Because That Is Fate
The First Apostle had organized the Heavenly Punishment. He did not have the strength to drag the reality he dreamed of into being by himself, so he went looking for people who would share that ideal.
He sifted for lawful candidates, preached his vision to them, and poured into those unruly, vivid souls the bullshit that they were to follow Heaven's will.
The apostles were not, of course, the sort who merely believed. A half-baked fanatic has an ending already written. Ilshikgyo was the proof. They had grown that large only because they possessed a crow as extraordinary as Lucifer and a cult leader who was, strangely enough, a genuinely good commander. Had either of them been missing, they could not even have waged war on Europe.
The Saintess? Someone must have meant the clown.
The Heavenly Punishment was not like that. The First Apostle had fed them and raised them from the first step to the last. He had given them powers. He had given them beds.
Each talent was distinct, and their zeal was outstanding, so it was not long before they became apostles. Once they were apostles, they followed the First Apostle with their whole hearts.
The world feared them, and still they did not grow arrogant. They were careful upon careful. Their organization was the finest there was. Rallied around the First Apostle, the pillar was solid, and because they professed themselves a small elite there was nothing left that could collapse. Infighting could not even arise—one screw loose in every head, and the bond between them was all the better for it.
And so things that would have been truly good, had only the intent been good, went crooked somewhere and turned into psychopaths for the ages. Lust-drunk devotees of Heaven who never hesitated to sacrifice the few for the many.
Well. That ends today. Of the apostles, only the First Apostle and Sipsado remain, and if one stops to think about who Sipsado really is, this story is over the moment the First Apostle is taken.
In the original they appeared in Part 3, where the power inflation had gone completely to hell, and they were a headache for ages. This is not the original.
These bastards end today. Just as Pele prophesied. He would drive them into an ending that had no end.
"Justice."
The First Apostle raised a crooked staff. Space warped at its tip.
Mooooooo—!
The golden calf that had denied God bellowed with all its might. The grass underfoot rotted, and the earth sickened.
Every substance within the present space possesses a mass of one gram.
The warped space scattered like scraps of paper. Formless law stitched itself across the air, drifting far and farther on the wind like dandelion seed.
Creeping. The law eroded everything around it. An invisible membrane closed over the surroundings.
Wow. This crazy bastard!
The curse came up from inside.
The First Apostle's ability was the enactment of law. He could make laws according to his own thoughts. Ordinarily it was a power with clear limits. Its source lay in the Stone Tablet, and the more he used it, the more the tablet demanded in payment.
Those limits were gone now. Fused with the Stone Tablet, he could spew laws without restraint until the day his life ran out. Offer a greater price, and the power grew stronger still.
Laws that could reach a god. The user's own capacity was the only ceiling.
When he appeared in Part 3, the ability had been strengthened past all reason—practically a god—and readers tore the character apart for years afterward. Imagine eleven characters on Sword's level becoming Pele's equals at a single word from the First Apostle. Of course they were going to get torn apart.
It was an ability whose plausibility had gone to Andromeda.
Even short of that, it remained a threatening power all the same. The law he had thrown out as his opening move was just that absurd.
Within a defined space, every substance has a mass of one gram.
He was no scientist, so he didn't know the fine points, but as he understood it, light has a mass of zero. And now, in a place where the sunlight was beating down hard, light suddenly has mass?
He couldn't even imagine what disaster that would bring. If he tried to sketch it with his lacking brain, a stone might form inside his eye on the spot.
But a power that great comes with limits. The time it takes to manifest, and the strength it consumes, would both be enormous. He had to aim for that gap and cancel the law.
……Or so he was meant to think.
"First Apostle, if you bring out something that big on the opening move, it won't be any fun."
"Did you see through it?"
The corner of the First Apostle's mouth drew a smile.
"Yes. Even so—granting mass, of all things. Isn't that hasty to attempt with no preparation at all?"
"It is possible, mind you."
"Yes. It would be possible."
But that wasn't the real aim.
Shffft.
He flicked his wrist and drew a deck of trump cards. He shuffled the smoothly caught stack, and when his hands stopped, a card was pinched between every finger.
What was drawn on the cards was a heart. A fuse ran from each heart.
He flung the cards at the fragments that composed the space. They lodged precisely in the gaps of the law.
Hisssss.
Somewhere, the sound of burning—and then—
BOOOOM!
The cards detonated all at once and collapsed the space.
"You landed it."
"I landed it."
The First Apostle's aim had been the occupation of space. He had meant to build a space in which he could become omniscient and omnipotent. If Phantom had focused only on the First Apostle, he would have been neatly carved apart inside that finished space.
"Ah. It isn't what you're thinking."
"It isn't?"
The First Apostle shrugged.
……Clang!
A featherless angel crashed a pair of cymbals. The shards of the broken law rose and took human form.
"You are the trial of the prophecy ordained by God. Too much for me to bear alone."
And so.
"They are not the real ones, but I have called those I trust most."
"……Whoa."
Thud. Thud.
Kyahaha—!
Heehee!
Wooooom!
Eleven figures surrounded him. Their bodies were translucent, as if to prove they were not real.
Good thing he was wearing a mask. Otherwise every feeling would have shown.
Uwooooh—!
A giant howled as if heaven and earth were tearing away.
Twelve monsters, the First Apostle among them, fixed their eyes on him.
I'm going to lose it.
One First Apostle was already more than enough, and this was too much.
"Go! For our dream!"
With the First Apostle's command, blood spilling from his mouth, the eleven apostles charged.
Thud. Thud.
Pele beat against the membrane wrapped in white.
"Here."
She had unfolded her divine sense, searching and searching, until she arrived.
"So you're in here. Child of Heaven."
Pele's instinct told her. The child she had to save was inside.
"I'll get you out soon."
A spear that symbolized her was gripped in Pele's hand. A spear that bore a god's name. A law made by human beings could not even get in its way.
She swung, holding the blow so the child inside would take no harm. Flame drew a circle and bored a hole before her.
"……!"
Stepping through the hole, Pele's eyes flew wide.
The first thing she saw was a pillar of light rising as if it would pierce the sky. A quantity of light that would have blinded any ordinary person poured out like madness.
Pele squinted and looked around.
She saw a neatly kept house and a pavilion, and the lingering thoughts steeped into this land.
"……I see. This was your house. Your home."
A god's eyes read the thoughts. The unfathomable years held in them brushed past her sight—a girl's misfortune, and her happiness, and her solitude.
"Absurd. It's absurd."
Pele's face twisted hard. She sent a gaze full of rage up toward Heaven.
"Did it really have to be that way?"
A god's anger struck Heaven, and still Heaven only went on joining the pillar of light, unmoved.
"Right……. What good would talking do."
Different from the gods she had known. Not emotional, the way her mother was. Not a goddamn mess, the way her siblings were. The sight of it trying to control everything as if it were an omniscient, omnipotent god was ridiculous.
"A prophecy has to be fulfilled."
She had to answer for the words she herself had spoken.
Whoosh.
BOOM!
Pele brought the spear down once. A crater large enough to swallow the entire space opened, and lava began to fill it.
The old pavilion and the house were swallowed by the lava and vanished. Smoke that burned away the unclean rose in a faint veil.
Pele's eyes caught fire. Divine power overflowed until it looked as if she herself were burning.
Pele's spear took aim at the pillar. The spear greedily devoured divine power.
Glug. Glug.
The flame that made the spear grew thicker and thicker, until at last it became lava. Lava falling from the spearpoint burned even the lava on the ground.
Another Pele, the image of Pele, revealed herself.
Kukukukung!
The presence of the Divine Spear ran wild. An earthquake tore through the space.
Pele reversed her grip on the Divine Spear and hurled it straight at the pillar.
Pele
The lava along its path was annihilated.
The air burned away, and a vacuum took its place.
The barrier shattered and came down.
A vaster sky looked down upon the world.
Crackle—!
A great crack opened in the pillar. Through that gap, Pele could see a haggard woman.
"Child!"
Had the divine words reached her? The dazed woman's eyes widened a little.
Before that gaze could reach Pele—
Clang!
The one who had seized the Divine Spear flung a splash of black ink.
Pele snarled.
The crack in the pillar filled in fast. The woman's figure could no longer be found.
"Any further would be troublesome."
The space that had been breaking apart was calmed by a single phrase.
A greatness beyond measure descended upon this place.
"Do you wish misfortune upon that child?"
Pele drew up still more divine power. Fine, hard lines scored her body.
The volcano's force collided with that towering greatness.
"Ought you not to wait? If you are as your prophecy says."
"Nonsense! That is not a matter that concerns the child!"
"True. You are right. But you must wait."
Heaven spoke, aloof.
⊳ First Apostle vs. Phantom Thief
⊳ Heavenly Road vs. Hong Yumin
⊳ Sipsado vs. Roadman, San-gun
⊳ Sword, Dan Miryu, Captain Kid, and Hwang Seokgu move to attack Sipsado, but San-gun blocks them. San-gun urges Roadman to turn the path. Sipsado is silent.
⊳ Pele vs. Heaven