God's Brain (5)
"You're going to take everyone?" Ikael asked.
"Yes. The chain of creator and created. Isn't that far more constructive than arguing over who is God?"
That was true, but Ikael shook her head.
"Impossible. Fine, I'll say it honestly. Your Idea—it's undeniably a record-setting event in this universe."
Taeseong remembered the moment light first entered the Gaian's eyes. Argones aside, none of Heaven's beings could explain it.
"Maybe there really is an outside world. But whatever it is, we cannot leave."
Because there is no Idea.
No—more precisely, their Idea was not some outside world but themselves.
"We've done a lot of research since splitting from Ultima."
When Gaffin spread his palm, a hexagonal light called the Hexa rose like an ice crystal.
"What is the signal of an Idea? And if you could analyze that signal—" The Gaians embodied the tendencies of Prajna and Yaksha, and were outstanding scientists.
"Could it be artificially created?"
The Gaians looked stunned.
"Artificially… create it?" If this world is constructed from an external signal, then making an Idea is the domain of gods.
"Yes. That's the Hexa. A signal carrying outside information—something not native to this world."
When Gaffin raised his arm, the Hexa chimed, shattered, and drifted down as smoke.
"Miracle Stream."
Where the light-smoke passed, a vine sprouted and flowers burst into bloom in an instant.
The angels murmured.
"How…?"
Life was something that should only be created when Anke Ra, the Gaians, and Argones all functioned together.
Gaffin lifted both arms and watched the flowers blooming around him with satisfaction.
"It's at this level for now, but with more research we can make far more complex life."
Kariel muttered.
"Life—?"
To the archangel of birth, Gaffin's power looked literally like a divine miracle.
Gaffin turned to Ikael.
"See what I mean? If you can conquer the Idea, this world won't be your end either."
The Gaians were disliked by nearly everyone, but even the archangels stole glances at Ikael this time.
"Not the end?"
A cold voice rang out.
"That is Gaian thinking as well. You left the human throng and now hope to become gods? How arrogant."
"If the gods are indifferent…"
Gaffin's eyes flashed.
"We could pull them down, couldn't we?"
"Blasphemy!"
Ataraxia's cry expanded sharply, reverberating like thunder.
"Our only god is the immortal Ra. Will you be lured by your baseless hypothesis?"
Telling an angel to deny the reason for their existence is no different from telling a human to deny their parents.
"Still…"
Gaffin gave a rueful look.
"You wanted to go, didn't you?"
Ikael's eyes widened and she bit her lip.
'She did.'
When the Gaian first tried to break away from the photon plane, she had wavered. Even if she believed it was her last chance, as an archangel it would have been an irreversible mistake.
"After that, I changed."
After Anke Ra's stern rebuke, she swore never to doubt again.
"Gaians, abandon your vain hopes. If Anke Ra resets the world, you will vanish. Everything will return, and the Law will be at peace." The restored Hand of God curled its fingers like a beast's talons.
A billion voices rose at once.
"Do you think we'll stand idly by? We'll stop the reset and annihilate Anke Ra."
The gulf between them refused to close.
As the hostility between the two sides tightened again, Satiel spoke in a trembling voice.
"Can't we at least try?" All eyes of the archangels turned to her. Though frightened, she forced herself onward. "If angels and Gaians combine their power, we might be able to uncover this world's truth."
For Gaffin, diving deeper into the Hexa required the archangels' abilities.
'Above all, Ataraxia.'
If they could amplify and analyze the Idea's signal, Gaffin's utopia would cease to be a dream.
"What are you talking about?" Ikael's gaze darkened with killing intent, but Satiel steeled herself and continued.
"So at least try talking…?"
The archangel of union, Metiel, blurred.
Bang.
Incredibly fast, his arm swept out; the blow struck Satiel so hard she vanished from the spot.
Kuuuuung!
Dust rose where she fell. Metiel dusted his fist and muttered.
"What a shameful thing for an angel."
With an arrogant, beautiful expression he lifted a finger and pointed at Gaffin.
"Hear me, humans. Gods do not compromise. We will punish you and stabilize the world."
If things were kept simple, once Anke Ra succeeded the reset everything would end.
"But before that…"
Metiel's glory-body expanded into a halo.
"I will kill you myself."
As if in agreement, five archangels—excluding Ikael—spread their radiant rings.
Maysin asked with grave eyes, "Gaffin, what are you going to do?"
"Don't intervene. Ultima might waver. Keep Anke Ra from resetting while I fight."
If Ultima wavered even for a moment, Anke Ra would trigger the reset.
'Then it would be irreversible.'
Gaffin's judgment was sound.
But if he couldn't activate Ultima, it seemed impossible for him to stand against all the archangels.
"Miracle Stream."
Golden smoke coiled around Gaffin like a serpent. Ikael raised an eyebrow.
"Ataraxia."
The archangels amplified their concepts, and Yuriel opened the battle with a Ragnarok strike.
"I'll teach you the terror of the world." A vengeful, full-force blow struck Gaffin.
The impact sent him skidding three kilometers back; sparks flashed in his eyes.
'Not easy, after all.'
One hit on an archangel should hardly excite them.
'It bounced.'
The Miracle Stream whirled, and Yuriel's body flew past Gaffin.
"Kugh!"
Carried by rotational inertia, Yuriel traced a huge arc and then plunged vertically a kilometer away.
Kwaaaang!
Gaffin planted his feet with a thunderous sound and smiled at the archangels ahead.
"Shall we begin God's play?"
Metatron of Being, Reyel of Light, and Paiyel of Annihilation formed the second line together.
"I bounced Yuriel back."
It meant sheer shock alone wouldn't break him.
"I'll go."
Paiyel stepped forward; his juridical ring spun and became a vortex of the abyss.
"Word of the Void."
When the Miracle Stream's light around Gaffin vanished, Metatron thrust out his hand.
"Gravitational Tyranny."
Dozens of black spheres formed; Gaffin's waist twisted and his limbs splayed.
'I will tear you apart.'
Just when it seemed over, Gaffin's body defied the gravitational waves and came to a dead halt in midair.
"Let there be light."
A massive hexagonal light rose, then dissolved into smoke and wrapped Gaffin.
"There's no cause in the Hexa."
That was why Paiyel could be extinguished many times yet revive for no reason.
"Sleep."
As the light-smoke spread, the gravitational spheres began to dissipate one by one.
"Never wake again."
At that moment Reyel, the archangel of Light, engaged his juridical ring accelerator.
Kiiiing!
The light ring whirled at near-light speed and contracted rapidly; time froze.
'Can this be stopped too?'
In a zero-second interval where even the planet's rotation halted, Reyel wound up his fist.
Photon signals—when time is stopped—cannot carry physical impulses.
'But I am the archangel of Light.'
The unit of time Reyel perceived was the minimal slice of time from the timeline Shirone had dismantled.
The instant Reyel's fist would reach Gaffin—
'This is the point.'
Events arranged independently in time slid into the immediately following events.
It was the smallest unit of time the Law could cut—no living thing could react.
Paaaaroom!
At the end point of Reyel's blow, the atmosphere surged and detonated.
"What—?"
Reyel looked down in disbelief.
"Slow."
Gaffin twisted his torso and evaded, baring sharp fangs with a grin.
'Evaded light speed?'
That shouldn't be possible.
When a fist lands, there can be no event between the moment of impact and the release of light speed.
'Light speed. He sliced time to the end. Between time and time there is only nothing—'
A chilling hypothesis passed through, and Reyel's glory-body trembled.
'He tunneled through the nothingness?'
Superluminal.
He pierced between the minimal units of time and created a signal of being out of nothing.
'Are you… really a god?'
As the doubt surfaced, Gaffin's fist struck Reyel's face with a clean, crushing blow.
"Krrrrgh!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Like stones skimming a surface, Reyel's body bounced and rolled across the ground.
Kariel and Metiel, covering the rear, froze as they watched the archangel tumble.
For a moment even the Gaians and Ikael forgot their original purposes.
"Our intellect surpasses Infinity—"
The hexagonal light floating between Gaffin's palms shattered and scattered like petals.
"Into the world of gods." The Gaians gazed up at the starlight borne on the wind and fell into thought.
'That is the Hexa.'
A language of gods that does not exist in this world.
"Uaaaah!"
Shirone's scream burst out as light; the whole Alphonse mountain range was swallowed by blinding radiance.
The core transmitting all of Omega's records, Karatorsa, groaned as well.
'An enormous volume of information.'
From that alone, the Mudeungryong intuited where Shirone was inside Omega.
'Year 201, huh.'
It was when McClain Gaffin first proposed the possibility of Hexa.
'The transmission speed is too fast. I have to regulate it.'
Karatorsa slowed the information because Shirone might break.
"Kugh!"
But as if Shirone were forcibly drawing it in, the speed spiked even higher.
'No! At this rate—!'
Karatorsa halted and, eyes widening, realized a new possibility.
'I see. Of course.'
Because Shirone is the Hexa.
'She doesn't assimilate information through thought. Information combined with information becomes new information.'
Or the information can be complete.
In truth, Shirone's scream came from the enormity of her realization.
'Endlessly becoming one.'
The moment a vast feeling that exists before human language or scholarly thought converged—
"Gah!"
Shirone's eyes snapped open.
'Miracle Stream!'
A hexagonal light rose above her head, chimed and cracked, and dissolved into smoke.
"Shirone. Accept his thoughts, his reasoning, all of it."
Karatorsa said, "It is God's brain."