Rain (1)
"It's not so much difficult as it is close to impossible."
Nane continued.
"Think about the contradiction. To be able to destroy what you love most." The more you love, the further you stray from the Void.
"That's why I've nearly reached it, but it will still take countless years before I become a Buddha."
Shura asked, "Then Shirone will reach it first?"
"The ultimate…" Nane trailed off. "Not yet. He's still far off. I can only vaguely guess what he must feel in a world ruled by evil."
The more he loved all things, the greater his sense of betrayal would be—and that anger would drive him toward the Void.
"So does that mean Shirone will end the world?"
Just like Nane once did.
"It could happen. But I know how hard that would be. If there's a difference between him and me…" Nane glanced up at the sky. "It's that this world loves him." Even if Yahweh's wrath pointed toward the end of the world.
World Climate Organization.
After relocating its base with help from the crusade, the organization had more than three hundred mages stationed there.
Their job of manipulating climate was to boost agricultural output in regions not under demonic invasion. Those extra supplies became rations for the Valkyries, making the department indispensable in a global war.
"Chief! Look at this!"
Amira, in her first year at the agency, gathered signals from observation posts around the world and called out.
"What is it? Another disaster?"
The document was packed with numbers and charts, but a picture formed in the chief's head.
"W-what is this?"
A typhoon.
In the sea between Gustav and Jincheon, a colossal typhoon—one never recorded in history—was moving.
"And there are seven of them! How is that even possible?"
Amira pointed at the file with the details. "Their speeds are on a completely different scale from normal typhoons. They'll make landfall on Gustav in a few hours. Their force will exceed at least Category Six." This was not a natural phenomenon.
"Magic, then. But who—?" Even the World Climate Organization found it hard to believe anyone could spawn typhoons of this magnitude in succession.
"What do we do? If they make landfall like this, civilian casualties will be catastrophic. We have no choice but to annihilate them."
"Can we annihilate them?" Amira stammered.
"Well, we could—if we plant seeds to subdue them before they grow any larger—"
"Even so, wiping out all seven is unrealistic. It's better to prepare evacuations." The fact they were heading for the Gustav Empire, the source of evil, made the decision easier.
"Chief! Here!"
Another employee shouted, pale-faced, and the chief hurried over.
"Dammit! What now?"
Amira glared at the papers the chief had tossed and bit her lip.
'What on earth is happening?' It was a string of disasters.
Jincheon Sea.
Mitura, commander of the Eighth Legion, rose from his seat aboard the great warship as he watched the typhoons beyond the horizon.
"They come again. How many barrages are they going to launch?"
"What shall we do? If this continues, Gustav will be wrecked—and then we'll be punished by Lord Satan…"
When Mitura glared, the demons jumped.
"I mean, of course I trust Mitura." What the demons were suggesting was to open the demon realm before things spiraled out of control.
'I'm annoyed.' Opening the demon realm was a privilege only the ten legion commanders had—yet it also symbolized eternal annihilation.
'You wouldn't even be reborn from hellfire.' Opening the realm was a declaration of dying together, and Mitura wasn't ready.
"Commander! Over there!"
Four members of the Ivory Tower's top five were charging through the rough foam beyond the horizon.
Minerva, riding a jet, said, "Ignore the others. Our job is to eliminate the legion commander."
Fried, skimming the surface, drew his sword and took the demons in his sights. "You learned in Kashan, didn't you? Best to finish them before they open the demon realm."
Mitura's demon realm was a tidal wave. Once opened, every coastal city would be utterly smashed.
Mitura rose, lifting a massive blade. "All right! Sortie! Let's have a proper fight!"
A voice muttered from afar. "Or we could just open the demon realm."
When Mitura's blade cut across, dozens of demon necks lined up a few dozen meters away flew off.
"Hiiik!" No demon dared complain further.
"Consider this a greeting!" Mitura sheared the surface like a blade through a sail, raising an enormous wave.
"It's coming!"
Fried's freezing magic shuddered the tens-of-meters-high wall of water and turned it to ice.
KWAaaaaaang!
Minerva burst through the ice, halted in midair, and fired her jet.
Gustav Capital.
"Ahhh! S-someone help…!" The scream was cut off before it finished.
People, blackened and falling like charred insects, toppled as Rian charged through them.
"The numbers are staggering." The Palapinas from the Otherworld multiplied endlessly and swarmed the city.
'How do we get rid of this?' If something was powerful, he could cut it—but for countless insects, a sword was the worst tool.
"Yaaaah!" A sword imbued with the realm of Maha sliced the scene in two, but the fly-like insects clung to Rian without end.
"Ugh!" His whole body buzzed; the sucking of blood made him dizzy.
'It's fine.' This wouldn't shatter his Ideals, but ordinary humans would be dead within ten seconds.
And because the Palapinas kept breeding, if they weren't stamped out early, world annihilation wouldn't be an exaggeration.
"Damn demon realm." Rian accelerated through a wall and drove the great blade down with everything he had. The air split with a roar; for a moment the blue sky opened.
"Wh-what—" Rian couldn't even think to raise his sword; he just stared blankly at the sky.
"What is that?" It might be an avatar, but he didn't even want to know what it was.
Shirone's body hung like luminous smoke, utterly weightless. From where his head bowed, an endless tide of anger rose.
Merania whispered, "Yahweh's wrath."
A black smoke, rotten and seething, pierced the sky and mushroomed outward. It spread like someone slashing black paint across the heavens—no slowing, only expansion.
'It's come into the world.' Yahweh's blackened, festering anger had burst through his body.
'What will happen?' Merania snapped awake and shouted, "Kill him! Kill Yahweh!"
"Ugh!" Gai lunged and brought his sword down, but he didn't cut Shirone.
'It's not material.' Along the sword's path floated hexagonal particles of light—Gai couldn't quite make them out, but they were there.
'Information?' Meirey sprang up, pressing a hand to her ear.
"Chief Justice." Chief Justice Terapos's voice was grave as ever but urgently strained.
—The Hexa program has been activated.
"Hexa program? What is that—?" There was no time for explanation.
—We will send an Ark.
The line went dead.
The chief at the World Climate Organization snapped, "This is absurd!"
The thrown file slid across the floor; the surrounding staff hurried to pick it up.
"Chief! What's wrong?" Amira stepped forward, but the chief only huffed and paced in a daze.
"Amira, look at this." She took the observatory report from the Gustav Empire and glanced over the numbers. The paper slipped from her hands.
"This is impossible." Everyone else thought the same.
"But it's true. It's not a natural phenomenon, nor is it magic. It's something unknown." Even if you drew every drop of water on the planet, clouds of that mass couldn't form.
"It's as if—" An employee stared past the ceiling and tried to picture the sky. "As if a mass of steel heavier than a planet were floating."
Gai's blade, trailing afterimages, passed through Shirone's body.
'Why can't we kill him?' Perhaps because he was already dead.
The thought struck, and Gai finally stopped his assault and looked up.
"It's bigger." By the cloud's size, it could easily cover an entire kingdom and still overflow.
"What kind of avatar is that?" "Yahweh." Merania stepped closer. "That's Yahweh? Wasn't he supposed to be at the realm of loving all things? This is—" It was a murderousness darker and murkier than the demons'.
"Yes. Truly detestable." It was the scale of evil one person must suppress to reach the realm of universal love.
"Wouldn't you want to be angry? Jealous, desirous, wanting to do as you please." Yahweh was not simply good.
"Universal love is forged through sacrifice. Those unacknowledged sacrifices pile up deep inside and become monsters beyond bearing…" The black cloud swallowed the entire empire.
"A being that must live forever locked within itself so the monster never bursts out." Merania brushed Shirone's particles. "To demons, that hypocrisy is utterly terrifying…"
Her hand closed around a light. "I hate it." She opened her palm slowly; hexagonal lights fluttered upward.
Merania's eyes that chased them were almost ecstatic despite her words. "It worked. Yahweh's wrath is gone."
Krrr— A portentous rumble rolled from the black cloud that had hidden the sun.
"Shouldn't we get out of here?" "Where to?" Merania raised her disordered gaze toward the sky and flipped her palm.
"It looks like it's going to rain."
As soon as she spoke, particles of light began to fall from the sky. The light carrying divine particles was a doleful gray and thousands of times heavier than a raindrop.
Ssha-aaah.
The drops fell almost simultaneously. But at the limits of observation, simultaneity is never perfect—the lead drop headed straight for the Hwangseong Marsak.
The moment the first drop struck the capital's tallest spire.
Thud!
A fist-sized crater opened with a powerful blast.
Thud! Thud-thud! Thud-thud-thud!
And then many more.
"Damn it!"
Infinity.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA—!
They struck the entire empire in infinite numbers.
"Kraaaaah!" Millions of demons screamed at once, but even that was swallowed by the roar.
The Hwangseong continued to be shaved away by the falling mass at four meters per second.
"What is this? This is—!" The force struck everything on the ground equally, shredding all in its path.
"Yaaah!" Gai swung his sword and slashed at the particles of light. Three seconds later, nothing of his weapon remained except the black hilt.
A dull thud reverberated through his skull.
"Ugh!" Thousands of light-drops battered his body and Gai crumpled to the ground.
"What a pity." Merania, holding a black umbrella, looked down at the formless Gai. "It seems no Ark came for you."
When she turned back to the capital, millions of bluish domes had formed across the city.