Chapter 202: The era of upheaval (2)

Only Arin, who had lost the Metagate at close range, did not understand the situation and looked at her empty hand.

She did not even seem to realize that a fallen angel was right beside her.

“Hmm, this is a Metagate, isn’t it? Even believers are forbidden from using it. For heretics, it is not bad.”

Upon hearing Ikasa’s voice, Arin’s face turned pale.

She was more than thirty meters away.

How could they have taken the Metagate from her?

Moreover, if she had taken the object while moving at high speed, it meant she had accelerated using only the strength of her body.

“Hmm… if you brought a Metagate here… could it be that you… were sent by Miro?”

Shirone did not respond.

Instinctively, he felt that he should not give her any information.

“Hehe, if you do not want to talk, that is fine. In any case, if I analyze this, I will obtain the coordinates.”

The Metagate was a high-technology device of the meca.

If it were dismantled with meca technology, it was possible to discover at which coordinates it was registered without even activating it.

In reality, Ikasa already suspected it.

Especially after seeing how that boy had stopped the Liquor of Anecdotes.

Without a doubt, they came from the repulsive home of Miro.

Ikasa walked among Shirone’s group, swaying her slender body.

Even though they were completely defenseless, no one could react.

Ikasa stopped in front of the girls.

Being looked down upon by the tall angel, Amy felt completely intimidated.

But she did not give in to fear and held her gaze until the end.

“Are you a virgin?”

Amy’s face turned red immediately.

That was practically a verbal assault without limits.

“W-what are you saying?”

“Hahaha! I see. And you?”

Ikasa pointed alternately at Tess and Arin.

Their faces also reddened.

“Hmm… so that is it. For humans, you have quite a bit of self-control.”

Ikasa leaned forward and observed Arin closely.

Black hair, dark pupils, and a face pale as moonlight.

“Oh… you are of the eastern race. I like it.”

Ikasa was satisfied.

She had come only to release the resentment accumulated over twenty thousand years, but she had obtained an unexpected gain.

The coordinates of Miro’s home and three girls.

With that, she had a great chance of ascending to angel again.

Ikasa spun her halo and activated her power.

“Eh…?”

Amy, Tess, and Arin began to rise into the air.

Instinctively, light concentrated in front of Shirone.

“No! Stop!”

At the same time that the Photon Cannon fired, Canis and Harvest attacked together.

Rian also charged, raising his great sword.

Ikasa extended a slender finger and slid it from left to right.

All the attacks bounced off an invisible barrier.

Shirone shouted, unable to contain his anxiety.

“Let them go! Come down! Fight us!”

Ikasa looked at them with disdain and rose together with the three girls.

Shirone’s heart felt as if it were about to burst.

This could not end like this.

If everything ended in such a powerless way, he would not be able to endure it.

Ikasa accelerated her halo in the sky.

A burning vortex appeared in front of her, and then a heavy mass formed.

It was a black object with orange stripes crossing it, but its shape could not yet be distinguished.

“Tabu, kill the heretics. I will go with Lord Kariel.”

“…Yes, Ikasa.”

Ikasa quickly disappeared into the northern sky.

Amy’s voice calling out to someone followed her into the distance.

Shirone looked at the sky with a vacant expression.

It did not seem real.

It was not that he had not considered the risks of coming to heaven.

But he did not expect to be so powerless.

‘I… was the one who said we should come.’

Shirone closed his eyes tightly.

It was his fault.

He should have prevented them from coming to heaven from the beginning.

To think that with the Metagate they would be a little safer…

What a stupid mistake.

Angels were beings that surpassed human imagination.

Boom!

The black mass fell to the ground.

Its surface was so smooth that it looked like rock.

But when it unfolded, it revealed a shape similar to a gorilla.

Orange stripes shone symmetrically on its body, creating an unsettling contrast.

The triangle floating above its head indicated that it was a one-horned Mara.

It was smaller than the ones he saw in the refuge of Nor, but it did not seem weak.

“Hehehe. I am Tabu. It has been a while since I fought, so let us try to have fun.”

Shirone’s group took combat positions.

But having lost the girls, their fighting spirit was at rock bottom.

Not caring about that, Tabu hunched over excitedly.

“My power is restricted, so it is a bit embarrassing to show off…”

Tabu’s orange stripes glowed and an intense wave of heat exploded.

“But for you, it is more than enough.”

Having said that, Tabu kicked the ground and launched himself into the attack.

Rian ran toward him and swung his great sword.

Tabu neither dodged nor blocked.

As if he did not even see Rian, he charged straight into the sword.

Boom!

The impact sent Rian flying through the air.

Tabu arched his back and looked at Shirone upside down.

Then he launched himself in that position.

Seeing his inverted face approaching was indescribably disturbing.

Faced with an attack that surpassed all human logic, Shirone unleashed Rampage.

The wall of light struck Tabu, but he passed through it without flinching.

“Hehehe, interesting magic.”

Tabu’s face came right in front of Shirone’s.

Where his eyes should be, there were vertical orange lines, and his mouth was a lipless crack.

Rampage expelled mass twenty times per second, but Tabu endured it as if it were a simple storm.

Sticking out his tongue to his chest, he mocked Shirone.

“Hehe… does it hurt? That they took your girl away?”

Shirone’s eyes filled with killing intent.

He had to get Amy back.

Ironically, the moment he understood that, he erased Amy from his mind.

His concentration gathered, and the power of Rampage increased.

This time, even Tabu could not resist.

He was pushed back by the attack and began to move strangely across the battlefield.

Creative?

Not primitive.

With elastic movements like those of a monkey, he approached and launched attacks as heavy as rocks.

The group barely managed to resist.

‘Is this the power of a Mara?’

His raw power might have been lower than that of the whirlpool serpent, but in terms of rank, Tabu was far superior.

Speed, strength, balance, combat intelligence.

He completely surpassed that creature that was only large.

If Ikasa had not lost her power, would this monster not practically be a calamity?

At the moment Tabu’s fist headed toward Shirone, a Shadow Wall rose from the ground.

Bang!

A roar echoed from the other side of the shadow.

Tabu did not stop his attack.

He simply pushed with his fist like a madman.

The fist pierced the Shadow Wall and struck Shirone’s forehead.

The first barrier absorbed the impact, but even so he felt as if the world spun.

From Shirone’s shadow, Canis emerged.

“With normal attacks it will not be enough. Open the Immortal Function now.”

“What are you talking about? I opened it a while ago.”

Canis showed a bewildered expression.

He himself knew better than anyone the power of the Photon Cannon when used in the Immortal Function state.

And even so he could not even injure him?

“Will the laser not work?”

“I doubt it. He is small and fast.”

More than five seconds were needed to concentrate the energy.

If it were something large like the whirlpool serpent, it would still be viable, but against Tabu, whose movement pattern could not even be predicted, it was an impossible strategy.

“Even so, let us try it. I will hold him, so attack at that moment.”

Canis activated the power of darkness.

Shadows gathered like capillaries clung to Tabu’s ankles, climbed up his knees, and tightly bound his wrists.

Shirone’s laser struck Tabu, and his body began to redden little by little.

If it continued like that, no matter how resistant he was, his explosion would only be a matter of time.

“Hahaha! Enough! That is it!”

Tabu inflated his thighs and jumped.

The power of darkness binding his limbs broke like paper.

His figure became a point in the sky in an instant.

Was it impossible?

The power of darkness was specialized in structural forces, but it was not particularly strong physically.

To hold Tabu required a much greater restraining force.

“Canis! Buy me a little more time!”

Shirone decided to gamble on photon manipulation.

Before it had been considered inefficient, but after achieving Shining Impact, the situation was different.

While Harvest faced Tabu, Canis observed the sphere of light gathering around Shirone.

The intensity of the light was weak, like in Shining Impact.

It seemed he was trying to reduce the vibration of the particles to give it shape.

The idea was not bad, but would it work?

— Even if you suppress the vibration, you cannot enlarge it enough to give it form. Like Shining Impact, it will end up exploding.

— No. It does not seem like compression.

At Harvest’s words, Canis looked again.

What Shirone had created was a small ring of light, so tiny that it could fit between his thumb and index finger.

‘That bastard! Could it be that…?’

A shocking thought crossed Canis’s mind.

Light magic, unlike dark magic, does not allow precise shaping.

But perhaps it was not impossible to give it form.

The ring of light that Shirone had created began to duplicate itself over and over again.

A chill ran down Canis’s spine as he saw that.

There was a form that could be achieved with photons.

A fractal structure.

A fractal is a shape that replicates itself to constitute a whole.

Shirone gathered minimal particles, created the simplest possible form, and then thought of multiplying it infinitely.

Once a form was completed, replicating it was a matter of an instant.

From the sphere of light gathered between Shirone’s hands, a chain burst forth like a torrent.

As it was a technique that went against the nature of attributes, the consumption of mental energy was much greater than that of common magic.

But it was the only possible strategy against Tabu.

Tabu, who was pursuing Canis, sensed something strange and turned toward Shirone.

Around him, chains dozens of meters long undulated, emitting light.

It was the power of light, considered the force of angels.

And among them, the most difficult—light manipulation.

“A mere human…!”

Tabu shouted and launched himself into the attack.

Shirone responded by moving his arm and launched the chains.

The chains intertwined in a spherical shape began to wrap around Tabu’s body.

From the ankles they rose, surrounded his waist, slipped through his armpits, coiled around his neck, and descended in an X shape to bind his thighs.

Clack!

A sound like stone scraping was heard.

Tabu’s fist stopped just before striking the bridge of Shirone’s nose.

His fist trembled, reflecting his fury.

“Grrrrrr!”

Tabu could not move.

The rings of the chain, charged with gravity, attracted each other, increasing the tension.

If he moved even slightly, the chains tightened more, trapping him without leaving any space.

The chief of the fairies, Igirin, observed Tabu trapped with disbelief.

Who was that boy?

Even among angels who dominated light, only a few could use manipulation.

Canis also could not believe what he was seeing.

It was not a simple chain.

It had taken shape through fractal technology and generated tension using mass.

It was completely different from the magic Shirone had shown until now.

There was magic equivalent to the Photon Cannon in other disciplines.

The same occurred with the laser or Rampage.

But the chain magic belonged to a domain exclusive to divine particles, impossible to replicate by other branches.

— The Unlocker circuit is evolving at a terrifying speed. And everything he creates breaks common sense. After Shining Impact, now it is Shining Chain?

Canis remained silent.

In a situation where they had to recover their companions, an ally becoming stronger was positive.

But his competitive nature felt a sting of defeat.

— Canis, your heart is beating faster. Do not worry so much. You came to heaven to become stronger. You will be able to surpass Shirone.

— Yes… someday I will have to surpass him. For now, let us focus on the situation.

After saying that to himself, Canis walked toward where Tabu was immobilized.