Chapter 200: Floating Sky Islands (10)

After wiping out every byproduct of that incomprehensible experiment, Sis took up a bone knife carved from a gazelle's femur and went off to dress the rabbit. I gathered fallen branches, got a fire going, and waited.

A wall...

From the moment I'd seen the wall of light and water she'd raised, that word had kept circling in my head. The feeling was familiar. It had been the same when I forged Spatial Perception, and again when I gained the Mana Sieve. So this was the keyword of a new ability.

Spatial Perception. Spatial Manipulation. Spatial Barrier. And a wall...

Hmm.

"Sis. Make me a wall of water."

"Huh? Whyyy?"

"There's something I want to test."

"Okay. Give me a second."

Sis, still dressing the rabbit and rinsing it, flicked her hand, and a rippling wall of water the size of a front door took shape. I studied its form and structure through Spatial Perception... then, holding a fierce image of a Wall of Space in my mind, I laid Spatial Manipulation over the wall of water.

Ripples spread across it, like a single drop striking a still surface.

"Tch. Yeah, no way that was going to work."

The Phase Power holding the wall together scattered into fragments under the Spatial Manipulation, and the water that had kept its shape lost it all at once and spilled onto the ground. If the word wall was nagging at me this hard, there had to be something to it. I just couldn't tell what that something was.

"Come on, let's grill it~."

Sis had skinned the rabbit, washed it, and gotten it ready to cook. She stared in puzzlement at the ground turned into a shallow sea by the collapsed wall, then gathered the water with a simple gesture and flung it out into the sea of clouds.

After roasted rabbit for dinner, she focused again and started practicing a fusion of water and darkness. Watching her work her Dark attribute, I realized she'd already reached the point where the light and darkness she created barely affected her at all. Secondary damage from the flashes—getting your eyes blasted, that sort of thing—still seemed unavoidable, but a direct hit from her own power was reduced to nearly nothing. Close to immunity, you might say.

Bang—!

"...Kyaa!"

Whether that immunity was limited to her flesh, the moment the condensed darkness burst and the spreading mist melted her clothes and bra, Sis screamed, clutched her chest, and dove into the burrow. I'd happened to catch the instant they melted. Her chest had grown again past an A cup—not quite a B yet, but getting there.

Phase Power really was miracle energy. Turning a flat chest full? Did it turn thinning hair thick, too? I didn't think I'd ever seen a bald ability user.

I yanked up a fairly large bush, roots and all, and planted it near the burrow to screen her. Hiding behind it, Sis looked at the suit jacket and blouse reduced to rags, heaved a long sigh, and fretted over the skirt, which was at least still in one piece. I turned my attention from her and started puzzling over which of my abilities might connect to a wall... huh?

"S-Seoha, you can't come over here!"

"Huh? Why?"

"Just—don't! If you do, I won't let it go!"

She warned me in a sharp voice thick with shame and embarrassment, then dropped the skirt, yanked her panties off too, and started practicing the water-and-darkness fusion stark naked. Fine for now. But her blazer and bra had both already melted. What was she planning to do later?

Anyway, I manifested Spatial Manipulation once every ten minutes, struggling to change its form. First I had to try fixing a Wall of Space in place. I kept at it until the night deepened and the moon hung overhead, unfolding Spatial Manipulation dozens of times. The result was zero.

I couldn't get a feel for it at all. What was I supposed to do with a single clue—the word wall? I was scratching my head and sighing when Sis finished her practice and started getting dressed, and the sight was a spectacle. Skirt on, top gone. A missing-shirt special.

"S-Seoha. Seohaaa."

She couldn't even step out from behind the bush, calling my name with a miserable face. I sighed, peeled off my summer uniform shirt, and tossed it to her. She came out wearing it, face scarlet, and I needled her.

"You really are an idiot."

"Why am I an idiot?!"

"I've never seen one, and I've never heard of one—an ability user who melts her own clothes with her own power and ends up flashing everyone~."

"Nnngh."

With nothing to say for herself, she glared at me, face still red, then lay down with a sulky look, using my thigh as a pillow, and grumbled.

"I really don't know where that cute little brother from when we were kids went. Hmph."

"Why do you keep using my thigh as a pillow?"

"Because it's just firm enough, and warm. That's why!"

"..."

She said she liked it, so I had nothing to say—but a petty urge got the better of me. I pinched her nose and tugged. She made a weird mnngh-mnngh and shook her head from side to side.

Day ten in the Phase World.

We were up early, choked down a meal of the edible plants we were starting to get sick of, and followed the hills toward eleven o'clock. We'd meant to investigate the temples from the start, so the eleven o'clock temple—where we could be sure there was nothing—was a better bet than the six o'clock one, where an Aberrant might or might not be waiting.

The only reason I dared march on a temple this boldly was that my Phase Power had exploded to two million. Spatial Manipulation cost 35,000 TP a use. Simple math: I could fire it fifty-seven times. With that, even if ten winged women came down on us...

I pictured those ten imaginary winged women pouring Light Bolts down like rain, and a shudder ran through me.

No. Ten was too many. Three at once, though—I could refill the Spatial Barrier and crumple them with Spatial Manipulation. If I just hammered Spatial Manipulation into them one after another, they'd thrash, bleed, and die. Sis had reached D-Class too, and with practice manipulating her Dark attribute, her Shadow Jump range had stretched to twenty meters. Her ability to flee had improved that much, so even if a winged woman showed up again, I could breathe easier.

More than that, the technique she'd created last night had been astonishing even to me. It would hit hard enough to matter. It fused two attributes and fired them, and the moment I saw the demonstration and ran the numbers, I confirmed it put out power nearly equal to my Mana Bullet.

She'd named the fused round of light and water Fusion Light-Water. A mass of water glowing with light touched the target, a steam explosion went off, and it literally wrecked everything inside the blast. One liter of water turning to gas—phase transition? I wasn't sure that was even the right term. Anyway, science class had taught me that when water vaporizes, its volume explodes by more than sixteen hundred times. Fusion Light-Water did that the instant it hit: steam burst out in proportion to the water and blew away everything near the impact.

And the fused round of darkness and water, Fusion Dark-Water, had something black condensed inside the mass of water. The moment the water struck and burst, a downright vicious corrosive poison poured out. I'd asked whether fusing it with water wouldn't dilute it. She shot back that a drop of water in thick potassium cyanide wouldn't dilute the toxicity, and I had no comeback. We'd actually ambushed a Mid-Rank Variant resting in a tree, cut its wings off, set it in front of Sis, and tested it. The instant Dark-Water touched it and burst, the Mid-Rank Variant drenched in the poison melted away in the blink of an eye—bones and all, nothing left.

Fusion Dark-Water had a tiny range but extreme power. Fusion Light-Water had extreme range, but the power was upper-mid? Maybe? As for speed, Fusion Light-Water was fast enough to look easy to land, while Dark-Water was neither slow nor fast, and looked pretty hard to hit with. More than anything, the Phase Power cost seemed steep—she couldn't loose more than three shots at a time.

She still hadn't succeeded at Fusion Dark-Light, the fusion of light and darkness. Honestly, I couldn't even guess what would happen if burning and corrosion combined. Up through the upper mid-ranks, Sis's fusion series would show reliable power. From High-Rank on, she wouldn't get much out of it unless she struck a weak point or a soft spot, but as a sub-DPS she'd still put up solid numbers.

"Huuu. Haaa."

"Nervous?"

"Mm. A little."

The closer we got to the eleven o'clock temple, the more she showed it—swallowing hard, switching the staff from hand to hand, rubbing her palms on the hem of the shirt. We'd left the unicorn horn beside the winged Aberrant woman's corpse. I'd asked why she couldn't hold one in each hand and fire Light Bolts; she'd said her other hand had to shoot water and darkness, so she couldn't. The wooden staff the winged woman had carried was light-attribute only, she'd said. Nothing to be done about it.

We reached the eleven o'clock side of Basin Island and picked our way down the slope, approaching the temple slowly. It sat on flat ground: an immensely broad stone cut into a rectangle, then huge cylindrical columns three meters across set at regular intervals, topped with a roof like a triangular prism. Built in the middle of the grassland, it stood roughly forty meters tall. Nearly a fifteen-story apartment building.

"At a glance it looks like a Greek temple, but it doesn't match the style of any period. The columns look Corinthian, the roof looks Doric, and the cella..."

I had no idea how much knowledge was packed into that head of hers. Listening to her analysis, I focused not only on Spatial Perception but on the sensations against my skin. I set my stance and approached carefully, ready to answer any reaction at once—but the temple gave none. Sis followed behind me, gripping the two-meter staff tight in both hands, waist bent in an awkward crouch, tilting her head and sneaking glances at it.

"Seoha. Not yet?"

"It's still a long way from entering my Spatial Perception. Stay sharp. The temple's huge. No telling what's inside."

Before I knew it, part of the temple entered my range, and as the coverage widened bit by bit, relief spread through me. At last, when the whole temple lay inside my Spatial Perception, I knew there was nothing in there—no Aberrant, no living thing at all. I still couldn't let my guard down, so I held the tension and looked it over again.

Overall it was a rectangle about the size of a soccer field. The chamber—the cella, the sanctum that housed the sacred image—took up two-thirds of the interior. There was one sacred image inside, and it wasn't human. It was a statue of an enormous bird, twenty meters tall, carved with startling realism. The detail was so fine that every feather looked as if it might stir and come alive.

"Huuu. No Aberrants."

"Huh? None? ...Mm. That's a relief."

"You weren't just disappointed, were you?"

"I was not!"

Not a single Aberrant registered inside the temple, or anywhere in my Spatial Perception. Only then did I loosen the tension wound tight through me and start toward it. Sis hurried up and took my hand. When we finally stood before the temple, she looked around in confusion.

"Huh? There are no stairs."

"Pegasi fly. Winged women fly. Why would they need stairs?"

The temple was so large that the stylobate was enormous too. The platform looked a good seven meters high, and as Sis had said, there were no stairs to walk up. I just picked her up and leapt, boosted by Physical Reinforcement.

...Sis smelled pointlessly good. It made me think of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Franc for no reason.

I set her down, and the moment I stepped into the cella, a cool, clean scent seemed to brush the tip of my nose. Sis immediately raised a sphere of light and flooded the chamber with brightness. Taking in the refined interior and the stone statue filling her view, she let out a gasp.

"Whoa. What is that statue? A phoenix?"

You could call it a phoenix. I'd just thought of it as a bird of scattering feathers, but from another angle it looked as if it were burning with a noble fire. Feathers shaped like rising flame, maybe.

"Hmm. Was the Lord of the Sky the winged woman mentioned this bird?"

"If they raised an idol, I'd say so. Oh—there's a mural over there too."

I went to the wall at her words. The uneven surface... it wasn't painted. It was a relief, carved into the stone. The wavering light made it hard to see, so I read the mural through Spatial Perception, and its image drew itself in my mind.

On the mural... huh? This looked like the Supergiant Turtle.

Mountains, rivers, and clouds were carved into the ground like pictographs, and a colossal turtle stood with those mountains and rivers beneath its feet. Its raised head thrust up through the clouds toward the sky, and the composition had it gazing at a vast island floating in the air, and at a bird atop that island with its wings spread wide. On the island in the sky, winged people were carved, far smaller than the bird, and there were many of them.

The winged humans came in four kinds: one pair of wings, two, three, and four. There was only one with four pairs. Two with three pairs. Three with two pairs. And several individuals with a single pair. The winged woman we'd caught yesterday had two pairs. If two pairs meant Superior-grade, then one pair was High-Rank, and three pairs—don't tell me that was a Highest-Rank Variant. Four pairs... I didn't even want to think about it.

I looked again at the turtle thrusting its head above the clouds. No matter how I looked at it, it was the Supergiant Turtle. The shape of the legs. The eyes, carved pitch-black. Beneath its feet, all kinds of creatures were carved. Most were reptiles—turtles, crocodiles—and here and there, beings that looked human. Aberrants, cut into stone?

Judging by composition alone, it was a confrontation between bird and turtle, but neither face showed wrath or rage, which left it ambiguous. Had the carver lacked the skill to show it, or had they simply not been angry? The opposite wall held the same composition, bird and turtle regarding each other, only the terrain had changed from mountains to plains. The mural behind the statue had the sea for a background, and the principal figures were the same.

Looking at the murals of bird and turtle left my head in a tangle. Worse, the turtle in the carving had the very traits that called up the Supergiant Turtle I'd met—those pitch-black eyes that felt profoundly arcane—and the confusion only deepened.

"Seoha? What are you doing over here?"

"Oh. I was looking at the mural carved into the wall."

"Hmm~. A turtle and... a firebird? This firebird must ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be the same being as that statue."

Sis came up beside me, raised another sphere of light, and began shifting it this way and that to cast shadows across the mural. Before long her expression turned grave.

"Why the sudden serious face?"

I asked, watching her. She glanced at me, then fixed her eyes on the mural again as she answered.

"Because it's strange. When the Phase World appeared, words like AD and BC vanished, replaced by the Divine Era, and in more than two hundred years I've never once heard of anyone finding a being in the Phase World intelligent enough to hold a conversation. And yet Aberrants built buildings and left murals of something they worshipped. I can't believe they were capable of intelligent activity on that level."

"Yeah? But I heard an ability user in Britain caught an elf."

"What?!"

"You didn't hear? The princess told me the elf story herself. I even saw the photo of the captured elf on my Certifier."

"That's..."

If we were talking traces of civilization, there were also the structures in the lava cavern beneath Mount Elephan— no. Mount Elephantros. Clutching my head over it wouldn't help us now. This was work for Phase scholars.

I scanned the enormous bird statue at the center of the cella again, carefully, seeing through it with Spatial Perception. It wasn't even stone infused with Phase Power. Just an ordinary lump of rock. Nothing special. Sis recalled her spheres of light, and we stepped outside to find the sun high overhead. I looked east. Through cloud and mist, a cliff showed faintly. I muttered, looking at it.

"Judging by the mural and the idol, does the real firebird exist on that island across the way? And the winged humans with four pairs, or three... hmm."

"The Aberrant with two pairs of wings was Superior-grade, right? If rank splits by wing count, three pairs would be Highest Tier, and four pairs Transcendent-grade..."

"...And the firebird would be Phase-grade."

She'd reached the same conclusion. She swallowed, her face tight. The thought that an Aberrant too powerful to resist might exist on that island sent fear rolling through me. I'd already killed a winged woman. There was no way I'd ever build a good relationship with them. All I could do was hope we never crossed paths.

"I can't be sure, but if we assume the worst, that's how it is. And there's a good chance each of the two remaining temples has one winged human with two pairs of wings."

"Why do you think that?"

I asked, puzzled by how certain she sounded. She tucked her long straight hair behind her ear and answered.

"The two-pair winged human you killed came from this temple, didn't she? That means she was this temple's keeper. The other two temples were about the same size as this one. It's hard to believe they'd station winged humans of a different rank."

"And what does that have to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do with anything?"

"The leaders of Aberrant groups are Superior-grade, most of them. If you look at a social structure built on power, it's hard to believe a humanoid group intelligent enough to hold a conversation would keep a hierarchy lower than that. A beast-form Peak-Rank Variant is about the level of a pack leader, and yet the winged human you caught was Superior-grade and still managed one temple alone, with no lesser individuals under her. Which means..."

Ugh. Sis's inner lecturer was about to take the stage again. Sometimes she explained things like a teacher, steering my thoughts toward the lesson, and here she was doing it again... Couldn't she just give me the conclusion? Boredom and pure can't-be-bothered must have been written all over my face, because she pouted and condensed it.

"Ugh, fine, the point is~! Taking the wing count and the grade of Phase Power they hold into account, she was probably a special caste, or simply a rank like mid-level administrator or facility keeper. So from a sociological standpoint, the other two temples ought to have winged humans of the same grade, the same class, and the same number of wings stationed there."

I wasn't sure how that conclusion followed, but I decided to let it go. I looked toward the two o'clock temple, the nearest from here, and Sis followed my gaze, then asked, a little tense.

"You're going to take it?"

"If I can. My Phase Power's over two million now, so if I ambush it with Spatial Manipulation, the odds are good. This is the chance for you to hit C-Class, and for me to hit B-Class."

"Mm."

If there really was another winged human out there, a Peak-Rank Variant with a similar level of Phase Power, taking it would push Sis to C-Class and me to B-Class. My Phase Power had grown nearly sevenfold, and the number of times I could use Spatial Manipulation and the Spatial Barrier had jumped with it. I believed this time wouldn't be as dangerous as before. I firmed my resolve and set out east, toward the two o'clock temple.

The moment we entered the forest between the eleven o'clock and two o'clock temples, not only the animals but the Aberrants too began fleeing from us.

...?

Of course, we'd been killing every Aberrant we ran into, and the animals had been running from the sight of us, so the behavior was familiar... and yet something about it felt different. We walked fast for about thirty minutes, and the moment we came out of the forest, I understood why they'd fled.

Above the temple, a winged human with four wings and a heavenly horse hung in the sky, waiting for me and Sis. The animals and Aberrants must have run from the presence those two were giving off.

Damn it. The trees had blocked the sky. I hadn't spotted them...

I drew a deep breath short of the forest's edge, readied for a fight, and spoke to her.

"Watch from behind, and if you see an opening, support me. Lightly."

"You sure? I can take the heavenly horse."

"Facing the winged human and the heavenly horse at the same time doesn't change much for me. I'll feel better if you support me from somewhere safe."

"...Okay."

"Watch out for the winged human's bolts of light."

"Yeah. Don't worry."

Easy for her to say. How was I supposed to not worry? The one mercy was that we were in a forest, so Sis had plenty of places to dodge with Shadow Jump. Even if Light Bolts or bolts of light came down, she'd slip through them. They were too far for Spatial Perception to read, but the angel had the staff in both hands and her stance set. She looked ready to fight.

"I'm going."

I stepped out of the forest. The Pegasus and the winged human... that one was a woman too. I could feel the winged woman's gaze pinning me, right against my skin. I hid my left hand behind my back, forming a Mana Bullet, and with every step my heart hammered. The instant Sis—who looked every bit as tense as I was—threw a Dark-attribute barrier around herself, the Pegasus... a heavenly horse, in their words... suddenly accelerated, aiming straight for her.

The angel spread all four wings wide, and instead of going for Sis, she began a glide straight at me, swinging her staff!

The moment I caught the sign of that swing, I raised a Spatial Barrier, drove Mana Sieve acceleration to the limit, and sprinted at the winged woman. Light Bolts hammered down over my head, off their mark.

I had to get that Aberrant inside my Spatial Perception!

I felt the Light Bolts streaking overhead through Spatial Perception. Only a few seconds into the sprint, the heavenly horse brushed the very edge of my range, crossing my path. I seized that split second, fired a 100 TP Mana Bullet at it, and lifted a hand to part the Spatial Barrier in front of me just enough to reconfirm the winged human's position. I saw her take the staff in one hand and set herself as if to loose a bolt of light. I sent my will into the Mana Bullet as it closed on the heavenly horse, and detonated it.

"Detonate!"

Krrrrrumble...

In an instant, an explosion erupted that could have blown a small mountain away whole. Amid what felt like a raging storm, the incoming Light Bolts warped and bent in every direction—wind pressure, the blast itself, or the pressure of Phase Power, I couldn't tell—and I was glad those things lived in the sky. If they'd been on the ground, I wouldn't have dared set a Mana Bullet off at all.

Amazingly, the heavenly horse burst out of the explosion—no, began to fall. Its whole body was lacquered in blood. Ribs had torn out through the hide at its flank, and guts streamed from the hole in its side. Its wings were completely shattered; it couldn't fly. One of its four legs was gone above the knee, and the other three weren't intact either. A High-Rank Variant, sure, but a physical-reinforcement type already half dead. Sis could handle it.

I wanted to finish it myself, but the Mana Bullet's blast seemed to have stabbed deep into the winged human's wariness. Spatial Perception was wailing danger alarms, and I couldn't spare the attention. One mistake here and both of us died. I had to trust Sis.

Tch. That bitch was farther from me than I'd thought! I was sprinting at sports-car speed, and the winged human still wouldn't enter my Spatial Perception!

No choice. Meaning to cut off her view, I lobbed five or six 50 TP Mana Bullets on an upward slant above her, poured Phase Power into my legs, and ran faster still.

Rrrumble— boom! KR-BOOM!!

Then the Mana Bullets began detonating in a chain, shaking the air. Whether my intent had landed or not, the winged woman didn't flee upward. She only fell back. If she'd climbed, she would have slipped clean out of my Spatial Perception, and I'd have had no play left!

I was cheering inwardly in that instant when a bolt of light came down dead-center on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Spatial Barrier.