Trigger (3)
Ashur returned.
The two-dimensional figure trapped behind the transparent panel took on substance the instant the glass shattered.
"Ikael!"
He drew his sword at once and readied himself, but the situation wasn't what he'd expected.
'What the hell...'
The angels' bodies belched black smoke as if seared in a furnace.
Shirone was the first he saw, but Ashur's attention went to the woman of flame beside Ikael.
"Amy."
That conceptual angels could burn meant a firepower beyond ordinary phenomena was at work.
"The Idea of Fire."
As far as Ashur knew, the only being who had reached that level was the Sun Incarnate, Anke Ra.
"Nane swallowed that dream."
Remembering that Amy had received aid from the Buddha, Ashur pieced the situation together.
"She's reached the end, too. If that's true, no angel can get near her."
All angels are born of the sun.
The flames faded from Amy's form and she returned to a human body, gasping.
"Huff."
While the complete combustion lasted she had been invulnerable, but the aftershock once the flames died down was brutal.
Shirone teleported closer.
"Amy, are you all right?"
Instead of answering, Amy smiled—there was a small thrill in her eyes.
'Indeed, tremendous power.'
Shirone had previously scattered angels with Hand of God, but this was on another level.
'An Idea is essence. If Amy can burn it, then it exists—there's nothing she couldn't consume.'
"Shirone."
As Ashur approached, Shirone asked him, "What happened to the wizard?"
"He made contact with the target. He told us to leave it to him. It should be settled by now."
It had been a duel with Satan.
"I see."
She would be lying to say she wasn't worried, but she hadn't trained him so weakly as to treat him like a child.
'For now, I have no choice but to trust the wizard.'
At that moment Satiel's voice came from afar.
"Yuriel."
A shockwave followed, and Satiel flew in clutching Yuriel's throat.
"Don't interfere with me! Even you will be annihil—!"
She never finished the sentence. A blow from Geukrak-gon struck her face and sent her flying.
She planted her fingers twenty meters away and crouched, baring her teeth.
"You—"
Ikael said, "Stop."
As she always had, her voice carried a peculiar resonance.
"This is not the time to fight. The world is heading for its end. We must prepare for the last."
"It's all because of you!"
Satiel shoved off the ground and lunged, swinging a fist at Ikael.
"How dare you betray the angels!"
When Ikael grabbed her hand, the Judicial Halo—Nostalgia—activated.
"Die!"
Just as Satiel's disintegration power began to crumble her palm like sand, Ikael spread a sacred radiance.
"Ataraxia."
As her presence amplified, even Satiel's Nostalgia dimmed and weakened.
"Ugh!"
Still, Satiel did not yield.
"Ikael, you hypocrite. You only want our power—for Shirone."
"That may be true."
"You betrayed us! So—"
"But aren't you the same?"
At the sight of Ikael's cold eyes, Satiel instinctively shut her mouth.
"Guphin is gone now."
"...What are you saying?"
"No matter what means you use, you can't reach him anymore. The only thing left is your memory."
Satiel's teeth ground together.
"If you put out that burning anger now, there will be nothing left to feel him by."
"Shut... up."
"Isn't that why we fight?"
"Kill her!"
The moment the archangel gave the order, the common angels leapt up, prepared to vanish in sacrifice.
As Shirone moved to block Ikael, Yuriel charged the common angels.
"Ragnarok."
When Geukrak-gon struck the ground, a vast white electricity surged upward like a reverse current.
The roar was one thing, but the shockwave that shook the sacred radiance froze the angels in place.
Ikael murmured in surprise, "Yuriel—"
"Don't be mistaken."
The one still standing before the angels tilted his head slightly.
"This isn't a decision for you. If I had a heart, it would surely be murder... Yet it's strange: because it can destroy everything, it becomes all the more untouchable."
'Destroying Ikael would be easy.'
The only problem was whether he could handle himself after she was destroyed.
All the angels turned their heads.
"Huh?"
Ashur realized it next, and in the following moment so did human Amy and Shirone.
"Something's coming."
It was clearly not matter.
'Some kind of presence.'
A chilling sensation swept over them.
The Zodiac Twelve Palaces.
The astrologers looked at the machine hovering above the pentagram drawn on the floor.
'How tragic.'
That the essence of the world could be contained in metal.
King Kitra of Paras emitted a pearly blue light from his eyes and gave his command.
"Welcome the new world."
Having once received the baptism of compassion from the Pyramid of Truth, he had briefly seen the essence of divinity.
When he came to, he was outside the pyramid and his Emotion Sickness had been completely cured.
"The cause is meaningless."
Besides Kitra, others who had contacted the Pyramid of Truth were scattered across the world.
"Grand Adjustment."
If a reset meant initializing the system, a Grand Adjustment meant changing the system itself.
What followed was—
The ground trembled.
Shirone watched a pyramid structure rising beyond the horizon.
"What is that...?"
It was as colossal as the Pyramid of Truth in Paras.
"Shirone!"
Ikael shouted. "Time waves keep pressing in. They're changing the Law of this world."
"Time wave?"
That was the first thing the angels realized.
"Those structures are being erected across the world. I can't survey them all from above, but there are already more than eight."
Shirone bit her lip.
'An ultra-ancient civilization.'
Proof of an outside world built when the universe held nothing.
'Are they intervening directly? For what?'
While Shirone pondered, the common angels swarmed Satiel.
"Archangel, what on earth is that...?" Satiel remained silent.
Even archangels had no records about something erected before their existence.
'No, even if they had known, it would be the same.'
OOPArts scramble the data of anything that approaches with their magnetic fields.
"What's about to happen?" the Zodiac Twelve Palaces reported.
"Your Majesty! Coordinates input. But if we alter fate, it can never be undone."
They said it because even the astrologers were trembling with fear.
'This is madness. This isn't on the same scale as destroying humanity or the World Mapping Bureau.'
The world they knew would vanish.
"Execute."
"Ugh."
Some astrologers wept in pure terror, but Kitra remained calm.
'If I can become a god.' He didn't care if his head was severed.
"Grand Adjustment."
When the astrologers activated the machine, the metallic structure began to spin rapidly.
A blue light burst from Kitra's eyes.
"Ooooo!"
Beyond the pale veil of his vision, something blurred and shimmered.
'God.' The angels bent their gaze and watched states across the world.
'This is impossible.'
The regions where pyramids had been erected had their terrain completely rewritten; no living creatures could be seen.
"Shirone, this is bad. Right now—"
As Ikael began to speak, the pyramid nearest them became wreathed in electricity.
"Krrr!"
The angels' sacred radiances shook violently, and someone screamed.
"Kyah!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Angels whose sacred radiances exploded began to collapse to the ground like dolls with severed strings.
Their faces went pale, and Shirone met Ikael's eyes.
'No way?'
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Half the angels had already fallen; Satiel clenched her lips.
"Archangel! Gah!"
When the sacred radiance of a nearby angel detonated, her shoulders twitched without her realizing.
'Is it over?'
The chain reaction skipped Satiel and moved to the angels on the opposite side.
Thus—
"All of them?"
When the common angels were gone, only Satiel, Ikael, and Yuriel remained.
'Why are we left? Because we're archangels?'
That would be the obvious thought, but Shirone slowly shook her head.
'No. That's not it.'
As Shirone examined the Pyramid of Truth, she understood the nature of the characters carved on its walls.
'Each of them was called an angel. If so, even archangels couldn't evade it. Their commonality lies elsewhere.'
The heart.
Nothing else fit, and Satiel clenched her fist and shouted.
"This can't be!"
To see the angels who ruled the world lying powerless on the ground was the very peak of despair.
"How can this be? The angels—"
At that moment a flash descended before her, and the archangel of light, Rayel, landed.
"Satiel, the Law is changing." When the system changes, definitions of certain concepts inevitably change.
"The concept of angels has lost its absoluteness. We've been demoted to the level of humans. Judging by the time wave's cycle, eventually we won't be able to avoid it either."
Satiel looked at the remaining common angels.
They were still breathing, but the sacred radiance that symbolized their nobility was nowhere to be seen.
Her gaze traveled to the pyramid.
'What exactly is that?'
The massive structure charged with electricity looked poised to act.
"What will you do?"
"If it were me, I'd match the timing. Let's go together. Solve it before our status drops."
Satiel understood instantly.
'Damn it.'
She wanted to execute Ikael immediately, but even her own existence was now at risk.
"Hmph. Fine. Consider it punishment—become the human you love so much."
Ikael, whose sacred radiance had dimmed far more than before, simply fell silent.
"Let's go, Rayel."
As Satiel finished, Rayel activated the Judicial Halo Accelerator.
They vanished at the speed of light; Yuriel watched their traces with his eyes and murmured, "A human."
To be demoted was an unthinkable degradation, but strangely his chest trembled.
'Not bad.'
He glanced back at Ikael. "What will you do? Satiel doesn't seem to like this situation."
Amy asked, "Where did Rayel go?"
"To the sun."
"The sun? You mean... that thing?"
When Amy pointed to the sun hanging in the sky, Ikael nodded.
"Yes. Humans are born on planets, but angels are born of the sun. We are conceptual beings—packets of light condensed into form."
Shirone said, "If it's Rayel, he can reach it in ten minutes. Following him isn't a problem, but—"
Could a human body endure it?
"Hmm, I see."
As if to dispel Shirone's worry, Amy's body burst into flame again.