[705] God of the Desert (4)
* * *
Southern Akard Desert.
Taking the brunt of Noskarta's sandstorm stood the pyramid of the realm's most famous archmage.
Zulu's dungeon was a voided space where countless adventurers came seeking the secret of death.
But for now the place smelled unmistakably of people—the result of living with an unwelcome guest.
Kangnan, hair tied back in a tight knot, carried a basket of wet laundry into the main hall.
She felt the pyramid shudder under Noskarta's swinging storm, a tremor that grew stronger by the moment.
"Anything else you want done?"
Zulu sat in the corner like a lifeless doll, a pacifier in her mouth, blinking only her eyes.
"...."
She didn't read, had no hobbies.
Eating only the bare minimum to sustain life, she filled most of her time with emptiness.
"I don't remember ordering you to do anything."
Kangnan said as she hung clothes on the drying rack.
"Aren't you bored? Sitting there blank all day like that."
"If there is no heart, there is no time."
It was the tone of someone who had reached the extreme of indifference.
"Tell me if you need anything."
She wiped her hands on a towel and walked to the bed, looking with pity at Gaold, who showed no sign of rising.
His once-strong body was reduced to a skeleton, and an untrimmed beard had grown down past his chin.
'Just get up already.'
There was always death prepared beside Gaold, and Kangnan scooped a spoonful and eased it into his mouth.
"You're wasting away. At this rate…."
"You don't die."
Kangnan turned, a faint smile on her face.
"Is that so?"
"You should've been dead already."
"...."
"If he's passed beyond the phenomena of death, Gaold's end won't be death. It'll be something worse."
"He'll come back. Because…."
Kangnan bit her lip and spoke.
"Miro is here."
Zulu didn't argue this time.
"Maybe then he'll surpass Miro."
Knowing how obsessively Gaold had pursued strength, the thought that he might made Kangnan feel both hopeful and quietly sad.
'Get up. If you do, I'll have to fight too.'
Kurrrrrr—
The ceiling trembled and a wind like the cries of the dead ran along the walls, painfully clear.
"This is incredible. What sort of pressure difference makes a storm form in the middle of the continent?"
Fwooooo!
It sounded almost like Gaold's scream.
"It's not wind, Kangnan."
Zulu pointed at the ceiling.
"The Wheel of the Law. This world's ethics are operating from a much deeper plane."
* * *
Vanguard had been sealed.
Maga's band of thieves strode in boldly, and Momodo advanced with his strongest subordinates.
"Welcome. I am Momodo, the 32nd administrator of Vanguard."
At the arrival of the most famous heroine of the central desert, the deputy chief straightened and spoke.
"We have business. Will you cooperate?"
Momodo didn't answer right away. He instead examined the woman at the deputy chief's side.
Her hair was disheveled, her robe loosened, as if she'd been assaulted and dragged along—but the aura radiating from her felt like being struck with fists. It was an abnormal, painful tremor.
'Is she even human?'
Momodo prided herself on having seen every strange type of person in the world, but this one forced a different thought.
This woman was a true monster.
"You know the situation. Until Noskarta passes, no armed action may be taken inside Vanguard…."
The woman approached Momodo.
"I'm looking for Banya."
The moment Momodo met those beastly eyes, her heart pounded like prey trapped beneath a lion's belly.
'I'm dead. I'm going to die.'
Fight—or yield a path?
Faced with that binary choice, Momodo's decision was instant.
"Enter. But don't make a fuss."
The woman strode through the armed guards without hesitation, and the deputy chief followed Momodo, snorting.
Back at the lodging, Shirone and his group took the corner beds, leaving the one by the door empty.
"Phew, I'm beat. Maybe I drank too much."
"Kikikiki! Still, wasn't it fun? After twenty years we even learned something new."
Rian laughed as Shirone's face reddened.
"Do you think it might show up in your dreams? Shirone, did you pack spare underwear? Keep some by your bed."
"Shut up! You acted like you'd lost your mind and now you're lecturing me!"
Kido, stripped down to ragged shorts, sat cross-legged on his bed.
"Whatever. Human affairs are for humans to handle. I'm meditating, so don't bother me."
His goblin body—thin limbs and a potbelly—looked pitiful, but when he focused his breathing the alcohol burned off in an instant and the smell vanished.
"Kido, you…."
Shirone fell silent, remembering Kido's warning not to touch him. Kido's eyes sank into an even deeper calm.
'Incarnation art.'
Contrary to his flippant tone, the goblin avatar shimmering around Kido was astonishingly still.
"Shirone, what do you think?"
Rian sat on his bed and asked, leaving Kido to himself.
"That prophecy we heard today—could that really be my end?"
"You're still worrying? The bar folks said it was a lie."
"But you know it wasn't a lie."
Shirone slowly removed his robe as if stalling an answer.
"I think of the Law as rules. Numerous gears mesh precisely to produce fixed outcomes."
Woolin's History Search, Ra Enemi's manipulated incidents—anything governed by the Law's gears could happen.
"If Clarice's prophecy was based on the Law, then maybe that really is our end."
"...I see."
"But there is no fixed future. Sibulsangpokmae, your denials—those are acts of breaking the teeth of the gear."
"Just some teeth, at most."
Even if a few teeth break, the gear doesn't stop or produce a wholly different outcome.
Rian leaned back on his arms.
"How massive are those gears? Fate itself, I mean."
They were probably the size of the universe—a scale far beyond something a mere Axing could destroy.
The mood turned solemn. From the end of the corridor, screams suddenly rang out.
"Kyaah! What's going on? Someone burst in!"
The deputy chief, pale, peered at the man and woman cowering under blankets, then turned toward the next room.
'Not them.'
Their clothes didn't match, but his skill wasn't so poor as to fail recognizing Banya and Yacha.
"What are you doing, you fools! How dare you barge into my room—!"
Bang. He slammed the next door and his steps sped up.
'Where are they?'
Outside the building his men already formed a ring; there would be nowhere to run.
"This is the last room."
After listening for a long moment, the subordinate reported and the deputy chief raised a fist and pounded on the door.
"Are you there?"
No answer.
"It's urgent. Open the door."
Still no sound. His face twisted like a beast and he kicked the door in with a front kick.
"If someone calls—huh?"
A flash stabbed his eyes.
"Guhk!"
The deputy chief flinched and, unable to control his momentum, spun wildly on two heels.
A Photon Cannon whooshed past and slammed into the far wall as the men burst into the room.
"Kiiiii!"
Kido rolled across the floor and unleashed a hell of blades, but there was nothing for his blades to catch.
Seeing the thieves scattering, Kido bounced and flipped, landing prone.
"Be careful. These are damn strong."
Shirone, having narrowly dodged a Photon Cannon at close range, could judge the skill of the shooter.
"Get out! We'll meet outside!"
"Yaaaah!"
Rian swung his greatsword and tore a chunk out of the wall.
"Grab them! Don't let them go!"
Kido left the railing, scaled the wall, and Shirone and Rian leapt in opposite directions.
'I should call Ratusa.'
Running down the corridor and looking both ways, they saw the perfectly sealed Vanguard.
'Then where?'
Shirone turned his head at a chill of murderous intent—and a shower of Bakdo blades flashed as if tipped with flame in the torchlight.
'I have to dodge—!'
Armand's reflexes bent his waist, but the suffocating closeness made his heart feel like it would burst.
'I've been hit!'
A crisp, clean sound of wind was followed by Shirone's neck being cleanly sliced off.
That was the first second.
"Hah! Hah!"
Shirone teleported ten meters back and landed with one hand on the ground, staring ahead.
His clothes had twisted from the violent motion and he saw a woman, bound tightly, her garments clinging.
"You… ugh!"
A delayed shockwave burst from her chest.
Shirone looked down; a metallic seam like the rim of an IV had been carved across Armand's chest.
'He couldn't dodge?'
Probably shockwave pressure. But the metallic-looking wound made it impossible to think wind alone had done it.
"It's Sipok."
At the voice of the Baknyeo, who could sense a sword from a single reaction, Shirone looked up.
"What are you? Why are you attacking us?"
"The Ten-Path Council was divided."
'The Ten-Path Council?'
"Which came first: you, or Anke Ra?"
"I don't understand. Why would the Ten-Path Council—?"
"Shura reported to Amita. You cannot form the palace. Therefore we—"
The woman lowered her stance and a whirlwind rose.
"We follow Anke Ra."
As Baknyeo vanished from sight, Shirone activated Sibulsangpokmae without hesitation.
'She's so fast!'
Baknyeo's motion only accelerated, and in the end even the Sipok sense couldn't perceive the blade's trajectory.
"Die."
Axing—Nirvana E-Engine (Nirvana-power inline eight-cylinder).
When the Law's cylinders supplied power for a single motion, a blade drove into Shirone's crown like a thunderbolt.
The floor erupted with a roar. Smoke billowed, and for a long moment Baknyeo showed no movement.
'How?'
It was a result the grotesque senses couldn't even detect.
'I couldn't see it.'
Suddenly behind her, Shirone panted and assumed a fighting stance.
'Magic?'
To confirm, the moment Baknyeo pushed off the ground, Shirone's body ghosted through the corridor floor and vanished.
'That's disturbing.'
The unknown was always disturbing.
"Kuuuu!"
Baknyeo, cycling at incredible speed, slammed the floor and created a huge hole.
The sight Shirone saw on landing was himself stepping out through that gap, ignoring all physical barriers.
"No way."
Baknyeo's eyes trembled in shock.
"Gongpa—?"
To be able to destroy space is possible because topology differs between the real world and the Other World. A route blocked by walls in reality has no barrier in the Other World, allowing the shortest path to be breached.
"If it didn't end with Sipok—"
The earth here might be the basement of the Other World; the sky could be the rooftop of a tall building.
"You're a little closer to the ultimate."
As Baknyeo murmured, Shirone shattered the ceiling and cast Shining, turning to face her.
'Alright. With this I can fight.'
From Woolin's advice, the first ability he'd developed was the Seventh Sense—using both the real and Other World routes.
Bakjigyeong–Choeeni Bardo (Boundary between Life and Death).
In other words, the border between this world and the next.