Satan's Proposal (1)
The Air Press was far more powerful than the air gun Gaold had used before.
"Uuuugh!"
A terrible pain—one even Gaold himself could never have anticipated—washed over him.
"Gaold! Snap out of it!"
When there was no response, the three of them looked up at the sky with pale faces.
Ultima's eye hovered there.
'Damn it! Hurry and vanish!'
As long as they defined Gaold in their dream, memories of reality would stay.
Kangnan murmured, "It's grown."
No—more precisely, it had sunk in deeper.
"Gaold, calm down. Take it in slowly—this world. Come back to the 1.5th floor," Sein said.
"Uuu—"
Whether Sein's words took hold was uncertain, but Gaold's expression eased a little.
Accordingly, Ultima's eye in the sky slid back beyond the veil of the world.
Even after the pain receded, he couldn't move for a while from the mental shock.
'He couldn't have known.'
No—he understood it intellectually, but the realization only hit when the pain actually struck: how helpless humans were.
The leader of the Merchant Union surveyed the scene—where even the blood seemed to have evaporated—and asked, "What happened? Was it a bomb?" In a world without magic, their guesses had limits.
"Something like that," Sein said evasively. Gaold braced himself on the ground and pushed to his feet.
"Let's go."
A face that had been fine an hour ago now looked as if it had aged overnight.
"Kangnan, you can't keep doing this," Kangnan said.
There was no reply.
"If you awaken your power, our world will collapse. No—before that, you'll go mad."
Even Gaold himself couldn't promise he could walk back into that kind of pain.
"Will he be able to forget this time?" Ruber asked.
"Humans repeat mistakes, but some stimuli are etched into the unconscious. No matter how strong the will, you end up hesitating," Monga said.
"They call it a phobia."
"Gaold's breakdown just now happened while Ultima's eye had nearly half penetrated. If it goes past halfway, Imir will seize control," someone added.
"Gaold getting stronger is a problem too. Tamo will awaken as well. If the compromises keep failing, the 1.5th floor will collapse. All that's left is annihilation."
"There's nothing we can do. If I break the rules first, Imir's unconscious will infiltrate the 1.5th floor by any means," another said.
"We'll have to trust Lord Odaeseong," someone muttered.
Ruber said nothing.
When Shirone activated "The Butterfly Dream," he had clearly received a signal from the outside world.
'The real Lord Odaeseong must have some idea about the outside world. About the gods' viewpoint too.'
But knowing something in your head and actually contacting it were entirely different.
'He couldn't have analyzed the signal, but the shock of a closed world shattering would remain.'
Probably a vast void.
'It makes sense to see that void reflected in the 1.5th floor as a loss of will. Still, deep inside, a spark to rise again must be sprouting.'
Floating on the boundless sea of the opened world, Shirone waited desperately.
'If a trigger lights it, that spark will roar back to life. The power to overcome that great void... might be with Armand.'
From his administrator's vantage, Ruber could not decide which outcome was better.
Kangnan, having reached Tamo's stronghold, pointed inside the iron gate and shouted, "Over there!"
Arius lay collapsed and bleeding, while Shirone and Miro were doing nothing but flee.
"W-what is that?" the Merchant Union members whispered, chilled by a power that shattered their imagination.
"Hey! You trying to kill us?" Bullets spat in all directions, curving as if ignoring inertia.
Sein realized, 'He awakened like Miro did. Normal attacks won't work on someone like that.'
Not wanting to trigger Gaold's awakening, they charged for the iron gate.
"Let's go! If we fight together, we can win!"
When a brave one led the way, the Merchant Union poured a furious assault through the gate.
"Yeah! It's only one guy!"
The thought that they might win died within three seconds.
"Kuhahaha! What's the matter?" A few bullets hit Tamo, but he didn't flinch.
He openly raked the Merchant Union with his machine gun; in an instant, four people fell.
"Aaaah! It's a monster!"
Those who ran and hid behind walls no longer had the courage to show themselves.
"Counterattack! The attacks work!" Kangnan shouted.
"No—absolutely not," someone replied.
Tamo stood off-kilter, twirling his machine gun.
"Even with the best weapons, war is fought by people. Whoever freezes with fear is as good as dead."
Kangnan bit her lip as Miro and Shirone ran to Sein.
"Dad!"
Sein hugged Miro, breathed a sigh of relief, and scanned the front again.
"Stay back. We'll handle this."
"No! That guy's insanely strong. I need Shirone oppa's and my help."
Miro was right, but if they kept fighting like this the 1.5th floor would collapse.
"Listen to your father." Before Sein could explain, Tamo chambered his machine gun and slammed his foot into the ground.
"Time to finish this!"
Their scattered group formed a perimeter, but Tamo felt no fear.
The engagement dragged on.
Bullets tore through Sein's knee; blood splattered across Kangnan's right arm.
"Ugh!"
By thirty minutes in, none of them could stand properly.
"Heehee! Heeheehee!" Blood flew from every part of Tamo's body as he raised his head in the thrill of victory.
"What? That's it? I'm just getting started... huh?"
The center of the moon opened, and something that looked like a human eye blinked.
"What the—"
An immense pressure crushed him.
"Raaah!"
There was no pain, but the terror that his body was being destroyed struck his mind.
At the first scream anyone had heard from Tamo, Miro raised her head dazedly.
"Mister—"
Gaold, who had also been shot, staggered forward.
"Finally. A nuisance," he muttered. His face did not change, but the twitching nerves made him look demonic.
"Dad, what happened to that man?" Miro asked.
"Miro, Gaold is—" Sein began, but Gaold struck Tamo's face with his fist.
Tamo's jaw twisted; he rolled on the ground, then sprang up.
Fear had entered his eyes.
'What the hell is this?'
Besides the earlier pressure, the blow itself delivered a shock that hammered the brain.
"Pain."
Proof that he was alive.
"Kuhahaha! I'm gonna kill you! Hey! You aga—"
Before he could finish, a massive blast drove him into the ground.
Gaold howled. "Aaaaargh!"
As successive Air Presses shook the earth, Miro rose to her feet.
"Is Mister... hurt?"
Sein's explanation was brief, but Gaold's transformation into a monster was a spectacle.
"Gwaaaah!" Hair bleached from shock, the whites of his eyes rolled up, blood spouted from his torn throat.
Tears sprang to Miro's eyes.
"Stop it."
She remembered nothing, but even a child wondered: why was that man like that?
"Stop. Even if you do that, I won't change. Honestly, I... I don't dislike you, but—"
Every ounce of power Gaold poured into the Air Press came back as an equal backlash.
"Gwaaaah!" His limbs twisted on their own; apart from the thought that it hurt, nothing came to him.
By contrast, Tamo felt the greatest stimulation of his life.
"Kuhahaha! More! More!" He endured the powerful air pressure and leapt up, his body convulsing.
Sein looked to the sky. "No."
Ultima's eye had finally crossed the halfway point and revealed its true form.
"Uuuugh!"
As the compromise broke, memories of reality poured into Shirone's group.
'This will be annihilation.'
Thinking only of dying or fainting, Sein swiveled his Iron Wheel Eye to the front.
The Sun-Moon Light Wheel's power slowed Tamo's movements, and Kangnan lunged like a beast.
"Yaaaaah!" The moment her knee struck Tamo's flank, a tremendous recoil threw her back.
"Ugh! He's stronger!"
Heat shimmered around Tamo's body.
"All right, let's finish this." The instant he pushed off, his body vanished and bullets rained down like a storm.
Gaold, Sein, and Kangnan coordinated their attack while Miro and Shirone couldn't move.
"What is this?" Memories of reality flooded in, mixing five-and-five with the dream memories and leaving everyone disoriented.
"Mister." Miro understood. 'So that's it. He really... protected me.'
"Aaaargh!" Nearly unconscious, Gaold kept driving Air Presses into Tamo.
"Weak! Weak!"
With the rules of the 1.5th floor completely shattered, Tamo's skill overwhelmed them all.
"Ueeeek!" Gaold finally collapsed, coughing blood. Miro stepped in front of him.
"Come at me!"
She still didn't know what was real. But one fact remained the same in both visions: she had to protect them.
"Gaold." At the sound of the voice that had been fading in memory, Gaold snapped his head up.
A hail of bullets obscured sight.
"Ugh!"
At the same time, Shirone's dream and reality memories overlapped so completely he lost his bearings.
The ideal of protecting humanity mixed with a nihilism that rendered even that ideal meaningless.
'I have to fight. To the end.' Yet the thought that nothing would change dragged Shirone's will toward the abyss.
'I can't fight.' His heart felt empty.
—A man...
Then, a voice that wasn't his echoed in his mind.
—existed.
His body burned hot and his chest filled as if his lungs were weighty with water.
— a story he didn't want to tell anyone.
"Aaaargh!" Shirone used a technique of the heart to stop the bullets heading for Miro.
—but in the end... everyone would learn it.
Someone's dream—so sad, so vast—began to unfold inside his head.
"Aaah—" Shirone's eyes went blank and he fell forward.
"Miro!" Gaold, his face now demonic, unleashed his strongest Air Press at Tamo.
"Kuhahaha!" Tamo's body caught fire.
'It hurts.' The process of his body tearing apart was vivid.
'He's alive.' Crushed and compressed to half—bones mashed—he looked at Gaold and said, "I—"
Then the other half of his body slumped to the ground and vanished without a drop of blood.
Kuuuuuuung! The earth caved in and a pillar of unholy flame shot skyward.
"Take cover!" Sein's Sun-Moon Light Wheel blocked the heat and shock as Gaold rolled, cradling Miro.
Kangnan cried in triumph, "We did it! We did it!"
"No. It's already too late." Sein looked up at the sky with a hollow expression; countless pupils stared back.
"The world is collapsing."
If the 1.5th floor vanished, everyone there would be swept away by Imir's unconsciousness.
'It's over.' As Sein closed his eyes, Miro leaned over Gaold's face and said, "Mister."
The girl pressed her lips to his forehead.
"You can stop fighting now. I know how you feel well enough."
Shock crossed Gaold's expression, and Ultima's eye began to retreat.
"Live here with me. When I grow up... I'll be your wife."
It was a perfect compromise.