Chapter 441
Chapter 441
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 441
Chapter Title: Day of the Full Moon (5)
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Shirone and Plu peeked into the warehouse where the rebels from the surface were being held.
Laysis's men, accompanied by Akamai, were guarding the iron door.
“What should we do? If we approach, we'll be caught for sure.”
“It seems the Akamai contract with their users through a blood bond. We just need to eliminate the users before they can react.”
There were three Akamai, floating amidst seven men.
Just by looking at their spacing, it was impossible to tell who was bonded to which creature.
“We’ll have to take them all out at once.”
“It's all about timing. If we give the enemy time to react, they'll be the ones biting us.”
“What if we use teleportation to get close?”
“It's the easiest way, but it's not a sure thing. They're Norr mages, too. And if they're Laysis's inner circle, they must be skilled.”
Shirone thought of Armang.
He had lost the magic sword after being captured by the True Akamai, but there was something Laysis didn't know.
Armang, integrated into the Ultima System, was connected by a singular signal that transcended spacetime, allowing it to share information regardless of distance.
“I'll just summon Armang.”
In his Diamond Armament form, he could eliminate the guards before the Akamai could activate.
With physical abilities that allowed him to fight on par with Ikasa, it was more than possible.
“But they'll find out our location. What if they don't know we've escaped yet? The more time we have, the better.”
“Why not just assume they already know? Our location will be revealed anyway once we free the rebels.”
Shirone had a point.
The later Laysis found out, the higher the mission's success rate, but basing a strategy on an uncertain assumption was risky.
“Hmm, alright. Let's do that. But no mistakes.”
Shirone pulled his hand back and attempted Precision Control.
He couldn't grasp Armang's exact state, but a vague sense conveyed its location to him.
‘This way.’
He felt a sense of oneness with Armang, as if he had become a magnet.
As he amplified that feeling, Armang shot down the corridor, turned a sharp corner, and flew into his grasp.
Diamond Armament.
Shirone took a deep breath, watching the guards' reactions, then launched himself forward in the blink of an eye.
“What the—?”
A blurry afterimage flickering before their eyes was the last thought the guards ever had.
As Shirone's body spun, tentacles shot out at an even greater speed, slicing through everyone's necks.
Thud. Th-thud.
Shirone's brow furrowed slightly at the unpleasant sensation flowing into him through Armang.
He had no hesitation in executing those who performed cruel biological experiments, but this felt different from using magic.
‘Stay calm. This mission isn't just for me.’
Plu checked the Akamai for any reaction.
Their users were dead, but if the blood bond remained, there was a chance they could still react.
‘Should I deal with them? Or would that just be stirring up trouble?’
Shirone didn't hesitate; he attacked the Akamai.
His robe billowed as a black afterimage swung through the air.
The three Akamai split in half like soft tropical fruits and fell to the floor.
Plu was astonished by his speed, so fast they couldn't even react.
‘The Ultima System. It's truly incredible. At this level, it'll be a huge help when fighting Heaven.’
Shirone and Plu exchanged a look in front of the iron door.
He broke the lock and opened the door, and a sharp gust of wind blew out from inside the warehouse.
“Kuh!”
Armang's robe, strong against impact but weak against cutting force, was shredded to the point of tearing.
Feeling a pain as if his own body were being sliced, Shirone hastily recoiled and peered inside.
Dozens of pairs of eyes glowed as they revealed themselves.
“Grrrrr.”
What was in the warehouse were not the rebels from the surface.
No, perhaps they were. Shirone recognized some of the faces.
But their forms were completely transformed, with only a few lingering traces of their human individuality.
Plu, who had avoided the surprise attack with her Dawkins Algorithm, grimaced as she clutched her aching shoulder.
“That wicked woman…”
Laysis had turned all the rebels she deemed useless into soldiers.
Their bodies weren't made with the Physics Machine, but their physical abilities, enhanced to Telomere Level 5, were not to be underestimated.
“Kraaaaaaah!”
The Norr members, having lost their reason, charged at Shirone.
Well over a hundred poured out of the warehouse, none showing any sign of their former intelligence.
A furious blast of light struck the monsters, tearing their flesh and even shattering the bones in their limbs.
But the monsters didn't stop their charge.
‘What's going on?’
Flesh slithered out from the destroyed parts, regenerating their organs in an instant.
‘The infinite cell proliferator, Cancer.’
Plu said, realizing the monsters' condition.
“They've been equipped with cellular regeneration. Ordinary attacks won't faze them.”
The monsters split into two groups, one targeting Shirone and the other Plu, but for those on the receiving end, the weight of the battle was by no means halved.
Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes that determine a creature's limits; Laysis had enhanced this part to boost their physical functions.
On top of that, she had combined it with the traits of Cancer, which has no telomere limit, to create soldiers that neither rot nor die.
This tactic was originally attempted to create a force comparable to the Mecha clan's Kuroi for the war with Heaven, but now it was being used as a primary biological weapon to eliminate the light of District 73.
“Graaah!”
One had snakes for eyes, another's arm dangled like an earthworm, a third had become beast-like, resembling a wolf. Their forms and abilities varied, but their ferocity was second to none.
Armang's tentacles moved at incredible speeds, slicing into their flesh, but to Shirone, it felt like swinging at a wall.
‘At this rate, I'll be the first to tire out.’
The monsters, steadily closing the distance, pressed down on Shirone from above, forming a wall of bodies.
“Grrrrr!”
As the monsters piled on Shirone like a tomb, one at the top, unable to get a taste of his flesh, let out a frustrated roar.
Crunch!
Then, the tomb of bodies vibrated.
CRUNCH! CRUUUUNCH!
The shaking intensified, and from within the pile of bodies, the screams of monsters rose up as if from an abyss.
CRUUUUUUUUUNCH!
A cacophony of breaking bones, crushing muscles, and churning guts and blood filled the air, and then everything began to be sucked toward the center.
“Kraaaaaaah…!”
The last remaining monster crumpled like paper and vanished into a black sphere.
Shirone braced himself on the floor and struggled to his feet.
His body was convulsing after casting a Dark Sphere three times its usual size.
“Huuuuuuh!”
The backlash was significant, as he had pushed his Immortal Function and Mental Transcendence to their absolute limits to unleash such power.
“Shirone, are you okay?”
Plu ran over.
In the space where she had been fighting, countless charred corpses lay scattered about like lumps of coal.
If Shirone was a hard puncher who fought with raw power, Plu was an unorthodox fighter who used precise algorithms.
No matter how outstanding the Cancer's regenerative abilities were, they stood no chance when set ablaze by her Phoenix Flame and stalled by the Dawkins Algorithm.
“I'm fine. Just a bit of an overload.”
Plu felt a slight chill as she looked down the corridor where five tons of mass had vanished without a trace.
Gathering the monsters in one place and casting Dark Sphere.
It was a tactic of pure brute force, with no trace of unpredictability.
“So the rebels who were supposed to help us ended up like this. Now it's just the two of us. We have to stop the Rite of Ilhwa.”
Shirone had no intention of backing down either.
He had to execute Laysis, and he also had a promise to keep to Ikasa.
“There they are! Get them!”
Laysis's confidants appeared from around the corner of the corridor.
They were the elite combat troops who had started searching when Armang left its original position.
But what was most despairing was that each of them was accompanied by an Akamai.
They reflexively took a combat stance, but the same thought crossed both their minds.
‘Damn it! Too late!’
The Akamai's eyes flashed open, and as Antithesis activated, Shirone's and Plu's ability to act plummeted.
A sense of powerlessness washed over them, as if they were a species born unable to move, their muscles refusing to tense.
‘No, this is weaker than the ones guarding the cage. I can still manage a single strike.’
The problem was timing.
He had to either decapitate three men or destroy three Akamai simultaneously with one attack.
‘I have to wait until they're all in the trajectory of a horizontal slash.’
Seeing Shirone and Plu immobilized, Laysis's men relaxed their expressions and approached.
“Phew, finally caught them, the little rats. We almost got ourselves killed.”
When the plan went awry, Laysis became extremely violent; seven people had already died just by being near her.
If they had let Shirone and Plu escape, they would have met the same fate.
A bald man approached with a greasy smile.
He, whose pride had been wounded by Plu during the affinity test, savored the reversal of their situation with a smug grin.
“Well, well. So we meet again like this.”
“You piece of trash. Aren't you afraid of the heavens after doing something like this?”
“The heavens? You don't seem to get it. This *is* heaven. It's not a place for inferior surface dwellers to run amok.”
The bald man stroked Plu's chin.
“Hmm, the real thing really is different.”
“Get your hands off me.”
“Kukuku, don't be like that. Your clones are probably all dead by now anyway. You should cherish your one and only life.”
While keeping an eye on the bald man's movements, Plu meticulously calculated the positions of the others in the corridor.
‘A little more, just a little more.’
She couldn't strike until all three Akamai were within range.
But the man leaning against the corner, smirking, showed no sign of coming closer.
“Hehe, all we need to do is take Shirone. So why don't we just… here…!”
“Kiaaaak!”
A black creature suddenly shot out from the corner, grabbing the man and throwing him to the floor.
Then, a swarm of black things, like a plague of insects, consumed the hallway and quickly turned to stare their way.
“Aaaaaargh!”
The creature that had taken the man down pressed its belly to the ground and shook its torso, causing the man's two legs, sticking out from around the corner, to tremble.
“N-no! Don't! Aaaaaah!”
It was a Garas.
Its form was completely different from the one Shirone had seen in the isolation chamber, but then again, no two Garas gathered here looked the same.
The Garas attacked all living things, regardless of species.
“Keek! Keek!”
An Akamai, seized by a Garas, made a choking sound. Its pupils dilated as its body shuddered and fell.
The Garas, which had been momentarily bound by Antithesis, let out furious shrieks as if venting their frustration at losing their breeding stock, and then charged down the corridor.
“Th-this is…!”
Faced with the charge of the Garas, a chaotic mix of traits from all sorts of creatures, the bald man's face turned pale.
Using magic wouldn't even be a threat to them.
Even if it meant being torn to shreds, they would surely implant their offspring in the man's belly.
Shirone used the strength he had been saving for a counterattack to pull Plu away.
He drove a tentacle into the wall to create distance, revealing a gruesome scene.
The black creatures were swarming, consuming the corridor.
From the bottom of that darkness, the bald man struggled to crawl out, reaching a hand toward Shirone.
“P-please…”
It was a look you would only see at the depths of despair.
“Kill me.”
“Kieeeeeee! Kieeeeeee!”
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
The bald man's upper body was lifted wide, his face a mask of simultaneous surprise, shock, and terror.
Shirone and Plu felt their hair stand on end.
It was a relief that the darkness hid what the Garas were doing.
“Let's go, Shirone.”
Plu tugged at his collar, and after a brief look at the man's face—eyes rolled back, drool spilling from his mouth—Shirone turned away.
The maw of desire was swallowing the command center.