"Whyme?"
She bowed her head, hearing how hoarse her own voice was.
"Because of your conscience," Rei Ao replied coolly.
"Conscience?"
She was startled. She didn't fully understand. Then Rei Ao spoke:
"As someone aware of the Level 6 Shift Project, you sympathized with the Misaka Sisters and tried to protect them, didn't you?"
""
Nunotaba was dumbstruck, gaping.
"I"
She had indeed felt that way. Unlike her fellow researchers who treated the Sisters purely as experimental subjects, she couldn't fully accept that perspective. That must be what Rei Ao called "conscience."
A bitter smile curved Nunotaba's lips. Even she never expected that this insignificant sense of guilt would end up saving her life.
"What do you want me to do?"
Rei Ao smiled in satisfaction. That was her answer.
"A wise choice."
"Starting today, you'll obey Shokuhou Misaki's orders directly."
Before Nunotaba could process it, Rei Ao's figure began turning transparent. Just before disappearing, he left one final remark:
"I'll send the Talent Workshop location to your phone. Come report in, and don't delay."
Once the laboratory fell silent again, she realized her entire back was soaked in cold sweat.
"Don't worry."
The remaining Shokuhou offered a faintly sympathetic smile.
"Compared to dying, what you're about to witness will be the truly scary part."
She was sure Rei Ao had now set his sights on this girl. No doubt, she'd be treated quiteroughly in certain ways. But Shokuhou herself had no room to mock Nunotaba, since she too would soon have to fulfill her own trade.
..
Headquarters of the Anglican Church the Most Secret Prayer Room.
Stiyl slammed open the heavy oak door. Having learned the truth, he'd rushed back here to confront Archbishop Laura, who had deceived him.
"Archbishop! About Index's memory!"
But his enraged shout ended as abruptly as it began. The scene before him made the towering red-haired priest recoil as though struck by lightning.
He saw his revered Archbishop Laura on her knees, forehead pressed to the floor, golden hair cascading over the sumptuous carpet like a waterfall. And perched on the high-backed seat that should have been the Archbishop's was
"Yo, Stiyl,"
A black-haired young man with iridescent eyes waved at him casually.
"You're three minutes earlier than I predicted."
"It's you!"
Stiyl recognized him. It was that man he'd briefly faced before, Rei Aothough Stiyl, frozen in time back then, never learned his identity. He couldn't fathom why Rei Ao was here.
"What are you doing?"
Whatever his anger toward Laura, it now refocused on the man forcing her into this position. Stiyl's fingers clenched rune cards, but a sharp sense of danger stopped him from attacking. A suffocating pressure filled the room, the air thick as syrup.
Rei Ao smirked.
"You raced back quickly, but too badthere's no place for you here."
He merely gave a light snap of his fingers.
"!!!"
Stiyl felt the world spin; the view warped like ripples in water. When it cleared, he found himself standing outside the Church headquarters, out in the main plaza. The passersby, oblivious, seemed not to notice his sudden appearance, as if he'd been there all along.
"Damn it!"
Stiyl cursed, spinning around to rush the main gateonly to find no matter how he ran, the distance never shrank.
He's twisted space!
Realizing this made his blood run cold.
Inside the Prayer Room:
Rei Ao looked down at Laura, still kneeling on the floor. A cold sneer curled his lips.
"Get up. Stop pretending."
His tone turned icily forbidding.
"I didn't come all the way here to watch you act pitifulshow me your true self."
Laura's body trembled. Slowly she rose. That fair face, which always wore a saintly smile, now looked white as paper, though she forced an attempt at composure.
"Rei Ao-sama jests."
She dared not show the slightest disrespect to this man who appeared abruptly, crushing her with absolute power. Closing her eyes, then reopening them, black runes spread beneath her skin. The gentle archbishop's countenance grew eerily bewitching, no longer holy but demonic.
"Coronzonor should I say, 'the Great Demon'?"
Rei Ao mused, eyeing her with interest in this form. By now, her eyes had turned completely black.
"You're a Magic God Everything must bend to your will," Laurarather, Coronzonmurmured, fully aware of Rei Ao's godlike status.
Rei Ao rose, his iridescent eyes reflecting the twisted visage.
"As expected of someone so cunning,"
He seized Laura's chin.
"I only came for three reasons. First, that nuisance Aleister's in my way, so I cleaned him up. Now Academy City belongs to me."
Fear flitted across Laura's face for real. As a Great Demon on par with Aiwass, she sensed the horrifying power in Rei Ao. This was no ordinary Magic God's might, but something older and more fundamental.
"What else do you want?" she asked, her voice tight.
Rei Ao's grin spread, so cold it made even a demon shudder.
"Simple. Second, you become my property. Third, you never again scheme against Index or Academy City."
His hand slid down Laura's neck.
"Of course, in exchange, I'll let you live."
Suddenly, Laura felt a dark runic energy from Rei Ao's touch burrowing into her very soul, forging a binding more dreadful than any demon's contract. She tried resisting on instinct, but it was no use.
"Ah You're truly a cruel master"
Her voice wavered with resignation. Her eyes reverted back from full-black to human pupils, yet the whites were marbled with black veins.
Rei Ao shoved her roughly onto the prayer altar, the archbishop's robes dissolving silently into fragments under his magic.
"You gave Index a collar, so I'm giving you one in return. Fair, no?"
He whispered in her ear.
"And nowfulfill your duty as the dog who's been collared."
The command in his voice admitted no defiance.
~~~
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Chapter 699: Eight Magic Gods! To become the One and Only!
Painful groans.
Breathless cries of pleasure.
Within the bright church, they echoed like the chanting of someone facing a wall in prayer.
Those once-holy murals looked on.
In the flickering candlelight, the saints' images on the walls took on an eerily strange quality
as though the Lord Himself were weeping.
Time passed.
Laura's rasping voice sounded:
"Master are you satisfied?"
Rei Ao glanced at her. Within his iridescent pupils flickered a terrifying brilliance. He tipped her smooth chin upward with one finger.
"It's passable. But next time, if you learn to act more like a dog, I might be even more pleased."
"Yes, my Master."
Laura was docile in a way nothing like a high archbishop of the Church. Soon, Rei Ao's figure began to turn transparent. As he vanished completely, the tremendous pressure in the prayer room suddenly eased.
""
Laura forced herself to her feet, trembling.
Looking at the runes now permanently etched on her skin, she gave a wry, complicated smile.
"What a formidable master I've encountered"
Iridescent light flowed across the city sky, shifting like an aurora. Rei Ao stood atop the church, his black hair fluttering amidst the energy storm. Rainbow-colored eyes reflected a fractured sky.
He had just finished his "in-depth exchange" with Laura; a sense of satisfaction coursed through his body. Gotta admit, the archbishop was indeed quite satisfying.
"All right," he murmured to himself, not getting lost in lingering warmth. His fingertip sliced the empty air, and a rift tore open. The world's barriers were as fragile as thin paper before him.
This was a realm even Magic Gods struggled to reachdirect contact with the source code of the world.
As the rift widened, streams of seven-colored light poured out. In the blink of an eye, he was in a place of utter void, facing a glowing orb shimmering like a galaxy.
Right then:
Eight rifts tore open the emptiness.
1. From the first rift, an endless star-river surged forth, condensing into the form of a strangely-dressed woman. Each step she took gave birth to a new galaxy beneath her feet.
"What an unpleasant disturbance," Niang-Niang chuckled, flipping open her fan. In that instant, it was as though entire worlds were being born and destroyed within it.
2. From the second rift, torrents of intertwined lava and ice gushed out. Nephthys, clad in monk-like robes, emergedher left eye aflame like the sun, her right eye frozen as a glacier.
"You who destroy the balance of worlds deserve heaven's punishment." Her voice resonated from past, present, and future all at once.
3. From the third rift, ten million golden lotuses bloomed. High Priest appeared, seated atop a lotus dais, with eighty-four thousand Buddha images looming behind him.
"Amitabha The path you tread, young one, invites catastrophe." He sighed, and every script in every religious text began twisting and reshaping.
4. From the fourth rift echoed roaring gears. Proserpina drove a chariot forged of causal chains, rending space as she advanced. Within each turn of its wheels, countless parallel-world images flashed and died.
"Interesting. Someone actually broke through the barrier we set."
5. From the fifth rift poured pure blackness. A corpse-like figure emerged, opening her mouth to swallow all light into her endless abyss.
"Huuh" That single guttural syllable trembled through the void.
6. The sixth rift glowed white as the monstrous Chimera, bearing twelve pairs of wings, descended. Each feather was inscribed with the genetic code of a different species.
"The world's barrier is in shreds" Its pupils split into tens of thousands of compound eyes, all focused on Rei Ao.
7. From the seventh rift came a baby's wail. Tezcatlipoca manifested in fetal form, curled within a womb of blood, its umbilical cord connecting to the void.
8. The eighth rift tore open with thunder. A girl wearing an eyepatch over her right eye and a tall witch's hat stepped throughOthinusstaring at Rei Ao with her single green eye, saying nothing.
Eight Magic Gods.
Eight calamity-class auras manifested simultaneously. Under the compression of their phases, the matter in the void began quantumizingsometimes condensing into crystals, sometimes disassembling into data streams.
Rei Ao's rainbow pupils flicked over the Magic Gods, a faint smile curling his mouth.
"What a lively welcome party."
Niang-Niang froze mid-wave of her fan.
"You newborn little creature, how'd you tear through the world's source barrier? That should be impossible."
"Impossible?" Rei Ao chuckled. "Maybe for you all."
He'd already mastered the fundamentals of countless worldsbreaking through a world's barrier was practically routine for him. Plus, he wielded a Magic God's pinnacle power, making such a feat unsurprising.
But evidently, smashing the barrier to seize this world's source had attracted the notice of these Magic Godseight of them, each bearing immense power.
High Priest's golden lotuses turned collectively toward Rei Ao.
"You carry none of a Magic God's karmic cycle, yet surpass a Magic God's power This is illogical."
Nephthys cast a beam of space-time from her eyes in keen interest.
"Let us test your qualifications!"
That beam alone was enough to vaporize a continent, but as soon as it neared Rei Ao within three meters, it dissolved into basic particles.
Seeing this made the Magic Gods' eyes narrow.
"Save your energy."
Rei Ao stepped forward, invisible steps forming beneath his feet regardless of physics.
"I'm not here to fightunless you insist on getting in my way."
An uneasy silence gripped them. For the first time, the eight Magic Gods hesitated. They could sense that behind this apparently young figure lay a force so overwhelming even they, Magic Gods, quaked in dread.
Proserpina pulled her chariot back half a step.
"Then what do you want?"
Rei Ao was already at the source of the world. The swirling primal code reflected in his iridescent eyes.
"To become the one and only."
He touched the source with his fingertips.
"If you insist on stopping me, feel free to try."
Boom!!!
Heaven and earth roiled. The void broke down into streams of binary data, then reassembled into countless glowing geometric shapes. All magic fundamentals began reconstructing, physical laws rewriting.
The eight Magic Gods all wore grim faces. They felt their very foundational existence trembling.
"No way! He's rewriting the world's base composition!"
Chimera's wings fell out and regrew repeatedly.
Even though they were Magic Gods, none of them made a move to attacksome inner sense warned them that to move would mean death, even for beings known as Magic Gods.
~~~
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(Bonus Chapter) Chapter 700: True God State!
Boom! Boom-boom! Boom-boom-boom!
Heartbeat-like thumps echoed within the cocoon of light. Each pulse sent tremors rippling across the entire world.
The Magic Gods stared in horror, realizing their once-proud magic was failing them.
"This is a suppression of our status!"
Niang-Niang's folding fan shattered into starlight. The girl-like face she wore was no longer calm. "He's surpassing us!!!"
Nephthys, a dark-skinned beauty with silver hair, wore a grave expression. "Haha Looks like we're about to witness a miracle."
High Priest's eyes were fixed on the glowing cocoon. In his sunken eye sockets, restless flames smoldered.
In the next instant, the cocoon exploded.
At that moment, the light overshadowed all physical speeds, covering the entire universe and spreading beyond it. The whole world was cast into absolute stillness.
The newly reborn Rei Ao simply hovered quietly in the center of the universe. Outwardly he appeared unchangedbut whenever any Magic God looked at him, in the depths of their consciousness, they sensed a concept known as "The One God" branded into their minds.
"!!!"
Othinusindeed, every Magic Godfound themselves dropping to their knees in the void. Not by choice; their bodies instinctively submitted, trembling. This was their first time since becoming Magic Gods to feel a terror akin to what lowly lifeforms felt before them.
Rei Ao slowly opened his eyes, now reflecting an entire cosmos within them.
