Chapter 447
Chapter 447
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 447
Chapter Title: Mental Armament (2)
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[447] Mental Armament (2)
The Sol-Lunar Annulus that surfaced in the core of Babel's system transmitted all information to Sein.
The effect was identical to his consciousness flowing into the system, and there, Sein discovered a single blue flash piercing through circuits tangled like a spiderweb of light.
‘This is…’
The Ultima System was nothing more than a single signal, yet Sein couldn't extract any information from it.
A single, highly condensed concept, on a different level from being merely esoteric or complex.
It was an extreme insight, so immense that human cognition could not grasp it all at once.
‘Who in the world created something like this?’
Sein followed the Ultima System, ascending endlessly.
Where the blue flash passed, a magic circle formed from the angelic system blocked the central core as if barricading a path.
The concept of the magic circle was also too esoteric for a human to read, but its complexity was, ironically, a stroke of luck for Sein.
After analyzing the magic circle's signal with the Sol-Lunar Annulus's Equalizing, Sein's eyes flew open in shock.
‘Damn it! So that’s what it was.’
Based on his findings, it seemed that even an angelic magic circle couldn't disrupt this perfectly unified signal.
The magic circle's algorithm had changed only one thing: the metal angel's mission objective.
‘Someone tampered with the enemy detection settings. It wasn’t the rebels. Rather, this is…’
A weapon designed to kill angels.
If so, Sein had only one thing to do: disable the angelic magic circle and revert the settings.
If he could do that, he could land a counterblow against Heaven.
Sol-Lunar Annulus!
The annulus, so clear it didn't even seem to be rotating, began to dismantle the angelic magic circle.
“Kughhhh!”
Sein was overwhelmed by a volume of information far greater than he had anticipated.
‘Damn it! All this information just to change a single enemy detection setting.’
He could viscerally feel just how great an intellectual product the blue flash penetrating the system was.
‘No. At this rate, it’ll be too late.’
Even with his Servant and Equalizing, it would take Sein a good 200 hours to completely dismantle the magic circle.
‘There’s no chance of victory like this. I have to destroy it from the inside.’
The moment he fitted the Sol-Lunar Annulus into the center of the angelic magic circle, the annulus’s rotation stopped.
The shockwave from the abrupt halt surged with enough force to shatter Sein’s skull.
“Kugh!”
The core logic of the magic circle was overwhelming Sein's own logic.
Then, the magic circle emitted a brilliant light and began to counterattack Sein's logic.
As the Sol-Lunar Annulus spun in the opposite direction of its caster's logic, the resulting shock caused blood to stream from Sein’s nose.
‘Does this make any sense? How can such a proposition even be valid?’
The angelic magic circle was utterly refuting the thought processes humanity had developed over thousands of years.
An unpleasant crack formed as a fissure appeared on the Sol-Lunar Annulus.
Sein’s eyes gradually rolled back, and blood seeped from between his clenched teeth.
‘Is this the end…?’
Sein’s consciousness plummeted toward the abyss.
At that moment, the Ultima System expanded its flash and permeated the magic circle.
The reverse rotation of the Sol-Lunar Annulus stopped.
His consciousness reawakening on the brink of death, Sein trembled at the unimaginable phenomenon.
‘It can’t be.’
The signal, composed of a single unit, was severing the complex links of the angelic magic circle as fast as light.
‘What in the world is this system?’
A single signal that perfectly encapsulated the entire universe.
Before the one insight capable of opposing the Akashic Records, even the grand logic of angels was no more than the babbling of a fool.
-Ultima System reconnected.
-Babel primordial system activated.
The small change Sein had created made Cariel's logical system inaccurate by a speck of dust, and Babel began to initialize.
As the magic circle shattered into fragments, Sein activated Equilibrium.
Two gears interlocked, grinding Cariel's destroyed logic into fine pieces and returning it to the world of nothingness.
The Ultima System remained simple, yet it had grown immense.
The light expanded until, finally, everything was integrated into one.
*Whoooosh!*
Babel's Photon Cannon vanished as if a faucet had been turned off.
Next, the legs and arms embedded in the ground rose, and its torso stood up, returning to its form before the transformation.
*Thud! Thud! Thud!*
As the pilots’ tension eased, the power transmitted to the Pipers decreased, causing dozens of Kuroi to drop to their knees.
“What happened? Is it over?”
In the 20 seconds the Photon Cannon had fired, the rebel headquarters was completely devastated.
The Titan piloted by Krud was damaged, and half of the command's forces were dead.
-Babel program reset.
Babel, which had been in a combat stance, lowered its hands.
Then its electric wings dissolved into points of light, and its head and knees slowly began to lower.
-No signal.
-Awaiting user registration.
Babel knelt just as it had when it was sleeping in the ancient ruins, waiting for the next user to appear.
To the rebels, it was an utterly detestable sight.
The cockpit of a Kuroi opened, and Kanya rushed out, holding her Signa.
“Aaarghhhhh!”
*Clang! Clang! Clang!*
Powerful explosions erupted each time she struck Babel's face with her sword, but not even a scorch mark appeared on the metal surface.
A being with durability that could withstand a thermal flash cannon was not something that could be wounded by a mere Signa.
And that made her even angrier.
Babel’s stillness, as if it were meekly accepting its punishment, plunged Kanya’s heart into despair.
“Sis, stop!”
Lena ran over, crying, and tried to stop Kanya.
Taking out her frustration on a lump of metal would only hurt herself.
“Let go! I’m going to kill it! I said let go!”
“What if it activates again? It’s just a machine!”
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
Kanya threw her Signa aside and screamed at the sky.
The fact that she had lost her father yet had no way to take revenge was agonizingly frustrating.
“Whew!”
Sein wiped the blood from his nose and slowly stood up.
Krud, who had disembarked from his Titan, approached with a calm demeanor.
“You did it in the end. Thank you. You helped reduce the damage.”
They had already suffered immense damage, but that was a testament to the might of the Babel that Krud had faced.
“No, its own system corrected the error by itself. I merely opened the lock.”
Krud turned to look at Babel with a serious expression.
“I’ve met many Northerners, but I’ve never seen anyone with your skill. For you to say something like that, what in the world is that machine?”
“I don’t know the details either. The only thing I know is that it wasn’t made to fight the Shinmin. It’s an ancient weapon for Archangels.”
“An ancient weapon…”
Krud approached the deactivated Babel.
Looking up at its bowed face, he confirmed that the red light on the panel was still blinking.
“Its power isn’t off. Is it in a sleep state?”
“Probably. It seems the system was initialized when the angelic magic circle was destroyed.”
“I see. Hmm.”
Krud stood up, his eyes gleaming.
“In that case… what if we were to use it?”
It wasn’t something Sein hadn't considered.
But as the one who had directly explored Babel’s system, he could assert that the possibility was close to zero.
“Babel's system is composed of an integrated signal that transcends the human domain. We can’t decipher it.”
Babel’s functions surpassed those of a Titan.
If they could bring it to their side, it would be an incredible boost to their forces, but what human could possibly decipher that signal?
‘How can we use this?’
The cries of the victims seeped into Sein's cold, rational thoughts.
***
It wasn't darkness that veiled the sun. It was the aura of death that had seeped in over eons.
As Hel, the ruler of Niflheim, magnified her size and flaunted her presence, Gaold’s party trembled.
Perhaps the thing most akin to death was the cold.
An aura of demise that couldn't be measured by temperature penetrated to the bone, suppressing their life force.
“Hooooo!”
Kangnan’s eyes widened as he forced strength into his body.
He had to overcome it with life.
If he couldn't activate every single cell to prove he was alive, he would end up just like their guide.
Just then, Gaold’s face twisted into a demonic mask, and an immense atmospheric pressure slammed down on the ground.
Pain Perception x100,000.
*Kwoooooong!*
The darkness was swept away as if wallpaper being peeled off, but the aura of death soon encroached upon the space again.
Nevertheless, to Hel, it was a bizarre phenomenon.
An aura that blocked out even the sun could not be erased by mere air pressure.
‘The will to live?’
And it was a will that surpassed imagination.
“Arrogant one, why do you reject death?”
Hel raised her body, her voice solemn, but Gaold paid her no mind, lost in thought.
‘This one is certainly tricky.’
He tried to estimate the limit of pain perception needed to suppress an aura stronger than the Grim Reaper’s, but it was no easy task.
When there was no reply, Hel spoke again.
“Have you walked into death's embrace seeking the detestable Miro? But all that awaits you is the god of the dead.”
Miro.
The moment he heard that name, Gaold became a completely different person.
An earthquake erupted in his pupils, and every vein in his body stood on end.
“How… did you know?”
“There is nothing the dead do not know. We simply do not interfere.”
“Kekekeke! Is that so.”
The whites of Gaold's eyes were showing.
A haze of extreme discipline radiated from his body, and even the aura of death seemed to recoil in fear.
Sensing danger, Kangnan approached him.
He didn't know what the limit of pain perception was, but Gaold had already surpassed his previous limits.
“Do my words mean nothing to you?! I told you not to…!”
“Shut up.”
Kangnan’s mouth clamped shut.
It was impossible to stop him now. Gaold’s mind would be filled with nothing but thoughts of Miro.
“Where is Miro? You’d better tell me nicely. If you don’t want to die a second time.”
“Miro is…!”
Hel shouted.
“Kieeeeeeeeeeeh!”
What followed was a demonic shriek so savage it could stop a heart.
Her robe fell away, revealing Hel’s face—a visage that seemed to be the amalgamation of all death in existence.
As the aura of death sharpened like blades and surged forward, Julu stepped in front of Kangnan and invoked her Manifestation.
“Phosmetery.”
*Caaaaaaawl!*
A massive bird made of light enveloped the two of them.
The aura of darkness struck them the very next moment, but it passed right through without any impact.
The space-time bird, Phosmetery.
Though Julu was famous as a Lich summoner, Phosmetery was also a Tier 2 monster that only she could manifest.
Phosmetery appears on Canarica Island on the equator once every four years, flies for three seconds, and then vanishes, presumably residing in another dimension.
It took Julu 12 years to succeed in manifesting it after collecting all records of Phosmetery sightings from thousands of years ago.
Considering it appeared for only three seconds every four years, the actual duration was a mere nine seconds, and people cited it as a major anecdote praising Julu's genius, second only to her Lich.
*Kwakwakwakwakwakwa!*
Phosmetery moved the two of them to a different space-time for three seconds, and everything that happened during that time could not affect them.
For the first time, Kangnan could clearly see the aura of death passing before his eyes.
What he had thought was darkness was actually an infinitely overlapping pattern of screaming faces of the dead.
“Three seconds-dayo. Can’t hold it any longer.”
There was no need to listen to Julu’s words.
The instant Hel revealed her true form, Gaold was already charging forward with the face of a demon.
Miro! Miro! Miro! Miro! Miro! Miro!
Only that one word flashed through his mind at the speed of electricity, and that single-minded conviction drew in even greater pain.
“God of the dead? Just an empty shell…!”
Raising his right hand high, Gaold swung his fist downward and cast his magic.
Pain Perception x500,000—Air Pressing.
Hel's form disintegrated, crushed downward like tens of thousands of water droplets falling at once.
*Kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuung!*
The delayed shockwave arrived, causing the entire landscape to vibrate up and down as if a planet were shaking.