Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 9 - Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: The Superweapon 
Prism Rider, Ray Starling 
How long had it been since I’d beaten the Hell General and collapsed? 
The three debuffs, combined with serious post-battle fatigue, had left me lying on the ground for what seemed like a really long time. 
Looking up at the sky, I chugged down Health Potions to regain the HP I’d lost to Poison, and checked the results of the battle. 
Beating Logan had raised my Prism Rider level to 21. That was actually quite a lot. It reminded me of what I’d gained from Franklin. 
Just goes to show just how much level and Embryo form differences affect EXP gain, I thought. 
I couldn’t remember gaining any levels while fighting the devils, though. They hadn’t given me any EXP at all, which was probably intentional. 
“I got two skills... ‘Prism Beast Enhancement’ and ‘Prism Authorization,’ huh?” I murmured. 
Both of them were at level 1. The former did exactly what it said in the name: it enhanced the abilities of all Prism Beasts, Prism Steeds included. It prioritized acceleration and improving their skills, and at level 1, the enhancement was 10 percent. 
Prism Authorization, though, was a mystery to me. 
The description said, “Unlocks the restricted functions of certain Prism Beasts,” but there were no details at all. 
I thought it had something to do with Silver’s mystery skill, but I couldn’t check, since I’d lent him to Azurite. 
“Guess I’ll just wait...” I muttered. 
Right after the battle, I’d given Nemesis some healing items and told her to look around the surroundings, help anyone hurt, and evacuate the orphans. 
There was no one nearby, so as soon as I stopped moving, the world felt strangely silent. 
My eyelids were closing on their own. 
With Poison taking away my HP, I couldn’t really let myself sleep, but Weakness made my body feel heavy, while Intoxication warped my vision and made it hard to keep my eyes open. 
My eyes closed, and I spent the next few minutes floating somewhere between dreams and reality when... 
“Nh...” 
...I felt someone touch my body. 
They put their hands on my forehead and neck, then gasped. 
A moment later, I felt something tough on my lips, followed by some medicine going down my throat. 
“It’s not disappearing! Why?!” The voice was Azurite’s. 
So she’d finished helping the knights and came here, huh? 
Guess I should get up now... 
“The Elixir’s not having an effect,” she said frantically. “Is he not drinking it all...? In that case...” 
I heard the sound of something being unfastened, then felt a faint warmth over my face. 
It made me open my eyes. 
Silence. 
Her face was right in front of me, and our eyes met. 
I could feel her breath on me, and we were so close, it felt like our lips were about to touch. 
She wasn’t wearing her usual mask, but I could tell it was her by her eye color and face outline. 
This was the first time I’d seen her face, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t beautiful. 

“Ah...?!” Surprised by the eye contact, Azurite jumped backwards and gulped something down. 
Based on the Elixir bottle in her hand, I could only assume that she’d first tried to cure my status effects by pouring it into my mouth, but when that hadn’t worked, she assumed I hadn’t drunk it properly and tried to give it to me mouth-to-mouth. 
Man, she must’ve been worried... 
“Thanks, Azurite,” I said. “But don’t worry. These debuffs are a side effect from a skill. Elixirs won’t work on them.” 
“I-I see!” she exclaimed, flustered, as she put her mask back on. She must’ve removed it because it would’ve gotten in the way of the mouth-to-mouth. 
Good thing I woke up before she went through with it, I thought. 
It was for lifesaving, sure, but Azurite probably wasn’t married yet, so she might’ve regretted it. 
“But wait... status effects that do not go away? Isn’t that serious?” she asked. 
“They’ll disappear with time. It’s fine,” I replied. 
I looked at the clock at the side of the road to discovered that fifteen minutes had passed since I’d beaten Logan. 
The side effect would last 1,200 seconds, so it wouldn’t be long now. 
Then again, since Gardranda had used the “Zero” skills, I couldn’t use my Miasmaflame Bracers properly now. 
This must’ve been the price she’d had to pay to use skills that powerful, and it’d probably take a while before I could use Purgatorial Flames and Hellish Miasma again. 
Also, the clock made me realize that it was just barely six o’clock in the morning. 
Sure, the battle had started at about dawn, but it was hard to believe that it was this early. The sun still hadn’t finished rising over the mountains to the east. 
“What about you?” I asked Azurite. 
“I’ve helped the Quartierlatin knights,” she said. “We slayed most of the devils... but the rest simply vanished.” 
“Good to know.” 
I’d already assumed that because the third and fourth Gigaknights had disappeared, but this just confirmed that summoned devils weren’t an exception to the “summons die with the summoner” rule. 
That had to go for me and Gardranda, too. Needed to keep that in mind. 
“Since you made it in time to help, I guess I made the right choice by lending Silver to you,” I said. 
“About that... He was an immense help, but you must refrain from lending your Prism Steed to people. It’s dangerous.” 
“I’ll keep that in mind.” 
I’d surely do it again if the situation called for it, though. 
“Where are the people?” I asked. 
“They were panicking and looking for shelter when the devils were around, but now that they are gone, the townsfolk are moving to the designated facilities. I left them to the knights who are still moving.” 
Oh yeah, there were no enemies in town for the time being. What a load off my shoulders. 
“Speaking of the devils... did they vanish because you beat the Hell General?” Azurite asked. 
“Yeah.” 
“I see...” She closed her eyes in thought. 
For a moment, I wondered if she’d wanted to beat her mentor’s killer with her own hands, but that didn’t seem quite right. It seemed more like she was frustrated with something. 
“Azurite?” 
“It’s nothing. Pay me no mind.” 
“All right. What about the people from the mountain inn?” 
“Evacuated, as well. Many were frightened, obviously, but the skilled tians and Masters there did an excellent job helping them find shelter.” 
“I see... What a relief.” 
With that, I didn’t have to worry about any people dying anymore. 
“I guess all that’s left is to stop the Prism Soldier plant and take out the Dryfeans going after the ruins,” I said. 
“Are you going to still fight?” she asked. I couldn’t be sure because of the mask, but it felt like she was slightly down. 
“Well, the debuffs should be gone soon. I’ll go to the ruins then.” 
“You fought the Hell General until you collapsed from exhaustion, and yet you will still fight?” 
“Yeah. Logan’s not the only problem here. There’s gotta be more I can do.” 
“I see... So you will fight again.” Her tone somehow seemed slightly critical. 
I thought she had issues with me for a second, but that didn’t seem right. 
What... or who... was it directed at? 
“The Hell General, the Gouz-Maise Gang, Gideon...” She trailed off. “Why do you keep fighting for others’ sakes, even when it leads to such injury?” 
“Azurite?” 
“Yesterday, you told me you had chosen to protect Quartierlatin... and me. But this is not new to you, is it? You must have made similar choices the other times. Why do you continue to do this when it’s so taxing? What drives you to sacrifice yourself over and over again?” 
I said nothing and just listened to her talk. 
“Is it because you’re an immortal Master? Do you protect others because you cannot die and there’s no need for you to consider your own well-being? But... the one who should be protecting this country’s people... the one who should face the hardship is...” 
“Azurite, you’ve got me all wrong,” I interrupted. 
There was a slight disturbance in her speech. If I had to guess, it was caused by some intense feelings that surfaced as she observed and talked about me. Her own words seemed to start crushing her, so I decided to point out a major misconception before it became too heavy. 
“I’m not diving into all these incidents and getting hurt out of self-sacrifice or to protect anyone,” I said. 
“...Eh?” 
Yeah. My reason was never that grand. 
“I’m doing it ’cause I think it’d give me a bad aftertaste if I didn’t.” 
That was all there was to it. I always just dived in and faced whatever would leave a bad taste in my mouth. 
“Ignoring stuff like that would hurt me way more than damaging this avatar or going through something scary, so I just move in and stop it from happening. That’s it. It’s not self-sacrifice, and there’s nothing noble about it.” I wasn’t some saint who put himself on the line to save someone. It just seemed that way because I was still weak and always ended up in tatters. 
“I’m not the virtuous champion you think I am — I just acted on my own feelings,” I said. “Fighting Logan, saving children from the Gouz-Maise Gang, picking a fight with Franklin... I did it all because I felt like it.” 
“That’s the... ‘freedom’ you mentioned yesterday, yes?” 
“Exactly. I told you, didn’t I? I stood up for Altar and decided to support you because I’m free and selfish.” 
I was just a self-centered player — a Master. 
“You say things one wouldn’t even hear in modern plays, and yet Truth Discernment is not reacting at all... You are so simple and softhearted... heheh...” 
I had no idea what she found so amusing, but she started to giggle with tears in her eyes, just like yesterday. 
“But... that’s exactly why...” 
Azurite stopped mid-sentence. Then, after a while of silence, gathered her wits for something and took off her mask. 
“Ray, there’s something I want you to know,” she said, looking at me with her exposed face. “I... I am actually—” 
Her words were cut off by a sudden rumble that made us both gasp. 
It was an earthquake quite unlike the one I’d experienced in Torne. It felt as though something large was moving and the ground was shaking in fear. 
“Ray! Look!” Azurite pointed at the mountain with the ruins. 
It was completely unlike what it had been the last time I’d looked at it. Despite having ruins inside, it had been a normal mountain on the outside. 
Not anymore. 
“It... split?” I murmured. 
The peak had parted in two, exposing the ruins inside. 
The earthquake was actually the vibrations caused by the mountain-ruins opening up. 
It was an absurd sight, but it didn’t end there. 
Something was crawling out of the parted mountain. 
It was as large as a fortress, had a streamlined main body with dozens of thorn-like legs poking out of it, and shone with a metallic brilliance impossible in the natural world. 
“What the hell is that?!” I exclaimed. 
If I had to describe it, it was like a robot that had the shape of “a whale poking into a horseshoe crab.” To be more specific, it was like the prehistoric fish called pterichthyodes, but with trilobite legs. 
It was a huge, weird construct, but the fact that it had appeared from the ruins was enough for us to guess what it was. 
“That’s the weapon that was inside the ruins!” I gasped. 
I had no idea what had caused it, but it had come alive. 
We’d guessed that it existed, but... man, it was way bigger than I’d expected. 
“Ray! Azurite!” 
“Nemesis!” I cried. She’d come back from the orphanage. 
Out of breath, she stared at the weapon and said, “Ray, is that...?!” 
“Yeah. It’s just like Azurite said. Dr. Mario made a move because the ruins had something way worse than the Prism Soldiers.” 
Speaking of Azurite, she had her mask on again. I had no clue what she’d been about to say, but it seemed like she’d figured this wasn’t the time for it anymore. 
“What do we do?” asked Nemesis. 
“We’ve gotta find out what kind of weapon that is.” 
It seemed to be a mobile unit, just like the Prism Soldiers, and nothing would be worse than it turning out to be a moving bomb. A pre-ancient civ weapon of that size would make short work of a town like Quartierlatin. 
“Let’s ride Silver and attack from the sky—” I began. 
Suddenly, still looking at the weapon, I noticed something. 
The weapon was under attack by several men who had the same face and a bunch of wooden marionettes with weapons in hand. 
Eight Toms and Dr. Mario’s marionettes were already fighting the weapon. 
 
Ruins, Prism Soldier Plant 
A few minutes before the weapon left the mountain... 
“There. Done.” 
After his beasts destroyed Zircon Leader and all active Prism Soldiers, Cheshire went to the control terminal and stopped the plant. 
As Tom Cat, he’d come here on a quest to do just this, but his real reason for coming to the ruins was different. 
He was here to investigate if it had any weapons that could break game balance or reveal important information. If it did, he had to destroy it all before other players got to it. 
Zircon Leader had turned out to be just that. The information he had made him a threat so major that Cheshire had to destroy him even if it meant having to unseal his real body. 
However, unlike Zircon Leader and the weapon deeper in, he didn’t have to destroy this plant. 
Looking at the data in the terminal, he could confirm there was no classified information — all it had were mass-production programs. 
All the weapons available were like the Prism Soldiers in that they wouldn’t have caused any problems to the developers, so he’d decided to keep it intact, leaving the final call to Altar. 
“It’d probably improve the kingdom’s situation a bit...” 
Unless things got seriously out of hand, the control AI didn’t really care about the results of wars. The only exceptions to that rule would have to be as extreme as the war six hundred years ago that had almost turned the continent into a wasteland. 
Still, Cheshire’s avatar, Tom Cat, was an Altarian Master, so there was no problem with him helping out his country by completing a quest or two. 
“There’s also the thing about creating more Superiorrrs. It’s better for the war to be more equal so they can all improoove. Anyway, now for the thing deeper in...” 
Cheshire looked at the data from the beasts he’d sent there, then sighed. 
“It’s about what I’d expect from a weapon Flagman made over two millennia. It’s a whole lot of trouble.” 
The information showed a battle — if you could call it that — that was still happening further in the ruins. 
Acra-Vesta’s hangar was full of beasts, a number that easily surpassed one thousand. Using their claws and fangs, all of them were attacking the superweapon as it prepared for departure. 
All of the beasts were as strong as Legendary monsters such as Gigaknights. 
Needless to say, it was a menacing horde. If one of them could deal 10,000 damage, then a thousand of them could deal 10,000,000. 
No matter how large and powerful an entity, it stood absolutely no chance against a horde of such beasts so vast it drowned the horizon. 
This was evidenced by the time Cheshire had defeated an Irregularity as large as a mountain range. 
Acra-Vesta was only as big as a fortress, so you would have expected them to have crushed it by now, but... 
“How does this even worrrk?” 
...the beasts couldn’t even scratch it. 
None of the attacks from the thousand-strong Legendary beasts did anything to it. 
It wasn’t even that the hull was too strong — the attacks didn’t even reach that far. 
All of them stopped at the space right before the hull. 
It couldn’t have been a simple force field, since that would’ve already been broken by the beasts. 
There was some strange power at work that prevented all attacks from passing. 
“I guess this is another anti-me featurrre. Boy, just how much of a grudge does Flagman have against me...?” 
Cheshire — also known as Infinite Multiplication, Grimalkin — had passed Superior and reached his final form as an Embryo. However, that didn’t mean that he was omniscient and omnipotent. Like with all Embryos, his powers were limited to certain primary characteristics. 
That was exactly why the control AIs had split their roles; they were all in charge of what their features allowed them to do best. 
No matter how powerful, Embryos couldn’t escape the bane of incompatibility, and this superweapon seemed to be a hard counter to Infinite Multiplication. 
Cheshire could repeatedly deal the 10,000,000 damage 1,000 times, but if, for example, the superweapon negated the 10,000 damage delivered by each beast, it would remain undamaged. And it seemed that this barrier would prevent attacks even stronger than that. 
Cheshire’s infinitely multiplying army could suppress its enemies with nothing but numbers. That was simple and practical, but that was exactly what made him so open to such absurd defenses. It was one of his weaknesses. 
“This defensive ability has a small range, but its nature seems like that of Red King’s,” he noted. “Is this actually...?” 
The unpleasant thought made the cat grimace. He’d suspected something like this about Acra-Vesta, and it’d turned out to be right. 
“Well, this sure is troublesome. My powers are really incompatible with it. Humpty, Jabberwork, and Red King could take care of it easily, but I have no time to call them. At this rate, it’s gonna go outside in just a few minutes—” 
Cheshire suddenly stopped talking to himself. That was because he could hear a bunch of footsteps coming from the hallway. 
He knew exactly what they were caused by — Edelvalsa’s marionettes. 
They’d been fighting the seven Tom Cats until now, but when Cheshire had switched to his real body, Tom’s avatar had been put on standby. 
“They must’ve had no problem getting here without me in the way. I guess time’s up.” Cheshire sent his main body back and called for his avatar as Tom Cat. 
He couldn’t let anyone know who Tom Cat really was, or let them find out about Cheshire’s activities. 
Killing witnesses was way too drastic, and he couldn’t do it for several reasons. 
Acra-Vesta was about to go outside, anyway, so he wouldn’t have another chance to fight in his original body. 
He’d already given up on destroying the superweapon by his own hands. 
“Well, at least it’s not controlled by anyonnne. This isn’t all that different from a UBM rampage.” 
Because of its background, Acra-Vesta wouldn’t get recognized as a UBM, but as it was now, it was truly closer to a weapon than a monster. It wasn’t captured by a country or anything, so Cheshire’s work here was as good as done. 
If it rampaged like a monster, it would eventually be taken out by a compatible Superior. 
“Oh... Ray beat Rumpelstiltskin’s Hell General. That leaves Quartierlatin with no Superiors. This might be the end of the town.” 
Acra-Vesta still hadn’t attacked in any way, but even if you ignored Cheshire’s incompatibility with it, the fact that his beasts hadn’t damaged it at all meant that it had absurd defensive abilities — enough to put it on the same level as Ancient Legendary UBMs. And if it had more tricks up its sleeve, it could easily be a Mythical. 
If the defense worked as he guessed, Tenaga Ashinaga’s Master Jiangshi, Xunyu, could destroy Acra-Vesta easily. 
The King of Destruction, Shu Starling, might be capable of breaking through its defense, as well. 
However, they’d take a while to get here, and Acra-Vesta would cause immense damage during that time. 
Altea and Gideon were far away enough for it to destroy a town before any Superior from those cities arrived here. 
It was more or less certain that Quartierlatin would be reduced to ruins. 
“Well,” Cheshire — Tom — mouthed as he calculated the most likely future using his immense processing power, then sighed. “Tom Cat is an Altarian Master, so I’ll fight for as long as this avatar holds. Now dance, Octachrome Cat — Grimalkin.” 
He multiplied into eight and attacked the weapon much like his beasts had, searching for flaws in this seemingly unmatched defense. 
 
“What is going on here?” 
The field marshal was looking through the eyes of Faldreed, who was reaching the deepest part of the ruins. 
The factory-like space was littered with countless Prism Soldier pieces. 
There was an even larger space deeper in, where a weapon that looked like both a fish and a crustacean at the same time was preparing for something. 
Besides that, his enemy from before, Tom Cat — eight of him this time — was fighting the machine. 
He silently and calmly analyzed the situation. 
There was no doubt that the Prism Soldiers here had been defeated by Tom Cat. 
The seven he’d been fighting had suddenly vanished, and he assumed Tom had called them back to fight the Prism Soldiers. 
(He wasn’t wrong. The method was different than he was thinking, though.) 
He figured that then, after Tom’d beaten the Prism Soldiers, he had discovered the superweapon, presumably the so-called “Acra-Vesta,” as it went out of control, leaving Tom with no choice but to fight it. 
“I guess I can’t expect to secure it...” Gifted sighed. 
The weapon was active and beyond anyone’s control, making it extremely difficult to take it for Dryfe. 
There was another reason why he’d given up on that. Gifted himself was outside, and could more or less see the general state of Quartierlatin. Naturally, he hadn’t missed the moment of the devils vanishing. 
It could only mean one thing — Logan had been defeated. 
He had a strong guess about who was responsible, but decided to focus on what he had to do now. 
The superweapon had gone out of control, and only one of the two of the imperium’s forces were remaining, meaning that securing the weapon — the best-case scenario for the imperium — had become nigh impossible. 
That left three choices for him. 
One: he could destroy Tom Cat to prevent the weapon from falling into the kingdom’s hands. 
Two: he could assume that the weapon going out of control meant it was mission accomplished for him and just leave the battlefield. 
Three: he could destroy the... 
“The choice is obvious.” His marionettes aimed their weapons. 
They had Tom Cat in their sights. 
They pulled the triggers. Their bullets went towards Tom, passed him, and pierced the space around Acra-Vesta. 
“No perceived effect. Continue attacking.” 
Feeling that flow of will, Faldreed and all the other marionettes attacked the superweapon. 
Indeed, this choice was obvious. By the time he’d arrived, Tom Cat was already fighting Acra-Vesta, meaning that it was clearly out of control. 
If he let it be, the superweapon could potentially go to the imperium — specifically, the Barbaros territory. Even if it didn’t, its rampage would definitely reach the local town of Quartierlatin. 
The choice couldn’t be more clear. 
There was no hesitation or conflict. 
He could protect everything he wanted without sacrificing anything. It was by far the easiest choice he would make that day. 
Choice three was that he could destroy the out of control superweapon. 
“I’m here to help. You won’t mind if I destroy it, will you?” he asked Tom. 
“Think you can?! Do it, then!” 
“Understood. Using all available force.” 
The Lynx, Tom Cat and Zero General, Gifted Barbaros now stood on the same side and fought Acra-Vesta. 
As the battle continued, the mountain — Acra-Vesta’s exit — opened up, shifting the stage to the surface. 
 
Acra-Vesta 
Incarnation of Beasts signal lost. 
As Acra-Vesta made its way to the exit, it realized that the Incarnation of Beasts had vanished. 
It ran a threat search, but couldn’t find the incarnation anywhere. 
Besides that, it also realized that someone had destroyed the Superior-class incarnation that was one of the reasons for its activation. 

Though there were still some incarnation-like energy signals nearby, they were all so weak that they couldn’t even begin to compare. 
With that in mind, if it destroyed the intruders still in the facility, there would be no need to uphold the absolute defense, but that was irrelevant to Acra-Vesta. After all... 
Several Superior-class signals detected. 
Acra-Vesta’s enemy-locating ability was miles above that of Prism Soldiers and many other weapons. 
It was so powerful that it could locate the incarnation-like signals... the Superior Embryos... far away in the south — the cities of Altea and Gideon. 
Thus, Acra-Vesta changed its priorities. 
Its main mission now was to go down south and destroy all the Superior Embryos it encountered. 
Of course, it wouldn’t waste time on anything or anyone else. 
However, Acra-Vesta was unlike the Prism Soldiers in one important way. 
Detected many signals of life. 
Found humanoid animals who are not on the list. 
Modifying list based on acquired information. 
Recognizing humanoid animals as mankind. 
Acra-Vesta’s AI was more advanced than that of the Prism Soldiers, so it could see that modern tians were humanoid. They might have changed over the past two millennia, but they were human nonetheless. 
Prioritize the destruction of incarnations. Ignore all potential loss of life. 
Despite that, Acra-Vesta didn’t hesitate to make sacrifices. 
For the future of mankind. 
For the world that has created us. 
Annihilating all incarnations, no matter the cost. 
With a will as solid as its frame, the superweapon prepared to go south — through Quartierlatin. 
 
Prism Rider, Ray Starling 
The superweapon, Tom, and marionettes that had to belong to Dr. Mario were all fighting on the mountain. The eight Toms and countless marionettes were cooperating to shower the weapon in attacks. 
Despite belonging to opposing countries, they were actually fighting as allies. 
I could think of several reasons why they might team up, but the most likely one was that they’d realized how dangerous the weapon was and decided to team up to take it out. 
The weapon, however, didn’t seem to care about them and just went south — to Quartierlatin. 
It was attacked from all directions, but it didn’t seem to care. Completely unharmed, it moved its trilobite-like feet to move onwards. 
Unlike the Prism Soldiers I’d encountered, it didn’t seem to be preparing any weapons for attack. It did nothing but move forward. 
Their attacks didn’t hurt it at all, but they didn’t suffer much, either. Some marionettes had been crushed by the feet, but that was the extent of it. 
It clearly had superb defense, but unlike Shu’s Baldr, it didn’t seem to have any close-range firearms. 
“But it’s heading straight for the town,” I said. “We’ve gotta take it out before it gets here.” 
It had a defensive ability so great it was absurd, but Nemesis’s Vengeance ignored defense. 
Maybe we could hurt it? 
The three debuffs were gone by now, so I was good to go. 
I hopped on Silver and called out to them. “Nemesis, Azurite, let’s go and... Hm?” 
I noticed the situation had changed. 
The superweapon had stopped in place. 
Not on its own, though — countless marionettes had gone in to hold it back. 
Besides the human-sized wooden marionettes, there were stone ones about ten times as large. 
There had to be at least a thousand of them. Dr. Mario was using them to force the superweapon to stay in place. 
“Well, that’s a good idea,” I mused. 
Even if it had good defense due to its hull, skills, or whatever, it had nothing against this kind of physical binding. The fact that the weapon didn’t use firearms or anything made it even easier. 
This was really good for us. While it was being held back, I’d go hit myself on its legs or something to accumulate damage, healing whenever necessary, before finally ending it with a powerful enough Vengeance. 
“That makes you seem like one of those people who jump in front of cars to extort money,” Nemesis commented. 
I thought of that, too, but did you have to say it out loud?! 
It was an emergency, anyway. I couldn’t pick and choose my methods. 
“Let’s go join them,” I said. 
“Mm-hm,” nodded Nemesis. 
“Yes,” Azurite agreed. 
I took Nemesis in her greatsword form with my right hand and let Azurite sit behind me on Silver, just like yesterday. 
The superweapon tried to move its legs to go forward, but the marionettes did a great job of keeping it in place. Even those that were trampled were quickly replaced. 
I also saw Tom use some sort of Gem. It made the superweapon sink a bit into the ground, so it was probably for some sort of magic that softened the earth. 
Apparently, they were now prioritizing binding over destroying it. 
That was probably the right choice. They just had to hold it long enough until someone good against tanky enemies — it didn’t have to be me — came over and beat it. 
Wanting to get there ASAP, I made Silver hurry. 
“He seems faster than when I used him,” said Azurite. “Is it because the original owner’s riding him?” 
Her words reminded me of the Prism Rider skills. 
Silver was obviously faster because of Prism Beast Enhancement. 
And then there was the other skill, Prism Authorization. 
Using my right hand, still holding Nemesis, I opened the window and looked at Silver’s skills. I’d be fighting the moment I got there, so this was my only real chance to check it out. 
“And... no dice.” I sighed. 
Silver’s third skill was still hidden. I had thought that Prism Authorization was the condition for unlocking it, but no. 
I was getting nothing even when I tried to check its details— 
“...Eh?” 
When I selected it, something unexpected happened. 
There was some new text underneath where the skill’s description was supposed to be. 
“To the inhabitant of the post-incarnation world who acquires Zephyrus Silver and the Authorization,” I read. “You do not have permission to see the details of this skill at level 1. However, Zephyrus Silver is allowed limited use of this skill at his own discretion. To see all his details and unlock all his functions, acquire Prism Authorization level 3 or above. Sincerely, Zephyrus Silver’s developer, Flagman.” 
“What...?” I raised an eyebrow. It was unlike any description or game message I’d ever seen. 
It seemed... personal. 
This Flagman guy had left it specifically for the one who got his hands on both Silver and the Prism Rider job — in this case, me. 
I was probably the first person to ever read this text. After all, Prism Authorization was given by Prism Rider, which had been a lost job until just a few days ago. 
Were there similar messages on the other Prism Steeds? Or did Silver only have this because he was, according to Dr. Mario, a prototype or an experimental unit? 
Whatever the case, it was clear that this Flagman person had tech advanced enough to let him leave such messages on skill description windows. 
Also, something about this message felt off... 
“I can tell you want to ponder, but now is not the time, Ray!” Nemesis exclaimed. 
“Look!” Azurite joined. “The superweapon is...!” 
I stopped my train of thought and looked at the superweapon. 
It was still being bound by the marionettes, but I could instantly see what had caught their attention. 
“The back... is splitting?” 
The upper part of the weapon, the horseshoe crab’s carapace, split in two and opened upwards. 
I thought that Tom and Dr. Mario had finally damaged it, but that wasn’t the case. 
Rather, something was rising from the space the opening had made. 
It was the superweapon’s rear — the part that looked whale-like. The head that had been kept inside the crab was rising with it. 
Just like that, a thing that looked like a large, multi-finned, mechanical whale split from the crab and rose upwards. 
At the same time, the crab began violently struggling to break free of the marionettes’ grip. That was enough to turn the tides in the struggle. The marionettes were the ones being overwhelmed now. 
It felt like losing the whale was letting the weapon use its full power. 
“Is that thing actually...?” I wondered. 
My own assumption made a chill go down my spine, but alas, it was completely true. 
This weapon was... 
 
Acra-Vesta 
Pushed down by countless marionettes, Acra-Vesta gathered data from its surroundings. 
The humanoids that released faint incarnation signals were launching gems to the surroundings, turning the ground into mud. 
They couldn’t beat it, so the marionettes were shifting all focus to binding it. 
However, these enemies and their actions meant little for Acra-Vesta. What it found important was the muddied ground beneath it. 
Right now, it was sinking into this ground because it was a plain surface with no ruins underneath. 
It was a decent distance away from its exit, and with it, the ruins. 
That was the most important factor for it. 
Closing exit. 
Checking the anti-explosion and anti-impact systems on the facility’s high-priority blocks. 
Since everyone had been so preoccupied with Acra-Vesta, no one had cared about its exit, which had closed shortly after it left. 
It was the final switch. 
Separation mechanism, initiate. 
Unit ?, Acra — opening upper hull. 
Unit ?, Vesta — raising altitude. 
The name of the third anti-incarnation superweapon, Acra-Vesta, was from a language other than the current Infinite Dendrogram common — the one being auto-translated for Masters. 
They were of the creator’s — Flagman’s — mother tongue, used in the now-gone Zweier Imperium. 
In that language, “acra” meant “shell,” while “vesta” was “sky.” 
“Acra-Vesta” was literally just “Shell and Sky.” A many-legged tank and an air battleship — both formidable weapons of war. 
Acra’s unique skill was “Space Fixation.” 
It shielded from all incoming damage by fixing the space in place, and it was powerful enough to survive the relentless attacks from Tom, the marionettes, and even the beasts without as much as a scratch. 
Vesta’s unique skill was “Space Dilution.” 
What it did was... 
 
The air battleship, Vesta, had split from Acra and was now rising towards the sky. 
Tom and the field marshal didn’t just sit by and let it happen. 
Tom fired arrows and threw weapons, while Gifted’s marionettes attacked it with their guns. 
They weren’t particularly serious attacks, but, much to their surprise, they actually dealt damage this time. 
The hull was dented, pierced, or blown open all over. They kept attacking the legged tank, too, but it just continued being impervious to damage. The same couldn’t be said for the airship. 
However... 
“It’s repairing itself?” 
Despite being a metallic machine, the unit was slowly regenerating. The metal on the hull and machines made waves as they closed the wounds. 
The damage was greater than the repair speed, but since it kept rising up, their attack options would soon be limited, and the repairs would catch up. 
“Not gonna let youuu,” said Tom. “Granting permission to use heavy weaponry. Marionette Squadron Creation.” 
Tom jumped from the surface, then used other Toms as stepping stones to jump even higher and approach the airship. 
Leaving one Tom on the ground for safety, he created seven of himself at the top of Vesta. 
The field marshal’s marionettes went into Faldreed’s weapon inventory to take out an anti-aircraft gun they used to defend fortresses, while the squadron of the newly made flying marionettes went up to the sky. 
The seven Toms tore into Vesta’s armor from above, while the massive AA gun tore holes in it from below. 
As Faldreed lit the machine ablaze, the flying marionettes assaulted it with gunfire from the sides. 
In but a moment, the airship became covered in holes. 
“Intercepting.” 
Small bits of its hull slid to the side, exposing the lenses of the laser cannons they’d seen many times in the ruins. 
They shot down some of the flying marionettes around it, but the field marshal quickly replaced them. 
Vesta could do little against Tom as he ran around destroying it, and the lack of laser lenses on its bottom part made it impossible for it to get rid of the AA gun right below it. 
The airship was powerless to stop them. 
The lasers, the sensors, the empty bridge — all of it was being destroyed. 
Even the important bits, such as the large reactor and the main AI, didn’t escape this fate. The airship’s lifeline was cut down so easily, it felt anticlimactic. 
Seasoned veteran that he was, the field marshal knew that it was destroyed. 
“We did it! Ah...?!” 
But then, Acra-Vesta began to fix itself like it was the most normal thing to do. 
“Hey... we took out your corrre,” Tom Cat objected. “Can’t you just, you know, breaaak?” 
Shocked that it had actually happened, the two continued attacking it, but it just kept on regenerating. 
Even when you obliterated its equivalent of a human’s brain, heart, and lungs, it still continued to fix itself. Needless to say, it was an eerie phenomenon. 
It was caused by one of Acra-Vesta’s functions, Mutual Repair. 
Acra was set to repair Vesta, while Vesta was set to repair Acra. No matter how heavily damaged one of them was, the system would control the metal particles building up the unit to fix it and return it to its original form. 
Of course, too much destruction would eventually cause a shortage of metal particles meant for repair. 
That was considered during their design, and as a result of that, both units had inventories full of metal particles, hidden in their hardest-to-destroy areas. 
The metal particles were mined, extracted, synthesized, and stored over a period of two thousand years. 
There was enough of it to completely fix it three hundred times. 
“What’s going on?” Gifted was perplexed. 
“Is it just a part of the one at the bottom?” Tom wondered. “No, that’s too... Hold on, is this actually Mutual Repair?” 
“The theory found in Dryfean ruins...? Wait, how do you...?” 
As they began to wonder about the nature of this function and were about to reach the answer, the airship rose 1,000 metels above the surface. 
Just like it had waited until there were no ruins beneath, Acra-Vesta was now waiting until one of its halves reached that height. 
Space Dilution. 
The airship activated its unique skill, changing the very space around it. 
The skill had several effects, but each of them were felt by separate people. 
“What...?” The first effect was noticed by the field marshal. He instantly lost his link to the flying squadron. 
He could control marionettes from as far as 100,000 metels away. Whether they were deep underground or in some barrier, he could control them if they weren’t too distant. 
However, he could tell that the reason he couldn’t control the squadron anymore was because of range. 
He could see them from the surface just fine, yet the message was that they were too far. 
The squadron he’d lost control over was shot down by the lasers. 
Gifted then noticed something else. 
The AA gun that had been damaging the airship all this time now fired shots that didn’t even reach it. 
It was obviously within range, but the shots just lost all speed before reaching it and fell down to the surface like a pebble thrown by hand. 
The difference between what he saw and the phenomenon that was happening around the airship made a chill go down his spine. 
“...!” Tom was the one to notice the second effect. 
No voice came out when he spoke, and he couldn’t even breathe anymore. 
The beasts created by his true form might’ve been able to bear this, but Tom was a humanoid avatar. He wasn’t designed to survive without breathing. 
Besides that, there was also the view the seven of them were seeing. 
Up until a moment ago, they had been able to easily see the town of Quartierlatin below the airship. Of course they had — it was only about 1,000 metels above the surface. 
Now, however, it wasn’t even a speck on the horizon. 
It was like they were above the clouds... no... far higher than that. 
But just looking upwards made that impression flip upside-down — they were really far down, and the sky was extremely distant. 
Even the light from the sun rising above the mountains to the east seemed tiny. 
He felt like he was suddenly taken into a vast, otherworldly realm. 
This is Space Dilution and its side effect... the vacuum! This thing actually imitated Red King’s... Infinite Space’s space manipulation powers...! 
Cheshire realized what he was dealing with and quickly tried to stop it by destroying Vesta, but he was powerless against the repair. 
After a short while, the vacuum made the seven Toms’ blood vessels and eyeballs burst, quickly killing them. 
The third effect was noticed by Ray’s group as they approached the mountain. 
They saw things falling from the sky. 
The whale-like airship had several fins. 
Some of them had fallen off, but... 
“They’re... not coming down?” He expected them to reach the ground right away, but that just wasn’t happening. 
They just stopped in place after removal... no... they were still dropping, but really slowly. 
The fins approached the ground slower than balloons full of normal air. They seemed to be accelerating, but they were still slow. You could just picture them softly landing on the ground. 
“GET AWAY OR YOU’LL DIE!” the Tom on the surface shouted in a voice you’d never expect from him. 
Ray’s group had no way of knowing it, but this was a voice Cheshire rarely used even as himself — a warning tone meant only for the most perilous of situations. 
“Ah! Okay!” Ray shouted back as he made Silver turn around and tried to run as far away from the fins as possible. 
The field marshal heard Tom, too. He created a new flying marionette squadron, jumped on their backs, and flew away. 
Tom himself multiplied again and split up in all directions to increase his chances of survival. 
His warning was no joke. After all, those fins... these mere pieces of metal... were Acra-Vesta’s greatest weapon. 
 
Space Dilution. 
Belonging to the airship, Vesta, it was a skill that expanded the space around it. 
Specifically, it multiplied a radius of 1,000 metels by 300 to make it 300,000 metels. 
It didn’t affect the outside world in any way. It was a change exclusive to the 1,000 metel radius space around Vesta. 
It was a really restrictive power in that it could only be used when there were no massive objects besides it in the 1,000 metel radius. The surface counted for this, which was why it had needed to go up that high. 
Like Ray and Gifted had confirmed, Space Dilution didn’t affect how the world looked to those outside of the space. 
Tom was inside when it was activated, and the 1,000 metel radius space was stretched out 300 times. 
That was the reason why the AA guns no longer hit. Even if it seemed like you could land a shot from the outside, it actually had to cover an area 300 times larger than what it seemed. 
And though the space’s volume had grown 27,000,000 times larger, the amount of air molecules had remained unchanged. 
As a barrier, it didn’t allow any air from the outside, either. 
It was almost a vacuum. No animals could survive in those conditions, which was exactly why the seven Toms had died. 
However, this atmosphere had another terrifying quality. 
Normally, on planets with atmospheres, there were limits to how fast something could fall. This was caused by air resistance. Objects that entered the atmosphere from an airless space would either slow down immensely or burn up in plasma born from air pressure. 
In short: the atmosphere acted as a break for anything going fast. 
However... 
What if there was a space with 27,000,000 times less air resistance, 300,000 metels to fall from, and normally functioning gravity? 
What level of kinetic energy would the falling object have by the time it reached the surface? 
 
Falling through the Space Dilution field, the fin reached about seven times the speed of sound before hitting the ground. 
It could only be compared to one thing: a meteor. 
It created a several hundred metel-wide crater, a ground-shattering shockwave that extended several times further, and a light, glass-breaking wave that extended throughout all of Quartierlatin. 
Most of the marionettes that were around the legged tank, Acra, evaporated the moment it hit. Only Faldreed survived, but the shockwave bent his limbs and blew him several hundred metels back. 
Though Acra had been on ground zero, it was unscathed because of its Space Fixation. That was how Acra-Vesta had been designed to operate. 
Acra couldn’t break to Vesta’s bombing, and even if it did, Vesta would repair it as long as it was around. 
As long as one of them existed, the two space-controlling machines would continue repairing each other from total destruction. 
Their Mutual Repair system would only stop functioning if both of them were destroyed at the same time. 
That meant that it wasn’t impossible to destroy them, but it would be no easy task. 
The unbreakable Shell and the unreachable Sky had to be conquered at the same time. 
It would be impossible under normal circumstances. No one could hurt either of them, leaving them to watch as Vesta’s kinetic energy bombs destroyed their enemies. 
Not even the Incarnation of Beasts could defeat Acra-Vesta. 
In fact, that was the very first original concept behind this weapon. 
Being about 37 percent complete, it didn’t have a lot of its intended weaponry and counters to other incarnations, but it was no exaggeration to say it was 100% complete as an anti-Incarnation of Beasts weapon. 
The pre-ancient civilization’s grand engineer Flagman poured intense murderous intent and hope for the future into this particular superweapon, and Acra-Vesta wielded it proudly. 
The kinetic energy bombs born out of the ancient hatred assaulted even those who’d escaped the direct hit. Six Toms out of eight vanished in the shockwave. 
“GH?! SILVEEEEEEEERRRRR!” Ray shouted. 
Ray’s group were distant to begin with, so they didn’t suffer fatal damage, but the shockwave upon them was powerful nonetheless. They bore it only by running Wind Hoof at max capacity and shielding against it with Nemesis’s third form. 
As for the field marshal... 
Caught up in the shockwave mid-flight, his squadron was destroyed. 
Then, he himself was blown away. His bones shattered, and he fell down from several hundred metels in the air.