Chapter 199
Chapter 199
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 199
Chapter Title: God's Mercy (4)
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The spot struck by the laser heated up, and the statue began to tremble as if it would explode at any moment.
“How can this be? How is this happening…?!”
The executioner gritted his teeth. He could neither attack Shirone nor stop the statue's destruction.
At that moment, the sound of a thunderclap echoed from the sky.
Bolts of blue lightning rained down, scorching the air around Shirone.
The ground exploded, kicking up clouds of dust and dirt.
The executioner looked to where the lightning had come from. A swarm of fairies was flying in from the entrance of the plaza.
Even from a distance, Shirone spotted the fairy at the center of the group in a single glance.
She alone glowed with a golden light, and her made-up face was beautiful.
It was Igirin, the director of the Department of Citizen Management.
Shirone's friends formed a perimeter around him. A tension he hadn't felt while fighting the citizens made his blood race.
What was strange was that the preemptive attack had been electricity.
Electricity was an attribute closer to that of a spirit, not something a fairy could wield.
-Who cast the lightning?
-I can't tell yet. But there must be a fairy who controls friction in the group.
It was possible to create lightning by causing friction between the charges in the atmosphere. The inaccuracy was to be expected, as the electricity would follow the arrangement of the charges.
Rian drew his greatsword and stepped forward.
“The whole fairy squad is here? It's finally time.”
Shirone had expected this as well. Having broken Heaven's laws, it was only natural for the internal affairs officers to be dispatched.
The citizens parted to the left and right, clearing a path for Igirin.
The fairies flew in with a dignified air and stopped ten meters from Shirone's group, facing them.
Shirone saw Peope standing at the edge of the fairy swarm.
Unlike the other fairies, she was staring blankly ahead. Her expression seemed to say she had no idea why she was here.
Igirin pointed at Shirone's group.
“So it's you, the ones who entered Heaven impersonating Nephilim. That alone is a grave sin, and now you seek to interfere with the sacred Tale Liquor?”
The executioner's expression turned puzzled. Not Nephilim, but impersonating Nephilim?
But the ability the boy had just used was clearly that of an angel. If he wasn't a Nephilim, how could he wield light?
“Lady Igirin, are you saying they are heretics? That one definitely used the power of light.”
“Do not be deceived. In the land of mortals, there are techniques to wield light magic. Besides, the others are heretics beyond any need for verification. They intended to deceive even the fairies in this way.”
Canis's gaze sharpened.
From the sound of it, she had investigated them thoroughly. Moreover, the presence of the weaker Peope was proof that she had confessed everything.
“Dammit, I told you we should've left. That fairy betrayed us. We never should have trusted her in the first place.”
Peope furrowed her brow.
Betrayal? She had just frantically followed Igirin's orders. She didn't even know they were here until she arrived.
“Hmph! That's right! I told them everything! You're all dead now! You should have known your place!”
She had no intention of pleading her innocence to humans anyway. Peope instead claimed a crime she didn't commit, taunting them further.
“She didn't betray us.”
Shirone said.
“Peope made the right judgment. A fairy like that has no reason to compromise her beliefs now.”
Peope huffed and turned her head away. It was her way of saying his words were too little, too late, and her feelings were hurt.
But in her mind, thoughts began to swirl.
The right judgment. Beliefs.
These were values that had never once been acknowledged by her seniors.
Igirin paid it no mind. When you've lived for over three thousand years, you can dissect concepts with far more precision than a human.
If a human could list a hundred types of love, she could probably distinguish ten thousand.
When one reaches such a state, every event becomes independent.
Peeking into another's house does not make one a thief.
Breaking the lock on that house does not make one a thief.
Breaking the lock and entering may not make one a thief. Even picking up an item inside does not make one a thief.
Only when one carries that item outside does the concept of 'thief' become perfectly established.
This was a cognitive ability impossible for humans, who try to judge the whole based on a part of the event.
In that sense, the conversation between Shirone and Peope was merely an event independent of the current situation.
“I am Igirin, director of the Department of Citizen Management, the Fairy of Authority. For the sin of entering Heaven as a heretic impersonating a Nephilim, and for the sin of interfering with the noble Tale Liquor, I will cut short all of your lifespans.”
Shirone's brow furrowed.
“Is this how it always is? You kill people just because you don't like them? The Tale Liquor is the same. Why are you driving the citizens to their deaths?”
“You were born from the giant. What is so unjust about returning?”
“That's nonsense. No parent asks their child to give back their flesh.”
“One plants seeds in the ground to harvest and eat. The reason living things die is to provide food for other living things. You are merely beings bound by this law.”
“You plant seeds to bear new ones. The reason living things die is to give other living things a chance. That's how humans prosper. A life without meaning is no different from being dead.”
Igirin let out a troubled sigh. Why were these intuitions never wrong? It was no coincidence that she saw Miro's face in Shirone.
“Spoken like a true heretic. A human not to be associated with. What are you waiting for! Begin the Tale Liquor at once!”
As if waiting for Igirin's command, the executioner moved.
He flipped the switch, and a black liquid began to fill the ten glass spheres.
“Damn it! There's no time! We have to stop it now!”
Rian and Tess charged forward to destroy the statue.
Igirin raised her hand and commanded the fairies.
“Attack! Do not let them get close!”
Shirone's group entered a combat stance.
Arin deactivated her telepathy, leaving only the channel connected to the party. Igirin's mental resonance was spread throughout the area, so there was no need for her to translate.
The Fairy of Projection launched the first attack. As she held out her hand, air shot out as if piercing holes in the atmosphere.
Small, hard pellets of gas pelted the bodies of Shirone's group.
They weren't strong enough to pierce their bodies, but they were invisible and numerous, making them impossible to counter.
“Fall back!”
Canis raised a Shadow Wall. The air bullets struck its surface with the sound of falling hail.
At that moment, a sharp noise crackled from the sky.
The Fairy of Friction generated static electricity and struck with lightning, which Harvest absorbed.
Flashes of brilliant lightning struck repeatedly, but they were ineffective against the magical creature.
“Kukuku! Feels good. Is this some new kind of massage?”
With her back to the Shadow Wall, Amy floated a Jack-o'-Lantern above her palm.
The fiery orb flew into the sky, multiplied into dozens, and indiscriminately bombarded the area ahead.
It was the Jack-o'-Lantern's unique ability, Phony Flames, so only three of them were real. But not knowing which were real, those on the receiving end couldn't help but feel terror.
As Amy's bombardment scattered the fairies, Canis finally lowered the Shadow Wall.
With a clear view, Arin quickly pinpointed the fairies' locations and proposed a plan through the mental channel.
-If fairies are spiritual beings, I have a way. I should be able to take them down with a Mental Shock.
Shirone thought it was plausible.
In a battle of magic versus magic, affinities mattered, but the fairies would likely have no defense against a direct mental strike.
-Can you do it? There are a lot of them.
-I'll cast a wide-area Mental Shock. It'll consume a lot of mental energy, but I can manage it once. In return, you need to lure the fairies to me. The radius is twenty meters around me.
Forcing all the fairies into one spot was difficult, but if they could succeed with even half of them, they could seize the upper hand in the battle.
“Alright! Let's spread out!”
The individual battles began.
The fairies' abilities were formidable. It seemed they had come expecting a fight, as most of their concepts were specialized for combat.
But for those trying to lure them, strong enemies were actually a good thing.
“Huh? Huh?”
On a battlefield where all sorts of magic raged, only Peope flew about, completely lost.
It was her first real battle, and the power of the magic being exchanged was on a different level from her own.
A flash of light shot toward Peope.
Startled, Peope raised both hands, preparing to use her spiral ability.
Shirone reflexively equipped his Photon Cannon.
Their eyes wavered as they belatedly recognized each other.
Peope bit her lip, unable to make a decision. In response, Shirone disengaged the Photon Cannon and turned away.
Peope watched him with a puzzled look, but he said nothing and simply charged toward another fairy.
Peope's head drooped dejectedly.
-Arin! We can't hold out any longer! This is the limit!
Because the fairies could fly, forcing them into one place was nearly impossible.
However, the mages in Shirone's party were also experts at movement, so they managed to lure more than half of them into the area.
-That's enough!
Movement is a combination of time and space.
The brief moment, less than a second, when the fairies entered the area was the only timing Arin had to cast her spell.
Arin crouched down and placed both hands on the ground. Her shadow expanded like a sinkhole, and five fairies, sensing the danger, tried to fly away.
But it was already too late.
With a *thump*, a mental shockwave erupted, sending dirt flying everywhere.
The fairies wavered, disoriented, then stopped flapping their wings as if they'd drunk pesticide and plummeted to the ground.
With half their forces gone, the demoralized fairies began to scream and flee.
While Harvest swiped his claws to chase them away, Rian and Tess broke through the encirclement and succeeded in flipping the switch back.
The liquid, which had filled about a third of the way, was sucked back into the tank, and the level in the glass spheres lowered.
The subjects let out sighs of relief.
But even that was likely torture. A sliver of hope is just another name for near-absolute despair.
“Shirone! Now! Destroy it with the laser!”
Shirone had already finished his preparations.
If the statue was destroyed, the Tale Liquor would be stopped. With the fairies decimated, no one should be able to interfere.
The moment Shirone's laser began to emit a red light, Igirin's voice seeped into the battlefield.
“By the subjugation of God, I command: let all in this world without authority kneel before me.”
As the words were spoken, something incredible happened.
As if the world itself was collapsing, every human fell to their knees. Shirone's group was no exception.
Forced to his knees, Shirone was bewildered. He tried to stand, putting strength into his legs, but his body felt as heavy as an elephant's.
Words flooded the mental channel.
-What happened? I can't get up.
-She definitely said she was the Fairy of Authority. What does this have to do with authority?
-This isn't simple magic. It's an Irregular Formula.
Shirone also thought that nothing short of an Irregular Formula could produce such a result.
If so, how was it activated?
It wasn't a word-command. It was impossible to force hundreds of people to their knees just by speaking a few words.
Unlike Shirone's group, the citizens didn't even try to resist. They simply gazed up at Igirin with looks of reverence.
Igirin passed serenely through the citizens and approached the statue. Then, she flipped the switch herself.
Once again, the liquid began to fill the glass spheres, and the subjects squeezed their eyes shut.
The sobs of their families could be heard from somewhere in the crowd.