4
“Astral energy. Don’t you think it’s a trifling thing?”
Luclezeus’s declaration echoed throughout the large hall.
“This vessel I’ve put my soul into currently can only use a mere 30 percent of its abilities. This is the limit when astral power is the energy source. We Apostles desire full functionality of the vessels…or rather, the energy we seek will give us 200 percent usability.”
“Sounds like a pipe dream.”
“It exists, Risya. There truly exists such a power that is the stuff of dreams.”
As Risya wiped the blood from her face, the giant looked down upon her and advanced, making the ground rumble with every step.
She was cornered against the wall.
“The Lord will not reach the planet’s core. We will.”
His fist came down with enough power to obliterate a person without leaving so much as a trace.
“Return to the planet, Risya.”
“…Whoa!” Risya had leaped to the side.
She jumped off the ground with the power and nimbleness of a wild cat. Luclezeus’s fist had missed by a hairbreadth.
“Ouch. I might have opened my wound…” She was holding her red and swollen shoulder.
“Risya, one more step!” Iska yelled.
She hadn’t leaped far enough.
The giant’s fist broke apart the floor, and when Risya’s foot was caught in the fissure, she reflexively froze. Luclezeus had aimed for that from the start.
“Over here.”
The mechanical soldier shot out its hand.
A cross opened on its palm, and an intense astral light began to overflow from within.
The light began to condense.
…That light!
…He’s going to fire the astral energy again!
“Get down!”
As he yelled, Iska leaped to cover Risya. If Iska were to try to cut the light, he would be risking his life for that miracle. If he missed, he would be shot. He prayed as he concentrated solely on bringing down his sword.
“Nightgaze.”
The flash of light stilled the air. It tried to scorch Risya. But it was cut in half by the black blade, and it disappeared.
“Oh! Isk, that was great.”
“All in vain.”
Luclezeus turned toward Iska. A stronger light was already glittering in his giant hands.
“…You can power it up even more?!”
“The vessel’s output is infinite. It drains the energy source faster, but when it does, all I need do is obtain more.”
He was attempting to shoot two beams at once.
If both were more powerful than previous ones, then…
“Hmm… This might be kind of bad,” Risya murmured. Because she whispered quietly enough for only Iska to hear, he was sure that these were her true thoughts. “Now what to do? Say, Isk—”
The sound of a gunshot drowned out Risya’s whisper.
Clank…
The bullet, which had hit Luclezeus’s chest, hadn’t been able to pierce his armor and simply fell to the ground.
“…What are you playing at here?” Luclezeus slowly turned around.
He faced Jhin, whose rifle was still faintly smoking.
“You already tried that. My outer armor is as hard as the crystal of the Planetary Stronghold. Even a shell from a tank couldn’t scratch it.”
“I know that.”
“Don’t you find it futile, then? Do you intend to give it your all, fighting with that useless rifle of yours?”
“You’re so fussy.”
“…What?”
“So, Apostle.” Jhin put down his gun. It was as though he were announcing he no longer needed it, and he remained calm and collected. “You’ve got a real flair for dramatics. Even a shell wouldn’t scratch it? If your armor really is that strong, you could’ve cleaned us up way faster than this. You could bomb this whole hall and blow it away, or use some astral power, or something. Then we’d all die, and you’d be the only one left standing. Am I wrong?”
“ ”
“But you keep choosing to use localized attacks.”
He’d tried to attack Risya with his fists. Even the Nightgaze beam had been aimed straight at his targets. The flames that had reached up to the ceiling and the icicles coming down had all been concentrated on attacking a single person each time.
That was why they had continued to just barely avoid them.
…Jhin’s got a point.
…Risya and I were so focused on dodging that we never picked up on it.
For the first time, Iska noticed something was off.
If Alice had been attacking them, she would have frozen the entire room. Kissing, the thorn purebred, would have buried the place with her prickles. Even the Founder Nebulis would have blown the whole place away without reservation, just as Jhin said.
But Luclezeus hadn’t, impenetrable armor or not.
“This room is surrounded by the astral power barrier. So if you used an astral power that could blast us all away, not a trace of that would escape outside, am I right, Apostle?”
“ ”
“Now, is there a reason why you can’t destroy this place?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Then I’ll tell you. It’s this.”
Jhin raised his gun. He brought it up like a club and hit the wall behind him, smashing the black stone pillar, which shattered.
“…The astral crystal!”
“This is one of the pillars supporting the barrier, right? There’s one in each corner of the room, sprouting from the ground. Even an idiot could figure it out. But what really cinched it was your terrible performance.”
“…What did you say?”
“Just now, before you shot that Nightgaze, you dramatically held up your fists. Why? That’s because Risya was in one of the corners.”
He had let her dodge his fist on purpose. By doing that, he had forced her to move. Because one of the stones supporting the barrier had been directly behind Risya.
He’d been afraid of the possibility of damaging it.
“You made it obvious by being so dang fussy. This barrier is super fragile near the pillars.”
“Tsk!” Luclezeus seemed at a loss for words.
Behind him, in two corners…
“Commander, hurry over there!”
“Leave it to meee!”
Nene and Mismis, who had pulled monitors off the walls, threw the screens right at the black pillars.
The towers broke.
Luclezeus hadn’t even had time to stop the two ladies as the second and third pillars were also destroyed.
That left one.
“I see. So that’s why Iska and I didn’t notice. We were desperately trying to dodge you, after all.”
Risya readied herself. She raised her fist almost as though she were about to throw a ball.
“W-wait, Ris—”
“And that’s four.”
Clang—the pillar abruptly broke in half.
Immediately…
The black curtain covering the room disappeared like breaking clouds.
“The barrier disappeared?! That’s amazing. It worked just like you said, Jhin—,” Mismis started to say.
“But that changes nothing.”
“……Eek?!”
When Luclezeus looked down at Commander Mismis, her face froze.
“The cage was just a bonus. We used it as a tactical measure because we want to avoid a troublesome conflict with the Lord if they catch wind of this. Nothing more.”
The Lord would likely sense the battle. But the Lord was far away, in the capital. They wouldn’t be able to do anything. The Apostle would succeed as long as he dealt with the witch princess.
“Now that the barrier is gone, I don’t need to hold back my true power anymore. I can blow away this room using the large-scale astral power that you mentioned. You all are—”
“So there you were.”
Just then, something strange happened.
The ceiling filled with dark clouds.
“…What is this?”
As Luclezeus looked dubiously above his head, the mist whirled and, slowly, a thin girl descended. Her iridescent hair fluttered. The eyes of the strongest astral mage were lit with the flames of rage.
“Did you think you could escape from me, Imperial?”
“The Grand Witch?!”
For the first time, Apostle Luclezeus looked bewildered. He had realized it too late. Because the astral power cage had broken, the great astral energy that had collected had surged upward.
The intense amount of astral energy must have brought her here. It wasn’t the Lord he should have been wary of. He couldn’t have expected it would beckon the Founder.
“The disturbance we sensed near the Nebulis palace… I guessed it might be a sign of your awakening, but I didn’t expect you to hunt us down all the way here, Grand Witch!”
“Disappear.”
“Yes, you would do well to disappear!”
Everything happened all at once.
The Founder Nebulis raised her right hand, and Luclezeus lifted his left.
The astral power and light that they shot at each other collided.
The Nightgaze’s light passed through the Founder.
However, the mage’s astral power consisted of only light. It didn’t create even the slightest fire or explosion, but simply illuminated Luclezeus below before fading.
“…No?!”
Luclezeus’s whole body quivered in shock from what he had witnessed. He had overlooked it and forgotten which building he was in the basement of.
“I heard it from Ms. Risya,” the witch princess said matter-of-factly and solemnly.
She placed a hand on her chest.
Her Illumination astral crest glittered faintly.
“This is an Imperial factory. A century ago, the factories were burned down by the Revered Founder’s flames and have continued to stand abandoned. And it appears this is one of them.”
“…Tsk.”
“So I had an idea. In other words, the Revered Founder once was in the skies above this place!”
She had reproduced the scene. The astral power cage covering the room had finally been destroyed, and Sisbell was able to use her power again. She had only needed it to work for a moment.
After tricking Luclezeus into thinking it was the real Founder, she just needed him to direct his attention upward. That was the only moment she needed. Apostle Luclezeus had shown an opening that allowed the two Saint Disciples to attack.
“You were all amazing. Great performance.”
Creak.
The threads Risya had spun warped and seized Luclezeus’s limbs.
“…Risya!”
“Down here.”
Iska leaped from below Luclezeus’s feet. Gripping his black astral sword, he tore through the soldier’s armor with the blade.
“All of you—impertinent, all of you!” The giant’s—or rather Luclezeus’s—roar made the factory grounds quake.
“Risya, Successor of the Black Steel, witch princess, how do you not understand it’s all futile?!”
He had already proved he could rip Risya’s threads. The only thing Iska’s sword had been able to cut had been the armor at his breast. Even Sisbell’s astral power was an illusion that was nothing to fear once the trick was discovered.
“It’s over. Everything is over. I will release all the power this vessel has and scorch everything around me. You have no means of escape…”
“Nene, shoot!”
“Jhin, now!”
“Mismis, make sure you don’t miss.”
Iska, Sisbell, and Risya all shouted.
Their voices rang out beautifully together like a chorus, as though in response to the miracle that was occurring.
Three bullets pierced Luclezeus’s chest.
Iska had sliced through the armor and exposed the astral power cage that lay within, allowing the cage imprisoning the astral power to be hit by three bullets and break.
“………Wha…? …”
Luclezeus stopped moving. The energy source for his body had abruptly been cut off.
“Astral power will not stay in a machine. You just told us that, after all,” Nene said, holding a handgun.
“S-so…if we just made an opening in the cage that was restraining the astral power, it would escape on its own. You’ve lost your energy source and can’t move now!” Commander Mismis stuttered. “…Jhin was the one who thought up the whole plan, though.”
“Who cares about that?” Jhin said, a step behind her. He had his favorite rifle over his shoulder.
A mysterious glitter seeped out of the giant hole in the Object’s chest and rose into the air. The astral power. The energy source had just been set free.
“Any normal handgun and a mark thirty yards away. No Imperial soldier would miss that. As long as the target is exposed, we’d be able to hit it with our eyes closed.”
“…”
“You underestimated us. Just regular old soldiers.”
That had been Luclezeus’s mistake.
There was no such thing as an ordinary Imperial trooper. They had seen through the mechanism behind the astral power cage, broken the pillars, and pierced the astralnomical soldier’s chest with their three bullets. It hadn’t been Iska or Risya alone who had accomplished those things. Each Unit 907 member had contributed to winning the battle.
“…You…”
Luclezeus swayed and lurched back as he collapsed.
“…Do you…intend to steal the planet’s future…? If I, if the Apostles aren’t here…then who will control that witch…?”
He muttered as if it were a curse. As though he had seen the future in his last moments. And his warning echoed: “The world’s final witch.”
Then, after using the last of his energy, the astralnomical soldier stilled.
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