Evil’s Awakening The ceiling of the City of Ruins was covered in black shadows. Menou and Abbie could do nothing but watch as the corruption spread. The roof of the underground cavern was dyed black, giving it the appearance of a night sky. The space wouldn’t collapse, even if the shadow kept spreading. Although they were both subspaces of a sort, Concepts of Primary Colors were far more stable than Concepts of Original Sin. The Concept Dimension of Original Sin was crawling with monsters and didn’t need to be created by human conjurings. It had existed since before the most ancient of times, an infinite whirlpool of thoughts, and would go on existing for as long as the world did, if not longer. Just as Menou’s world and the one with Japan would never combine, this one and that one ruled by monsters wouldn’t fuse. So if the shadows that served as an entrance to that subspace simply consumed the ceiling district, there wouldn’t be any major issues. The problem was what came next. Menou stared up in panic when she heard a scream growing in volume. “AaaAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Nono’s upper body came tumbling from the environment control tower. “What in the…?” “Got it.” Before the bewildered Menou could move, Abbie managed to catch Nono and cancel out her downward momentum. “Th-thank you, Abbie. You really are my and Kaa’s darling daughter! I’m glad you grew up to be so carin—” “What’s up with this doll recording?” “…You figured it out, huh?” This brief exchange revealed to Menou why Nono had felt so strange to her. Abbie had called Nono a recording without any particular disdain. It was proof that while Nono’s body was a conjured soldier, it didn’t contain a soul. This version of her had to be acting on behavioral patterns that Nono Hoshizaki had programmed into the Astrologer based on information she’d predicted a thousand years ago. She’d entered patterns and reactions into this terminal based on her foreknowledge of what was, at the time, the distant future. That explained why Nono never seemed too worried about danger, which annoyed Menou a bit, so she pinched the girl’s cheeks. “Do you enjoy meddling with us while you’re watching safe and sound in the past? Hmm, Nono?” “I shure dooh!” “Nothing fazes you, does it?” Menou released Nono’s cheek. With only her upper half remaining, it didn’t seem like she would function much longer. “Abbie. How much time does this piece of junk have left?” “This thing? I’d say less than a minute. The impact when I caught her really put the last nail in the coffin.” “Okay, Nono. Tell us everything that’s about to happen in one minute or less.” “’kaaay. Although, I think you can tell by looking that the last thing you need to do is deal with Pandæmonium up there. Don’t worry about Genom. Sahara finished him off, thanks to my flawless instructions!” Nono pointed upward, unbothered by her harsh tone. Menou was privately impressed that Sahara had defeated Genom. “As I’m sure you’ve realized, that is Pandæmonium’s shadow. She’s using it to consume the micromachines in the ceiling district, turning them into her own flesh. As far as she’s concerned, she couldn’t ask for better fodder.” Pandæmonium always made her choices based on what would cause the most harm to the world. Knowing that made it easy to predict what she’d do next. “In a few minutes, that little monster will summon the ceiling district space she’s devoured in the real world. This subspace will overlap with the real one, and the city up there will disappear and show up in the sky above the north as a giant monster.” If this city overlapped with the matter in its real-world location, the nucleus of the Starhusk and the environment control tower would intersect and fuse. The white liquid would rain down on the northern continent, and the fusion between the Starhusk and Pandæmonium that Nono warned them about would come to pass. “You’d better make sure you stop it. In my simulations of this route, this is where I break, so I have no idea what happens after this. I’ll give the Astrologer’s body to you, my dear Abbie. Be sure to thoroughly analyze it later! That’s how you’ll gain management authority of the Starhusk!” “Oh, really? I don’t know who’s sending me this message, but thank you.” “No need to thank me! I’ll keep working on plans for a future where I can return to my original world. You should do everything you can for your future, too!” It had been a minute exactly. Nono gave one last wink. “Bye then, Menou. I’m glad I got to meet you here in the future, not Hakua.” Just as she finished speaking, the star-shaped Guiding Light faded from her eyes. The mechanisms reproducing Nono’s mind and personality broke down completely, never to function again. The Elder Astrologer, who Nono Hoshizaki had programmed with behavioral patterns a thousand years ago to activate whenever the world was in danger, had expired. “I’m not sure how to react to this…,” Menou muttered. Although they were unlikely to ever meet again, Nono had been so cheerful about it that it was hard to feel sad or sentimental. Besides, it wasn’t as though Nono had died. In fact, Menou had never met Nono at all. However, she’d still managed to say good-bye in a way that drove a wedge into Menou’s heart. Perhaps it was a sign of her deeply twisted personality. For just a few seconds, Menou thought about Nono Hoshizaki, who lived a thousand years ago. There was no time to wallow in such sentimental feelings, though. She ended her moment of silence for Nono and looked up to see that the ceiling district was quickly being consumed by Pandæmonium. But there was still something Menou could do to stop it. “…” She silently touched the outer wall of the environment control tower. What was the biggest problem here? Clearly, the answer was the fusion between the environment control tower and the Starhusk. That would cause the most damage. Were the nucleus of the Starhusk destroyed, the other miniature planets orbiting above the north would fall. Between the sheer mass and the rain of white liquid, the entire region would be destroyed. All this was purely because the environment control tower was directly below the nucleus of the Starhusk. If there was no matter in the same physical coordinates as those of the Starhusk, the spatial intersection wouldn’t be an issue. The ceiling district would probably still fall onto the north, but no one would suffer if an uninhabited city was dropped in unoccupied land. “Abbie. Let’s break this thing.” If Menou and Abbie broke the environment control tower’s base, the whole structure would fall. When the spaces intersected, the environment control tower would no longer stand in the same place as the Starhusk, and the two wouldn’t fuse. What’s more, there was a hole leading into the Mechanical Society in the center of the environment control tower. If they brought down the top half, it would hopefully get sucked into that hole. Better yet, it connected to the zone that belonged to Abbie. In one fell swoop, Menou and Abbie would acquire all the necessary pieces to gain control over the Starhusk, including the Astrologer’s body. “No problem, li’l Menou. I got this!” Abbie caught on to Menou’s idea immediately and enthusiastically stretched out her arm. She was aiming for the base on the ceiling that supported the environment control tower’s top half. Guiding Force: Merge Materials—Primary Red Stone, Pseudo-Primary Color Concept— Her tan skin glowed, and her spirit reached into the internal storage space that her physical body contained. She drew out micromachines, the smallest Concepts of Primary Colors units that formed this place, and shaped them into a new form. Most of them were materials kept for extra lives, but one portion stored Abbie’s latent abilities as a weapon. Invoke [Imitation [Vessel] Armament: Ability Control] The world around Abbie began to repaint itself. An air defense weapon developed to shoot down the artificial satellite armaments previously thought to be indestructible from orbit came into being. This Guiding Force energy weapon, composed from the rearranged knowledge of the ancient civilization, fired. The air shook violently, and far above, the base of the upper half of the environment control tower broke straight off. Without its foundation, the top portion of the tower fell and was pulled into the enormous ball of Guiding Light. “Awesome!” Abbie cheered. The plan had been a success. Tremors thundered through the chamber. At this rate, they’d be separated from Sahara and Maya and get left behind underground. Guiding Force: Connect—Dagger Gun, Crest—Invoke [Guiding Branch] Menou left the branches that formed from her blade on the ground and stood on her toes while standing on the handle of her dagger gun. While channeling Guiding Force through her feet to maintain the crest conjuring, Menou reached for Abbie. “Here, Abbie. Take my hand.” “Sure!” With Abbie on board, Menou put even more power into the dagger gun. The Guiding Branches stretched out, carrying them upward. It took a considerable amount of power to maintain the conjuring’s strength, but Menou could easily provide it, since she was connected to the Guiding Force of Akari, an Otherworlder. As the two rode upward on the branches, Sahara and Maya popped out of the environment control tower, which was more than halfway inside the Mechanical Society. Something must have happened inside, because Sahara appeared to be unconscious. Maya was frantically hanging on to Sahara with all of her small body’s might as they dropped down into Menou’s arms. “Wh…why did it break all of a sudden?!” Maya cried. “Sorry. We broke it,” Menou replied. “WHAT?!” While Menou and Abbie had judged it to be a necessary, if desperate, action, they couldn’t blame Maya for being angry. The sudden destruction of the upper foundation while she was still inside was a perfectly reasonable reason to be terrified. “So, er…” Menou hesitated. “About Nono…” “Yeah, she died.” “Oh. Yes. She did.” Before Menou could say any more, Maya cut her off with a straight face and a flat voice. Menou agreed with awkward politeness, in part because of Maya’s reaction, but also because she understood why the girl felt so strongly about it. “Really, what an awful personality she had. We’re all better off now that she’s completely gone from this world,” Maya declared. “Huh? Wait, who’s Nono?” Abbie had only met Nono briefly a few minutes ago and recognized her body as the Astrologer, a soulless recording device. Her question only served to confuse the discussion. By the time the Guiding Branches carrying the four of them reached the top portion of the spire, the ceiling district had been almost entirely consumed. Only the tallest buildings still retained some of their original materials. More than half of the City of Ruins was engulfed in the heavy web of a conjuring circle. Menou had felt something like this once in Libelle. It was the beginning of a large-scale summoning conjuring. Guiding Force: Sacrifice—Chaos Collusion, Pure Concept [Evil]—Summon [Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.] The conjuring summoned the ceiling district, now completely consumed by the Concept of Original Sin, back to its original spatial axis. An instant later, it all came crashing down. From Menou’s perspective, the massive cavern containing the City of Ruins suddenly opened up. The top section of the city was absorbed and summoned, appearing aboveground and causing a spatial intersection collision. Everything was plummeting down with terrible force. Below, Menou and the others saw the enormous crater that rested in the center of the north. The mass that had previously been the ceiling district of the City of Ruins was raining down upon it, as though to plug the hole. Menou felt the wind pressure buffet her as she tried to look overhead. She managed to make out the shape of a gigantic sphere covered in white—the Starhusk. Just as Menou hoped, they’d prevented the environment control tower from fusing with it when the subspace collapsed. The worst-case scenario had been avoided. Even if they took no further action, there would be no human casualties. Of course, that assumed Menou’s group escaped the impending crash. Abbie was the only one who stood a chance of surviving. Menou drew out her Guiding Force. She led the overflowing power from the depths of her soul into her dagger, carefully selected using materialogy. Then the power she’d extracted obeyed the seal etched into the dagger with crestology to bring about a conjuring phenomenon. Guiding Force: Connect—Dagger Gun, Crest—Invoke [Guiding Branch: Mistle Sword] A long bough made of Guiding Force stretched from the dagger. Menou took Sahara from Maya, then passed her to Abbie. “Take care of Sahara, please,” she said. “With pleasure!” Since Abbie was unlikely to break, even after a fall from this height, she’d be able to handle the unconscious Sahara just fine. Menou smiled brightly at her. “Also, I’m going to stab this into you, so bear with me for a moment. I can’t maintain this while fighting Pandæmonium, you know.” “Bwuh?” Menou didn’t wait for her reply. She stuck the Mistle Sword into Abbie, then drew out Abbie’s Guiding Force through that connection. The blade branched and spread through the air. Soon, the crest conjuring developed a larger range than the average ceremonial conjuring. Menou would never be able to spread the Guiding Branches on the strength of her Guiding Force alone. She’d only managed to pull off the feat the first time by drawing power from her link with Akari. “Maintain this conjuring on the ground with Sahara, please.” “Wait, wait, wait. That seems like a big favor to ask after stabbing someone, even for a big sister like m—eeEE?!” Menou couldn’t afford to listen to the rest, due to the urgency of the situation. The rubble falling around them had transformed into pieces of Pandæmonium. Unsurprisingly, Abbie didn’t even want to touch them. The battle to come would be challenging for her. It was better to entrust her with caring for the unconscious Sahara. Menou unfolded the meaning of the completed conjuring circle into this world. Guiding Force: Connect—Guiding Branch, Ceremonial Conjuring Circle—Invoke [Mistle Sword: World Tree] By drawing out stolen Guiding Force from Abbie, the Guiding Force branches spread out from the dome-like shape. Menou didn’t know this, but her improvised solution was an advanced version of the method that Master Flare once employed to drive off Manon and Pandæmonium. As Abbie fell, Menou wrung out her Guiding Force, growing it into a single, enormous tree. “Nn… Ghhhhh!” Evidently, having this much Guiding Force pulled out was too much, even for Abbie. She let out a pained cry. The giant tree stretched across the sky at an impossible speed. Its branches increased its stability by twining together, while also multiplying and expanding the base section outward to better distribute the weight. The roots touched the ground far faster than anything merely falling and spread to form a sturdy foundation. Immediately, the Guiding Branches blossomed into a tree large enough to blot out the sky over the Wild Frontier. Falling buildings rained down on the branches Menou had created. Loud crashes echoed, yet the tree didn’t buckle. It caught the structures mid-fall, despite their size and velocity. “Perfect. Now I have footing to work with.” Menou hadn’t expanded such an enormous web of Guiding Branches just to catch the falling buildings. In fact, that was only a bonus. Her main goal was to create a suitable battlefield. Only Menou and Maya remained above the massive Guiding Force creation, quickly joined by another girl, who alighted before them. “Mm…” Amid the turmoil of a city falling from the sky, her small body cut through it with strange clarity. “You just had to go and make this less exciting.” While the force of the plummet broke structures into pieces, the girl sitting atop a monster rested her chin in her hands and pouted. “Why did you have to ruin it, hmm? I was so close to bringing down the ‘stars.’ It would’ve been a wonderful meteor shower.” “It’s not wonderful at all!” Maya shouted back. “I never wanted anything like that! Don’t use my body to bend this world to your weird whims!” “Oh, don’t be silly. On the contrary, I wish you wouldn’t wear my face while saying such nonsense.” The corners of Pandæmonium’s lips curled into a smirk at Maya’s outburst. She saw through the girl’s show of bravery and exposed her weakness. “Mm-mm. Besides, you can’t lie to me. You’ve thought about it before, that’s for sure.” Pandæmonium’s voice was barely above a whisper, yet it reached their ears clearly. “You wished the world would end, that everyone would die, that humanity would go extinct. So why shouldn’t we make that come true? Lots of people carried that wish before, deep down, not just you. That’s why I want to grant it for everyone!” Her words carried a note of truth. Everyone had a moment of weakness when their life became too much, when they wished the whole world would cease to exist. Pandæmonium was putting on an act of being the voice of the people. “I heard everything. If the barrier around that shut-in’s world in the east breaks, everything will be destroyed, right?” “So will you,” Maya spat. “That’s true. So I’ve been thinking about it.” After spreading her arms with a dramatic flourish, Pandæmonium pointed at the ground. Abbie was down there, supporting their tree, along with Sahara, but that wasn’t what the Human Error meant. There was a sphere of Guiding Light hovering just above the ground. It was several dozen meters around—the entrance to the Mechanical Society. “I’ll just overwrite the place where that homebody’s been hiding with my own space and summon it into this world for everyone!” Pandæmonium announced this as if it were a brilliant idea and not the worst plan anyone could have possibly created. Her plan was functionally a method for changing the entire world into the Concept Dimension of Original Sin. “Isn’t that great? I don’t suppose you’d let me just hop into that hole there, please?” “Absolutely not.” Summoning life from another dimension, then using that life to corrupt and alter this world. Maya hadn’t tried much to be useful a thousand years ago. She’d been too traumatized after being captured and subjected to Pure Concept experiments. The girl was terrified of what her abilities might do if she became a Human Error. She didn’t want to face her past or use the Pure Concept and erase her memories. However, Maya stood against the monster she’d become, nonetheless. “I can change.” She wasn’t the same as Pandæmonium, but she wasn’t quite Maya Ooshima, the pitiable victim, either. After so many experiences, Maya was here, living in the world as a whole new person. “Hmm… Well, it doesn’t matter.” Pandæmonium looked up at the sky, unaffected by the words of her pre-Human Error self. The nucleus of the Starhusk floated above, so close that it seemed like she might reach up and grab it. “It’s still not too late to turn this whole sky into chaos, after all.” The Guiding Branches that climbed through the clouds pierced a swarm of monsters high in the air. Abbie was down on the ground, supporting the Guiding Branches that had formed this enormous tree. She deployed her small conjured soldiers to get a broader view, and she inexpertly controlled the Guiding Branches. Muddled shrieks filled the air. More than half of the many monsters had been run through. Menou took care not to let the movement of the branches knock her off-balance as she stood atop the enormous tree and threw her dagger. Guiding Force: Connect—Dagger, Crest—Double Invoke [Gale, Guiding Thread] Pandæmonium didn’t even attempt to dodge the attack. Sped along by a burst of wind, the blade drove straight into Pandæmonium’s forehead. As the girl died and fell, a winged monster caught the corpse in its beak. It swallowed Pandæmonium, then turned sharply in midair, diving to attack Menou. Without missing a beat, Menou dodged the birdlike monster’s maw, grabbed a nearby Guiding Branch, and transformed it with Guiding Force manipulation. It became a longsword she used to slice off the creature’s head. “Hah!” A blood-soaked little girl emerged from the stump of the monster’s neck. Now that Pandæmonium had gotten close to Menou by using an unthinkable strategy, her eyes flashed with crimson Guiding Light. Guiding Force: Sacrifice—Chaos Collusion, Pure Concept [Evil]—Summon [Yummy in my tummy.] Her small arms split down the middle, and jagged teeth formed along the new edges. The little girl’s limbs transformed into monsters big enough to swallow a person whole, and they lunged at Menou. Menou pulled Maya close with one arm and jumped out of the way, all the while sending Guiding Force into her dagger. Guiding Force: Connect—Dagger, Crest—Invoke [Gale] Since a single jump wouldn’t be enough to get away, she used the blast of air from her dagger to go farther. Pandæmonium’s monsters passed through the empty space to take huge bites out of the Guiding Branch where Menou had stood. These were no light nibbles. Had Menou been there, she would have been crushed beyond recognition. Such was the Pure Concept of Evil. Menou glared at the inhuman being disguised as a child. The little girl was surrounded by monsters, and she evoked an indescribable feeling of revulsion and fear. She was truly the worst monster in the world, one that even Hakua had only managed to seal away, never defeat. But Menou had a trump card on her side. “You can do this, right, Maya?” “Of course I can.” The brave young girl was their key to victory. “What a boring plan you’re scheming.” The Human Error who’d consumed all of Maya’s memories yawned exaggeratedly to show her boredom. “I’m Pandæmonium’s arm, and you’re just a pinky. Surely even you can figure out which of us is stronger.” Pandæmonium’s eyes glittered with crimson Guiding Light. Guiding Force: Sacrifice—Chaos Collusion, Pure Concept [Evil]—Summon [Four and twenty blackbirds.] A swarm of dark birds flew from Pandæmonium’s body. Tens, hundreds, thousands, even more. They billowed out endlessly, pouring as if from a broken faucet. The girl’s body was filled with tens of millions of sacrifices from when she devoured the entire Alliance of Southern Islands. While the majority were still packed into Pandæmonium’s real body, still trapped in the fog, the number in the arm still outweighed those in a finger. Guiding Force: Connect—Scripture, 9:3—Invoke [Know the hiding places of the wicked, and shine light upon them.] Guiding Light shone from the scripture, evaporating every monster it touched. But that was only a drop in the bucket. The bird monsters circled, plunged, and attacked in droves. Meanwhile, Abbie controlled the Guiding Branches from below to counterattack them. It was a far cry from the pinky finger Menou faced in Libelle, which only started from a single sacrifice. This Pandæmonium was so full of Original Sin that she had no need to collect any new sacrifices. Menou couldn’t hope for her to run out of sacrifices like in Libelle. The monsters she summoned were still weak, but if she couldn’t defeat Pandæmonium quickly, she’d find herself overrun. Fortunately, Menou had acquired a new weapon since her last encounter with this Human Error. Abbie currently had her dagger gun. So Menou formed the shape of a gun with her fingers. She’d never used it in this form before, but it came to her easily enough. Purple Guiding Light formed at Menou’s fingertip. “Mm, how lovely. Are you going to use that gun on me?” Seeing that Menou was about to invoke a Pure Concept, Pandæmonium squealed in delight. “I think it’d be just wonderful if you became like me. We could dance together! Go ahead and keep using it, please and thank you.” “Are you sure about that? Bluffs don’t work on me, unlike Akari.” Menou pointed at Pandæmonium with her glowing finger. “Back in Libelle, you went out of your way to interfere with Akari. I found it a little strange at the time, but now that I can use Time, I understand.” Menou was imitating the motion Akari used to do when she was aiming at a target to use her Pure Concept of Time. “You were afraid of Akari’s power because it can seal you, right?” In Libelle, Pandæmonium had deliberately followed Akari around. She’d made a point of declaring that Akari’s conjurings were meaningless, insisting that they wouldn’t work on her, that there was no point in trying. But that wasn’t true. Her bluffing had been enough to convince Akari, who didn’t have much battle experience. However, Pandæmonium couldn’t fool Menou. It was clear that she didn’t want to be hit directly by one of Akari’s conjurings. The Pure Concept of Time worked more on objects than on places. Since Pandæmonium rendered herself virtually immortal by resummoning herself when she died, the Suspension conjuring that stopped time for objects or people was far more effective against her than was the white fog sealing an entire place. Menou couldn’t say how much of her memory would be lost if she tried to continually use Suspension on a being as powerful as Pandæmonium. Still, Menou could lock Pandæmonium away if she was willing to risk her life. “…Afraid?” Pandæmonium gazed at the purple Guiding Light leveled at her as though it were utterly mystifying. She tilted her head expressionlessly, resembling a doll with cut strings. “Afraid, afeared, afrightened, afraid… Who, me?” Her eyes filled with Guiding Light that was darker than red. “MEEEEEEEEEEE?” Her shriek was stranger than the roar of any monster. Pandæmonium opened her little mouth. She opened it wide, gapingly so. Her slim white neck bent back, and her small round chin tipped upward, fixing her deep crimson gaze on the sky. Her mouth stretched so wide that her skin looked ready to split open at the seam of her lips and molt away. So wide that her normally pretty young face looked twisted and wrong. So wide that it made her body seem like a costume, and her mouth was the point at which it unzipped. So wide that she was surely preparing to strip off her human disguise. The stretched maw contained endless nothingness, darkness not even the light from her eyes could illuminate. Everyone stopped moving at once. Not just because it was disgusting. They were long past the point of putting the utter revulsion she evoked into words. Fear seized them, bound them. The nothingness, the shapeless void, began to move somehow. It was deepest shadow, if such a word could apply to something one could not see. The dark void was taking form. A power that wasn’t meant to exist in this world forced its way out of the little girl’s mouth, overflowing from another dimension. It had been attached to the soul of an Otherworlder summoned here, had consumed her spirit as the price of using its Pure Concept, finally had controlled the flesh, and had gone on a rampage, crushing the meaning of life itself over a thousand years. This was an Otherworlder’s ultimate fate. The being came into existence when chaos reached its peak. Its age far outstripped that of the ancient civilization. The people born into this world called it a Pure Concept and lived in fear of the incarnation of a higher dimension. Evil. This embodiment of a Pure Concept, an entire world in itself, pulled itself free from its human shell. As the souls of all who witnessed it shriveled in horror, the voiceless Pure Concept invoked a conjuring. Guiding Force: Sacrifice—Chaos Collusion, Pure Concept [Evil]—Summon [Red shoes of children, taken away by the gods.] Everything turned red. The monsters flying nearby, the remains of the buildings that had been sucked into the shadow and corroded by Concepts of Original Sin—all were offered as sacrifices and became red particles, whirling into the air. Cracking in the sky signaled the formation of a fissure above. It peeled open to create a link to the other dimension. The ominous fissure was large enough to eclipse the environment control tower. From the depths of this rift emerged an enormous foot wearing a bright red shoe. The sparkling leather shoe was densely lined with little teeth on the bottom. The creature on the other side of the sky was so massive that it could only stick out a single leg. Pandæmonium shut her mouth with a snap. The being that had crawled out of the girl was hidden once more. It put its skin back on and wore the face of a human again. As everyone stood stunned by the horrific sight they shouldn’t have witnessed, Pandæmonium beamed at them brightly. “Don’t compare me to that weakling from Libelle or the holy land, okay?” Pandæmonium’s little warning gave Menou the brief moment she needed to return to her senses. This was no time to stand in awe. She tried to shake the numbness from her soul. She could worry about what she’d seen later. The most pressing danger was the giant foot wearing a red shoe that had emerged from the rift in the sky. The strength of a monster was proportionate to the length of its life. It grew the more the creature consumed. It adapted to all environments, repeatedly evolving, ignoring the normal cycle of genealogy. Unlike the monsters Menou had fought in the past, this one wasn’t freshly made when summoned. It was a complete malediction that had thrashed and thrived in the dark for a millennium. “This one’s very strong, you know.” The leg with the red shoe kicked the Starhusk. Atmospheric vibration from the impact made the world tremble. A momentary frequency too low for human hearing became a shock wave and sent everyone trembling. With that single strike, the Starhusk was blown away, white liquid and all. Menou was stunned. As long as Pandæmonium had sacrifices, she could have brought down the Starhusk on her own all along, with no need for any complex plans. “Ngh!” The white liquid that was scattered by the impact came raining down. Touching a single drop would kill Menou instantly. She immediately manipulated the Guiding Branches to form a protective umbrella above her head. But that was all she could do. The branches she stood on were immediately dyed white. Knocked from its orbit, the Starhusk began to fall. The one silver lining was that the summoned red shoe had been damaged by the attack as well. More than half of it had already turned white. Pandæmonium’s eyes sparkled with pleasure as she excitedly watched the results of her meteor shower. Cracks ran through the white-stained foothold. It wouldn’t be long before the Guiding Branches lost their effect, eroded by the white liquid. Menou opened her scripture to destroy Pandæmonium’s hopes before time ran out. She filled the scripture with Guiding Force. Guiding Force: Connect—Scripture, 1:4, Full Passage—Invoke [“What are you doing?” asked the king. The woman answered, “I am digging a well.” The earth was dry. The ground was cracked. Sand was all around. The Lord thought this strange. There was no water in this ground. Why here, at the end of the world? The king said, “No water will appear. This vein has run dry. The oil too has dried up. There is no peace. There is no order. What could flourish, in this world? What could be planted? What could be found? What is left to be dug up…?” The woman answered, “It is not dead. This land is full of power.”] Menou connected herself to a vast amount of power through the scripture. She no longer had the same purity as a material that she did before. She’d lost the ability to use Guiding Force connections that passed the power through her body and integrated with her control. However, she retained the foundations of Guiding Force manipulation that Master Flare had taught her. [“If I dig deeper and deeper, I will strike upon the light of great power. The truth of this world. The source. Salvation will spring from the ground’s lifeblood and into the heavens, connecting all across the sky, and with the light of this planet create a wall that shall surely bring peace to all.” The king believed her. He had not been forsaken. He gathered the people, dug through the earth, saw the light, and knew. Of hope. Of that which connects. Yes—] This scripture conjuring was originally meant to interfere with the earthen vein, but in this case, Menou targeted the heavenly vein’s flow, which had been damaged by the impact from Pandæmonium’s tear. While the heavenly vein was vast, it had much less directionality than the earthen vein. The power threatened to scatter through the sky if it broke. Instead, Menou gathered it up, like she was tying thread, forming a clear line. [—the Lord’s will is relayed through all of heaven and earth, reigning far and wide.] The Starhusk landed in the pure pre-conjuring phenomenon power, which had almost no physical presence. “Ngh?!” Pandæmonium exclaimed in displeasure. She seemed exceedingly annoyed that the Starhusk’s crash had been stopped. It was in this brief moment of distraction that Maya made her move. She left Menou’s side and ran for the Human Error. Even Menou was caught off guard by this. This was certainly the best opportunity, for Pandæmonium had exhausted nearly all of the sacrifices she had nearby to summon the giant leg in the sky. However, Menou couldn’t help but recall the image of Pandæmonium’s true form. Should she really let Maya get any closer to that thing? In defiant contrast to Menou’s hesitation, Maya boldly rushed forward, straight for Pandæmonium. “Hmm… No matter how weak I might be, that’s just insulting.” Pandæmonium’s shadow spread, becoming an array of black spears that shot for Maya from all directions. This was bad. Panic filled Menou’s mind. Each second she wasted wondering what to do put more distance between her and Maya. A single Suspension wouldn’t be enough to block all of Pandæmonium’s attacks. In just a few seconds, Maya would be pierced by countless shadow spears. Instead, Menou pointed her finger against her own temple. Guiding Force: Connect—Improper Communion, Pure Concept [Time]—Invoke [Acceleration] Menou’s world sped up. It felt like light was bursting inside her brain. She ran at an unbelievable speed, cutting down every one of the dagger spears with her dagger. “Hm…mm…?” Menou heard Pandæmonium’s slowed-down voice as she scooped up Maya and ran. Shadows rose, snakelike, all around her, forcing her to whirl with Maya to evade the blades stabbing from every angle and cut them down. The slashed shadows vanished into thin air. She moved forward, not willing to waste the brief opening she’d created. It took only a moment to reach the source of the shadows, thanks to Acceleration. But that instant was all Pandæmonium needed to complete her summoning conjuring. Guiding Force: Sacrifice—Chaos Collusion, Pure Concept [Evil]—Summon [Wiggly wormy friends.] A tidal wave of fleshy tubes tried to swallow Menou and Maya. They were only five steps from Pandæmonium. However, the span of those five steps was now covered in wriggling tentacles. It was an attack that relied on sheer numbers, something speed alone couldn’t beat. As the wormlike feelers flooded toward Menou, she sent as much Guiding Force as she could muster into the scripture in her left hand. Guiding Force: Connect—Scripture, 12:1—Invoke [Strike the nail, strike the nail, all to give support.] The scripture conjuring formed nails of Guiding Force that pierced the fleshy feelers. A path was cleared. But it was already starting to close. “Maya.” Menou grabbed Maya’s collar and shoved her through the gap. “You take it from here!” She sent the girl straight to Pandæmonium, trusting her to handle the rest. The area within five steps around the Human Error was very quiet. Maya tread into that space with Menou’s help, noticing something for the first time. Pandæmonium’s surroundings had become a poor facsimile of a movie theater, more like a life-sized diorama than the real thing. She must have collected the pieces of the theater from the rubble of the City of Ruins and arranged them around herself. Maya took three steps, coming to stand directly before the girl whose face was identical to hers. Above, the giant red shoe was slowly coming down toward them. If it reached where they stood, it would all be over. Nothing would stop it. Even the parts that had been bleached by the white liquid were slowly turning red again. Time was unquestionably running out, yet now that Maya had reached her goal, she wasn’t certain what to do. She knew she couldn’t beat Pandæmonium in a fight. The difference between them was positively absurd. So instead, Maya spoke frankly. “Could you please just go away?” “Mm?” Pandæmonium’s voice sounded truly mocking. “I can’t believe what I just heard. Tell me, do you have pudding for brains?” “Well, what else am I supposed to do?” Maya pouted. “I’m pretty sure I could erase you if I put my life on the line to do it, you know.” “Mm. That may very well be true.” Pandæmonium confirmed this with surprising reasonableness. Maya’s memory was the key difference between them. Their bodies were identical. Such was to be expected, since they were offshoots of the same person. In other words, Maya could make a Guiding Force connection with Pandæmonium. If Maya sent her memories into Pandæmonium, specifically into the arm in front of her, she might become Maya, just as Maya had regained her memories and emerged independent from the pinky finger. The wildcard that was their potential Guiding Force mutual connection kept Pandæmonium from touching Maya, now that the girl had gotten this close.
Chapter 132
32 min read