Chapter 435
Chapter 435
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 435
Chapter Title: An Opportunity for Revenge (7)
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Returning to her room, Lacis unfastened the clip on her cloak.
The red cloth flowed from her shoulders like liquid, pooling on the floor.
Through the tears in her clothes, a wound, as if seared by fire, was visible from the Photon Cannon’s blast.
Tossing off the rest of her clothes in annoyance, Lacis stood before a mirror and examined her reflection.
What a truly hideous body.
It conformed to no standard of truth, goodness, or beauty. A grotesque form, dangling beneath her neck, that no one could ever call beautiful.
Withered, distorted, and with a dull complexion, even this body was the result of a desperate struggle.
“Disgusting…”
Lacis had been a citizen of heaven. A very distinguished one at that.
But for the crime of approaching the creation myth, a subject forbidden for investigation in heaven, she was slated for the Art of Unification.
You melt away. You become a hideous giant.
To even show fear before the sacred art was a sin, but she knew the truth.
The Art of Unification was the most terrible tragedy a human could experience, a final end more wretched than death.
Like some others designated for the Art of Unification, Lacis had secretly acquired the stimulant Epines.
No one knew if it was effective, but for someone cornered, even this was a precious commodity.
Clutching the Epines like the water of life, Lacis sat on a bench in the square and prayed earnestly.
‘Please, let my consciousness inhabit the giant's body.’
“Do you wish to live?”
A voice spoke, as if in answer to her call.
It was a middle-aged man with a benevolent impression and a stylish beard.
She had heard rumors that while everyone else believed the Art of Unification to be a sacred ritual, there were those who approached it with academic analysis.
The man was one of them, and he bestowed upon her a secret technique.
“If you want to live, consume this before entering the Art of Unification.”
What the man handed her was a small gourd, the size of a finger.
“What’s inside?”
“A fly.”
“Ugh!”
Lacis grimaced, but the man spoke with a resolute tone, as if revealing a grave truth.
“You must swallow it alive. Then you will live.”
The thought alone was repulsive, but with her life on the line, Lacis couldn't bring herself to discard the gourd.
And so, the day of the Art of Unification arrived. Thinking she had nothing to lose, Lacis opened the gourd.
As she put the mouth of the gourd to her lips and tilted her head back, something hard scurried around inside her mouth. Nausea washed over her.
Fighting back the revulsion, Lacis swallowed the fly.
Kergonians entered, stripped her of her clothes, and led her to one of the eight glass spheres set up next to the giant statue.
‘Please, please save me.’
As the plasm filled the sphere, Lacis was too terrified to even open her eyes, focusing only on her prayers.
The black liquid filled the glass sphere, and her body dissolved piece by piece, mingling with the others.
In that place where countless consciousnesses merged, she felt as if she were lost in a deep sleep.
It was different from the death she had anticipated, yet it was a desperate state where she couldn't feel alive either.
The giants born in each district gathered and began their march toward Jotunheim.
A day passed, and as a new dawn broke, one among the many giants let out a scream and fell to its knees.
The giant's body soon separated into flesh and bone, melting and flowing down like porridge.
In the spot where a foul stench now hung, only Lacis remained, curled up on her knees.
“Gasp! Gasp!”
The first thing she realized upon regaining consciousness was the ecstasy of life.
The man had been right.
After eating the fly, she had truly returned alive from the giant's body.
‘I did it! I’m alive!’
Thump! Thump!
As the giants, towering far above her, shook the ground, she momentarily set aside her joy and broke into a run.
She felt much lighter than before, and the sensation was good.
But she was thirsty.
The moment she had that thought, she was astonished to sense a spring several kilometers away.
‘My senses are sharp. Could this be the giant's power?’
She ran and ran, yet she wasn't even out of breath.
Finally arriving at the small spring, she bent over to quench her thirst, and in that moment—
“Aaaaaaaahhhhh!”
Lacis's scream, filled with despair upon seeing her reflection in the water, echoed through the forest.
More cruel than the shock of seeing the hideous face was the realization that it was her own.
Lacis screamed like a madwoman.
“No! Give me back my body! Change me back!”
Just then, the man who had taught Lacis the secret technique emerged from the forest, slowly approaching.
The very person who had turned Lacis into a monster.
But now, after so many years had passed, she sometimes reminisced.
Perhaps that man was the only one who had ever truly accepted her for what she was.
“Why, why did you do this to me! Why would you do this to me!”
“Because you said you wanted to live. Is there anything more important to a living being than that?”
“Don't be absurd! If it were you, could you live in such a hideous form?”
The man scoffed.
“Whatever you have become, you are still you. By destroying your form, you have gained infinite forms.”
Lacis stared at the departing man with a look of utter desolation.
Amid the terrible truth that she could never be changed back, a single question arose in her mind.
“Who… who in the world are you?”
The man paused his steps and turned his head slightly. And he said his name was Satan.
Lacis stared at her reflection in the mirror with cold eyes.
How many humans had she merged with, just to obtain a form that was even remotely human-like?
She absorbed the traits of Nords, Kergonians, Mechians, and even those from the land of the earth.
It brought Lacis immense power and vast knowledge, but it also produced severe side effects.
If she lost focus for even a moment, strange changes would occur all over her body, and it would move against her will.
“Shirone. My savior.”
Shirone's mind could contain all traits, and she planned to mix in the most beautiful existence in the world.
The body of an angel.
* * *
The Second Heaven, Rakia. The city of fallen angels.
A place where angels, who since ancient times had neglected their duties, become intoxicated with their own power, and wielded the law as they pleased, were imprisoned.
Kariel looked down from the skies of Rakia.
The ever-indulgent fallen angels were still wasting their near-eternal lifespans in lazy postures.
“Hmph, useless things.”
Her request for support from the giant army commander, Girshin, had been denied, so Kariel had turned her sights to Rakia.
Fallen angels were still angels, so they had no choice but to obey the word of Ankh Ra, but she was confident there would be one exception.
Ikasa, the Angel of Desire.
She was the fallen angel who had captured Amy's party during the incident in Sector 73 and offered them to Jebul.
At the time, Ikasa had hoped to be reinstated as a regular angel for the merit of bringing three virgin girls to Kariel, but with Shirone's departure to his original world, she ended up receiving an even heavier punishment.
That was why, while countless fallen angels idly killed time, she alone was bound to a massive iron sphere 300 meters underground, endlessly turning on an infinite track.
“Hah. Hah.”
The iron sphere, twenty meters in diameter, rumbled along its groove, rolling at a terrifying speed.
Within the afterimage of its rotation, the sorrowful face of Ikasa, blindfolded and gagged, flashed in and out of view.
Kariel watched the sphere’s trajectory for one full rotation, then extended a hand toward the returning sphere.
A holy light flashed and spread into a ring, and the massive sphere that had been bearing down like a wall came to a halt with a loud crash.
“Hnngh, hngh.”
Ikasa, bound to the sphere with her back arched like a bow, drooled and let out pained moans.
When Kariel cut away the leather blindfold, Ikasa wearily lifted her eyelids and immediately began to cry.
“Mmmph… Mmm…”
She had finally come.
Archangel Kariel, who she believed would surely acknowledge her even when all others had turned away, had arrived.
“Ikasa, there is something you must do.”
Ikasa nodded her head repeatedly.
“Shirone has returned. I imagine this will be a joyous occasion for you.”
“Hnngh! Hnnngh-euh!”
A cry of hatred erupted from Ikasa's throat.
Nodding in satisfaction, Kariel dismantled her restraints.
Ikasa, who had collapsed to the floor, didn't even take a moment to tend to herself before lifting her head with due respect.
“Please, make use of me, Archangel of Creation.”
“Kill Shirone. Make it as painful as possible. Bring me his tormented face. There is an angel I must show it to.”
“That would be my greatest joy. However, a lowly being such as myself has no way of knowing where the detestable Shirone is.”
Kariel opened the Great Codex and checked the status of Jebul's central processing unit.
The map representing all of Purgatory was being consumed by a red light. Proportional to the area, the speed was truly immense.
“Babel is currently scanning the skies of Purgatory. It should be able to scan all coordinates before the Day of the Full Moon. When that time comes, you will have your chance.”
Ikasa's eyes glinted.
Come to think of it, the Day of the Full Moon was approaching.
The time in Purgatory when the laws of yin energy were at their strongest. It was also the time when she, a fallen angel, would be at her most powerful.
‘Just you wait, Shirone.’
A desire for revenge swirled in Ikasa’s eyes.
* * *
Past midnight, Plu’s door opened.
As a Joner, she had no need to show her face.
After confirming the hallway was empty, she swiftly closed the door and ventured into the depths of the command center.
When it came to reconnaissance, one was better than two, and it reduced the risk of getting caught.
Now, with Shirone dispatched to a unit under the Second Command to unify the rebel forces, was the perfect time.
‘No matter how I think about it, this is suspicious. What are they plotting?’
Moving along the wall, Plu was about to round a corner when she hastily drew back.
Two guards were walking from the end of the hall, chatting.
“Hah, I’m sleepy. Do those things even sleep? Why do they need to be fed at this hour?”
“Heh heh, let them eat their fill. They're just livestock, after all.”
The guard, carrying a tray laden with food, turned the corner nonchalantly and suddenly stopped.
His companion asked.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“No, I thought I saw something move over there.”
The guard handed the tray to his companion and walked toward the shadow cast on the wall.
There was nothing suspicious.
“That’s strange. I’m sure something twitched.”
“You probably mistook it for the torchlight.”
“Ah, maybe.”
Plu descended from the ceiling and landed where the guards had passed. A drone then flew silently and attached itself to her shoulder.
‘Whew, this is harder to control than I thought. I almost got caught, didn't I?’
But thanks to that, she had been able to overhear the guards.
‘They’re giving them food at this hour? To whom?’
Plu followed them.
When a guard touched a torch sconce on the wall, the wall opened to reveal a secret staircase.
Plu waited for about a minute, then opened the wall in the same manner and descended the stairs.
A space far larger than she had expected unfolded before her. Corridors stretched in every direction, with dozens of laboratories.
‘Where are the guards?’
Expanding her Spirit Zone to its maximum and applying an algorithm to collect sounds, their voices reached her.
“They eat like pigs. Well, what life could be happier than yours? I’m envious.”
“Heh heh, if you’re so envious, why don’t you go in there too?”
The voices paused for a moment.
“Tsk, this kind of thing gives me the creeps. They're literally livestock, aren't they?”
Once the guards left, Plu, who had been watching from a distance, approached the iron door.
It was designed to be opened only from the outside.
‘What in the world is in here?’
Plu’s brow furrowed as she pressed her ear to the iron door, listening for any sound.
She suddenly had a feeling that she shouldn't look inside, but in the end, she opened Pandora's box.
“Th-This is…!”
Peering through the crack of the unlocked iron door, Plu’s eyes widened in shock.