Chapter 42

It was also known as the mana railgun. With its exceedingly long range and precision, its impact near-simultaneous to fire, and its tremendous destructive power, it, along with the thick polluted clouds, crashed the effectiveness of aircraft during the City War. It was the cause behind City War II dragging on. “It needs so much mana, you have to connect it to an aether reactor. Which means it’s relegated to base defense,” Gram explained. “You’re not supposed to be able to move it.” “The Progenitor is equipped with mana from the faith of the ten thousand citizens he absorbed into his six-realms gizmo, and now he’s turned it into a mobile cannon,” Veltol said. Gram nodded. “And the craft he shot down are FEMU’s…? They always intended to launch their investigation without waiting for my results?” A few aircraft remained, but the Atlas didn’t use Gungnir against them and kept moving. It seemed to be using a spell like Water Walking, since its feet didn’t sink underwater. It was heading to Goar. “Wh-whatever, guys!” Takahashi looked around. “D-did…did anybody survive…?” Only dust, iron, debris, destruction were left behind. Even if someone had escaped the soul conversion, they could not have survived this. It was but a wasteland of despair. Takahashi fell to her knees. “A-ahhh… Why…her…? Aoba… Aoba…” She hung her head and stuck her hands into the rubble and tore it apart as loss and powerlessness consumed her. She closed her eyes and could still see Aoba’s terrified expression as she vanished, engraved on the inside of her eyelids. It had only been a few days since they’d first met. It was but for a short time, but she was her friend. There was no blood. No corpse. Aoba had vanished into light. It didn’t feel real. All that remained was a hole in Takahashi’s heart. “Stand up, Takahashi,” Veltol demanded. “It’s not over yet.” A scolding. Harsh words for her. Too cruel to throw to an exhausted teenager. But at the same time, they proved he recognized her as more than a teenage girl. A comrade. “We must kill God. This will be our friend’s funeral—Aoba’s funeral.” Takahashi looked up at Veltol. His eyes were set on the mechanical god. Gram and Sihlwald also silently looked at the Atlas, one emotion within them: anger. Ire emanated from their every pore. Aoba’s body had turned into aether and her soul into data; she was effectively dead. Takahashi had heard about the spell that re-formed Veltol’s body from aether. She wanted to ask him if he couldn’t revive Aoba using Methenoel, but she couldn’t. If there was even an infinitesimal chance of saving his friend, this man would do anything—bathe in mud, bow down to his enemies, anything—to achieve it. And yet he had just used the word funeral. That, more than anything, made Takahashi understand that Aoba was dead. She stood up and glared at her friend’s killer. The mechanical god. Veltol initialized his mana. Mana so powerful, it blew away the rubble, and dust surrounding him surged, and black lightning crackled around him. He opened his palm and pointed at the heavens. The Demon Lord prepared his biggest large-scale annihilation spell. The magic unlocked by his rise in faith—the star of annihilation that invited despair in all who saw it. He closed his fingers, grabbing the void, and swung his arm down as though pulling the sky as he proclaimed the maginom: “Dell Stella!” A star fell. A giant rock engulfed in black flames fell from the sky, blowing away the thick clouds and compressing the air underneath it with its colossal mass and speed as the aether irradiated black. This was the ultimate magic only Demon Lord Veltol could use. Dell Stella. It summoned a huge rock made of vast mana in the stratosphere and pulled it down with the acceleration of gravity, bringing about a destruction born from the synergy of the speed, its mass, and mana. Smashing something big from a high altitude. It was simple yet powerful, and thus, hard to protect against. But the Atlas showed no sign of defense or evasion. No resistance. It kept walking indifferently, as though flaunting its power. Dell Stella landed a direct hit. An explosion engulfed the Atlas, and the shock wave reached all the way to Veltol’s group. And yet… “…Unharmed.” The Atlas kept walking among the explosion as though nothing had happened. Veltol bent a knee. The ultimate magic was a mix of multiple spells; the mana consumption was great even for someone like him. Even now, with faith high enough to allow him to take on his second form temporarily, it took away almost all his mana. “Even with your Dell Stella…? How in the world did he do it…?” “Getting out of that spell without a scratch can’t be possible.” Sihlwald and Gram knew about Dell Stella, and their shock was only natural. Nothing could remain unscathed after receiving all that mass with all that speed and all that mana. There had to be a trick behind it. “I got it after that hit. He did not protect himself. It simply didn’t work in the first place,” Veltol said with shallow breath from the mana insufficiency. “It didn’t work…? What do you mean, Veltol?” Gram asked. Veltol stood up. “He became a spiritually higher being with a mechanical body. God. And at the same time that it is a mechanical body, it is independent—a living magic with its own will. From what I can tell, the scale and logical strength of the Atlas spell rivals the aethernet’s.” One would need power enough to annihilate the planet itself in order to destroy the aethernet. If this was on the same level, then it was physically, magically impossible to destroy. “The six-realms mechanism he mentioned, it points their faith toward him, without rest, fueling him with an unbelievable amount of power. More than mine five hundred years ago. Only that explains how he can maintain a technic on that scale.” “Spare me the details. How do we defeat it?” Sihlwald asked. “Doesn’t sound like we’re enough to take it down,” Gram said. “Then what? We turn tail and flee?” “Don’t worry…,” said Takahashi. “Velly…I’ll do it.” Her words were unwavering. “I’ll kill it.” Her voice was cold. “You have a chance?” Veltol asked her. “Yeah. But I can’t do it on my own. I can’t get close to it, and my Familia…” Then one of the aircraft flew past the warped space from Goar. And something fell from it. “AIIIEEEEEEEEE!” Two people. Machina jumped from the air, holding Hizuki in her arms. She killed the impact of the fall with magic to land. “M-my life flashed before my eyes…” “Thank goodness Kinohara’s got that airship. She’s quite skilled. To think she even knew how to fly.” “But why’d you jump off?!” “What else could we do? There was nowhere to land after the island collapsed, and we need to keep Kinohara waiting on the ship.” “And what’s that thing anyway? I thought we were dead meat after it shot down the others… Also, who are some of these people?” “Lord Veltol! And Lady Sihlwald! Thank goodness you’re all—” The tension in the air surrounding the other four overwhelmed the joy, surprise, and relief of their reunion and made Machina and Hizuki hold back their words. They couldn’t greet Sihlwald. They couldn’t say why they were there, nor ask what was happening. Machina simply knelt before her lord, while Hizuki stood at attention. “Your orders, Lord Veltol.” “…Yes.” Veltol looked at the machine. “Kill God.” “It is big and cannot fly. It can walk on water, but slowly. Let us hope it will take the Atlas some time to break through the space warp,” Veltol said. Gram nodded. “The Atlas’s Gungnir compresses the mana in the magiweapon’s muzzle. It is precise, powerful, and long-range. We need a way to get past it if we’re going to get close.” “We have a way to deal with aether weapons. Machina.” “Yes, sir!” “You have my permission to release your arrow.” “Understood, Lord Veltol.” “Arrow?” Hizuki asked. “Is that Machina’s trump card?” “Yes.” Machina nodded. “It was used as deterrence in past conflict.” Machina thought back on the strategy meeting to kill the god. She swung her arm, and the ritual motion summoned the armament stored in her soul, enveloping her whole body in flames and black armor. She initialized her mana, and it flowed into her silver hair and scarlet eyes to turn them a vivid, burning crimson. Machina looked at the enemy. A big man-shaped piece of iron. It walked on the ocean straight toward Goar with a metallic creaking. She did not know what it was. She didn’t have the time to enjoy her reunion with her beloved mentor, feared immortal, comrade and friend, Sihlwald. She didn’t know why the Hero Gram was with her lord. She didn’t know why her lord and friend were burning in anger. She didn’t know what happened to them on this island. And she didn’t need to know. “I need only follow his orders.” No need to question. “Fill the black skies.” Machina’s short chant called her soul armament. “Versolegia.” A jet-black bow without a string, larger than she was tall, appeared in her left hand. Machina’s soul armament forged from her soul: the Dark Bowstaff Versolegia. Special armaments such as Veltol’s Vernal and Machina’s Versolegia needed a short chant on top of the ritual motion to summon. She stabbed the spearhead connected to the bow’s lower tip into the ground to fix it in place, then pulled a red string created with mana. There was no arrow to nock on it. “Ash and soot, bone and dirt, scrape out the cinders, dance in delirium with red iron shoes.” Machina pulled the string as she chanted, and a flaming arrow appeared in her hand. Although she wore a Familia, she turned off the chantless feature and spent the processing power on controlling the magic. Her soul armament was a weapon exclusively for releasing one magic arrow. It was a staff with the shape of a bow. “The charred steel withers, the seething sky passes, the scorched sea decays.” If the constructed spell rampaged and collapsed, worst-case scenario, it blew up the surroundings. It was not one to be used alone. Machina had helpers to aid in the construction, expansion, and incantation of the ultimate magic, but they—Ornared and Palmlock—were no longer of this world. “Dazzle, blaze, devour the sun.” Mana converged in the flaming arrow, and as its heat and luminance rose, its color turned from red to white. In sync, Machina’s flaming eyes and hair radiated white as well. Her black armor was undone, turning into a beaming white dress to aid her exhaust heat. “My enemies, with no exception, you shall burn to ash.” As she continued the incantation, her arm nocking the arrow began to carbonize from the elbow. Her immortal powers healed it before it cracked again, and the cycle repeated as flames gushed from her wounds. “…!” Even with a body dull to pain, it stirred her brain and charred her nerves. “Calcination, rebirth, flight toward death.” The mere act of using this magic threatened her immortality. She was only able to withstand the pain that would knock out any regular person thanks to her mental strength born from her loyalty to her lord. “Surge until the end of life!” The incantation ended, and, before she could activate the spell, the Atlas, who didn’t glance at Dell Stella, turned to look at Machina. The pattern that foretold the firing of Gungnir appeared all over its body as light gathered to the barrels in his eyes. Did it notice the oddity about her magic, or was it only turning to execute a fool who dared pull a bow against a god? Machina’s spell wasn’t ready yet. She wouldn’t make it. Red light gathered in the Atlas’s eyes. The plan would be ruined if it shot Gungnir before Machina could activate her spell. So… “Back me up…” A man stood before her. “…Hero Gram.” “Getting close will be nigh impossible if Machina’s arrow gets blocked. However, she needs time to prepare it, and she will be defenseless in the meanwhile. There will be nothing we can do if it aims for her. Nothing but to let you guard her, Gram. You’ve seen it. You can do it. You stop that god’s spear.” “I know,” the Hero replied, his voice cold but shuddering with rage. “I will.” Gram felt the heat on his back. He was fighting alongside the Demon Lord and protecting one of his Six Dark Peers now. Fate sure was a whimsical mistress. But enough sentimentality. “Come, Ixasorde!” Responding to the summoning, the rusted Holy Sword with the name of the silver sun opened its path through the clouds and left a glowing trail in the heavens before stabbing the ground at the Hero’s feet. The Atlas’s eyes glowed. The godly spear could easily fulminate the Hero and the Duchess of the Dazzling Blaze. But before that could happen, he placed his hand on the Holy Sword’s pommel and said: “Ixasorde Signalia!” The Holy Sword buried in the rubble glowed. The light expanded in a circle, and, simultaneously, a barrier with a geometrical pattern was deployed at the front. The Atlas’s red Gungnir crashed into the barrier and set off a big explosion, but it only blew the debris up. Gram and Machina were unharmed. Ixasorde Signalia was the Holy Sword’s function, to turn it into its sealed state. Once sealed, the space around Ixasorde became an impenetrable holy zone, rejecting all kinds of physical, magical, conceptual, and even divine intervention. The holy zone became a barrier that Gram used to block Gungnir. They got more than one shot, but it wasn’t over yet. The Atlas immediately prepared for a second. Gram gripped the hilt. “I will…wield my sword powered solely by the ire of losing a friend…!” He pulled out the Holy Sword and undid the seal. Dinoah Luz: Verifying Hero. A Stra Ros Aran: Unleashing Holy Sword of Salvation. Words from ancient times to release the Holy Sword emerged on its blade. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. But the text turned red in an error message. He was denied use of the Holy Sword. He knew why. His indignation was personal. Ixasorde only chose true Heroes. It was the strictest of Holy Swords. True Heroes did not fight out of personal ire; the Holy Sword had responded in Shinjuku, for he was helping others. The world would fall under the Progenitor’s rule if they didn’t beat the Atlas. That was reason enough to unsheathe the Holy Sword. “But more than that, right now…” Gram’s anger at the loss of his friend was winning out. The Holy Sword’s verification system only allowed unsheathing under what Ixasorde defined as Hero and Justice. It refused to be used for personal indignation. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys: Unsheathing rejected. Dys— The unending rejection spell came to a halt. The red text vanished, a new script taking its place. Lez Ixasorde: Unsheathing approved. His ire hadn’t dissipated. It still burned within him. And yet he was approved for unsheathing. “Forceful unlocking of the Holy Sword of Salvation via administrator permission. Unsheathing permitted.” A voice echoed in Gram’s head—one that he had heard many times before, but not in a long time. It was the Holy Sword Ixasorde. “Thank you, partner,” the Hero told his too lenient sword. “Just this once. Prove I’m better than Black Sky’s Demonic Blossom. Execute the justice you believe in.” “I will.” The Hero held the sword low as the mechanical god aimed Gungnir. “Hear my call and shine…Ixasorde!” A crack opened in the rusty blade, and light leaked out. The crack grew bigger, breaking and doing away with the rust, returning the blade to its shining platinum form. “False god! Realize the wrongness of your ways! Burn this into your eyes! This light born from the wrath of my loss…!” The Atlas fired its second Gungnir shot. The annihilation spear slashed through the air in the blink of an eye toward its enemies. Gungnir hit almost at the same time it fired. But that was all. Nothing the Hero couldn’t strike down. Ixasorde’s power was to cut through any phenomena. Absolute Slash. Gram yelled the name of its light: “Alwing!” He scooped the sword upward in a silver curve that clashed with the red spear of the god. “RAAAAAAH!!” He followed through the swing with an angry yell. A silver light that slashed concepts apart. A simple beam that flew at the speed of light was nothing the Holy Sword couldn’t deal with. The Hero effortlessly struck it out. The silver slash, multiple times brighter and more powerful than the attack back in Shinjuku, sliced and dissipated the aether and the red beam in its path. “Magnificent,” Machina said as she completed her magic. Sihlwald was the most powerful in combat out of the Six Dark Peers, but Machina had the highest mana output, which granted her the biggest firepower. That was her secret. Her trump card. Gram remembered this somewhat fondly. The Nation Scorcher—the Duchess of the Dazzling Blaze. Her firepower was too great, and its full potential was only seen when she didn’t have to worry about harming her surroundings. Ruin incarnated. A strike so powerful, it could fell the Iron Wall, the fortified city of Van Vern. Alongside Veltol’s Dell Stella, it was the spell that mortals did anything to prevent from launching during the Immortal War five hundred years back. Flames of ruin that meant defeat the moment it launched. The arrow nocked to soul armament Versolegia that had only been seen three times in history since she became immortal. Its name… “Dell Soleige!” The white arrow was fired. The moment she let go, Machina’s carbonized arm crumpled with a spark from the recoil, the heated excess mana inside it gushing out like blood or lava. Her dress evaporated like water into the fire, and she returned to her regular form before falling to her knees. The white flaming arrow slashed through the dark night. Countless warriors had been drowned before the brilliant white fire. The Atlas reacted. The six-realms mechanism’s mana supply made Gungnir possible to shoot as many times as wanted. No need for cooldown or reloading. For the nth time, light gathered in the mechanical god’s eyes, and the godly spear was shot to strike down the white arrow. “It’s useless. That’s not enough to stop my arrow.” Dell Soleige and Gungnir clashed. Without resistance, the white arrow devoured the red light. The fire of ruin charged forward toward the Atlas and struck the titan. An explosion followed. The blast blew away the thick clouds covering the sky, and, with light so intense it would melt one’s eyes if seen directly, flame petals engulfed the thousand-foot giant. The light and heat were as though a star had materialized on land. Immediately, before the thunder and shock wave reached them, Gram used Water Walking to rush across the gelid sea toward the Atlas. “Thank you,” Machina, on her knees and without one arm, said to his departing back. Was it for protecting her from Gungnir? Or for helping Veltol rescue her in Shinjuku? Or…for both? Dell Soleige’s explosion made the sea boil with an upward air current. Huge ripples formed in the water as a mushroom cloud rose to push aside the thick clouds in the sky and reveal the approaching dawn. The air and instantly heated aether turned into plasma, and a red flash glinted in reaction to Machina’s mana.