[219] 7. Heaven (2)
Baalb, called the god of anesthesia in some civilizations, was a mara that put all living things to sleep and grafted them into its own organs.
Sleep degrades living beings to the state of the inanimate.
Those caught by Baalb were no different from objects, forced to spend their lives as parts of the monster.
- Progress of Ilhwa's Ritual: 90 percent.
The over‑100‑ton Baalb flailed its clumsy bulk and gave chase to Shirone. Forelegs like those of a quadruped burst from its shoulders and smashed into the floor.
The Great World Arena thundered.
"Kiki! How is it? The might of two hundred and sixty lions. Soon you'll all be parts of my body."
- Progress of Ilhwa's Ritual: 91 percent.
Once it passed ninety percent, the voice announced every single percentage. Shirone's heart sank at the thought that only nine percent remained.
"…Rone! Shirone!"
Canis's shout snapped him back.
"What are you staring off for? If you've prepared something, use it. You didn't charge in blind, did you?"
If Canis had rushed in just because Shirone's magic had improved a little, he'd rather cast Dark Worm on himself.
Better to die than become part of a sleep‑mara and suffer forever.
Hearing Canis, Shirone remembered the magic circle Ikael had given him.
But even if he could form a halo, he couldn't deploy it instantly like an angel.
"There is one thing…."
"Then do it! Why are you hesitating?"
Twenty crablike legs erupted from Baalb's lower body.
The rapidly moving legs shoved forward a hundred tons of mass, and Shirone and Canis both leapt aside.
Baalb sprang ten meters and crushed the patch of ground where they had stood.
The Great World Arena shook; iron filings fell from the ceiling.
"I need time. Can you buy me a moment?"
Canis exhaled. So that was it, then.
But how long could they hold this mara that was already dangerous even to face sober?
"Ten seconds. I absolutely can't hold more than that."
"Please—just a minute."
The instant Shirone moved, Baalb lashed out with an octopus‑like limb. When Canis launched himself like a flying squirrel, a wet tentacle smashed into the floor.
"Kihahaha! Running away suits you. I suppose that's the only virtue weak things have."
"Hmph! Don't get cocky when you can't even move properly."
Canis gathered himself and counted the seconds. The gap in strength was extreme, but if they devoted themselves only to evasion, it wasn't entirely impossible. Mosquitoes can't beat humans—but that doesn't mean they can't flee for a minute, right?
Rian gripped his greatsword and rose.
"I… have to go."
They couldn't wait forever. Since Shirone was preparing something, Rian had to buy time with Canis.
At that moment Peope glanced outside and cried out.
"Th—that one!"
Rian turned to see Imir, king of the giants, charging with rage burning in his eyes. He was clearly aiming for Shirone, the one who had humiliated him.
Imir rammed with everything his damaged body could muster and shoved Rian aside. Rolling, Rian snatched up his greatsword and blocked the route to Shirone.
What the—? Why?
He'd risked his life, but he hadn't expected Imir to be driven back. It felt as if Imir's strength had weakened since before.
Imir brushed the dust off his knees and rose.
"Third time. But it's getting dull now, isn't it?"
"I am Shirone's sword. You will never reach him while I live."
Thanks to Peope's telepathy, they could understand each other's words. Imir frowned, disappointed.
"You're wrong. Strength does not exist to protect. Its essence is destruction. You who cannot grasp that will never stop me."
Imir moved like the wind. His raw power seemed diminished, but his agility had increased.
A rain of blows hammered Rian. Already broken as he was, Rian couldn't counter.
But that was enough. As long as he lived, Imir would not reach Shirone.
"Hold on. If we endure a little longer, we can at least die with peace."
Imir's eyes reddened. No matter how he struck Rian, he wouldn't fall. Imir destroyed everything in sight, and yet Rian stood as if reserve remained.
"Rian! Rian! Stop it, you bastard!"
Tess screamed, her face streaming with tears.
"Please stop hitting him! He'll die!"
Imir's assault didn't cease. This was a madness unlike ordinary combat.
Life colliding with life struck the skin as a palpable thing.
How amusing. A most interesting human.
"Magnificent! To destroy you is my mission!"
Rian's body convulsed with the sound of tearing.
Tess closed her eyes, but she still felt it—Rian's dying passing through her senses.
Through tears she cried to Kariel.
"All right! I'll bear them! If they're Nephilim, I'll have as many as you want, so please stop!"
Kariel did not waver.
"Bearing Nephilim is natural. And Imir is not under my control."
- Progress of the Ritual of Life: 96 percent.
Imir paused and drew a ragged breath. It was shocking—what on earth was this human made of?
He should have been dead. No, death would have been normal.
He stood there without even raising a guard, without a trace of life force.
Yet he still gripped the greatsword.
How? Imir's right arm muscles had been crushed. It should've been impossible to hold metal with ligaments alone.
No—he must be nothing but a corpse, stiffened.
Despite the certainty of victory, it felt hollow.
"I will end this!"
Imir ground his teeth, widened his stride, and raised his fist for the finishing blow.
At that moment, Rian's greatsword rose into the air—very slowly. When Imir widened his view he saw that only Rian moved within the Arena.
Damn. This again.
Having seen countless wars, Imir called it the seesaw of time. When the world's speed suddenly surges, to the one on the receiving end time seems to flow more slowly.
As one side speeds up, the other slows.
Which meant, the slower Imir's time felt, the faster Rian's arm was moving.
Damn it!
Imir realized why the boy before him could move despite a shattered body.
His mind had not been destroyed. That intact mind was directly moving the body.
A technique that transcended the biological mechanism where mind commands body.
An incarnation technique only top‑tier giants could use.
Since schema were originally giant arts, incarnation was analogous to certain human concepts.
The schema tests that strengthened the brain used mental locks to control the body.
But taken to an extreme, mind and body become one, and the body follows thought.
In the human realm this phenomenon is called "divine transcendence."
"Kuk. Wish you'd been like this from the start."
Imir twisted, aiming at Rian's greatsword as it pointed to the ceiling.
Just when he thought he'd tilted enough to dodge, the flow of time snapped back violently.
Rian's greatsword vanished from sight. At the same time, the severed right arm spun midair.
Imir's face soured. The faster Rian moved, the slower his time flowed. Even so, that he couldn't avoid it perfectly meant there was never any way to avoid it from the start.
Puff—puff—paff!
The moment the greatsword struck the ground, Rian's right arm burst. Torn muscle flapped and bone lay fully exposed.
The body could not withstand the speed of divine transcendence.
- Progress of the Ritual of Life: 97 percent.
The Ritual of Life raced toward its finale. Human lives were also waning. Canis, struck by Baalb's tentacle, flew tens of meters and slammed into the wall.
He did not get up.
"Baalb, stop this."
"Yes, Kariel!"
Having defeated Canis, Baalb lunged at Shirone. The minute they had set at the start had already passed. Yet Shirone showed no sign of change.
"Shirone! Danger!"
Shirone heard nothing. Opening the Immortal Function to its limit and reversing it left no room for nerves to intervene.
"Kahahaha! I'll hang you on my ugliest place!"
A scorpionlike tail snapped from Baalb's back. A black droplet hung from its stinger.
One prick would anesthetize even dragons—that was the potency of the sleep poison.
At that instant Shirone's eyes snapped open. A two‑meter circle erupted with a boom, and Baalb's attack rebounded off the shockwave.
Kariel watched, bewilderment crossing his face.
"No way? No, that can't be."
A human could not wield an angelic power. It made no sense.
So why did his stomach twist with unease? What was that petty, anxious feeling?
"Baalb! There's no time!"
"Kieeeee!"
At Kariel's command Baalb screamed and launched a body attack, its hideous face full of terror.
Shirone's halo spun at light speed and a red dot fixed at its center. The original magic circle began to call forth countless concepts.
An angel's magic circle.
The Infinite Judicial Halo—Halo.
Kariel stared at the multitude of circles blooming like lotuses from the halo and could not hide his shock.
It was truly a Halo.
A human realizing one on his own was impossible. Clearly someone had passed it to him.
Who would do such a thing? What mad angel in Heaven would teach a human the Halo?
While Kariel remained stunned, Peope flew to the women.
"Hurry! Hurry!"
"Got it! Wait a little!"
Applying spiral power, they twisted the handcuffs apart.
Thanks to Canis having severed more than half, Peope's ability could destroy the cuffs without trouble.
Even so, Kariel could not tear his eyes away from the Halo.
What was unfolding before him was a graver problem than the Nephilim.
An angel's betrayal shook Heaven's foundations.
He had to know who taught it.
And he had to obliterate that existence.
Baalb summoned every movable organ to press Shirone down. But its attacks stalled as if blocked by an invisible barrier before they reached him.
"Kik! Kik!"
It gave everything it had, but to no avail. As a child cannot kill its mother, the authority of higher beings recorded in the Law barred approach itself.
When prismatic flashes struck the Halo, countless magic circles formed and meshed like cogs.
Once the information density exceeded eighty percent, the concepts shifted and rotation speed accelerated.
The halo spun at an unimaginable speed, as if it alone could tear the world apart.
Baalb's face drained as it grasped the concept contained in the circle. Its legs gave out and it thudded to its rear.
The mara had met the thing it feared most.
"Hiek! Ata…! Ata…!"
Baalb crawled toward Kariel with every available limb. But it was so stunned it couldn't properly push against the ground.
Resigned, Baalb turned and shouted.
"Kariel! Dodge! It's the Super‑Power Amplification Formation—Ataraxia!"
Kariel knew. Yet he did not move. Thoughts crowded his mind so heavily it felt as if time itself stopped.
Ataraxia.
Heaven's strongest judicative—an ability that had subjugated countless angels. Ikael's signature, something that could make any mara scream.
She had passed such a power to a human?
Impossible.
It was more plausible his eyes were deceiving him and that the Ikael standing there only looked like a boy.
'Ikael, have you truly… gone mad?'
No—she had not.
She genuinely intended to stop the war. She had resolved to stand with humanity, even renouncing the honor of being Heaven's strongest angel.
- Information Transmission Rate: 98 percent.
Kariel's body trembled. Two percent remained. And Ataraxia awaited.
He could feel Shirone's gaze fixed on him. Could a human really wield that?
It might be an illusion. The Ritual of Life had to continue. But if this was reality…
He would be annihilated.
"Ikaeeeel!"
As Kariel let out a cry of rage, Shirone's Photon Cannon fired.