Post-Post-Apocalyptic Deliveryman (34)

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　With a shock, all power went out, and the interior of the ship Suzunoo was plunged into a momentary darkness before immediately switching to auxiliary power. However—gravity control was offline. Immediately, a sensation of weightlessness struck, and screams rose from the refugees.
　The laws of inertia and gravity returned simultaneously, tossing Natsuki and the refugees about. However, they did not become stains on the floor or ceiling. Thanks to the advice of Natsuki and Try, the military led by Taguchi had secured them to the walls with straps. Groans rose, but at least there were no deaths—yet. But if gravity control and electroweak control did not return, the inevitable consequence would be that they would all be slammed into the ground and die.
“—Yamato-kun...!”
　Natsuki closed her eyes and called the name of the one she loved. Try repeated high-speed calculations while blinking violently. The length of the straps was controlled by Try, which continued to adjust them to the optimal length in response to the shocks.
“—!?”
　Even for Try, created with post-human technology, the task of grasping the state of nearly ten thousand people in real-time and constantly canceling out their kinetic energy placed a massive load on it. Perhaps that was why. That was why it saw it. It saw that which should not be visible, that which should not be there. Was it a hallucination—no.
“Hi. You’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t you?”
　Amidst the continuing roar and screams, that voice was clearly audible.
　Manaka Tadanao stood there, completely unaffected by the surrounding frenzy and vibrations.
“Why are you here—”
“I came to give you a piece of advice.”
　The dynamic void in the shape of a human said so with a face like a race that didn't know the concept of a smile had smiled for the first time.
“Minerva is heading this way.”
“—When?”
　It did not ask if it was true. That would be a waste of time. Time—Try discovered that the surrounding events were flowing extremely slowly. Even though Try’s internal photon clock was operating accurately. Natsuki also remained motionless with her eyes closed. In the midst of this, Manaka continued to speak calmly.
“Soon, I suppose. As you know, Yatagarasu alone cannot counter Minerva. It will take five minutes for you—Trismegistus—to regenerate. But there are no fields here. You cannot grow turnips.”
“Are you saying you will lend us your strength?”
“Of course not! I told you, Zarathustra was confiscated by Dark Gabriel. You are the ones who will fight. Listen, go to the Old Imperial Capital Corpse City. If you reach the Old Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications building, your wish will be fulfilled.”
　Having said only that, Manaka stopped transmitting information, and the life-sized void disappeared as if sinking beneath the surface of water.
　In an instant, time returned to its normal flow. And at the same time, the shaking and the roaring all stopped. It was not that gravity control had returned. If that were the case, it would be detectable. Something beyond Try’s capabilities had occurred.
“This light...”
　Natsuki raised a voice of surprise. A murmur rose from those around her as well. Golden light was enveloping the Suzunoo.
“There is no need to analyze it.”
　Try, a mass of super-technology, was doing its best to hide the trembling in its voice.
“This is a vacuum phase transition phenomenon. These are photons that have dripped in from a universe with different physical constants.”
　The power used by Dark Gabriel. The authority of the Absencian. But why, unlike that black light, was this light...
“A gentle, light...”
　Natsuki reached out to a small mass of light drifting softly and held it.
“It feels like Yamato-kun’s warmth—”

　Yatagarasu—I—surveyed the scene below. The battleship Yamato (what is that?), which had transformed into a humanoid form before I knew it, seemed to have landed safely. At a distance from there, Godzura was looking up at us, roaring with its mouth wide open, along with a small number of surviving low-level mailer demons. Yamata no Orochi had completely vanished.
“First, I have to grasp what I can do.”
“Understood, Brother. Then, how about this weapon?”
　I equipped the armament Tachibana proposed and sent the machine into a steep dive. It was a strange feeling, as I felt absolutely no G-force due to perfect inertial control.
“Vacuum Hemisphere <Magdeburg>”
　With my command word, the golden aurora that had filled the surroundings vanished in a sphere around Godzura.
“GRAAAAAAAAAAR!?”
　Conversely, Godzura’s chest bulged into a sphere—BANG! It burst from the inside with a wet sound. For a Count-class, that should have been a one-hit kill, but this was a Demon King-class. While shedding large amounts of body fluid, it had begun to store a heat ray deep in its throat.
　Magdeburg’s effect is to generate a phase defect within the enemy’s body via a limited vacuum phase transition. Yes, Yatagarasu can manipulate vacuum phase transitions.
　Yatagarasu was the last Ultimate Turnip created by the Ministry of Posts, and it was the only machine that had succeeded in transcending post-human technology. In other words, it had broken through the Post-Logical Singularity.
　Originally, it was thought that if one could even control gravity, breaking through the Post-Logical Singularity—that is, time control—would also be possible. Since gravity acts on space-time, this was natural. However, it was impossible to manipulate the flow of time. Time does not follow the theory of relativity. “Time” and “Space” are separated. Lorentz transformation does not hold, and time was not bound by the single yardstick of the speed of light. The classical mechanics built by Isaac Newton—no, the “Universal Postal Mechanics” written in the Hidden Principia was the correct one.
　Then what is the true nature of that which manipulates the flow of time? That is the “Postic Force” discovered by Newton. The fifth force <Quintessence> that the Reptilians found in the gaps of the space-time continuum at the end of gravity control, trapped within Calabi-Yau manifolds. The thing that establishes the uncertainty principle, and the particle that achieves the propagation of information across both time and space. The source of the supernatural powers exercised by the Absencians.
　What made it possible for Yatagarasu to control this was that it was a machine premised on the synchronization of genetic postal codes. The Reptilians naturally performed genetic postal code synchronization as well, but they simply lacked enough digits as a species. It was the ultimate wisdom reached only by the number of digits in the postal code possessed by humanity—a species that appeared on Earth 65 million years after them, which was more evolved, meaning it had more genes. It is speculated that the time manipulation performed by the Reptilians, who had fewer digits, was limited. Otherwise, they should have been able to fly further into the past and continue the war with the Absencians. But no such archaeological evidence has been found, and the Reptilians mainly sent only information into the future or past. But Yatagarasu is different. Complete space-time manipulation can directly manipulate the universe itself, and its functional limits are immeasurable.
　The new universe created by the vacuum phase transitions performed by the Absencians is “finished from the moment it is born.” In other words, they generate a state of “nothingness” where all baryons have undergone proton decay, and they use that for attacks. That was the true nature of the black light Dark Gabriel showed in Moscow.
　But the vacuum phase transition performed by Yatagarasu is different. It triggers the light of universal creation, that is, the Big Bang. Most of that energy is used for new Postic Force generation, and the rest is diverted to drive the engine. Yatagarasu’s power source is not the graviton/dark matter combustion engine of a normal Ultimate Turnip, but a phase-transition Big Bang Postic-generation engine.
　This kind of knowledge came naturally when I synchronized with Tachibana. And most of it was based on the Hidden Principia that the Ministry of Posts secretly possessed, and on the work of Kimishima Hisoka, who was the strongest Postal Holy Knight and also the greatest postal scholar of the time.
　Yatagarasu was the machine created by Hisoka. The reason for that was not left in the machine, so it is unknown. But I will definitely face him again someday. When that time comes, I will defeat him and ask him.
　For now, I must concentrate on Godzura. ZAAAAAAAP! I entangled the heat ray released from its mouth in the spatial distortion around Yatagarasu and blew it away in a random direction. The body fluid dripping from Godzura’s chest was squirming creepily and beginning to gather on the side of its dorsal fins. It was ominous. It might be better to settle this quickly without checking the machine’s performance.
　I increased the output of the phase transition engine. In Yatagarasu’s beak, a radiance like the dawn light that illuminated the world, the words God released at the beginning, gathered. It is “Power.” Pure energy before the four interactions had yet to differentiate. “Kamotaketsunumi-no-Mikoto <Yehi-Or>.” A high-order, ultra-low entropy invasive armament. A technique of complete annihilation that creates a negative pressure density field and causes the opponent to explode.
　The charge time is completed in microsecond units—but Godzura’s movements slightly exceeded our expectations. The body fluid turned into white-gray crystals on its back, extending its branches in all directions. And it began to take in the surrounding atmosphere rapidly. Its wounds closed completely, and its body even grew a size larger! That powerful figure that evokes cosmic horror, a majesty that could truly be called Space-Godzura! The reaction on the Postic Force meter blew past the Demon King <Lucifer> class to the Great Demon King <Kestler> class! What trembled in its mouth was a scorching brilliance similar to the sun’s corona!
　ZAAAAAAAP!!!!
　Yatagarasu’s Yehi-Or and the corona beam collided in mid-air! Space boiled, time twisted, shattered, mixed, and a hole was bored into the universe! The brilliance of the Postic Force increased, and stamps of various denominations were generated in the surroundings!
　ZGGGMMMM……
　Suddenly, silence arrived. The self-maintenance ability inherent in this universe reached its limit, and it processed the phenomenon of super-destruction itself as something that “did not happen” by exerting the quantum tunnel effect on a macroscopic scale. Space-Godzura kicked the ground and leaped at us! The thrust generated by its sturdy legs and massive gravity control easily exceeded the third cosmic velocity and reached the fourth cosmic velocity! It was challenging us to a melee fight!
“—Tachibana! Close-quarters armament!”
“Yes, Brother.”
　Mounted on both of Yatagarasu’s wings was “Sepher Raziel”. A decapitation armament using cosmic strings, one of the phase defects. Twenty invisible thread-like blades, each with a logically infinite length and an angular deficit, were fired, and they burrowed into Space-Godzura’s keloid-like skin while emitting the high-pitched scream of gravitational waves. The non-steady slashes, which should have been able to cut through even the core of a neutron star, were, however, trapped by the non-Euclidean energy potential inside Space-Godzura, where they formed a loop structure and began to collapse.
“For a mere ‘remnant’ of the Absencian, you’re quite capable.”
“GRRRRRRRRR!!!!”
　Space-Godzura fired the crystals on its back like missiles, and in parallel, it violently rotated the crystal body at the tip of its tail and struck with it! But the golden aurora—a group of photons with properties completely different from those of this universe, leaked from the new universe created by the Big Bang caused by the vacuum phase transition—coalesced to form a Bergamo negative shock field, and all of Space-Godzura’s attacks “moved away on their own.”
“I’ll finish this in one go...!”
　I approved the armament option Tachibana presented. It had the highest power among the armaments Yatagarasu possessed, covering the machine’s surface with the heat of the divine power of world creation, and it was a finishing move equipped with infinite mass and power due to infinite speed, exceeding even superluminal speed through time control. The activation command word is,

“‘Golden Kite Divine Bow <Ain Soph Aur>’!!!!”

　Space-Godzura, while blinking a dull red, emitted a ring-shaped wave from the crystals on its back and curled its body into a defensive stance. But the Golden Kite Divine Bow <Ain Soph Aur> had already reached maximum speed in less than Planck time!
　KA-BOOOOOOM!!!!!
　An aurora of the end, as if every star in the supercluster had caused a supernova explosion up close! While emitting a contradictory super-perceptual explosion of light where every spectrum peaked, Yatagarasu pierced through the very center of Space-Godzura, causing it to explode and scatter!

【To be continued】