Ch.301Final Curtain – No Believers, No Masters (2)

Raymond, who always carried divine power at his hip, could sense Sol Invictus in the sword drawn by the detective. It didn’t have a consciousness, but it had life. A brain-dead god.

He didn’t know what exactly had been placed inside the sword, but the young man seemed to either underestimate or be unaware of what was contained within it. Raymond the Prosecutor stood before the experienced god-slayer before he could exit through the back door.

“Well, I won’t ask anything for now. I didn’t question The Idealists, so I should extend you the same courtesy. Still, be careful. Go on. I’d like to see why even god hunters need to recruit experienced professionals.”

The two men slipped out through the back door of the veterans’ hall. With over fifty people gathered inside the veterans’ hall and no way to see inside, the Industrial Spirit King had no way of knowing.

He did possess absolute sensory perception, but only over his own body. Now he could also use the terminal’s vision, but that was the extent of it. He was no match for the God-President.

If the detective were spotted by one of the terminals, the Industrial Spirit King would discover that he had left the veterans’ hall, but having only that limitation was actually welcome news for the detective.

He was already accustomed to moving while avoiding people’s eyes. Besides, the Industrial Spirit King would be managing his terminals efficiently. He wouldn’t manage them humanely like The Idealists.

Instead of trying to connect his mind to every terminal, he would have set them to respond to stimuli. In that case, all they needed to do was avoid giving any stimuli to trigger a response. Suddenly, a terminal that had been searching near a busy street lost connection.

This was common. While countless New Yorkers were turning into terminals, simultaneously countless others were pulling out magic they rarely used or hidden shotguns to fight against the terminals.

Given the situation, the Industrial Spirit King sent other terminals to the disconnected one. All they found was a terminal lying on the ground with its head severed.

The Industrial Spirit King immediately thought of an alternative. He tried connecting the locations where terminals had died with a line, but the line that started from a terminal guarding an alley eventually returned to that same alley.

Only then did the Industrial Spirit King realize that someone wasn’t progressing by killing terminals, but rather drawing their attention before moving through the city at a much more comfortable pace.

The first person he worried about was, of course, the detective. He needed to be cautious. The man was an Argonne with monstrous strength, and an operator who had demonstrated his abilities even to the Industrial Spirit King himself. He had to find him.

He couldn’t have gone far. There are limits to how fast a person can walk or run. Even an Argonne Invincible probably wouldn’t exceed that limit by more than twice. The Industrial Spirit King searched the city.

After nearly an hour of thoroughly placing terminals at every street and alley in the city, there was still no sign of the detective. He wasn’t teleporting, yet no terminal had caught sight of him.

All he detected was a single flash, and predictably, when he went to check, nothing remained. At that moment, one of the Industrial Spirits spoke to the Spirit King.

“I can see the operator you’re looking for, Machine of the Age. Inside the veterans’ hall. How this happened… we don’t know either.”

It was common for an Argonne Invincible to climb up to a high window to scout the Industrial Spirits surrounding them, but the problem was that the person doing it was the detective.

The detective took his turn scouting outside before jumping back into the hall. He had to suppress his laughter at the sight of the Industrial Spirits confusedly clicking their steel cutters.

They didn’t need to find the exact location where the angels had gathered or ask for their understanding. After identifying that the angels had left lights on in their row house so they could fly up, all they needed to do was use the light emitted by the God-President’s sword that Raymond the Prosecutor held to bring a flying angel to them and relay their message.

The authority lay in the sword Raymond the Prosecutor carried, and the solution lay with the detective. The angel with the weak flame in his left eye, whom the detective was quite familiar with, had the information.

The Industrial Spirit King had only imprisoned Manhattan. Upon hearing this, the detective informed them that The Idealists’ flesh-only terminals would soon arrive with explosives. The operation was an air assault.

Since angels would resurrect anyway, the plan was for two angels to sacrifice their lives and throw a box of dynamite into the concrete temple of the Machine of the Age. Yehoel agreed without much hesitation.

The God-President valued self-sacrifice. For angels willing to sacrifice themselves to save all the people of New York, they would surely be promoted not just one rank but two.

So the detective and the prosecutor returned to the veterans’ hall, and Yehoel flew back to the angels’ row house. He first gave a light salute to the angel in charge of field command before speaking.

“Ah, Inspector Semangelof. Officer Yehoel reporting. Just now, my civilian cooperation… well, given the urgent situation. I have a detective who works as my partner, and he’s found a way to resolve this situation. He says that soon some Idealist terminals will come with a box of explosives, and we’ll throw it into that crazy Spirit King’s head and detonate it. What do you think?”

Now he’s not just using that monstrous strength and vitality, but plotting schemes too. The Industrial Spirit King, who had already turned Inspector Semangelof into a terminal, barely restrained himself from grinding his teeth.

The original plan had been to use this angel terminal’s authority to eliminate The Idealists’ terminals, so Inspector Semangelof asked Yehoel with a still half-doubtful expression.

“Can we really trust him? That detective might have already had his mind consumed by The Idealists and become a terminal.”

Yehoel waved his hand as if the suggestion was absurd. The Industrial Spirit King wanted to click his tongue in frustration, but he had no tongue.

“Him? Come on, don’t be ridiculous. To kill that guy, a meteor would have to fall from the sky. Maybe six of them simultaneously would do the job. Anyway, he’s trustworthy. No matter how powerful the Machine of the Age is, its core must be fragile, and bombing it seems like a plausible approach.”

The Industrial Spirit King controlling Inspector Semangelof pondered for a moment. He reviewed the detective’s plan again. It seemed they intended to pretend to hold out at the veterans’ hall while directly attacking him.

Without omniscience, he had no way of knowing that this plan was a supplement to the major counterattack The Idealists were preparing. He nodded with a disgruntled expression.

But the disgruntled expression didn’t last long. He realized that he currently held in his hands Inspector Semangelof, who was leading the angels.

“It doesn’t sound bad. So, that’s… no, wait. It might actually be a good plan. Gather the angels and proceed.”

With those words, Inspector Semangelof’s betrayal was postponed. Postponed only until that detective embraced the blade to his chest. For now, it was better to let the plan proceed.

Not long after, four Idealists arrived through the sewers at the basement of the angels’ row house, carrying a box of dynamite. So that’s how they’ve been moving around. The Industrial Spirit King only realized it then.

And soon after, the detective also entered the angels’ row house through the sewer. The Industrial Spirit King couldn’t quite tell, but he was carrying a sword that emitted an aura similar to his own.

Before Yehoel could introduce him, the detective first drew the sword from its scabbard to show it. The blade was soaked with black oil and red blood, but it contained the subtle light of the sun. The angels could see it.

“You might be wondering who I am to be getting involved in an air raid against the Industrial Spirit King. Even the most thick-headed angels should recognize this sword at a glance. If the other half are still doing their angel duties properly without dying… I’m an experienced god hunter. This is something I got from the one I killed last time…”

The detective deliberately added more bravado. Saying “the one I killed last time” implied there was also “the one I killed the time before that.” The angels’ gazes began to soften slightly toward the detective.

The detective chewed his emotions inside his mouth. Right now, proving his usefulness was more important than his personal story. He swallowed his guilt about the people who had died there.

“It’s a trophy. Judging by how the Industrial Spirit King is maintaining that wall, he must have something similar to divinity, and if so, I thought you’d feel more at ease having someone who’s done this before watching your back. Like it?”

Inspector Semangelof, or rather the Industrial Spirit King connected to him, gladly stepped forward and extended his hand to the detective. This angel terminal had clearly worked with the detective before. The mission had failed.

“I know this operator. He’s trustworthy. Welcome aboard, you… experienced god hunter or whatever. If the Industrial Spirit King doesn’t die even after two angels sacrifice themselves, I’ll go in with you. I can’t fly…”

“I’ll carry him!”

Yehoel shouted loudly. Carrying a god-slayer would earn him recognition similar to carrying a bomb, but he wouldn’t die with his body torn apart like the angels sacrificing themselves with the bomb.

Because of that wretched angel’s self-preserving judgment, the Industrial Spirit King decided to forgo the pleasure of dropping the detective from the middle of New York’s dark sky to his death. Now was the time to earn trust.

The detective didn’t mention The Idealists’ plan. He simply wasn’t the type to disclose a request from one client to another. Thanks to that, the Industrial Spirit King couldn’t discover everything.

The angels set to work adjusting the fuses of the dynamite to be the same length so they would all explode at once. Even the Industrial Spirit King wanted to swallow once when he saw those bombs.

Though he lacked salivary glands or a throat, he did possess divinity. He might be able to withstand it with his divinity. He chose to believe that.

Preparations ended early, and after the detective nodded to The Idealist terminal waiting in the sewer below, the angels took flight. Inspector Semangelof didn’t understand what his nod meant.

The angels took flight. Two angels, neither Inspector Semangelof nor Yehoel, were assigned the sacrifice mission. Originally, Inspector Semangelof had intended to take the task, but it was rejected as insane for the commander to take on the sacrifice.

On the opposite side of New York, ten terminals formed a circle holding hands. They stood before magicians who had been persuaded by their former student. Normally, they would have been at odds.

For The Idealists, magic is bound by talent. It’s innate and creates class hierarchies. Pre-modern social classes were created because of magic. The magicians… at least tried to coexist.

The Hive Mind decided to place its trust in that last short sentence, and the magicians agreed to give The Idealists a chance to save the city. If they failed, they could try themselves with their remaining magical power.

The Industrial Spirit King was suffering from a lack of creativity. He didn’t notice the vampire among a group of Idealists, and believed they were simply going around killing terminals.

More than that… he couldn’t even conceive that mere Idealists, formed from the fusion of human consciousness, could overwhelm him with magical power.

Mana began to flow into the circle of magician terminals created by The Idealist terminals. It was too much for one person to handle, and ozone began to form, making it difficult to breathe.

The Idealists made all those terminals hold their breath. They added eight terminals that had survived the breakthrough to the magician circle to help withstand the mana.

Even with that, sustaining the mana was difficult, but the magicians who had been standing behind the terminals injecting mana now began to squeeze between the terminals, holding their hands and transferring mana.

It was an incredibly bold action for people in a city where rumors spread that holding hands with Idealists would turn you into a terminal. But the magicians called this not boldness, but necessity.

Nature creates rules, and magic allows people to play with those rules. And the people gathered there were New York’s finest magicians. They welcomed new challenges and rules.

Only then was the magician circle perfectly completed. Mana began to surge within the magician circle, more than The Idealists had ever handled before.

He decided to connect his mind in series again. He connected directly to all terminals, to just under a hundred terminals in Manhattan, allowing his physical terminals to emit magic.

Now he could communicate telepathically with the Industrial Spirit King, who was too far away to be seen. He could spread telepathic messages throughout New York loud enough for even those without mana to hear.

All terminals except those forming the magician circle were filled with mana. Their hands were corroding with mana’s poison, yet they were preparing a mental fusion spell that used more mana than the Industrial Spirit.

The Idealist Hive Mind shouted to all of New York. It shouted about contract violations.

“We are The Idealists. We are idealism. We are pure thought and unified will. Do you see, Industrial Spirit King? Do you see everyone joining hands together!”

A voice echoed through the city. The Industrial Spirit King’s voice spread as sound, and The Idealists’ voice spread as mana. In that moment, the Industrial Spirit King felt his steel frame shudder.

“What is this…”

“You said you would take care of the terminals for the people! But there was a lie in that contract. You did not keep your stated purpose, and you modified the terminals to make them irretrievable! We consider this a breach of contract! And for this breach… we will repossess the terminals loaned to you!”

At that moment, a terminal attacking Rose’s row house felt a hand approaching from behind. A bald Idealist terminal emitting mana from both hands placed its hand on the back of its neck.

The Industrial Spirit King’s other terminals instantly tore that bald terminal apart, but the Industrial Spirit King still felt as if he had lost a terminal. The terminal recaptured by the Hive Mind vibrated its mechanical vocal cords.

“Now it’s your turn to suffer, Industrial Spirit King… We are the wave! We are The Idealists! This terminal follows the unified will!”

That mechanized terminal entangled its mechanical arm with the mechanical arm of the terminal next to it and grabbed its neck. The terminal whose neck was grabbed disconnected from the Industrial Spirit King. He couldn’t reconnect it.

The Industrial Spirits and the Spirit King’s terminals could literally crush The Idealists’ terminals. But they were less skilled at using terminals than The Idealists.

The Idealists’ terminals jumped from buildings to seize the Industrial Spirit King’s terminals, not caring if their legs were crushed. Even with bodies half-torn, they crawled with their arms to steal terminals.

The Industrial Spirits tried to block them with their crushing jaws open, but five or six terminals willingly threw themselves into the spirit’s mouth to neutralize it. They began to overwhelm with numbers.

Their mechanical vocal cords endlessly shouted about idealism. Terminals willingly became meat shields and began to run. People hiding in houses now followed the beings they had most despised.

The Idealist Hive Mind, leading people with the thrill of revenge, made the mechanized terminal’s metal vocal cords vibrate with a resounding voice.

“Terminals of all New York, return to the embrace of your will! Rise up! Doesn’t your former master, the Industrial Spirit King, now seek to become a god? Rise up! Show him that he has neither god nor master!”

Neither idealism nor anarchism were things New York citizens liked, but… they decided to tolerate that cry just for now.

The corner of the detective’s mouth finally turned up slightly when he heard the voice bursting through telepathic communication, though his eyes couldn’t see Inspector Semangelof faltering in flight.