Chương 46: CHAPTER 45 – The Star of the Beginning

Maliard and Lance escaped the darkness of the underground, only to find themselves surrounded by even more rubble and ruins. Iron bars wrapped in concrete jutted from the mud, accompanied by the dirty, rusted remains of ancient machinery frames. The concrete beneath their feet was completely shattered and uneven.

"We are a few hundred metres from the plaza." Maliard said, pointing toward a destroyed alley covered in mud. Through the debris, he made out a small staircase. Lance nodded, tightening his fingers around his pistol.

"We will reach the position in around ten minutes." He announced, athletically vaulting over the fallen column that had blocked their path, lit only by sporadic blue flashes. The ground was sticky and muddy, making it difficult to find a stable foothold. Lance turned his head several times, fixing his gaze on the ruins on the hills, the dense forests, and the remains in the valley below.

"What became of the civilians who lived here?" He asked, walking alongside Maliard up the staircase.

"Evacuated or scattered during the Infection…" He murmured quickly, not letting his gaze leave his black watch for an instant. Lance nodded in silence, staring straight at the junction they would soon have to take.

"We are nearly there. We will make contact in a few minutes." Maliard broke the silence, slowing his pace. Lance walked straight into his back, returning to his senses.

"Take cover…" He murmured, pushing Lance into a narrow passage. A tremendously violent flash completely destroyed the mountainside above them. The shockwave shook their bones, hurling him directly against the wall. Maliard slid along the stair bars and fell to the ground.

"Is this truly Dirac's power?" His hand began to tremble, betrayed by the metal barrel of Supplicium, perpetually in contact with one of its buttons. Maliard noticed and helped him up. They made sure they had not lost any equipment before pushing on through the curtain of smoke and earth.

"Watch yourself, the ground is unstable…" The man murmured through the cloud. Lance directed his steps with even greater care. His fingers were slow and locked in a constant tremor.

"Stop…" Lance said quietly, gripping the wooden handle hard. A hand seized Maliard's wrist, pulling him out of the smoke. A flash of lightning lit Maliard's face in the dust.

"You and I… We are going to win!" He gripped his wrist firmly, smiling. The boy's fingers stopped trembling, and he returned the smile. They picked up their pace until they were struck by a white light.

"That is the plaza…" Maliard managed to peek out from behind his arm, observing the enormous crater lit by sparks and flashes.

"And at the centre is our target..." Lance added, making Gladiolus snap into his other hand. Maliard rotated the cylinders on his Compulsion one final time, then fixed his gaze on him.

"We will try to hit him from a few metres lower. I will cover you while you attempt to land a —" The light extinguished instantly, permitting the figure at the centre of the crater to fix its gaze on them. He floated just above the black shard, his hair loose. The violet and piercing gaze of the man cut through the souls of both of them. His lips moved, and suddenly all the earth beneath Lance and Maliard began to float in the air. They clung with all their strength to the iron bars, fighting not to fall.

The figure surveyed them from a distance, moving his arm toward the coast. The entire mass of debris accelerated rapidly in that direction. Lance and Maliard tightened their grip still further, curling up to brace for impact. A cloud of rubble, dust, and concrete was released into the air. A small bubble exploded within it, dispersing it. Maliard extinguished the light between his fingers as they rose.

"Was that another form of his ability?" Lance murmured, wiping the saliva from his lip. Grayson descended to the ground, striking the earth several times. His horns glinted beneath the moonlight, free from the storm. All that remained of that atmosphere was the glacial, sharp wind. The scientist surveyed the two figures, clenching and unclenching his fist. He settled at the edge of the crater, pointing toward the destroyed surface of the mountain.

"What you just witnessed was gravity…" He said with a trace of boredom, proceeding to make the entire mountainside collapse with a snap of his fingers. The entire rock face fell to the ground almost immediately, as though dragged down by an incalculable weight.

"What?" Maliard murmured, pulling himself upright. The light of Farbern resumed flowing in his hand, faintly. Grayson furrowed his brows, smiling.

"Perhaps that is too complex an example…" He answered, picking up a block of stone from the ground. He pressed it between his hands before lifting it slightly above his head. He let it go, yet the rock remained floating in the air.

"This is gravity with a negative value…" He snapped his finger, and the block plummeted to the ground at an alarming speed, fracturing the surrounding earth and leaving a pit of identical shape.

"This is amplified gravity…" He smiled, leaping directly over the hole left by the stone. He walked toward them, letting the wind move his hair and coat together.

"Explaining your ability to us does not seem like something a scientist would do." Maliard smiled, pointing his right index finger at him as though it were a pistol. Grayson smiled back, glinting again beneath the faint moonlight.

"Gravity is merely an extension of the true potential that resided within numbers…" He answered, waving a finger. The shard at his back began to rise until it emerged from the crater. Around it, a faint dark gleam absorbed the night's light.

"... But telling you the rest would not be intelligent." He murmured, turning away. Maliard wanted to fire, but for some reason decided to abandon the intention.

"If I shoot, we will both die." Maliard thought, lowering the pistol and signalling to Lance with a look to do the same. Grayson contemplated the Demiurge for a moment before continuing.

"I imagine you wish to stop my experiment?" He asked, his face blank and cadaverous. His lips were as pale as his skin, covered in scratches and grime. His clothes were caked in mud and stains. The two did not move, limiting themselves to staring.

"I understand… Not everyone can grasp the value of numbers, especially when it comes to losing them." He snapped his fingers, letting the shard drop to the ground.

"But it is the only way to change the course of this world…" He continued, walking toward them with his arms folded.

"Is that what that realm showed you?" Lance asked, lowering the pistol and fixing him with a cold look. Grayson nodded, widening his posture, as though embracing something.

"Wrapped in that darkness… I managed to touch it." Maliard only felt a jolt at the back of his neck, but Lance saw it directly. Above their heads, an enormous black ocean teems with numbers and calculations.

"Can you see it?" The scientist smiled, pointing his index finger above his own head. The sea moved, condensing into an enormous and complex mass of numbers. Before the boy's eyes, there was nothing but a confused mixture of incomprehensible symbols." Are those the same as Lucas?!"

"That is the Equation of the World …" The violet gleam in his eyes seemed to revive when he whispered that name, almost rejoicing at that incomprehensible numerical horror.

"You plan to fuse the world with that thing?!" Lance shouted, under Maliard's concerned look, unable to see what his companion was seeing. Grayson nodded again, dispersing the Frequency.

"Once I have materialised that form in this world, everything will reach perfection!" He pointed to the sky, indicating the white moon between the dark clouds.

"I will bring the horror here and cancel it to forge perfection. Numbers will be lost, but new results will walk upon this new world! And so, Lance…" He took a step forward, extending his hand.

"Come with me…" He offered him a genuine smile on that demonic face. Lance fixed him with a dark look, lowering his head.

"With my ability, I can power the Demiurge without difficulty! We could try as many times as we like!" He exclaimed, gripping his head with both hands and shaking with excitement.

"Erika and Lug?" The boy asked, pulling back the hammer of his revolver. Grayson stopped for a moment, looking at him in silence.

"I have no more interest in them. They have suffered enough in this world, and I do not wish to see their faces in it any longer. I do not care what becomes of them in my experiment. If Erika were to return, I might be glad, but it would not be a meaningful variable." His tone grew dark and flat as his face clouded quickly.

"They were numbers to be simplified for this experiment, too. If they choose to return, it would be nice, but it is entirely superfluous to what I intend to do he — " He did not manage to finish speaking before finding himself hurled away, nearly tumbling into the crater. Lance's fingers had pressed the trigger the moment he paused for breath.

"Do you remember that I promised I would put some sense back into your head?" He spun the drum under Maliard's stunned gaze. A smile escaped him at the boy's resolve. Grayson rose, pressing a hand to the bare skin on his chest. The burns had already vanished without a trace.

"I take that as a refusal…" The ground fractured beneath his feet, his horns beginning to resonate as though traversed by rivers of energy. Debris rose into the air, orbiting around him.

"You will be the first variables I dispose of!" He smiled, hurling the sea of beams and rocks at them. The two split apart, coming at him from opposite sides. Lance gripped the revolver again. Grayson pointed his hand at him as though gripping something. That's when a wall of rock appeared before Lance.

"There are two of us, you fool!" Maliard seized his head from behind, slamming him violently into the rock. The entire block shattered, freeing the scientist's face." He has already regenerated? My tissues were enhanced by Farbern!" He thought, when suddenly his entire body fell to the ground, slowly carving a furrow in the earth.

"You are not human either…" Grayson answered. His nose was slowly reassuming its original shape. Maliard found himself pressed down with increasing force, feeling his bones begin to crack.

"I will increase the output. Let us see how many kilograms you can withstand before you burst…" He smiled, raising his hand, which was then suddenly torn from his body. He turned his eyes to his side, noticing his arm gripped in Lance's hands, the blade in his mouth.

"I had not expected you to be so feral." He smiled before being hurled away by the boy's violent kick. His body rolled until it collided with the remains of a nearby building. Maliard rose, wrapping his body in a faint whitish light.

"Let us try not to be separated, in case he tries to immobilise us individually…" He murmured, nodding to Lance. The duo resumed running toward the scientist when suddenly their vision was blocked. An enormous ruined building had appeared directly in front of them, out of nowhere.

"DO NOT STOP!" Maliard shouted, pointing his gauntlet at the falling concrete. A black flash completely disintegrated the material, making it vanish. Lance launched himself through, targeting the white-draped figure. The arm already perfectly back in place.

"He can do it completely on his own?!" Their gazes, his and Grayson's, crossed in the dust.

"Kneel…" Lance's body crashed violently to the ground, slowly sinking into the earth along with the rubble." What is this?! I feel like I'm getting showered by boulders!" The bones in his leg fractured a moment later, stabbing at his nerves. The scientist's vision was blocked again by a slab of stone that rose from the ground.

"Trying the same thing twice seems reckless to me!" Grayson exclaimed, collapsing everything behind him. He turned, expecting to find a flattened corpse, but he found nothing.

"I am not much for gambling myself…" Maliard smiled from above him, pointing a light at his head. A series of drops gathered at the tip.

"By modifying the oxygen's code, I can produce water, then alter its velocity with free air…" A tiny sphere of water crossed his finger, condensing just in front of it. Grayson tried to move aside, but the ground was too devastated by his own attack. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences." Schafft: Wasser!" A violent jet of pressurised liquid passed completely through Grayson's arm, severing it entirely.

His eyes trembled with pain, but Maliard had already landed on the ground." Muscular force depends on dozens of factors, even more so for Metas…" He pulled his arm back, launching himself at him with clenched knuckles. The ground fractured further beneath his feet." But when it comes to me… I can force its manifestation!" His arm hardened, traversed by a clear light." Verändern!" His knuckles drove perfectly into his abdomen, fracturing the ribs and puncturing a lung.

Grayson's eyes went dark for a moment, followed by a spray of blood from his lips. His body flew away again, but this time it was caught before it could touch the ground.

"GO, LANCE!" The boy lifted Grayson's body above his head, twisting every fibre in his arm. A white flash struck the ground along with the scientist, completely fracturing the earth. Maliard pointed the light directly at the crater where Grayson had crashed. A red spark escaped from his fingernail." Feuer!" A column of incandescent flames rose from the ground, sending him skyward. The scientist regained consciousness momentarily.

"That was unexpected…" He raised his gaze to his charred arm, then examined all the various wounds across his body"My calculations predicted a different result… But it matters little now. Errors are normal with numbers." He extended the remaining fingers on his other hand, bringing them together.

"The beauty of numerical art lies in its complexity and its clarity." A smile appeared on his pale face, quickly turning into a sneer.

"Time to expand my domain…" With a snap of his fingers, a black dome began to envelop the entire surroundings, Maliard and Lance included. The moment they opened their eyes again, they found themselves on a platform in the sky. Their gazes settled on the starry sky and the floor of clouds beneath them.

"This is not a Frequency mutation, Maliard!" Lance exclaimed, clinging to the ground. Everything around them seemed to fall quickly toward the surface. The platform began to accelerate when Grayson set foot on it, completely immune to the platform's violent speed. His cape flowed upward, while he was simply walking with his hands hidden in his pockets.

"This is the Dome. I have transferred everything around me to coordinates at which I have altered the altitude. We are now falling from the Earth's atmosphere." His body began to float, though he remained near the meteor.

"I shall enjoy your impact from below." He smiled, vanishing from the rock, which accelerated exponentially. Maliard's hand lost its grip, slowly sliding toward the sky. They passed the sea of clouds, feeling all of them poke their skin.

"I do not have enough energy to generate anything capable of arresting the fall…" Maliard searched desperately for a way to stop their death, and with every passing second, the earth drew closer. He fixed his gauntlet, letting his tongue click between his teeth.

"I have no other choice…" He rotated his wrist with force, and one of the cylinders shot free, along with a whitish smoke. The air around them began to churn, dragging debris and dust with it.

"The only way to stop this fall is to slow the block with something else. A tornado will do." A violent rotating wall of wind enveloped their platform, dragging it downward. Lance tightened his grip even further, almost bending the iron he was clinging to.

"Hold on!" The piece of rock shattered against the sound, tearing apart the walls of the tempest. Lance and Maliard rolled across the ground, followed by fragments fallen from the sky. Maliard was the first to rise, examining his gauntlet.

"Eight cylinders remain to be discharged."

"Extraordinary… Using the movement of the airflow to arrest the fall." A voice called to him from the top of one of the ruins. Grayson smiled, tossing away the stone between his hands and letting it tumble among the rubble. Lance got back up, levelling his pistol directly at him.

"Nothing will work any further now." Grayson vanished, reappearing before them. His hand struck Maliard's abdomen squarely, sending him flying.

"You…" Lance tried to react, only to find himself on his knees the moment he attempted to turn. His entire body began to tremble and fracture under the unnatural gravity.

"N. M. V." The scientist's arm lost its colour, becoming something dark and negative, a slab of pure black. His blow grazed Lance's face, but the boy's body began to fly almost instantly. He passed through several walls and ruins, shattering into a cloud of ash and mud. Grayson materialised in front of Lance, stretched on the ground, his left arm reduced to a contorted mass of bone and muscle." Even with hardened blood, this is the damage… I cannot understand what struck me."

He tried to rise, staggering over the wreckage. Grayson surveyed him, smiling faintly.

"Negative mass. That is what struck you." He explained, almost intuiting the boy's concerns. Lance stared at him in confusion, regenerating his limb.

"What now, you can read minds too?" Lance smiled, licking the blood from his lips.

"It is difficult to imagine, but all bodies with mass exert an attraction. A negative body, however, has the opposite effect on everything that surrounds it. What fractured your arm was repulsion combined with your own attraction." He explained with satisfaction, approaching him with his hand extended.

"This time I will try to take your head off." He smiled, fixing him with a flat gaze. Lance prepared to draw his pistol when a spray of blood stained his face. The scientist looked in silence at the blade of rock that had passed through his side.

"Would you mind adding me to the lesson? I quite like this topic!" Maliard smiled, rotating his gauntlet. The rock drove even further through his flesh, decorating his lips with a thick, reddish stream. Grayson turned, snapping the spear. Maliard smiled, opening his palm.

"Caught you…" Lance launched himself at him, striking him precisely at the back of the neck. His body rolled to the ground again, though this time he rose more quickly. The hole in his side immediately began closing, but Lance and Maliard were faster. A burst of flame crossed Grayson's face as Lance launched himself again." Vergehen: Einbrand!" All the Frequency accumulated along his forearm condensed on his knuckles, concentrating on a single point on the scientist's abdomen.

"What is this energy!" Grayson felt his entire body shatter under that blow, sliding to his feet on the ground. He turned behind him, smiling at the sight of the hole left in the buildings and rock. He tasted his own blood and smiled." Is this something new… A challenge the numbers are setting before me?" Everything around him seemed to slow, even Lance and Maliard. Sequences of numbers began appearing on the surface of everything, even in the air before him." I finally understand it… These data are new!"

He smiled, channelling all those forms and equations into the palm of his hand, into a single sphere composed of those symbols.

"This time the expansion will be complete!" His perception of time returned to normal. He smiled at them both with a grin of pure madness. Tears scored his bloodied face." Dome…" The sphere of numbers expanded with a whisper, hurling the attackers away. In the sky, a gigantic dome of formulae and black symbols formed. Maliard and Lance felt their bodies tremble, while Grayson laughed with wide eyes.

"I HAVE CREATED IT! THE FINAL FRONTIER OF THE HUMAN SPECIES!" He exulted, weeping copiously with a wide smile across his face. The earth and the rubble began to rise and rotate, save for some that splattered against the ground. Maliard produced the light, but it was extinguished by Grayson's stare.

"Within this dome, only I am worthy of being considered a god!" He smiled, raising his hand. A sensation of fear ran through both their spines. Maliard and Lance exchanged a glance before darting to the side.

"Dome: Gravity Violation!" The ground beneath their feet was completely dragged upward, while the buildings and the mountainside enclosed in the dome were crushed into the earth. Everything inside that cage was overturned, floating, or collapsing to the ground. Within moments, everything had been levelled, bringing down even part of the island into the sea.

"I combined positive gravity with negative-value gravity. A result considerably more than decent for this experiment!" He rejoiced, returning to the ground and dispersing the greyish haze. His eyes settled, startled, on the two figures still standing in the middle of the desolate plain. Lance sent the glass-like disc flying above their heads, smiling at Maliard.

"Well done, Captain!" Maliard rose in silence, leaning against him. His leg was bleeding, but the light was already beginning to spread.

"It was only a wager… And what is this business of calling me Captain?!" He joked, shattering the cage of air around him.

"Poor form on my part, relying on fortune, but it worked…" His eyes shifted directly to Grayson, still wearing the rags that resembled a coat.

"Everything inside this dome is under his control. It may seem absurd, but it is not instantaneous. If I construct a material from scratch, the effect will not expand immediately!" He smiled, pleased with his gamble. Lance set Supplicium in his pocket, sealed it, and reached again for Gladiolus, carefully put away after the second confrontation.

"You are a problem, but I am beginning to enjoy myself!" The scientist smiled when suddenly he found his vision distorted and the air cut off. A cube of water had enveloped his body. He glimpsed Maliard, directing the light from his leg and his hand toward him. Grayson nodded. Lance was now a few paces from him, wielding the blade between his hands.

"Do you truly think…" The water around him exploded, evaporating immediately. A white flash appeared in Grayson's palm. Lance froze where he stood.

"Is he really improving this fast?" The boy hardened his grip on the hilt. They both faced themselves head-on.

"THAT MY NUMBERS WOULD STOP HERE?!" The blade severed Lance's arm completely, immediately cauterising the wound without letting a single drop of blood fall. Before Lance could even register what had struck him, a second dart of energy pierced his abdomen.

"LANCE!" Maliard pointed the light against the scientist's face, then he too saw that white flash materialise. His shoulder was carbonised in an instant.

"This is the song of the origin… Songstress: ORIGIN." He seized Lance's arm in his fingers, motionless on the ground and unable to rise. His skin and armour became part of the gleam between his fingers. Maliard's leg was pierced directly at the knee. He held back the pain, trying to rise, only to find himself completely pinned.

"Mass is chained energy. I free those chains, but nothing prevents me from reforging them!" He smiled, snapping his fingers. Where sparks had still been visible, a mass of iron and carbon had formed." Songstress: END." Maliard found himself completely pinned to the ground, his vision obstructed by waves of intermittent light. On Grayson's finger, two white and incandescent masses began rotating furiously.

"It is a strange question, but what would happen if two ultra-dense stars were to collide with one another?" Dirac murmured, his voice distorted by the waves of energy. The two masses took on a bluish halo, slowly colliding.

"You are the bigger problem in this scenario..."Grayson was now pointing the furiously rotating masses at Maliard, blocked in those cubic chains." What is this frequency? Is he on par with him now?!" Lance's arm had barely reformed, yet he was already on track to defuse the attack.

"I can't... Stop it..."" Ray Burst…" A blue flash engulfed anything that the eyes could see, then it vaporised the earth, cleaving the sea and dissipating against the barrier raised by the singularity with a roar. White vapour filled the horizon, as the abyss seemed to swallow the water. Maliard found himself on the ground, stretched out with his forehead slightly damp.

"Not the best, but still quite satisfactory…" Grayson smiled, fixing the figure standing beside Maliard.

"This is really a terrible habit of mine…" Lance smiled, unable to stop the blood flowing from his lips. In that single instant, before everything vanished, he had pushed Maliard aside.

"Lance…" Maliard murmured in horror, his forehead stained with the boy's blood. The boy's side was completely carbonised despite the defences of his ability. Part of a lung protruded in fragments from the wound, along with his bones.

"Hey... Bring him home, Captain Maliard!" He closed his eyes, still grinning as usual. The rock shattered, and Lance fell into the sea along with the debris and the smoke. Maliard stared for a moment at the pool of blood his companion had left on the ground, then turned toward Grayson." Maliard! Run! Please get away!" For an instant, a shadow appeared behind the scientist: a woman wrapped in darkness. He trembled, rising with difficulty through his tears and his trembling lip." Yet again...

This machine never stops..." Withish and dense smoke covered his side, as a green tint filled his eyes." Fueled by despair... That's how the world works."

"Grayson Dirac..." The two metas' gaze found their clash in the ruins. A loud thud, followed by another, shocked the silence. Two more cylinders had fallen to the ground alongside his grief.