Omega Year 999 (1)
The more people around the world who bore the spirit of the pyramids, the stronger the otherworldly mana became.
That amplified mana fed directly into the demons, fueling their assault on the impregnable Ivory Tower.
"Charge! Charge!"
Demons in shapes as if every creature on earth had been randomly crossbred with a human.
"We'll crush their intellect! True to the title of the First Legion, their force is such that even the Ivory Tower's stars are struggling to hold them."
Minerva shouted.
"Where's Shirone?"
Shirone, who had cast the Ataraxia Melee Domain, had already vanished deep into the demon ranks.
"I can't see him! He went into the Ivory Tower...!"
Or he hadn't been able to get in.
At that moment, a blinding sound erupted from the Tower's entrance and a pillar of light shot up.
'There he is.'
She felt the Melee Domain's power.
'He's desperate to save Taeseong. But he can't hold that long. We need to send support.'
The Ivory Tower stars concentrated their strength to breach the gate, but the demons' resistance only stiffened.
They'd tried to drive a wedge and split the rock, but instead they found themselves caught on the stone.
'We can't break it by brute force,' Minerva said.
"Mimun."
A woman's face bulged up from a pool of human blood.
"Yes, Fifth Star." She was a one-star resident of the Ivory Tower, a mimic whose ability could dissolve flesh like a slime.
"Abandon the battlefield and go to the Ivory Tower. Help Shirone. Someone has to get in."
"Understood."
As Mimun slid back into the blood, a familiar voice sounded behind them.
"Fifth Star."
Ariana—radiant and blond—had Mini perched against her cleavage.
Minerva turned all the way.
"Can't you two move like normal people?"
"Don't you know a Pair counts as one body? The demons are getting stronger. In an hour they'll probably surpass the Ivory Tower's combat power. We have to break through now."
"And your plan?"
"We use the wedge operation to the extreme. Mass-teleport in a triangular formation to fling the demons away. When a void opens for a split second, we hit with everything."
It sounded plausible.
"A modest wedge won't do. It has to be enormous. And if we mass-teleport in, we'll land and be trampled to death the moment we arrive."
Mini steeled herself to die.
"Then Ariana and I should do it. The Corona Kingdom doesn't have a skill that leaves only our allies behind."
Ariana added, "Besides, Shirone is fighting at the front. Our division should handle this."
"Big sister."
A voice came from the defense line.
"Sorry."
The bodies of three-star resident Gale, his satellite Moscotchi, and Mimun's satellite Mari were torn apart.
"Ha ha ha! We're winning!"
The remaining stars were giving their all, but they looked unlikely to hold another five minutes.
'Right. Good work, you trash.'
Most of the stars in the Humanity Safety Enforcement Department had once threatened humanity themselves.
"Fine. We'll go with that strategy," Minerva said.
"But I'll carry it out. I'll fling the demons— you go in and break through the entrance to help Shirone."
"But—"
Minerva shook her head.
"If you're going to do it, be decisive. Besides, if I do it there's at least a chance of survival, isn't there?"
It was a sad lie.
"Yes. Sorry."
"Prepare."
As the order scattered the stars, Minerva looked back toward the Ivory Tower.
'Shirone.'
You've gotten pretty.
'Thanks for saying that.'
By the changes in the Law, she was no longer a witch who incited people's desires.
'But—'
The wound carved into her heart was far too deep to be soothed by that.
'I am still a witch. The Great Witch of an era that drove countless people to death.' Minerva's body shrank into that of a ten-year-old girl.
'Nothing can wash that away.' Her mind remembered.
The time she was seized by adults and made to suffer, occupying that child's body.
- It hurts! It hurts!
- It's okay.
It's not me who's hurting.
"Ugh—!"
Tears ran down the child's face.
'Back then I realized.'
When I moved my jaw to chew, no one paid attention.
'Just repeat, and repeat, and repeat until your own desire is satisfied...'
What is a human?
'Nothing but a machine that torments others.'
She was ready to pay any price, but one thing would never change.
'I don't regret it.'
She could not forgive humans.
'So, Shirone.' Do not forgive me.
Minerva's Spirit Zone held a wedge shape as it expanded at tremendous speed.
Friend-or-foe identification among tens of thousands finished in an instant and her body began to glow.
"Mass Teleport."
A triangular light sprang into being in the demons' camp and then vanished as if it had evaporated.
"There's the entrance!" Mini shouted.
Though it was a needle-thin passage, it was the only way in.
"Charge!"
Corona's forces roared, and the remaining stars hurled themselves at the entrance.
A dull impact echoed from a snowy mountain twenty kilometers from the Ivory Tower.
"Ugh!"
Minerva's body, having taken the blow with a jet, was imprinted on the ice cliff like an engraving.
The demons bristled with fury.
"You pathetic things."
Given the demons' abilities, they needed at least twenty kilometers' distance to buy time.
But these demons were elite veterans of the First Legion who had fought world wars.
"Don't think we'll just kill you." As the mass teleport altered the situation, they pressed Minerva.
Cracks spidered across the ice cliff and Minerva fell ten meters.
"Hah."
The ten-year-old leaned her back against the wall and looked at the demons with a face that had surrendered everything.
'Wait, trash. Big sister will be there soon too.'
The demons approached.
"Heh, seems you've given up. Well, there's no one here to help you."
Her body drew inward.
"You won't be able to move a finger. You mustn't commit suicide, right? I wonder how many hours you'll last."
"Suicide."
Minerva snorted.
'It might have been better. If I had died and vanished alone, that great calamity might not have happened.'
The Walking Dead she'd unleashed had killed countless people.
'Was I afraid of dying?' She'd even tried to hang herself once, but couldn't die because—
'Anger.'
She was so furious she wanted to die, and angrier at herself for being unable to.
'I wanted to truly die!'
Even with a rope at her neck, the faces of those who were still alive haunted her.
'I'll kill them all!'
She had become a witch.
"Brats, you think you're anything? Driven by mere human emotion." As a murderous light flared in Minerva's eyes, the power that bound her snapped.
"Do you know who I am?"
She lifted her long pipe and watched the demons flood the scene.
"I was the one who made ."
"Kill her!"
A stream of foul smoke poured from her mouth.
Walking Dead.
Twenty minutes later.
"Ugh! Ugh!"
With both legs broken and her right shoulder dislocated, Minerva crawled over the snow.
"Tough bitch."
Only seven demons remained.
"Hah. Hah."
She crawled to the cliff edge and leaned back; the demons grinned as they approached.
"Too bad. If luck had favored you, you might've pulled off that legendary operation and still lived."
Minerva spat blood from her mouth.
"So what? Idiot."
Without the archmage's mental fortitude, she would already be dead.
"Heh, that's more like it. It'll be hard to bear your dead comrades' debts."
She twitched the left hand that lay on the ground.
"Come then. Try it."
Even facing death, such murderous intent rose from her that the demons' faces soured.
"What the—? She's nastier than demons."
"Enough. We don't have time. Finish this quickly. Once we peel the skin off, she'll scream on her own."
Thinking she had no strength left, the demons came and touched her arm.
'I will never cry.'
A gray sky filled her vision.
'Yeah, I'm going soon too, trash. You'll be tormented for a few hours, I guess.'
"Start from here."
As the blade slid for her wrist—cold as ice—the wind sang.
Lines appeared over the demons' bodies, and in an instant they began to split into pieces.
"Who the hell—! Ugh!"
When the last demon fell with its throat cut, a familiar figure shimmered before her.
"Shirone?"
She shook her head.
'No, different.'
The face matched Shirone's exactly, but the cold in its eyes was far from Yahweh's spirit.
'Perhaps.'
She spoke aloud.
"—Sacred Brain."
Formally it was some unknown's brain, but Minerva had a rough idea.
"What brings you all the way here?"
As if uncomfortable with small talk, the brain erased Shirone's image and returned to its original form.
"Answer me. You weren't involved in the faction fights—why the sudden change of heart?"
The brain unfolded another illusion.
She'd seen many of its faces, but she could say with certainty she'd never seen this one.
So this was its true form and also...
"You're a Gaian, right?"
Metallic hair hung long; there were no eyebrows and its expression was calm.
The Sacred Brain said, "I am Adam. The beginning of all humans and the last Gaian left in this world."
He corrected himself.
"Strictly speaking, I'm a brain."
"Seems so. But that's not what's important. Why are you here?"
"To say goodbye."
"Goodbye?"
Minerva snorted.
"You know the standards Taeseong uses to determine a four-star rating. Even if you're in the same department, you wouldn't be my subordinate, would you?"
Adam looked to the sky.
"He became a star of the Ivory Tower and imitated countless human lives to decode the Law. I'm only sorry about your life. It's my responsibility."
"For what?"
"For everything. We ruined things. It wasn't only her fault. I should have stopped it."
"Uolin?"
Adam did not answer.
"The end is approaching. Only my brain can compute the Law. I will undo what was done wrong."
"Don't talk nonsense. I won't let you off that easily. Kill me. That's the atonement you owe me."
"Not yet, my daughter."
Adam rose into the heavens, wrapped in a cloud of light.
"Death is not the only atonement. Existence is subordinated to necessity; one day you will understand your purpose."
If Adam truly could compute the Law, those words couldn't be dismissed.
"Where are you going?"
Adam glanced beyond the sky.
"To Eve."
Minerva watched a streak of light fly off and let her body collapse to the side.
"Ugh! Ugh!"
She crawled, grabbed her pipe, lay down, and drew once.
"Ha."
The gray clouds looked like the faces of her subordinates.
"Sorry. Can I live a little longer?"
At that moment, as if by magic, the blizzard cleared and sunlight fell over the snowy mountain.