Chapter 437
Chapter 437
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 437
Chapter Title: The Day of the Full Moon (1)
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Silence.
In the profound silence, a storm of emotions brewed.
Etella, as if nothing had happened, composed her expression and watched Horkin intently.
She had to assume he'd already figured it out. At this point, the question of 'how' no longer mattered.
"A masterful performance. If you're with Gaold, you must have known we were the Cage Team dispatched by the Association."
Long ago, back when Horkin's hair wasn't yet white, a rumor had spread throughout the nation of a genius emerging from the Karsis Order.
While the Karsis Order was renowned across the continent, it was a detail one wouldn't know without a special interest in their ascetic path.
At the time, Horkin had visited the order's main sanctuary for a mission and had seen a young girl there during a succession ceremony.
'I almost missed it. Thank goodness I haven't gone senile yet.'
It was Romy Etella.
A teacher at Alpheas Magic Academy.
What were the odds of randomly meeting a teacher from the same school Gaold had graduated from, here in Heaven?
Even if there was some realistic probability, Horkin's intuition screamed that Etella was the very clue they had been searching for.
"Pretending not to know... was that a desperate measure from a frightened soul? An excellent choice, if so. Now, you've stalled long enough. Why don't you tell me where Gaold is?"
The twenty mages standing behind Horkin overwhelmed Armin's party with their terrifying aura.
'This is dangerous.'
Armin, judging as a mage, knew a direct confrontation would be difficult.
Of course, his own teammates were incredibly strong, but each of their opponents was on the level of an Etella or a Shina.
As everyone watched their opponents' reactions, only Kuan, the swordsman, stepped forward.
As a sword fiend who had torn through battlefields, he knew how formidable these masters were, but a swordsman fights simply to cut down the enemy before him.
"Don't do anything. If you so much as move..."
Horkin shot back.
"If we move?"
Kuan's body shot forward in an instant, spinning.
But Horkin was already gone from the spot where a fierce wind now raged.
'Like a bunch of rats...'
Ten meters away from Kuan, a man with the face of a weasel was holding Horkin by the scruff of his neck.
He was Stique, a reconnaissance-type mage, a certified Grade 5 mage specializing in sonar magic.
In a liquid medium, the propagation speed of sonar is approximately 1,500 meters per second.
With a transmission speed exceeding Mach 4, a clumsy attack wouldn't stand a chance.
Stique said in a dry voice.
"You're quite impatient."
"When I said not to do anything..."
Kuan launched himself forward again.
"That meant not to run your mouth, either."
With Kuan's preemptive strike as the signal, all twenty-five people moved at once.
As each displayed their unique movements, Aroella of the Blazing Flower targeted Shina.
"Fire Extreme!"
A dense flame, dripping with fire, soared above Aroella's head before forming a torrent of fire that crashed down on Shina.
Shina clenched both fists, her eyes wide.
With the sound of shattering glass, the air froze.
Thousands of thorny flowers bloomed, and the flames of Fire Extreme were extinguished as if plunged into water.
'They're definitely not an easy team to deal with.'
Having tasted each other's strength, the two teams dove into a full-scale battle.
As Cage B Team got serious, the balance of power began to shift dramatically.
Team Leader Rose's fragrance magic disrupted their mental focus, and when Mami's word magic was cast, the earth rippled like waves.
Overwhelmed by all sorts of buffs, barriers, healing spells, and a show of force from battle mages whose prowess rivaled that of swordsmen, Armin's party was pushed back two kilometers from their original position.
Water Dragon.
A massive torrent of water cast by Mongrang of the hydro school swept through the area.
Absolute Zero.
Even while facing Aroella, Shina cast her ultimate spell, freezing the water dragon in place.
Etella dashed across its frozen form.
Yin-Yang Wave Fist—Single Wall.
From a distance of ten centimeters, her fists struck Mongrang's side dozens of times.
A dense liquid defended the point of impact, but even that was shattered to pieces by the force of the waves.
'I have to take out at least one of them!'
Just as she took a step forward to deliver the finishing blow, a bald man wrapped his arms around Etella's shoulders, and they tumbled to the ground.
He held her tight, preventing any movement, but the veins on the bald man's temples bulged thicker and thicker.
'Ugh! This woman's strength is...'
As expected of a Bishop from the Karsis Order.
As Etella tried to get up, the bald man forced her down with his head, opened his mouth wide, and bit into the nape of her neck.
It was the ability of the battle mage Benifice, 'Survival of the Fittest,' which strengthened him by consuming his opponent's flesh.
As Benifice chewed on Etella's flesh, his head thrown back in ecstasy, Etella pushed her upper body up and headbutted him.
Crack!
Benifice's nose broke.
But thanks to various buffs and healing spells, his grip didn't loosen.
"Now!"
At Benifice's shout, Tarvan thrust out both palms.
It was the Vacuum Bombardment Kaiser Blast, the same attack that had shattered the Demon God Belkiel.
BOOOOOOM!
A wide radius was utterly devastated, rendering the fan-shaped formation of Armin's party meaningless.
As the thick smoke swayed in the wind, Cage B Team, their battle concluded, walked forward majestically.
"What?"
There was nothing.
There should have been corpses, but all they could see was a plain that had been swept clean, as if filleted.
Tarvan looked back and asked.
"Can... someone explain this?"
Aroella spoke up.
"It's magic, for a start. The blue-haired woman was fighting me at close range. There's no reason she would have suddenly disappeared."
Monoros, an Unlocker and a Rule Breaker, offered his opinion.
"If there's a possibility, it would be the man wrapped in bandages. He was an Unlocker, just like me."
Saintess Moriaq said.
"What kind of Unlocker magic is this? Can a spell that allows people to vanish without twenty-one Cage-level experts even noticing possibly exist in this world?"
The snake-like word mage, Mami, furrowed her thin brows.
"They didn't disappear. It's more like... a feeling of being cut off? Something was definitely severed."
"It must be Stop."
Everyone turned to look at Horkin.
"Surely, you don't mean the Stop spell?"
"Yes. I've heard there's one at the Ivory Tower. A blind mage who can use Stop."
"We can't be sure of that. Just because he can't see doesn't guarantee he's the mage from the Ivory Tower, and there's no proof that what we experienced was Stop."
Simply put, Horkin was likely correct, but the rebuttal from Roche, the metal mage, was rational.
Blind people are a minority in the world, and Ivory Tower mages are an even smaller one.
However, there was only one mage in the entire world who could use Stop.
"Besides, why would the Ivory Tower help Gaold? Gaold doesn't trust people, fundamentally. This is a man who kept a secret for twenty years."
Saintess Moriaq said.
"I don't necessarily see it that way. It's not that he doesn't get along with people; it's that he doesn't need to. To save Miro, he would join hands with anyone, and he would fight anyone."
"Enough."
Rose stopped the discussion.
"There are too many assumptions. In any case, our opponent possesses the Stop spell, or a crowd control skill of equivalent power. And... they are likely helping Gaold."
Even Rose, as she said this, couldn't help but speak in hypotheticals.
It was only natural, given how the mission's difficulty had skyrocketed.
Horkin summarized.
"What the team leader is trying to say is this: as long as the blind man is by his side, eliminating Gaold is impossible."
Tarvan asked.
"So, we're just supposed to sit on our hands?"
Waygun, the communications mage, interjected.
"Wait a moment. There's a question we need to address first. If they're really helping Gaold, what exactly were they doing here?"
Horkin stroked his beard.
"Hmm, that's right. There's no need to split up the team in such a dangerous place. In fact, we ourselves are moving around in a very inefficient cluster."
"Exactly. And Gaold is obsessed with Miro. For someone like him to split up his team, it must be for something big. Therefore, if we trace back what they were doing here, won't that eventually lead us to Gaold?"
"Indeed... I suppose so."
Rose rested her chin on her hand, lost in thought.
It was clearly the most logical solution in the current situation.
"Alright. We're returning to the mainland. If we can confirm who Etella is working for, we should be able to locate Gaold. However, combat is a last resort. We cannot let the bandaged man interfere."
No one objected.
While none of them were meek enough to follow their leader's orders blindly, they all agreed it was best to keep their distance from the bandaged man.
"Then, let's go."
Twenty-one flashes of light shot up into the sky.
***
It was early evening when Shirone returned from his tour of the units under the 2nd Rebel Command HQ.
But the moonlight was so bright that he had no trouble seeing his surroundings.
"Whoa."
Shirone stared up at the night sky as if mesmerized.
A moon ten times larger than the one he was used to seeing on his home planet hung in the sky.
It was the Day of the Full Moon, known in Purgatory as the day when the Law of Yin is at its strongest.
Perhaps for that reason, the cries of demonic beasts echoed ceaselessly from the forest near the command headquarters.
"This is ominous. It feels like something is about to happen."
"Don't worry. Even the angels aren't patrolling these days. As long as it's not them, we can fend them off with group magic."
Arriving in front of the headquarters, Shirone bid them farewell.
"I'll head in first. Thank you for your hard work."
"Ah, you too, Squad Leader."
Returning to his quarters, Shirone dragged his exhausted body over to the bed and plopped down.
He wanted to lie down, but before he could do anything, the door burst open.
"Shirone!"
Plu entered.
"Huh? Senior?"
After a quick glance outside, Plu closed the door and sat down right next to Shirone.
"I have something to tell you."
"What's with that expression? Did something happen while I was gone?"
"I investigated the underground facility for the few days you were away. And in there..."
Plu grimaced.
Another headache flared up. Indeed, just imagining the sight from back then made her grind her teeth.
She was someone who never wavered, no matter the situation, so Shirone's curiosity was finally piqued.
"What in the world happened?"
"Human cloning."
"What? What cloning?"
"I found out why Lacis collected our blood. We can't just sit here, we have to, right now—"
VWWWOOOOOOOOM!
Just then, an ominous sound wave shook the headquarters.
Shirone's heart dropped.
He couldn't remember it clearly, but he had definitely heard that sound before.
'It can't be...!'
By the time Shirone and Plu got out to the hallway, the headquarters was already in a state of panic.
It was the vibration of an angel, a sound that anyone living in Purgatory had heard to the point of exhaustion.
"Hmm, so this is the place?"
Outside the headquarters, bathing in the light of the full moon, Ikasa floated in mid-air, her feet together and her chin resting on her hand.
From the outside, it looked like a mere cliff, but there would be no falsehood in Babel's search results.
No matter how well one hid in nature, a place inhabited by humans was bound to have a unique, artificial feel to it.
Babel, having scanned all of Purgatory, had designated this location as the one with the highest probability of being the rebel command headquarters.
The probability was a staggering 83.3785 percent.
"Is anyone there, you insignificant humans! Show yourselves at once!"
Ikasa shouted, but the cliff remained eerily silent.
Of course, she was well aware that they were observing her from inside the wall.
"Huhu, so that's how you want to play it?"
Ikasa spread her arms wide and received the moon's energy.
A fallen angel's presence was far weaker than that of a regular angel, but on the Day of the Full Moon, she could easily wipe out mere humans.
"Haaaaaah."
With a cold moan, her holy aura spread out into a nimbus, and her unique intellect began to embed itself into the halo.
As a certain calculation completed, countless magic circles of a deep, ink-black hue began to spin like gears within the halo.
'I desire.'
Infinite Justice Aureole Halo—Valhalla Action.
Thud! With a dull sound, the shape of a fist was imprinted on the rock wall.
That was the signal. A shower of fist strikes rained down on the entire cliff, relentlessly carving out indentations.
B-B-B-BOOM!
It was as if the entire world was filled with the sound.
Dust billowed from the cliff, which was being pummeled at a speed beyond description, and the mountainside was obliterated.
Just as the Norr-in hiding inside the headquarters clutched their heads and burst outside, the cliff began to crumble from its foundations with a great rumble.
'Behold, what insignificant beings they are...'
Ikasa's eyes were glazed over.
In the midst of her desire made manifest, a dry pleasure crept up her spine.