Chapter 183:『White Light』
If I wanted to destroy this massive space in one blow…
Do I really have to detonate the Artificial Commandment?
My thoughts accelerated. In the vastly slowed perception of time, I calculated future actions. Whether detonating the Artificial Commandment would collapse White Light was still unverified.
In the prophecy called the Original Script, the final magic of White No Name had shattered the Commandment White Light. It wasn’t unreasonable to assume that the explosive power of the Artificial Commandment, which rivaled—or perhaps surpassed—that magic, could destroy White Light.
But let’s say the Commandment bomb did defeat White Light. Would the Commandment Frontline move as we intended afterward?
…No, it’s impossible!
Argyrion’s sudden intrusion had unraveled every calculation.
The Commandments were limitless sources of mana, and that alone made them unpredictable variables. Even for aligned groups like the Divine Cult or Hector’s Knights, relinquishing such a power was no small decision. Entrusting Commandments to multiple parties relied on the premise of dividing power to ensure mutual checks and balances.
But what if Argyrion claimed one?
Before confronting White Light, I had heard everything Carisia knew about her.
White Light had said she modeled her spiritual immortality after the Mage King’s will engraved in the Commandment. In other words, if Argyrion seized Nokmok, the Commandment, they could connect to the fragmented will of the Mage King.
That fragment would act as a catalyst to summon the Mage King, who resides beyond the extra-dimension.
It was the worst-case scenario. The Artificial Commandment was indispensable—not only as a warhead to confront the incarnated Mage King but also as a key component for spatial displacement to strike Argyrion.
This meant that defeating White Light without detonating the Artificial Commandment was imperative.
How?
What method could dismantle White Light’s integrity?
Time ran out before I could find an answer. The lingering light subsided, and White Light rose into the air.
She no longer appeared willing to fight on the ground. Was it an application of photonization?
Whatever my suspicions, my reaction needed to be quick. Since this space was fundamentally White Light herself, all her spells were part of the formulas that composed the dimension. Every time I overrode a spell, she restructured it almost immediately—a testament to her mastery.
But I had Carisia.
My employer unleashed relentless firepower. White Light countered with torrents of starlight, neutralizing the attacks with overwhelming force. I had wondered why she chose flight, knowing I could interfere with her magic.
Now it was clear: by drawing closer to the stars, her magic’s potency had increased. It seemed she was willing to take that risk to overpower us.
Damn it. The Artificial Commandment was steadily eroding the domain White Light controlled, but this space remained inherently hers. If I calculated the maximum mana she could draw at any given moment, of course her advantage was higher.
Erosion?
The domains of two Commandments compete to expand their influence. The larger the pool of free mana they secure, the greater their domain grows. When one domain erodes the other, the original spells in that space collapse, converting their stored mana into free mana.
Ultimately, the struggle between two domains boils down to the seizure of free mana. The spells themselves or the mana within them aren’t directly exchanged.
But my formula overrides could forcibly link the two Commandments. If White Light’s existence itself was inscribed as a formula within the Commandment, then the Artificial Commandment’s magic could act as a poison, diluting her essence.
I recalled the attack that had caused White Light the most damage: when I had forcibly connected the purification formulas of the Artificial Commandment to White Light.
“Boss! Did overriding the Commandments work?”
“It was enough to blow her head off once! But I’m not you—I couldn’t stop her from regenerating!”
Even when White Light was consumed with murderous intent toward me, she was cold and calculating enough to exploit it and target Carisia instead.
For her to show such a significant vulnerability against Carisia meant the discord between the two Commandments inflicted something far worse than mere pain.
The strategy became clear: attack the formulas that composed White Light herself. Since we couldn’t bypass her to connect directly to the Commandment and seize its authority, this was the only path left.
The problem, however, was that the Artificial Commandment was the only force capable of delivering a meaningful blow against White Light, whose existence was fundamentally intertwined with the Commandment.
If I attempted another forced override between the two Commandments, the outcome of the battle against White Light might shift—but Hydra Corporation’s overall war efforts could spiral out of control. At this moment, Hydra’s forces were likely fighting with the Artificial Commandment’s support.
If the shock of the override brought both White Light’s forces and Hydra’s mages to a standstill, it might work. But if White Light recovered first and severed the Artificial Commandment’s link, we would lose.
I needed a method other than the Artificial Commandment. A formula capable of challenging the scale of White Light’s existence. Something that could contend with her soul.
And then it hit me.
I let out a dry laugh. The answer had been right in front of me all along.
“Boss. This entire space is the Commandment. As soon as White Light’s avatar collapses, seize control of the Commandment.”
“Orthes? What are you planning to do?”
White Light had inscribed her soul into the Commandment as a formula.
And I? I was a soul engraved by the Divine Cult, drawn from beyond the extra-dimension.
White Light and I shared the same fundamental nature.
The only thing needed was a spell to bind our two souls together. I had always relied on the magic engraving drive as a medium for formula overrides, but this time, I didn’t need it.
I recalled the principle behind Carisia’s instant-death magic by sight. Sometimes, the very act of seeing is itself a magical action.
In that case, my gaze could become the formula.
Open your eyes, Orthes.
***
It was a mosaic-like landscape. A lifetime, eerily similar to Carisia’s, yet with a different essence, stretched out before me.
Fragments of a human’s every moment split into countless shards, filling the space above, below, and all around me. The memories flowed without pause, turning the space into a grotesque monitor where countless channels played simultaneously.
And there I stood, at the center. A man in a black suit, his eyes narrowed to slits.
In one hand, I held a black High-Frequency Blade.
This was me. The form of the outsider who had named himself Orthes.
The mosaic fragments began to coalesce, taking the shape of a person.
It was White Light. Or rather, her form before she had engaged Carisia. Unlike now, her left arm was intact.
“You… you…!”
Just as I perceived White Light’s life, she was undoubtedly witnessing mine. The façade of me as the Mage King’s confidant had completely crumbled.
“The Divine Cult? That relic of a bygone age is their final desperate act?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what this is.”
I pointed my blade at her.
“Although, I rather like my other title: Chief Inspector of Hydra Corporation’s Divine Investigation Office.”
I swung my blade. The dreams shown by the reliquary had taught me how to move within this mental space.
Let’s wager our souls and fight, White Light.
***
Orthes stood perfectly still, his eyes wide open.
At the same time, White Light’s movements visibly slowed. Her body creaked, as if it were made of rusted tin.
Had Orthes awakened some sort of Medusa-like ability to petrify what he gazed upon? Carisia looked at Orthes, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Perhaps this fight could finally end.
Thin, blue cracks began to spread from the corners of his eyes.
Carisia’s magical intuition grasped the essence of the phenomenon before her. Orthes’s physical body was beginning to reflect the vision in his ‘eyes,’ reducing him to fragments of intangible words, as if he were being unraveled into scattered pieces of meaning.
Carisia neither froze in horror nor wasted time shouting clichéd words like “No!”
Instead, she turned and sprinted toward White Light.
If Orthes was to disappear, White Light had to be destroyed first.
White Light, her body moving in grotesque, jerking motions, was preparing to strike Orthes. Her dissonant movements were the result of her spirit’s commands being transmitted at an agonizingly slow pace. As long as her soul remained bound by Orthes, her actions couldn’t remain coherent.
But White Light was adapting to the two-front assault.
Carisia herself was the result of a quest to master the duality of spirit and body.
Over thousands of years of magical contemplation, White Light had refined the ability to project her will across both the material and spiritual realms.
***
White Light optimized her movements for efficiency. She issued identical commands to both realms, eliminating the need for dual calculations and reserving resources for focused thought.
She was preparing the ultimate move, a decisive spell that would erase both Orthes and Carisia in one strike.
In her current state, fine motor control and precise mana manipulation were difficult. Naturally, her attacks became straightforward, linear, and devastatingly wide in scope.
Her finishing blow would come from her left arm. The radiant arm (gwangwan, 光腕), woven from fragments of Infinite Starlight, was a weapon of unparalleled destructive power, an enchanted construct that exceeded any conventional tool of war.
White Light compressed her mana into the radiant arm, overloading it to the limit before detonation.
The concept for this attack had originated from Orthes’s memories: the Artificial Commandment bomb that Carisia had prepared. Since Infinite Starlight was a magic on the threshold of divinity, this was essentially a compressed version of that bomb.
White Light swung her blade of light.
Carisia charged headlong into the oncoming cascade of radiance.
Meanwhile, Orthes retrieved a formula from his memories and grafted it onto his blade.
Slowly, gradually, the two adversaries fighting White Light advanced—one in the material realm, the other in the spiritual.
Carisia realized that White Light was preparing a spell of tremendous power. The starlight gathering in her left arm grew ever brighter, impossible to ignore.
Orthes, his eyes fully unleashed, read White Light’s actions as well. In her current state of unified thought across two realms, even deception through murderous intent was no longer possible.
Finally, the starlight condensed in her radiant arm reached its critical point.
At the moment of impending catastrophe, Orthes and Carisia shared the same thought:
White Light was holding her own against both of them in this two-front war. Even as she reserved her strength to complete a finishing spell.
Victory was impossible if they continued in a linear pattern—soul against soul, body against body.
***
I trust Carisia. If I can destroy White Light’s body here, she’ll finish the rest.
I trust Orthes. If I can sever White Light’s spirit here, he’ll handle the rest.
Together, we’ll win.
***
Orthes’s eyes saw both worlds simultaneously. In the spiritual realm, he fought White Light’s soul. In the material realm, he saw Carisia battling her physical form.
Since he had accessed the spiritual realm without closing his eyes, this was, in a way, inevitable.
Orthes observed White Light’s mana bomb, the Extinguishing Star spell. Excluding Carisia, no one alive had studied mana bombs more extensively than Orthes.
He had seen the structures of countless explosive spells, to the point of exhaustion.
Orthes’s apocalypse grafted itself over the Extinguishing Star formula. The mana, which had reached critical mass, suddenly lost its direction and erupted outward. A blinding, annihilating force tore through space, erasing everything it touched.
The Orthes in the spiritual realm had disrupted the battle in the material realm. When White Light tried to suppress the unleashed mana with the power of her Commandment, Carisia intervened.
Magical interference requires two things:
Timing the interference precisely to match the spell’s activation.
Using a spell from the same category as the one being interfered with.
Carisia rapidly constructed a spell meeting both criteria.
The first was explosion, the concept she had always pursued. Since the Extinguishing Star formula itself had originated from her mana bomb, preparing a corresponding spell was simple.
The second was spirit, an aspect she had directly experienced through Aegio’s relic. By reverse-engineering the formula from the moment her mind had synchronized with Orthes, she created a spell that not only interfered with the Extinguishing Star but also disrupted White Light’s spirit.
Ultimately, the formula Carisia sought to interfere with was White Light’s soul.
From the spiritual realm to the material realm, and back again—from realm to realm, Carisia’s attack destabilized the very fabric of White Light’s existence.
She clenched her fist one last time, plasma coiling tightly around her gauntlet.
Orthes grasped the magical tremor radiating from Carisia’s attack in the spiritual realm. It became the foundation for his final formula override.
A descending blade and a rising gauntlet. The two attacks, one from each realm, converged on White Light’s heart. In both worlds, the strikes landed in the exact same place at the exact same time.
The boundary between worlds vanished. Carisia could see Orthes, and Orthes could see Carisia. Across the material and spiritual planes, they delivered a decisive cross-strike that burned through White Light.
Her existence shattered, scattering like an explosion. The mana she had accumulated over countless eons flooded the world, bleaching the once star-filled celestial sphere to pure white.
At last, the radiance collapsed, fragmenting into countless pieces and dissipating.
Orthes dropped the High-Frequency Blade from his hand and looked up at the sky.
It was no longer filled with starlight or an infinite void.
It was a vast, endless blue—the azure sky.