault you're useless. I fed you and housed you and you're still no help."
He offered no excuse.
"Sorry. But now that I know how, it should go faster. Of course, if we could destroy the god sleeping at depth four." It was certainly unexpected that Guphin was the first, but Gaold didn't care.
"Thinking won't change it. Whoever it is, we just smash them."
Without a shred of fear, Gaold dove into the pit, and Kangnan followed immediately.
"Shirone, come on, let's go."
Even after everyone had left depth five, Shirone lingered a moment in thought.
'I shouldn't reveal it.'
When he had reached the state of the mu of non‑Infinity, he felt Miro and Luber's gazes chill more than before.
'That's understandable. Honestly, I see myself that way too. This is absurd.'
If there's no precedent for an event, whatever it is will likely be written off as a mistake at first.
He was afraid; his chest tightened at the thought of the unknown.
"Guphin."
Shirone turned and remembered that at the last moment Guphin had smiled.
'〈Zhuangzi's Butterfly〉.'
Was he really Guphin?
"It doesn't matter."
What mattered was that the being who had reached the mu of non‑Infinity had smiled at him warmly.
"Take care."
Feeling somewhat lighter, Shirone quickened his pace and dove into the entrance to depth four.
'Yes, I was right. Keep moving forward.'
Perhaps…
Even that might be an illusion without a subject.