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“The era of astral power will soon end.
“The superior power slumbering within the planet’s core will reform the world.”
An astralnomical soldier—a biped that was half astral power, half mechanical giant. Iska had no time to speculate about what the silver Object was made of, nor how it had come into being.
There were two things he and the others needed to be careful about. One was that Luclezeus’s soul had possessed the astralnomical soldier. And at that moment, that very Apostle was their enemy.
“The Eight Great Apostles shall usher the planet into a new age.”
The giant thrust out a hand. A cross opened on its palm, and a geyser of steam shot out along with a flood of what looked to be astral light.
And that illuminance… The moment they saw it condense into one spot, Unit 907, Iska included, all yelled, “Run!”
Jhin ran toward the back. Nene and Mismis each ran to the opposite side. Meanwhile, Iska reached toward Sisbell with enough force to push her down as he took cover on the ground.
“Nightgaze.”
A bolt of light shot out with a screech and scorched through the air.
It hit the place Sisbell had been standing only a moment ago. Had Iska not pushed her out of the way, the light would have certainly vaporized her.
…The intense flash of light.
…It’s the laser that the Object called Life Form Integra!
The astralnomical soldier had released the very same beam from its gigantic palm.
The frightening thing was that it hadn’t taken long for the energy to collect for an attack. There was no delay between the light converging and its being discharged.
…Can I cut that with my astral sword?
…I’m not confident I can. Even if I could, I’m sure I’d only have a one in three chance of pulling it off.
If he missed, he would be shot. Perfectly cutting such a large beam of light would require nothing short of a miracle. Even with Iska’s skills, the odds weren’t in his favor.
“Sisbell, get back!”
He had her take refuge close to the wall, then held his ground. Continuing to dodge the attacks would be impossible. He needed to find a chance to counter—immediately.
“There’s no way you can. You’ll never have a chance to counterattack me.”
Luclezeus grinned coldly in his current form. The Apostle held both his arms aloft in front of him. A cross-shaped fissure spread across not only his right palm that had just shot Nightgaze, but also his left.
“Two at once?! You can do that…?”
“Iska, you were able to intervene only because I was aiming at the witch. So this time I’ll take care of you both at once. Only one of you can survive now.”
His hands stretched out toward them. Hot steam surged out of the two fissures as astral light began to condense.
“It’s you or the witch. Choose who should live and who should die.”
“You brute! Are you suggesting that I’m nothing but a hindrance to him?!” Sisbell roared.
As she placed her left hand on her chest, the Illumination astral crest glowed brightly.
“Who do you think prevented the Object’s sensors from working in the independent state? Just try to see through the illusions my astral power can create… Wait, what…?”
Sisbell froze. Nothing had appeared. She had conjured a sandstorm in Alsamira. By using the dense cloud of sand, she had been able to confuse the Object and misdirect its shot. Now, however, she wasn’t able to produce the mirage.
But the astral power was glittering on Sisbell’s breast.
“Wh-what is going on…?!”
“What a pitiful creature you are. It seems this witch isn’t very smart.”
Luclezeus thrust his hands before him and sighed.
“I told you. This barrier cuts everything off. Outside astral power cannot affect this area. So what do you think that entails?”
“You don’t mean…?!”
“That’s right. This proves to be a most inconvenient situation for your astral power. Because you’ve been cut off from the astral power’s information, you can’t read the events of the past.”
There was nothing she could reference to revive. Even when engaged, Sisbell’s astral power could find nothing to recreate.
“But…?!”
“You can take your rage with you when you become one with the planet.”
Nightgaze.
The lasers unleashed from his palms headed straight for Iska and Sisbell. But they didn’t hit their targets.
Instead, the astralnomical soldier’s body lurched back.
Luclezeus lost balance and his arms flew up. The lights pierced the room’s ceiling instead of Iska and Sisbell.
“Oops. Sorry, but the Lord has taken a liking to the princess.”
“…I see.”
Luclezeus took a knee as he tumbled back.
There were several threads thinner than hairs tangled around his knee. Except it wasn’t just his knee. They were around his throat and shoulders as well. The thin, glistening strands bound him until he was immobile.
“I thought you were being rather quiet for all your talk, Risya.”
“Well, you were just so passionate about your little act, Luclezeus. I was simply trying to avoid butting in. That’s all.”
“So that’s the fourth-generation Thread astral power…”
“Yes. I’m surprised you’d know it. It should have been hidden from the Apostles by the Lord’s decree.”
Risya was holding a small orb of light. It unraveled in the air and turned into threads that covered the hall like a spider’s nest.
“The barrier prevents astral power interference from outside. So self-sufficient powers can be used without issue within the room.” Risya gave her wrist a half turn. “In which case, constrict.”
Creak.
The threads wrapped around Luclezeus’s head and began to dig into his throat. Though they were thin as hairs, the strands of astral power had captured the multiton giant. Due to the steel machinery, his body was able to withstand it, but the threads likely would have been able to immobilize a hundred human men.
“Y-your astral power is amazing, Risya!”
“Hee-hee. Isn’t it, Mismis? It’s really handy.” Though she said that, the smile didn’t reach Risya’s eyes. “I’m able to use Thread by extending threads made of astral energy and constricting them, that’s all. But once you’ve been caught in my web, I’ve won. It doesn’t matter how strong you… What?”
Snap.
Something broke. Risya’s threads floated to the ground as they were torn to shreds.
“Planet’s Crust.”
The ones around his neck, shoulders, and knees disappeared.
After regaining his freedom, the silver giant slowly raised his head as he sat up.
Curved blades glinted from the backs of his hands.
“They’re made from the same crystal as the Planetary Stronghold. There is nothing they can’t cut. Even string made from astral power.”
“I see… So that was how you did that to my threads,” Risya murmured. “They seem a little too sharp to me. Those cords should have easily been thirty times stronger than steel wire of the same thickness…”
“You’re next.”
“No thanks!”
Risya scowled as she leaped back. Without a moment’s delay, Luclezeus stomped toward her. He was just a stride away. For every three steps she fell back, he took one to catch up. He lifted his fist over his head. The crystal blade glinted in his hand.
“I pass judgment upon you.”
He thrust the blade at Risya’s chest in an attempt to skewer her. But before he could…
“You’re slow, Isk.”
“Hragh!”
Iska intervened by reaching her just a moment earlier. He slid along the floor between the giant’s legs and brought down his black astral sword to protect Risya.
They heard something hard break.
Iska’s blade had perfectly broken Luclezeus’s.
“…The astral sword. I knew it was bad news!”
The giant took a step back.
Iska didn’t even give him the time to leap away. He brought his sword down again, tearing into the giant’s breast armor. It broke apart, and Iska sliced through the cables within that were likely the machinery part of the giant until he saw a glitter of light.
It twinkled faintly and cryptically, almost like an illusion.
“Astral light?!”
“N-no, it’s not, Iska! That’s astral power itself!”
The witch princess’s eyes went wide. She knew because she had been born with astral power. That was the source of the astralnomical soldier’s strength. The internal mechanisms of the robot were a cage for astral power.
“You…you demon!” Sisbell bellowed, baring her teeth.
Never before had she trembled like this, even when she had been afraid for her life. Not once had she ever trembled with rage like this. The witch princess moved with a fervor that Iska had never seen.
“You call us witches and sorcerers…yet here you are, underhandedly, wickedly using astral power for your own ends!”
“ ”
“This is sacrilege to the planet! Release the astral power!”
“Why, of course.”
The armor Iska had sliced through reconstructed itself. It had only taken a few seconds. The astral power prison also disappeared from view.
“I told you. The era of astral power will soon end. If we can simply obtain control over that which slumbers within the planet’s core, astral power will be a useless tool to us. We will be able to release it immediately.”
“But I’m telling you to release it now!”
“Then we will make a deal.”
Strong astral light once again flooded from his joints. The giant slammed his fist onto the ground.
“In exchange for your life, witch.”
His fist smashed through the floor. It created a shock wave like that from a tank’s shell, and a giant fissure opened in the ground.
Bedrock Bloom.
The pattern on the ground took on a bright lava-red hue as countless circles, large and small, appeared one after another within the large room. Within each circle, eddies formed, and scorching wind began to swirl.
“This is…?!”
Iska had seen this before. The sorcerer Salinger had called one of his similar attacks Terra Burst.
In which case…
“This is bad. Get away from the red rings!”
“What? Uh, um…”
“Miss Sisbell, jump!”
Nene charged at Sisbell when the witch hesitated. The moment she was tackled to the ground, the circles around the room burst with bright-red flames that reached the ceiling. It was like the eruption of a volcano.
“Ouch… Th-thank you, Miss Nene…”
“Now hurry and stand up.”
That wasn’t Nene. Jhin had brusquely said that as he readied his rifle in front of the girls.
Had this been a tank shell, he would have been able to cause some damage, but the most Jhin could do was stop the being with his weapon.
So what was he going to do?
“I’m going to hit my target, obviously.”
A gunshot rang out.
The bullet shot through Luclezeus’s chest without straying from its mark. He had hit the opening—the area that Iska had slashed through with his astral sword—the wound that had just healed.
“If he doesn’t have his whole armor…”
“Did you think that would work?”
Creak.
The malformed bullet dropped to the ground. It hadn’t been able to penetrate even a fraction of an inch through the giant’s healed armor.
“……Tsk.”
“So this is all an Imperial soldier amounts to. All a sniper amounts to. Just an ordinary Imperial sniper and bullet. You thought you could stand up to an Apostle with that?”
Luclezeus heaved a sigh. He paid Jhin’s click of the tongue no heed as he turned his back on the sniper.
He faced Iska and Risya, ignoring everyone else behind him. He needed to stay on guard against the two Saint Disciples before him: the fifth seat, who could immobilize him, and the former eleventh seat, who could slice through his armor.
Only those two could be considered threats, so if he could simply defeat them, the other four would stand no chance.
…He really is thorough.
…All he wants to do is kill us.
Though he had at first aimed for Sisbell, the moment he realized he had missed, his target had shifted. He was logical to the end—frighteningly calculating, even.
“Your priorities should take precedence over all else.”
He held his fist aloft.
“Risya, you erred in prioritizing the Lord over us. That mistake will cost your life.”
“Quite talkative, aren’t you, Luclezeus?”
“But I am different. I will make sure to take care of you and Iska first.”
His fist crushed the monitors above their heads, and circles bloomed over the ceiling.
“Firmament Bloom.”
It was sky-blue.
Above Iska and Risya’s heads, eddies formed within the centers of the circles, and giant icicles rained down with the force of meteorites.
“…Tsk, crap!”
Risya couldn’t dodge them. Instead, she made the split-second decision to make a defense using threads strung up across the ceiling to protect herself from the falling icicles at close range.
She twisted together the many wires and stopped the icicles midair.
However…
“You are quite dexterous at using that astral power.”
…as though responding to Luclezeus’s remark, the blue icicles tore through Risya’s net.
“Even someone as extraordinary as you cannot hope to master a temporarily borrowed power.”
The icicles came hailing down on Risya again. One of them grazed Risya’s nose, then burst into pieces. The tiny fragments were as sharp as razors as they gouged her.
“Ah!”
“I see. So you weren’t trying to catch the icicle. You were simply trying to knock it off its course. I am impressed by your quick thinking, Risya.”
“……Hearing that doesn’t give me the slightest bit of joy.”
A shard about the size of a knife had pierced her thigh. Risya smiled heroically in response. Her face also had cuts all over from the shower of ice fragments.
“Though you stand up to me, it will only result in more pain for you. Do you not agree, Iska, Successor of the Black Steel?”
“……Guh?!”
Iska had stopped just a few yards away from Risya. Luclezeus had said that right before he could reach her. He knew he couldn’t approach the staff officer without caution after Luclezeus addressed him directly.
…He realized what I was about to do.
……Wait, no. He’s just been watching me the whole time!
A chill went up Iska’s spine as he thought of the unfamiliar astral power that Luclezeus had used and the peculiar caution he felt toward the Apostle.
The Apostle hadn’t neglected to watch him even for a moment.
“We Apostles have reached a consensus. Successor of the Black Steel, Iska, after you defeated Kelvina, we decided you merited perpetual surveillance until your last breath.”
“……Uh.”
“Once we have dealt with you two Saint Disciples, then it’s all over.” Luclezeus declared his own victory. “This is checkmate.”
His proclamation of their deaths rang out loudly in the room.
Yet…
The giant was unaware because of his turned back. Because he had been facing Iska and Risya, he hadn’t noticed the conversation occurring behind in quiet and faint whispers.
“A ruse.”
A girl with red hair tied into a voluminous ponytail whispered, “I’ll be in the very back.”
“O-okay. I’ll take the right!”
“Don’t nod, boss. What are we going to do if he notices?” Jhin whispered.
He held his rifle in his right hand and Sisbell’s hand in his left.
“We know not what the youth of now have in store.”
The sniper let out a stifled sigh. He had recited an old idiom: The young people are not to be underestimated. How could a great person of the past know the potential of the present-day youths?
This was what Jhin had to say to the venerable generation that had held ultimate authority over the Empire.
In a hushed voice, he continued, “I don’t care if they’ve lived for a hundred years or whatever, they’re underestimating us.”
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