Blue Ray (2)
Karlstein gazed at the screen, at Maxien with her eyes blazing open, and offered a few words of comfort.
She looked genuinely furious that the battle wasn't going her way.
"You've worked hard, Maxien."
At his consolation, she bit her lip. He understood exactly how she felt.
After all, she was hardly the kind of talent who should be struggling against a mere Triple Number.
Whatever the opponent's specialization in high-speed movement, it was still a monster from the 200s. That Maxien couldn't even close the distance was, by the reputation of the Cosmic Sword Saint, frankly absurd.
But there was nothing to be done about it.
It was a restriction he himself had placed upon her.
Her people, the Asterians, became ever more like stars the further they drew upon their power beyond a healthy limit.
They grew ruthless and unfeeling, until at last they lost even the will to live.
A death of the spirit.
It was not war alone that had left her the sole survivor after she lost the other Asterians — her own kin.
From the very beginning, the Asterians had been racing headlong toward extinction. The moment they left their planet and stepped into the cosmos, that ending was all but written.
He had saved her, then, and taken her in.
"If I follow you... will I still remain human?"
"Yes. If that is what you wish."
"When I become a star someday... will you be willing to plant flowers on me?"
"That too. If you wish it."
"Then I'm in your hands."
The promise from the day they met.
He never fully understood what it meant, but to an Asterian, the planting of flowers could never be a light thing.
If only to keep that promise, he had needed to place some limit on her power.
Back when he first found her, Karlstein could barely look after his own skin, let alone promise to protect her humanity. Seen one way, it was a situation that had demanded he lure her in with whatever vows it took, wringing her potential dry for his own use.
But he had strove, with everything he had, not to do that.
Karlstein had always believed that her potential could bloom fully without ever touching the power of her bloodline — and he believed it still.
The proof of that faith was that, to this day, only her eyes and her hair carried the starlight. That much, at least, was the fruit of his efforts.
And so he had actually encouraged her obsession with hunting monsters. Her daily sorties to the front lines, the near-mad intensity of feeling she poured into the hunt — for her future, that was the right path.
The same held true now.
It does scare me sometimes, though.
His heart for her had not changed.
It wasn't as though she had never once unleashed her sealed potential, either.
My job is to make sure that situation never arises again.
In almost every circumstance, she had honored their promise.
So yes — a certain pride welled up in him too.
Even as she was now, she was monstrously strong. That much was beyond dispute. The only limitation was that, with her power bound, she could only shine at close range.
And even that was enough to make her one of the supreme heroes of the Galactic Empire.
The Empire had three Great Heroes, universally acknowledged — heroes no one could deny.
The pride of the Galactic Empire.
Close quarters and dueling: Maxien Asteria.
Ultra-long-range sniping and fleet combat: Camilla Vashatiret.
And last of all —
"Who am I?"
"...Karlstein Babylon."
"That's right."
Krrrk — krrk —
A heavy, grinding groan bled out from the full-body armor he wore.
Knrk — knrk —
Straining to endure the power pouring from every inch of him, the armor shrieked in protest again and again.
"Camilla's busy right now... working hard, so no need to call her."
"..."
A certain asteroid, roughly eighty thousand kilometers from the battlefield where Maxien fought.
Two long iron spikes had been driven deep into the asteroid beneath his feet.
Long rods of metal, thirty centimeters thick and a full kilometer in length, were buried deep in the ground near Karlstein.
The elongated slabs of steel — known as God's Spear — pulsed with waves of crimson ether.
"Hnnngh — hup!"
"Barrier control, firing-solution assist, ether wave calibration..."
His grunt of effort wove in between Aria's crisp voice.
The moment he gripped the shaft's handle and wrenched the spike free, the ground split apart and shuddered violently.
Yet Karlstein's stance did not waver, as steady as if he stood on flat ground — Aria's barrier control was holding the fracturing earth firmly together beneath him.
"It's been a while since I fired from this distance."
Karlstein planted his feet and settled into his stance.
"Whew."
Krrng —
Ether pulsed off his armor in rolling waves.
Karlstein Babylon.
Tanker,
and mid-range artillery.
He moved. A running start — and he hurled the spear.
FWOooom —
The moment it left his hand, the spear streaked toward the target trailing a ring-shaped ripple of distortion behind it.
In the instant Karlstein's thrown spear carved through the void, the asteroid under his feet was ripped apart by the recoil.
SHWooooo —
BEEP —
A moment later.
A flash of annihilation struck No.221 Blue Ray square through the heart.
"Direct hit. Situation resolved."
Aria's level voice announced the monster's death.
On the bridge of the Imperial ship.
As one, everyone on the bridge fell silent — not even a whisper — and quietly fixed their eyes on the screen.
"..."
"..."
BEEP —
"Haah..."
At the green text blooming across the display, the captain and the vice-captain — hands clasped together until that very moment — both exhaled long sighs of relief. Down on the lower decks, the crew was no different.
"As expected..."
"Truly."
"No matter how many times I see it, I can't believe my eyes."
Every soul aboard an Imperial ship was the finest of the fine, hand-picked from across the Galactic Empire — elites among elites, their battlefield experience not merely rich but overflowing.
And even they had never grown used to the sight of a Triple Number entity being erased in a single blow.
Of course not. The Numbering Entities — monsters among monsters — were calamities incarnate.
Remember that a single four-digit entity had once scorched entire star systems to ash, and the scene before their eyes felt too impossible to be real.
"Incredible. Simply incredible."
The captain's reaction was the most violent of all. He had climbed to his post with more combat experience than anyone aboard, and he knew better than anyone that what he was watching was nothing short of a miracle.
Every time he witnessed His Majesty the Emperor fight, his awe only deepened.
It was beautiful. Truly beautiful.
A crimson streak of light piercing the void and driving down into a monster's heart — the sight never failed to set a fire in his chest.
Long ago, he had lost his entire family to the monsters. For the chance to witness this, even in his old age, he had never hesitated to board a ship himself.
Nightmarish memories of battle. And within them, the figure of His Majesty stood as the very symbol of victory assured.
He never hesitated to kindle the flames of hope in the hearts of every citizen of the Empire.
The captain's throat tightened.
How much longer could he follow behind His Majesty, after all?
Age had dulled his judgment of late, and these days a sigh rose in him unbidden at the thought that the day might come when he could no longer take to a bridge at all.
Your Majesty...
The grizzled old captain's thoughts drifted back to the fiercest battlefield of the past.
The brutal, apocalyptic front they called the Lüpyr Star System Assault.
He could never forget that moment — the moment His Majesty had proposed the unthinkable: a Single Number Subjugation Campaign.
Every one of them had flinched and begged the Emperor to reconsider.
It was madness, they said. It was impossible.
No man could defeat a god, they said.
Your sacred person must be protected, they said.
But His Majesty, who had silenced them all, answered with iron resolve:
The great campaign that ended the total war — and the Emperor's radiant achievement.
The seat of No.6, standing empty to this day, was all the proof it needed.
Who else could ever dare lay hands on a Single Number?
Through a cataclysmic struggle that claimed nine out of every ten heroes who joined the subjugation, the great hero had wrenched victory from the jaws of annihilation — for all of humanity.
Ah.
A light far too radiant for the likes of me to even look upon.
The captain wished, from the depths of his heart, that moments like this one would last forever.
In the instant Karlstein's thrown spear came down through the heart of No.221 "Blue Ray" —
behind a distant asteroid, not far from that battlefield, something opened its eyes.
Skreee — skrik —
The compound eyes of the creature hiding within the asteroid slowly peeled apart, exhaling a tide of blackest pulsation.
From Blue Ray's death, it grasped the entire situation in a fraction of a second.
Skreee — skrik —
It deliberated.
Should it keep lurking, as it had until now?
Skrik —
Or abandon the work it had carried on for so long, and step out into the open itself?
Skreee — skrik —
The compound-eyed thing pondered for a long while — but the answer had already been decided.
The work in progress would be abandoned.
Slither — rustle —
The pitch-black aura coiled around its body began slowly to recede.
The death of a low-grade entity meant nothing to him at all.
But those things learning of his existence — the existence of "Sap" — was far too soon.
The passage would be sealed.
The asteroid was devoured in an instant by the jet-black wave surging up from his whole body.
VWOOOOM —
A being moving at speeds incomparable to anything like Blue Ray reached the battlefield in the blink of an eye.
The compound-eyed thing, glistening a sinister black, appeared before the three figures still wearing their foolish, vacant expressions.
All things according to Father's will.
SHLRK —
[Gack—!]
[KYAAAAAGH!]