Boichiro laughed.
“You already know the answer to that. I want to control the gods. There is no need for gods with wills of their own.”
When the priestesses heard his answer, they both leapt towards either side of him.
“Then we will-”
“-stop you.”
“But it’s too late.”
Boichiro gently tossed Keena up into the air, and then waved his hand quickly from left to right. The priestesses both stopped moving. When Keena came back down he caught her softly, and began to walk forward.
“Wait.”
“The Law of Identity exists to take our wills and fulfill the rebirth of the universe,” the priestesses said, but all they could do was move their mouths. Their bodies had been sliced in half at the waist, and were lying on the ground.
“Whether you’re doing that to evolve into another dimension, or prevent an invasion from another dimension into this one, what good are you without humanity? The path the gods desire would exterminate humanity from this world.”
The priestesses answered,
“No, human data would remain.”
“The quantum network that stores the information crosses over the dimensions.”
“But where is humanity in that?” Boichiro asked, clearly annoyed. He waved his right hand to silence one of the Liradans.
“The gods take the deceased to a distant land. A fundamental tenet of the religious worldview. Humanity has longed for this for many, many years. We know this.”
The other was still talking.
Boichiro shook his head.
“I have no objections to maintaining that story, but that’s all the more reason the will of the gods is unneeded.”
He stood before the divine tree, and softly put Keena down. Keena was unconscious, but she rested quietly against his knees.
“Come. I’m aware that the gods cannot resist the Law of Identity. Prepare a place for the Contract of One.”
When Boichiro spoke, the divine tree began to split down the center. Inside, he could see a space. The best way he could think of to describe what he saw was a vast series of interlocking wooden buildings that seemed to stretch on forever. It was probably some type of spatial generation technology that used mana transfers. It probably wasn’t truly infinite, but the wooden corridors, painted in crimson, connected with stairs made from white wood to form what looked like a huge labyrinth. It also looked, he thought, like a complex network.
Keena woke up and looked at the corridor.
“Oh... we’re here!” Her voice was strange, a mixture of excitement and despair. Boichiro looked down at her with crossed arms. “Hey, please! Stop it! There’s still time!”
Boichiro smiled like he didn’t know what to say.
“Listen to me. If we don’t do this, humanity will disappear from this world.”
“No! That’s wrong! Your plan can’t escape from the Bonds of Irreproducibility!”
“Wha...?” For the first time, Boichiro was too shocked to speak.
“Come on, imagine it! Let’s say you do get rid of the gods’ wills, and then time flows to the era you were in. It may go a different direction, but the result will be the same. Someone will come to defeat you... yes, you, Boichiro. A human will, by humanity’s will, become the Demon King, and come to kill you once you’ve become a god. And nothing else will change,” Keena said.
Boichiro felt something cold run down his spine. It was sweat. He knew exactly what Keena’s words meant. And as he came to understand, he began to shake as he realized how foolish he’d been.
“You were humanity’s last survivor. You carried its hopes, and tried to correct its mistakes. From the position you found yourself in, this wasn’t arrogance. You’re a true hero. But no matter how many times you try to start over, you’ll only meet the same end result.” Keena looked back up at Boichiro.
The expression on her face was the same as his former lover, and the last Law of Identity, Rimu Sudo.
“Why... why isn’t it me?!” Boichiro screamed.
“Don’t cry. You’re...”
Keena started to say something, but Boichiro cut her off. He wrapped an arm around Keena’s hips and tried to drag her into the divine tree.
“No!”
“If it will all be the same anyway, then at least...”
Boichiro tried to overcome her resistance, but then suddenly stopped. He saw someone else in the shrine.
Keena turned around and looked as well. And her face brightened as she shouted.
“Ackie!”
“Normally I’d say ‘I’m supposed to make a cool entrance,’ but in a way, I’m like you. So I do understand how you can end up looking pathetic, sometimes. I won’t say anything at all.” Akuto began to walk forward.
Boichiro let go of Keena. There was a look of complete resignation, and of relief, on his face.
“My whole life I’ve had to deal with Demon Kings... but I’ve never met one like you.”
“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Akuto replied. “In the end, we’re just cleaning up after a system made by mankind. Maybe that’s true of any job, though.”
“It’s ironic. I’ve lived for centuries, and only now am I finding someone who understands me.”
“Both of us want something similar, after all. But what’s the difference between us, really?”
“I know what it is,” Boichiro said, laughing. “Our luck with women.”
Akuto looked shocked.
“Yeah, I’ve got terrible luck with women,” he finally said.
“Haha... In that respect, you really are different from me. Now, I finally feel like I can hate you. The winner between the two of us shall get his way.” Boichiro stretched out a hand, and pulled his giant sword from the void.
“I guess that’s the only way,” Akuto said as he tried to step forward, but Boichiro attacked without warning. His sword howled as it flew out to the side.
“Ooh!” Akuto jumped backwards to dodge, but Boichiro struck again and again before he had a chance to recover.
There was a “boom” sound as the air was ripped apart, and part of Akuto’s clothes and body were torn away. Akuto managed to avoid a fatal blow, but his arms and other parts he couldn’t completely defend were damaged.
“You’ve learned to dodge, have you?”
The first time they’d fought, Akuto hadn’t been able to defend himself, but now he was able to use his arms to deflect the blade. Because of that, he’d managed to avoid being blown backwards, but he still couldn’t counterattack.
“But you’re still far too wide open!” Boichiro said as he swung the sword across Akuto’s legs.
“Agh!” Akuto hadn’t expected this and he failed to block. He was forced to his knees.
“Ackie!”
Keena yelled out and tried to run towards him. But the look in Akuto’s eyes told her to stay put.
“Ah...” Keena froze and gulped.
Akuto couldn’t move at all — the joints in his legs were broken. He was regenerating them, but Boichiro showed no sign of giving him time to finish.
“Looks like you learned something from the way the principal fought...” Boichiro said, and then he raised his sword to deliver the killing blow.
“I did, but it looks like I didn’t learn his Hua Jin right,” Akuto said, shaking his head as if he’d given up.
“You’re a funny man, to tell jokes as you’re about to die. But I’ll let those be your last words!” Boichiro brought the sword down.
The blade pierced right through Akuto’s head.
Even with Akuto’s regenerative abilities, and even with his tough body, there was no way to survive an attack like that.
The sword split him clean in two.
...Or at least, it should have.
“!”
Boichiro was astonished to find that the sensation wasn’t what he’d expected.
The sword was stuck into the floor of the temple. But the sword was also pierced through
Akuto’s body.
“Tch...!” Boichiro immediately threw the sword aside and jumped backwards.
Akuto was right in front of him. But the sword had done no damage to him, as if he was a hologram.
“Impossible...!” Boichiro yelled.
Then, he realized that the real Akuto was right behind him.
“Haah!”
Just as he turned around, Akuto landed a hard punch directly into his stomach. The blast wave traveled all the way through his body as he bent forward.
“Th-This can’t be...” Boichiro moaned, barely able to breathe.
“This little magic trick, however, I was able to master.” Akuto said. The false Akuto on the floor blurred and vanished. “You create a mana screen and then project an image onto it. It’s just a magic trick, and there’s literally nothing more to it. You can only use it once in a hand-to-hand battle. If the battle’s at range, you can use it until the enemy figures it out. That’s what the principal said.”
“I-I fell for such a stupid trick...?”
“I don’t like falling for stupid tricks, either. I know how you feel,” Akuto said, but he immediately landed another punch on Boichiro.
This time, Boichiro’s body twisted as he didn’t say a thing. Akuto kept punching. There was no rage or hatred on his face. He was only punching to make the enemy stop moving. If anything, there was a kind of sadness.
Eventually Boichiro passed out, unconscious. Akuto shook his head, as if to say that something was wrong. And then he heard a calm voice echo throughout the room.
“Demon King, now is the hour to make the Contract of One with the Law of Identity.” One of the fallen priestesses was looking at him.
Akuto silently walked over to Keena.
“Ackie...” Keena stared at him. He took her hand.
“This has gotten really crazy, huh?”
“Yeah. But it’s only going to get worse...”
They looked at each other, and perhaps they understood each other without needing to say a word, because they both nodded at the same time and turned to the priestess.
“We won’t make the contract.”
“We can do it whenever we want to.”
The priestess responded in a voice full of emotion, uncharacteristic for a Liradan.
“I...Impossible! But then why...”
“We’re going to kill a god so that everyone understands! We’ll destroy this place, and shut down the god’s ability to act as a network terminal!” Akuto said as he reached out a hand to the sky.
“Th-That’s meaningless... Even if the terminal dies, the god’s true body is the will within the network. Only the functions of the god Suhara, and a portion of the stored data, will be lost. All it will do is cause chaos...”
“I know that.” Akuto cut off her explanation. “But even so, doing it will wake some people up.”
Mana began to gather around him as he spoke. He was going to cause a pure mana explosion, just like he’d done when he’d first awakened, and hadn’t been able to control his mana.
“You might disappear as well. Is that what you want? What is the point of this? Nothing will change if you do...” the priestess said.
“No, things will change. If nothing else, the story of the Demon King’s rebellion will end. Only then will humanity be able to stand face-to-face with the gods, who are creatures with will, but not a self.”
“We understand your will. Before we allow you to do this, we will have both you and the Law of Identity disappear. And then we shall apply what we’ve learned from you to the next Demon King...” the priestess said, and the whole temple began to rumble. It wasn’t because of the mana waves Akuto had created. “I have activated the defense system. The divine tree that functions as the terminal shall be moved as a unit.”
The center of the divine tree closed itself once more. And then, the whole huge tree began to shine with a mana light as it floated off the ground.
The temple began to collapse. The roof fell in around the tree, and then the floor began to collapse from underneath Akuto and Keena’s feet.
“Kyah!” Keena screamed as she clung to Akuto.
The space below the floor wasn’t that big, but if they were caught in the collapse, it was clear they’d be crushed by the falling rubble.
“Ackie...!” As Akuto was about to leap upwards, Keena pointed behind him. Boichiro was lying on the floor.
“...Fine.”
Akuto grabbed his hand. Perhaps that woke him up, because Boichiro looked upwards. He seemed surprised, but Akuto just nodded.
“Let’s go.”
And then Akuto jumped. He leapt off the crumbling rubble, and landed on the roof.
“Humanity still needs the gods. And the gods still need mankind. You cannot be allowed to interfere with the moment when those two intersect...”
He could hear the eerie voice of the priestess below. Akuto looked down just in time to see the doll-like head on her severed body fall beneath the crumbling floor.
“Tch...” Akuto looked away, and then up at the sky. The floating tree was already a good distance away.
“Peterhausen!” Akuto called out. His dragon swept down from above in answer.
“This is my last job, isn’t it?” he shouted.
“Yes. This is the last job I’ll ask you to do as a friend.”
Akuto left Keena and Boichiro behind as he got on Peterhausen’s back.
“Wait. Are you really willing to risk your life to do this?” Boichiro pointed to the tree, but Akuto wasn’t looking at him.
“I am. I was born with a ridiculous goal. If I can choose my last actions in life with my own will, that’s enough for me,” he said, still not looking back.
“But you may still not change anything. Maybe it will be as I was told, that nothing will change and humanity is doomed. What makes you so certain that what you’re doing is right?” Boichiro asked.
Akuto ordered Peterhausen to take off.
“I realized that you’re stronger if you can sympathize with the people in your daily life, as opposed to belief or stories that are far removed from you. If the system is destroyed, humanity will be able to truly look at one another.” And then he turned back to Keena. “Just like Keena said, if we all ate rice together, the world might be at peace.”
And then he had Peterhausen fly up into the air, but...
“Rice!” Keena suddenly yelled out happily.
“Huh?”
Akuto was unsure of what to make of this sudden change in Keena, but Peterhausen was already high in the sky. The slow-moving tree was already right in front of them. But surprisingly, Keena flew up in the sky and chased after him.
“Ackie, no! Don’t go ‘bon!’”
“Wh-What? Don’t tell me she has a different mind than when she’s the Law of Identity?” Akuto said, but Keena wasn’t listening at all.
“Ackie, tell me exactly what you’re going to do now!” she said sternly.
“Um, well... I’m going to ram into that tree and transfer its functions over to Peterhausen. And then I’m going to destroy it.” Akuto said. Keena shook her head.
“Don’t do that. If you do, you’ll die, right?”
Akuto didn’t know what to say.
“No, we don’t know that for sure. But it’s definitely dangerous, and once I kill a god, I’ll lose the place I call home. So...”
“No! You dummy! Dummy! I won’t let you!” Keena shook her head violently.
But then they heard what sounded like a scream from Peterhausen.
“Master, it’s too late! I’m ramming the tree!”
“Fine... Keena, out of the way!”
Akuto pushed her away. She was now a distance away from Peterhausen, but she still didn’t seem to give up. As she flew, she began to strip off her clothes, and then disappear.
Now even Akuto didn’t know where she was.
“...Let’s go!” But Akuto couldn’t back out now.
Peterhausen fired a metal stake from hi
s mouth into the tree, opening a huge hole in it. And then he went inside the hole.
“The space inside this is a pseudospace, but we still have our physical bodies. We might be attacked.” Peterhausen warned.
Inside was the labyrinth that Boichiro had seen when he opened the tree. Everywhere Akuto looked, he saw corridors made from crimson pillars and white trees.
“Take over its functions,” Akuto said. Peterhausen stretched out cables from his torso in all directions. One after another, they attached themselves to the connector ports in the corridors.
“When the takeover is complete, people like Yuko Hattori will be freed from their god. But it will take a little time. Until I’m done...” Peterhausen suddenly stopped.
Akuto looked around and saw why.
Liradans in shrine priestess clothing were peeking out everywhere from within the infinite corridors. All of them were looking at Akuto and Peterhausen with doll-like eyes.
“Those are physical beings... aren’t they.” Akuto said softly. Peterhausen nodded.
“The corridors seem infinite, but they’re not. Of course, there’s not an infinite number of Liradans, either.”
But they were still at a horrible disadvantage. Peterhausen couldn’t move, and Akuto had to protect him. If even a single cable was cut, the takeover would fail, and Yuko and the other Suhara worshipers would be in lethal danger.
Of course, right now the gods and the Demon King weren’t on the same side. Akuto and Peterhausen were simply foreign invaders that the gods would be happy to kill.
“Damn it... After all this, am I going to die without being able to do anything?!” Akuto yelled. But Peterhausen just laughed.
“It’s not over yet. Just because I can’t move doesn’t mean I can’t fight. Let’s give ’em hell. You said you’d have no place to belong to, but we can just keep fighting until all the gods’ terminals are destroyed!”
“Hmm... I suppose that’s fine.” Akuto whispered. As if that was the sign they were waiting for, countless shrine priestesses attacked Peterhausen — all at once.
They clung to his body like violent ants trying to swarm their prey. Akuto tried to rip them off, but more and more kept coming, and it was all he could do to deal with them. There was no mercy in their attacks. Whether he liked it or not, it was clear to Akuto that these Liradans were a different type of being, one that couldn’t communicate with humans on a fundamental level.
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 5 Page 11
