To put it correctly, what lit up was the master’s mask and robe. It only lasted for a moment, but it was so bright, so very bright that I couldn’t tell what was what.
It was an incredible flash. It was pure white, and felt like it had strength, a power of its own.
Robe of light. Mask of light. But all I could see at this point was white light dancing spastically. My vision was of only white, white, white.
It might be best to explain it as an explosion, and all of the fragments and rubble were glowing shards of light.
It wasn’t like a continued shine, but like whatever was hit with the light then lit up too, and it spread outward that way.
All I saw was darkness and goose bumps rose on my skin. I couldn’t move. I was under the light’s spell. I couldn’t say my muscles were in pain. But I still couldn’t see. My eyes were tightly shut, and my left hand covered them, but that didn’t stop the light from beaming all around. We were at the mercy of this angry light that was determined to torment us.
A scream tore through my ears. It might have been from Yuri, but on the other hand, it could have been my scream. I couldn’t even tell that much.
This was the limit. The end.
Sa-sanity slipping.
Soul—My soul being torn away.
Like that, the light went out.
Huh?
That was anti-climactic.
It was all over too quick.
It was like we had entered the eye of a hurricane.
With my eyes firmly shut I couldn’t see what was going on, but my body could sense that the light storm had subsided. It was because I could feel the push, the pressure from the light subside. That was how tremendously powerful this light was.
I put down my arms and slowly opened my eyes.
My muscles had stiffened and my joints creaked.
The master stood in the same place and in the same position. His robe was not shredded and his body had sustained no injuries or damage.
The Bloody Cards were nowhere to be seen. The fact that the master was uninjured meant that the Bloody Cards had never reached him.
I scanned up and down the tunnel. I was looking to see if the flying cards didn’t fly down the tunnel or fall to the floor.
My eyes fell upon my right hand, and couldn’t be torn away.
The hand that held the heatgun pointed at the master.
The heatgun had been sliced in half.
Everything past the trigger guard was gone. The grip was untouched, but the barrel was… gone. Did it melt? When the light was whipping around?
The white light. Material exposed to the white light melted and evaporated.
The thought was sobering.
The crater. That is the same as the crater. A giant circular white light had melted the rocky mountain, making it into a tanned mirror-surfaced crater. The master had just shown us the tip of the iceberg of his power.
I tossed the now-useless heatgun aside. Since we’d lost the Bloody Cards the only real weapon we had between us was the ray gun in Yuri’s holster.
“Grrrr…”
Mugi took a step forward.
His leaned into a hunting posture and gave a low growl.
“So there you are,” said the master in a quiet demeaning tone.
A tone that Mugi could read.
“Gaao!”
Anger. He exposed his fangs and his whole body vibrated with tension. The muscles in his shoulders rose up like two small mountains.
His legs lowered, building up energy.
He kicked off the ground, bounding into the air at the master.
The master’s right hand moved.
An electric bolt shot out in every direction.
It branched and spread. Mugi’s body was hit by a spark.
The electric bolt connected. “Gyaan!” Mugi cried.
I couldn’t believe it. I had never heard such a miserable cry.
Enveloped in the lightning, he fell to the ground.
Snap! The lightning hissed and crackled.
Mugi writhed within the electric net, but the net didn’t break or disappear.
“There’s no way out,” the master muttered and laughed. “This net was specially made for catching Mugis. Any attempt to use the Mugi’s power to manipulate electricity or electromagnetic energy only makes it stronger.”
Wha-wha—? This guy knew all that about Mugis. And then he took that knowledge to make a weapon to counter a Mugi attack.
“You may be Gods of Destruction, but against me you are powerless.” The master lifted his head up slightly.
The ring of soldiers around us closed in.
“Don’t come any closer!”
Yuri lifted the ray gun.
“Stupid girl!” the master spat out.
The armored soldiers lifted their arms out to us in unison.
I heard a whooshing sound.
A sweet smell filled my nose.
Then it hit me.
Gas. That’s what I thought.
That’s when it started working.
The world started spinning. And spinning. Faster.
I lost consciousness.
…
Opening my eyes was surprisingly easy.
I wasn’t nauseous and my head wasn’t pounding.
I actually woke up feeling well rested and pretty dam good. I admired the high quality of that knock-out gas. I hadn’t lost any of my memory, either. It was my first good sleep in a long time. Good stuff!
After opening my eyes, I naturally wanted to stretch my body.
I couldn’t. My arms and legs wouldn’t move.
Looking around, I was able to get a picture of the situation. I was bound up to a light metal alloy cross-shaped pillar with electromagnetic manacles. It was different from a typical cross on the lower half of the vertical pillar. The bottom half was split in two. So my legs were spread about forty degrees and individually bound.
Hmph, a rather tasteless way to bind up a lady. My face turned red with embarrassment.
To my right was Yuri. She was awake, and looking around, too.
Beyond Yuri was a black wall. But it wasn’t a wall. It was our giant egg standing there.
It was so big that it looked like a wall. Apparently the Absolute Children of God carried us from the tunnel to here.
Right in front of the black egg, there appeared to be a structure made of stone. The naked pillars revealed a majestic design, and reminded me of something I might have seen as an art student studying ancient religious ruins. Maybe these were the real deal. Though I doubted they were actually ancient.
This was a sacred place for the egg, or it was here first and the egg ate up whatever was the focus of worship. At least that’s what it looked like. We were about 50 meters from the entrance of the temple (if that’s really what it was), and whether our position on the crosses in relation to the egg and the temple had any significance wasn’t obvious yet.
In front of the temple was a wide stone plaza. Where the crosses stood would have been on the left-hand edge of the stone plaza if you were looking from the temple. Beyond the stone plaza was dirt. The ground beyond the plaza was forty or fifty centimeters lower than the plaza stones.
On the ground there stood the Absolute Children of God lined up.
To our side there were about fifty lines of people, probably in about ten rows. Which would make approximately five hundred followers. The owner hadn’t been kidding about how many believers the master had.
Could it be that almost all the miners were believers? Or else there was a sudden influx of members, maybe?
All the believers wore blue robes similar to the style of the master’s. Only the final line of fifty was made up of armed, armored warriors.
All the followers had their heads bowed to the ground and were repeating some kind of chant in unison in a low voice… Ohooh… Ohooh. I couldn’t quite tell what they were saying but it might have “Boralura.”
“Kei…,” Yuri called out to me. “Look at the sky.”
“Hn?”
I turned my gaze upward.
The sky was completely filled with the gray fog. It was the same fog we’d seen from the tunnel earlier.
“There never seems to be a break in the mist,” said Yuri. “That’s why this place was never discovered by the mayor’s precious satellite.”
“That’s probably the case,” I said nodding in agreement. I mean, look at the size of that egg. Even without a spy satellite, it should have been discovered before now. A light plane could have found it. The fact that no one had even heard or talked about it before told me that this fog above was placed there to hide it. So, in the end, the fog was manmade. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to continue like this.
“Ah!”
Yuri, who was facing me, made a tiny shriek.
“The believers are looking up, now.”
“Huh?”
I turned to look.
It was just like Yuri had said. The followers, who had all been looking at their feet were now all gazing at the temple with their hands pressed together in prayer.
I got it.
They were expecting someone to appear from the temple, I guessed.
I quickly turned my head back and forth. This was calisthenics. Nothing else.
My guess was right on the money.
From the back of the temple the form of a person appeared. Since we were high up, we could look down and see pretty clearly.
There wasn’t just one silhouette. There were two. They stood shoulder to shoulder. I guessed one was the master, but who could the second person be? Don’t tell me there are more string-pullers behind all this.
The forms came through the gateway.
“Uwaa!”
I was blown away.
One of the forms was, indeed, the master. Just as before, he was draped in a white robe and moved as if he was sliding rather than walking.
And then there was the other person. This was the real problem.
He was standing next to the master.
He was tall. He had broad shoulders. He had long legs. He wore a blue checkered shirt. He wore faded blue jeans. He had almost transparent blond hair. And, finally, he had a very handsome face.
It was… It was Jeff.
Jeff!
The handsome sheriff.
He was alive!