The End of History (2)
Kido spoke.
"Stand down."
It made sense—Habitz had lost a leg.
'This guy treats everything like a joke.' Still.
"This isn't a joke anymore."
He truly intended to destroy something. In a way, he was throwing his whole heart into this world.
"Uorin."
The charcoal-black man opened his eyes wide. The chaos that had always swirled in his irises had been compressed and compressed until it hardened into the cold resolve of a consummate enemy.
'Satan has no Vanishing. But maybe that won't matter anymore.'
Whether anyone noticed or not, Habitz would get what he wanted.
"Huuuu."
When Habitz exhaled, his body ignited and the surroundings began to burn away.
A grotesque vista of the shadow world—made of entrails and refuse—unfolded.
Kido stepped between it and Uorin.
'He burned the board.'
Habitz's flames had died, but embers still smoldered in the cracked seams of his flesh.
"I'll give you a chance."
There really wasn't one left to give.
"Give me Uorin. I'll kill him without pain. I promise—this time I'm not lying.
"You will feel real pain."
Those who heard that imagined the maximum suffering that could be inflicted on them.
Kido said, "That can't happen."
With Habitz's chaos broken, humanity now had a way to stand against Satan.
'We'll need a History Search. Probably to find that kid from a moment ago.'
To find the hyper-spatial mage they needed a future time scan.
'The only empty spot among the worldlines that map every human possibility. That's where he is.'
The mage—
"Choose."
With every step Habitz took, the soles of his feet turned into entrails.
The thought of how grotesque it was didn't last. Kido made his decision, pushed off the ground, and charged.
'Vanishing.'
Even if maintaining the chaotic state was difficult, Habitz had lost his power.
'I'll finish him in one strike.'
Kido's spear struck Habitz's throat—yet the steel spear went "poof" and burned away.
'What—?'
The blade had turned to charcoal but continued to burn like a wick, searing his hands.
"AAAAH!"
As Vanishing lifted and unbearable pain stabbed through him, Kido staggered back, hands trembling.
Uorin's face went pale.
"Ki—Kido."
Kido's eyes filled with tears as he checked his hands, now blackened and hard as coal.
'This is horrible.'
It was beyond endurance.
But the terrifying thing about pain is that it doesn't care who's suffering.
"Guhhh!"
His rigid hands hurt so much they barely moved, but Kido forced himself to act.
"AAAA!" The hardened shell split and raw flesh was exposed with a sickening rip.
"Hah! Hah!"
Even that was more sensation than he could bear.
"—Satan."
Everyone felt the gravity of the moment as Habitz spread his arms.
When his body ignited again, even the shadow-world landscape charred to black.
"This world—"
Kyaaaaaaaa!
Amid the screams of the dead, Habitz said, "Will turn to ash."
The Cruel Law: Death Field.
Where his touch landed, where his footsteps fell, only death would remain.
"Only suffering."
It was the world Cruelty defined at Omega's last moment.
Tes had tears in their eyes.
"Amy…"
Where the incarnation of Dae-il Yeorae had vanished, not even a strand of hair remained.
Complete annihilation—emptiness.
"…There would have been no suffering." Two dried streaks of blood ran down Nane's cheeks as she lifted her head.
"If this world is suffering, then closing it is right. Save sentient beings and lead them to the Pure Land."
Evil leaned into suffering; suffering leaned toward purification.
"I—"
A radiance like the sun spread from behind Nane.
"A Buddha."
A true Buddha.
By abandoning the only attachment left in this world—Amy—he became perfect.
And Shirone—
"What?…"
He stood with a crazed look and shouted at the sun.
"You bastard!"
In the silence where no one spoke, his voice rang out wide.
"AAAAH!"
Shirone launched himself alone and charged Nane at full speed.
"I'll kill you!"
There was no trace of the old Yahweh in his murderous eyes or rough tone.
"Teaching."
Nane rebuked him. "Stop."
The moment the crimson sword flashed and plunged into his solar plexus, Shirone's eyes went wide.
"Gah!"
Strength drained from him; even as he fell he hadn't fully understood.
'…Why?'
Why didn't Miracle Stream activate?
"Shirone."
Nane said calmly, "You are not Yahweh."
There is no one in this world he loves more than himself—how could he love anything else?
Shirone finally realized, but he had no desire to regain composure.
"Don't be ridiculous."
His face twisted into a snarl and Immortal Function shattered the Buddha's sermon.
'Yahweh or whatever.'
Nane—you're the one I will kill.
"Shirone! No!"
Miro shouted, but the hatred-blinded Shirone charged again.
"Photon Cannon."
Thousands upon thousands of spheres of light were born and fired, all converging on a single point.
"O foolish sentient beings." Watching the flashes gather like a vanishing point, Nane took a stance.
"Free yourselves from attachment."
Kraaa-BOOM!
A tremendous explosion rocked the air.
"What's that sound?"
Shiina, hiding in the cave, peered outside. Two kinds of magic crossed the sky, making it as bright as noon.
The blade and the orb.
She was a mage too and realized there could be no greater magics in the world than those.
"…Shiina."
A voice made her turn: Kuan approached with a shaken expression.
"I will… protect."
Hearing that, Shiina stopped hesitating and smiled.
"It's okay. It doesn't concern us. Get some more sleep—you must be tired."
Shiina pushed Kuan back. Turning their backs on the world left the nape of her neck cold, but taking someone who could do nothing to the battlefield would be madness.
"Shiina, I will protect."
Kuan persisted stubbornly.
No matter how she pushed him away, his determined return to the cave entrance felt wrong.
"What's wrong?"
The next moment the space trembled, and an entirely different scene bloomed where the forest had been.
It was an underground dungeon.
'Spatial magic.'
A difficulty only top-tier mages could wield.
"Success."
With a light word, something in human form stepped out.
'A person…? Is it even a creature?' Its body was white as if plastered; aside from being muscular, it lacked sexual organs.
"Mumyeong."
Shiina's voice trembled.
Though it felt different from how she had seen it in heaven, this one seemed even more stripped of any living trace.
"Haha, I found you."
With an innocent smile, Mumyeong approached Kuan.
"Don't come closer!"
Shiina activated Spirit Zone, but a bad memory flashed through her mind.
'This one steals others' abilities.' Or more accurately, it learns—but she didn't want to call it that.
"It's fine. I'm not interested in you." Mumyeong's gaze was fixed only on Kuan.
"You don't have to beat everyone."
Topple a high rank and you beat everything beneath them.
"This time will be different."
Mumyeong's arms stretched like strokes of meteor paint and turned into two swords.
He cocked his head at Kuan, who didn't react even facing an enemy.
"That's strange."
By his past-life memory this should have been an untouchable mastery.
"There's nothing to learn."
Dull and clumsy—he seemed more suited to the very bottom of the combat rankings.
"You've become incompetent."
Shiina's pride was more wounded than Kuan's.
"Don't say that! This person sacrificed himself to protect me!"
"To protect?"
Mumyeong remembered his mother giving birth.
"…I don't get it. If he's ranked higher, why would he sacrifice himself for you?"
'I can't reason with him.'
They couldn't fight either. Considering Armin barely stopped him with a stop spell, escape wasn't an option.
"Anyway, since you showed up, I'll at least take you down."
As Mumyeong pointed his sword at Shiina, a cold murderous intent rose.
'I can't win.'
At the moment that certainty became reality, Kuan moved for the first time.
"I will… protect." Mumyeong said.
"Step aside. No need to kill you. Your skill is worse than those I just killed…."
"Shiina… protect. I…"
Frowning at the foolish stubbornness, Mumyeong changed course.
"All right."
A little revenge against the one who had shoved him out of the hierarchy was acceptable.
"Your intelligence seems lower too, but watch closely. This is a realm beyond your old self."
Waves of ether spread as Mumyeong vanished, and white blades jutted out erratically from everywhere.
"How's that?"
A voice called from the left. "I have total mastery of the space. Where will you run now?" another voice answered from the right.
Kuan, staring in a daze at the spectacle, limped forward.
"No! Don't go in recklessly…!"
Shiina grabbed his shoulder and Kuan turned his head.
"Shiina."
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Smile."
Mumyeong's twin blades spun like spirals, compressing the space around the two of them.
The clownish fool.
The next instant, Kuan found himself in another space and habitually swung his sword.
No blood spattered, but behind him Mumyeong's head—standing where it had been—had been severed.
As Shiina shuddered, the fallen head on the ground opened its mouth.
"How—how? There was nowhere to dodge." "That's—?"
Heh heh, Kuan, who had been laughing a moment before, said, "You thought that."
'Really?'
Mumyeong blinked.
'I don't know.'
What on earth had that guy seen?
At the last moment that came again, the only memory Mumyeong could recall was one thing.
A being born from the union of Garas, obsessed with reproduction, and Adio, the angel of achievement.
'Mother, I'm sorry. Again this time… I didn't get first.'
No one ever told him it was okay.
Maybe that hurt more than being the best, Mumyeong thought.
Snapped out of her daze by the brief fight, Shiina hurried over.
"Kuan! Are you okay?"
"Heh heh."
Kuan seemed pleased.
"I protected you, Shiina."
In that moment she realized.
'He's not an idiot.'
Somehow above the norm.
She had thought she was protecting a wreck, but in truth she had been protected.
"Thank you."
In a world collapsing by the second, the safest person was Shiina.
"Together until the end."
She took Kuan's arm to lead him when applause sounded from the forest.
Clap! Clap! Clap!
Turning quickly, Shiina saw an elf-featured woman smiling.
"That was a moving fight. Truly excellent material."
"Who are you?"
If she was an elf she should be on humanity's side—but madness flickered in the woman's eyes.
"How should I introduce myself?" a male voice asked. "Illuminati."
The body's name was Erin; the one riding her mind called himself Crown.
"By the way, about that…"
Crown pointed at Kuan and asked, "It seems like there's no rider aboard?"