episode_0263

The Apostle that appeared before Violet was truly bizarre.

Its form was humanoid, but its eyes, nose, and ears were absent. Where sensory organs should have been, several long, grooved lines, like stripes, covered its entire face.

Its skin had a texture like a mix of ceramic and organic matter, and long, thick objects resembling plant roots tangled and intertwined, forming its limbs and torso.

Anyone could tell it was far from any creature of this world.

“…!”

Violet swallowed her breath, staring at the Apostle’s true form.

This monster was no mere enemy. Its mere presence caused the surrounding air to ripple unsettlingly, and the ambient light distorted and shone strangely.

As she adjusted her vision, the flow of magic danced along impossible trajectories.

The scene unfolding before her evoked both intense fear and awe.

Even Violet’s individual, slender mind could grasp it. That thing was an existential catastrophe, threatening the laws of nature and the ecosystem.

Its mere standing caused a severe collapse of this world.

That wasn’t the only thing pressuring Violet.

The Apostle’s size, having revealed its true form, was beyond imagination. Violet estimated her height against the Apostle’s through the flood of visual information.

Even accounting for error, its height was more than four times her own. In addition to its size, comparable to a medium-large monster, the physical power she roughly sensed was formidable.

Violet thought.

If they couldn’t utterly destroy that monster here, they wouldn’t achieve a decisive victory in this battle.

“All artillery! Aim!”

“Prepare aerial guided bombs!”

While the command center hastily prepared an attack, the Apostle spread its two pairs of arms.

From one pair of its arms, long, sharp blades sprang out, glinting as they reflected light.

The twin blades, of an unfamiliar style, hummed ominously. The other pair of arms unfolded a magic circle.

Each tendril forming its limbs writhed as if alive, and every movement was smooth and silent.

Suddenly, a single will violently pierced her mind.

Violet grunted at the rudeness, akin to throwing an envelope in someone’s face.

“So, are you ready?”

The Apostle approached with an expressionless face, as if mocking her resolve.

Its two pairs of arms danced ominously in the air.

“Too bad, but this isn’t your den. This is stark reality.”

The intensity of the incessant vibrations from the Apostle’s twin blades grew even stronger.

Above it, an unpleasant, ear-piercing noise rang out. The two arms holding the twin blades spread wide on both sides.

“It’s coming!”

“Commence attack!”

At the same time as the stationary monsters charged forward, the Apostle’s form vanished before their eyes.

A colossal body instantly enveloped the front ranks. Violet shot skyward with a small explosion. Their response was swift.

Violets, poised in their respective positions, pulled their triggers. Rifle bullets couldn’t even scratch it.

“As expected, it won’t work.”

“Form up!”

The Violets swiftly formed a surrounding formation.

While other Violet companies blocked the incoming monster hordes from all sides, hundreds of Violets assailed the Apostle simultaneously.

“Push forward!”

Countless swords and spears were drawn. A fierce army charged from all directions.

The Apostle swung its sword lightly. A sharp force unfurled. The first line was cut in half and tumbled.

The clones, undisturbed, trampled over their own corpses and continued to charge.

“Charge!”

Despite dying, being cut, and torn, the distance closed instantly. Unit 415, at the front, stabbed.

It stabbed. Did it connect?

Though it hadn’t had high hopes, Unit 415’s face, which had been about to be satisfied with the mere act of striking, was cut off along with its disappointment.

“Huh? I definitely hit it!”

“It won’t hit!”

The sensation in their grasp was empty. Most close-range attacks failed to connect.

The moment the fierce, red magical sword energy touched the Apostle’s body, it strangely refracted or bent in an unnatural direction.

The image of Eidos in Violet’s sight was blurry yet distinct, a chaotic and constantly shifting illusion.

Even hitting a phantom would feel more solid than this.

“Why won’t this hit!”

While Violet pulled out its next card, three platoons were silently cut down.

Violet’s blood stained the gray city red.

Even with its thoughts dispersed by controlling the monsters, the Apostle’s swordplay was clean, and its twin blades continuously severed Violet’s heads, like an old, seasoned farmer harvesting a wheat field.

Fortunately for Violet, the Apostle itself had no room for leisure either.

“Can you kill it?”

When his comrade, more than half of whose mind was trapped, urgently asked, he sent a reply.

“It’s impossible. We have no way to completely kill it.”

The Apostle, who was wrestling with Violet in his mind, vented his fury at his comrade’s telepathic wave.

Eidos’s broad and sharp hypersenses merely transmitted the shocking abilities of these ‘Violet’ entities with higher resolution; there was no answer.

“Their unique network is gradually becoming visible. It’s spread everywhere. All over Lustrum outside the barrier. It’s impossible with our abilities.”

“Hyaaak!…Damn it! So we’re stuck here then?”

“I understand your situation, but I need you to endure. Hurry and complete the ritual and open the portal. We can’t do it, but the Enforcers or Sovereigns might be able to subdue this monster.”

The Apostle said so and turned its head.

Magic circles of all sizes unfolded here and there. Red magic coalesced, constructing colorful spells.

The vast spell formulas stored in their vision memory instantly unleashed, scattering magic in all directions.

Then came a burst of explosions.

-Roar!

Magic flew towards the Apostle from all directions.

Starting with a barrage of translucent red tracking blades, countless fireballs and spherical lightning bolts. Spears of magic and lightning struck down.

The Apostle raised a hand without moving. A geometric spell formula floated above its grasp, and it swung it widely.

The incoming spells changed direction and flew back towards the Violets.

“Agh! They’re coming back!”

“It’s using a cheat code!”

The distorted spells flew back at their owners, engulfing the surroundings in smoke.

Their triumph was short-lived, as merciless artillery fire rained down from above.

-Boom! Boom-boom-boom!

The Apostle’s massive body vanished into the thick smoke.

Violet-style simultaneous impact firing. While the relentless barrage of shells, cutting through the air with magic as bait, temporarily pinned the Apostle, the command center continued to play its next hand, pressing the attack.

“Good! The bombardment is working, even if just a little!”

Wingsuit Violets sliced through the wind. Explosions erupted each time the wildly charging girls plunged in.

A missile barrage from armed helicopters followed. Each time a missile, comparable to a house in size, exploded, the Apostle’s massive form in the dust was once again engulfed in flames.

Machine gun fire from hang gliders continued over the hordes of monsters.

“Pour it on!”

The Apostle twisted reality once more. Massive gusts of wind erupted around them without warning.

Helicopters sharply veered, escaping the turbulence, but the fragile hang gliders were helplessly swept away and fell to the ground. The wingsuit squad, caught in the strong winds, surged helplessly into the air like fallen leaves, swaying back and forth.

-Boom!

Immediately afterward, spiraling beams of light flew in. A small number of Violet guided bombs that barely managed to penetrate the strong winds exploded in mid-air.

Explosions, flashes, dust clouds. Through it all, the monster army stubbornly continued to cling to their defensive lines.

As numerous explosives and beams intersected, the long-silent city crumbled in less than 20 minutes, and the company shattered into platoons amidst the ruins.

The platoons, in turn, were fragmented into squads, each fighting their own battles.

“Squad 4, move to the right! Squad 1, disperse left and right!”

“Platoon 5, move with heavy weapons! Platoon 2 annihilated? Survivors, move to the designated location. Join Platoon 4, reorganize, and re-engage!”

What determined the tide of battle was their ability to operate on an individual level.

Violet actively responded to every situation.

Soldiers who had been forming defensive lines with swords and spears instantly picked up crossbows and rifles, engaging in a firefight.

As the monsters on the right fell to gunfire, a barrage of flames poured down. The surprised Violets dispersed, then reformed and retaliated with magic.

All offensive and defensive techniques a single Violet could wield interlocked like precise gears, creating a colossal killing machine.

The Apostle, having revealed its true form, could utilize its full computational and distributed thought capabilities.

Its species’ unique sharp hypersenses and manipulation abilities were extremely fast and excellent, but in uncoordinated situations, controlling monsters in groups was the best it could do.

Manipulating each individual monster, as Violet did, was impossible. The Apostle felt a sense of regret on that point.

Suddenly, both Violet and the Apostle, engaged in battle, recalled a game.

This battlefield was a giant chessboard.

The Apostle was a professional player with keen senses. It could continuously block attacks, counter, and aim for critical hits by playing the optimal move for each response.

Furthermore, the Apostle could enforce rules favorable to itself and deploy various types of pieces in diverse ways.

Each time the Apostle’s reality manipulation activated, Violet had to face a series of events: shells exploding in mid-air, the ground swallowing up units, and dead monsters reviving.

It was, quite literally, an atrocity on the level of being forced to play Janggi pieces on a chessboard or having Shogi rules imposed upon them.

With all levels of response blocked by irrational phenomena, all Violet could do was express frustration and bewilderment.

“Ah, no! They’re buffed!”

“Turbulence! Air support impossible!”

The Apostle arbitrarily manipulated the battlefield, and, acting as a queen itself, wore down its enemies.

Yet, it felt stifled somehow.

Eidos surveyed the entire battlefield. Despite deploying its true form, the offensive was still slow. Why?

The problem was, there seemed to be no way to end the game.

The Apostle’s telepathic wave uttered a groan.

“Damn it…!”

Violet had no king to deliver checkmate.

All it saw were pieces endlessly replenished and placed back onto the chessboard.

Violet was a somewhat inexperienced beginner, but it could continuously redeploy lost pieces.

On the battlefield, the Apostle continuously faced countless pawns that were as aggressive as rooks, as cunning as knights, and as surprising as bishops.

Pawns, as soon as they were consumed, reappeared one by one on the board.

The most insignificant, yet versatile pieces that could become anything and do anything.

“Chaaarge!”

Evade. Defend. Counterattack.

Magic-enhanced Violets sprinted through the debris at superhuman speed.

They sharply cut through crumbling and scattering concrete debris, showering the Apostle with bullets and magic.

One clone was torn apart in mid-air by the Apostle’s sword. A horde of monsters, baring sharp fangs, charged in pursuit.

The battle intensified. The clone units countered with flexible tactics, while the Apostle and monsters pushed with overwhelming force.

The city’s ruins were shattered and tangled by magic, bullets, claws, and teeth. All the while, reality continued to twist.

Time slowed, then bullets halted. Building fragments rose, then twisted and distorted, raining down on the Violets.

Objects, having lost gravity, rotated slowly in the air before assailing the clones at an inexplicable speed.

Nevertheless, the Violets fought on desperately.

Screams of agony. Bodies shattered and torn.

Flesh tangled with blood and dust.

One company was brutally trampled again, but another soldier filled the void left by the fallen.

The Violets did not falter, even in the face of twisting reality and monsters that knew no surrender.

As the engagement continued for tens of minutes, Violet gradually grasped a clue.

“It has limits too!”

The Apostle was certainly strong.

But why were they still alive?

It could distort and twist reality.

Then why couldn’t that monster instantly annihilate them?

Questions piled up, one by one.

Just as they were fumbling for a faint clue in the darkness of ignorance, an unexpected message came in.

The Violet from command shouted.

“It’s the Inspector!”

***

Above the colossal, hemispherical barrier covering the entire region, several aircraft of various sizes circled like eagles.

Inside the spacious, swaying transport helicopter, Irene calmly listened to the girl from the Special Operations Unit before her.

“It’s super strong! Really powerful!”

As the masked girl in the gray camouflage coat nodded, Irene’s head throbbed.

She leaned her head back for a moment, took a long breath, and muttered.

“…To summarize, the opponent calls itself an Apostle, named ‘Eidos,’ appearing to be an operative or executive sent by an invading species from another dimension. It possesses unanalyzable magic close to reality manipulation, mind corruption, and monster control abilities. Is my understanding correct?”

“Uh-huh! So it’s super dangerous! There’s one in my head too. You shouldn’t come here! It’s really strong!”

Violet, explaining the process of fighting the two Apostles, openly frowned in annoyance. It wasn’t visible behind the mask, but her displeasure was clear.

Irene’s golden eyes, looking at her friend, were tinged with worry.

If Violet was reiterating that it was dangerous, they absolutely couldn’t take it lightly.

“There are many sick people too! Everyone has a fever and headaches!”

Not only that, people suddenly transforming into monsters. The emergence of patients suffering from an unknown illness.

The situation was proving more complicated than expected.

Although the explanation was somewhat long and verbose due to limited linguistic ability, Irene quickly grasped from Violet’s description that the unknown enemy, the Apostle, possessed reality manipulation abilities.

If they blindly entered the chaos unfolding beneath the barrier, the damage would only increase.

Helios’s Hunters were the elite of the elite, but the problem was that the opponent wasn’t just a monster.

-As you’ve heard, according to our Special Operations Unit’s report, an unknown enemy exists inside. You absolutely must not let your guard down. Please be careful.

-Hmm…My goodness…

-What is this…

Voices of various tones came through the headphones.

Violet’s words were being relayed via the line to the main executives of the Helios dispatch team and Aegis’s rescue team.

-Adelaide-ssi?

When the question was posed, Adela, who had been pausing, slowly opened her mouth.

-First, you said the area around the exhibition hall was secured. We will proceed with entry. Since patients have also emerged, we cannot delay any further.

The Helios side stated they would follow. Coincidentally, the Restraid side had also shown an indifferent attitude about whether they entered or not, starting a little while ago.

Adela felt puzzled by Restraid’s actions, which involved continuously sending in small groups of personnel while preparing to secure an exit, but decided to ignore it.

Addressing the immediate task was paramount.

Soon, in Irene’s sight, rescue teams could be seen entering through the barrier from the helicopter’s window.

Medium-to-small sized airships successively disappeared into the barrier, which shimmered with strange colors.

‘Infiltrating and providing air support now…’

Irene’s gaze turned to the two executives standing beside her.

Reading her gaze, Viktor crossed his hands diagonally, forming an X, and Morgan shook his head.

‘Impossible. Dropping into the middle of an unknown number of monster hordes capable of combined arms is suicide.’

‘Those Apostles, there are two of them, right? And the helicopter we’re on is unarmed.’

If veterans more experienced than her said it was impossible, then it must be. Irene surveyed the personnel inside the spacious transport helicopter and had no choice but to agree.

She couldn’t allow the clan’s elite Hunters to die meaninglessly in such a place.

‘If only Rigel’s faction hadn’t embezzled the budget…’

It was regrettable, so very regrettable. The personnel, equipment, and funds were unsatisfactory. If they had more leeway, they could have made more diverse choices.

Irene’s complexion darkened slightly as she felt her helplessness. Violet, sensing the gloom on her friend’s face, raised her hand and waved.

It was a sign that they could still hold on.

“…It’s okay! I’ll call you if I need you later. Just help the people at the exhibition hall!”

Irene’s fingers unhesitatingly operated the console, switching the line.

-Everyone, prepare to deploy.

A slender but calm voice was relayed through the headsets of the Hunters checking their equipment.

Just as she was about to part her lips to give the next command, a sudden external communication pierced her headset.

An unexpected voice broke the momentary silence.

-Irene-yang! Irene-yang! Can you hear me?

Irene’s eyes widened. She recognized the unexpected voice. It was the Inspector.

Even through the heavy static, the soft yet dignified voice was clearly audible.

“Inspector?”

-I am currently heading back towards Lustrum. Entering now is dangerous! Code Omega is not just a monster…

A hurried voice transmitted through the headphones. Irene replied calmly.

“Yes, it’s an Apostle.”

A momentary silence, then the sharp, distinctive noise of a jet aircraft and the characteristic hum of the transport helicopter echoing in the cabin filled the space.

The Inspector’s voice was heard again. His tone was a mix of bewilderment and suspicion.

-How did you…

The Special Operations Unit Violet put on her headphones and immediately replied.

“I’m fighting them! One of them is in our heads!”

-I need an explanation of the situation.

“Explanation? Later! We’re busy!”

Violet grumbled with an irritated expression, ignoring the question. What had he been doing all this time, and why was he only coming now?

“More importantly, Inspector! Do you know any weaknesses of these Apostles? Answer quickly! Do you know? Or not? It’s urgent!”

Seijis, sensing the seriousness in Violet’s whiny tone, fell silent.

“I don’t know! Is there no way to kill them? We’re out of ammunition! Shells are running out too! In our minds, we have the advantage! But…”

Violet expressed its frustration.

It clearly seemed to have limits, but they didn’t know a definitive strategy to defeat it.

After a moment, the heavy voice replied again.

-Alright, listen carefully…

When the Inspector’s words ended, Violet, who had been listening intently, was so impressed it wanted to slap its knee.

“Alright, let’s die!”

Caressing several trump cards, Violet resolved to become a shield.

Because dying was what they did best.