Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 18 - Chapter 9

Chapter Nine: In Skies of Twilight and Dawn

About Baldr

Baldr was the god of light in Norse mythology, as well as the owner of the world’s greatest ship—Hringhorni.

This was reflected in Shu’s Baldr, as well. His first form was a weapon that fired a projectile of light, while the fifth, sixth, and seventh forms were all ships.

It was as though the final result of the Embryo’s evolution had been fixed from the start. Perhaps Baldr had understood—or was made to understand—his Master’s true nature even before Baldr was born.

However, there were a few other aspects that were core to Baldr’s myth.

First, he was killed by his brother Höðr, who was tricked into doing it by the evil Loki.

Second, his death meant the disappearance of light and the beginning of Norse mythology’s Twilight of the Gods—Ragnarök.

The Baldr of myth was instrumental to the beginning of the end—a sign of a coming calamity.

Baldr the Embryo, however, had never possessed anything like that—but he did now.

By defeating the overwhelmingly terrible Tri-Zenith Dragon, Baldr had received the Fatal Engine, Gloria γ. Taking the form of an extra engine within Baldr, it was never active and functioned as nothing but dead weight.

It was never active because activating it would mean the end of everything.

Once it was turned on, it would be covered in the red of heat and the gold of the dragon.

And that was when all would end.

That included the enemy, as well as...

◇◆◇

Twilight and Chaos

The god cloaked in red and gold...the twilight god stood up.

Sechs had no idea what had caused his foe to assume this appearance. Was it an Embryo skill? A job ultimate? The effect of an MVP reward?

Regardless, this was a Shu that Sechs was not aware of.

Sechs had given his all and successfully forced Shu to play this new ace up his sleeve. Neither of them was holding back, and their fight was now more true than ever.

However, this still wasn’t enough.

“Not yet...” Drawing out Shu’s full power wasn’t enough. He still had to fight him, understand him, and find out what made him him.

Sechs thought he could do it—felt he had to do it—and had challenged Shu for that exact purpose.

“Not yet...!”

That was why he couldn’t let it end here. He still had not gained anything.

A sound hard to describe rang out as the twilight god moved forwards once again.

Shu was now faster than the dark god even after Sechs had used an ultimate to match his speed.

It instantly became clear that Shu had used some sort of transformation skill that increased stats. If it was from an MVP reward, Sechs could never copy it, and if it was a job or Embryo skill, he didn’t know how to activate it.

And so, he could do nothing to prevent the coming clash.

However, though his stats were lower than Shu’s now, Sechs was still a slime and could rebuild his form. An injury or two was a small price to pay if he could learn more about his opponent.

Part of Sechs’s fighting style involved understanding others through the violence they inflicted upon him. Because of this, what would happen next was an inevitability.

The twilight god threw his right fist at him, and the dark god welcomed it with his own. The resulting clash made his right arm vanish without a trace.

Even Sechs couldn’t help but be shocked by this. In fact, it was so unexpected that the dark god trembled with raw emotion, an unusual sight for him. Sechs’s counter punch not only wasn’t enough to match Shu’s—it was so weak by comparison that his entire arm shattered at the atomic level.

This wasn’t simply due to Shu’s Right of Destruction. It was the result of the unimaginable gap that had widened between their offensive abilities.

The slight increase in speed was only a small part of what made the twilight god what it was. His true value resided in his offensive power, unmatched by anything else.

The dark god, Sechs, had used his ultimate skill to match—no, surpass—Baldr in overall power. However, the twilight god’s might was oppressive even to him.

“Shu! You...!” To gain Shu’s power, Sechs had sacrificed a whole 500 levels.

What, then, had Shu given away to gain power that surpassed even that?

“Nejirebana.” Instead of an answer, the twilight god followed up his attack with a palm-strike.

The dark god raised his left arm in defense, but upon impact it dispersed all the way to the elbow, and it did nothing to stop the palm from reaching his face, which was also reduced to atoms.

Shock overcame Sechs yet again. Losing his head wouldn’t normally be fatal to him. Nu the Type Body Embryo had no concept of a “weak point.” As long as his volume remained plentiful, attacks to his head or heart were no different from scratches.

However, two attacks from the twilight god had shaved away an extreme amount of Sechs’s body.

“So this is Shu’s trump card...” Sechs murmured. “This is so...”

A god of twilight, wielding immeasurable physical offensive power. Combined with KoD’s Right of Destruction, his limbs became weapons that could blow anything out of this realm. Even the dark god, who had copied the original Baldr and gained his defense, was unable to protect himself against this. Would Mythical metal withstand this? Would the “Invincible” Superior survive this? Sechs didn’t know the answer to either of those questions, but he did know one thing.

I...Nu does not have anything left that can counter this... Sechs thought. His slime body already had supreme physical defense, and even though he was weak to energy-based attacks, he could defend against them with Jötunheimr’s Heat Absorption or other abilities he had in stock.

Even so, the twilight god’s attacks were far beyond anything he could use.

And since Shu now had the upper hand in skill as well as speed, Sechs couldn’t even hope to fully evade his strikes. The most he could do was turn the attacks slightly aside, but even an edge that barely scraped him would reap his volume—his HP.

Spindle is meaningless, as well, he thought. Simply touching the twilight god would disperse the dark god at the atomic level, making it impossible for him to attach any pieces to Shu’s body like he had been doing.

Through nothing but sheer power, Shu had rendered all of Sechs’s resistances and strategies meaningless.

...It must have been risky, though. Since the twilight god’s own limbs weren’t shattering under the force of their own strikes, it must’ve been a skill that increased not STR, but the final attack power.

Despite that, Baldr’s mechanical frame was covered in cracks all over.

The offensive power delivered by the twilight god traveled through the surrounding space, even damaging himself slightly. It wasn’t a drawback specific to the skill, but a mere phenomenon caused by its natural function.

Still, it was obvious that it couldn’t be used for an extended battle.

A Superior MVP reward focused on a brief, decisive battle... Sechs thought. He had a Superior MVP reward of his own, and in terms of compatibility he was actually above Shu.

His ultimate skill that cost 500 levels would only last 30 minutes, and he’d already lost a great amount of his total volume...but that didn’t matter one bit. If he used his Superior MVP reward—Organ of Rebirth, Gloria δ—against someone who could only fight briefly, he would certainly come out victorious.

To be more precise, he would ultimately come out victorious. That was how the reward worked.

It completely upset the basic idea that “you either defeat your enemies, or they defeat you.” It was pure treason against the very way Infinite Dendrogram worked, and it certainly wasn’t any weaker than Shu’s fearsome Gloria γ.

However, that wasn’t something Sechs could use now. Considering the nature of its owner, it was likely the most meaningless Superior MVP reward ever.

...I suppose this was part of the reason why Rascal tried to stop me. If they had waited until Gloria β became something he could use and their goal as Illegal Frontier was fulfilled, Sechs would finally be able to win no matter whom he was up against.

But... However...

“It does not matter to me whether I win or lose against Shu.”

Sechs wasn’t interested in coming out victorious to begin with.

That was why there was no point in waiting until he could fight against Shu and win. There was something far more important to him.

“He is so different from me. This is about whether I can understand him... That is all!”

Sechs was only after the results of an all-out, true battle between them—the clash of their souls. He was certain that these results could only be found at the conclusion of a battle in which both of them fought to the very last.

“And that is why...!”

He still had not gotten his answer, so he simply could not allow this to be over yet.

“I will not let this end here...! I cannot...!”

The dark god’s soul let out a panicked shout...

“SPLIT SPIRIT!”

...and used the last skill in his—Nu’s—repertoire.

The next moment, the dark god split into six of himself.

It was as though he had become the embodiment of chaos. This multiplication was caused by the last skill Nu had acquired.

Split Spirit was a skill that built upon Sechs’s ability as a slime to separate himself into parts.

It allowed him to split into a maximum of six iterations of himself while maintaining all the powers he had as one person. The drawback was that none of the resulting splits could transform into anything else, and the original’s HP was equally divided between them. That meant each of them represented only a sixth of the dark god Shu had been fighting until now.

Additionally, it had the demerit of semi-permanently reducing maximum HP.

Once the skill expired and the other splits vanished, Sechs’s max HP would not go back to what it was before. Instead, it would stay divided all the way until he came back from a death penalty.

To Nu, HP was equal to body volume—and for King of Crime, dying would mean being locked up in the gaol for an obscene amount of time. The risks of using this skill were quite extreme.

But Sechs had used it regardless.

Just as he’d sacrificed his levels, so did he sacrifice his life force...all so this fight would continue.

“Shu,” the embodiment of chaos—the six dark gods—all said in unison as they approached the twilight god.

Dashing, jumping, flanking, crawling, they attacked their opponent in a relentless assault that was impossible for him to defend against alone. Their cooperation was flawless in a way that only a group who were all one could achieve.

It wasn’t the drawbacks that had prevented Sechs from using Split Spirit. The skill was just most effective after he had used Nu’s ultimate to become someone overwhelmingly powerful.

Because of this, it was fair to say that the twilight god was currently surrounded by six fully realized steel gods.

“SHHEAH!” The twilight god retaliated by throwing a punch towards the first of them, “Eins,” who was heading directly for him. It sank into his chest and caused his entire upper body to vanish.

With their HP divided by six, a single punch from the twilight god was enough to take them out.

On the other hand, that meant that collectively, they were able to withstand a whole six of his attacks.

“Shu!” Zwei, the one who’d jumped, was approaching the opponent from above while swinging down with both hands for a crushing attack.

In response, the twilight god launched a kick with his right leg.

As he was faster, his kick blew away both of Zwei’s arms down to the elbow before they could reach him. He then accelerated his raised leg downwards, delivering an axe-kick that split Zwei in half.

That was when the attacks of the four remaining ones landed upon the twilight god. His armor shattered, and his left arm was cleaved from his body.

To the four remaining, this was confirmation of a certain fact. It was already obvious that Ragnarok Form didn’t increase speed to the same extent that it increased attack power, and this proved that his defense also did not receive any such extreme bonuses. In fact, since the twilight god actually damaged himself with every attack, he might have actually been more fragile than before.

He could still be damaged if an attack connected, so...

“Shu.”

Drei stood before the twilight god. Like a raging bear or a magnanimous king, he had his hands spread out as if to say, “Let us compare our strength.”

The twilight god...Shu accepted this challenge.

He had to punch and obliterate all of them regardless of anything else. Since Ragnarok Form didn’t enhance his potential for wide-area extermination, anyone as powerful as the steel god had to be dealt with with his own fists.

The twilight god kicked off the ground and approached Drei. Drei stood no chance against one who surpassed him in speed and technique, and the twilight god could waste no time grappling with him.

He threw a punch from his right, causing Drei’s upper body to disintegrate on contact just like Eins.

The next moment, Drei’s outstretched arms let out a powerful light.

“Gh...!” This was a light so bright it burned the eyes and caused temporary blindness, and Shu instantly recognized it.

“F Warheads!”

It was one of Baldr’s weapons—missiles that released intense light that made it impossible to see. He’d used it himself against Gloria.

“Tch...!” Since the dark god possessed the steel god’s stats and could use everything he could, Shu did know Sechs could fire such special warheads, but it still surprised him to see them delivered from the arms. They were normally fired from the chest, which he had obliterated with his attack.

He only needed a moment to understand how this was done, though.

Although Drei looked like Baldr, he was actually Nu. Because of this, it was no surprise that he could move the F Warheads through his liquid body to fire them from elsewhere.

This tactic paid off, and Shu was briefly blinded. Before Baldr could repair his burned-out visual sensors, an impact shook the twilight god.

“SHUUU!”

That was the voice of the fourth—Vier. He’d used the opening created by the flash to cling to the twilight god with both his arms and legs.

It almost made Shu lose his balance, but besides that, it meant little. Vier couldn’t attack from this position. The twilight god, on the other hand, had more than enough power to instantly make another split vanish. All he had to do was throw the punch.

“Ah...!”

However, that was soon made physically impossible.

While the visual sensors were still fried, from inside the twilight god’s cockpit Shu felt as though the world was flipped upside down.

And that was exactly what had happened—up had become down and down became up.

“This is...!” Shu said. The twilight god, as well as Vier still sticking to him, had both begun to spin.

Shu already knew what was making this possible.

“Again with that MVP reward...!” Spinning Belt, Spindle—the MVP reward that let Sechs rotate his body. A small part of Sechs could only make his opponent lose his balance, and it was difficult to attach to the twilight god he was now.

This was different, however. Vier was the same size as the twilight god, and he had stuck his entire body to him. That made it possible to force both of them to spin at extremely high speeds, rendering Shu incapable of doing anything.

His immense stats could only be put to use if he had his feet on the ground.

This was almost a reverse of the situation when the dark god first appeared. However, there were two key differences.

First, the high-speed spinning made it uncertain what the twilight god would actually hit if he swung his fist. He was just as likely to punch himself instead of Vier, which would cause a great deal of damage.

Second, there were still the fifth and sixth—Fünf and Sechs.

As the twilight god spun, his sensors began to recover, and he saw his two other opponents.

The dark gods were both in the exact same pose.

“Ah...!” Shu knew what that pose meant. “They’re usin’ the World Breaker!” The final ultimate skill of King of Destruction, World Breaker. It was a sure-kill attack that combined the immense attack with Right of Destruction to demolish space itself, ensuring the destruction of both the target and the user.

Fünf and Sechs were both preparing to launch it at the twilight god at the same time. A direct hit would be fatal even for him.

Not saying a word, Shu considered Sechs. He realized that his opponent was planning to end the battle.

This was the climax.

However, Shu had no means of escaping Vier’s grip. Stuck in the air, he couldn’t make use of his stats, and all of his firearms had been destroyed.

“I can’t move or even touch the ground, huh?” Shu mused.

However...

“I can still reach the sky.”

Following those words, the twilight god made a fist.

He wouldn’t target Vier, nor would he brace for Fünf’s and Sechs’s attacks.

He would instead shatter the very space in front of him.

That was all that he needed.

“Shu,” Fünf and Sechs both said as they rushed towards him.

“World Breaker,” Shu replied, before they reached him.

That moment was the end of everything.

The final ultimate was launched with all the attack power of the twilight god behind it.

The resulting destruction of the surrounding space engulfed everything around it.

◇◆

Nowest Canyon was a dead land.

The battle between the Superiors and the SUBM had changed its landscape, destroyed its trade routes, and the Fatal Field had wiped out all life it had once had.

However, despite all of this, it could still be called a “canyon.”

That was no longer true, as everything here had vanished.

In its place was a gaping crater, as though it had been the site of a mortar strike, making it impossible to imagine that a canyon had ever stood here.

Now, the area was no longer worthy of its name. The Nowest Canyon had come to an end.

But despite that...

“...Guess it’s down to this one.”

“It seems so...”

...there were still people standing here.

One was King of Destruction, Shu Starling.

After having lost the left arm to his opponent, he’d now lost his right to his own World Breaker—it had completely vanished. The twilight god’s armor was mostly gone as well, and he was only barely standing on nearly broken legs.

He’d used the strongest World Breaker in history, and it was a mystery how he survived. Was it the slightly increased defense? Or did even this skill, which seemed synonymous with the user’s death, have some degree of consideration for its king?

The second figure was King of Crime, Sechs Würfel.

Only the sixth of the dark gods was left, and even he would’ve vanished if he hadn’t used the fifth as a shield. What had happened to the fourth, who was at the epicenter of this destruction, is hardly worth mentioning...

That wasn’t to say that the one still standing was in a good state, though. There was almost nothing left of him now, and he could only barely maintain his shape.

Split Spirit had an extra effect that helped maintain the shape and size of the splits even if they lost volume. Without it, Sechs would’ve already crumbled.

A single attack from the other would be enough to fell them both.

“So...do you understand?” Shu asked. Only silence answered him. It was obvious what the question was about. He asked if this battle to the death, soon to end, had helped Sechs understand Shu.

The answer to that was...a complete denial.

“...No. I feel like I am close to grasping it, but I cannot... I do not understand. I thought I would, so why...?” said Sechs, struggling to comprehend what he was still missing.

“Yeah. Thought so. Of course you wouldn’t understand,” Shu replied.

“Why?”

“The goddamn fact you’d even ask that...” Shu let out a sigh before continuing. “I’m not just about fightin’, and we’re not just about killin’ each other.”

Sechs couldn’t say anything in response. Shu was a person who was often caught up in all kinds of trouble, and he’d resolved many problems through combat.

However, his life wasn’t all about fighting.

He lived in Infinite Dendrogram as no one but himself.

He wore an animal costume and handed out candy to children.

He sometimes cooked food and brought it to his friends at the castle.

He was occasionally invited to party with his friends and acquaintances.

He didn’t live in this world just as a warrior. His peaceful days were as much a part of him as those of strife.

And that included the days he’d spent with Sechs.

“There’s no way you can fully understand me by just fightin’ me to the death.”

Sechs was still speechless. Shu seemed completely right.

In fact, one could say that Sechs’s very idea that he could understand Shu by “giving his all and making their very souls clash” was logically inconsistent.

“...Why?” said Sechs, completely dumbfounded.

“Ya wonderin’ why ya didn’t realize it earlier? I think I know,” said Shu.

“Why?”

“It’s ’cause for you, both here and on Earth, human relationships and exchanges of life are one and the same.” Sechs had revealed that he was an organ transplant clone—a life made solely to be given away to the original. And after the original died, his life became solely about passing on his genes—continuing this lineage of life.

And even here, his first act of freedom was to roll the dice that would set his way of life, and it landed on the path of evil.

Because of that, exchanges of life were normal for him.

“You always lived under the assumption that everythin’s about taking life or having it taken away from you. Your thinkin’s messed up on a fundamental level.”

“...Hah hah...”

There were two reasons for the laughter that escaped Sechs’s lips.

First, he laughed because he was disappointed in how off-the-mark his methods were.

And the second reason for his laughter was...joy.

He...Shu understands me so well... His true self was something that even Sechs himself couldn’t truly comprehend, yet even he had someone who really understood him...and that realization made him happy.

So happy, in fact, that he was tearing up.

I still cannot understand Shu. But even so...I am sure that I will only know myself if I keep involving myself with him. And on top of that...

Even though he knew his methods were wrong, he wouldn’t change the way he was. He had no intention of giving up on his goal of understanding Shu, nor would he stop walking the path of evil that he’d chosen.

If he’d compromised that side of himself, after all, he would never achieve what he wanted—to understand the man who never compromised himself.

“So, yeah... You should try somethin’ besides crime now,” said Shu. “Take up cookin’ or whatever.”

“You will not tell me to stop committing crimes?”

“You won’t budge on that no matter what I say or how hard I kick your ass.”

“...Heh heh.” He truly knows me well, Sechs thought, smiling. “Now...”

“Yeah.”

Thus, Shu and Sechs—the gods of twilight and darkness—faced each other.

“Let us settle this.”

“Yeah. Time to end this.”

Both of them dashed towards each other. There was no strategy and no tactics—nothing like that at all—in their actions...

With bodies on the brink of collapse and life that could be extinguished by a gust of wind, the two charged forward, each intent on delivering the first blow.

The dark god may have had the upper hand simply because he still had all his limbs. With no arms and barely working legs, the twilight god could hardly make use of his speed advantage.

“SHUUUUU!” And so, the dark god swung his fist.

“SEEEEECHS!” The twilight god threw up the remains of his shattered leg.

Thus, the final shock wave resounded through the brightening morning sky.

Both of their attacks connected.

The dark god’s fist blew off the twilight god’s head.

And the twilight god’s leg split apart the dark god’s torso.

To a human, both of these attacks would’ve been fatal.

However...

“...Shu.”

“Yeah?”

The dark god’s body was beginning to crack, spreading from the gaping split in his torso.

And then, his body shattered and started to dissolve into tiny sparks of light.

“Let us meet again.”

“...Sure.”

At this point, Shu had left Baldr and stood watching Sechs vanish with his own eyes.

“And...let us fight again.”

“...Haven’t learned your lesson, huh?”

“No.”

“...Well, whatever. Just don’t do any of this blackmail type shit again... I feel like I said that to Humpty once.”

“Heh heh... Very well. I will have my rematch...under different circumstances.”

“Well, it’s not like ya lost here, really. It’s a draw.”

“Hm...?” All that was left of the dark god by now was his head, and it was tilted—intentionally or otherwise—in a questioning manner.

That was when the twilight god lost his light and assumed an ashen color before starting to disperse like dust.

“Time’s up for me too.” Shu’s own body was becoming bits of light as well. That confirmed Sechs’s suspicions about this power being one that came at a heavy cost.

“...For me, this is still defeat,” Sechs insisted.

“Well, aren’t you stubborn?”

“Heh...” Sechs laughed as he was reduced to nothing but droplets...

“I suppose...that is just...who I am...”

...and ultimately vanished.

The kingdom’s worst criminal, the leader of the Illegal Frontier—King of Crime, Sechs Würfel, was thus sent to the gaol.

“You don’t need me to be your mirror... I know you’ll find yourself one day, on your own.” Shu’s rival, friend, and reflection was no longer here to hear his words. “Anyway... I wonder what’s gonna happen now.” As he was also dissolving into light, he looked up at the sky.

“I hope Altar’s still around when I come back. Worst-case scenario, this and that’ll happen with Theresia and it’ll all be over... Though, I guess Dormouse’ll do somethin’ about it then.”

He spoke as though he wouldn’t be around for a while.

“‘Only god knows what the world’ll be like in a month,’ huh...? What a sick joke.”

And with those final words, Shu and his Embryo vanished just like Sechs and Nu.

◇◆◇

About Baldr

There was another story about the Baldr of Norse mythology.

After Loki’s trickery had caused his death, he was given a chance to come back to life—but for that to happen, everyone in the world had to weep for him.

Loki also prevented this resurrection. Thus, countless winters passed by with Baldr still deceased. He only came back to life after Ragnarök had destroyed the world and paved the way for a new one.

It was not exactly based on this story, but the Fatal Engine’s skill—The Dying Breath at World’s End: Gloria—had two drawbacks.

First, it guaranteed the user would take a death penalty in five minutes. It not only destroyed the Embryo it was installed into, but also killed its Master.

However, this was the lighter of the two drawbacks.

The second one was far worse, as it increased the death penalty tenfold.

Normally, avatars would come back in 24 hours of Earth time, but this drawback made it so he could only come back after 240 hours.

That was thirty days in Infinite Dendrogram time—a whole month.

Shu knew well what it meant to use this during the War, and that was exactly why he’d had to steel himself to disregard everything besides his battle with Sechs.

King of Destruction, Shu Starling’s avatar would be rebuilt and returned to this world after a month had passed within it. The First Knight-Machine War would already be over by then, and the king, the commander of the Royal Guard, and many others would be lost forever.

◇◆

That was how the battle ended.

Shu defeated Sechs, and Sechs was defeated by Shu.

However, Shu was unable to rush to the battlefield and aid in the War effort, while Sechs, despite getting the clash of souls he’d wanted, still could not truly understand Shu.

Sechs had insisted this was his defeat, while Shu saw it as a draw.

It was hard to say that either of them was wrong.

Nevertheless, this was the end of the battle that happened behind the scenes of the First Knight-Machine War.

However, it marked the beginning of a new battle...for the both of them.