Archangel of Savage Light

by Reki Kawahara

  Niko was, naturally, in the cockpit, but the seven other members of the team were not on the roof. Rather, they were standing on the barrels of the laser guns mounted on both sides of the vehicle, holding on tightly. On the left: Kuroyukihime, Haruyuki, Takumu. On the right: Pard, Chiyuri, Fuko, Utai.

  And the reason they were not all riding on the roof was…

  “Missiles prepaaaaare to fire! ” Niko yelled again, and the armor plating on the top of the vehicle popped open in four places. From inside, countless missiles steadily rose. The tank/truck continued to accelerate fiercely as it moved into attack position, and the black steel bridge grew closer with every breath.

  The thirty-meter-wide, five-hundred-meter-long bridge spanning the bottomless ravine was territory guarded by the God Seiryu. The battlefield was too small for the massive body of the Super-class Enemy. It went without saying that siege attacks would have been difficult, but even just slipping around to get behind it was likely impossible. Thus, when they went to rescue Ardor Maiden, the strategy they came up with had Haruyuki flying at super-high speed with a boost from Fuko’s Gale Thruster, to shoot past the God Suzaku immediately after it appeared. Although things had gone well up to that point, he had been flying so fast that he hadn’t been able to turn around, leading to his and Utai’s plunge into the Castle.

  Learning from this experience, they had decided to charge forward on the ground this time, but the Dreadnought was similarly unable to turn on a moment’s notice. In fact, the armored trailer didn’t even have any brakes. But Niko continued to fearlessly stomp on the accelerator, and just as they were about to cross onto the bridge, a loud voice rang out for a third time.

  “Hold on tight! Thrusters, ooooooon!!”

  Hrrum! An explosive sound echoed through the air, and a remarkably intense sense of acceleration came over Haruyuki. The rocket motors equipped at the rear of the trailer had been ignited.

  And then the front tires crossed the boundary between the asphalt road and the steel bridge.

  It felt to Haruyuki like the color of the air had changed. Even though he still couldn’t see anything ahead of them, an excessively concentrated sense of presence—probably what Niko called information pressure—bounced off the armor of his entire body.

  “…Here it comes!” Kuroyukihime shouted from her position directly in front of him.

  Up ahead on the other side of the bridge, in the air above the square altar that stood in front of the Castle’s east gate, a swaying blue light was flickering. Almost like the shimmering of water, it grew larger and larger with each passing second. Finally, several ripples spread outward from two clear, foreboding lights shining in the center. Then he heard the pounding rush of water, and a massive figure danced up from the surface of the phantom lake.

  A head with countless fangs and four horns. A neck covered in diamond-shaped scales followed, while front legs writhed in space. The long torso twisted, claws appeared on its back legs, and a sharp whiplike tail drew out in a large arc. Bristles with a golden luster stood on end upon its back, all the way from its head down to the tail. Lastly, from there, four pairs of small, evenly spaced wings stretched out.

  Neither Western- nor Eastern-style but still a magnificent dragon. Perhaps because of the phosphorescence enveloping its body, even in the gloom of the Century End stage its massive form shone a deep, vivid lapis lazuli. And the two eyes all the more so, like polished eternal ice.

  Having finally taken form, the God Seiryu opened its maw wide and let loose a howl like thunder. The air trembled, and Haruyuki had to grit his teeth to withstand the pressure.

  Of the eight people riding on the tank, the six members of Nega Nebulus had experience with another Super-class Enemy, Suzaku. But this was the first encounter for the two members of Prominence.

  Haruyuki couldn’t see Niko in the cockpit or Blood Leopard on the opposite side of the vehicle, but with this terrifying figure before them, for a few moments at least, he was sure they would both be stunned—

  “Take this, you snake jerk! Missiles! Launch aaaaaallll!!”

  A shout rang out as if to dispel all of Haruyuki’s concerns, and the area above the trailer was suddenly filled with light and sound. The flames of countless shots fired lit up the gloom, and the small missiles whistled through the air one after the other. They ascended for a time before changing angles and plummeting toward the massive body of the Enemy.

  Orange balls of fire blossomed in succession and swallowed up the patrolling Seiryu. Multiple explosions shook the bridge and the tank racing along on top of it.

  “Everyone! Move to the roof!” Kuroyukihime shouted without waiting for the exploding flames four hundred meters ahead to subside.

  The group kicked at the guns and leapt to the top of the vehicle. The missile pods were still open, so their footing was a bit uneven, but not to the point where they couldn’t stand up.

  “Long distance attack, start!”

  “Right!” Haruyuki called, readying himself alongside everyone else. He thrust his right hand forward over the missile pod cover and braced it with his left.

  But the very first to launch was Cyan Pile’s special attack. “Lightning Cyan Spike!!”

  The iron spike, now in the form of superheated plasma, shot forward with incredible speed and was quickly swallowed up by the silhouette blinking in and out of view within the flames of the explosion. It had only cut a small hole in the Shinjuku bridge girder, but against the armor of a Super-class Enemy opponent, its proud penetrating power should have produced real results.

  Hot on his heels, Haruyuki pulled back the silver overlay in his right hand. The instant the light lance was produced, he drew it back as far as it could go and shouted the technique name: “Laser Javelin!!”

  For Haruyuki, who had no flying weapons, this Incarnate technique was his sole means of long-range attack. It was an adaptation of his midrange attack, Laser Lance, but because it had been formed with fairly coercive logic, its accuracy was a little off. As the lance whistled through the air, its trajectory was a faint spiral rather than a straight line. He was just lucky the Enemy was so huge; it looked like the lance would hit somewhere on the tail.

  Here, the missile launch was finally finished, and on the other side of the curtain of black smoke, Haruyuki felt Seiryu starting to move once more. But not about to let that happen, Utai turned her longbow Flame Caller toward the sky. “Flame Torrents!!”

  The clear call was accompanied by a flame arrow winding its way upward. At the peak of its arc, it split into dozens of arrows that became a torrential downpour of flames raining down on the Enemy. The countless small explosions that immediately popped up didn’t compare to the missiles in range, but the burn time was longer. The massive blue dragon writhed in irritation within the blaze.

  “Aaaaaah!” A powerful battle cry sounded over the roar of the tank, echoing through the air. Kuroyukihime, standing a row ahead of Haruyuki, brought a crimson overlay into a hand brandished high above her. The long sword turned from onyx to ruby as she braced it above her shoulder. “Vorpal Strike!”

  Her right hand shot forward at nearly light speed, and a ray of light the color of blood jetted out. Instantaneously piercing a distance of over two hundred meters, it plunged into Seiryu’s chest, still caught up in flames. Hit hard, the massive body shuddered, and the creature’s metallic shriek echoed through the field.

  “How about thiiiiis! ” Niko shouted once more. “Heat Blast Saturatiooooooon!!”

  Klank! The main guns on both sides of the vehicle turned upward, and a faint ruby-red light leaked from the wide barrels. This quickly increased in brightness before becoming a cross-shaped beam, and—

  Knnrrrkeeeee! The sound of resonance was earsplitting as the hugely thick laser fired.

  Likely double the scale of the normal shot that had evaporated Silver Crow a week earlier during his special training to acquire the Theoretical Mirror ability, and released simultaneously from both left and right guns, the
lasers merged a few dozen meters out to produce a massive energy lance that was more like a pillar of light. Haruyuki had once witnessed this technique blow away the government building in Shinjuku with one shot.

  The Red King’s second special attack, currently considered the most powerful long-range attack in the Accelerated World, dug into the spot in Seiryu’s chest that the Black King’s special attack had pierced and swelled up into a bright-red ball of light, before bringing about an explosion so large it nearly shook both heaven and earth. The pillar of flames stretched up higher and higher, reaching the distant sky and coloring the bottoms of the hanging black clouds red.

  Counting the initial missile attack, the six successive shots had all been powerful blows—special attacks and Incarnate techniques. Seiryu might have been one of the strongest Enemies in the Accelerated World, but it had to have taken at least that much damage. And maybe it would even be stunned for a while. With these thoughts rolling around in his mind, Haruyuki peered into the flames and smoke.

  Displayed above the massive silhouette was a five-tier health gauge the same as Suzaku’s. With their approach, the first tier was shaved down by nearly 30 percent. But.

  “Unnh.” A low groan slipped out of Haruyuki. The gauge they had worked so hard to decrease was recovered from left to right before his eyes.

  This was something they had run through in the advance simulation. The Super-class Enemies that guarded the four gates of the Castle were, in a certain sense, four creatures as one. One was injured, and any of the other three not engaged in a fight would heal it. Which meant that if you wanted to defeat the Four Gods, the only thing to do was attack all four simultaneously and defeat them simultaneously. The difficulty of this was clear, even without bringing up the tragedy of the former Nega Nebulus.

  Thus, their current strategy didn’t even pay lip service to the idea of subjugating Seiryu. The attack was, at most, a means of drawing its ire—which Haruyuki knew in his mind—but even so, he was still mildly shocked that the damage induced by a team that included two Kings giving it everything they had could be so easily erased.

  “That attack didn’t even take out one gauge,” Takumu muttered in a strained voice from beside him.

  “We don’t have time for disappointment, Crow, Pile.” It was Fuko behind them who spoke. Her voice was normally soft and gentle, but of course, at that moment, it was sharp and tight. “The counterattack’s coming. Everyone, hide behind the armor panels!”

  This instruction was joined by a roar like thunder. From the black smoke lingering in the air above the altar now two hundred meters ahead, a blue mass shot forward, ferocious. The sapphire eyes seethed with rage, and the long jaw was wide open.

  Krshk! From beyond the countless fangs came a pale beam of light—no, a stream of water. It was one of the specialized attacks Aqua Current had warned them about in advance: Water Breath. The power that lay in that super-high-pressure jet of water would dig into even the superior armor of green-type avatars.

  Haruyuki ducked down and hid behind the iron plate in front of him—the open cover of the missile pod. Kuroyukihime, Takumu, Chiyuri, and the others all did the same, while Fuko alone continued to stand resolutely behind them.

  She raised the palm of her right hand in front of her and shouted, “Wind Veil!!”

  The sound echoed deeply, and the green wind that began to swirl in the center of her palm enveloped the entire tank.

  And then Seiryu’s Breath attack, which was expanding in diameter to similarly swallow the tank, slammed into them. Still kneeling, Haruyuki turned his gaze upward.

  The green dome given shape by the swirling wind knocked the countless jets of streaming water away, scattering them as white mist. But the defensive wind’s force and speed were weakening, and Fuko let out a small grunt behind him. Her raised palm shook as though it might not be able to withstand the pressure, her body itself was pushed back, and she finally dropped to her knees.

  Haruyuki’s field of view was dyed white. The dragon’s attack had broken Fuko’s Incarnate shield and was pouring down onto the trailer.

  The high-frequency vibration nearly shattered his virtual eardrums. The vehicle shook and shuddered. Several hundred jets of water dug into every part of Dreadnought’s thick armor. If it were an avatar’s body subjected to this attack, their health gauge would have dropped with terrifying force.

  However.

  “Heh! Giving me a high-pressure wash for free, pretty generous, you snake in the boot!!”

  The tank did indeed slow down, but even still, it pushed valiantly forward against the gale while Niko taunted Seiryu.

  Her voice was not colored by any kind of pain.

  Because, while an Enhanced Armament was taking an attack, its owner’s health gauge did not drop.

  It had been Niko herself, the owner of the vehicle, who had proposed this strategy of using the armored truck as an assault vehicle to get as close as possible to the altar, leaving the armor to bear the brunt of Seiryu’s attacks. Nega Nebulus had hesitated about a battle strategy that was the equivalent of using a trailer and then tossing it aside, but the Red King had been nonchalant. “You guys don’t get the true nature of Enhanced Armament, you know?”

  —Thank you, Niko. We’re not going to waste this spirit of yours! No way! Haruyuki cried in his heart as he held up the cover of the missile pod with both hands. The thick steel shuddered, telling him that Seiryu’s Breath attack was still digging holes in it.

  But perhaps, thanks to Fuko’s Incarnate technique deflecting some percentage of the force, his impromptu defensive wall withstood the entire attack without being pierced. The trailer once again picked up speed, and the Super-class Enemy plunged forward in the sky above. The distance between them finally was pushed below a hundred meters.

  According to their advance information, the flip side of Seiryu having the most diverse specialized attacks of the Four Gods was that the frequency of physical attacks was low. Naturally, that didn’t mean it was zero, and a blow from those sharp fangs or claws or tail was a threat, but the armor of the trailer was still holding, albeit full of holes. It would protect the team a little longer.

  But above all else, the most terrifying thing once they crossed into the midrange distance was—

  Haruyuki’s brain had made it this far when Kuroyukihime barked from the front, “It’s time! Five seconds to go…Two, one, zero!”

  A mere three seconds after the countdown.

  A faint sky-blue light shuddered into existence in the center of the altar, which he could now see clearly up ahead.

  The duel avatar appearance effect.

  Blue light expanded and then coalesced, producing a slender silhouette.

  A clear, watery film enveloping the entire body. Four streams of water, like plumes carving out arcs through the air. One of Nega Nebulus’s Four Elements, water, Aqua Current.

  She matched their timing with fearsome accuracy, yet was standing in the Unlimited Neutral Field for the first time in two years and ten months.

  Haruyuki forced himself to pull his gaze away from the avatar glittering so beautifully in the light of the watch fires that sat on the four sides of the square altar. What he needed to be looking at now was the God Seiryu. During the mission to rescue Ardor Maiden, the God Suzaku had turned around at this point and swooped in to attack Utai on the altar.

  But the massive lapis lazuli dragon didn’t slacken its pace as it closed in on the tank. It was fairly angry about the sudden succession of six massive attacks that had carved away its health gauge and the fact that its Breath had been defended—or rather, its aggression had increased.

  But that was exactly what they wanted. The success or failure of the plan rested on whether or not the attacking team, with Kuroyukihime at the center, would be able to continue to lure Seiryu in until the very end.

  The massive dragon had gotten close enough that it almost covered the sky, and now its four horns shone with a pale light.

  Sever
al sparks raced through the black clouds in the sky above. Coming together in a number of places, they flashed with remarkable brightness—

  “Splash Stinger!!” Takumu shouted, throwing his head back. Needle missiles were launched one after another from the holes that opened up in the armor on his chest.

  At nearly the same time, purple bolts of lightning zigzagged down from the sky with a thunderous roar. This was Seiryu’s second specialized attack—Thunder Blast. The vertical missile pod covers on the tank that had been their shields thus far wouldn’t shelter them from a lightning strike from above.

  But all of the lightning was drawn into Takumu’s missiles, bringing about countless explosions overhead.

  However, they couldn’t completely negate the lightning’s energy, and purple light pierced the flames of the blasts, stretching out toward the team of avatars. But perhaps knocked off course, the purple streaks fell onto the steel bridge instead. One bolt made a direct hit on the tank and traveled through the surface of the armor, causing one of the tires to burst—but the members of the strike force were all still uninjured.

  Once Seiryu carried out a specialized attack, there appeared to be a brief charging time before the next one. If they could slip directly under it during this opening, Haruyuki was sure they could reach the altar where Current was waiting.

  The Enemy howled as if to negate this hope, and its massive body bent abruptly to build up power. The tail twisted into an S and came down so fast, it almost couldn’t be seen. The tip scraped the steel bridge’s surface, sending sparks flying, and then kept going to slam into the front of the tank.

  If Niko hadn’t yanked the wheel to one side, the cockpit might have been crushed. They just barely managed to avert that tragedy, but the tail, like an iron pillar, came down hard on the front right of the vehicle, and the tires on the right side began to spin helplessly as they rose into the air.