Merka seized aside by the neck with one hand, gripping a pistol in the other and pressing it against aside’s chest. Then he fired three shots straight into the deus ex machina stored inside.

The splattering laser tore a gaping hole through aside’s body like a streaking spark crossing the stage in a play. Even the dagger inside its body—the one containing the deus ex machina—was blasted to pieces in an instant.

But it was useless against aside.

Even if the deus ex machina were blasted down to nothing but powder, aside could still use it to descend.

Unless Merka destroyed the deus ex machina so completely that not even its dregs remained, no amount of physical damage could hurt aside.

“I kindly let you off once, and this is how you repay me—with such shameless ingratitude.”

“Merka, you absolute fool.”

“How dare you lay a hand on your god…”

“What utter blasphemy.”

The moment aside’s voice, carrying the faintest hint of laughter, fell silent, Merka heard two crisp cracks. The eerie snaps came from the hand he had clamped around aside’s neck.

Merka stared at his hand in shock.

From his fingertips to the back of his hand, from there to his wrist, and from his wrist to his arm, icy frost spread across his entire arm in an instant.

A fist-sized bee with a twisted human face crawled out from the web of the hand Merka had clamped around aside’s neck.

Pain shot through Merka’s arm, and he staggered back several steps.

But the terrifying human-faced bee refused to let up. It extended the vicious barb at the end of its tail, gathered all its strength, and drove it toward Merka’s chest.

Whoosh!

“Damn it!”

Merka wanted to summon the Power Angel, but by his estimate, he was already a little too late. He instinctively raised a hand to shield his face, squeezed his eyes partly shut, and tensed his entire body against the incoming strike.

A string of explosive cracks split the air.

What shattered in response wasn’t Merka’s chest, but the Ice Bee’s pair of azure wings.

Dismembered, restrained, then violently hurled out the door—all in one fluid motion.

A mass of tentacles clinging to aside’s side leaped into the air, took human form, and manipulated the tentacles growing from its body to fling the Ice Bee straight out of the battlefield.

Though it looked slightly different from the one in his memory, Merka recognized it at a glance. It was Turing.

“If you kill this disgusting thing, it’ll self-destruct instead, weakening your magic power.”

“So I had no choice but to ask it to keep its distance.”

Turing remained in the pose of having just thrown the Ice Bee out the door. She turned her face slightly aside and spoke to aside with disdain.

“Turing? How are you still alive?! When you were frozen by the Ice Bee earlier, I clearly remember stabbing the deus ex machina into your body!”

aside questioned Turing in disbelief.

“Obviously, that was an illusion I created with backdrop.”

“How can you not understand? Isn’t this what you’re best at?”

“If I hadn’t been unable to think of a practical way to kill you for the time being, I wouldn’t have wanted to stay on your body for so long, either.”

Turing twisted her head from side to side, and crisp popping sounds came from her petite body.

With a casual gesture, she conjured a blazing spear and assumed a fighting stance toward aside.

“But after listening to so much while staying on your body just now…”

“Now…I’ve changed my mind.”

“A creature like you doesn’t deserve for me to conserve my magic. I should’ve run you through with one shot.”

“With my next strike, I won’t leave even a speck of powder behind.”

A familiar yet unfamiliar figure appeared in Merka’s eyes. Like an endearingly lovable red lantern, she suddenly flared to life in a night so dark he couldn’t see his own hand before his face.

The blazing light traveled along the dust trembling faintly in the air and shot straight into Merka’s eyes.

Without relying on magical vision, Merka saw the adorable little girl with his own eyes for the first time.

With backdrop no longer shielding her, Turing’s truest appearance was revealed before Merka.

In that instant, it was as though even time gasped in wonder, unable to keep moving and forced to stop and admire her heroic bearing.

She swung the flaming spear in her hand, radiating the might of the Fire God, in two sweeping arcs at her sides. Then she pointed it fiercely at aside, parted her delicate lips, and softly recited an incantation.

In that moment, aside seemed to collide with the hostility of every living thing in the world.

The densest killing intent locked onto it. Countless gazes filled with hatred and loathing converged upon its body, leaving it unable to move even the slightest bit.

“The world is kindling…you and I blaze like red fire.”

“I pass this ceaseless, endless torch into your hands.”

“So that you may carry it through a thousand lifetimes.”

“Through a legacy spanning billions of years…”