Accel World Vol. 25: Deity of Demise Read online

  He wanted to say he would shield them however many times it took, but all the strength had left his body; he couldn’t even move his mouth. If Takumu hadn’t been holding him up, he would have collapsed in a heap on the ground. He had the thought that it would be completely impossible for him to deploy Light Shell even one more time, and then told himself that if he had to, he would try to as many times as it took.

  A shiver of tension raced through the Burst Linkers in the area. Tezcatlipoca had started to move. But it merely righted its inclined body and lowered its crushed left hand before stopping once more. Platinum Cavalier and the White King in the night sky were also stationary. The only things moving on the battlefield were the gently flapping wings of Pegasus.

  “Wonderful.”

  It was an impossibly innocent sound, smooth and sweet. This was the voice of Transient Eternity, White Cosmos. As if truly impressed, she continued, holding the Arc to her chest with both hands:

  “Incredible that you would destroy in an instant Tezcatlipoca’s Toxcatl, something the fiercest warriors in history have not been able to resist.”

  Haruyuki furrowed his brow skeptically. Tezcatlipoca had appeared from inside the Sun God Inti, which had never once been defeated since the dawn of the Accelerated World. In other words, no Burst Linker, including the White King herself, had ever encountered this Enemy before. And yet the way she spoke made it sound as though a group of high rankers had fought it before.

  And why did the White King have such thorough knowledge of the Deity of Demise, Tezcatlipoca, anyway, from its proper name to its techniques? Where had she gotten the information that this giant would appear if Inti was defeated, something that not even the Blue or Green Kings—Originators themselves—or the Saints Metatron and Amaterasu, knew? He wondered at it all while Takumu propped him up.

  “I seriously doubt you have the time for such observations now, Cosmos.”

  The voice that rose from his right was sharp and ready to fight, albeit with an exhausted edge. The Black King, Black Lotus—Kuroyukihime—raised the sword of her right hand, its edge only slightly nicked, and pointed the tip squarely at the White King.

  “No matter how strong this enormous monster is, you can’t believe that we would be caught up in that same attack once more. If we destroy its right hand as well and seal away the gravitational wave attack, the rest is just the usual Enemy hunting. However great its HP, if it can be damaged, then it’s a far easier challenge than Inti. It might take some time, but we will defeat it. And I have no intention of letting you or Cavalier get away!”

  The White King appeared not the least bit ruffled by this ferocious speech from her own child and real-life younger sister, Kuroyukihime. “Always charging in without proper preparation is a bad habit of yours, Lotus. You can’t honestly believe that Inti’s so-called second form would be easier to subdue than Inti itself? The Sun God could be tamed with just one of the Luminary’s circlets, but this child needed six, hmm?”

  Indeed, crowns to control Tezcatlipoca were embedded in its head, wrists, chest, stomach, and hips. Put simply, this would imply that the difficulty in taming it was six times greater than in taming Inti. But if he looked at it another way, this also meant that it was possible to tame even a Super-class Enemy if the crowns hit in just the right places.

  The instant this thought occurred to him, Haruyuki felt something catch fire in the center of his mind. The question he’d had a few minutes earlier popped back to life. What was White Cosmos trying to do by assembling the three ultimate powers of the Accelerated World?

  It had to be the Castle. Defeat the invincible Gods who guarded the four gates; destroy the Eight Divines, the world’s most powerful Enemies in the basement of the Castle’s main building; and obtain the final Arc, the Fluctuating Light. That was the ultimate objective for all Burst Linkers. In which case…

  Haruyuki put a hand on Takumu’s shoulder and summoned the meager energy he’d managed to recover to pull himself up. “White King!!”

  In the distant sky above, Cosmos turned her face ever so slightly. Eye lenses colored with curiosity looked straight through him.

  Bracing his legs to keep them from shaking, he yanked the words up from the bottom of his soul. “White King, if your power extends to even Super-class Enemies…then if you had the cooperation of everyone here, you could control even the Four Gods of the Castle! Why can’t you take that road? Instead of this path of blood, why can’t you choose to combine forces with all the Legions to take on the final mission?!”

  The White King was for Kuroyukihime, and for Haruyuki himself now, their most powerful and almost unforgivable enemy. And yet, he couldn’t keep himself from belting out the thought to her.

  Even after the lengthy echoes of his scream of a question had disappeared, no one moved to say anything.

  Breaking the silence colored by the dim white of the moonlight was the almost whispered response of the White King: “So strange, hmm?”

  She continued before he could wonder what exactly was strange.

  “Long, long ago…in a totally different virtual world, a very similar situation occurred. A large number of players came together in the world, pressed with the choice of working together to clear the game or kill each other before they could be betrayed. There was a player who spoke up idealistically like you, Silver Crow. And there was no doubt that more than a few people took those words to heart. But in the end…” She closed her mouth and shook her head slightly.

  Haruyuki felt the aura enveloping the pure white avatar change instantly. From the utterly and entirely pure, saintly aura to an absolute zero that could freeze everything.

  “It’s too late. Everything, it’s all too late.”

  The sudden biting chill of her tone froze the core of his body. Takumu’s avatar, pressed up against his, also stiffened.

  Breaking the paralysis of the overwhelmed Burst Linkers was the roar of Kuroyukihime, as though she were unleashing the fire of her heart: “In that case, this is the final stop for you!”

  Skreenk! Together with a metallic squeal, a bluish-purple overlay jetted from the body of the Black King. The other kings also produced auras of varying colors, and this heat instantly spread to the surrounding Burst Linkers.

  We have no choice but to fight. To stop this series of tragedies, Haruyuki vowed in his heart and then clenched his hand into a fist. He was still largely powerless, but he figured he had enough left in him to launch at least one Incarnate blow.

  He knew what had to be done. Now that Tezcatlipoca’s left hand was destroyed, the biggest remaining threat was the gravitational wave attack of the right hand. When that hand, currently facing straight down, moved to reveal the palm, they would beat it back with multiple full-strength attacks. Even if the giant was six times stronger than Inti, if it could be damaged, then it made sense that they would be able to defeat it at some point, just like Kuroyukihime said.

  The sky above the battlefield crackled and shook as though electrified. Perhaps called by the one hundred and one auras, black clouds rolled into the night sky, twisting like living creatures.

  But the White King did not move.

  Was she waiting for their focus to break? But most of the Burst Linkers on the ground there were high rankers well versed in the Incarnate System. If it was a matter of simply maintaining the image, they could likely keep going for an hour or two. They could also have a messenger leave through the portal while they were glaring at their foes, and call for reinforcements.

  And Pegasus, which Cosmos and Cavalier were riding, couldn’t fly forever. Silver Crow’s flight ability used up his special-attack gauge, so he wouldn’t have been surprised if there was also a limit on the flying time of the winged horse. Once they descended to the earth, the close-range avatars could join the battle. He couldn’t imagine that prolonging a stalemate now would be to the White King’s advantage.

  And then he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet shake faintly. He wondered briefly if
the intense fighting spirit of the Burst Linkers had shaken even the field itself, but he quickly banished the idea. He could hear a ponderous sound like something heavy moving. From the right and the left, from ahead and behind. It was…

  “Enemies,” he murmured.

  “Dammit!” Manganese Blade hissed. “I’d thought they wouldn’t pop up for the time being, given the sheer number wiped out in Inti’s destruction. Guess I was too optimistic.”

  Incarnate techniques were a siren song for Enemies. It wasn’t as though Haruyuki had forgotten this piece of common knowledge. But it was just as Manganese said: They had only just used normal attacks to defeat the more than twenty large Enemies who had been called by the Incarnate techniques they’d used to destroy Inti. He figured that all the Enemies around Kitanomaru Park had been exterminated and wouldn’t recover until the next Change. But apparently, the multiple Incarnate attacks that had destroyed Tezcatlipoca’s left hand had been too powerful and drawn in Enemies from even farther afield.

  And now, large Enemies in the Wild and Beast classes would close in from all directions, and he and his comrades would no longer be able to focus solely on Tezcatlipoca. But they had no guarantee they would be able to destroy the right hand as they had the left when the palm was turned away from them.

  “Enemies should also target a tamed Enemy,” Sky Raker pointed out from behind Haruyuki. She stepped up from her half-destroyed wheelchair and called a green aura into her readied hands.

  Given that Kuroyukihime called Raker a user of pure positive Incarnate, Haruyuki had thought all her Incarnate techniques focused on range defenses, like Wind Veil and Swirl Sway, but when they had attacked Tezcatlipoca’s left hand, she had used a powerful attack-expansion Incarnate technique called Wind Bullet.

  When users of first-quadrant Incarnate techniques—in other words, positive power with range as its target—made use of the fourth quadrant, negative power with range as the target, it generated an excessive mental burden. Utai, with her purification powers, was as specialized as Fuko in positive Incarnate, if not more so. When she unveiled her terrifying Incarnate technique, which drowned enemies in a bog of magma and burned them up, the burden had been so great that she dropped into a coma. But Fuko sounded fresh and alive, no hint of exhaustion in her voice.

  “And top-level Enemies won’t simply target the nearest foe; they’ll start with the foe they feel is the greatest threat. If several Beast-class Enemies turn on Tezcatlipoca, even the White King won’t be able to overlook that. We’ll just have to use that opening and destroy its right hand.”

  “Good. That’s the plan, then,” the Blue King, Blue Knight, replied. Readying one of the Seven Arcs in both hands, the greatsword Impulse, he glanced over at the Black King. “Lotus, you tell us when to go with the synchronized attack. You can read Cosmos’s movements better than anyone.”

  “Understood,” Kuroyukihime agreed. The Green King hefted his shield, the Strife, up slightly, while the Purple King held her staff, the Tempest, up straight. The Yellow King twirled his magic baton, Rotary Rod, and the Red King drew her sidearm, Peace Maker.

  The ground beneath their feet shook more and more intensely, basically an ongoing earthquake at this point. Haruyuki narrowed his eyes and made out several massive shadows—although nowhere near as big as Tezcatlipoca—advancing along the Castle’s moat.

  Most likely, half of these Enemies would target him and his comrades. They would simply have to deal with this as they prepared to launch the attack on Tezcatlipoca as soon as Kuroyukihime gave the signal. Without anyone giving the order to, the close-range and defensive-type avatars began moving toward the outer edge of the group.

  Would the Burst Linkers of the six Great Legions break ranks first, unable to handle the Enemy attacks? Or would the White King try to use the gravitational wave attack first, unable to ignore the damage to Tezcatlipoca? The answer to this would decide the result of this battle—and thus of the ongoing and protracted fight with the White Legion and the Acceleration Research Society.

  “Haru, can you stand on your own now?” Takumu whispered from beside him as quietly as possible.

  “Yeah, thanks, Taku,” Haruyuki said. “I’m okay now.”

  “Okay, I’ll go around to the defense, then. I should be more useful there. I’ve got nothing left in my gauge.” He had only a few minutes earlier used Lightning Cyan Spike in the general attack, but that technique devoured his gauge so he couldn’t fire it at random. His Incarnate technique, Cyan Blade, was powerful, but entirely close range, so unfortunately, Tezcatlipoca’s hand was far beyond its reach.

  “Got it.” Haruyuki pulled away from his childhood friend and stood tall. He nearly staggered forward but managed to brace himself before taking the sheathed Lucid Blade from his hip. “Take this. I won’t be using it in this battle.”

  He held the sword out hilt-first. Takumu started to protest and then closed his mouth. In his head, he knew that this was the optimal course of action. Haruyuki would either join the multi-pronged attack with his Laser Javelin or use his Light Shell again in the worst-case scenario; his sword would do him no good in this battle. But if Takumu was going to be joining the defense team, then he couldn’t use Cyan Blade. It might draw the attention of Enemies who focused on Tezcatlipoca.

  “Thanks,” Takumu said, as he accepted Lucid Blade and mounted it on his right hip. It was a slender weapon for Cyan Pile, who was larger than Silver Crow, but Takumu, of all people, would be able to handle an irregular two-handed style with the Pile Driver of his right arm and the sword in his left hand.

  Haruyuki watched him run off to the edge of the group before he turned his mind back to Tezcatlipoca and the White King in the sky above. Takumu and the others would repel the Enemies. He believed that and waited for Kuroyukihime’s signal.

  The shaking of the earth intensified with each millisecond. The flood of Enemies was already not even a hundred meters away. But the White King didn’t move. She maintained a mysterious silence, still holding the Luminary to her chest.

  The Enemies split into two groups. One kept on straight at the Burst Linkers, while the other charged toward Tezcatlipoca’s feet. The Enemies and the defense team, and then the Enemies and Tezcatlipoca, made contact—and that was when an enormous shock rocked the world.

  The White King whipped the Luminary down.

  “Ready!!” Kuroyukihime shouted, knocking her right sword arm against her left. Haruyuki similarly dropped into a ready position and mustered up as much overlay as he could in both arms.

  Tezcatlipoca raised its right hand and began to charge the gravitational wave attack that the White King had called “Toxcatl.”

  But before the five black concentric rings arrived, the layered long-distance attack of the Six Kings and several dozen Burst Linkers destroyed the right hand—

  Or it should have.

  However:

  A yellow circle rose not in either hand of the dark-red giant, but rather in the center of its chest.

  A circle of the same color appeared at Haruyuki’s feet.

  “Corvus!!” Sky Raker cried.

  “Crow!!” Manganese Blade shouted.

  The two tried to grab his arms from either side, but their hands only slid down his metal armor. A sudden gravitational pull sucked Haruyuki up into the air.

  “Whoa?!” he cried out, stunned, and tried to spread the wings on his back. But before he could, a massive hand—Tezcatlipoca’s—came toward him with a howl and grabbed hold of him in midair.

  Terrible pressure. The armor covering his body shrieked, and a large part of his health gauge was cut away.

  Pushing aside the terror of being crushed to death, Haruyuki shouted, “Black Lotus!! Please fire!”

  Even if he died there, he would only lose some points and regenerate in an hour. If they could destroy Tezcatlipoca’s hand with just one death, it was a small price to pay. Kuroyukihime must’ve understood that.

  However.

  Through their inv
isible bond, he felt her hesitate for a mere fraction of a second.

  Thus, the White King was the tiniest bit faster.

  She brought the Luminary down so quickly it was invisible to the eye, and Tezcatlipoca crossed the right hand holding Haruyuki with the destroyed left hand. He almost didn’t have time to register it as some kind of preparatory movement before a red circle that looked to be more than ten meters across appeared at the giant’s feet.

  Only seven or eight Beast-class Enemies were inside the circle; the Burst Linkers were farther out, safe. Even so, Haruyuki couldn’t help but scream as if in agony, “Everyone! Defend!”

  Crimson flames jetted up from beneath Tezcatlipoca’s feet. The large Enemies must have had huge health gauges, and yet they burned up in an instant and turned to ash, shrieking in all kinds of horrific ways.

  The power of this ranged attack…If close-range Burst Linkers had encircled Tezcatlipoca’s feet instead of the Enemies, they would have all been completely annihilated in less than a second.

  This guess that sent a shiver up Haruyuki’s spine was, however, half-wrong.

  His avatar was fixed firmly in place, and yet the gravitational pull changed. Tezcatlipoca’s massive bulk was starting to ascend. The flames jetting from its feet weren’t an attack, but a jet to achieve liftoff for the 100-meter-tall Super-class Enemy.

  Suddenly, a roar like the ground giving in filled his ears. The propulsive flames grew increasingly intense. Smoke and waves of heat shimmered out, cut across the crater, and swallowed up the Burst Linkers. He saw several defense techniques light up before these, too, were enveloped by black smoke.

  That was all Haruyuki could make out.

  Tezcatlipoca shot up into the night sky like a rocket, and the ground grew distant in the blink of an eye. When he turned his head, he could see Pegasus racing ahead in the night sky. The White King had chosen to flee rather than fight.

  But why? If the giant had enough power left that it could cause the instant deaths of nearly ten Beast-class Enemies with the surplus energy from takeoff, then even if its right hand was gone, couldn’t it have kicked the Burst Linkers away?