Age of Chaos (1)
Abella gritted her teeth, but a groan escaped as pain spread through her chest.
"Huuuu—"
No one watching her—not even Gustav of the Fourth who prided himself on understanding Havitz—could make sense of what was happening.
"Why? Why?"
"Your Highness."
They had never experienced Satan's 0.666 seconds; even if they had understood it, nothing could have changed.
"Hu ha ha."
Havitz, who had been hiding behind Abella using her as a shield, had bloodshot, reddened eyes.
"Hu ha ha."
His breaths came in ragged gasps, his nostrils flaring, his eyes swimming with blood and sorrow.
"Lo…ok…"
With a clack, the cracked, and Abella's eyes rolled up.
"It's broken."
Balkan, who had been staring dazedly at Abella collapsed on the floor, slowly lifted his gaze.
'Havitz, you broke the .'
Havitz, still heaving breaths, was only grieving the death of the woman he loved.
When the Ex Machina's doors opened, steam and the sharp smell of blood billowed out.
"Quick! Move her, hurry!"
The medics waiting outside loaded the unconscious Iruki onto a stretcher.
Agaya glanced back at the Ex Machina.
"Phew. It's useless now."
Iruki had forcibly twisted the Law; the calculating devices had melted under the heat.
'But he gained a far stronger brain.'
Watching Iruki carried away on the stretcher, Agaya prayed inwardly.
'If only he can wake up.'
When the commotion died down, Guido stamped his foot hard, cigarette ash falling.
"Damn it!"
"What happened? Did we fail?" asked Kashan's special squad captain, but the men playing cards kept their mouths tightly shut.
After a long silence, Ness said, "The couldn't predict it."
That was the only conclusion anyone could draw from the result.
"He killed the woman he loved."
If Havitz had only used Abella as a shield because he didn't want to die, the would have twisted even that law and driven a blade through Havitz's heart.
"He didn't kill to survive." Mais's voice trembled with disbelief. "He killed because it was fun."
Simply because it seemed more fun.
"Is there anything closer to chaos than betraying the woman you love most at the moment of death?"
Silence fell again.
"Th-then what does that mean?"
No one answered the captain; the same thought passed through everyone's minds.
'Gaold toppled the Buddha. But the human era will be swept into a short history.'
Truly, it was the Age of Chaos.
"Huuuu—"
Havitz was crying.
"Abella, Abella." Because she had been the woman he truly loved, in that final instant he felt doubt for the first time in his life.
'Who am I, really?'
Dying in Abella's place would not have been difficult.
'Then why did I have to do it this way?'
Filial murder occurs in this world, but its foundation is always hatred.
'Because I truly loved her.'
To cast away someone you loved with all your heart without the slightest hesitation—no one could do that.
'Something no one can do.' If someone did such a thing, what would they feel? What would that sensation even be?
"Kuk. Kuk kuk kuk."
He was so curious it was maddening.
"Ku ha ha ha! Yes, that's it! This is it! This feeling! A pleasure no drug can give!"
There was only one reason he hadn't accepted Satan's offer: "This is actually fun!" After all, he already was Satan.
'Awakening.'
Balkan understood when a violet haze began to rise from Havitz's body.
"Woooooo!"
Havitz's eyes snapped open, and a colossal form of Satan shot up, piercing the sky.
If there is a concept that allows someone to resolutely kill the one they love, it is nothing but chaos.
And humans call that atrocity.
"What is that?"
Gai, who had been squatting, hurriedly turned toward the inner fortress.
Shirone and Minerva saw the same thing.
"My—"
A hideous form made purely of demonic energy hung over Bashken as if about to swallow it whole.
Even the madman Gai sensed the gravity and put his sword away.
"If I see you on the battlefield again, I won't spare you."
Shirone didn't answer; as if he had no intention of listening, Gai passed through the gate and ran for Havitz.
"What will we do?" Minerva asked.
"We failed."
The mere appearance of Satan—the sovereign beyond the Law—meant the had been broken.
"It's my fault."
From now on, the world would be stained by a vast evil that neither universal love nor extreme good could withstand.
"No—it's ours."
"It's clumsy goodness that invites evil."
A counterstrike of goodness that could be carried out precisely because there was no Buddha.
'Should we not have provoked it?' Mahoro Amanta's worried prediction had come true: the supreme evil that shattered goodness and emerged.
'This is truly difficult. How on earth...'
How could everyone be made happy?
"Shirone, let's go back. We need a plan."
The sphere of good they'd spent a year expanding would shrink rapidly.
"Now, strike Havitz?"
A gnawing sense of failure kept returning.
"Don't rush. All we managed was hold off the crusade. If you try something, they'll respond."
If I were the only human and everyone else a puppet, the world would turn as I wished, but—
"You can't change the world alone. If the force of good isn't concentrated, the ultimate evil cannot be destroyed."
And so the world drifted into suffering.
"Starting today, the Cotria Republic will disappear. But there are still dozens of countries left to protect."
Shirone bit his lip until it bled and, following Minerva, rose into the sky.
"Human desire—truly endless." The incarnation of Havitz, whose flesh had become ultimate evil, proclaimed from the edge of heaven.
"You will be the Satan of this era. Lead my army of hell. Seventy-two legions will follow you."
The voice that shook the Cotria Kingdom stirred exhilaration in some and despair in others.
As the violet haze seeped into Havitz, his pupils gleamed with an oily shine.
"What's happening?" Balkan asked, approaching.
"I don't know. He's muttering something."
Havitz didn't care; commanding seventy-two legions of demons sounded entertaining.
"Abella is gone."
Death's voice calling one to dinner.
"Night is coming."
So even a playground's prank must someday end.
"We were children cast off, after all."
Children not called by their parents run on even after dusk falls.
"One last thing—"
Havitz looked back at his friends.
"Let's conquer the world once before we go." A mischievous light filled Balkan's eyes, and Natasha split her mouth into an excited grin.
"Great! No one goes home first!"
The Gustav Empire, which had destroyed the Cotria Republic, launched a full-scale world war.
Border state Kashan lost a tenth of its territory, and the Parass Kingdom in the midlands suffered a fatal blow.
"We must break through the Akad Desert. If we do, we can swallow dozens of kingdoms in the central continent."
Across the sea in the east, a fierce naval battle raged with the Jincheon Empire.
"The sea won't be easy. First take the Hoi and Jung kingdoms. Cut the Seven Kingdoms' supply routes."
The kingdoms holding the eastern continent's waist were Hoi and Jung.
"What about how to treat occupied countries?"
At the steward's question, Balkan glanced at Havitz.
"What shall we do?"
"Torture them a bit, then kill them all. No humans except the Gustav Empire shall be allowed to set foot in this world."
It was their playground—and the ultimate goal the demons pursued.
"By the way, there's something worrying."
Balkan looked down at the world map.
A red line starting in Kashan's northwest ran straight down to the central continent.
"Along that line, every demon army was annihilated. As if someone erased them with an eraser."
Natasha's eyes shone. "The Knight of Maha."
The number of demons he killed while moving south exceeded ten thousand; among them were two legion commanders.
"I thought it was the childish ambition of a knight on a quest, but he actually drew a straight line through Kashan."
Smodo shrugged. "Does it matter? He's not coming our way. One man killing a few isn't much."
The red line on the map was thin.
"The problem is the commanders. We lost the 69th and the 57th. Ordinary soldiers can be replaced with coin, but losing commanders is a heavy blow."
Natasha pointed at herself. "Should I go?"
Balkan didn't want that.
'I can't imagine Natasha dying. But this line is unsettling.'
Ordinary humans detour when it's hard and flee when it's dangerous.
'There's no trace of hesitation.' He just cut straight through.
"Let's keep an eye on it for now. Send scouts to track the Knight of Maha." It was spring—flowers bloomed blood-red.
"You… how dare a human—!"
The demons of the 55th Legion, who controlled Kashan's southwest desert, lay dead, their bodies covering the sand.
"This isn't over. A billion demons will surely find you and rip you apart—"
"Tiresome. Same old threat every time."
A young man with blue hair to his shoulders and a fur-like beard slung a greatsword across his back.
"Do you guys have a memorized script or something?"
Pavel, the hulking commander of the 55th Legion, let out a chilling cry as his skull split from crown to chin.
"Is this the end of the desert?"
The blue-haired man squinted and looked toward the horizon where a city rose.
The Knight of Maha, Ozent Rian (22).
"In the end, I arrived."
He'd never studied a map.
He walked south by the stars, ate anything when hungry, slept in the ground when cold.
'If you walk, you'll get there eventually.'
He had beaten countless strong foes, but never once felt he had truly grasped strength.
"Does splitting the sky make you strong?"
When he drew a vertical line through the great map, a vision as if the world itself split flickered before his eyes.
He didn't know.
"Kido, how about you? Any progress?"
Where was the companion who had first joined his quest, and what were they doing now?
"Do your best. I'm going ahead." Certain his friend hadn't given up, Rian moved toward the place where the city could be seen.
"I hope they've bathed. People will mistake me for some kind of monster."
It was his first contact with civilization in a year, and the smell of demon blood clung to him.
'If I came to the right place, it should be the Jaibe Kingdom.'
The Seven-King City of the Holy War.
He only knew it as a place with a long rainy season and a school that had produced the era's Buddhas and Nane.
"I should be able to meet Shirone, I hope."
Rian did not know that the species ruling the world's night had begun to prowl Jaibe's streets, hunting for blood.