Book 16 Chapter 47
Science VS Supernatural Power, Ain's technological prowess is the best in the world (11)
‘I’ve only just recovered my strength, and using Dimensional Slice once feels like my whole body will shatter, oh dear……!’
How should I describe the situation that followed?
Under the merciless saturation bombardment of lava pouring from Paveltikan and the warships of the <Those Who Came>, the entire underground area of the facility was being scorched to ruin.
The nuclear reactors, or ‘brains in a vat,’ corrupted by the Abyss's overload, caused the nature of their power to also take on the force of the Lizard Lord's Abyss, which is to say, lava!
“Ugh, this insane heat!”
“It's even hard to open my eyes!”
Lister, with the overwhelming speed provided by Shirphen, and Link, with his chimera's rigid body, continued their close-quarters combat with Greta Visor amidst the lava bombardment, but…
“A historical flow that has gone awry must be returned to its proper course by someone!”
Paveltikan, on the other hand, having become a minion of the lava, was unaffected by its power. The superiority in the battle was clear from the start.
“To pioneer the path towards true human progress!”
Furthermore, Paveltikan's physical strength, amplified by precisely 6.2 times, also held superiority in hand-to-hand combat against Link and Lister.
“Link!”
Paveltikan, who had knocked Link down, heavily slammed his fist into Link's abdomen.
“……!”
Meanwhile, Kies and Friede each became the concentrated targets of three warships.
Waves of lava poured out ceaselessly, eroding the facility. Kies formed magical platforms to evade these attacks and intercepted four warships, but… what a nightmare!
Had the warships of the <Those Who Came> also merged with the ‘brains in a vat’ and transformed into living beings? Warships instantly regenerating damaged areas! The central reactor must be destroyed!
“Sbal, let’s go too!”
“Gyugyung!”
It was at that moment that Lynn, having finally recovered her magical power, was about to return to the front lines.
[Master, please assign guardian proxy authority to this Class 1 Control Monitor - qLaFos. I will execute Facility Purification Order 32.]
The scrap metal seen earlier in the corridor approached, its lights flickering. Having been caught by the chimera, its external condition was not very good.
[Also, information about this facility must be largely erased from the cognitive organs of unauthorized visitors. Please allow the use of brainwave-disrupting radio waves.]
“What are you talking about?”
[If the information regarding this Rondelle were to be exposed to outer space, the probability of it negatively affecting the ‘Eldia Omec (06) Project’ designed by you, Master, converged to 66.6% in 148 simulation results.]
For Lynn, the situation was too urgent to understand what nonsense this was, and she couldn't even remember what had been said, but it seemed like it was asking for permission to do something it could do.
“Go ahead, if you can do something!”
Then, the light from the sphere, which had been sparkling like an eyeball in the very center of the scrap metal, became inexpressibly brilliant.
[Guardian proxy authority has been transferred to this Control Monitor qLaFos. Facility Risk Assessment Class 1, executing Facility Purification Order 32.]
From the ceiling of the third basement level, which was still undestroyed, sprinklers deployed all at once.
“Water?”
From those devices, a downpour so heavy that it was impossible to see properly, began pouring onto the lava!
[This is not a simple liquid. This liquid is Hlame, an invention designed by Master for the subjugation of True King Neigalas.]
It is a highly viscous liquid that tracks and adheres to the Abyss, so naturally, it is no ordinary liquid.
It is an actively acting viscous substance that adheres to the particles of the Abyss, purifying and eradicating their molecules.
The Black Sun Kalenden, taking a hint from the self-purification process of white blood cells, devised a liquid to digest Neigalas's authority, namely lava, and actually brought that near-madman's delusion to fruition.
“What is this……?”
The one who suffered near-direct damage from Hlame was, of course, Greta Visor, who had benefited most from the lava here.
“There’s a liquid that adheres to lava and lowers its very temperature?”
Furthermore, Neigalas's minions achieve physical regeneration by re-attaching themselves as lava flows, but that speed was rapidly slowed. This created an opportunity for Kies and Friede to intercept the warships.
“Such a level of scientific power, truly the technology of <Those Who Came> never ceases to amaze.”
Greta Visor, who, even in a moment of crisis, didn't hesitate to praise the newly unfolding horizons of science! Truly a talent worthy of being called a first-class engineer and scientist.
“Seeing this with my own eyes, I find it even more impossible to lose.”
Lister and Link charge side-by-side, targeting Greta Visor!
“I must also research this technology and lay a new foundation for progress!”
Completely ignoring Paveltikan's overload warning, Greta drew out all weapons from her entire chassis.
“I made a deal with the ‘First Hero’.”
The total number of muzzles and gunports that emerged was 102.
“In exchange for creating the strongest chimera in history, I agreed to lend the management authority of this facility!”
Is that all? Greta's precious specimens, collected over a lifetime… the warships of <Those Who Came> also concentrated all their fire on the two.
“He told me to confine six sword masters he had raised into a single body.”
Not yielding to the downpour of Hlame, the Abyss rampaged, engulfing the creations with murderous heat!
“That body, which is the culmination of all knowledge from the Demon Slayer Training Project, contains no less than six masters!”
If <Those Who Came> had been corrupted by the Abyss and become loyal servants of the absolute being Yotos Yole Yotiatos, would such a sight have unfolded in the world?
“Why would he ask for that to be made? The conclusion reached by a being who walked this path before you is to put an end to this erroneous world!”
From the front, no, from all four sides, the surging crimson lava was enough to dissolve this entire area and then some.
“Only by swiftly eliminating the worthless can the true path to the future, the opportunity for progress, be opened!”
Then, that power, the turquoise radiance, struck back at the nightmarish tsunami of lava pouring forth before their eyes. Five shots of Heaven's Sakura Slash, forged with the White Spear Bow Serwebon!
“Go, Lister────!”
A barrier of the Divine Poem surrounded those five Heaven's Sakura Slashes, and the arrows began to push back the lava, not as individual forces attacking points, but as a collective forming a grand surface!
So what about the sides?
“If the table is set this much, and you can’t even put a spoon on it, aren’t you just a complete idiot? You Sbal.”
Lynn, in her long struggle with the Abyss (written as struggle, read as sandbag experiment), had realized that lightning magic could penetrate the Abyss's interior and burn its core.
“Gyung!”
This magic would be used based on Zernix's First Axiom.
Things with identical creative orders of providence can change form under conditions of equal mass.
This is, in other words, the use of a catalyst.
Lynn thought. That liquid, as marvelous as it was, must be fundamentally water.
If so, it would also be possible to use it as a catalyst to amplify Sbal's and her own power.
“Double Casting, Crystal Star & Lightning Blade.”
The Hlame, which had only been slowing the torrents of lava on both sides of Lister and Link as they charged towards Greta, instantly cooled and formed massive ice walls.
“Did you calculate that such an ice wall could stop it?!”
As Greta said, if it had been a simple ice wall, it would naturally have been unable to stop the lava.
But it was not simple at all.
The currents that sped across its surface and covered it were sharply slicing through the internal core of the lava striking the ice wall, like blades!
“What……?!”
At that moment, when even Greta Visor couldn't hide her bewilderment, Lynn softly murmured in a voice barely audible only to herself.
“Now, Lister.”
It was the will of their comrades that blocked the torrents of lava surging in from all directions.
“I, I believe───!”
What was created then was a path. A path that comrades had made for the hero… a path towards courage.
“──Someday, one day!”
Lister Alter Shirphen cut through the lava with the light of his holy sword, cutting and cutting again, advancing.
“At a moment unknown to our perception───!”
When Paveltikan's close-combat barrier deployed as lava, Link rushed forward, as if to outpace Lister.
“──At the time appointed by the providence of creation that governs eternity!”
He tore through that curtain of lava with sheer force, clashing with Paveltikan!
“In the way of creation───!”
Link was not trying to defeat Paveltikan at this moment.
“──All darkness will end, and the eternal dawn will break!”
He was trying to open the path.
“Even if my mission is not to herald the eternal dawn───!”
As Kies, Friede, and Lynn had done… like a younger sibling watching their elder grow.
“──But merely to protect and prepare the way for that being’s arrival!”
Because they were not the protagonists of this story.
The protagonist of history is always the hero.
Only the hero leaves their name as an object of reverence in the present, and a revered paragon in the future.
“I will gladly protect the flame of that mission───!”
However, they, Lister's party members, do not regret it in the slightest.
They simply extend their hands and push.
His back, his courage, his conviction.
The hearts of such comrades created the distance and time for Lister Alter Shirphen to carve time into twelve pieces.
“──I!”
Even after cutting through Neigalas's lava, a power that melts all things into the despair of 'nothingness,' dozens of times, the light of the Supreme Holy Sword Shirphen neither dulled nor faded.
“It is precisely, us─────!”
Like the heart of that hero.
“──────Because we are the last heroes of this era!”
That light, brilliant yet poignant, poignant yet dazzling, dazzling yet tender… in the next moment, carved the conviction of courage into twelve fragments of time, into an instant.
“Slice (斬)────────!”
Twelve intense flashes of light, as if scorching the retina, divided a single organism into dozens of pieces… making it impossible to define as a 'collection'.
An organism refers to matter that has organically fused to perform life functions.
If so, can Greta Visor, now split into dozens of pieces along with the mounted colossal god Paveltikan, truly be considered an organism?
‘I’ve completely used up my strength…….’
Lister barely supported his body, on the verge of collapsing, by plunging Shirphen into the ground.
‘I needed at least three days for my body to recover and stabilize…….’
Still, thanks to everyone, and thanks to them pushing my back, thanks to them supporting my stubbornness, I was able to come this far. I was able to arrive here.
‘I truly am a happy hero…….’
Then, the hurried shouts of his comrades were heard.
“What, insane! Kies, shoot him!”
“Lister, dodge!”
“Link, Link, Link!”
Greta Visor was not finished.
‘Excellent.’
While causing all ‘brains in a vat’ to rampage and performing limited ultra-high-speed regeneration, she restored her body and attacked Lister from behind, who was virtually unarmed.
‘Is this immortality itself?’
Lister's transcendent reflexes and concentration already knew everything before the situation escalated to this point.
He knew, but didn't react.
Because there was one more comrade in this story.
‘What……?’
The chief tinkerer, who had anticipated that Greta Visor wouldn't be easily defeated and had been hiding until now.
“Now, let's put an end to this madness, Meister.”
Greta Visor's body, which could now be said to be integrated with lava.
‘You, how could you…… me…….’
The X-Blast Plasma Cannon's beam accurately pierced the reactor, which could be called both her core and her weakness.
‘……Niels Blantz.’