The Shield of Miracles

by Sakon Kaidou

  Before its might, even the loss of power due to distance was negligible. If it stormed down to the ground, it would not only evaporate people, but destroy and scatter an immense part of Torne itself.

  People could feel it in their bones by simply looking up at Monochrome, as proven by all the despairing faces the creature saw.

  “Ｋ ｙ Ａ ｈ ａ Ｈ Ａ ｈ ａ ｈ Ａ Ｈ ａ Ｈ ａ ｈ Ａ ｈ!” it cackled. The movement in its core made it far too happy.

  Then, it looked at the face it wanted to see the most — Ray’s.

  Did ya despair? Hey, did ya? Did ya... Huh?

  However, Ray’s face was one of the few that showed no grief. He merely looked up at Monochrome with even more rage in his gaze than before.

  Despite the abject dejection around him, his two eyes remained those of an unyielding challenger. If they could speak, they would surely say, “I will defeat you.”

  Scary, Monochrome thought, the first time it felt something that wasn’t joy.

  However, the sentiment was only momentary, as Monochrome quickly prepared to fire another beam of Shining Despair towards him.

  Perhaps the creature was spurred into action by its first taste of fear. Even so, Monochrome was far too clueless. It didn’t know that the man was called “Unbreakable.”

  Even when faced with countless tragedies and disasters far exceeding his own power, Ray had never even considered backing down.

  Even when dealing with evil and despair that could bring most to their knees, he’d stood tall by the sheer force of anger alone.

  And he’d seized miracles for every single one of those disasters.

  Monochrome knew none of that, but now, it would become painfully aware of it.

  “Gringham!” Ray shouted while looking at Louie. He could tell that the immense sky beam would soon be fired down.

  With just that alone, Gringham understood what he had to do. He raised his hurt body, took Louie in his mouth like a parent cat takes a kitten, and dashed away to distance him from what will soon be ground zero of the massive beam strike.

  “Gringham! Mister Ray!” Louie called out as he was taken away.

  Ray didn’t say anything and instead responded by raising his shield to the sky.

  And thus, Ray and Nemesis were the only people left in ground zero.

  He wouldn’t run.

  Even if he tried to, he’d only be caught up in the destruction, not to mention that the tians in the shelters would fall prey to the beam’s power.

  He couldn’t back away.

  “That must be the fiend’s ace,” said Nemesis. “I wonder how powerful it is.”

  “Well, it’s clear that one won’t be enough,” replied Ray. “Two might do the trick, but I can’t be sure.”

  “Do we not have Brooches?”

  “I’m all out. I put my last ones on Louie and Gringham.”

  Lifesaving Brooches prevented fatal damage, and before heading to Torne, Ray had had three of them in stock. However, having had used one up in yesterday’s battle against Rosa, and handing the rest to Louie and Gringham today, he currently had none left. Nevertheless, he didn’t regret the act at all.

  “So... it all depends on us,” he concluded.

  “Very well. You may count on me.”

  “Yeah. I believe in you.”

  They had two more uses of Counter Absorption.

  If they, his shield, and his passive defense skills weren’t enough, Ray would surely receive the death penalty.

  If that happened, he wouldn’t be able to launch his counterattack, and Monochrome would reduce all of Torne to ash.

  Out of all the gambles they’d taken today, this was likely the greatest.

  Stats, skills, equipment, Embryo — this moment would test whether all they’d acquired during their time in Infinite Dendrogram would be enough to resist the despair about to rain down from the sky.

  “ＳＨＩＮＩＮＧ ＤＥＳＰＡＩＲ!” Monochrome repeated the name of the skill again and launched the devastating beam of light directly from its crystalline body.

  It was akin to a pillar linking heaven and earth, and it was dense with a heat so immense it could easily scorch the surface.

  Were it to hit the ground, it would surely evaporate the area and turn Torne into a land of death.

  The light made the many lives in the village be overcome with despair.

  They, however, didn’t break.

  “Counter Absorption!” Nemesis shouted, calling forth a different barrier of light.

  This new one momentarily stopped the might of the pillar, but then it was shattered. Even so, it was clear that it had an effect — the pillar’s diameter had gotten smaller.

  Then the beam was blocked by yet another barrier of light exactly like the one before.

  It was a chained Counter Absorption activation — a technique Nemesis had acquired over the last month. One that they’d already used against Rosa.

  The second barrier kept the pillar of light at bay longer than the first, but it, too, was shattered, letting the beam reach the surface.

  The beam that was supposed to scorch a vast amount of land around it had lost most of its power to the barriers. What could have potentially annihilated the whole village had been reduced so much that it only affected an extremely small area.

  Even so, the energy that made it past Ray was nothing to dismiss.

  The ground zero of the explosion caused included the nearby windmill, which melted and all but vanished, while the surrounding ground became covered by an insufferable heat and turned red with fire. It looked akin to the depths of hell, and it was hard to imagine that someone could stand there alive.

  And yet, there was one.

  “We... did it...” Ray muttered, still alive in spite of it all.

  His state was such that words like “hurt” or “injured” seemed too lax to describe it. It was a wonder he was even alive.

  A person didn’t have enough fingers to count the debuffs he was affected by, while the heat was such that it colored his skin red or even black.

  Some pieces of his equipment, too, shattered and fell into the lava below. These included his accessories and the prosthetic on his left arm.

  His BR Armor was melting, but it still held well enough to continue bestowing its Bloody Regeneration.

  Ray’s hellish state was not enviable in the least.

  “...Heh,” Nemesis chuckled. “Its trajectory got knocked slightly off when it passed the second barrier. Most fortuitous. You probably wouldn’t be standing right now if it’d hit you directly.”

  “Yeah,” Ray forced a reply. “What a stroke of luck.”

  Even if the strike hadn’t been direct, Ray was still exposed to its aftereffects. He was currently surrounded by a molten, heated hell.

  Of course, being a Master, he felt no pain, but he could still feel the searing heat touching his skin and taste the throat-scorching air entering his body. The red-hot hell burned his legs, but even then, his knees didn’t give in — and neither did his heart.

  “We’re using it, Nemesis,” he uttered, and you could almost picture Nemesis nod in response.

  “We have accumulated about 650,000...” she said. “That would be 65,000 metels.”

  “Will it reach?”

  “I shall make sure it does.”

  “I’ll leave it to you, then.”

  Following that exchange, Ray began holding the shield in a different manner.

  Instead of making its surface face the enemy above, he held it in front — like a weapon.

  “Nemesis. Third form β.”

  A moment later, the shield changed its shape.

  The handle he was holding slid and extended to turn Nemesis into a strange long-handled weapon with a shield at the tip.

  The shield itself changed, as well. The five-sided silver pattern on its surface emitted a light and opened up, effectively unfolding the shield.

  It looked akin to a flower bud beginning to bloom — n
o, like a pinwheel spreading its blades. And with five blades in total, it was much like what those from Torne called a “windstar.”

  Indeed, this was a convertible weapon that changed from a shield to a star-like pinwheel.

  “Form Shift...”

  Thus, they declared the name of their new power — the title of Nemesis’s third form.

  “...Shooting Wheel!”

  Fittingly, it was a mix of “Shooting Star” and “Pinwheel.”

  ◇

  A few minutes before Ray jumped in to protect Louie and Gringham and went on to face Monochrome...

  “In short, this skill is basically a ranged, homing Vengeance,” Nemesis said.

  Ray was still searching for Louie, and as he did so, Nemesis told him the details of the new skill.

  “Ranged and homing...?” Ray asked.

  “The damage taken in shield form is stored as propulsive power,” Nemesis continued. “Then, once activated, it chases after even the most distant of enemies, hunting them down and dealing double... no, triple damage.”

  It was clearly a strong skill. Not only did it make up for their weaknesses against distant and fast-moving opponents, it also carried more power than the standard Vengeance is Mine.

  In fact, it was far too strong, even when you considered the fact that it could only be used once per day.

  Due to this, Ray instantly assumed that it had other conditions, and he was correct.

  “But there are two problems with it,” said Nemesis.

  “Which are?”

  “First is the fact that it bases not only its power, but also its speed and distance flown, on the damage dealt by the enemy.”

  According to her, the skill used a tenth of the damage taken as the value for its distance and speed. For example, with 10,000 damage taken, it would chase the enemy for 1,000 metels at 1,000 AGI.

  “Yeah... that is a gamble,” said Ray.

  The highest distance Monochrome had reached during the pursuit was 25,000 metels, meaning that the damage they would have to accumulate to reach it with that condition was at least 250,000.

  And that was only assuming that that distance was its absolute limit. For all they knew, the creature could be double that far away, and gathering enough damage to cover that distance would be no small task.

  “Second, its activation takes one minute of preparation,” Nemesis continued.

  “...Seriously?”

  “During this time, you obviously won’t be able to use the shield, nor will you have Counter Absorption as an option. We will have to survive the time in some other way.”

  In other words, once they were done gathering the damage, they would be fully exposed to Monochrome’s beams for a whole minute.

  Ray instantly remembered the moment of Lang’s head vanishing right before his eyes, but even that wasn’t enough to affect his choice.

  Even if the minute would severely endanger him, he would still use the skill, so that definitely wasn’t wasn’t the main issue here.

  “Regardless, that’s the only thing we have that can get through to the damn thing, right?” he said.

  “Indeed,” Nemesis nodded.

  So, what mattered the most was whether the skill would reach it or not.

  This would be a battle between two decisive numbers — the maximum amount of damage Ray could gather without dying and the maximum altitude Monochrome could arrive at.

  ◇

  And now, after weathering many beams and the monstrous Shining Despair, the Shooting Wheel accumulated the greatest damage they could possibly expect in the situation.

  “Start up,” said Nemesis, causing the damage gathered when she was in third form α — the shield — to become propulsive power for third form β.

  The five black blades on the Shooting Wheel slowly began to turn and spin, gradually accelerating as though dancing with the wind.

  Despite the air being still just moments ago, a fierce wind began to blow as though summoned or caused by the spinning wheel.

  Ten seconds after the start, the blades were turning so fast that it was hard to see them with the naked eye, and Ray used his sole right arm to tighten his grip around the handle, as if to prevent the centrifugal force from taking it away.

  The spinning was the very process of converting the accumulated damage into the power needed to reach the target.

  Ray’s tooth and nail struggle had led to him gathering somewhere over 650,000 damage, meaning that the attack would be a supersonic seeker boasting a 65,000 metel flight distance and AGI of the exact same number. And upon landing on Monochrome, it would unleash nearly 2,000,000 points of damage.

  No doubt, if released, it would be a decisive blow that would surely end the fight.

  “Ｋ Ｙ ａ ａ Ａ ａ Ａ Ａ ａ Ａ ａ ａ ａ Ａ ａ Ａ Ａ ａ Ａ ａ!”

  Monochrome in the skies above no longer laughed or expressed joy in any way.

  After all, Ray had survived the greatest beam it had ever released.

  Not only that, but the man was facing the creature with an even stronger spirit while wielding a weapon bearing energy so immense that even Monochrome felt it.

  It was overcome by an ominous certainty.

  “That” cannot exist. If “that” exists, “this” will be broken. It will be ended.

  The entity had given up on trying to make Ray despair. It felt only fear that it would be ended if it didn’t end the man first.

  It was the first time that Monochrome, the untouchable sky-dweller, had ever felt the danger of death. That feeling was something not even the meteor from centuries past had been able to give it.

  “Ｋ ｙ Ａ ｋ ａ Ｋ Ｙ ａ Ａ ａ ｋ Ｙ ａ Ａ Ｋ ａ Ａ ａ ａ Ａ Ａ ａ Ａ Ａ ａ!”

  The creature charged energy for more beams.

  Having attacked him many times by now, it assumed that weak beams, no matter how many, wouldn’t be enough to defeat Ray. Regardless of what the truth really was, it just didn’t think that the beams it used to light the torches would be enough against someone who hadn’t broken after all the attacks so far.

  However, Monochrome didn’t have the time to fire another Shining Despair, so it opted to use the piercing beams it’d fired at Gringham.

  They were quite powerful in their own right and charged much more quickly, so it thought to end the fight by firing them a few times.

  “The fiend isn’t firing... but it’s gathering power!” yelled Nemesis.

  Twenty seconds had passed since the spinning began.

  Not a single beam had dropped during this time, but that definitely wasn’t something to be glad about. Just like Nemesis had realized, Monochrome was preparing to instantly kill Ray.

  She was also aware that her Master didn’t have the power to avoid it anymore.

  Even if they were all out of defensive options, he might have been able to survive if he could just move well enough.

  But alas, Ray was far too heavily injured. It wouldn’t be strange if he fainted right then and there, and the fact that he’d even activated the skill was nothing short of miraculous.

  “What do we do?!” Nemesis panicked. “The charging will take forty more seconds! We don’t have a means to defend against the beam!”

  Just as the Black Shield was a form focused entirely on defense, the Shooting Wheel was a form focused solely on offense.

  As she was now, Nemesis had the power to defeat the enemy, but not the power to protect Ray, and thus she thought that it was all over.

  Her Master, however, seemed to think otherwise.

  “Hey, it’s fine,” he said.

  “Ray?”

  A single look at Ray’s face was enough to tell her that he wasn’t just putting up a front. Despite being nearly thoroughly drained of power, he still seemed to believe in something.

  “What do you mean, ‘fi—’?” Before Nemesis could finish her question, something above them changed.

  Monochrome was done charging, and it prepared to release the pi
ercing beams that would obliterate Ray.

  “Ray!” Nemesis shrieked.

  Ray, on the other hand, showed no fear or pain, and calmly said, “We’re making quite a show here. Anyone would notice this.”

  There was no doubt he believed in something. In fact, he was so confident that he put on a smirk.

  “And if she noticed... she’ll surely come.”

  Then Monochrome fired a number of fatal beams. A single one of them was enough to make short work of Ray’s current HP and make his body evaporate, along with any chances of turning the tide.

  Even so, Ray showed no fear, again looking like he believed in something... or someone.

  “Right? B3?” he called.

  “Ya don’t even gotta ask!” And she brashly answered.

  “Fire Resistance! Astro Guard!” the three-metel giant named Barbaroy Bad Burn roared as she jumped in between Ray and the beams, protecting him from harm and becoming his shield by using skills that upped her fire resistance and defense.

  “Tch...!” she shouted. “Damn asshole went through the elemental def like it’s paper! But hell if it’ll be enough to break through my defense!”

  The hail of fatal beams continued for over twenty seconds, and yet, like an all-enclosing canopy, she shielded Ray from them all.

  “Ha,” she chuckled, looking somewhat satisfied in spite of the white smoke coming off of her armor. “There goes almost a third of my HP. That shitty thing has power, I’ll give it that.”

  Her words and state made Ray form a wry smile. Nemesis, on the other hand, looked thoroughly confused.

  “B3...? Eh? This is B3?” she asked.

  “Well, yeah...” Ray replied. “No matter how you look at her, it’s B3.”

  “‘No matter how you look at it’?” Nemesis repeated. “But the armor design is the same as... oh, never mind. I must say, though — first Marie, now her. I’m quite impressed by how good you are at recognizing people.”

  Despite her perplexity, Nemesis didn’t stop spinning the Shooting Wheel. Only twenty seconds were left until the third form’s power would be unleashed.

  “Here ya go,” said Barbaroy.

  “Ah...” Ray lightly exclaimed as she poured an HP Recovery Potion of the highest quality on him.