Bride of the Dark God

by Gakuto Mikumo

  At that rate, with the dark god unable to take physical form, the pent-up energy would be released on its own. The resulting phenomenon would be a divine essence explosion.

  At absolute minimum, damage would be severe in a ten-kilometer radius, enough to ensure Itogami Island’s annihilation.

  And then—

  “Celesta…?!”

  Yukina’s breath caught when she realized that Celesta was climbing back onto the altar.

  Celesta was trying to return to the center of the barrier after only just finally being freed from it. Yukina instantly turned around, trying to stop her, but the upward curl of the corners of Celesta’s lips said No need for your concern.

  “I’m all right…Plain Girl. I’ll manage somehow…”

  In anguish, Yukina stopped moving, a hand still outstretched toward her.

  Celesta was the one who’d summoned the egg. It had synchronized with her despair to begin materializing Zazalamagiu. Put another way, she, the bride of Zazalamagiu, was the only one who could stop him from taking physical form.

  Of course, there was no proof she could pull it off. Celesta couldn’t have been confident of it.

  But the fact even a slim possibility remains means I need to trust her—, Yukina told herself, almost like a prayer. But—

  Boom went the golden altar, smashing apart, almost as if to trample Yukina’s prayer underfoot.

  “—Wha—?!”

  The altar and the stairs leading to it were both broken.

  Huge cracks emerged from the temple’s stonework floor, almost as if it had been smashed by an unseen ax.

  Impeded by those cracks, the distance between Yukina and Celesta widened once more.

  The temple’s floor had been sliced apart and the altar smashed by an invisible slash with overwhelming destructive might. Yukina knew that the attack had come from a tactical magical device.

  “I suppose I will say…well done, civilian. Thanks to you, we got into the sacrifice chamber.”

  Yukina heard a cold voice resembling a machine.

  A tall woman wearing a fur-trimmed coat was standing at the entrance to the temple. Waving her left hand above her head, she coldly glared down at the two girls.

  The CSA special forces major, Angelica Hermida, quietly stepped forward.

  5

  In a quiet cabin on a giant cruise ship—

  Inside that cramped, dimly lit linen room was Kojou, unable to move.

  Behind him was an all but naked homunculus girl—

  And in front was his silver-haired, blue-eyed female junior, pressed against Kojou in very immodest attire.

  Sandwiched between the two, Kojou couldn’t move a single fingertip. After all, if he clumsily stirred against the girls, he’d end up seeing various things that were not proper to view.

  “Ahh…how long do you all intend to stay there like that?”

  It was then that Kojou heard someone’s voice from very close. The voice came from the linen room floor—about thirty centimeters above it, to be more precise.

  It was a liquid-metal life-form about the size of the fairy—Nina Adelard, the self-proclaimed Great Alchemist of Yore.

  “You’re…Nina?! Y-you saw that?!”

  “Indeed. Intently, from beginning to end.” She cleared her throat.

  Kojou groaned, raising an incoherent voice.

  Nina nodded solemnly in the manner of one wise to the ways of the world.

  “Well, rest at ease. Appearances aside, my lips are not loose. I am a metallic life-form, after all. If you take firm responsibility as a man, I shall not do anything cross as Kanon’s guardian.”

  “R-responsibility…?”

  For no particular reason, Kojou felt nervous as he murmured the word.

  Kanon, resting limply in Kojou’s arms up to that point, finally lifted her head. Her eyes met Kojou’s up close, making her cheeks flush faintly red. It was the expression of someone just remembering what she’d been doing and unsure of just what expression she should have on her face.

  “Um… It’s… Sorry, Kanase.”

  Kojou awkwardly bowed his head to her.

  Kanon politely straightened her back and said, “I… I was very clumsy…”

  “No, you weren’t clumsy at all, actually. Thanks, you were a big help.”

  Kojou averted his eyes from Kanon’s undressed figure as he let his honest appraisal trickle out. Kanon blinked in visible surprise as she gazed back at Kojou’s body.

  “Akatsuki, your wounds…”

  “Yeah. That’s thanks to you.”

  Kojou smiled and rose to his feet. He didn’t feel dizzy or in pain. His lost demonic energy had been recovered, and his entire body coursed with a strange sense of exhilaration. Kanon, inheriting the blood of the Aldegian royal line, was a frighteningly powerful spirit medium. Her exceptionally pure spiritual energy was high-grade sustenance for the Beast Vassals sleeping within his flesh.

  “—I wanted…to ask you to take care of Yukina and Miss Celesta.”

  Kanon hugged her stripped-off clothing in front of her breasts as she spoke.

  “I know,” said Kojou, looking into her eyes and nodding.

  He opened the cabin door and left.

  Immediately in front, he could see the huge sphere that resembled a speckled egg. Countless vines poured out from the sphere as if it were a waterfall, lodging into the artificial ground of Itogami Island as they continued eating away at the materials there.

  The sphere’s diameter already exceeded a hundred meters. But there was clearly something off about its state, which ought to have still been expanding.

  The dense divine essence swirling around inside the sphere was astir, and the boundary between it and normal space shuddered, almost in agony. Something was going on inside the dark god’s barrier. As far as the summoning spell was concerned, it was an unexpected, and fatal, flaw.

  To Kojou and the others, it was a good omen to be welcomed with open arms.

  Well, then… Kojou raised his right arm above his head. He would cut off the egg’s supply of magical energy in one shot, then and there—

  “—C’mon over, Beast Vassal Number Seven, Kiffa Ater!”

  The miasma Kojou scattered about distorted the atmosphere, creating a sword out of thin air. It was ridiculously huge, with a blade over a hundred meters long—and intelligent.

  Properly speaking, its shape was similar to an ancient weapon known as a Vajra sword, said to be used by the gods to strike down devils.

  But Kojou wasn’t after its maximum power. What he sought was precision.

  He guided the accelerating sword toward the space between Itogami Island’s coast and the speckled sphere. Falling at supersonic speed, an enormous shock wave was created; the pressurized air enveloped the sword with incandescent flames.

  This Beast Vassal was specialized for destroying a single target, and in that role, its might was tremendous.

  The great sword transformed into a giant beam of light, grazing the edge of the speckled sphere as it made it as far as the sea. To protect Itogami Island from the effects, Kojou released his summons of the Beast Vassal just before striking the surface, but even so, the wake of the falling shock wave stirred up incredibly strong blast winds. Ironically, what cushioned the island from that were the tentacles spewed out by the sphere. All the tentacles that had fused with the isle were severed in a single blow, greatly rocking the huge sphere.

  Cut off from its steady supply of matter, even a passerby could tell that the egg was in dire straits. The slice from Kojou’s Beast Vassal left a crack on the sphere’s surface, and its very diameter seemed to have shrunk ever so slightly. The restorative power of normal space had begun to exceed the rate at which the dark god’s barrier ate into it.

  The divine essence inside the barrier became even more disturbed, and the rate of change increased further.

  The sphere tried stretching out new vine-like tentacles to resume consuming Itogami Island, but the tentacles were sho
t out with less vigor. And then…

  “Let us go, Kanon—!”

  “Yes, director!”

  With Kanon back in her clothes, Nina, embraced by her arms, unleashed a ruthless ray of light—a heavy particle beam bombardment.

  The tentacles’ magical energy absorption ability was useless against a particle beam—a purely physical attack. The slash of the incandescent beam burned the green tentacles down one after another.

  A new tentacle shot out toward the source of the attack—Kanon and Nina. This, in turn, was struck down by the Beast Vassal at Astarte’s command. The tentacle bounced off its arm, covered in Divine Oscillation Effect, and then Nina’s beam burned it to a crisp.

  “Kojou, leave this side to me,” Nina asserted, smiling proudly.

  Astarte’s Beast Vassal, boasting absolute defensive power, combined with Nina’s absurd attack strength, itself fueled by Kanon’s nigh-inexhaustible spiritual energy. Their collective abilities put the egg at an overwhelming disadvantage.

  Recognizing this, Kojou nodded firmly.

  “Astarte, please!”

  “Accepted—”

  The giant arm of Astarte’s Beast Vassal grasped Kojou’s body. It then proceeded to wind up and hurl Kojou over the shoulder, much like a fastball.

  “Execute, Rhododactylos.”

  Boom! Astarte launched Kojou with incredible velocity. Of course, the target was the enormous, speckled sphere floating in midair.

  “Ooooo—!”

  Kojou’s face went pale as he gritted his teeth, enduring the ferocious acceleration.

  And then, he plunged into the dark god’s world.

  It was a world of densely concentrated divine essence raging like a tempest. Beneath him, he saw an enormous ruin. He detected raw magical energy coursing in the spaces between vine-covered stone pillars, almost like a complex electrical circuit. The sorcerous ritual to materialize the dark god was underway.

  The ruin itself was a giant sorcerous device. When Kojou grasped this, a smile came over his lips.

  There was no need to think deeply about it. His task was obvious.

  If the world existed solely to summon the dark god, he merely needed to rip it to pieces.

  “Glad they made it so simple! C’mon over, Al-Nasl Minium!!”

  Kojou summoned a new Beast Vassal as he descended toward the stonework temple before him. The scarlet bicorn manifested, unleashing an incredible shock wave with its roar.

  Buffeted by the blast winds, Kojou accelerated further.

  And so he went—to begin the destruction of the world.

  6

  Special Operations Detachment 17 of the CSA Army—

  At Angelica Hermida’s command, the Zenforce troops surrounded the temple in an organized formation.

  Angelica Hermida served as the vanguard, advancing to single-handedly secure the target. Her one sniper held back to provide fire support. The remaining two members blocked off the temple’s entrance, securing Angelica’s avenue of escape. They had executed many such missions in the past, spilling much blood in the process—the blood of their enemies and the blood of their allies. Angelica was not known as Bloodstained for nothing.

  The history of the Confederate States of America was one of war. In the first place, the CSA was a nation forged via a war of independence with the European North Atlantic Empire and armed clashes with the North American Union.

  Economic issues were the primary causes of those wars, but discrimination against demons loomed behind them. The CSA was not a signatory to the Holy Ground Treaty seeking peaceful coexistence between man and demon. The CSA had a pure-blooded human policy: As such, demons were inferior beings that ought to be eradicated root and branch.

  The CSA, isolated among nations for this extreme discriminatory policy, prioritized military might above all else. For national self-preservation, it was constantly intervening in conflicts all over the globe, because that was necessary to preserve the global military power balance.

  Such military interventions were primarily conducted by the Zenforce members. In addition, they were very loyal to their nation. And they did not fear death.

  One such member of Zenforce—Bouiller, the man with the sunglasses—emitted a light from his mechanical eyes as he checked the area for disturbances.

  “…What’s with the impact just now?” he asked through the transmitter embedded in his head.

  “Dunno. Can’t see a whole lot like this.”

  From the shadow of a stone pillar nine meters away, the man with the prosthetic hand, Mathis, replied.

  Certainly, visibility inside the temple was poor, as it was obstructed by stone pillars and vines. Yet, surely Mathis had noticed it, too.

  Something must have been done to the barrier’s outer shell from out in the real world.

  The giant barrier giving birth to the dark god…was swaying. It was as if its supply of magical energy and matter, obtained from eating into Itogami Island, had been cut off.

  Some powerful attack had cut off its supply of magical energy, severing the world from Itogami Island. On top of that, the world’s outer shell had probably been damaged. The attack was powerful enough to shake a world created by a dark god, even if it was in an immature, unmaterialized state.

  Even though the two soldiers were supposed to be coolheaded fighting machines, that fact unnerved them ever so slightly. It was because of their wealth of combat experience that they instinctively understood: That power would become a hindrance to their mission—

  Then, as if to prove their instincts true, a new distortion occurred inside the barrier.

  What emerged overhead was a scarlet bicorn, as if wildly raging wind had taken physical form.

  Largely indiscriminate, the vibrating shock waves it unleashed assailed the ruin. Stone pillars snapped, and the giant inlaid stones of the floor smashed apart. The sorcerous device runes carved into the ruin vanished, and a vast amount of accumulated divine essence leaked out. It was obviously a situation they could not ignore.

  “Boland, report! Boland!” Bouiller shouted through his transmitter.

  He could tell that a vampire’s Beast Vassal had appeared above their heads. The dense demonic energy it radiated was on par with the dark god’s divine essence. He had a guess as to its master, as well: the Fourth Primogenitor—the World’s Mightiest Vampire.

  However, he ought to have been on death’s door, incredibly worn down from his grievous wounds. Even if you could not destroy the immutable primogenitors, it was possible to whittle their power down temporarily. It was precisely that knowledge that had made Bouiller and the others unafraid to make him an enemy. Taking out his heart with a sniper rifle ought to have put a damper on his strength.

  But this Fourth Primogenitor controlling the scarlet Beast Vassal was different from the one they had first encountered.

  He had not merely recovered his demonic energy. The boy knew who and what Celesta Ciate really was, and he understood Angelica Hermida’s objective. He had hesitated before from the uncertainty of facing an unknown enemy in a crazy situation. Ironically, Celesta running amok had liberated him from all his shackles. Now, he was free to use the malevolent powers of the Fourth Primogenitor, rivaling those of even natural disasters, in whatever ways he pleased, for the sole objective of rescuing Celesta Ciate.

  That boy is dangerous, thought Bouiller. We have to take him out one more time. However…

  “Oh, by Boland, do you mean this wooden puppet?”

  The one replying to Bouiller’s message was a vampire with a handsome face reminiscent of a cold knife.

  The large-framed soldier, his flesh turned into machine, tumbled at the vampire’s feet. The lower half of the soldier’s body had been annihilated, burned away by incandescent flame; both arms had been ripped off his body with incredible force. Even Sorcerous Troopers could not survive such wounds.

  “Tobias Jagan…so you’re the one who…!”

  “He is a sniper who has shot and killed hundr
eds of innocent human beings. Ending his life without making him suffer was more mercy than he deserved.”

  Jagan responded to Bouiller’s bloodthirsty murmur with a declaration dripping with scorn.

  Bouiller ripped his clothes off without a word, exposing the silver magical devices embedded in his shoulders: metal plates that created an incandescent shimmer.

  “—Wait, Bouiller. I’ll take him. Cover me.”

  It was the other man, Mathis, who held Bouiller in check.

  He was already activating the magical devices embedded in both his prosthetic hands. In the area around Mathis, sixteen gauntlets appeared, floating in midair. The gauntlets were gripping a variety of weapons: swords and axes, spears and sickles, and even large-caliber pistols and machine guns.

  “My,” Jagan said with a show of false admiration. “What interesting arms you have there. Convenient for scratching one’s back.”

  Mathis’s face contorted in unconcealed rage at his sorcerous devices being portrayed as such inconsequential items.

  “Don’t mock me, vampire. You’re already in my Oracle Bombsight. There’s nowhere you can run!”

  The gauntlets controlled by the special forces trooper danced in the air as they surrounded Jagan. The firearms opened fire as the countless weapons thrust in one after another. The force and accuracy of the attacks were as if they came from a grand master. Furthermore, even if the gauntlets created by the sorcerous device were destroyed, they were immediately restored. No one could escape from the onslaught—not even a vampire noble.

  “—I see, quite an amusing sideshow. What a pity.”

  However, Jagan wore a cold expression as he stood unscathed.

  He wasn’t evading Mathis’s attacks. All the gauntlet’s attacks missed. Rather, it was Mathis who missed. He couldn’t attack Jagan. He couldn’t pin down exactly where Jagan was.

  “Tobias Jagan… Damn you, you did something to my—”

  “Rather late of you to notice. Did you truly believe a talisman was enough for you to escape from my Wadjet—?”

  The tedium was plain as day in Jagan’s voice.

  Mathis, the gauntlet user, had already seen Jagan’s Wadjet, which was actually a mind control Beast Vassal that dwelled in Jagan’s eyes. Wadjet embedded itself into the enemy until its master released it from its summons. A mere talisman was no defense against it.