NOVEL NEXT Vol.12, Ch.379 – Electi in Sync
Pulling Radiant Light from my Item Box, I immediately went on the offensive. The wind pounded against my skin as I tried to get used to the speed. The Architect tried to attack me as I lunged forward, but I did a sweeping kick that parried his arm away. A single touch was all that was needed to send his blow whizzing right by me. At the same time, I had a counter of my own. Bringing both of my arms together, I swung the sword like a baseball bat.
Seeing it slip past his defenses, the Architect switched to Defense to endure the blow.
Yet, such a loud crack echoed when the blade collided into the Architect’s body that it sent him flying away like a home run. It felt like a brick wall that had suddenly given out, all resistance shattering.
But then, my body took a nosedive in energy, feeling incredibly drained. That lasted only for a moment before a rush of power cycled through my body, like a battery being cycled during recharge. I couldn’t waste any time resting, so I pushed forward and dashed right up to the Architect’s flying body and sliced downward, creating a giant ‘Air Hammer’ spell in the air to accompany it. Both blade and magic slammed into my opponent, sending him straight into the ground with so much force that a crater formed where he landed.
In this wasteland on the dead Earth, no one would care about a few more dents in it, so I continued the assault, throwing dust clouds into the air from repeatedly pounding downward. I knew that it would take this much and more to down the god before me.
He had no time to ponder at all about where my newfound powers came from. Instead, he could only muster a bewildered expression on his face as he tried to endure the attacks. His eyes screamed at me.
‘How?!’
When he had killed my companions to remove the advantage we had in numbers.
‘How?!’
When he targeted our supposed weakest links that were scattered, rather than consolidated into one holder.
He had been so convinced that we would work as a team to defeat him, but then, all the powers had consolidated into me.
The Architect immediately got up and summoned one of his powers – Speed – to escape. However, I kicked off with my left foot and matched his pace. Speaking a quick and rough chant, a multitude of ice spears appeared around me. They launched forward and homed onto their target, following his every move.
The Architect summoned Magic Defense at the exact moment that they collided, cancelling them out, but a chef knife appeared in the middle of the barrage, stabbing right into his chest. It had been thrown into the magic spells, and with no way to summon both magic and physical defense at the same time, something was bound to connect.
I appeared before him, pulling the knife out of his chest before giving him a grin. A kick lunged forward to wipe it off my face, but a quick sweep of the leg caused the Architect to twirl out of control. With his back turned to me, I jabbed my fingers into it, right into a pressure point that induced paralysis.
I pressed Eryn’s sword against his neck and beckoned him to look more closely at his surroundings. The moment he did so, his eyes widened.
The bodies of my companions – the glint of metal shown from them. Where they had been cut, wires and metal parts spilled out. Every one of them, aside from me, were androids that had been remotely controlled from Leguardia. Given what the Architect did last time, it was obvious that taking us apart would be his strategy again.
With the various sites around Leguardia now under our control, we programmed them to create realistic androids for each of my companions. With the combined intellect of Katalina and Lamps, as well as Macali’s engineering staff, they formed a way to connect real people to the androids, allowing them to be piloted as if it were their own bodies. Combining Resonance Stones and lost VR tech made it all possible, even across space.
“But-, your powers!”
Expecting him to comment about that, I pulled up my right sleeve, revealing a bright blue shine imbedded in my arm. It was a Resonance Stone – connected right to Koujiro – which gave me the ability to wield Radiant Light at ten times its power.
My left arm had one connected to Saki. With both hands gripping Eryn’s sword, the destructive power of both arms combined was unrivaled, since the Architect couldn’t summon both powers at once.
My legs were imbedded with stones connected to Ludmila and Lau, granting Speed and Dexterity. The rest of the stones connected to the others were put in my torso, granting strong magic power, super luck and impenetrable defenses, as well as restoring the ridiculous amount of mana that was required to channel everyone’s powers through me.
We had set up a trap for the Architect, waiting for the moment that he would strike to let his guard down. With apparent victory, people often slacked off afterwards. ‘I’ wasn’t any different.
“My friends were piloting those bodies through Resonance Stones used to substitute for their cores. And the stones that you see on my body are meant to be backups in case those fail. Can you guess what happened, now that you trashed the primary ones?”
The grimace on his face was all I needed to know.
When he had killed off my android companions on this world, the connection for the pilots then redirected to the Resonance Stones in my body. Entrusting their powers to me, all they had to do was focus on their intent to bestow their abilities through me. Just like how we could pass on our intent while in contact, the Resonance Stones cut that distance to zero.
It was almost the same as with the androids, minus the control. It was all too obvious to me what would happen if too many people tried to grab the steering wheel; a brief watch of any community-decided Twitch game playthrough could perfectly demonstrate the chaos.
“Well, Mr. Architect, the original me. This is my answer to you. As long as there is trust in others, there is no need to claim everything for yourself. There is no need to bear all the weight, all the pressure. In desperation, it limits everything to how you see it. Since you didn’t see this trick coming, I can hardly believe that you are some god that has irrefutable reasoning. You’re just a human with far too much power in his hands, thinking that he can fix everything with the right planning. You are the me that worries too much on my own.”
I pointed to the Resonance Stones, which were a creation of Sistina over a long period of time.
“But I have these. Stones that were formed due to a strong ‘intent’ to connect with others. Even though Sistina was isolated, even though she was guarding the planet of Leguardia, that desire never went away. These Resonance Stones hold the power of Sistina herself, the Goddess of Connections. It is the very same power that brought everyone to Leguardia, the very start of your journey. It is the power in which I will show you how everyone’s path connects to this moment.”
We had wondered why such a material only existed on this planet and nowhere else. But Sistina had not been sitting around and doing nothing while the Architect’s objectives slowly advanced. She had developed these stones independent of the Architect’s plans, leaving them out of his equation. The Architect didn’t realize that they could be used to transfer more than simple mana signatures. It worked for the divine powers of the ‘gods’ as well.
With a bit of creativity and experimental know-how, it had resulted in a way for me to synchronize with everyone. This made use of their powers all at the same time, rather than the limitations that the Architect held, which forced him to switch between them. It was why I needed to seek out everyone once again.
And with our combined effort, it dwarfed the stolen abilities within the Architect.
He looked up at me, a defeated expression on his face.
“So what now? You’ll end it all? You’ll destroy millennia of progress, just so that you can keep Leguardia safe? You’ll protect the only home you’ve ever known and that will be it?”
I shook my head.
“Man, I knew I was a pain in the ass, but seeing myself act this stubborn really annoys me. But no, if I wanted to do simply that, I would have just used ‘The End’ and cut your soul away at the first opportunity.”
“Then, what do you have planned?”
I shook my head once again.
“That isn’t for me to say.”
“Then, who?”
The sound of light footsteps approached from the distance.
The Architect and I turned to greet the newcomer, a person I had grown quite close to recently. But for the Architect, she had plagued his mind for ages. She was the very reason for the path that he tumbled down, one full of regrets and covering up for mistakes in the past.
She was a humble girl dressed in fancy garments that made her seem important. Others may have treated her that way, but in the end, she was a mere girl, bestowed with only the power to form connections.
It was all she could do to walk onto the battlefield at the end to greet an old acquaintance.
I looked back to the Architect, whose jaw was slack and eyes glazed over. His lips mouthed the name that he didn’t think would come up ever again.
“She’s the one that asked me to bring you to your knees, so that you would sit and listen for a change. Rather than convince yourself of the only path you think you have before consulting others.”
It was at that point I learned that the Architect’s grand plan had been a desperate struggle for validity from the one person that chose not to listen to him.