Did I Prophesy for Nothing?

The instant Phantom came into view, the First Apostle's instincts screamed a warning. This was the one the god had ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠prophesied. A vast wall across their path—a wall great enough to blot out Heaven itself.

The First Apostle struck at once. At his fingertips his own laws were rewritten, and his ability, Law Enforcement, took hold. It was only a lesser echo of the Stone Tablet, far beneath the relic's true power, and yet that ability alone had been enough to make him the First Apostle.

His hand was drawn toward Phantom's mask as if sucked in. A single second was split and split again, and within it hundreds of minute laws shifted—vivid, ferocious, immensely strong. They seemed to ignore the laws of physics without quite ignoring them, creating new laws on the spot and erasing them just as fast. In that moment the First Apostle's hand was a spear that could pierce anything.

Tap.

Contrary to any vision of a hand savagely tearing through a skull, it only brushed the mask. Nothing happened. Question marks were just beginning to rise over the watchers' heads when—

BOOOOM!!!

A beat later, a straight line of destruction erupted behind the mask. No—not destruction. Creation. Fire rose, and wind, and metal, and water. Trees were born. Clouds gathered. The air froze, and insects swarmed. Invisible atoms collided, converged upon a single point, and burst outward again.

The creation unfolding behind the mask touched nothing else. For all the spectacle, the mountain forest stood unharmed—untouched enough that a butterfly drifted in and settled on the First Apostle's shoulder. The phenomenon had occurred for ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Phantom alone. To any third pair of eyes, nothing had happened at all.

"Is it over?"

The young man in glasses asked it carefully, his hand crushing the book he held. He, too, had sensed how dangerous Phantom was.

"No. Not yet."

The First Apostle answered and drew the striking hand behind his back. The young man stared at it, startled. The ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hand was twisted every which way, bent in directions a hand cannot bend.

Phantom had not so much as flinched.

I've bought time, the First Apostle thought.

"What is this man?"

He turned a razor gaze on the god.

The god shrugged.

"A child I can trust. A child I worry over, and don't."

"Is he a god?"

The god popped the air between his fingers. The raised hand hid the tremor of it.

"Nonsense. That child is no god."

He said it the way one says that the sky is blue, and that a human must breathe to live. The wagging finger might have belonged to a schoolteacher.

"An ordinary human child, born into an ordinary home."

The First Apostle opened his mouth, then shut it. He wanted to shout that it was impossible, and yet some part of him was forced to believe it made sense. When the Stone Tablet had come into his hands, he had learned that gods were real, and he had learned the difference between human and god. The proof was that he had named her a god the moment he saw her, ordinary girl though she was.

This Phantom was not that. Looked at upside down or right side up, he was a human beyond any doubt.

Reason and instinct collided. Was this man human, or something else? He was not a god. That much was certain. Then what was a being that was not a god?

"A monster in a human mask, then."

"He'd rather be called a phantom thief."

"Ha!"

A phantom thief. A phantom thief? Had he pulled that mask on just so he could go on living as a human?

"Think whatever you like. Whatever answer you land on, there isn't one."

The god opened both hands. He closed the left.

"Human."

He closed the right.

"Or god."

Then he opened them again.

"Or neither."

He clapped once.

"What does it matter? That child is still the Child of Man."

A Zen riddle?

The First Apostle turned the words over, hunting for the meaning in them. The god spoke that way because something was hidden there. If he failed to find it, he would never surmount this wall.

"Don't think like that. Fight the way you did a moment ago. Mad with it."

The god shaped a chair out of fire and sat. Legs crossed, arms folded behind his head, he showed not the slightest will to fight. The First Apostle did not care for that ease.

"Otherwise the Heaven you love gets taken from you."

The god jerked his chin, telling him to look.

"First Apostle!"

KRAAAASH!

A scream of a shout from behind. By the time the First Apostle turned, it had already happened.

Step. Step.

Phantom walked straight toward Hong Yumin as casually as if he had stepped out for a breath of air, and the apostles poured every kind of attack into his path to stop him.

The Fourth Apostle brought a colossal foot down to crush him. Phantom did not sink into the earth. He advanced with a giant planted on his head.

The Third Apostle slipped into the gap and drew. A blade wreathed in ghost fire, the same fire burning in his eyes, aimed for the heart.

Skreee.

The Third Apostle's sword, which he had sworn could cut anything, dropped with the screech of steel dragged across iron plate. Every tooth of the edge was gone.

"———!"

The Third Apostle howled. Unable to accept it, he swung dozens of times more, and each swing shaved the blade, until at last—

Clang!

It snapped clean in half.

"Out of the way."

The Second Apostle seized him by the nape and hurled him back, then licked her lips with a long tongue. A storm of blood whirled around her body. A single drop held an edge as keen as the strike the Third Apostle had aimed.

"Fourth Apostle, fall back!"

Seeing her attack, the Fourth Apostle retreated at once. The sky, laid bare, dyed itself in blood.

"Ha!"

With the Second Apostle's shout, a rain of blood came down. A sharp blood-mist filled the view, and the moment the rain ended the twins struck together. The elder sister opened her arms and fired heat rays; the younger split those rays into hundreds. They spread in every direction, boiling away even the blood-mist as they drove in and struck home.

The target came out through the mist. Still not a single wound.

"Target."

"Not dead."

"Completely."

"A monster."

The twins went slack, as if their strength had run dry. Their faces were stamped all over with frustration.

"Hehe. Seventh Apostle. Line it up for me."

"Understood, Eighth Apostle."

The dwarf rolled up a sleeve. Tentacles hatched through the smooth skin of the arm, and even seeing them smeared in blood, the dwarf stroked them as if they were adorable. The young man in glasses snapped his book open. Every page tore free and wrapped the tentacles and the arm.

"This will take time to prepare. Sixth Apostle. Twelfth Apostle. Buy us time."

"Nod. Nod."

"Okay."

The fairy yanked the wooden stake out of the scarecrow. Just before it toppled, the scarecrow grew two legs of straw and stood up perfectly fine. Its mouth gaped. Straw tore with a crackle, and a darkness with nothing in it showed as the flesh within.

"Seasoning. Seasoning. Protect. Protect."

The fairy hummed a little tune and beat its wings. Powder drifting from those wings opened a straight corridor down which the scarecrow could aim at Phantom.

"Mind your ears."

At the fairy's warning, the apostles covered their ears. And in the same instant—

—————!!!

A roar fit to bring down heaven and earth rang out. Filled with darkness, it swept over Phantom, and the launched sound dyed even the world around him black.

"Perfect."

The dwarf grinned at the blackened ground.

"Mind the bleeding."

"Hehe. You mind yourself."

The dwarf tore the paper-wrapped arm off with a snap. Black blood poured from the shoulder. The fairy flew over and dusted the wound with powder, and the bleeding slowed a little.

"Uegh. I hate that."

The fairy gagged.

"Hehe. You're still young. Look how cute this is."

"That is a genuinely sick hobby."

The dwarf flung the severed arm at Phantom.

"Dodge it yourselves!"

The apostles who saw the arm soar went white with panic. The Second Apostle's face turned the color of a corpse.

"You crazy bastard, why would you throw that?!"

The arm boiled, then exploded above Phantom's head.

After the blood rain came a rain of tentacles.

Tentacles of every size chattered the teeth grown into their own skin and lunged for Phantom. Not only for Phantom. They lunged for the tentacles beside them as well.

Crunch. Crunch.

The roar of flesh tearing flesh ruled the space. The Second Apostle and the fairy, weak of stomach, clamped their mouths shut.

"Urk. Seriously."

"Hueeeegh!"

The young man in glasses edged quietly away.

"Hehehe. What is that guy..."

The dwarf's face rotted inward. Those tentacles had taken his body and the Seventh Apostle's ability as offerings. He could have sworn the attack surpassed even the First Apostle's opening strike.

And yet Phantom came through the storm of tentacles.

Not a single drop of fluid clung to him. The tentacles tore at one another as if he were not there at all.

"This looks completely fucked, doesn't it?"

Cold sweat ran down the Seventh Apostle as well. What kind of monster was this?

Phantom ignored all of it and arrived before the woman in the traditional robe. She opened her mouth and breathed fire. The blaze, nearly a beam of light, burned even the tentacles behind him.

When the flames died, Phantom looked a little different.

The mask. Half of it had vanished, as if weathered away. One half of the face was still the mask. The other half bared apricot skin. The mask's eye and the human eye pierced the woman in the robe together.

"Do not make me say it twice."

Before I kill you.

"That will not be allowed!!!"

The First Apostle roared.

Pak!

He tore a piece clean off the Stone Tablet.

"It seems the two of you need a little time apart!"

Kang!

Phantom was flung from where he stood. He came to a stop only once he had been driven all the way to the god's side. He tried to advance again, and an ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠invisible wall stopped him.

"The price is steep. I truly begin to doubt he is human."

The First Apostle panted from the far side. He drove the fragment of the Stone Tablet into his own heart.

"You will not be able to enter. I have paid a price equal to that."

Boom!

Phantom struck the wall. A crack ran through it.

"If you continue, that person's life is forfeit."

Boom!

Crrrack.

The First Apostle sighed and drove several more fragments of the tablet into places all over his body. The wall restored itself.

"We will take good care of that person. If you wish to take them back..."

Come fully prepared.

The wall washed pure white. The far side could no longer be seen.