[688] An Incident Occurs (3)
Having confirmed Shagal's direction, Lupist cast Fly and searched for Shirone's group.
He hadn't worried when he broke the living flower—after all, he knew they weren't the sort to die easily.
"You managed to survive, huh."
Lupist landed on the ground and said it, and Shirone stuck out his lips in a sulky expression.
But Lupist understood how he felt after losing Jane, so he didn't press the matter about the living flower.
"Meirei is strange."
There was nothing human about her face.
"Is it a Teraforce?"
In his position—one who was briefed on the world's secrets—he wasn't easily startled even at the sight of an extraterrestrial intelligence.
Still, he needed to know what intent it had manifested through Meirei.
"What is it aiming for?"
Meirei twitched as if collecting sounds, glanced around, then answered in human speech.
"Order."
"Order? What order?"
No further answer came. Duty came first, so Lupist set the question aside and said, "Alright, we move now. Shagal has started to act. Ra Enemi is nearby."
Kido reached out his hand.
"Give it to me too, Nemesis."
When Lupist turned, Shirone offered a brief explanation.
"It's the sense of taste."
Now that he suspected Ra Enemi's intent, Lupist handed over the spare Nemesis ring without protest.
"Hmm, if I put this on..."
When Kido slipped the ring onto his index finger, imagination manifested into reality and a scene of a goblin tribe unfolded.
'Sister.'
Kido's sister, wearing a tattered skirt, had one leg propped on a rock and was gnawing a pig's leg. Her boisterous, fierce expression might irritate a human observer, but Kido stared at her with a blissful grin.
"Heh."
Lupist said coldly. "Block your thoughts. If interference happens, it'll be fatal in battle."
The scene vanished in an instant.
That he could so quickly steady his mind hinted at Kido's level.
"Let's go. Chase Shagal."
The mages took to the sky, and with Kido keeping some distance, they pursued them swiftly.
After three minutes of running, they saw Shagal, stripped of reason, stabbing wildly with his throwing blades.
"Aaaaah!"
He looked mad, but his genius movements made the presence of the virtual Ra Enemi unmistakable.
"Get inside Nemesis's radius."
When they entered Shagal's twenty-meter radius, Shirone's eyes widened at a sensation he had never felt before.
'This is the scent of an incident.'
Like how a certain smell can bring back a memory, the fragrance of the Ra Enemi that Shagal was inhaling washed over him.
'But I can't tell where it is.'
Unlike sight, olfactory detection wasn't constrained by concealment or cover, but it couldn't find an exact point.
- I am here, Shirone.
When Ra Enemi's voice rang with a divine frequency, everyone turned their heads to the left.
"Ra Enemi!"
Shirone shouted at an empty spot, but the reply came from somewhere completely different.
- What is the universe?
"Come out! Show yourself in front of me!"
- Why can I not become a god?
"Kieeee!"
Kido slid past where the voice seemed to come from and swung his spear, but he struck nothing.
Shirone immediately shifted his gaze.
'It's useless. He exists only in the past.'
If the voice came from the past, there was no guarantee it remained at the same place now.
'But it's not that far in the past.'
Shagal was still here; if the past was within one second, Shirone could strike Ra Enemi with his Temporal Burst Strike.
'Rampage!'
Using his temporal sense to cast magic, a veil of light dominated the entire twenty-meter radius.
At that moment Shagal sniffed and left the spot.
'He dodged. The magic definitely took effect.'
Shagal's immediate movement suggested Ra Enemi lingered in a time nearly identical to the present.
"Where are you! Come out!"
Someone touched Shirone's shoulder.
- Answer the question left behind, Shirone.
The cold voice sounded right beside him, and Shirone felt his heart drop.
'He's behind me.'
Everyone felt it through their Nemesis rings. Kido lunged, but the one who arrived first was Shagal.
"Dieeeeee!"
"Ugh!"
Shirone twisted his body and avoided a short blade.
"Pull yourself together! If we don't combine our strength—!"
"I'll kill you! I'll definitely kill you!"
Shagal, gone mad, drove off down the road, and Lupist, now airborne, shouted, "Follow him! That way!"
The chase resumed, and Kido closed in right beside Shirone.
"Wait until vision supplements it. This one's manipulating events on a cosmic level. He can probably calculate the movement of air molecules. Assume he's the strongest opponent."
"So even if he becomes corporeal, subduing him is another issue?"
Kido nodded. "Finding him isn't everything. If we can't subdue him, I can't consume him, and then we won't be able to grasp Ra Enemi's intent."
Lupist lowered his flight and said, "I don't know how many chances we'll get, but assume there's only one. If an opportunity comes, never miss it."
Shirone ground his teeth and nodded.
"Yes."
He would never miss it.
* * *
Rian, Kuan, and Venezia met up with Etella and sprinted through Radum's concealed facility district.
'It really is an odd feeling.'
There was no destination. Wherever they went, Ra Enemi would be there, so blanking their minds was fine.
'Which makes it ominous.'
Kuan glanced at Venezia. 'Why did Ra Enemi kill her brain?'
Probably because Venezia's free will would interfere with Ra Enemi's design.
'If that's the case, we shouldn't meet Ra Enemi at all….'
"You don't need to think about it."
Kuan looked back at Etella. "Whatever judgment you make, you can't tell whether it's Ra Enemi's intent or your own will. Consider it already consumed by the incident."
It was the loss of free will.
"So the only option is the straight approach."
Their only choice was to meet Ra Enemi and erase his existence.
Having decided, Kuan stopped and slipped a Nemesis ring onto Venezia's finger.
Feeling Etella's gaze, he explained, "It's what Aria was wearing. Now if Ra Enemi approaches, she'll be able to see him."
At that moment Shirone's voice rang out. "Rian!"
They saw Shagal rushing forward with madness in his eyes, and Shirone's group close behind.
"Ah, ahhhh…."
Venezia shivered and groaned, and Rian, Kuan, and Etella all turned.
A handsome man stood there—dark-skinned, tall, dressed in Middle Eastern–style garb, his hair long like a woman's.
"Finally."
Their five senses integrated.
"Ra…!"
Shagal foamed at the mouth and hurled the bag of throwing blades with all his might.
"Enemyyy!"
Ra Enemi turned, gave a beautiful smile—but that smile wasn't for Shagal. It was for Shirone.
"Long time no see, Shirone."
Twenty years was nothing to Shirone; to Ra, it had been billions of years of waiting.
"Why! Why! Why!"
The vanguard was, as always, Shagal.
Scores of throwing blades flew toward every vital point of Ra.
A technique that had taken the lives of many powerful people.
But Ra Enemi, as if dancing, spun gracefully and avoided every attack.
"What…!"
It was so bewildering that Shagal collapsed into despair and lost the will to continue.
'This is impossible!'
The genius's intuition screamed that.
"Shirone! Now!"
As Lupist yelled, Shirone stopped dead.
'I won't miss it!'
Quantum Superposition—300 stacks—Incarnation Art—Angel's Punishment.
The incarnation of the Archangel swelled gigantically and began a brutal bombardment on Ra Enemi.
The power could have killed everyone present, but even so, sacrifice was unavoidable.
'If only we can eliminate Ra!'
Everyone thought the same, so no one resented Shirone for unconsciously casting such a massive spell.
A deafening roar shook the world and tore through their eardrums.
Fragments fell first, and a dust cloud swallowing the city spread like a massive beast.
"Phew! That's something."
Rian walked out, pushing aside bricks larger than a person.
The spear of light Shirone had driven in had far greater force than anything Rian had seen at the graduation exam.
'If I'd survived, everyone would have survived.'
Those gathered here were top elites.
The first thing that drew the eye was a black hole dozens of meters across, its depth unfathomable.
And above that hole, Ra Enemi floated.
"…He's completely fine?"
The others who emerged through the smoke couldn't comprehend the situation either.
Only Shirone could replay the instant when three hundred spears should have struck in sequence.
"This is…impossible."
What Shirone felt matched exactly the emotion Shagal had felt moments ago.
'There was no way to avoid it!'
Shirone hadn't overestimated his skill or underestimated Ra Enemi's ability.
Movement Zero.
Even though the three hundred spears had perfectly sealed Ra Enemi's trajectory, he had evaded them.
'There was an escape route?'
Shirone shook his head violently. 'No, absolutely not. Even if I had been in that spot, there would have been no way out.'
In a perfectly checkmated position, finding a move to break it is impossible—not difficult, but genuinely non-existent.
Meirei approached Shirone.
"Hexa. Ra is a perfect random number."
"A perfect…random number?"
"Humans can't create true randomness. Even when you try to set something random, the very intention of 'I will set it randomly' forms a new pattern."
Can we imagine perfect randomness?
"But Ra is different. He's perfect chaos. He moves outside patterns, so you convince yourself it doesn't exist."
Wave your hand, blink your eyes, shout.
When you imagine the near-infinite actions a human can take, Ra can act beyond that range.
"Just because you can't imagine it doesn't mean it doesn't exist."
"Right. If Hexa is a one-hundred-percent product of fate, Ra is a one-hundred-percent product of chance."
If everything is triggered into randomness beyond patterns, it's no wonder humans can't conceive it.
"In short—annoyingly powerful. So what now? Pure firepower doesn't seem effective."
Meirei said.
"There is a way to eliminate Ra Enemi. But it requires stealing his blueprint."
Kido adjusted his glasses while staring at Ra Enemi. "If we eat him, we can consume his imagination. Perfect chaos being invincible is unlikely—chaos can be weak as well as strong…"
"Yeah, I get it."
Shirone took a step forward. "I'll make an opportunity. When it comes, eat Ra Enemi."
"How do you plan to do that?"
"…I don't know either."
Shirone smiled and dashed forward, then teleported over the chasm. Ra Enemi spread his arms as if to welcome him.
"Can you do it, Shirone?"
He didn't know.
But the answer lay there.
Quantum Superposition—Wheel of the Void.
At first it was double-stacked.
Then, activating Quantum Superposition again, the number of overlapping events surged toward infinity.
Only the Ultima System can control the Void's fractals, but Shirone abandoned control and simply multiplied himself.
"My god…."
Shirone's numbers swelled like bubbles, forming a gigantic globe of bodies that completely trapped Ra Enemi.
"How do you plan to endure this?"
If the numbers kept rising, control would eventually fail—but Shirone didn't worry.
'No matter. Let them increase as much as they like.'
He neutralized fate and chance.
Even if Shirone's incidents multiplied without end, it was fine because Ra Enemi's incidents would erase them in kind.
"The bubble…is disappearing."
At last, the moment a single Shirone gripped Ra Enemi, all the Shirones began converging toward that one event.