[471] The Birth of Humanity (1)
After meeting Peope, Shirone and Plu infiltrated Paradise and changed into the citizens' clothes.
A fairy's senses could tell substance from insubstance, but trusting Peope was an entirely different matter.
Plu hesitated briefly about following her, but as long as Shirone didn't object she had no intention of barging in recklessly.
In any case, she needed clothes too.
Once outside Paradise, Shirone got a rough explanation from Peope.
The Aegis system was currently neutralized and the interception network paralyzed.
In short, they could freely scale the walls from the First Heaven through the Seventh.
Because of that, the fortress gate was guarded by giants, and fairies from the Citizen Management Department had been temporarily deployed in the sky to patrol the airspace.
"So we have to fight an aerial battle to get to Arabot? That's inconvenient."
Plu propped her chin on her hand and frowned in thought.
Teleporting over would be quick, but breaking through fairy squadrons—each wielding different definition powers—would be a very high-difficulty task.
"There is one way."
Peope said.
"To pass the fairy squadrons in the airspace, you need permits from the officers. If you get those, you should be able to cross over to Arabot safely."
Shirone didn't answer right away.
Peope didn't know why Shirone wanted to go to Arabot.
If she learned he planned to trigger God's punishment and destroy Heaven, what would she do? What expression would she wear?
Why… isn't she asking anything, Peope thought.
Come to think of it, it made no sense that someone attached to the Ministry of Justice would help him in the middle of a war with Heaven.
Could she be doing this out of simple personal favor?
Plu, who had the same thought, asked without revealing her feelings.
"Can we actually get those permits?"
"I don't know. Even if you request them from Igirin, they won't be handed over easily. But if you want to try, I can help."
Shirone asked, "Where do we go?"
Peope pointed northwest of Shehakim.
Beyond Paradise stood a conical spire built of white brick.
"That's Shehakim's Citizen Management Department."
Shirone and Plu exchanged looks.
It was practically walking into the enemy camp.
No matter how much they trusted Peope, they couldn't gamble recklessly before such an important mission.
"Then we'll take the simpler option and scale the wall. Can you guide us to where Arabot is?"
Peope looked at Shirone with sad eyes.
In truth, she hoped he wouldn't go to Arabot. If he intended to fight Heaven to the bitter end, Peope would have to make a choice too—and in any case, nothing but tragedy would remain.
"All right. Follow me."
Peope changed course and flew toward the apex of Shehakim's pie-shaped sector.
Shirone and Plu cast Fly and followed. After about ten kilometers of advance—
"There! Chase them!"
A group began pursuing them, leaping across Paradise's rooftops.
They were members of the Kergo tribe who had entered Shehakim after gaining immortality.
"Purge the heretics!"
"Kyaaaaaa!"
With shrill cries, Kergo warriors swarmed in from all directions.
Gaining immortality meant that from the time they became citizens of the First Heaven they had hunted countless heretics for Anke Ra.
Their combat prowess was a different order from the Kergo wandering Purgatory.
"What do we do?"
"Now that they've seen us, we can't shake them. Their pursuit ability is incredible."
No sooner had Shirone finished than the Kergo warriors shot upward as if gaining thrust.
Armed with razor blades, they wielded external gravity freely, and their raw strength rivaled giants hardened by a thousand years.
"Split up!"
Shirone, Plu, and Peope dispersed in different directions to divide the pursuers' forces.
When they landed, even more citizens had taken over the alleys and were in pursuit.
—Reward posted!
Peope's telepathic intrusion slid into Shirone's head.
From the moment they received immortality, animalistic lacks no longer existed.
What they desired were high-level cravings—honor, revelry, pleasure, power.
"Ke ke ke, catch them and you can become an officer in the Council of Ten among the immortals, right?"
Hearing the commotion, a Kergo drew a sword that flashed like a fireball in the sun.
That was Murka, one of the Kergo warriors.
His body pulsed like a young man in his prime; his sun-dark skin was slick as if oiled, though he was actually one thousand and twenty-three years old.
"If I become an officer of the Council of Ten, I can enter Utopia. I'll buy all the fine clothes I want there."
A Nor woman walked beside Murka.
Her blond hair was braided into thin plaits and hung down, and she wore the most valuable citizens' robe: golden silk.
She was the Nor immortal Deina.
Her chest was firm and gave the robe a lovely curve, and the leg revealed by a side slit was smooth.
But she wasn't much younger than Murka.
Clang! Clang!
A sleek mechanical sound echoed across Paradise's rooftop. A young man wearing Mecha gear—a piper—performed acrobatics and leapt off the roof.
Thud!
He landed on his knees before the two with a greasy smile and brushed back his hair.
He was Laun, an immortal of the Mecha people.
Mecha pilots could handle pipers as a baseline, but a thousand years of honed skill made Laun's control so precise the machine felt like an extension of his body.
"Been a while since it's just the three of us?"
Laun drew Signa and Xd and turned toward the commotion.
Humans who had passed mortality's boundary.
Having lived over a thousand years, they were considered to have realized avatarhood; judged by single-combat power among humans, they were the strongest.
For such immortals blessed with extraordinary combat, this war was not tragedy but a pleasant diversion.
Deina spun winds between her hands and floated lightly into the air.
"Let's see who catches them first. The winner becomes the Council of Ten officer."
"Fine by me. I'll win anyway."
Murka gripped his sword backwards and launched.
Laun manipulated his piper, treading the wall in a zigzag before disappearing, and Deina intensified the air pressure to soar vertically.
Kraaaang!
As the wall shattered and Kergo warriors burst out, Shirone teleported to gain distance.
Wherever he fled, enemies swarmed in all directions.
It was strange because this hadn't been happening until a short while ago.
What on earth had stirred them into motion?
"Kyaaah!"
The sound from the heavens made Shirone snap his head up.
Against the backlight, a warrior's shadow fell inverted from the sky.
An inky blade kissed the bridge of his nose, and before Shirone could even recover his weapon, Murka charged.
"Ha ha ha! Jackpot!"
'Jackpot?'
Through the Ultima system, the warrior's voice streamed into meaning.
What Shirone felt was that these weren't fighting a war.
Like a hunting game, they were pursuing him for sport.
'But…'
Murka's movements were more agile and powerful than any Kergo Shirone had seen so far.
When he spun and created a blade wind, Paradise's exterior wall shattered to splinters.
Shirone, following the mage's fundamentals to keep his distance, fired photon cannons.
At the same time, Murka's eyes flashed and countless schema techniques reinforced his pupils.
Fine nerves across his body emitted light for an instant and projected beyond the skin, making his body blur like a ghost.
'Fast! I can't perceive him!'
Shirone immediately opened his palms and activated Diamond Armament.
The robe wrapped him at top speed, and Murka's blade grazed his flank by a hair.
Kraaaang!
"Ugh!"
Shirone was driven through the wall and smashed into a Paradise building.
The metallic skeleton of his augment ring from the Iron-Type mineral species showed grotesque scars and gleamed silver.
Had he been a moment slower, he would have been cut to pieces.
Shirone tumbled like a flying squirrel into the building's depths.
He evaded the photon cannon purely with physical ability.
'Is this what an immortal is?'
Even granting eternal time, biological limits still existed, but mastery of schema had exceeded normal human bounds.
"Ha ha! Already scared? Nephilim weren't all that. To lionize a guy like this as the Light of Sector 73… Citizens really are dumb."
Shirone's eyes sharpened.
Feeling his owner's nerves roughen, Armand unfurled its tentacles like a peacock's feathers.
"Oh? You had such tricks?"
Murka showed no tension at all.
A thousand years of perfected schema was flawless enough to respond to every variable.
If speed was high, see it slowly; if strength was great, go around it; if durability was strong, create the power to destroy it.
Perfect control over the human body.
That was Murka's specialty—the reason he was hailed as the Kergo's top warrior.
When a fluttering, insect-like sound came, Murka's eyes widened and his waist twisted.
Whooosh!
A tentacle whipped through on a gale, passing Murka and smashing the wall.
An unexpectedly overwhelming speed.
'What is that?'
As Murka contorted in a grotesque posture to study Shirone, Shirone drove a tentacle into the ground and launched himself.
An unknown rage had built up in him—a jealousy of immortality that inevitably blooms in a living being.
"Go!"
Photon cannons fired in all directions, and four tentacles arced widely, swallowing up the escape routes.
"Hoo! Hoo!"
Murka regulated his breathing like in a drill and continued to evade.
'Impressive indeed.'
As time passed, Murka's eyes grew brighter.
Had he ever faced a human this strong in his thousand years? From the moment immortality was granted, humans rose beyond human status to a higher plane.
His current martial power was not inferior to fairies or giants.
'But I can see it. I am stronger.'
He would become an officer of the Council of Ten and gain even greater power. What he needed stood before him now.
"All right, let's do this properly!"
Murka's belligerence flared and he shot out like an arrow to strike Shirone.
Kaka-kaka-kakang!
At the same time, a silver scar appeared on Armand's robe and the shockwave chilled Shirone's bones.
'A very tough robe. I like that too, though.'
Murka shoved his sword between his ribs and spun.
External gravity unfolded in all directions as his body rotated ten times per second, the blade drawing a disc-shaped afterimage.
'Can I stop this too?'
Just as the blade aimed for the nape of Shirone's neck, an enormous binding snared Murka's feet.
"Guh!"
Shirone stepped back as the sword sliced uselessly through empty air, and Murka gritted his teeth and struggled to stay upright.
'What on earth is this?'
From a bead floating in midair to Shirone's left, an eyeball watched him.
The Antithesis that had even bound the fallen angel Ikasama.
But Murka wasn't Ikasama.
This was also why he had been able to remain in Shehakim's Third Heaven—a level higher than fallen angels.
He tried to move using every schema ability, but each attempt only tightened the binding, sinking into his muscle fibers.
It would be impossible without the law of the whole—a law that nullified the target's actions—being activated.
Shirone concentrated photon cannons ahead.
With Galtomic's magic amplification added, the blast swelled with a bang, surging to obliterate Murka's face.
Kraaaang!
At that moment a barrier of air formed before Murka, and the photon cannon detonated against it.
"Huuup!"
Though not comparable to Gauld, the pressure was tremendous, and Shirone glanced toward the door.
"Hohoho! Having trouble with this much? You're getting old, Murka."
'Who is that woman?'
A woman with a cool expression and a sultry smile floated a meter above the floor as she entered Paradise.