Acceleration (1)
Thud! Thud!
A massive, monstrous thing of black rock stamped through the mountains, the ground trembling with each step.
A salsu fitted with 〈Lawslay〉 as its engine.
Able to reshape its form with material, the salsu looked like a smooth, quadrupedal body—its surface glassy as a bead.
Its face was rounded, and curving down from its neck was a waist where Shirone and Rian rode.
"Eeek!" The nearby city guards slammed their horses to a halt and scrambled aside as the five‑meter‑tall salsu brushed past.
"What… what is that?"
As peacekeepers they should have stopped it, but faced with that moving metal behemoth, none dared approach.
"Stop! Halt!"
When the salsu stopped, the captain of the guard stepped forward.
Though he was mounted and higher than them, Shirone suddenly leaned down and stuck his head out.
"Hello."
"Human?"
Relieved it wasn't a demon, the captain let out a breath and asked, "Who are you?"
Shirone handed over a travel pass stamped with Kashan's seal.
"I'm a mage of the Ivory Tower. I intend to use a teleportation magic circle to get to Tasian City."
It was the fastest route.
Seeing the document personally written by Woorin, the captain immediately snapped a salute.
"Ah—my apologies. There's been chaos."
"It's fine. How bad is the damage?"
The captain's face darkened.
"The entire city's been destroyed. You probably won't be able to use a teleportation circle."
Shirone had suspected as much.
"I see. Thank you for letting us know."
"I'm sorry we can't be more help." The captain looked exhausted; Shirone shook his head as he took in their tired faces.
"You still saved us a lot of time. Well then…"
Shirone activated 〈Lawslay〉 and the salsu, unlike before, began to race along the mountain path at a terrifying speed.
"That must be the Ivory Tower's star."
The guards who had heard the report that the Ivory Tower had held back the capital's fall murmured in awe.
"Yeah. They're on another level."
It wasn't hard to read resolve in those eyes that seemed to glow, even after such a brief meeting.
"Why are they fighting?"
Already, with their homeland ruined, the troops felt the world slipping toward annihilation.
"If it were me, I'd have fled with my family. They have enough power."
"We don't know."
The captain felt the same helplessness.
"How would we know?" Rian, who had been lying on the salsu's back lost in thought, lifted his head and asked Shirone.
"We're heading to the Ivory Tower, right?"
"Yeah. We need to check the state of the world. If another catastrophe like Argantis appears somewhere…"
"The armies of Hell are advancing on the Central Continent."
The implication was plain.
"Amy's there too." "We beat Amon, but forty million soldiers are still a massive threat. If we can, shouldn't we go?"
"I want to go."
It was honest.
"I want to see Amy right now."
"Then go see her. Whatever happens, I'll protect you—Amy too, and your family."
"If you were a weak, lone soldier, you wouldn't even think of it. They fight just to survive. Beyond that, to protect their families."
"You can do the same."
"If we do, we won't win the war."
That was the crux.
"If a commander leads by personal feeling, it ends in annihilation. This is a fight for all humanity's lives. The moment we act on emotion, everyone dies."
He understood that in his head, but…
"I don't want you to have regrets."
Shirone smiled.
"Woorin's words still bother you, huh?"
Rian clicked his tongue.
"He said you can't beat Nane? Forget that. If Nane shows up this time, I'll split him in two myself."
"It won't be easy."
Rian fell serious at the unexpected answer. "What do you think?"
"My thought is…"
Shirone recalled his conversation with Woorin.
"That I can't beat Nane?"
"Yes. You know it, Shirone." Woorin had said.
"Nane is near‑perfect righteousness. In both quality and scale, good and love don't stand a chance."
They were fighting the impossible.
"What good and love achieved was barely enough to stop the world from ending. But if Nane returns, it will be the true birth of a Buddha.
"At that point it will be perfect truth—the only rightness."
"Even so, that's not a reason for me to love you."
Woorin covered his eyes. "Even the Teraje bloodline registry showed a peculiar future. I knelt to Havitz because I sensed death from him."
It wasn't mystical certainty.
"In a jar mixed with blue and red beads you can roughly guess what will come out. From what I saw, Havitz's life seemed like a jar that would produce nothing but blue beads."
An extreme of probability.
"But there was a moment the feeling shifted. The emotion I felt was definitely a red bead—probably because of you. If I had died to Havitz, Havitz would've died to you."
The war could have ended.
"Still, I chose to live. My future sight said the same. You will come to me no matter what."
"What on earth…?"
"Shall I tell you the only way to avert it?"
Shirone fell silent.
"Go meet Amy. Abandon humanity and the world—seek happiness with the one you love. Live like that until Nane closes the world."
"Give up?"
Surprisingly, Woorin nodded.
"You can't win. If Nane returns, nothing can be undone." Shirone snapped out of the memory.
"You won't win. No one will."
Rian's expression crumpled.
"Why are you like this? You stopped Nane before. You can do it again."
"No. The reason I refused Woorin wasn't because I could stop Nane."
"Then?"
"Because I believed there would be no return."
"Hmm."
"If Nane becomes a Buddha, we lose no matter what. But he can't become one—he sympathizes with the world of justice, but he never plants his heart."
"And if he plants it?"
Shirone thought for a moment.
"Then he would become indestructible."
"…Law is strange."
"Right. If Nane returns, there'll be nothing we can do. Our task is to eradicate evil."
They had to prevent a situation where one of Hell's ten legion commanders would open the demon gates again.
'The army of Hell advancing on the Central Continent lost its legion commander. It makes sense they'd move toward a fiercer battlefield.'
Knowing Shirone bore the heaviest burden, Rian didn't press him further.
"Huh?"
At that moment Shirone turned his head. Rian, sensing something off, sprang up.
In an instant Rian pulled out the great map and climbed onto the salsu's head. His eyes watched space itself twist.
"What is it?"
From a point where space contorted like a whirlpool, a woman stepped through.
"Shirone."
"Oh?"
Shirone's eyes widened.
"Seongeum?"
Princess Jin Seongeum of the Jincheon Empire—who had once competed with him for admission to the Ivory Tower—stood with a strained expression.
Her face was more drawn from the war with the demons, but her indomitable spirit remained.
She bowed slightly to Rian, then stepped toward Shirone.
"Sorry for the sudden visit. I'm on my way back from the Ivory Tower. Someone said you might be here."
"Why the Ivory Tower?"
Tears welled in her eyes as she pressed her lips together.
But she steeled herself and prostrated flat before Shirone.
"Please help us! Save Jincheon!"
Shirone and Rian exchanged a glance.
"All units, stand by!"
At the commander's order, the trumpeters' calls echoed.
The armies of Hell, arriving at the three‑kingdom border sooner than expected, were thundering forward two kilometers away.
The ground shook, and black shapes rose beyond the horizon, filling the sky like drifting stars.
"Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!"
The sound of the lead infantry drawing breath carried all the way to Amy, hundreds of meters away.
They were coming.
Even forty million couldn't hold every point of the border, so strategically they'd thought they could cope. But the sight before them overwhelmed that hope.
"Kwahahaha! Humans! Humans!" Demons of every size, shape, and kind seized the land and roared.
"All units!"
The commander's order fell.
"Advance!"
Tens of thousands surged forward like a tide, and Amy's battalion moved with them.
"Supporting the infantry!"
When two hundred mages from three battalions cast military teleportation in formation, a blade‑bright flash streaked outward.
We need to seize the initiative with firepower.
For ordinary magic units—not special forces—the key wasn't raw power.
A unit's worth lay in how consistently it could pour a set amount of firepower into a precise area for a duration.
"Sector 32! Firepower level ten!" At the brigade commander's command, flames flickered in the hands of the mages.
Amy raised her right hand to order the battalion to cast—then,
"Aaaahhh!"
The front infantry was crushed as massive demons shoved through.
Already broken through?
Estimating the casualties from the impact, she gritted her teeth and swung her hand.
"Fire!"
Hundreds of fire spells dropped to the ground and a towering inferno flared up.
"Raaah!"
The demons melted into grotesque lumps, but the enemy kept pouring in.
"Retreat! Fall back!"
News of the breakthrough reached them within minutes of the battle's start; Amy felt a sick lurch.
"Damn it! We're done for! We're all going to die!" cries rang out from every direction.
"Stay calm! Our forces were just concentrated in one place! It's bad luck!"
Some units would fare better elsewhere.
"Support is on the way! The balance will shift! Hold out a little longer!"
One advantage of magic units was their stronger mental endurance compared to regular infantry.
Amy's battalion didn't break; they fired spells and withdrew in order.
After pulling back three hundred meters, allied banners finally fluttered in from all sides.
"Here! Hold this line! Sector 4! Deploy those water formations…"
"Battalion commander!"
Turning at the voice, she saw a horned demon charging with a gigantic axe.
"Kuhahaha! War is fun after all—" A terrifying violet magical aura flared; Amy instinctively knew she was facing a division commander.
Damn. So that's why we were pierced.
"Commander! Evade!"
If fortune had already handed them the worst draw, retreating now would still mean annihilation.
That's war.
Amy dismounted, crouched low, and focused.
"Ifrit!"
Flames rose from her body and shot skyward, coalescing into the fire giant Ifrit.
"What… what is that?"
Even her subordinates had never seen magic like it.
The hunched Ifrit lowered its two massive arms to either side of Amy and glared ahead.
"Bring it on."
A red light blinked in its enormous pupils.