The End and the Beginning, page 20
part #15 of Accel World Series
Their Incarnate attacks caught the amalgamated Cerberus III at the base of his left shoulder and exploded spectacularly. The massive body lurched to one side, and the left arm, damaged at the joint, slowly pulled away and fell to the ground with a thud, followed by a waterfall of sparks.
The purple demon staggered a few steps before freezing in place. Nomi’s moaning, previously drowned out by the din of his attack on the indestructible building, echoed across the courtyard like a curse. “…You…tricked me…We’ll give you a new power, we’ll let you have revenge…You said all these convenient things…This was your plan…right from the start…”
Argon Array’s response was probably the closest thing to gratitude she was capable of, but she still sounded flippant, somehow. “Sorryyy, Threezie. You were s’posed to get to play a wee bit more, y’know? But, like, we’re just scraping by here, short-staffed an’ all that, sooooo sometimes, plans go belly-up.”
“Shut…up. Hurry…get it off. Help me…Otherwise, you all, too…”
Skree, kee, kee. The massive right arm creaked, and Nomi got Argon and Vise in the sights of his laser gun. But the two level eighters shrugged in unison, not seeming the least bit perturbed.
“Well, this won’t do.” This time, Vise spoke. “No matter which way you look at it, this situation is a difficult one, Taker.”
Haruyuki felt like he’d heard that line before, and Nomi’s voice grew even more deeply colored with anger.
“Are you…Are you going to abandon me again, Vise…? Twice…Me, here…”
“Relax, Taker. I doubt that what’s happened twice will come about a third time.” Black Vise’s voice was aloof to the extreme as he turned the collection of thin panels that served as his face toward Haruyuki and his friends. “Finally, I shall also offer a warning to the esteemed members of the Black and Red Legions. I would recommend you do not attempt to take back the Enhanced Armament, but rather depart immediately. The fusion is a tad early, but either way, the situation is more than you can handle now.”
“Bastard!” Niko cursed. “You planning on running?!”
“Of course.” The layered avatar, now missing an arm and a leg, nodded evenly. “Both Argon and myself find our lives dear, you see. We just barely managed to achieve forty percent of our mission objective, but, well, we’ll call it a win.”
“That’s the story. If you lot manage to get away okay, too, let’s play again. Pleasure chattin’ with you, kitty cat.” Argon waved her right hand with a flourish, and the thin panels of Vise’s body spun around and instantly fused into two larger panels.
Haruyuki dropped his eyes to their feet with a gasp and saw they were just barely touching the shadow created by the southwest side of the school.
“Nngh!” He gritted his teeth, but right now, his main priority was not a follow-up attack on Vise and Argon. They had to get Niko’s Enhanced Armament back and go meet up with Kuroyukihime and the others at Midtown Tower. To that end, they needed to destroy the purple demon and pull Cerberus III from the cockpit.
The instant the two thin panels clamped around Argon, Nomi shouted in a voice filled with rage.
“Viiiiiiiiiiiiiise!!”
A malevolent purple beam of light burst forth from his laser gun.
But the ebony panels had already fused into one and had sunk into the shadows. The light beam blasted into the earth, and a magnificent pillar of fire erupted upward. Marble tiles ripped away from the ground danced up into the air, but there was no sign of Vise or Argon among them. At that moment, they were likely escaping off somewhere inside the shadow of the school building.
“Dammit. Dammit! Daaaaammmiiiiiit!!” Nomi howled his rage, voice cracking. “I do not accept this! I will not allow this development! Someone, anyone, come here…And then, I…me…Aah…Aaaah…! Stop—no. I don’t want to lose…my power…my…”
The cursing steadily grew weaker. But as it did, a thin shadow of an aura began to bleed through the surface of the purple armor.
“Crow!” Niko cried sharply. “One more time!”
Haruyuki half-automatically raised his right hand. Brushing away the fear rising up in his heart, he focused his will.
The Laser Javelin/Radiant Burst combination hit the amalgamated Cerberus III squarely in the back—or it should have. But almost as if it had its own will, the shadowy aura crawling along the surface of his armor came together to create a thick membrane and repel the double Incarnate attack.
“What?!” Niko shouted.
“N-no damage?!” Haruyuki cried, hearing his comrades groan in shock around him.
But Nomi in the cockpit didn’t seem to even notice he’d been attacked. “No…I…don’t…I’m d-disappearing…I can’t. See anything…I can’t hear…Aaaah…Disappear…Dis…a…ppear…”
Abruptly, the tone of his voice changed. The fear, the rage, every emotion dropped away, leaving only an echo like digital noise.
“Disappear…DISAPPEAR…appear…ppear…ppear. D-d-d. D-D-D. Dee. Dee. Deel. Deel. Deel-deel-deel-deel. Deel-deel-deel-deel-deeeeeee.”
The strange cry suddenly cut off—the massive purple body frozen in an unnatural pose. Even the breeze that supposedly always blew in the Twilight stage dropped, and all sound vanished from the courtyard. Haruyuki was seized with a shiver of fear he’d never felt before in the Accelerated World and stood rooted to the spot, voiceless. Niko, Pard, Takumu, and Chiyuri also held their tongues, as though if they spoke a single word, the lid on something even more terrifying would have been lifted.
Breaking the silence was a dromp, a thick, watery sound. When he looked, the dull-black aura was dripping like blood from the wound on the giant’s left shoulder. It stretched out in a long thread before falling to the earth and pooling on the tile. The pool became slime and wriggled away…toward the left arm sitting on the ground.
Maybe he should have attacked the black slime, but Haruyuki couldn’t move. In the blink of an eye, the slime had reached the arm and entered through the destroyed joint.
The four sharp claws twitched. A thin, elongated form connecting the avatar and the arm, the slime contracted and pulled the arm back to the shoulder. As Haruyuki gaped, the massive iron arm was yanked up into the air and then wetly fused with the left shoulder six meters above the ground.
In the Unlimited Neutral Field, a destroyed Enhanced Armament was cut off from its owner and would not regenerate until the owner dived again. This bit of common knowledge was completely overturned as his left arm was regenerated, and the amalgamated Cerberus III staggered to stand up straight and turn ninety degrees to the left to face Haruyuki and his comrades squarely.
Because of the construction—cockpit block in the center, arms to the sides, legs below, thrusters to the rear—the giant had no head. But Haruyuki felt it. A gaze filled with a bottomless hunger staring down on the five of them from far above.
“…ppear…Deeeeel…” The abnormal howl echoed half like a beast, half like a machine. The shadowy aura wriggling around the giant’s body rapidly grew more concentrated. With a metallic creaking, the shape of the armor began to change. Straight lines bent and warped into organic curves. Claws on arms and legs exploded in size; gill-like slits sprang up everywhere.
Haruyuki noticed that at some point, thick black clouds had gathered in the twilight sky directly above the courtyard. Bolts of pale lightning flashed inside them, and the low roar of thunder rumbled across the sky. In this world where light was receding, the giant continued his transformation into a true demon.
The spikes on shoulders and knees nearly doubled in length, while the gaps in the cockpit block were completely blocked with metal panels like scales. The laser-gun arms began to look like annelids—rear thrusters like massive tumors. Finally, with a plok, a semicircular “head” appeared in the upper part of the cockpit.
The front of the semicircle opened like an eyelid, revealing an enormous eyeball with an iris the color of blood. Now glaring at Haruyuki and his comrades with a true gaze, the demon brandished his hands and the scythe-like claws and roared, “Deeel…lllllllooooooooaaaaaaah!!”
Purple lightning crackled and streaked down from the black clouds around the demon. It was no longer Invincible nor the amalgamated Cerberus III that rose up before them in the courtyard.
Haruyuki had seen something before that resembled this new creature almost perfectly, except for its size. Once in a video replay of the past. Once in a dream he’d had in a castle. And then, as something Silver Crow himself had transformed into.
In the back of his mind, a dreadful phrase came to life from a conversation he’d had with Kuroyukihime and Akira Himi three days earlier. The name that had spilled unconsciously from his lips, colored with an icy shiver of fear.
“…Armor of Catastrophe…Mark II…”
To be continued.
AFTERWORD
(I strongly recommend reading the book first.)
Please do pick up Volume 16!
Reki Kawahara
On a certain day in August 2013
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Yen On.
To get news about the latest manga, graphic novels, and light novels from Yen Press, along with special offers and exclusive content, sign up for the Yen Press newsletter.
Sign Up
Or visit us at www.yenpress.com/booklink
Reki Kawahara, The End and the Beginning
