3
Fire, light, and a rumble that shook the depths of the earth.
It was almost like the inside of a vortex. The expansive astral energy swirled, seeming almost divine as it did so in the underground hall. It was enveloped by a brilliant, colorful air current.
“…You?!” Iska yelled without thinking.
The malevolent angel Kelvina, who had fallen into the crushed furnace, crawled out, even after losing her wings.
However…
What Iska could scarcely believe he was seeing wasn’t that his opponent had gotten back up.
“Your body…”
“What? None of this is unexpected.”
As Kelvina crawled out of the furnace, he noticed that cracks had formed all over her transparent, gemlike form.
Despite the fact that she was a transcendental being, something impervious to many of the laws of physics, her body had begun to crumble in the stream of astral energy.
Like a sandcastle being blown away with the wind.
“That element within malevolent angels and witches cannot coexist with this planet’s astral power. It’s like water and fire. So when it is exposed to a large amount of astral energy…this is the result. My body is rejecting it…”
“…”
“Astral energy doesn’t have adverse effects on humans, but it’s like poison to me.”
Fwoom…
The furnace that had been creating tremors stopped as abruptly as a string being cut. The once-human woman shrugged, looking on as though she was amused.
“This is why I took care not to damage the furnaces, at least. Well, you put up a good fight. I can’t believe you’d drop me into one of these, of all things.”
“…Well…”
Iska hadn’t been trying to do that. He had just meant to get her to the golem. That was all he’d been trying to do.
“It was a coincidence.”
“…I detest that word more than any other. Not only is it unscientific and dependent on outside factors, it has no elegance.”
The corners of the mad scientist’s lips curled. She seemed rather amused.
“At the very least, I think you should have said the same thing Elletear would have. This is the will of the planet. How about something poetic like that?”
“…Elletear.”
“I hate the word coincidence, but the planet does indeed have a will. As you can see.”
As her body crumbled away like sand, the malevolent angel Kelvina craned her neck upward; that was the only part she could still move. She gazed at the stream of eddying lights.
Red, blue, green, white, and yellow.
The astral energy that glittered like a mirage was swirling. Though the mad scientist had called it “a poison,” the sight seemed to comfort her.
“‘I hear the song of the astral powers. A divine tune conferred by ten billion stars.’”
“What?”
“That was what she told me. That she’d gained the ability to hear it. I wasn’t able to make it out, but I thought if I could just reach the planet’s core, that even I—that was what I’d believed, at least…”
She exhaled a long, deep breath. The vestiges of when she had once been human.
“Hey, Nazariel. I wasn’t able to reach the planet’s core…the city of ten billion stars, Leinenheib. But if this is also part of the grand will, then so be it.”
“Uh?! Wait, Kelvina!”
“If the whims of the planet allow it, I hope we will meet again.”
There was a roar.
The angel’s crumbling body was engulfed in violet astral flames. It happened so suddenly, Iska didn’t have time to yell.
“For I am a grotesque moth. I will never be compatible with a beautiful butterfly.”
The mad scientist who had come into contact with the taboo disappeared into the glow of the blaze.
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