[253] Another Sky (3)
Tears welled in Mark's eyes too. But he never let them fall.
"We can do it too."
Maria turned to Mark, a little surprised.
"We'll keep trying. I'll challenge senpai no matter what. I might not win, but I'll make him face me with everything I've got. So don't talk like that. Say it again and I won't go with you anymore."
"Mark…"
Iruki snorted and smiled.
"There's no such thing as talent in this world."
Mark and Maria both looked at him.
"To be precise, there's no talent you can neatly label. A madman won't be good at math, but he could still become a great painter. Magic covers every field. Shirone's insight or Dante's information-processing ability won't guarantee the future. You don't need to envy what others have. If you bring your own thing up to the highest level, maybe one day you'll be able to topple Shirone."
"We—we never thought about that…"
Mark waved his hands, his face flushed. Topple Shirone—he'd never even dreamed of such a thing.
But hearing that from someone the world recognized as a genius made his confidence swell again.
For the first time, Mark felt that Iruki was like a senpai.
Dante frowned at the flood of information. Sequences of zeros and ones raced through his mind at the speed of light. It was Shirone's data layered on top of Pascal's.
I can do it! I'm catching up!
In the speed contest, Dante began to gain the edge. It was the difference between a living brain and a machine. A living organism's endurance drops slowly, but an automaton performs at full function until the moment it self-destructs.
The students watched as Pascal's offensive spells gradually tightened around Shirone. Shirone's teleportation radius shrank; in ten seconds he looked likely to fall into the movement-zero zone.
Even so, Shiina dared not predict the outcome.
Shirone's path was clearly being narrowed, but Dante's mental reserves were nearly exhausted as well.
Can Dante hold on?
Shiina watched the gauge's decline with focused eyes.
He can. At this rate, Dante will win.
Shiina wanted Shirone to win a little, but Dante definitely deserved victory. Especially the automaton's responsiveness—among professionals, that was a force to be reckoned with.
Five seconds. Four seconds.
The moment of Shirone's checkmate approached.
The Wind Cutter's firing radius narrowed, and the fully charged bolt in the Electric Mansion waited to launch.
The instant Shirone's path was completely blocked arrived.
Dante found the Electric Cannon's address in the memory matrix and transmitted it to Pascal in an instant.
Now!
The moment Dante thought that—
Now!
Shirone thought the same.
As the Electric Cannon's energy filled the Mansion, a concentrated flash focused before Shirone's eyes.
Dante sneered. No matter how strong a Photon Cannon was, a full-power Electric Cannon would destroy it and dominate the space.
At that instant Shirone cast his trump spell.
Shining Impact!
Photons, compressed by unifying their polarization, exploded.
Then Dante's mind, which had been full of zeros and ones, was flooded with information consisting only of ones.
The simplest—but unprocessable—magnitude of information.
Pascal overloaded and the automaton froze instantly. The students were stunned. Shirone had produced a burst of light that paralyzed Dante's system.
A strategy that couldn't be used twice. Clearly Shirone had saved this single opportunity for the moment.
Dante's mind went as pale as the Shining Impact. For a calculation that processed thousands of data points per second to suffer nearly a one-second blank was fatal.
Dante covered his face with both hands. He couldn't even predict what coming attack to expect.
But Shirone did not move. When he focused, a vivid light was born before him and traced a huge circle—the angelic magic circle he had honed through lifting training: the Halo.
Nade jumped up and shouted, "Ataraxia!"
Shirone's trump technique had appeared. But Nade soon wore a puzzled expression.
Even if the ring completed, information accumulation was another matter. It needed at least a minute; it wasn't ready for real combat.
Iruki frowned. "A terrible play."
Nade agreed in silence, and Iruki continued, "But it's the only play. We did everything we could. If not now, the chance to activate Ataraxia won't come."
Dante barely clung to his slipping consciousness. He hadn't expected Shirone to explode light and paralyze his system.
But there were no more chances.
Shirone, too, had burned through all his strategies and was making a final, desperate struggle. As Pascal's functions returned, the Mansions began to turn toward Shirone in unison.
Even while watching the ominous floating magic circle, Shirone concentrated on constructing the Halo. Pale flashes traced a path based on pi and returned to their starting point. At last the angelic Halo rose before Shirone like a shield.
"Ugh! What is that!" Boil clutched his head and howled. A summoner's sense of measurement ran on a different axis from other mages. For someone who could notice a one-millimeter error, a perfect ring was a violent affront.
Iruki saw Boil's condition and intuited the cause. It was a shock delivered in a microscopic world indistinguishable by ordinary senses.
To his eyes, there was no visible difference between a normal circle and a perfect circle. But what about Dante, who could naturally read information entropy?
"Argh!" As Iruki guessed, Dante strained, veins standing out in his neck. With the mental shock, Pascal's functions plunged.
Damn it! What is that circle?
Iruki allowed himself a sliver of hope. Shirone had clearly calculated this and activated Ataraxia.
But would that be enough?
Boil had already recovered from the shock—ironically because his level was low.
Amy remembered what had happened in Heaven.
I see. So that's why Baalv—
Ataraxia took a form that delivered even stronger shock to those who had reached higher levels.
Only now did she understand the scene in Heaven where the Mara in its second form had staggered back before Shirone's Ataraxia.
So who here would suffer most from the Halo's arrival?
Amy turned to Olivia. As expected, Olivia's shoulders trembled.
What on earth is that…
Olivia bit her lip.
Placed at the peak of human senses, she almost lost consciousness at the sight of the Halo.
She held on by the strength of a great mage's mind, but a momentary blank was fatal at her level. It was a level Shirone couldn't have attained at his current rank.
It's a circle no human ability could make. What are they trying to put into a space that could contain the entire world?
The concept of Ataraxia began assembling within the Halo.
From outside the ring, multicolored rays rained down like a shower and were etched onto the magic circle like ripples.
Olivia found that phenomenon impossible too.
As far as she knew, information coming from outside a magic circle was impossible. The speed of accumulation approached light speed and caused visual illusions for human eyes.
This is absurd…
When Olivia realized that much, shock swept her eyes. If the accumulation really neared light speed, any magic circle should complete in less than a second. Yet after ten seconds it still wasn't finished; instead the speed was accelerating.
This was dangerous.
Dante judged the same. A colossal concept was being assembled. If left unchecked, the advantage they'd fought for would be completely lost.
"I can't leave it be."
Dante activated the Electric Mansion. Electricity—white and blue together—spat out with the sound of wood splitting.
Shirone flung himself desperately. Ataraxia was only half-formed. Moreover, with the automaton back to full function, the barrage resumed.
Amy frowned in regret. It really had been impossible to use in a real battle. In the end, even the last chance gained by the Shining Impact had been wasted.
"Huh?"
At that moment Amy's eyes flashed. Iruki and Nade watched the Halo with disbelief.
Information continued to accumulate in the ring. But that was impossible. Shirone was still darting here and there to avoid the barrage.
What is happening? How is this possible?
Iruki's mind raced. Was it possible to teleport and operate a magic circle at the same time? Shirone wasn't a servant, nor could he operate Pascal like Dante.
It must be a parallel circuit. No—does it only look parallel?
A flash crossed his mind.
That's it!
"Iruki, what is it?" Amy asked in astonishment. Iruki, unable to contain his excitement, shouted, "Time division. He's doing time division."
Nade slapped his knee as realization hit him. "Ah! That makes sense! If that's it, it's possible!"
"What's time division? Does that mean Shirone-senpai can use two magics at once?"
"It's splitting computation into time units. He's swapping the A cell and the B cell at an incredibly fast rate. ABABABAB—so it looks as if two magics are being deployed simultaneously."
Mark gaped. He had already split time by one ten-thousandth on an uncrossable bridge, but swapping two cells like that was a different level of difficulty. It was only possible because Shirone had insight more precise than mere knowledge.
Olivia was excited for the first time since the duel began.
Attempting time division—among frontline high mages, hardly anyone could do that.
Is Shirone evolving too?
Olivia glared at Alpheas with a burning look, then blinked in surprise.
A savage energy rolled across Alpheas's face; his mouth was split toward his ears in a grin that wouldn't close.
"Kukuku. Shirone, now you're starting to feel like yourself."
Alpheas hadn't expected Shirone to attempt time division. He felt like giving a standing ovation.
When he first heard about Ataraxia, he'd thought it would take at least four years. No matter how fast, he'd expected that long of training to use it in combat.
But Shirone had done it in just four months.
Using time division halves the speed of information accumulation, but compared to needing a minute of vulnerability to build the magic circle, that drawback was negligible.
Above all, he wanted to see how powerful it could be. Imagining the destructive force of information amassed for two minutes at near light speed sent electricity through his body.
Just a little more… just a little more!
Shirone replaced the cells with all his might. Time division felt like juggling with thoughts—if he missed even the afterimage of a memory for an instant, everything would be ruined.
In that state, dodging Dante's attacks wasn't easy. But he didn't want to lose. Titles like "best in the kingdom" meant nothing—if he couldn't beat Dante here, he felt he would never move forward again.
Dante's heart thudded with anxiety. The automaton's speed seemed like it might catch Shirone, yet it didn't.
Damn it! What's going on?
When, exactly, will that magic circle activate?
If only he could know that, he could form a strategy—but even he, who specialized in information magic, could not decode this strange concept. Such a combination shouldn't be possible, and above all, the magnitude of the information was enormous.