Cleanup (2)
The Muscle Bear had its face shoved into the lake, drinking, when it sat back on its haunches like a yellow teddy in nothing but a red shirt — Winnie-the-Pooh himself — and started staring east.
If it had looked south, it would have spotted me. An unlucky bastard, any way you cut it.
I drew the Heavencloud Sword from its sheath and asked Franc.
"See anyone nearby who still hasn't evacuated?"
"All the civilians have been evacuated. There's no one left."
It was Captain Romin, trailing after us, who answered in Franc's place with a bright little smile. I glanced at her and turned away.
"That had better be the truth."
"Pardon?"
"Because this whole area is about to cease to exist."
"What—?!"
I dropped a hand and tapped the coat pocket where Darky was tucked. He wriggled free, unfurled from inside the coat, and wrapped my entire body like a bodysuit.
"Uh... uhhh?"
Leaving Captain Romin's dazed voice behind me, I checked Darky's coverage over my clothes with Spatial Perception. Condition was good. Nothing off. I fixed my eyes on the Muscle Bear I was about to face.
It was grumbling to itself, attention wandering. Strip away the bulk, and the muscle plating its body like armor, and it looked like nothing more than an ordinary, gentle bear. The distance between us was about twenty-two kilometers — far outside the Phase Power sensing range peculiar to aberrants. It hadn't the faintest idea I was preparing to attack.
Because of me, it had been forcibly evolved from an ordinary Lowest-Rank Variant into a High-Tier subspecies, used as a tool for my personal grudge and my revenge, and now it was about to lose its life to me.
......Watching it, I was getting sentimental for no damn reason.
"Hm."
One breath, and I shook the feeling off. I kicked my thoughts into acceleration and considered how to take the thing down. For all it looked like, it was a High-Tier subspecies — something capable of standing against a Highest-Rank Variant. On top of that, the odds were high it feared me. Hit it first from a distance and it would catch on at once, dodge, or simply run.
To stop that, I had to close in and make flight impossible.
I began condensing the upgraded mana cannon — Mana Cannon Mk. 2 — into the Heavencloud Sword. Fired like this, even the version from before the upgrade had thrown a Sword Energy Bullet sharp enough to scar the Grand Turtle's hide. I'd loose this one from point-blank range with Space Leaping. And then...
Mana Bullet Mk. 2 was out. Thinking back to the Blade Fly, its attack range was too narrow. I'd considered blowing the bear away with a mana round or a mana cannon, but one slip and Franc or Captain Romin could get swept up in it. Pass on that too. Kill the Muscle Bear by detonating it with a mana cannon and its remains would scatter to the four winds. For a clean finish, erasing it with Mana Cannon Mk. 2 was best.
So — move in behind it, fire a Sword Energy Bullet, then read the situation and hammer it with Mana Cannon Mk. 2 until nothing was left.
TP seeped into the Heavencloud Sword, gathering and gathering, and when it passed a hundred thousand the blade went from bluish to pitch-dark and began pouring out a navy light so deep it looked ready to swallow a man whole.
......Pump any more in, and I had a bad feeling it would turn dangerous.
I wrapped the condensation where it stood, finished preparing the attack, and looked back. Franc and Captain Romin couldn't tear their eyes from the navy-glowing Heavencloud Sword.
"I'm starting."
I didn't wait for an answer. Accelerating the Mana Sieve to reinforce my body, I Space Leaped behind the thing.
The scenery flickered three times in rapid succession, and the Muscle Bear's back filled my eyes — fur thick and stiff as rebar. In the same instant, that back went rigid. It had sensed me. Every muscle had locked.
GWAAAAARGH?!
Through Spatial Perception I felt the musclebound black bear — more than a hundred meters of it, sprawled where it sat — drive power into both legs with a scream that wasn't quite a roar. The short muscles compressed, then exploded outward, and the massive body rose, slow.
I watched that bulk shoot skyward, kicked off a Wall of Space, and leapt after it.
KWA-BOOM!
The ground that had served as its foothold didn't just split. It detonated, hurling clods of earth like artillery in every direction. None of them were on a path that would reach me.
Twisting in midair, the bear looked back at me coming after it, and its eyes mixed every sour feeling at once — confusion, shock, despair, terror. Those eyes might as well have been asking, You came to kill me? The look left a bad taste, but I didn't look away. Meeting that gaze, I measured its line of travel against the Sword Energy Bullet's reach and swung the Heavencloud Sword from low to high.
SHWAAAAANG.
Just as it had against the Blade Fly, sword energy tore out of the Heavencloud Sword with the sound of sheet metal ripping, curved into a crescent dozens of meters across, and flew toward the Muscle Bear — halted in the air, no, still climbing.
The deep blue-green blade-light rushing at its face made the Muscle Bear recoil. It twisted as hard as it could, trying to dodge what I'd thrown.
Should I start officially calling this a Sword Energy Bullet too?
I shook the idle thought off at once. The moment the Muscle Bear's attention locked entirely on the Sword Energy Bullet, I Space Leaped to a point three kilometers behind it and rapidly condensed a Mana Cannon Mk. 2 in my left hand — the one not holding the sword. A Mana Cannon's blast wasn't that wide. This much distance would be plenty.
"Eeeek!!"
The instant I condensed the Mana Cannon Mk. 2, Darky yelped and yanked the part of himself covering my left hand all the way back to the forearm. In that same moment I fired the gathered forty thousand TP at the thing's back.
Floating in the air, it slowly turned its head and watched the mana cannon coming from behind with despair in its eyes. It tried to find me as well — but the moment its gaze was about to reach me, I leaped again to the side opposite its line of sight, loaded another Mana Cannon Mk. 2 into the Heavencloud Sword, and swung once more from point-blank range.
Screee!
Not the hundred-thousand-TP Sword Energy Bullet, but a crescent dyed a vicious blue still flew, trailing an ear-splitting rupture.
A Sword Energy Bullet of a hundred thousand TP, rising from below. A Mana Cannon Mk. 2 of forty thousand TP, surging in from the rear. A Sword Energy Bullet of thirty thousand TP, closing from the flank.
KRAAAAAUUUUUGH!!
Facing sword energy and Mana Cannon Mk. 2 from three directions at once, it let out a roar so low and drawn-out it sounded like audio played in slow motion, twisted its upper body, and lashed its right forepaw at the massive hundred-thousand-TP crescent.
Far across the sky, where she waited with Captain Romin, Franc thrust both hands upward.
The instant I confirmed TP gathering in her body, a white light flashed bright enough to bleach the world, and the TP inside Franc's Soul Stone dropped by five million in a single breath.
KRA-KA-KA-KA-BOOM...!!
With a detonation that shook heaven and earth, a lightning bolt dozens of meters thick slammed down into the Muscle Bear's skull. In the heartbeat it flinched, seared by the bolt, the crescent Sword Energy Bullet passed through without a sound and cleaved its right forepaw.
KWAAAAUU!!
The Muscle Bear roared at the pain of a severed limb.
White flame began to bloom across its whole body in the aftermath of the direct strike, and the second Mana Cannon Mk. 2 detonated with the sound of a rubber mallet striking the center of a thin iron plate. The blast swallowed a range of several hundred meters the way deep blue-green ink blooms through water, and devoured the lightning-burning Muscle Bear's entire lower half.
GWAAAAUUU!!!
The whole world moved slow. I alone moved fast, and dropped toward the ground. I drove the Heavencloud Sword into the earth and hurled a Mana Cannon Mk. 2 from each hand at the Muscle Bear still roaring its pain in the air.
Right after, the third Sword Energy Bullet sliced through the left side of its upper body, and a left forepaw the height of a ten-story building fell to the ground in a spray of blood. I threw one more Mana Cannon Mk. 2 at that forepaw as it tumbled down raining blood, then fired another at the right forepaw, already halved, falling after it.
VWOOOM. VWUUUUUM.
At the sound of Mana Cannon Mk. 2 detonations going off one after another, I looked back. The Muscle Bear's hundred-meter bulk was being swallowed by two formless holes of deep blue-green, erased without a trace. Before the first blast had even faded, two more formless explosions followed. Three amorphous blasts, like holes punched through empty air, erased the body from below, from the left, and from the right all at once, until at last they merged into a single mass.
UUUUWOOOONG——.
I released the thought acceleration and watched. It truly looked like a hole bored through the sky. A void of nothing, swallowing everything and returning it to null.
VZZHUM—.
I confirmed that the Muscle Bear's falling left forepaw had also been caught in a Mana Cannon Mk. 2 blast, Space Leaped between Franc and Captain Romin, seized both of them, and put rapid distance between us and Uwharrie National Forest.
By then everything below the Muscle Bear's neck had been erased by Mana Bullet Mk. 2. I burned the sight of it staring at the sky with dimming eyes into both of mine, and once we were roughly forty kilometers clear of the national forest I turned and fired a moderately condensed mana cannon, blowing Uwharrie National Forest away in its entirety.
RUUUUMBLE...
A colossal mushroom cloud bloomed before our eyes on a wave of searing heat, and Captain Romin stared at the viciously rising cloud with the face of someone watching the end of the world.
I'd confirmed the Muscle Bear was dead, and I'd said as much just before the fight — but the real reason I'd erased Uwharrie National Forest was a warning aimed at the United States. Act up, and I wouldn't let it slide. They'd said the civilians nearby had all been evacuated, so there was nothing to hold back for.
I watched for several minutes as the mushroom cloud rose, shoving the sky aside and shaking the earth, until Captain Romin muttered beside me, very small.
"A-as expected of the God of Destruction..."
This woman? I turned and glared at Captain Romin, sharp, and she hiccuped — then hiccuped again — and frantically waved her hands as she cried out.
"Ah, th-that's not what I— I just thought an explosion that bad would scatter all the Phase Power, so you couldn't absorb it...! Th-that's all, so—!"
I wasn't pleased. But I had no desire to tear into a Captain Romin who was white as a sheet, stammering, and welling up with tears. I ignored her.
It was a High-Tier subspecies. I couldn't have absorbed its Phase Power in any case. And now I had an excuse, handed to me just like that.
I slid the Heavencloud Sword back into its sheath. Franc, who had been glaring at the captain for muttering God of Destruction, came over, took my hand in hers, and asked.
"Did you erase all of it?"
"Yeah. An explosion like that, nothing's still alive."
I answered with a shrug. But Franc would know too — that before any of that, the Muscle Bear had already been completely annihilated by Mana Cannon Mk. 2.
Turning my back on the camera hovering over Captain Romin's shoulder, I moved my lips.
I'd been ready to let it pass unseen if she hadn't caught it. But the faintly sad look on her face told me Franc had read my lips through Spatial Perception after all.
The mushroom cloud refused to fade, and it was a shame I couldn't lay eyes on ground zero. Even so, I had no desire to stand here waiting for it to clear. I turned to Captain Romin, behind me with a hand on her chest, secretly sighing in relief, and spoke.
"Captain Romin."
"Eep?! Y-yes, sir?!"
"We're going straight to Las Vegas. Have a plane ready."
"Ah, oh. Yes! I'll make the call!"
Watching her bring up the hologram of her Certifier, I turned, put the mushroom cloud at my back, and started toward Andrews Air Force Base.
Captain Romin looked puzzled that I was moving out without confirming the Muscle Bear's corpse, but she asked nothing further and hurried after me with her Certifier still on. Behind me she muttered away in military jargon, contacting the base.
"Darky. Back as you were."
"Yes, boss!"
He sluggishly gathered into one mass, slipped into the inner pocket of my coat, fidgeted a little, then curled up, closed his eyes, and started to doze.
At the sight of Darky clumping together and crawling into my pocket, Captain Romin broke off mid-call and stared blankly at me — then startled at a prompt from whoever she was talking to, and called to me, careful.
"Um... Chairman?"
I was walking slowly across the sky, laying Walls of Space under my feet, when Captain Romin — finished with the call, it seemed — hesitated and called to me again, carefully. I turned. She hesitated once more, then spoke.
"Y-you just finished a fight. Can you really go straight after the White Thorn Turtle?"
"If I couldn't, I wouldn't have told you to get ready."
"Ah, o-of course you could!"
Hm. My voice had come out colder than I meant, and I was a little thrown — but Captain Romin, like someone who'd just been shut down, forced an excessive smile and answered, "Of course you would, and here I am asking a stupid question! Aha, ahaha, ahaha."
I could feel Franc worrying beside me at my tone, and I scratched the back of my head. Lately my moods were swinging too hard. At this rate I might take it out on someone who didn't deserve it. I'd better be careful.
"One of my abilities is rapid Phase Power recovery. Fly west on a plane like this and whatever I spent will recharge on the way. No need to worry."
"Ah. Yes, sir."
I walked on at an easy pace, and spotted several Lowest-Rank Variants on the ground. If any of them happened to absorb the Phase Power the Muscle Bear had scattered in death, they'd become Low-Rank or Mid-Rank Variants in an instant. Better to kill them all.
I flicked my hand and started launching small Mana Bullets. Captain Romin blinked, then asked quietly again.
"Um... what are you doing?"
"I see aberrants, so I'm killing them. Leave them and they might feed on the Phase Power the Muscle Bear scattered and evolve."
"Ah!"
Anything off in some other direction, I didn't know and didn't care. America could handle it. Whatever.
Captain Romin seemed to read something into what I was doing. A faintly vacant prettiness colored her face as she blushed and stole glances at me.
I didn't know why she was acting like that, so I put her out of my mind and kept moving, erasing every aberrant that entered my Spatial Perception with Mana Bullets. Once everything nearby was dealt with, I wrapped an arm around Franc's waist, grabbed Captain Romin by the waist as well, and hefted her like cargo.
"Kyaa?!"
Then I launched myself toward Andrews Air Force Base again.
"Kyaaaaa~!"
Captain Romin screamed every time I Space Leaped and threw us forward. Around the tenth jump a cheer started mixing into the scream, and by the time we reached Andrews Air Force Base she was cheering instead of screaming.
Quick to adapt, this one. The moment we arrived in the air over the base, I flung her forward.
"Kyaak?!"
Captain Romin flailed both arms as she fell, then wrapped herself in wind and rose again, sweeping a hand over her chest with a badly startled face.
"Where do I go?"
"Ah, over there. The AM-777 Black Bride you rode in on is ready. Just board that one!"
Black Bride? Weird name.
Twenty minutes to go there and back. One minute to kill it. Twenty-one minutes after I'd left Andrews Air Force Base, I was back, and the soldiers and reporters stood in exactly the same places as when I'd departed, not an inch different.
Major General Nagan among them... and that man in the black suit. What was his name again? Anyway, when I dropped down where they stood, the gathered soldiers startled and reached for the pistols at their waists, and the reporters looked at me with fear mixed into their faces.
Before I left, those eyes had been looking at a hero. Now they were looking at a god of destruction. Watching soldiers take the posture of men a breath from drawing their guns — wary of me, strangely afraid — I felt my brow crease.
"You preparing to fight me right now?"
"...Hm?! What the hell do you think you're doing!"
Major General Nagan flinched at my words, then turned and barked at the soldiers who were a breath from drawing. Seeing that, the bald — the skinheaded — white man smiled and stopped him.
"Don't be too hard on them, Commander Nagan. Before a figure of Grand Blue's chairman's caliber, it's only natural to shrink and tense without meaning to."
Ah. Now I remembered. Brigadier General Logan Dalton, wasn't it? The white man in the black suit — angular cheekbones, a square jaw, narrow eyes — finished restraining Major General Nagan, turned to me, and opened his mouth with a smile.
"Truly, the reputation is deserved. To bring down so simply a Muscle Bear that the GS Raid Team and a great many B-Class ability users could do nothing about. This was the moment one could see that being called the God of Destruction is no exaggeration at all."
The hell is this guy saying. I was already halfway to hating American soldiers thanks to that so-called Secretary of Defense and people like Robert Phillips, and now he's calling me God of Destruction to my face?
I ignored Brigadier General Dalton and asked Major General Nagan.
"I'd like to leave right now. That possible? And once I take the White Thorn Turtle, I'd like to be able to return to Korea immediately."
Brigadier General Dalton went blank for a moment at being ignored, then frowned slightly. Major General Nagan, too, took on a heavy expression at being brushed aside, then nodded.
"The Black Bride is built with ninety-five percent of her airframe from aberrant byproducts and materials mined in the Phase World, and she covers the fuel required for flight with high-capacity energy panels. With only a simple inspection, she's a lady who can fly fifteen days straight without a hitch. Please make use of her without concern."
I heard him out, said nothing, turned, and walked toward the airliner named Black Bride. Major General Nagan's face began to twist — and Brigadier General Dalton's with it.
At that, the reporters hammered their shutters as if they'd landed a scoop, and the broadcast cameras swung their lenses this way to capture it. Amid the commotion, Franc hesitated a moment, then spoke to Major General Nagan.
"I believe the Chairman has come to dislike soldiers, on account of what America's military has done. I would ask for your understanding."
"...My lady. What do you mean by that?"
"Were you not aware? The President of the Republic of Korea is the Chairman's mother-in-law, and I am told this country's Secretary of Defense treated her with discourtesy. I have also heard that it was the military that planned, and carried out, an attempt to abduct his lover."
"Khrm..."
At Franc's words, Major General Nagan seemed to think he'd found the cause of my disregard, and bowed his head with a devastated expression. Brigadier General Dalton showed his own discomfort and sighed.
The other soldiers wore sour, aggrieved looks, as if they'd been wronged, and I didn't like it. Franc was drawing breath to speak again. Standing before the boarding stairs, I called to her.
"Franc!"
"Yes! I'm coming!"
Franc flew over at once, and Captain Romin came hurrying after her in a fluster.