The Angel's Ash
Two days before the procedure was set to begin, the protesters staging a sit-in in front of the hospital's main entrance vanished without a trace.
No one knew why the crowd—numbering from dozens to hundreds—had suddenly departed. Not a single picket sign, tent, or mat remained. Their exit was so impeccably clean it was hard to believe they'd been hurling abuse indiscriminately just moments before.
So, we assumed those opposing the treatment's development had finally given up their protest.
But.
A man had somehow made it up to the fifth floor and slipped into the operating room. The camera caught his identity: the one-winged angel spotted during the last on-site inspection.
The very same man.
“Colossus…!”
With no apparent threat, Colossus hadn't been in auto-surveillance mode. It burst out of my bag belatedly and rocketed into the operating room. Beam saber slicing through the wall, it charged in a straight line.
The time it took for the max-speed-accelerating robot to cover the shortest distance was a mere blink—but the angel in the bomb vest hit the switch faster.
“Your greed ends here.”
-beep
The next instant, a deflating beep rang out, followed by a blinding flash that filled every room and hallway on the hospital's fifth floor.
It wasn't an explosion. Proof: the angel's body in the bomb vest didn't disintegrate—it stayed perfectly intact.
But there was damage.
“…Damn.”
Only after the eye-searing white light faded did I recover my sight and check my limbs. Fortunately, I was unscratched. Same for Elama, wedged between Irool and the other executives nearby.
But.
-crumble
The bodies of the ex-guC bank staff around us were turning to white grains and shattering.
Specifically, their organic parts—not the mechanical or inorganic ones—had all transformed.
Every victim was undead.
By the time that sank in, I was already kicking the door open and sprinting to the operating room.
“Arrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!”
-bang!
Sterility be damned—I burst through the operating room door.
-thud
Simultaneously, Colossus—crackling with electricity—slammed its body into the angel's temple.
“Guhk!”
The terrorist crumpled without reacting.
“Doctor! Doctor!!”
I propped up the fallen Marcus Bernard and helped him sit.
Because maybe he was undead too.
But that was just paranoia.
“Ugh….”
Bernard groaned, unconscious. Likely from the flash exploding right in his face.
But the moment I realized he was safe, I knew something was horribly wrong.
The fifth floor's undead weren't just bankers.
The girl on the operating table, Rainy—her body was gone.
Only a heap of white grains remained.
“…….”
-thud
My legs buckled; my knees hit the floor.
“What the hell is this….”
“…‘Angel's Ash.’”
Irool answered, arriving late. His face was rigid, emotionless. But the halo above his head and his glowing red wings betrayed the fury locked inside.
“A weapon made by burning the corpse of a self-sacrificed angel. It unleashes holy light—any exposed undead turns to salt.”
Irool stared at his fallen kin. The cracked halo over the unconscious angel's head had shattered completely.
I didn't know angel biology well, but I'd heard what made a halo vanish: committing heinous evil.
Proof the angel's subconscious knew his act was wrong.
“I can’t accept this ending….”
A child who’d barely lived, sacrificed to adult hatred and gone.
Atop the salt pile: a tiny flesh chunk from monatomic gold, tethered to the girl’s soul.
Perfectly matching her vanished body but translucent, Rainy’s soul floated with eyes closed.
Body utterly lost, it looked ready to wink out any second—precariously fragile.
Ironically serene as its presence faded.
“…Yes. Nor can I.”
Raising my head at Irool’s restrained voice, I saw his wings blaze with light.
Exactly like Oatanocha’s video.
The Great War judge who erased a city from the map, annihilating thousands—tens of thousands—of necromancer-controlled undead.
-hum
A light-forged sword gripped in Irool’s hand. His eyes burned too fiercely to meet.
“Brother Jian. I don’t know anymore.”
“Whatever you’re planning… please stop. Irool, I beg you.”
“…I’ve sacrificed everything. My kin too. Forgave even battlefield foes. Gave all to build a world free of innocent sacrifices…”
His whisper-thin voice trembled fiercely.
“Why does this still happen? Even comrades who fought beside me—corrupted.”
Despair dripped from every word, stirring me speechless.
“I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“…….”
Irool’s body lifted slowly into the air.
“Brother Jian. One question.”
The ceiling grazed by his radiance powdered away.
Through the hole, cloudy sky. The angel ascended toward it.
“Does such a world deserve to remain?”
“…Irool.”
-drip
A single tear traced the cheek of the transformed Judge angel.
-whoosh!!
Irool’s light sword thrust skyward—long enough to sweep district, city, everything in one swing.
But against the crisis, the sword-wielding angel smiled gently, as always.
“I hope no one gets hurt.”
Weightless glory blade. Irool swung it, face brimming with compassion, mercy.
That instant.
-boom!!!!
Colossus rocketed skyward, smashing Irool’s arm.
-crack!
Arm snapped backward at the elbow. The elongated sword shrank instantly.
“…Please don’t interfere.”
Irool regenerated the bone in a flash, facing off Colossus Mark 2.
He slashed with the shortened blade, but tiny Colossus darted through gaps, airborne.
“What the hell is that….”
Donning contacts late only deepened confusion.
Colossus’s AI was reacting to Irool’s threat.
But not auto-pilot—manual control.
Meaning: not AI piloting, but something else.
“Someone in the cockpit…?”
Activating the cockpit black box urgently, I glimpsed the impossible.
-kyuuu!!!!!!!
No Nanoi piloting Colossus.
Four spirits clustered in the cockpit, glowing—Colossus obeyed faithfully.
UI showed monatomic gold output plus four new powers: spirits’ forces.
“No way—the monatomic reactor resonating with the spirits’ willpower…”
Phone rang before I finished.
Caller: Levi Sau, Colossus’s creator.
“Mr. Jian! Are you okay?!”
“Yes, for now.”
“I saw Colossus’s emergency mode activate—thought disaster struck. Facing an awakened Judge angel? How’s it going?”
“Too long to explain. Just—he’s my friend up there.”
“Heavens, who’d cause a Great War throwback…? Anyway, can’t kill your friend—switching lethal auth off.”
Overhead: Irool vs. Colossus dogfight raged.
Obviously, Irool could slice Colossus. Colossus couldn’t strike back.
Many functions restricted to avoid killing Irool.
“Any way to revert a PTSD-maddened angel?”
“Rare as hell—don’t ask me. Know the trigger?”
I concisely recapped events for Sau.
Detailing Bernard’s new procedure? Banker no-no. But Sau’s field differed; no misuse risk. Trusted that.
“…Got it. Changes nothing, though. Fix the cause, or that city’s toast.”
“Revive someone body-gone, soul-only? And it’s fading fast!”
Sau went quiet at my yell.
Revive dead? Necromancy exists.
But needs a body to bind soul—original or proxy.
Now? Salt only.
Rainy’s soul departing.
Or rather: dissipating. Ex-undead barred from afterlife.
Left alone: life and existence end here.
Mere six pitiful years—abandoned, illness-stricken—hope’s merest shred unseen, curtain falling.
“Not yet. Don’t quit. We’ve ‘god’s’ power fragments.”
Then Sau continued.
“Colossus reactor resonating. Massive monatomic gold nearby.”
“…Ah!”
I finally remembered: we held the ultimate substance—birthing bodies, even souls.