[502] Wholeheartedness (1)
"Even if life deceives you, do not be sad or angry."
Woorin glanced past Gando and gave a bitter smile.
"That's just how life is."
"...."
Gando stayed silent.
If it were true, then Woorin—the mitochondrial Eve—was, by all accounts, an unfortunate woman.
But what mattered to Gando in that moment was why he had been summoned to the empress's office out of the blue to hear such a strange speech.
"Is there some task you would have me carry out…?"
At the blunt honesty of a man with no room for calculation, Woorin let out a hollow laugh.
Former captain of the Magic Association guard—Gando of Thunder.
In truth, he was the biological son of Kashan's former empress Mistra, assigned as an agent to watch Gaold's movements.
Mistra had never raised Gando, so Woorin felt no maternal affection toward him.
Did Gando, then, truly see her as his mother?
"I do have something for you to do."
"I will carry out whatever you command."
Gando bowed immediately, head lowered.
He was only a certified Grade 4 mage, but he still had his head because, after finishing the duty assigned at his birth, he had chosen to become Woorin's dog for life.
Woorin tried on a benevolent, motherly expression, then decided it didn't suit her and spoke plainly.
"Stand. There'll still be some time before everything ends. Before that, keep me company for a while."
Gando didn't ask what she meant by everything ending.
Approach a mitochondrial Eve with clumsy curiosity and ten lives wouldn't be enough.
"Understood. I will listen."
"Hoho, it's boring, isn't it."
Woorin opened a bottle of strong liquor on the table.
Even before she poured, a hot scent rose from it.
She filled a crystal glass with ice, poured, and handed it to Gando.
Whether he hesitated or not, she filled her own glass and swallowed about a third of it.
"Haaah."
Her clear red tongue writhing, Woorin exhaled steam up toward the ceiling.
The empress of Kashan—normally none of this—seemed somehow sad today.
"Gando."
"Yes."
Mother.
Gando swallowed the last word.
"The human heart is a strange thing. Something insignificant can grow and grow until it swallows everything whole."
Gando intended only to listen.
"For ages, Teraze made Kashan the greatest empire. In that process there were countless obstacles."
Woorin traced through Teraze's memories.
"Among them, there was one occasion when Kashan nearly fell entirely."
Had that happened?
Gando, who had studied Kashan's history as Mistra's son, had never heard of it.
"Even now, countless forces watch for a chance to take Kashan. They might crush us by force, sow discord, apply economic pressure—there are many ways. Which would you choose?"
Gando shook his head without thinking.
"I would choose none."
Kashan was the strongest empire, one pillar of the Tri-Emperors. History showed nameless mobs could not take it.
"True. Kashan is strong. But it's not impossible. In fact, it's terribly simple. To take this vast empire..."
"What method is that?"
Though he'd volunteered to listen, Gando couldn't help asking.
"The heart."
Woorin lifted one corner of her mouth, as if to acknowledge the emptiness of the answer.
"If Teraze—if I, the empress of Kashan—simply gave it away."
Gando could not refute her.
None of the many ways to seize Kashan felt easier than the solution Woorin offered.
'And that... actually happened?'
Woorin recalled that time.
She hadn't directly experienced it, but the memory—poisoned—seeped into her new body and pricked at her chest.
"There was only one thing you can only cast away. Something you can never take back. Something that can grow larger than Kashan, larger than anything in this world."
As Teraze's historical records deepened, the incident had been buried in a vast database, but today she wanted to pull it up.
Her instinct—as one who possessed foresight—told her this might be the last day.
Woorin smiled sadly.
It was a full, feminine smile she had never shown before.
"That is the human heart, Gando."
* * *
Shirone's pupils were fixed on the sky, his body arched like a drawn bow.
The paralysis from instantly activating Ataraxia lasted only fifteen seconds.
It showed how focused Shirone's mind was—he couldn't even speak.
Ikael's eyes shook violently as she watched him.
'Why would he do that...!'
Ataraxia was a trigger for amplification.
It could amplify Shirone's mind, but the aftermath was the real problem.
To amplify everything was to exceed limits.
As Ikael understood it, that was the most extreme form amplification could take.
An explosion.
Blow up the mind to unleash tremendous power.
It was a phenomenon possible only by throwing one's whole heart into it, and the result was unimaginably strong.
But an explosion, true to the name, was instantaneous; after everything detonated, nothing would remain but shattered wreckage.
'Kuuuu!'
Shirone waited inside the vastly expanding consciousness for the moment he could move.
For the first time in his life—perhaps something no amount of training in a lifetime could reach—an immense sensation spread outward.
"Shi, Shirone..."
Even Jonar Plu could not gauge Shirone's Spirit Zone.
And it was almost certain—one hundred percent—that Shirone's condition would turn out badly.
"Shirone!"
Plu teleported and flew toward Shirone.
But even faster, the Archangel of Oblivion, Paiel, reached Shirone's side.
Hooooh!
The light-formed features under Paiel's hood swirled like cappuccino foam, being sucked toward the center.
Even an archangel felt the crisis; Shirone's Spirit Zone far exceeded normal bounds.
Judicial Halo—Apateia.
The magic circle spun, darkened, and began to draw in Shirone's Spirit Zone.
Plu, growing more frantic, slammed off the ground and launched a phoenix at the archangel who meant only death.
'I have to do it!'
Just as Crud had thrown his heart and Shirone had thrown his into Ataraxia, she too, as a mage, threw everything she had into the act.
'If I can buy even one second. No—0.1 second.'
The moment determination locked into her mind, Paiel turned his head sharply.
She, poised to activate her phoenix stance, froze at the sight of Paiel's face.
There was the edge of the abyss.
"Kyaaaah!"
A scream slipped out, and Paiel's hand swung lazily into her vision.
Her reflexes felt roughly a hundred times slower than normal.
Certain of death, Paiel suddenly turned toward Shirone.
'This is...'
The Spirit Zone Shirone had been sucked into Apateia vanished in an instant.
Simultaneously, a flash fell from the sky and struck where Paiel had stood.
Kwaaaang!
The shockwave alone sent Plu tens of meters through the air.
Paiel, who'd narrowly evaded, tilted his head in incomprehension and peered toward Shirone.
"Huuuugh!"
Shirone's mind kept expanding, and even he did not know when that explosion would end.
But that no longer mattered.
'I will not forgive.'
The wholeheartedness he threw into Ataraxia was nothing but that.
"Hooooo!"
Enraged that a mere human had forced him back, Paiel unleashed the Dirge of Oblivion.
He dove at blinding speed and swung a black hand at Shirone.
Shirone's eyes widened with sudden realization.
"Berserk."
Flash!
A brightness so fierce it could blind spread outward, and everything within a hundred-meter radius was driven back as if iron filings to a magnet.
A pulse beating a thousand times per second.
Even Paiel could not escape the curtain of light that throbbed at a thousand heartbeats per second.
And there were two hundred of them.
Elysion—Multiple Rampages.
"Kraaaah!"
Trapped in the overlapping veils of light, Paiel's body bounced across kilometers of space within a single second.
'A mere human...!'
Paiel threw his limbs wide to maximize his obliterating power.
"Uooooo!"
His body, turned to shadow, tore through the rampages and finally stuck in place.
Chains of light wrapped around him.
Shining Chains.
"Kruuuugh!"
Paiel's body trembled in the Shining Chains.
He strained to break free, but the harder he fought, the tighter the light constricted.
Kwakwak—thud!
Bound by chains, Paiel was slammed into the ground at speeds too many to count.
Then, as the chains released, his body was flung toward the far horizon.
Shirone bent his knees as Paiel had already become a mere speck.
Radiant Wings.
The moment the wings of light spread wide, they vanished instantaneously.
Fwoooom!
Shirone's body, whipped by the wings at incredible speed, instantly closed on Paiel and surged.
Air friction alone transformed Armand's robe into Ringer's mineral matter, coating Shirone's body.
Like a gigantic metal shot ripping the air, Shirone flew above Paiel and fired a photon cannon.
Bang!
From the ground, Plu watched a terrifying sphere of light.
A photon cannon twenty meters in diameter.
Ghhh!
Paiel, swept by the cannon's flash, plummeted and drove deep into the earth, disappearing far below.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Shirone, still in the sky, spawned dozens of enormous photon cannons of the same size.
Even from a distance, Plu's eyes saw them like dozens of suns.
Kuruurrrrung!
The clustered photon cannons fell; their massive weights slammed into the ground and the earth trembled.
"This is impossible..."
Plu could hardly believe her eyes.
Each step carried the usual power of a photon cannon that pierced Ataraxia.
He hadn't amplified a single spell—he had amplified the mind itself—and the result was inevitable. The more she understood it, the deeper Ikael's fear grew.
"Stop, Shirone!"
No one could sustain that state forever.
Even an archangel, once his mind had exploded, had no way to recover.
Ikael threw herself at Shirone with everything she had, and Satiel, who'd been momentarily distracted by the battle, bared her eyes and followed close behind.
"Where do you think you're going!"
Meanwhile, a cloud of dust a kilometer wide billowed where Paiel had struck.
The smoke, spreading slowly on a massive scale, suddenly began to be drawn toward the center.
Hooooh!
Paiel, hurled deep underground, used Apateia to obliterate everything around him and shot up from a pit hundreds of meters deep.
Shirone was already waiting there.
"You Nephilim scum...!"
Paiel lunged at Shirone with a loathsome snarl.
But he couldn't advance even a meter; his strength gave out and he fell to his knees with a thud.
"Grah!"
Something that should never have happened had happened.
What kind of human could force an archangel who'd given his all to his knees?
'No...'
Paiel recalled a memory and lifted his head.
There had been such a man.
In heaven's history, the most powerful human who had stood against countless archangels.
The Gaian's name was—
"McClain Goffin."