joking aside genuinely curious how this goes
Oh boy, this won't be a shitshow. How strong is Genis?
"Ha ha ha. Don't get so pessimistic, Miss Almighty Magic God. No one can stand on your level at the moment. Don't treat me like a true monster just because you're lonely."
"…"
The girl known as a magic god closed her single eye just once.
It looked like she was trying to take her mind off of some truly hideous clown.
An instant later, the slight space between them was filled with tens of thousands or even hundreds of millions of strange explosions.
If the theory of relativity that summarized the relationship between time and space would allow a black hole-like object to exist under certain special circumstances, the extreme compression of space by their frightening clash may have twisted the continuity of time.
That was how extreme this series of attacks was.
A wall of explosions completely filled the space between those two monsters. It showed no sign of ending and seemed to completely ignore the concept of numbers.
Magic God Othinus lightly spun the lance around in one hand and pointed its tip toward the heavens.
She spoke slowly.
She uttered two short sentences.
"These small fights are such a pain. I think I'll just end the world."
And exactly as she had announced, everything was immediately destroyed.
"Then what happened to Sargasso!? What happened to Tokyo Bay!?"
"Does it look like any of it remains?"
"Then what happened to the people there!? What happened to Index!? Or Misaka!? Or Lessar and Birdway!? A-and not just them! What about all the people living in Tokyo!?"
"Do I look like someone who would care about that?"
"…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………"
His understanding of what lay before him crumbled.
He forgot how to produce anger or sorrow.
Such things had been so natural that he had never before thought about the process.
But his mind was in such disarray that he no longer understood how his own heart functioned.
"You're lying…"
"How long are you going to keep talking?"
"You're lying!! You, um, used some kind of trick to make it look like that's what happened!! That would be easier. Instead of destroying Tokyo Bay and killing all those people, it would be easier to bring me to some other place!! So…!!"
"It no longer matters how you perceive the situation. Who it was that disappeared is a trivial matter. The problem that lies before you is that only the two of us are here," said Othinus disinterestedly. She sounded like someone who had downloaded an app to kill time late at night but found out it was even more boring than expected. "And you seem confused as to the scale we are talking about."
"What? Are you saying there's more?"
"Why are you talking about this on the tiny scale of Tokyo Bay? What I destroyed is not contained to just the small planet known as Earth."
Kamijou finally realized he was lying on his back.
Once he sprang to his feet, he was left speechless. Everything around him was odd. It was black. Nothing but black. The ground was perfectly flat. It was even more level and free of defect than the silicon wafer for a semiconductor. From where he stood to the horizon, the ground did not rise or fall by even a micron.
"What is this place?"
Nothing natural could be seen. Nothing unnatural could be seen.
Despite the previous use of the word, it was unclear whether the term "horizon" even applied. Both the ground and the sky were colored pure black, so it was impossible to distinguish between them.
He turned around a full 360 degrees, but the scenery did not change. He stopped at the spot he thought he had started at, but he was not even sure that was correct. With nothing to use as a landmark, he could not be sure.
He could, however, see a blonde-haired, green-eyed girl.
One of those eyes was covered with a leather eyepatch and she held a lance.
The uniform world of darkness emphasized her golden hair and white skin like the full moon.
A strange sense of reality gradually assaulted Kamijou's heart.
He had never before felt such hostility and rejection toward a feeling of reality.
"What is this? I thought we were in Tokyo Bay. We were in Gremlin's headquarters of Sargasso!!"
(No. No!! I've heard Shibuya Station is built like a giant vertical hole leading dozens of meters underground. If the people were trying to evacuate, they would head as far down as possible. Just because the building on the surface collapsed doesn't mean they were wiped out!!)
"Don't be so sure," said a girl's voice.
For some reason, she rode up alongside him on an electric two-wheeled vehicle that she had picked up somewhere.
"Just to be clear, they haven't been brainwashed," said a girl's voice. Othinus was leaning her back up against his back. "I haven't added anything new. As I said, I merely changed their point of view. You had already done what it would take to be treated like this. It was just that no one – yourself included – had realized it before."
He quickly turned around, but there was no one there.
Magic God Othinus was still behind him.
"You always charged headfirst into some kind of incident, used your fists to defeat your enemy, and protected someone and their small world as a result. By accumulating enough such incidents, you even managed to bring World War Three to an end. You were treated as a type of hero and only that positive aspect was emphasized. That is what happened in the world you know."
She whispered the words.
Rather than beating him down with her words, she let them slip deep inside of him.
"But what if their point of view is changed? You bare your fangs toward anyone you don't like, jump in and steal every girl you so much as set your eyes on, and relentlessly swing your fist toward anyone who resists. That is another side of the person known as Kamijou Touma. You chose your fists as your means of solving problems. It may seem cute compared to a sword or gun, but you managed to influence the outcome of World War Three with that method. It is strange for people to silently accept an incarnation of violence like that. The hatred people have toward national dictators is not enough for you."
The scent and warmth of the girl leaning up against his back cleanly vanished.
His (supposed) classmate, Aogami Pierce, spoke as if he had not seen any of that.
It seemed like time had stopped.
Or perhaps only this place where Othinus was had changed.
It may have been like a waking dream or when one's life flashed before their eyes.
"No matter how many people surrounded you, none of them were actually looking at you. After seeing your name, your outer shell, and a list of your actions, they decided for themselves what kind of person you must be. That is why their impression of you was so easily manipulated by changing their point of view."
Othinus continued to speak while ignoring Komoe-sensei raising the knife.
"Now, is all this really necessary?"
She knew the answer, but she asked again just to check.
"Is this really worth risking your life to protect? All of you are nothing more than different individuals."
"…"
While collapsed on the ground, Kamijou Touma moved his eyes slightly in response.
For some reason, he regained the slight strength needed to form words.
"…It is."
"?"
"Despite all that, it is certainly worth protecting."
No matter how much tragedy a person was thrashed by, they deserved a chance to stand back up. Some people had twisted their relationships, surrounded themselves with hatred, and gave no thought to living a happy life, but even they had the option of reversing each of those decisions.
That was how Kamijou Touma had overcome a few different incidents in the past.
He had seen people who returned to the light.
It was now Kamijou's turn to struggle.
He may have been the source of this world, but he was prepared to accept it all, make up for all of it, and continue forward.
Everything would return to normal.
He would make sure of it.
"I see."
Othinus smiled a bit.
It was a dark, dark, dark smile.
"It seems you are no different from the foolish frog that does not notice the heat of the water he is being boiled in. I had thought the immutability of your right hand was my greatest enemy, but it seems another obstacle has presented itself. But it is so pathetic that it would be foolish to face it seriously. In that case, I will make a slight change of plans and enjoy this."
"What are you going to do?"
He received no response.
The girl known as a Magic God gave an exaggerated snap of her fingers.
In the next moment, time sped back up to normal and Tsukuyomi Komoe swung the knife forcefully down.
"Why? You can create as many new 'Kamijou Toumas' as you want."
"There is no meaning in tormenting a brand new doll. A new doll has no sins. Anything created by me, is not allowed to oppose me." The blonde girl whispered with a delighted light in her one eye. "Despair over what once happened. Think back on it. If you do, I will return them to their proper form. I will give them back enough of their reason to feel sorrow when you are buried in your grave."
Othinus might have been able to do anything to the world.
If she announced she would give him half the world, Kamijou might have truly been given his own country. One light wave of her lance might have granted the ridiculous wish of having every guy in the world as a friend and every girl as a lover.
That boy…
"Kamijou Touma" sat in shock in the very corner desk of the classroom lit by orange light. His arms and legs hung limply down and his eyes blankly viewed Othinus's slightly altered world.
His breathing was erratic.
He grew negligent even in the bare minimum of actions he needed to live.
She was right.
In this twisted world where how people viewed themselves and others had completely collapsed, could he truly rely on a name?
His own concept of "Kamijou Touma" was no different from other people's concepts of "Kamijou Touma".
They could both be easily manipulated. He had just seen that very concept altered to a laughable extent, so why had he thought it did not apply to him as well?
If so…
Who was "he"?
He had truly believed himself to be "Kamijou Touma", but who was he really?
He saw countless worlds and experienced countless forms of despair.
Some clearly cornered Kamijou Touma and attempted to crush him. Strange false accusations were forced onto him and a noose was put around his neck. He was stranded on a mountain with some acquaintances and he was forced to distribute his flesh to the others so they could survive until rescue arrived. He was lying unable to move on a hospital bed and was simply stuck like that all the way to his funeral. He was buried in humus and began to decompose while still alive, starting with the ends of the arms and legs. Earth was rendered unlivable and he was thrown into outer space to wander aimlessly in a capsule-like spaceship. As a puny human, he was destroyed by a giant robot or an asteroid.
The heart had no actual form, but Kamijou clearly felt his breaking. It was not being destroyed as if struck by a hammer or sliced in two by a sword. It was a quiet destruction as if termites had eaten into it and it was too late by the time the symptoms began to show.
Amid it all, he somehow managed to gather his thoughts bit by bit.
But he did not suddenly come up with a means of reversing or resolving the situation.
He was instead using his bloody hands to build a path there, piece by piece.
"You…"
He spoke quietly in his hazy mind.
"You aren't actually destroying anything."
Othinus seemed surprised that he was only now realizing this.
The blonde-haired, eyepatch-wearing girl stood directly in front of the boy.
"So?"
She was so close that he thought he detected a sweet aroma.
The world had become a vague marble pattern.
"There aren't thousands or millions of worlds. This is still our world. This whole time, we haven't moved anywhere."
Othinus spoke in a disinterested tone.
"Have you ever heard of phases?"
"…?"
"This world was not pure and untouched to begin with. Christian, Buddhist, Celtic, Indian, Shinto, Incan, Aztec, Greek, Roman…and Norse. The various religions have placed layer after layer of various phases over the world like thin veils or filters. There is heaven, hell, the underworld, the Pure Land, Yomi, the abyss, Mount Olympus, the fairy island, Nirai Kanai, Asgard, and many others. At any rate, the world you have seen so far has been viewed through various colors of cellophane."
"You haven't destroyed any of those colored glasses."
As his vision wavered and he was unsure who he was speaking to, Kamijou managed to keep his mouth moving.
"When it comes down to it, you are a person who creates. It may be filled with malice and it may be similar to representing 'crushing a house' as 'creating a pile of rubble', but it does not change what you are. You are a person who creates."
"Call me a god. And what I have done is simple. I have created new filters and placed them over the world so the world appears to have changed. That is why the world appeared changed to you. This is a lot easier than destroying everything and building it back up every time. And your right hand contains the power to level out any foreign elements in the world, so it has difficulty functioning when I change the world itself. …Still, results are everything in the world. In the end, history will record it like this: the Magic God repeatedly destroyed the world and created new ones to make a single boy suffer as much as possible."
“…What angel? This is truly hard to believe. In this age, space shuttles can break through the atmosphere, and there’s no sign of a heaven…”
“Mm, the high and low relationship of heaven and hell isn’t of height.”
“Then what is it?”
“Here’s an example. Human eyes can’t see infrared rays, and human ears can’t detect high frequency sounds. You can understand this right, Kami-yan?”
“Ah? Mn.”
“The high and low refers to this, anything that’s above or below what humans can detect. They can’t feel it if it’s too high or if it’s too low. So even if God is to appear beside Kami-yan, you should be unable to detect it.”
Tsuchimikado delightedly smiled.
“Yeah. The low is referring to hell of the devil. What’s opposite Infrared rays are ultraviolet rays, and low frequency in contrast to high frequency; in other words, an inversion. Though both waves are different, both are still waves. In other words, even if there’s an angel standing beside a demon, they won’t be able to detect each other unless they interfere with each other in the area between heaven and hell called the ‘human realm’.”
Tsuchimikado continued, “Oh yes, Kami-yan. In religions that worship idols like Buddhism and Christianity, the power of God or power of angels do actually exist around us.”
Dáinsleif. Marian Slingeneyer walked across the white snow while wielding that golden sword of dreadful power. Her gait seemed to express her persistent spite. Her legs wobbled unreliably yet she never fell. It was as if the soles of her feet were stuck to the ground with pure black coal tar.
Othinus could not use any real magic, so Kamijou Touma stepped forward in her place.
From a distance of twenty meters, Marian willfully swung the sword as if brushing cobwebs off a tree branch.
"Cut away Olympus of the Greeks. Summon Titan, the cursed giant."
An instant later, something burst up from directly below Kamijou and raised him up 120 meters.
"Gh…bah!?"
At first, he did not even realize he was holding his breath.
His vision was spinning and filled with white. The distance to the ground quickly grew overwhelmingly large and he finally realized he had been launched to a height rivalling a thirty-story building. Only then did he notice what had launched him so high.
It was a colossal humanoid figure.
A man as large as a high-rise building burst from the ground. That mass of muscle and bones with five meter fists rose up from directly below Kamijou. Rather than being struck, Kamijou had been lifted up on top of the giant. As the boy was swung around in every direction, he was not slammed to the ground far below. He instead fell on the giant's upper arm which was right below his feet.
"Bgah!! Ghh! Pant pant…cough cough!!"
Left on the ground, Othinus loudly clicked her tongue as she looked up at what happened over 100 meters above.
She understood what Marian Slingeneyer was doing, but there was nothing she could do for the boy. The restriction of losing her powers irritated her to no end.
(First, she seals off a limited portion of the world and then she chooses particular phases of different religions or sects and cuts through them.)
The giant that appeared first was one of the Titans that appeared as Zeus's enemy in Greek mythology.
The beast that appeared second was the man-eating beast and god of death that destroyed the first humanity in Aztec mythology.
The demon king that appeared third was the leader of the giants that were said to burn away the nine worlds in Norse mythology.
(Heaven, Asgard, Mt. Olympus, the Pure Land, Nirai Kanai… Cutting away the homes of the gods removes the protection and blessings of those gods and thus releases the calamities being restrained by the gods. In a way, Marian is able to freely choose and wield the different "endings" told of in the world's scriptures.)
It sounded extreme, but the basic technique was not all that rare. The ceremonial grounds used in modern Western magic and the cathedrals and churches of Christianity were formed by dyeing a certain space in the colors of a single religion. No one would pray with an image of Buddha sitting next to a cross and a Buddhist priest would not add talismans or mandrake roots as accessories to his rosary. Convenient elements from other religions would sometimes be adopted, but the simplest way to create the purest and most valuable brand was to maintain a single form and color.
But Marian took that concept to extraordinary levels.
Just as ultra-pure water created by thoroughly removing all impurities behaved differently from normal water, the phenomena created by "cutting off a portion of space to obtain a unique color" had tremendous power.
It was as if she were using a single hand to create and control the refined despair of all the world's religions.
Just as a summoned angel was manifested using condensed Telesma, these rulers of the end were likely masses of the type of power stored in their respective religion or phase. However, these were nothing more than power focused into the images of the calamites people had imagined and so they would not necessarily look exactly like those gods of death or demon kings, but the raw power that presented itself made that fact easy to forget.
"A sword that closes the path to the power of the gods…no, the path to heaven," muttered Othinus.
Before the battle even began, Marian had likely used the sword to cut through the surrounding space and create a sort of barrier around the area. If she had not, the appearance of the different mythical figures would have created a mysterious phenomenon much like Angel Fall. Or the power could have exceeded the limits of the world itself and everything would have shattered like glass.
Having destroyed the world herself, Othinus knew that was no exaggeration.
"Cut away Amaravati of Indian mythology. Summon Vishnu Avatara, the ever-changing god!!"
An "ending" or "the end of the world" may have held the image of the power of gods or faith waning and an evil one wielding great power. Some may have viewed it as the white and glowing things being blotted out with darkness.
But in some religions, the gods themselves descended to the world and took part in wars.
Shiva, the Indian god of destruction, may have been the most well-known, but there was another god that was just as popular.
Vishnu was the god of preservation.
Brahma, the god of creation, was born from him and he worked to preserve and develop the world that Shiva would destroy. To do this, he used Avatars.
The term "Avatar" may have been best known in its use on the internet, but Vishnu would switch between ten different physical bodies while ending the different wars and calamities on the earth.
Those who worshiped Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva were divided on who the central god was, but they all generally agreed that the three of them formed a trinity that demonstrated its power as the primary god.
In other words, this "ending" did not call in a core of chaos or evil.
It was incomplete and its form was greatly changed, but this beam of light was on the level of a top-ranking god.
By Othinus's reckoning, Vishnu Avatara had manifested for less than ten seconds.
Dáinsleif was said to end the world, but it was still a magic sword made to be wielded by human hands. Even if it could create an embodiment of symbols of evil or sin, it could not perfectly and purely summon one of the top-ranked gods of one of the world's four largest religions. There were said to be ten different avatars, but summoning a chaotic and indistinguishable amalgam for a few seconds had been the limit of that sword.
Even so, the level of power had been incredible.
Demon King Surtr slowly collapsed to the side. That giant violently crushed a great amount of snow and conifer trees while disappearing as if dissolving into the air. Kamijou and Marian had been close by before, but she saw them slide off Surtr's back in the distance. They had only survived because Vishnu Avatara had prioritized the greatest evil first. If the manifestation had lasted even a second longer, they too would have been roasted as an element of conflict.
"?"
Suddenly, Othinus realized that the previous figure was nowhere to be seen.
Mjölnir had disappeared.
“Anyway, Angel Fall is a spell that forcefully pulls an angel down from above, and this will affect the four worlds—in other words, the original world, the world of creation, the formed world and the physical world.”
“…Eh, Tsuchimikado-sensei, may I know what language this Missy is speaking?”
“I’ll explain this. Like what you see, Kami-yan, everyone’s inside and outside have switched. This is like a musical chairs game, once the game starts, the chairs and the people sitting on the chairs will change completely. But in this game, not everyone will get a chair eventually. The only one left without a seat will be squeezed into the sky—to sit on the chair that the angel originally vacated.”
"The man who names himself the Silver Star seems to have been attempting to directly tamper with the 'pure world' beyond all the filters…that is, the world of science that is unaffected by religion. …Honestly, you are quite fortunate to see this. Not even the Golden cabal of Europe that dreamed in Tibet was able to reach this point."
Kamijou Touma tightly clenched his right fist.
(That must mean Imagine Breaker is special to her. It destroys. It does the opposite of what a god does. This hand holds the possibility of erasing what is unnecessary. In that case, it should be possible to fix the gears that have been thrown out of order.)
Ollerus had said Imagine Breaker was the selfish dreams of all magicians.
If their twisting of the world produced a disadvantageous result, that reference point or restoration point could return it to normal or erase what was done.
And wasn't this exactly such a case?
It seemed the filters Othinus spoke of were existences or concepts identical to heaven or hell. He was unsure if he could destroy something so massive. In fact, he could not even imagine what kind of phenomenon would be produced if he touched heaven or hell.
"Like I said, it seems Othinus has free control over the life and death of humans, but I think she has two distinct pieces of software, one for the living and one for the dead /return. Like a god, I guess /escape? Like a heavenly world and a human world /escape? Like heaven and hell /escape? It might be based in a religious concept I don't really understand /return."
"Dictators are still human /return. If they can do whatever they want, they will make their own 'home' as pleasant as possible /return. And that's what she did /return. Simply put, that's what happened here /return. She removed any tragedy from her surroundings, removed all conflict, removed all failure, and removed all objections /return. …However /backspace, is there perhaps a kindness that had to be completely eliminated in this world of happiness /escape?"
"I understand," muttered Kamijou. "After seeing the battles in Hawaii, Baggage City, and Tokyo, I understand that Othinus isn't the type to worry about the people around her. She didn't create this new world out of concern for them. She didn't do away with tragedy because it was making people sad. …It was an eyesore, so she corrected all of humanity's problems as if burying the tragedy out of sight. I understand that much."
"I thought you liked simple battles. So why are you moving back rather than enjoying yourself?"
Othinus never moved from that one spot.
She merely held up her lance.
That was all.
A giant hole opened in the night sky.
It looked like a pitch black moon.
Something had split open. Kamijou caught a glimpse of that evenly black world he had seen before.
No warning was given.
That moon merely fell toward the schoolyard to crush a single boy.
Ksshh
Ksshh
Kamijou leaped to the side with all his strength. He could not worry about appearances. He merely rolled along the dirt to move even a centimeter or millimeter further from that whirl of destruction.
All sound vanished.
A hemispherical crater ten meters across appeared in the ground. This was not the scar left by an explosion. That space had been carved away in the exact shape and size of the black moon.
"This wasn't an even fight," groaned Kamijou while held up by the neck. "This isn't the first time we've had this fight. I don't know if this is the tenth time or the hundredth time, but we've repeated it again and again. And each time, I was probably blown to pieces by the first attack. The only problem left was the integrity of my memories. I subconsciously refused to accept the pain and fear I felt, so I rearranged the memories in my head to look like a fight following a single path. That's what made it look like I was somehow holding my own."
"That answer is worth 50 points."
"Perhaps. Is this schoolyard not the starting point? Do I have to start from the empty black world I first woke up in?"
One hundred times, one thousand times, or even ten thousand times.
Othinus merely had to repeat this. Each time, Kamijou Touma took slightly different actions and made different choices than the time before. Once he ran into a dead end doing that, he would break. It might happen in the direct battle or in one of the countless worlds. If just once, the boy wandered into a dead end and collapsed, Othinus's objective would be achieved.
But at the same time…
Magic God Othinus could control everything. Without exaggeration, she controlled the world itself. If she wanted to, she could have galaxies collide to kill Kamijou Touma. Or she could break the bonds between the particles making up his body and cause his very existence to disperse. If she was the slightest bit dissatisfied with something, she could turn back time, re-lay the rails of fate that led to the future, and create the exact result she wanted.
It might sound like an arrogant or prideful comment. But after Othinus had risen to the territory of a true god, nothing ordinary should have been able to do any mental or physical damage to her. There had been something already there which made her feel that way.
Othinus heard a noise come from her head that sounded like her very skeleton creaking.
It almost looked like small snakes were squirming on the inside of her face's skin.
This was the pulse of her blood vessels.
(His rate of exhaustion should be greater.)
They had repeated this tens of thousands of times, hundreds of thousands of times, and even millions of times.
All so that puny boy would fail just once somewhere along the line.
(I of course have the more accurate continuity of memories, but he still retains fragments of memories. And ignoring the amount of pure information, the static of pain and fear ensures he will break first. He is nothing more than someone who does not know his place. The more he clings to the hope of a victory that will never come, the greater the shock when it vanishes before his eyes. That is when he will break. He has merely walked down the path of destruction of his own free will.)
These were true hells with a density great enough to drive any normal person insane before they could overcome even one. And reaching this point did not release him from it. After saying nothing more than that, he was smashed by Othinus and forced to repeat all of the infinite apocalypses he had finally overcome.
"I don't know the details of this whole 'phase' thing, but you have the ability to freely change the shape of the world like clay. Due to that, you completely forgot what world you originally lived in. You desperately tried to create a world based on the scenery you remembered. You added in and removed phase after phase. …And this was the work of a god. It was probably so close to perfect that no human could tell the difference. But as a god, 'close to perfect' wasn't good enough for you."
After seeing the world she had created with her own power, she had turned back without meaning to.
Given that, she must have feared her own power. If she had truly accepted it with nothing but joy, she would not have tried to turn back.
"In a later era, you wanted the lance and you wanted to alter the world. That must have been because your unease came back. You were concerned that your supposedly perfectly-made world was not so perfect after all. You wanted to work some more on the artwork you had already presented to the public. I don't know what you did to regain the power you had cast aside, but something must have happened for that know-it-all Ollerus to hate you so much. …You longed for the next world because you wanted to add another layer of paint to the canvas. That would explain your internal conflict."
"According to Ollerus, Imagine Breaker is an accumulation of the hopes of all magicians. He said it's a reference point to return the world to normal after it is twisted by their desires. I don't know if that's its true origin, but it can be used like that. You could say this is the other card you could play. It represents the original world. Instead of adding on another layer of paint, you can use this like a palette knife to slowly peel away the previous layers."
Othinus turned her one eye toward her target and held up the lance once more.
A gapless wall of explosions was sent toward Kamijou Touma. There were so many explosions that they seemed to blend into each other.
He did not hold up his right hand.
Instead, he turned his body to the side as if weaving his way through a crowded train and stepped slightly forward.
That was all.
The puny boy's body slipped skillfully through the wall of thousands or tens of thousands of explosions.
"What?"
The result and Othinus's theory did not match, so she spoke aloud with a puzzled expression.
"What happened!? You should not be able to keep up with me with your specs!!"
"No, I can't. And these repeated battles haven't increased my physical strength. Nor have I unlocked a hidden power in Imagine Breaker or anything like that. I'm still me. I haven't become anything else."
"Then…!!"
The twinkling of the stars in the sky was an ominous ill omen.
Each and every one of them transformed into a sharp spear of light and poured down like rain.
However…
"Then how can you survive!?"
"Have you forgotten, Othinus? Or was it such a lame metaphor that you ignored it? It's fun to try all sorts of things against a normally unbeatable opponent to analyze their attack pattern. It may leave no data behind, but it feels like you're accomplishing something!!"
"You can't mean…"
"Even if I can't level up like in an RPG and even if there's no change to my physical strength or supernatural ability, I've been analyzing you all this time. While you killed me again and again, I gradually memorized your combat patterns!! I don't even have to think about it anymore. I can move on instinct!! I had plenty of chances to do this. After all, you stuck with me until I stopped counting altogether!!"
"I see."
The lance audibly sliced through the air as she lightly swung it.
That was not a sign of an attack.
She slowly moved the lance to hold it in both hands.
"I had grown sick of my unfortunate connection to Ollerus, but I had thought that was the limit of opposition this world would present."
"…?"
"However, I suppose the time I have spent with you has surpassed that connection. To think this place would create someone who understands me even more than him. The world seems to enjoy throwing difficulties my way!!"
Her shout acted as a trigger.
Kamijou Touma and Othinus both moved at once.
It ended after one step.
A whirl of destruction burst out.
Time stopped.
Space was compressed.
The standard concepts of time and space no longer had any meaning.
The lance of the head Norse god was named Gungnir. Its handle was made from the wood of an ash tree, the same as the world tree, its sharp tip was made from gold, and it had tremendous power due to the runes personally carved into the Dvergr-made base by the head god.
It had a few different characteristics.
1. The lance was made to be thrown.
2. The lance would always hit its target once thrown.
3. The lance could not be shot down or destroyed mid-flight.
4. The lance would always return to its owner's hands after piercing the target.
Returning to its owner seemed to be a relatively important ability for projectiles. For example, Cú Chulainn from Celtic mythology's spear did not possess that ability and he was ultimately killed when his own spear was thrown back at him. Lightning God Thor's Mjölnir in Norse mythology and Light God Lugh's Fragarach in Celtic mythology were both said to have this ability.
It was possible those weapons' characteristics were meant to make them "wonderful weapons only the special gods were allowed to use and that no human could ever make".
And even with all of those characteristics, the lance of the head Norse god had yet another characteristic that put it a clear step above the weapons' of the other gods.
5. That lance would destroy the symbols of human power.
That came from when Gungnir had broken the legendary sword wielded by the father of Sigurd the hero. When necessary, the head Norse god would take power from humans, implying it was their time to die, and add their soul to the army of the gods.
A human could not defeat a god.
The convenience of the god had priority over everything in the human's world and the workings of the world would act accordingly.
No other characteristic felt more strongly like the power of a god.
Rather than showing simple destructive power by blowing away a mountain or vaporizing the sea, it bluntly indicated the precedence of the god.
In other words, the instant that lance left Othinus's hands, the world would be blown to pieces.
Time returned to normal.
Kamijou once more felt space spread out around him.
As the lance was fired with tremendous force, the "happy world" was smashed to pieces as if space itself was being torn apart. As a fragment of the world approached with the force of a raging wave, it took on the shape of a giant lance. The walls of all the phases were crushed, transformed into a swirl of deadly weapons resembling sharp shards of glass, and approached their pitiful target as if to swallow him whole.
Everything was ripped up.
The black labyrinth, which had used up all of its possibilities, showed itself.
Magic God Othinus had the ability to create, so she was technically not destroying anything. This may have been a change brought about by adding a new phase into the world. Nevertheless, it was blatantly obvious what the scene before Kamijou's eyes would produce. It was the same as referring to the utter destruction of a luxurious palace as "creating a pile of rubble". This was undeniably a torrent of destruction.
The convenience of the world of man meant nothing.
The destruction carried out by the god took precedence.
Its greatest effect was causing any resisting human who saw it to give up.
It provided such an overwhelming feeling of resignation that even an experienced hero would fall to his knees and end his challenge.
Most likely, no one could have escaped that lance when attacked head on. No matter what form of defense or evasion they attempted, they would have had no hope of surviving. That attack had been given the parameter of "no human can oppose it". Unless one left the territory of man, one would be smashed to pieces. Not even Fiamma of the Right or Ollerus could have done anything when faced with it.
There was no way a normal high school boy could overcome it.
Even with a special power in his right hand, he would be smashed to pieces before he could use it.
Yes.
Kamijou Touma was smiling ever so slightly.
"But right now, I can overcome you!!!!"
The action he took was simple.
He tightly clenched his right fist and used his entire body weight to thrust it forward.
No one would have been able to keep up with its overwhelming speed. Their bodies would have been smashed to pieces before they could even hope to follow the tip of the lance with their eyes.
But the experience he had built up accurately guided his movements.
He had achieved a surefire attack that would work on Magic God Othinus and no one else.
Kamijou Touma's right fist was sucked in toward the one point that no one else would have been able to reach.
His fist reached the sharp tip of Gungnir.
In that instant, all sound vanished from the world.
The kind world vanished and everything was dyed in black.
When Kamijou Touma's right fist struck it, the lance veered sharply upward.
When Othinus held up her hand, the lance rotated complexly and began to fly back to her hand through the black sky.
But it never completed the action.
The lance broke apart in midair and completely disintegrated before returning to Othinus like a boomerang.
"…"
Kamijou's fist did not escape unscathed.
The middle and ring finger of his supposedly tightly clenched fist had been twisted at a distinctly odd angle.
Even so, the boy smiled.
As battered as he was, he smiled.
"It's…over…" He could feel that this was the case. "I…ended it… You can't…escape my dream…"
"Gungnir did nothing more than point my powers in the direction of 100% success. But the fairy spell Ollerus used on me at the very end gave me another possibility as a Magic God: 100% failure. That possibility means all of my actions will backfire. But if I know I will always fail, I can achieve victory by always choosing the exact opposite of my initial impression. …Even without the lance, a Magic God is still a Magic God!! This is not even remotely over!!!!!!"
"I built a spell out of a historical fact the great Christian powers carried out without realizing it. Simply put, they shrank down the pagan gods. The king of the forest transformed into a dwarf. The queen of the sea was remade into a female monster that sank ships. The god that is hit by this spell will be dragged down from the territory of a magic god and forcibly returned to the territory of a human!!"
One theory said the gods of the many old religions that conflicted with Christianity were reclassified as evil gods who fell under the category of demons. Those became clear enemies, but there were others that had been remade into beings that lived alongside mankind.
In other words, fairies.
These small neighbors were frightening beings that kidnapped people and ate their insides, but they would also help with one's job or housework if certain conditions were met. The religious powers had once forbidden belief in them, but they had remained in the people's hearts. These beings had not been completely remade as enemies or completely eliminated. Unlike the evil gods whose great power was recognized but were seen as merciless enemies, most of these had managed to remain unchanged in people's hearts on the condition that they were made powerless or shrank down.
Ollerus had created a system from this and contained it within a single spell.
The word "fairy" was not all that rare. Religions did not treat it as taboo and it filled children's fairy tales and picture books. However, very few people had accurately extracted their true form and original role from the flood of information. It was similar to how the great mixture of information on the modern internet diluted the trustworthiness and credibility of the information found there.
And that was why only one who had taken a step into the territory of a magic god could extract the spell to kill a magic god.
It was a twisted method, but it was obvious what would happen if that spell struck Othinus who had reached the territory of a magic god.
"Even if all of mankind worked together, they would have no way of opposing the being known as a magic god. And that simple truth does not change even when one includes those of us who only barely remain within the territory of a human," said Ollerus.
He spoke of the beginning of a certain death.
"So instead of trying to bring mankind higher, I will drag you down. I will tear off your wings, strike you from the air, and throw you to the throngs of people who can only crawl along the ground. …This is the end. Even if humans cannot kill a god, we can manage against a fairy."
Othinus, or the head Norse god which became the origin of the name, had left behind many different legends as the center of the system making up a mythology. That god did not necessarily use only one weapon and there were records of that god defeating various different enemies with various different blades.
And there was one weapon specifically associated with Othinus rather than Odin.
It was simply known as a crossbow.
No one knew its official name, much less how it was produced. That phantom weapon had left only a description of its frightening destructive power in the texts. That symbol of the head god was too obscure to be called a legend and had mostly been covered by the mists of time.
It was said that crossbow could simultaneously hold ten arrows in a fan shape.
What exactly could this be compared to?
Perhaps a super-long railgun that targeted someone on the planet's surface after eternal acceleration using straight guiderails stretching from one end of the universe to the other.
Perhaps a singularity weapon that created destruction unexplainable with Newtonian physics by directly messing with the smallest particles dealing with mass and motion such as the bosons and the Higgs particle.
In all likelihood, expressing it with words was meaningless.
Even if one gathered everything that could be expressed with words, it was unlikely one could shoot down that crossbow.
Kamijou Touma leaped to the side with all his strength.
…The first shot fell vertically from the heavens.
It held the destructive power needed to easily wipe out a planet or two, but it was beyond the point of creating anything like a crater. This was no different from a rifle bullet fired with the initial velocity of a sniper rifle piercing glass without breaking it. The arrow had been fired with such great speed that it pierced the pitch black ground without waiting for the impact to propagate.
…The second shot seemed to skim the ground as it was fired behind him and diagonally to the left.
Kamijou crouched down and the arrow passed over his head and swept across the world. Its trajectory was angled downward slightly and it created a giant valley in that black-dyed world.
Othinus did not move from her spot.
She and Kamijou had to be the same. They were both pouring all their strength into defeating their opponent.
…The third and fourth shots burst up through the ground.
They stabbed up a few meters away on either side of Kamijou. It was a trap. If he rashly moved even a step to evade, he would be smashed to pieces.
The more unnecessary actions he took, the farther he would be from victory.
He sharpened his senses like a needle and pictured himself stretching forward and piercing Othinus with that needle.
…The fifth shot came from directly in front of him.
His movements to the left and right were already sealed off and now Othinus had thrown a straight pitch. For the first time, Kamijou swung his right hand. But not in a straight impact meant to destroy. He scooped his hand up from below, traced his hand along the surface of the arrow, and diverted its trajectory upwards.
He ran straight forward.
…The sixth and seventh shots scraped across Othinus's shoulders.
The two arrows were fired from behind her and they collided in midair before reaching him. With a tremendous explosive noise, the two arrows' trajectories changed complexly. The boy evaded one by ducking his upper body down and then jumped over the other with a great leap.
Devoting himself to evasion was meaningless.
His path threatened to waver, but he used the power of his will to desperately keep himself on course.
…The eighth shot overcame the restrictions of the third dimension.
Kamijou felt a static electricity-like spark on his spine and immediately swung his head to the side as hard as he could. An instant later, space suddenly split open and an arrow assaulted the world.
He focused on his trajectory.
The several meter path to Othinus appeared clearly in his head.
…The ninth shot ignored the concept of numbers.
The arrows that fell from above colored the night sky like fireworks and glittered like stars covering the heavens. Every single one of them was fatal, but Kamijou did not freeze up. No matter how torrentially they rained down, there was always a safe space left to step in.
He was going to reach her.
He glared at Othinus's face and clenched his right fist tighter than before.
"Othinus!!"
In the instant he shouted out, he was certain of his victory.
He stopped thinking about the tenth shot altogether. That was why he had reached the idea of ending this before she could fire it.
But his mistake was understandable.
The final shot approached from directly behind Magic God Othinus.
And she did not move a single step.
In other words, the arrow unhesitatingly pierced through Othinus.
The final arrow broke through the girl's entire body and assaulted Kamijou from the blind spot directly in front of him.
"…Ah."
Time stopped.
He was too slow to react.
By the time he heard a dull sound, the final arrow had already been absorbed into his chest and accurately targeted his heart.
This was nothing as kind as piercing or breaking him.
In the instant of impact, Kamijou Touma's body was smashed to pieces from the chest down. As his heart continued to writhe in midair, the tip of the arrow caught it and blasted it to the farthest reaches of that world.
She had supposedly taken the exact same damage, but not so much as a single scratch remained on her smooth skin. The destruction had indeed occurred, but the wounds had immediately repaired themselves like watching the destruction of gelatin in reverse.
"Honestly," muttered Othinus as she lay on the ground and stared up at all the twinkling stars overhead. "You cannot kill a god with that, humans. I knew this would happen, but this is going to take forever. This is like wearing down bone with a file."
"This is called the Bone Boat. Just like the crossbow, this magic item is used by Othinus but not Odin. I can freely change its size and it can cross all of the world's oceans in an instant."
"In an instant? Wait a minute. If it teleports you, I can't go along. My right hand would negate it."
"Then rethink your viewpoint," she muttered while rubbing her fingers along the writing on the side. "It does not move the two of us. It moves everything except for us. It rotates the whole planet around."
An instant later, the scenery grew distorted.
"I-if you're gonna conveniently teleport us around the planet, why didn't you bring us closer?"
"Don't be silly. How many tens of thousands of kilometers do you think that spell took us? This is a decent margin of error. Really, you should be praising my skill since we didn't crash into the Himalayas on the way and we weren't dumped into the middle of the ocean."
"Quick question: did the other members of Gremlin do everything they could to stop you from using that spell, by any chance? Did they insist on using boats and airplanes when traveling?"
"By the way, what time is it?"
"Do the clocks even mean anything anymore? When you used that…what was it? Bone Boat? Anyway, you spun the earth around, didn't you?"
"After rotating everything except the two of us, I rotated the entire heavenly body while we stood on it to put the earth back in its proper position. The international standard time will still work."
"The scariest thing about a magic god is how you can handle things like that as if it's a minor annoyance."
Rather than just being destroyed once, the world had been remade into millions or even billions of forms to break Kamijou's mind, but it seemed their imagination had not brought them that far.
"Othinus!? But…how!?"
"How? You were part of the reason."
The palm-sized Othinus lay down next to his head.
"First, I had yet to put in the eye and was thus essentially a magic god and not a human. Second, you destroyed the fairy spell with Imagine Breaker before I fired the final crossbow shot, so I was not completely destroyed. Third, having her body crumble was not enough to kill a magic god."
His mind could not keep up with the sudden explanation.
He immediately looked over to Index, but her eyes were opened wide too. Her 103,000 grimoires only had the knowledge needed to make a magic god out of a human, so they may not have included what would happen afterwards.
Othinus waved her index finger while lying face down.
"At that point, Magic God Othinus was 99% destroyed, but it seems the remaining pieces gathered together on their own. My body changed form somewhat and I can no longer use my former power, but it seems I have remained behind."
It was absolutely ridiculous.
The idea of a human gathering together again after being smashed to pieces sounded like complete nonsense, but he could not question it further when he was talking about a magic god. If Othinus said that was how it worked, he could only accept it.
In fact, he himself had seen it happen before.
In that infinite hell, she had hidden the final crossbow shot behind herself and pulverized her own body along with his, but her body had soon regenerated as if nothing had happened.
(But would my body "automatically" re-form with no intervention from my will? I still have my questions about that.)The God of Magic is eternal and cannot die. He cannot be affected by any standard means, including physical and spiritual. Even if you find a way to kill the God of Magic, he will still come back, even if his entire body has turned into particles of light, and only 1% of his body remains.
"Even if your form and the total amount of power contained within it have changed, you are still closer to being a magic god than a human. You have been weakened too far to ever use magic again, though. To be blunt, do you even have a lifespan? If throwing you into a cell for a hundred years wouldn't add a single wrinkle, imprisonment won't accomplish anything. We need to create a new punishment that will be especially effective against you and only you."
he's universal at least and has some various haxes and resistances, although I'm not sure on the specifics of those as I don't read too many superhero comics
If Genis wins, he'll be privileged enough to be able to clear To Aru
Why does Genis power bomb just because he’s universal+? Sure Othinus is only able to effect one universe. But she destroyed and recreated that universe billions of times over. There’s also the existences of phases which contains the homes of Gods and gods themselves.he can two shot alien x for starters
serious post
well
helped to fight for a while against omega thanosi (a being which was thanos's clone mixed galactus's dna and was stated to be in several occasions as strong as the og and in others, even stronger than galactus, we know that he ain't stronger though cuz galactus's top tiers feats are still on the at least multiversal+ range, so we go by the minimum = still casual universal+ for omega thanosi)
and they had to still run away after trapping omega thanosi, lol
in the later arcs, a quite stronger genis caused a big bang during the eternity event, as a side effect
and nerfed eternity still is > omega thanosi
i mean ok
we trolls genis, but he still gives e rated = e stands for everyone hands on no aru, one of the strongest universal+ chars out there, despite his downgrade
mftl+ speeds superior to any no aru char, since very, very few animu/mango etc chars can keep up marvel/dc mftl+ speeds
has also causality manipulation, cosmic tier awareness, space/time techs, reality warping, high level illusions, can become non corporeal for a while, can bfr others to various dimensions, etc
summary: rom and genis can still double powerbomb the no aru verse, just fine
"But still," muttered fifteen centimeter Othinus. "Through all of those hundreds of billions of phases, I missed the Misaka Network that manipulated the border between life and death. Does he also contain the possibility to always show up or appear anew in every world or phase I created?"
“Whatever. Anyways, the 'Kabbalah' represents the 'soul level' of God: Angels, humans, et cetera. Simply put, humans can climb the ranks with training. But, at some point, they’ll hit a wall they can’t climb.”
“...You're treating me like an idiot, aren't you? What are you trying to say?”
“Is your pride hurt? What I'm trying to say is… there are some disciplines that humans can't reach no matter how much they try. But, humans do want to continue their ascent no matter what. Magicians became magicians because they want to surpass human limits. If so, what must humans do to surpass this limit?” His expression seemed like he would rip his sneer apart. “It’s simple. They just need to borrow the power from something that isn’t human.” Kamijou could not speak.
She recognized what she had just heard. Kabbalah had the concept of the Sephirot tree. It was a diagram with 10 levels that divided up the positions of humans, angels, and god. And on that Sephirot tree, the crucial position of god was nowhere to be found.
Ain Soph Aur, Ain Soph, Ain.
000, 00, 0.
“The so-called Tree of Life is basically a hierarchy of identities, separating God, angels, humans and souls into ten levels on a pyramid; this is the basic concept.”
“It’s based on the picture drawn out to show that God reigns supreme over everything. Well, simply put, this picture shows that humans can only reach a certain level, and beyond is God’s territory, so it can’t be invaded.”
“The number of humans and angels were already decided, thus in ordinary circumstances, humans are definitely unable to be promoted to become angels. In contrast, angels are never to be demoted to be humans.”
“Because every single realm is already filled up.”
However, the people drifting through that darkness showed no concern. They implicitly said that this was the natural state of the world or that someone had yet to whisper "let there be light".
Direction and depth were indistinguishable in that black space, but three distinct presences existed there.
"So have we managed to finish in time, Nephthys?"
The three presences intentionally all looked in the same direction.
That produced directionality in the all-encompassing and heavy darkness.
That directionality took the form of depth and finally defined the entire space.
"Yes. That zombie girl is useful at times like this. Thanks to her background of actively drawing in a great number of cultures, she has an affinity for most anything."
"But, High Priest," cut in a girl's voice that sounded even younger and also childish. "Miss Zombie's theory is essentially the same as holding up opposing mirrors, right? By splitting up our power infinitely, we can intentionally weaken ourselves and avoid destroying the world whenever we move an arm or leg."
"What about it, Niang-Niang?"
"I'm just wondering if the symbol ∞ will really grow weaker when you split it up. I don't want to smash the world up like stained glass the first step I take. We're not like Othinus."
"It doesn't matter if it's a mere deception as long as it works. Just like a Moebius strip or a Klein bottle, some concepts are allowed to exist even if they can't be properly defined, Niang-Niang."
The earth, the universe, and the world were nothing but a giant balloon. And a Magic God was a potted cactus wobbling on top of the balloon. That would cause anyone to panic. Once one learned of its existence, they would be worried around the clock that the cactus would eventually topple over as it moved freely about.
"Have you forgotten?" Othinus sounded almost utterly exasperated. "This is the Dianoid. The entire building is made of carbon materials. That means you don't need control over every phase, every dimension, and every element to manipulate everything around you. A magician with control over carbon and nothing else can pull that one off."
"…"
"There are two primary legends about St. Germain. The first is how he conquered aging whether by immortality or time travel. His predictions of the future and knowledge of great secrets are derived from the time travel. The second is his ability to control jewels and restore scratched diamonds. Doesn't that seem to fit with the clichéd situation we have now?"
"The Voodoo Zombie did an excellent job. I'm sure of it now that I've walked around the area a bit. The spell has adapted to our bodies, so now we can move through the world without breaking it."
"Nee hee hee. Splitting up our power like opposing mirrors, huh?"
Niang-Niang laughed like a mischievous child. She wore a short white China dress and had a distinctive charm attached to her forehead which she poked at with her index finger.
"By infinitely dividing our infinite power, we've kept ourselves at a level just barely low enough for this world to contain. …But in a way, this is the worst possible transformation, don't you think? You could just keep killing and killing us without end. Like a matryoshka doll or an onion, you would have to fight a nearly eternal battle to completely kill us."
"Found your feet? Do you mean that spell that infinitely divides the infinite capacity of a Magic God to trick the world by eternally layering existences that are just barely small enough for the world to contain?"
For one thing, no one existed who could kill a being that the world could only just barely contain. Whether a Magic God's power was divided by a billion or a trillion, a mere magician was still not enough to kill them.
The Magic God's existence was infinitely layered like a matryoshka doll or an onion. A Magic God was impossible to kill in the first place, but one would have to kill them a trillion or a quadrillion times before they would cease to exist.
Magic Gods would have no reason to enter into a conflict with humans. It was true humanity had enough weaponry to blow up the planet dozens of times over or to bring about their own ruin hundreds of times over. But if they used every last one of those weapons on the Magic Gods like there was a sale on implements of destruction, could they so much as scratch them?
What lay at his feet was the secret hidden in District 15's greatest landmark.
Yes.
At the base of the Dianoid, the 120 thousand ton building floated ten centimeters off the surface of the earth.
One way to protect buildings from earthquakes was to float them a few centimeters off the ground with the power of air. That would protect them from the tremors.
But that only applied to normal houses.
It was impossible to lift up a seventy story building and keep it standing without it losing balance.
Normally, that is.
"A graviton-style artificial gravity control device, hm?" St. Germain smiled. "Diamonds are slowly formed when carbon molecules are compressed deep underground. To put it another way, artificial diamonds require mankind to reproduce that extreme high pressure environment. …But on this level, it goes beyond a mere laboratory. This can probably produce diamonds like candy in a factory."
And….
This secret usage of the Dianoid could do more than reliably mass-produce artificial diamonds.
For example…
"A black hole bomb…well, maybe not that much. A dwarf star bomb is probably the most they can manage."
Rumors filled the underside of the city that a new type of bomb was hidden in the Dianoid. Anyone who was familiar with the name Frenda Seivelun had assumed that secret was related to her, but…
"You could say it is like compressing the earth and the moon down to the size of a fist. Matter produces heat when compressed, so I suppose this would create temperatures in the range of ten to twenty thousand degrees. That should be enough to take care of even Imagine Breaker."
"It isn't something we could simply ignore," said the High Priest. "Kamijou Touma, do you believe in destiny?"
"Destiny?"
"Ha ha. That may be difficult for someone poisoned by science in Academy City, but you must have always felt that you were burdened with misfortune."
"…"
"There is such a thing as unavoidable destiny. There are powerful rails that cannot be overcome by an individual's decisions. But even that is ultimately nothing more than the result of an unseen clash between the opinions of Magic Gods. Of course, we have no intention of harming any specific individual. In fact, the individuals clinging to this puny planet never enter our field of vision. Still, our actions are constantly affecting the outside world and make great changes in the world. It can be quite a problem."
Talk of fortune and misfortune reminded Kamijou of the Saints in addition to himself.
One of them was so constantly dealt a lucky hand that she feared those around her would always be dealt an unlucky hand.
"That is the same," readily stated the High Priest. "It is true Saints fall on the fortunate side of things, but they had no say in being born a Saint. That means there were some larger rails in place there. The very fact that they receive that fortune as Saints was determined by that unshakeable destiny."
At that point, the mummy laughed dryly.
"Although, if we're talking about destiny, then you would be the sole exception. Thanks to your Imagine Breaker, even the vague power of us Magic Gods is uniformly leveled out. That keeps any large waves away from you alone and keeps you in constant misfortune."
In other words…
"We do not bother looking to the outside."
"…"
"We are only interested in the others inside Gremlin. A world that is distorted by our own infighting is like a house built on sand. Focusing on it is as meaningless as on a sandpainting that will be blown away by the wind. At this point, have you finally caught on that we mean no harm?"
"I already said that we have no interest in the outside world. The different Magic Gods are fighting over the limited resources to decide what to do with the one and only world. Whether we peacefully talk it out or exchange blows, our actions could unintentionally shake destiny to the point that the outside world is destroyed. Even for us, there are areas where we do not know what should be done with the world and cannot tell where the world is headed. But what if we could provide a definite directional focus with a singular set of values?"
"The gathering of Magic Gods known as Gremlin could also be called the keyboard connected to the world and to destiny. Simply having someone push or pull at it is enough to distort the current age. It isn't an issue of any individual. We are all bringing about change. And we do so whether we continue forward or turn back. No, even doing nothing affects it."
"That is also correct. It would be a problem if the 'no threats found' message was a complete lie, but anything else is fine. For example, if the security software itself takes over the memory and monitors all communications. We are willing to overlook such trivial matters to grant your selfish wishes. As I said before, this is a prayer that allows a human to interfere with the paths set by the gods. We may be weakened at the moment due to certain circumstances, but we can still likely create enough of a disturbance to save or destroy an individual, a nation, or a civilization. Do you understand now?"
"Kah kah!! It is merely a matter of sooner or later, but are you that intent on putting it off until later!? That's fine, though. I will go along with your games, our sheath and our scorer. You will become our as-yet unseen seventh path and the physical form of our formless peace of mind. My power as a Magic God is currently limited and I only retain one thin layer of the power piled up like the infinite layers of an onion or matryoshka doll. But infinitely dividing that infinite power still leaves me with enough power to just barely be contained in this world!!!!!"
A deafening sound exploded behind Kamijou.
He braked as hard as he could, felt that was not enough, and pressed the soles of his shoes against the brick walking path.
The acrobike screeched to a stop with a burning smell.
It was over.
Kamijou gulped.
The result was plain as day, but he found it hard to believe what he saw.
He felt dizzy.
Still, he had to accept it.
Otherwise, he could not move on.
After all…
"Kah kah."
He heard parched laughter.
It did not come from Fiamma.
Fiamma's laughter did not sound like it came from a whistle made of dried grass.
"Kah kah kah! Kah kah kah kah kah kah kah kah kah kah kah kah kah!!"
"Dammit! Fiamma!!"
Shouting was not going to help.
It had already been over by the time they had crossed paths. The giant stake of light had stretched all the way across the large park, but it was shattering like glass and vanishing. No, it was more than just that. The one-armed man rotated quickly through the air. He made more than just one rotation. He was stuck in a wild spin with no thought given to control or a safe landing. He was clearly going to slam into the ground's dried grass without bracing himself.
It was unclear just what kind of battle had unfolded, but the result could not have been more obvious.
Not even Fiamma of the Right had been able to do anything. Not even his prized fairy spell had stopped the High Priest.
"Didn't you hear from the High Priest? Thanks to 'him', we're weakened at the moment. We had hoped your Imagine Breaker could do something about that, but it didn't work. Not that it really matters."
"We're not the ones this is a real problem for. I just can't figure out what 'he' was thinking by dragging us into the real world in this incomplete state. You could say we're in a state where we can destroy the world but lack the strength to recreate it afterwards."
When it came down to it, a Magic God like him had no real reason why he had to settle things with Kamijou Touma right away. His mummy body would continue to function indefinitely. Just as Othinus had lived a long, long mind-numbing amount of time to find someone who understood her, it did not entirely matter to him as long as it was all resolved in the very end. Of course, he was nothing but a disaster to those who only had a one hundred year lifespan and were being constantly targeted in this normal world. In other words, the wait may have been the most frightening part.
It came from the index and middle finger of someone's right hand.
They plunged into the center of Niang-Niang's flat chest and stabbed in up to the second joint.
"Ah? Eh?"
She looked utterly confused.
There was no pain. She could not tell why she had been stabbed. In fact, how had someone approached right in front of her without her noticing? And who were they anyway?
She did not have time to ask those questions.
True destruction awaited her.
At first, Nephthys thought Niang-Niang's pulse was escaping to the outside world, but that was not what it was.
(She's being absorbed?)
Nephthys tensed as she saw something unbelievable.
The fact that a Magic God was reacting like a frightened animal was enough for her to tremble.
(Niang-Niang is… A Magic God is being absorbed!?)
"No."
Her frightening thoughts were cut off by a soft voice.
It was a common sort of kind voice found in any city. It belonged to a boy of a mid-sized build with brown hair. The great gap between what was happening and the person doing it just about short-circuited Nephthys's mind.
"I am not absorbing her. Nor am I taking anything from her. I am simply giving her salvation. But only to the person who believes that this is salvation."
"Sal…vation?"
She doubted her ears when she heard that unbelievable word.
She grew even more confused when she saw Niang-Niang's face.
That Magic God girl had always been by her side.
Her expression was not one of fear, doubt, or confusion.
It was swollen with tranquility.
She was smiling.
"Heh…heh heh. It'll finally be over. I'll finally be freed. I…I…!! Nephthys, this is amazing! I…ahh…I've never felt so relieved!! Ah ha ha ha ha!!"
Something inside her was clearly absorbed, the size of her body visibly shrank, and she became nothing but the external skin. But that was what made it so strange. It was just like how certain wasps numbed their prey's nerves before feasting on them. The mismatch between the external phenomenon and the bliss in her mind released a joyful voice from the girl.
"A new world."
The brown-haired boy readily spoke while crushing Niang-Niang like a milk carton.
"My right hand is a collection of such dreams. I believe its name was…yes, World Rejecter."
"You can't. You can't possibly. Parallel worlds don't-…"
"Yes, the world is ultimately a straight line like the rubber string nailed onto pachinko machines. There is no infinite expanse of parallel worlds. But at the same time, the world is a rubber string. It can stretch or contract like time or space. The world we know has a surprising amount of waste. It's like using only ten frames when using sixty fps film. No one will notice if you stick some subliminal footage in using two or three of the leftover frames. This is what you wished for, isn't it? You Magic Gods wished for this even though you knew it could never come true. You checked the farthest reaches of the universe and all of the piled-up phases and you realized there was nothing new left. But if it was possible, you wished to leave behind this troublesome world and spread your wings in a new world no one else knows of."
Nephthys realized she could no longer hear Niang-Niang's voice.
In fact, her flat skin and China dress were gone too.
She had been absorbed and consumed before disappearing to some distant place.
"Oh? I had thought she was hiding the weapons up her sleeves, but it looks like she wasn't. So she was transforming her fingertips. Well, it is true the sages were incarnations of transcending the human body."
She was surrounded by the deafening sound of thousands of insect wings scraping together. In an instant, her brown silhouette blurred. Her divinity had been created based on the crying woman who was paid to take part in funerals. In this case in particular, that referred to the thousands or tens of thousands of servants who were buried alive in the pyramid for the pharaoh's burial.
That made Nephthys different from the other Magic Gods. The others had thoroughly honed their powers as an individual, but she had specialized her power as something that could be separated, split apart, cut away, and swapped out.
In other words, she held it in reserve.
Even after being hit by Aleister's weakening spell, she still had enough power to swap out the phase just once.
"And I'm sorry to say, Miss Revenge, that I'm willing to kill if it's for that goddamn stupid brother who so enjoys that creepy harem of his! That conviction will never be shaken!!"
But even so, the mistake was a devastating one.
Once the initial attack failed, this was back in Mass Murderer Salome's territory.
She had consumed so many girls to thoroughly polish up her External Offering's chain. She could now slice a warship in two with a single swing of her arm and she swung that arm almost casually.
Kihara Yuiitsu gave up on using her shield.
For the first time, she jumped to the side with all her might to dodge.
But not even that was enough.
A moment later, Kihara Yuiitsu's right hand was severed with a noise so pleasant it seemed out of place.
The rough black threads that had sewn on the stolen hand were torn. It was not a perfect cut, but it made it more than two-thirds of the way through and it looked even more painful dangling there only partially severed.
"First, I'll be taking that right hand back."
The raincoat girl smiled fiercely.
"That belongs to my goddamn stupid brother. That power was given to Kamisato Kakeru. Figuring out how to deal with it is his job, so an outsider like you can't decide for him."
"Hee hee."
Then something odd happened.
Kihara Yuiitsu laughed despite having her right hand more than two-thirds severed.
"It's true I didn't know the exact conditions for activating World Rejecter. But you seem to be mistaken about something too. Perhaps I'm only aware of this thanks to gaining the power for myself."
"?"
"Such strange symbolism. Just like Imagine Breaker is both the power to reject and a reference point or restoration point for everything, World Rejecter is both the power to accept and something like deletion software. Instead of simply destroying its target, it erases it by processing it into something no one can read."
She sounded calm and she did not stop.
"Maybe that was a little off topic. No, I suppose not. World Rejecter holds the power to erase Magic Gods by the dozen, but it does not completely destroy them. If you can never see them again, it might as well be death, but that isn't quite accurate."
"Salome… This isn't good. Fall back. This is really, really bad!!"
"If it can send them there, this right hand must cross between the two territories. You can think of it like Dejima during the isolationist Sakoku period. And if this right hand acts as a convenient 'end of the world' for what lies on the other side…"
Kamijou felt something crawl down his back.
He could not let her say this.
This alone he could never let her say.
And then Kihara Yuiitsu raised her nearly destroyed right hand as if to smash those strange warning bells in his mind.
She held it forward.
"…then wouldn't I also be able to use it like this? …Paging Niang-Niang."
Something bubbled out from Kihara Yuiitsu's wrist…no, from within the right hand.
"Ah."
Before Kamijou's thoughts caught up, it was already beginning.
Something flowed out from the gaping wound. It resembled a sticky fluid and it wrapped around Kihara Yuiitsu's arm as it moved up to her shoulder. Its surface began bubbling even more intensely.
Something was swelling out from her shoulder.
It looked like two arms were attached to the same shoulder, but that was inaccurate.
Something had grown there.
Something long and slender had crawled up from the broken right hand and grown out from the shoulder.
"Ahhh."
It was a slender girl's body. Her skin was far too pale to be a living human, a charm was attached to her forehead, a white mini China dress covered her body, and a provocative look filled her eyes.
"Niang-Niang. She should have only been able to appear 'within' the right hand, but you just had to do this, didn't you? Even when they sealed off the nation, Western ideas still found their way in and everyone who saw the black ships floating out at sea could not help but tremble. In the same way, you might be able to restrict their coordinates, but there is no way to suppress the very existence of a god."
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?"
Kamijou Touma screamed at the top of his lungs.
A moment later, Niang-Niang spread her arms and all ten fingers transformed into independent swords, spears, axes, staffs, etc. They all shook like musical instruments and sent out a high-pitched din.
And…
And…
And…
This was the ultimate majesty of a god.
It was what lurked within a certain boy's right hand.
The power of a supposedly defeated Magic God filled the dark night of that school.
"Eh heh heh."
Something happened as the boy and girls watched on.
A mini-China girl had already come from that right arm, but now some even odder things burst from the shoulder.
One was a tall gentle-looking blond man with fur attached much like a lion's mane.
One was a brown man with a black, polished round mirror in place of a leg.
One was a young and beautiful woman with a black Western mourning dress and a veil of the same color hiding her expression.
One was a half-naked young man with war paint tattoos covering his entire body and a silver prosthetic for his left arm.
Including the mini-China, there were five in all.
The original human hand was hidden from view as if buried inside a sea anemone. The five figures had become giant fingers and the whole functioned as a gigantic hand which the lab coat woman freely opened and closed as her new fingers.
"Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!"
Her loud laughter seemed to rule the world.
"Yes, yes! This right hand truly is unfair. They're not the strange ones. The problem is this World Rejecter that allows them to appear in this world despite belonging to another category altogether!!"
"You remember…that Magic God called the High Priest, right? They're all like that. …She can pull out monsters on his level by the dozen!!"
"Those aren't the real Magic Gods."
He looked at his enemy again.
He faced their true identity.
"They aren't even 'what lurks inside that right hand'."
It was odd that he had been able to deflect a Magic God's attack with just one hand.
He relied on that sense that something was not right.
"Those are only fakes made to look like the Magic Gods. Yes, you let Sample Shoggoth invade your body in order to attach that severed right hand!!"
That was the same thing that had once eaten into Patricia Birdway.
It was an amorphous monster that could take any form.
He had no idea how she had tamed it and it may have been eating into her as they spoke, but she had accepted it as her weapon despite the risk.
Which meant…
"You created models of the Magic Gods and you had some seemingly-related magic prepared from somewhere else. …The attenuated St. Germain virus. It's hard to believe, but you apparently surrendered your own brain to trick the right hand's recognition. If I'm remembering right, the people controlled by that could use magic regardless of their original knowledge or ability! Specifically, they could use magic related to carbon and plants, and that means that pomegranate spell you just used!!"
She had just been borrowing the Magic Gods' reputation.
By creating a hollow image of them and using magic when she should not have been able to, she had made it look like she had summoned the Magic Gods.
Also, Kihara Yuiitsu had switched strategies as soon as she had learned World Rejecter was useless against Mass Murderer Salome and the rest of the Kamisato Faction girls.
In other words, she had wanted to change the stagnant and unfavorable mood covering the dark schoolyard. World Rejecter had proved less almighty than hoped, so she had wanted to give it new value using the great impact of…no, the bluff of drawing out the Magic Gods at will.
It was Niang-Niang.
Her fingers transformed into swords, spears, axes, staffs, etc.
Those weapons tore through the dark night like laser beams.
No lightning surged from the tips of the blades and the spears were not actually thrown.
They extended.
The ten weapons grew explosively and spread out in a fan shape. Shocked, Mikoto quickly used magnetism to change direction in midair and just barely avoided them. One after another, they stabbed into the wall of a nearby building.
"…"
Next thing she knew, there was a face there.
The concept of distance was meaningless. It took her a moment to realize that Niang-Niang's weapons had shrunk back down and forcibly "pulled" her and Kihara Yuiitsu to instantly fill the gap between them.
Yuiitsu twisted her body in midair to unleash a kick.
This absolute method would create bubbles in the blood and kill anyone cleanly hit by it, so Salome placed her half-destroyed but still artificial body in the path of the attack and the heavy blow struck her body.
"If this was a Magic God's attack, I doubt this would work as a shield," rapidly summed up Kamijou. "At full power, Othinus could instantly crush the galaxy down to its pre-Big Bang state. And with some of his power gone, the High Priest could fuse with a comet and bring an ice age to the earth. Yet we're fine just by hiding behind a column? They're firing like crazy and we defended against it with a mere shield? That's not possible. The Magic God brand isn't that cheap."
Why does Genis power bomb just because he’s universal+? Sure Othinus is only able to effect one universe. But she destroyed and recreated that universe billions of times over. There’s also the existences of phases which contains the homes of Gods and gods themselves.
Edit: Othinus also isn’t the strongest character in Toaru, there’s still the True Magic Gods. Who are all stronger than Othinus.
Except it does?Because that alone doesn't make someone Universal+, it just means you can destroy and recreate one Universe over and over again like how someone can destroy billions of Planets and stars doesn't make them Galaxy level.
What layer? She explicitly destroyed all phases except for the Hidden World and Pure World.And secondly, she never affected that layer meanwhile Galactus actually CAN and such, so would that Thanos Clone.
Because this isn’t Genis versus Othinus? This is Genis vs To aru and the True Magic Gods are stronger than her.EDIT: And I'm not even sure why you added the True Magic Gods here, you literally just stated and we was shown proof that Othinus doesn't stack with them in the slightest. So there's no reason to bring any of their feats here, especially as headache inducing as they are with their "Infinitely Infinite power that completely ignores mathematics and logic which makes you seriously wonder the fuck is even the point?"
Except Gungnir throw destroyed all those hundreds of billions of phases at once. (+probably the phases of all other religions...)Because that alone doesn't make someone Universal+, it just means you can destroy and recreate one Universe over and over again like how someone can destroy billions of Planets and stars doesn't make them Galaxy level.
The "all phases" was later retconned to not include hidden world, but obviously included all the phases Othinus herself created, as it was also confirmed that Othinus had destroyed everything except the hidden world.Kamijou once more felt space spread out around him.
As the lance was fired with tremendous force, the “happy world” was smashed to pieces as if space itself was being torn apart. As a fragment of the world approached with the force of a raging wave, it took on the shape of a giant lance. The walls of all the phases were crushed, transformed into a swirl of deadly weapons resembling sharp shards of glass, and approached their pitiful target as if to swallow him whole.
Everything was ripped up.
Except it does?
Universal level power means you have the power to effect the universe. If you can destroy the universe, you are universal, if you can create a universe, you are universal. Creating and destroying a universe, even if it is the same one, is universal. Also the example doesn’t make sense because of the scale, there are way more than a billion planets in a galaxy plus stars, asteroids, meteorites, gas clouds and stuff.
However, being able to destroy a billion planets would make one planet buster+. Same thing with Othinus. I’m not arguing she’s infinite multiversal or anything, but she’s definitely universal+.
Which is supported by Othinus herself saying that there are gods who could destroy the universe like she did on higher phases, but when she became a magic god she was still able to destroy it all.
What layer? She explicitly destroyed all phases except for the Hidden World and Pure World.
Because this isn’t Genis versus Othinus? This is Genis vs To aru and the True Magic Gods are stronger than her.
Edit: It’s up to the op if they don’t want to debate TMG’s.
Except Gungnir throw destroyed all those hundreds of billions of phases at once. (+probably the phases of all other religions...)
Destroying the universe together with hundreds of billions of universe sized pocket dimensions doesn't make her universal+?Dude, none of that makes her Universal+, that misses the entire point of why Universal+ exists.
It's basically just alternate dimensions. Don't really get what you find so difficult about it......Ugh, Phase shit still never makes sense and will never make sense.
Dude, none of that makes her Universal+, that misses the entire point of why Universal+ exists.
Destroying the universe together with hundreds of billions of universe sized pocket dimensions doesn't make her universal+?
brah...
Then again, I can't find a precise definition of the term anywhere aside from being far above baseline universe level, so I guess it can mean whatever.
...Ugh, Phase shit still never makes sense and will never make sense.
She recognized what she had just heard. Kabbalah had the concept of the Sephirot tree. It was a diagram with 10 levels that divided up the positions of humans, angels, and god. And on that Sephirot tree, the crucial position of god was nowhere to be found.
Ain Soph Aur, Ain Soph, Ain.
000, 00, 0.
“The so-called Tree of Life is basically a hierarchy of identities, separating God, angels, humans and souls into ten levels on a pyramid; this is the basic concept.”
“It’s based on the picture drawn out to show that God reigns supreme over everything. Well, simply put, this picture shows that humans can only reach a certain level, and beyond is God’s territory, so it can’t be invaded.”
“The number of humans and angels were already decided, thus in ordinary circumstances, humans are definitely unable to be promoted to become angels. In contrast, angels are never to be demoted to be humans.”
“Because every single realm is already filled up.”
“Whatever. Anyways, the 'Kabbalah' represents the 'soul level' of God: Angels, humans, et cetera. Simply put, humans can climb the ranks with training. But, at some point, they’ll hit a wall they can’t climb.”
“...You're treating me like an idiot, aren't you? What are you trying to say?”
“Is your pride hurt? What I'm trying to say is… there are some disciplines that humans can't reach no matter how much they try. But, humans do want to continue their ascent no matter what. Magicians became magicians because they want to surpass human limits. If so, what must humans do to surpass this limit?” His expression seemed like he would rip his sneer apart. “It’s simple. They just need to borrow the power from something that isn’t human.” Kamijou could not speak.
“…What angel? This is truly hard to believe. In this age, space shuttles can break through the atmosphere, and there’s no sign of a heaven…”
“Mm, the high and low relationship of heaven and hell isn’t of height.”
“Then what is it?”
“Here’s an example. Human eyes can’t see infrared rays, and human ears can’t detect high frequency sounds. You can understand this right, Kami-yan?”
“Ah? Mn.”
“The high and low refers to this, anything that’s above or below what humans can detect. They can’t feel it if it’s too high or if it’s too low. So even if God is to appear beside Kami-yan, you should be unable to detect it.”
Tsuchimikado delightedly smiled.
“Yeah. The low is referring to hell of the devil. What’s opposite Infrared rays are ultraviolet rays, and low frequency in contrast to high frequency; in other words, an inversion. Though both waves are different, both are still waves. In other words, even if there’s an angel standing beside a demon, they won’t be able to detect each other unless they interfere with each other in the area between heaven and hell called the ‘human realm’.”
Tsuchimikado continued, “Oh yes, Kami-yan. In religions that worship idols like Buddhism and Christianity, the power of God or power of angels do actually exist around us.”
“Tsuchimikado…”
Kanzaki’s tone sounded rather stern.
She didn’t seem to like Tsuchimikado using infrared and high frequency as examples.
“But once objects are lit by infrared rays, they will grow hot. Glass will vibrate when there’s a high frequency sound. This is called a Divine Retribution or a miracle. So on first glance, the heaven that doesn’t react will sometimes affect the human realm. Of course, there may be opposite effects.”
“Anyway, Angel Fall is a spell that forcefully pulls an angel down from above, and this will affect the four worlds—in other words, the original world, the world of creation, the formed world and the physical world.”
“…Eh, Tsuchimikado-sensei, may I know what language this Missy is speaking?”
“I’ll explain this. Like what you see, Kami-yan, everyone’s inside and outside have switched. This is like a musical chairs game, once the game starts, the chairs and the people sitting on the chairs will change completely. But in this game, not everyone will get a chair eventually. The only one left without a seat will be squeezed into the sky—to sit on the chair that the angel originally vacated.”
Othinus spoke in a disinterested tone.
"Have you ever heard of phases?"
"…?"
"This world was not pure and untouched to begin with. Christian, Buddhist, Celtic, Indian, Shinto, Incan, Aztec, Greek, Roman…and Norse. The various religions have placed layer after layer of various phases over the world like thin veils or filters. There is heaven, hell, the underworld, the Pure Land, Yomi, the abyss, Mount Olympus, the fairy island, Nirai Kanai, Asgard, and many others. At any rate, the world you have seen so far has been viewed through various colors of cellophane."
"You haven't destroyed any of those colored glasses."
As his vision wavered and he was unsure who he was speaking to, Kamijou managed to keep his mouth moving.
"When it comes down to it, you are a person who creates. It may be filled with malice and it may be similar to representing 'crushing a house' as 'creating a pile of rubble', but it does not change what you are. You are a person who creates."
"Call me a god. And what I have done is simple. I have created new filters and placed them over the world so the world appears to have changed. That is why the world appeared changed to you. This is a lot easier than destroying everything and building it back up every time. And your right hand contains the power to level out any foreign elements in the world, so it has difficulty functioning when I change the world itself. …Still, results are everything in the world. In the end, history will record it like this: the Magic God repeatedly destroyed the world and created new ones to make a single boy suffer as much as possible."
Magic God Othinus could control everything. Without exaggeration, she controlled the world itself. If she wanted to, she could have galaxies collide to kill Kamijou Touma. Or she could break the bonds between the particles making up his body and cause his very existence to disperse. If she was the slightest bit dissatisfied with something, she could turn back time, re-lay the rails of fate that led to the future, and create the exact result she wanted.
"Just to be clear, they haven't been brainwashed," said a girl's voice. Othinus was leaning her back up against his back. "I haven't added anything new. As I said, I merely changed their point of view. You had already done what it would take to be treated like this. It was just that no one – yourself included – had realized it before."
He quickly turned around, but there was no one there.
Magic God Othinus was still behind him.
"You always charged headfirst into some kind of incident, used your fists to defeat your enemy, and protected someone and their small world as a result. By accumulating enough such incidents, you even managed to bring World War Three to an end. You were treated as a type of hero and only that positive aspect was emphasized. That is what happened in the world you know."
She whispered the words.
Rather than beating him down with her words, she let them slip deep inside of him.
"But what if their point of view is changed? You bare your fangs toward anyone you don't like, jump in and steal every girl you so much as set your eyes on, and relentlessly swing your fist toward anyone who resists. That is another side of the person known as Kamijou Touma. You chose your fists as your means of solving problems. It may seem cute compared to a sword or gun, but you managed to influence the outcome of World War Three with that method. It is strange for people to silently accept an incarnation of violence like that. The hatred people have toward national dictators is not enough for you."
The scent and warmth of the girl leaning up against his back cleanly vanished.
His (supposed) classmate, Aogami Pierce, spoke as if he had not seen any of that.
"Like I said, it seems Othinus has free control over the life and death of humans, but I think she has two distinct pieces of software, one for the living and one for the dead /return. Like a god, I guess /escape? Like a heavenly world and a human world /escape? Like heaven and hell /escape? It might be based in a religious concept I don't really understand /return."
The twinkling of the stars in the sky was an ominous ill omen.
Each and every one of them transformed into a sharp spear of light and poured down like rain.
Magic God Othinus lightly spun the lance around in one hand and pointed its tip toward the heavens.
She spoke slowly.
She uttered two short sentences.
"These small fights are such a pain. I think I'll just end the world."
And exactly as she had announced, everything was immediately destroyed.
"Then what happened to Sargasso!? What happened to Tokyo Bay!?"
"Does it look like any of it remains?"
"Then what happened to the people there!? What happened to Index!? Or Misaka!? Or Lessar and Birdway!? A-and not just them! What about all the people living in Tokyo!?"
"Do I look like someone who would care about that?"
"…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………"
His understanding of what lay before him crumbled.
He forgot how to produce anger or sorrow.
Such things had been so natural that he had never before thought about the process.
But his mind was in such disarray that he no longer understood how his own heart functioned.
"You're lying…"
"How long are you going to keep talking?"
"You're lying!! You, um, used some kind of trick to make it look like that's what happened!! That would be easier. Instead of destroying Tokyo Bay and killing all those people, it would be easier to bring me to some other place!! So…!!"
"It no longer matters how you perceive the situation. Who it was that disappeared is a trivial matter. The problem that lies before you is that only the two of us are here," said Othinus disinterestedly. She sounded like someone who had downloaded an app to kill time late at night but found out it was even more boring than expected. "And you seem confused as to the scale we are talking about."
"What? Are you saying there's more?"
"Why are you talking about this on the tiny scale of Tokyo Bay? What I destroyed is not contained to just the small planet known as Earth."
Kamijou finally realized he was lying on his back.
Once he sprang to his feet, he was left speechless. Everything around him was odd. It was black. Nothing but black. The ground was perfectly flat. It was even more level and free of defect than the silicon wafer for a semiconductor. From where he stood to the horizon, the ground did not rise or fall by even a micron.
"What is this place?"
Nothing natural could be seen. Nothing unnatural could be seen.
Despite the previous use of the word, it was unclear whether the term "horizon" even applied. Both the ground and the sky were colored pure black, so it was impossible to distinguish between them.
He turned around a full 360 degrees, but the scenery did not change. He stopped at the spot he thought he had started at, but he was not even sure that was correct. With nothing to use as a landmark, he could not be sure.
He could, however, see a blonde-haired, green-eyed girl.
One of those eyes was covered with a leather eyepatch and she held a lance.
The uniform world of darkness emphasized her golden hair and white skin like the full moon.
A strange sense of reality gradually assaulted Kamijou's heart.
He had never before felt such hostility and rejection toward a feeling of reality.
"What is this? I thought we were in Tokyo Bay. We were in Gremlin's headquarters of Sargasso!!"
He saw countless worlds and experienced countless forms of despair.
Some clearly cornered Kamijou Touma and attempted to crush him. Strange false accusations were forced onto him and a noose was put around his neck. He was stranded on a mountain with some acquaintances and he was forced to distribute his flesh to the others so they could survive until rescue arrived. He was lying unable to move on a hospital bed and was simply stuck like that all the way to his funeral. He was buried in humus and began to decompose while still alive, starting with the ends of the arms and legs. Earth was rendered unlivable and he was thrown into outer space to wander aimlessly in a capsule-like spaceship. As a puny human, he was destroyed by a giant robot or an asteroid.
The heart had no actual form, but Kamijou clearly felt his breaking. It was not being destroyed as if struck by a hammer or sliced in two by a sword. It was a quiet destruction as if termites had eaten into it and it was too late by the time the symptoms began to show.
Amid it all, he somehow managed to gather his thoughts bit by bit.
But he did not suddenly come up with a means of reversing or resolving the situation.
He was instead using his bloody hands to build a path there, piece by piece.
"You…"
He spoke quietly in his hazy mind.
"You aren't actually destroying anything."
Othinus seemed surprised that he was only now realizing this.
The blonde-haired, eyepatch-wearing girl stood directly in front of the boy.
"So?"
She was so close that he thought he detected a sweet aroma.
The world had become a vague marble pattern.
"There aren't thousands or millions of worlds. This is still our world. This whole time, we haven't moved anywhere."
"This wasn't an even fight," groaned Kamijou while held up by the neck. "This isn't the first time we've had this fight. I don't know if this is the tenth time or the hundredth time, but we've repeated it again and again. And each time, I was probably blown to pieces by the first attack. The only problem left was the integrity of my memories. I subconsciously refused to accept the pain and fear I felt, so I rearranged the memories in my head to look like a fight following a single path. That's what made it look like I was somehow holding my own."
"That answer is worth 50 points."
"Perhaps. Is this schoolyard not the starting point? Do I have to start from the empty black world I first woke up in?"
One hundred times, one thousand times, or even ten thousand times.
Othinus merely had to repeat this. Each time, Kamijou Touma took slightly different actions and made different choices than the time before. Once he ran into a dead end doing that, he would break. It might happen in the direct battle or in one of the countless worlds. If just once, the boy wandered into a dead end and collapsed, Othinus's objective would be achieved.
But at the same time…
Othinus heard a noise come from her head that sounded like her very skeleton creaking.
It almost looked like small snakes were squirming on the inside of her face's skin.
This was the pulse of her blood vessels.
(His rate of exhaustion should be greater.)
They had repeated this tens of thousands of times, hundreds of thousands of times, and even millions of times.
All so that puny boy would fail just once somewhere along the line.
(I of course have the more accurate continuity of memories, but he still retains fragments of memories. And ignoring the amount of pure information, the static of pain and fear ensures he will break first. He is nothing more than someone who does not know his place. The more he clings to the hope of a victory that will never come, the greater the shock when it vanishes before his eyes. That is when he will break. He has merely walked down the path of destruction of his own free will.)
Rather than just being destroyed once, the world had been remade into millions or even billions of forms to break Kamijou's mind, but it seemed their imagination had not brought them that far.
"But still," muttered fifteen centimeter Othinus. "Through all of those hundreds of billions of phases, I missed the Misaka Network that manipulated the border between life and death. Does he also contain the possibility to always show up or appear anew in every world or phase I created?"
"I see."
The lance audibly sliced through the air as she lightly swung it.
That was not a sign of an attack.
She slowly moved the lance to hold it in both hands.
"I had grown sick of my unfortunate connection to Ollerus, but I had thought that was the limit of opposition this world would present."
"…?"
"However, I suppose the time I have spent with you has surpassed that connection. To think this place would create someone who understands me even more than him. The world seems to enjoy throwing difficulties my way!!"
Her shout acted as a trigger.
Kamijou Touma and Othinus both moved at once.
It ended after one step.
A whirl of destruction burst out.
Time stopped.
Space was compressed.
The standard concepts of time and space no longer had any meaning.
The lance of the head Norse god was named Gungnir. Its handle was made from the wood of an ash tree, the same as the world tree, its sharp tip was made from gold, and it had tremendous power due to the runes personally carved into the Dvergr-made base by the head god.
It had a few different characteristics.
1. The lance was made to be thrown.
2. The lance would always hit its target once thrown.
3. The lance could not be shot down or destroyed mid-flight.
4. The lance would always return to its owner's hands after piercing the target.
Returning to its owner seemed to be a relatively important ability for projectiles. For example, Cú Chulainn from Celtic mythology's spear did not possess that ability and he was ultimately killed when his own spear was thrown back at him. Lightning God Thor's Mjölnir in Norse mythology and Light God Lugh's Fragarach in Celtic mythology were both said to have this ability.
It was possible those weapons' characteristics were meant to make them "wonderful weapons only the special gods were allowed to use and that no human could ever make".
And even with all of those characteristics, the lance of the head Norse god had yet another characteristic that put it a clear step above the weapons' of the other gods.
5. That lance would destroy the symbols of human power.
That came from when Gungnir had broken the legendary sword wielded by the father of Sigurd the hero. When necessary, the head Norse god would take power from humans, implying it was their time to die, and add their soul to the army of the gods.
A human could not defeat a god.
The convenience of the god had priority over everything in the human's world and the workings of the world would act accordingly.
No other characteristic felt more strongly like the power of a god.
Rather than showing simple destructive power by blowing away a mountain or vaporizing the sea, it bluntly indicated the precedence of the god.
In other words, the instant that lance left Othinus's hands, the world would be blown to pieces.
Time returned to normal.
Kamijou once more felt space spread out around him.
As the lance was fired with tremendous force, the "happy world" was smashed to pieces as if space itself was being torn apart. As a fragment of the world approached with the force of a raging wave, it took on the shape of a giant lance. The walls of all the phases were crushed, transformed into a swirl of deadly weapons resembling sharp shards of glass, and approached their pitiful target as if to swallow him whole.
Everything was ripped up.
The black labyrinth, which had used up all of its possibilities, showed itself.
Magic God Othinus had the ability to create, so she was technically not destroying anything. This may have been a change brought about by adding a new phase into the world. Nevertheless, it was blatantly obvious what the scene before Kamijou's eyes would produce. It was the same as referring to the utter destruction of a luxurious palace as "creating a pile of rubble". This was undeniably a torrent of destruction.
The convenience of the world of man meant nothing.
The destruction carried out by the god took precedence.
Its greatest effect was causing any resisting human who saw it to give up.
It provided such an overwhelming feeling of resignation that even an experienced hero would fall to his knees and end his challenge.
Most likely, no one could have escaped that lance when attacked head on. No matter what form of defense or evasion they attempted, they would have had no hope of surviving. That attack had been given the parameter of "no human can oppose it". Unless one left the territory of man, one would be smashed to pieces. Not even Fiamma of the Right or Ollerus could have done anything when faced with it.
There was no way a normal high school boy could overcome it.
Even with a special power in his right hand, he would be smashed to pieces before he could use it.
Left on the ground, Othinus loudly clicked her tongue as she looked up at what happened over 100 meters above.
She understood what Marian Slingeneyer was doing, but there was nothing she could do for the boy. The restriction of losing her powers irritated her to no end.
(First, she seals off a limited portion of the world and then she chooses particular phases of different religions or sects and cuts through them.)
The giant that appeared first was one of the Titans that appeared as Zeus's enemy in Greek mythology.
The beast that appeared second was the man-eating beast and god of death that destroyed the first humanity in Aztec mythology.
The demon king that appeared third was the leader of the giants that were said to burn away the nine worlds in Norse mythology.
(Heaven, Asgard, Mt. Olympus, the Pure Land, Nirai Kanai… Cutting away the homes of the gods removes the protection and blessings of those gods and thus releases the calamities being restrained by the gods. In a way, Marian is able to freely choose and wield the different "endings" told of in the world's scriptures.)
It sounded extreme, but the basic technique was not all that rare. The ceremonial grounds used in modern Western magic and the cathedrals and churches of Christianity were formed by dyeing a certain space in the colors of a single religion. No one would pray with an image of Buddha sitting next to a cross and a Buddhist priest would not add talismans or mandrake roots as accessories to his rosary. Convenient elements from other religions would sometimes be adopted, but the simplest way to create the purest and most valuable brand was to maintain a single form and color.
But Marian took that concept to extraordinary levels.
Just as ultra-pure water created by thoroughly removing all impurities behaved differently from normal water, the phenomena created by "cutting off a portion of space to obtain a unique color" had tremendous power.
It was as if she were using a single hand to create and control the refined despair of all the world's religions.
Just as a summoned angel was manifested using condensed Telesma, these rulers of the end were likely masses of the type of power stored in their respective religion or phase. However, these were nothing more than power focused into the images of the calamites people had imagined and so they would not necessarily look exactly like those gods of death or demon kings, but the raw power that presented itself made that fact easy to forget.
"A sword that closes the path to the power of the gods…no, the path to heaven," muttered Othinus.
Before the battle even began, Marian had likely used the sword to cut through the surrounding space and create a sort of barrier around the area. If she had not, the appearance of the different mythical figures would have created a mysterious phenomenon much like Angel Fall. Or the power could have exceeded the limits of the world itself and everything would have shattered like glass.
Having destroyed the world herself, Othinus knew that was no exaggeration.
"I don't know the details of this whole 'phase' thing, but you have the ability to freely change the shape of the world like clay. Due to that, you completely forgot what world you originally lived in. You desperately tried to create a world based on the scenery you remembered. You added in and removed phase after phase. …And this was the work of a god. It was probably so close to perfect that no human could tell the difference. But as a god, 'close to perfect' wasn't good enough for you."
After seeing the world she had created with her own power, she had turned back without meaning to.
Given that, she must have feared her own power. If she had truly accepted it with nothing but joy, she would not have tried to turn back.
"In a later era, you wanted the lance and you wanted to alter the world. That must have been because your unease came back. You were concerned that your supposedly perfectly-made world was not so perfect after all. You wanted to work some more on the artwork you had already presented to the public. I don't know what you did to regain the power you had cast aside, but something must have happened for that know-it-all Ollerus to hate you so much. …You longed for the next world because you wanted to add another layer of paint to the canvas. That would explain your internal conflict."
"Have you forgotten?" Othinus sounded almost utterly exasperated. "This is the Dianoid. The entire building is made of carbon materials. That means you don't need control over every phase, every dimension, and every element to manipulate everything around you. A magician with control over carbon and nothing else can pull that one off."
"The man who names himself the Silver Star seems to have been attempting to directly tamper with the 'pure world' beyond all the filters…that is, the world of science that is unaffected by religion. …Honestly, you are quite fortunate to see this. Not even the Golden cabal of Europe that dreamed in Tibet was able to reach this point."
However, the people drifting through that darkness showed no concern. They implicitly said that this was the natural state of the world or that someone had yet to whisper "let there be light".
Direction and depth were indistinguishable in that black space, but three distinct presences existed there.
"So have we managed to finish in time, Nephthys?"
The three presences intentionally all looked in the same direction.
That produced directionality in the all-encompassing and heavy darkness.
That directionality took the form of depth and finally defined the entire space.
It came from the index and middle finger of someone's right hand.
They plunged into the center of Niang-Niang's flat chest and stabbed in up to the second joint.
"Ah? Eh?"
She looked utterly confused.
There was no pain. She could not tell why she had been stabbed. In fact, how had someone approached right in front of her without her noticing? And who were they anyway?
She did not have time to ask those questions.
True destruction awaited her.
At first, Nephthys thought Niang-Niang's pulse was escaping to the outside world, but that was not what it was.
(She's being absorbed?)
Nephthys tensed as she saw something unbelievable.
The fact that a Magic God was reacting like a frightened animal was enough for her to tremble.
(Niang-Niang is… A Magic God is being absorbed!?)
"No."
Her frightening thoughts were cut off by a soft voice.
It was a common sort of kind voice found in any city. It belonged to a boy of a mid-sized build with brown hair. The great gap between what was happening and the person doing it just about short-circuited Nephthys's mind.
"I am not absorbing her. Nor am I taking anything from her. I am simply giving her salvation. But only to the person who believes that this is salvation."
"Sal…vation?"
She doubted her ears when she heard that unbelievable word.
She grew even more confused when she saw Niang-Niang's face.
That Magic God girl had always been by her side.
Her expression was not one of fear, doubt, or confusion.
It was swollen with tranquility.
She was smiling.
"Heh…heh heh. It'll finally be over. I'll finally be freed. I…I…!! Nephthys, this is amazing! I…ahh…I've never felt so relieved!! Ah ha ha ha ha!!"
Something inside her was clearly absorbed, the size of her body visibly shrank, and she became nothing but the external skin. But that was what made it so strange. It was just like how certain wasps numbed their prey's nerves before feasting on them. The mismatch between the external phenomenon and the bliss in her mind released a joyful voice from the girl.
"A new world."
The brown-haired boy readily spoke while crushing Niang-Niang like a milk carton.
"My right hand is a collection of such dreams. I believe its name was…yes, World Rejecter."
"You can't. You can't possibly. Parallel worlds don't-…"
"Yes, the world is ultimately a straight line like the rubber string nailed onto pachinko machines. There is no infinite expanse of parallel worlds. But at the same time, the world is a rubber string. It can stretch or contract like time or space. The world we know has a surprising amount of waste. It's like using only ten frames when using sixty fps film. No one will notice if you stick some subliminal footage in using two or three of the leftover frames. This is what you wished for, isn't it? You Magic Gods wished for this even though you knew it could never come true. You checked the farthest reaches of the universe and all of the piled-up phases and you realized there was nothing new left. But if it was possible, you wished to leave behind this troublesome world and spread your wings in a new world no one else knows of."
Nephthys realized she could no longer hear Niang-Niang's voice.
In fact, her flat skin and China dress were gone too.
She had been absorbed and consumed before disappearing to some distant place.
"Oh? I had thought she was hiding the weapons up her sleeves, but it looks like she wasn't. So she was transforming her fingertips. Well, it is true the sages were incarnations of transcending the human body."
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