Dies Irae (2)
Why are Advents strong?
Supersonic maneuverability? Sanctuary Field? Overwhelming firepower? A perpetual motion machine called Divine Power?
They're all correct. But there's one more decisive factor.
Dies Irae.
An Advent-exclusive authority that uses the Latin term for "Day of Wrath" as its name.
As long as you're willing to endure the slight delay and performance drop that occurs every time it's activated, and provided the Saint's Divine Power doesn't run dry, an Advent can keep firing this pseudo-tactical nuke without any limit on the number of uses.
Lethality, destructive power, range—all outstanding.
It's a piece of gear that "overpowered" doesn't even begin to describe. That's also why the Reconstruction Council banned its use in urban areas through an international treaty called the Canberra Council.
Fortunately, this isn't an urban area, and there are no allies to get caught in the crossfire. It's just that Golgotha and me.
Those Wings of Light might have a massive activation scale, but the Saint's brain generating them is only for one person.
In other words, when two powers collide head-on, the one with the stronger will and Divine Power is bound to win.
It was obvious which side had the advantage: the ordinary Saint whose brain was left in Golgotha having her Divine Power sucked dry, or Earl Grey, who possessed superior output from birth.
"Dies Irae."
I spat those words at Logos. In anime, characters always save their ultimate moves until the very end, but personally, I never understood that. Ultimate moves are meant to be fired immediately when needed to discipline the enemy.
[This unit's Dies Irae, all activation requirements set by the Canberra Council have been met.]
[Headquarters authorization code—]
The system message paused there. And then.
[Bypassing via Logos's autonomous judgment.]
...Huh. Saved some time. If I had waited for HQ authorization, it would've been cutting it close. This "golden child" machine, as expected, didn't care about such things. There'll be a line of people looking to make an issue of this later, but honestly, that's not my problem.
"Evan?"
"Earl Grey. I'm going to use Dies Irae to counter its Wings of Light. Just for a moment, could you lend me your Divine Power?"
Dies Irae basically consumes the Saint's Divine Power. I know the output of her Divine Power well, but if there was even a one-in-a-million chance it wouldn't be enough, I wasn't going to use it at all.
Because she was the most important thing in this world.
"Yes!"
The answer came from behind me without a single moment of hesitation. As expected of the Saint with the strongest Divine Power.
Warmth flowed through the Covenant. The Sanctuary Field grew thicker. Divine Power exceeding its limits was transmitted to Logos's drive system, and the values on the dashboard climbed into a range I had never seen before.
And the activation sequence began.
But then, verses were shoved into my head.
<The prophesied day, the day the sound of the trumpet vibrates.>
<The solemn King arrives, the merciful Christ, my Lord, selects the cursed.>
<The day of tears shall come.>
What the hell is this? In the game, Dies Irae just went "bang" without any of this nonsense.
<The boundaries of the world fade and collapse. They march in the burning world.>
<The head shall be the tail, the Alpha is the Omega. Being and non-being. These are the cursed ones who were never born.>
And the world flipped. When I opened my eyes, a burning world spread out under a red sky. Indescribable things were walking in lines across it.
Isomers.
Some had human shapes. Some resembled beasts, and some resembled nothing at all. But every single one of them was twisted. Things whose very existence was made wrong.
Isomers that you'd only see near the ending were filling the horizon.
<Ah, the dregs of God. Some might call them demons, but what a narrow term that is. Behold that army that will dye the world red and spread a plague that will never heal for eternity.>
<When that day comes, the whole world shall become the Lord's kingdom. But there shall be no love there. The God of love, the Savior Christ, weeps every day, and those who have become worse than dead shall pay the price for daring to covet the fruit of life.>
I remembered this scene. This is one of the bad endings.
It's the scene of the ending where the boundaries of the world collapse and the present world turns into hell after recklessly scraping up the Afterglow, which is the power of God.
<Savior from another world, who has crossed the axes of time, space, and dimension. Do you see?>
The voice was directed at me.
<You will never be able to protect your love.>
<The gospel you preach will never reach people's hearts. It will not reach the Antichrist who will burn the world.>
"...Is this, Logos. Are you the one saying this?"
This time, there was no answer from Logos. Its form wasn't visible either. Isomers were just drifting aimlessly across the red world. And with them as the backdrop, only she and I stood on this land.
"Earl Grey-nim?"
She turned around slowly.
It was Earl Grey. But, her face was a bit more mature than the Earl Grey I knew. As if she had skipped ahead a few years.
"...You should be dead."
"What do you mean by that?"
She rushed over and hugged me. Then she shook her head like crazy.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—"
Unceasing apologies poured into my ears. She was not acting normal.
"Where on earth is this?"
"I missed you."
Without answering my question, she buried her face in my chest.
"I didn't want to lose you. Why did you lie to me?"
"What?"
"I didn't care what happened to the world. A heaven without you was my hell."
"Earl Grey..."
"Let's run away together."
She lifted her head. In her amber eyes, a desire I had never seen before was writhing.
"What on earth is that—"
Before I could say anything
—The world collapsed.
The red world shattered like glass, and I returned to reality. Power was leaking out of Logos.
The power pushed the world away. Liquid, solid, gas. All matter was pushed back by that pressure and evaporated. The power drew a sphere like that, and the diameter of the sphere grew every time Logos let out a sigh of Afterglow.
And the sphere, harboring the light of fresh blood, collided head-on with Baekdu's Wings of Light.
There wasn't even a contest to speak of.
In front of Logos's true power, the false miracle created by humans didn't even deserve to be called a miracle. The moment it touched, dozens of Wings of Light shattered all at once.
I could feel the people on the bridge. I could feel the emotions of those who were praying to God for forgiveness while wearing faces terrified with fear.
<They must have considered themselves seekers of mystery. Stealing God's things and using them, mistaking it for their own power.>
The sphere of light did not stop at their screams. It swallowed the Wings of Light and extended straight up to the hull in the sky.
Baekdu was smashed to pieces.
The mobile fortress lost its form in the light. And from beginning to end, everything about Baekdu was swept away by overwhelming violence.
After Dies Irae ended.
I finally came to my senses.
...Wait.
The plan was to just break the Wings of Light and deal with the crippled Baekdu.
They said Dies Irae was a pseudo-tactical nuke. This is a strategic nuke.
What the hell is this? It's a technique I fired hundreds of times in the game, but it far exceeds the output I know.
Logos, wearing a Halo of fresh blood above its head, was floating silently. The ground that had spread out beneath its feet had vanished down to the crust, roughly hundreds of meters deep. All living and non-living things within a few kilometers had turned into nothingness.
I didn't even have the presence of mind to check the dashboard. That wasn't what was important right now. The Earl Grey who had hugged me earlier—
"This power, what on earth..."
A trembling voice was heard from behind me. The woman who had greedily held onto me in the illusion earlier was nowhere to be found. There was only her, just bewildered in front of the destruction she had created with her own hands.
Right. This is the Earl Grey I know. Then, who on earth was that earlier? That Earl Grey who was pouring out apologies like crazy, who said she didn't care if the world was destroyed or not.
<You will never be able to protect your love.>
That verse came back to my ears. I tried hard to ignore the chill running down my spine.
Logos. What did you show me?
Rewinding time a little. Before Evan faced Baekdu, on the coast of West Timor.
The wreckage of a crashed transport plane was scattered on the beach, burning.
Bongrae's main gun had blown away the entire starboard side of the transport plane. The pilot held onto the nose until the very last moment, but couldn't prevent the crash.
The Advents inside were also annihilated.
Nimrod managed to escape by taking a quick evasive maneuver just before a direct hit. Inside the cockpit, Jack was reviving the systems that had died from the shock one by one.
"Origin. Are you hurt anywhere?"
"...No. Because you shielded me."
The girl in the sub-seat answered in a trembling voice. Only after hearing that did Jack finally heave a sigh of relief.
"Mokjul-ssi, are you alive?"
Jack asked over the radio.
{...At this distance, wouldn't your communication be detected by the Afterglow Field?}
Jack snorted.
"I don't have a Covenant, so I don't use Afterglow Field communication."
{I see. Standard communication, then.}
"It looks like all allies except for us are dead."
Jack said, scanning the wreckage with Nimrod's sensors.
"We can continue the operation, right?"
{Yes.}
Mokjul answered immediately.
"Alright."
Jack checked the chamber of his sniper rifle. The sound of Origin in the sub-seat catching her breath could be heard from behind.
Nimrod's light green sensors lit up.
"Then, shall we two take care of Golgotha?"
{Sounds good.}
2:7.
Considering Golgotha.
2:8.
Even though they had lost the Advents that would have served as decoys and a desperate power gap had opened up, the conviction of victory in their eyes did not disappear.